The dog and boy made an odd pair, but Drystan had seen odder. It was not as though this lad was the only shepherd boy to possess such an animal, only that the animal had such a vibrant appearance compared to the dogs meant to resemble sheep. It is two-toned in body and eye and when the boy pats his leg, it is clear that the dog holds him in high regard. It rather endeared the lad to him - animals were usually fairly good judges of character, after all. Shepherd or War Hound. It makes him regard the boy and offer advice rather than allow him to traipse into the formidable barrier of traps between himself and the two interlopers on his stew making.
"That’s my sheep you’re eating. I’m… I’m going to h-have to ask that you pay for it." If he had not been convinced by his animal companion, the man knew instantly that the boy was a serf made to shepherd for his betters now. A shepherd of his own flock would have gnashed his teeth about the animal first, asked for compensation later. The sheep was cared for, but not loved. Not in the normal manner of a herding individual. He stammers and it gives Drystan pause before he teases the lad further. Even the timid will grow violent, after all, if they are given nothing to lose. “Hardly a place of power to make demands from, I think...”
His voice is good-humored, but there is a glint to the dagger that was allowed to remind the boy that he was not unarmed, for all that he stood relaxed before him and his canine. “You are a few steps in each direction from getting yourself in the way of your lost sheep. And I’d have nothing to do with the murder, to boot. I offered you the fair warning, after all.” He seems to consider the lad more closely though, stepping pointedly up to a spot before stopping and hitching a hip to rest his free hand upon while the other hang loose with a grip to his dagger.
“I can commend you on being as bold as a Midlan urchin, though, which is more compliment than I pay most from this country.” Aaron’s mind was running away with him, Drystan could see, making him out to be some high and mighty thug with all manner of evils on his person. Truth was, he couldn’t be more armed than the traps and dagger out here. More might have weighed him down. His hood, though, probably didn’t help. Most in Amandara saw hoods used without rain to be some telltale sign of bad personages. It was so common in Midlan that he only just remembered.
“As for the accusation in your eyes, lad, I performed a mercy upon that ewe. Her last bag of milk is saved, her flesh was carved, her hide is tanning, and the rest of her will be fed to those in the Amandara capitol who aren’t so lucky to have a flock of sheep - not even a pair of sheep - to pick and choose to eat. She will serve a greater purpose than she would have served if you brought her back with a savaged chest and she was let to fester and rot before being disposed of.”
He tries to make his point fair, and rather knew the honesty of that same statement. He knew most in this general locale - it was why he had set up this hutch, after all. The people did not very well like the woods in the first place and those who might, thought themselves above trespassing beyond the initial trees anyway. “What is the going rate of a doomed ewe, I wonder?”