Neverwinter Forest a distant land caused me to linger

Perhaps she was a viper, poised and ready to strike. There may have been a spark of something else that rippled across her countenance, maybe something simple in the way she coiled back to look at the monolithic height of the tree. But he little in the way of doubt that she was a viper, if only for the directness of her dialogue. Her question was pointed, the subtle nuances not lost on him as he continued to appraise her at arm's length. It was hardly the sticky stench of sap or crisp pine that had her running through the old wood.

"You, of course," came his fluid reply, and the smile remained. "But intentionally, I just wanted somewhere out of the wind. A bite to eat, perhaps." He wouldn't grant her a veiled response; there was no point in drawing out venom if he could charm. He risked a look away to their frosty surroundings, how picturesque they would have been had he been appraising it than her. Even now, the snow offered a heavy blanket of near silence.

"Seems I've accomplished the former," he went on to say as his attention wheeled back to her. "And you're certainly not the scavenging type, at least not to be foraging tree bark in the snow." She could have been a hunter, that much he would have wagered a guess on. But hunters often did not go alone or without. If the heady scent of the wilds were on her, he'd thought her like him. But this too, was not the case.