A bright green elderly lizardfolk female stood at the edge of the village, a staff in hand decorated with bones to match the ones around her wrists and neck. The plain brown clothes of grass adorned her body loosely, as opposed to the similar ones adorning the dark green lizardfolk male just behind her. He had but one bone around his neck to mark him as her apprentice, as unwilling as he was to be so. His features showed apprehension at the figure ahead, a stark contrast to the shaman's steady gaze next to him. In his hands was a spear, rather than a staff. He held it about the same as one, one hand holding it with the tip pointed to the sky, but the tension could be seen in his grip, if his similarly tense posture wasn't already a dead giveaway.
What approached was a rarity in their marsh, something not seen by apprentice's clutch, even with them being a year his seniors. No, the Adults of the village had seen one when they were young, and this marked merely the third that the elderly shaman had seen in her lifetime. A human.
Humans tended not to care for the damp, difficult terrain of the march, who's waters weren't even deep enough for their smallest boats for the most part, unlike the swamps. Since the lizardfolk mostly just hunted the marsh and grew some basic foodstuffs to supplement, they had little interaction with other civilized races. Occasionally, like now, one would wander by and come to take a look, however.
The shaman thought back to the past times she'd encountered a human. When she was a girl, her father, the previous shaman, had been the one to handle them. She still didn't know how the human could speak with them, but it had been a wondrous enough experience seeing a sapient mammal for the first time. The one after that was the one to kill her father as well as much of the village at the time. This was enough to make her warry, but also resigned as that human had shown great strength.
This human appeared lost, however. Unlike before, where there seemed to be a purpose to the arrivals, this human was looking around. It looked at the village as well, sure, but it also looked curiously at the sky and the surroundings, as if trying to get its bearings. This did little to ease the shaman's suspicions or her apprentice's apprehension, however.
"Halt!" the shaman barked out once the human was within shouting distance. It halted, but just cocked its head and shouted back some nonsense they couldn't understand. When the human didn't make any further motion toward the village, the shaman began walking out to it, her apprentice following behind. Once no more than a couple pacers from each other, the human abruptly held out its hand, causing the apprentice to take a step back at the abrupt movement.
The shaman glanced back. "Tali, this is how humans greet one another. It is an offer of friendship, at least for now." she explained, pulling on those old memories of the friendly human she'd seen. Looking back to the human, she saw that he was smiling at her apprentice now. He was amused at the wariness? That could be very good or very bad. She reached out her clawed hand to grasp the human's.
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Tali noticed a shiver run up and down the shaman's body once she grasped the hand. He'd already retaken his tense standby stance when he saw his master reach for the human's hand, but he almost took a step back again. He'd never seen the shaman unnerved like that.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Jay." the human said. The words came out clear enough, but there was a strange inflection to them, Tali noticed.
"Velda. So you could understand me after all?" the shaman replied.
"Ah, it just took me a minute to figure out what you were speaking is all." the human replied, their hands porting. Tali didn't miss the twitch in the human's eye, and neither did his master, it seemed.
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"Hmmm? Well alright." she said noncommittally, looking down at her hand for a moment. "What can we do for you? We don't see your kind often."
"Well you see,..." the human went on to explain that he was, in fact, lost. He was a bit vague on the details of where he'd come from, but it wasn't like they knew the outside world well anyway. In the end it was agreed that he could stay in the village for now, but to not start any trouble. It was clear to Tali that the shaman was still very much wary of the human and his easy grin in that hairy face of his, but it wasn't his place to question her decision.
The three walked back, Tali's eyes never leaving the human's back as he asked Velda questions about the village.
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*Clang*
*Clang*
*Clang*
Tali covered his ears as he watched the human work. In the beginning, he'd taken a meal and promptly passed out, seemingly completely unguarded from the lizardfolk around him. The following days had been a flurry of activity as he went around talking with and helping out the villagers, learning how they did things the entire time. He took to weaving and pottery quickly enough, even teaching some techniques he knew from elsewhere, much to Fernok's delight. Once he'd constructed his own little hut and made himself some necessities, he'd wandered off into the marsh for a couple of days.
When he returned, he had a sack full of dark grey sand and asked Fernok to make him a bunch of bricks. They didn't like to waste clay on brick houses, and Fernok began telling him that until the man told him he only needed enough for a small closed off space that a person could barely stand in. It didn't take much convincing, really.
That led to now, where Tali was watching the man work. He'd kept a wary eye on him, but when he saw the human taking an active interest in their lifestyle, he'd started to become curious instead. Now the man was banging at the armor he was wearing when he arrived on a thick stone with a metal hammer that he'd made with that sand he'd found. He'd called it good enough, but Tali was amazed since he'd never seen the like before.
The lizardfolk had occasionally found shards of metal in the marsh and even used some of the larger ones for spearheads after much working of them on stones, however this was more at once than he'd ever seen, besides the armor being worked on, which was brought from outside anyway. Lifting the piece up and inspecting it, he said, "That should take care of the damage."
Looking to Tali, who he hadn't missed watching him the entire time, he asked, "So what do you think?" This turned out to be a mistake on the human's part, not that he really minded.
"How did you find it? How did you make it? You can use fire like that? What-" Tali began, only to be cut off.
"Easy there, I meant the armor." he said with a chuckle.
"You can find iron sand around if you know how to find it. From there you just melt it down into an ingot and presto! Crude hammer!" said the human as if it were that simple.
"Show me!" Tali exclaimed.
The two became fast friends after that. Velda the village shaman looked on with her own sense of apprehension, considering much more than the human alone or her apprentice's safety.
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"Well, see you around Tali, and thanks for the hospitality, Velda!"
The human was at the edge of the village once more with the two lizardfolk, a mirror of their meeting except for the human wearing newly spun clothes, what armor he had less dented and with a handwoven pack over his shoulder.
"And don't give up on Venal just yet, Tali." he said in a lower voice with a cheeky grin. Tali simply looked away in embarrassment.
"Take care Jay. I must admit that you were a much better guest than I thought you'd be. Thank you for showing us new things and keeping the hatchlings tuckered out. It gave us much space to prepare for the winter this year." Velda told the man, genuine thanks in her voice.
"No problem! I love the feeling of small settlements like this. I'll try to come around again sometime. Maybe we'll meet again." Jay said as he turned to leave.
The pair behind him looked the same as when they met, except for the metal bracers Tali now wore and the iron cap on either end of the shaman's staff.
"I'll make sure of it." Tali said quietly, rubbing at the bracer on his spear arm with his free hand.
The shaman knew she had some work ahead of her. This hatchling wasn't going to be around much longer, and she needed to prepare him for the difficult road he'd discovered.