The scent of cold salty air cut across the coastal cliffside, where Llyr remained seated on top his fairly average black-coat horse. The short black hair of the mount matched the black of his armor, but the heaviness of all the metal he wore barely registered to the strong creature itself. It wasn't his usual horse, not made of stone and magic, but he found it endearing to ride something that breathed on its own. The lance was new, and he wasn't sure exactly how he felt about it but a few practice sparring rounds with others in his division had done well enough to make him feel that it was acceptable enough.
This was the fifth patrol he'd performed with Foxglove - or Sugar as he'd come to be affectionately known by the other soldiers - and it had taken some slight persuasion to remain side-by-side but not as much as he might've expected otherwise. The air in Winter Reach never got warmer, though, as the trials of Ashan went by. Llyr had grown accustomed to such chill, having lived in Viden like he had, but he knew the sev'ryn struggled more with adjustment.
"Do you see anything?" asked the woman with cropped hair. Yes, quite the same woman that had signed up right before them in the recruitment station in Korlasir. Her name was Jay and while gruff, she had proven herself friendly enough - as long as you didn't expect her to smile or anything. They'd all been sent out together, trained together, and now they scouted together. Sent to provide reinforcement to the navy, and along the coastline to find where the ships of raiders might be headed next.
"Hmm..." hummed Llyr while he scanned the water as it raged and foamed from the winds that cut across the icy crests of wandering glaciers. "I don't believe that rock was there last time we came around. Do you, Sugar?"
Jay was not amused by this. Llyr pointed out the same rock, every damn time, after all. But really, wasn't it her fault for asking the same question of them every time?
Yet he kept his gaze on the waves, because there was something different... he just hadn't quite placed what. They knew there would be raiders about, somewhere, but their unit had yet to locate any on this portion of land that they'd been assigned to. Llyr gave a small sigh, and ran his gauntled hand over the braided mane of his horse. A faint scent carried on the wind, that he looked toward because it smelled strangely like... "...Is that smoke?"
From beyond the ridge, to the northern side, a faint plume of blackened mist drifted up from a lower-down portion of coastal land near an array of coves. Coves where, if he recalled the map back at the camp correctly, one of the small fishing villages resided.
OOC
Llyr is currently wearing his ring of paradigm, and in the totem acquired in previous threads linked at top.