Trees did wonderful things for the soil. The life and death of any creature, plant or animal, always fed back into the land, and a forest was full of potential corpses. This was rich earth, dark and musty and full of potential, soft beneath the feet and laced in long, flowing tresses of roots. Roots that kept it... well. Grounded. Wet and solid and weighty, and far from the dust and agony of more arid climes.
Trees were wonderful. Not nearly so wonderful as the majesty of the mountains, giant forests all their own, with roots that went far beyond the first layers of the world. The lifeblood of mountains wasn't sap, but fire, and even so far away from them as Aiden was now, he could still feel it. A weak sort of pulse, like the blood in your lips versus the blood in your throat.
The half-elf wiggled his toes, bare and covered in dirt as they were, and let himself sink the barest few centimeters into the soil. One hand was settled against a tree, a sensation neither of them seemed to terribly keen on. After all, plants didn't seem to appreciate him the way rocks did. But then again, if another creature made it a point to chop him into little tiny bits to feed a forge, he was sure he wouldn't be too keen on that creature, either.
Figuring he may as well respect the trees' wishes, Aiden carried onwards, following the lines in the earth that were more firmly packed than others, pushed and compressed by years and years of feet and hooves and plentiful travel, the echoes of each step sharper and quicker than the soft quiet of less traveled lands. He wasn't sure where he was going, but that had never really been a worry of his. It didn't matter where he ended up— he knew when he had found a Good Spot, and he knew when it was time to move along from there. Back on the road and following the call of stones that wanted to be so much more.
Eventually, the trees began to thin, but not from any natural formation like the gentle slope into grasslands or the sudden jut of rock and river. No, this absence of trees was entirely the work of man, and it seemed as if man had decided this spot would be a permanent bastion of theirs. Aiden eyed the treeline even as he escaped it, noting where fresh growth had been culled and grown and culled again, turning into set patches of gardens separated by fences— made, no doubt, with the very trees that held a constant vigil around the small town.
There were houses to match the gardens, strong and wooden and sure, with a few stone pieces to firm up the foundations and thick thatching over the roofs— easier to maintain in periods of rain, he was sure. He'd never owned a house long enough to truly get a measure of roofing strategies, and he much preferred cave systems anyway.
A few of the houses had signs outside of them, and it took Aiden a few moments to remember what those signs were meant to be, worn letters jumbling with various different languages before finally settling in his skull as being thoroughly Common. Of course, why hadn't he thought of that?
Aiden paused in his journey down the road to loose a smooth stone from the soil, and turned it over and over in his hand before catching it between his palms and giving it a firm rub. He pocketed it shortly after, continuing along his way to what he had to read twice as being the local tavern, a nice start to a new settling in a soft and yet so thoroughly talkative patch of ground.
Wiping his feet off on the grass by the porch of the tavern, Aiden climbed the creaking steps to the door, and made a beeline for the bar to find the resident authority of the town— because despite the lack of glamour to the lifestyle (or so many a waitstaff had lamented to him in varying states of undress), no one knew more than them.
"Good morning— I was hoping you would have a room available, and also be able to point me in the direction of a smithy..."
It was quite a few hours and well into the late afternoon by the time Aiden was able to leave the tavern again, between breakfast and a quick wash and a much less quick bit of getting dirty again with a barmaid. But true to form, he'd gotten a point in the right direction once everyone had been righted on their feet, and off Aiden had gone to find what had been tantalizingly called "the Hammer's place".
The Hammer. It wasn't very often that blacksmiths had their own names. Shops had names, towns had names, but something like the Hammer spoke of a story— a story that his companion for the afternoon had been only too delighted to tell him, full of breathless wonder the whole while. And what a story it was— now this was a place he had to see. Usually he didn't much care for blacksmiths, outside of purchasing some very upset ore, but someone who had used his tools like that had to be seen.
Which was exactly how a barefoot half-elf ended up at the Hammer's door, knuckles wrapping against old, dead wood as he went.
"Hullo there!"
