Over by my carrot patch, draped in shadows, stood a person. Walked a person, coming closer. Not too tall, I thought, or too big. I thought they were a woman, long, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail that swished as she walked. Closer, she wore dark clothes stained with patches of dirt, trousers and something like a cardigan and suit jacket mixed together, loose fit, but a smooth texture.

Then there was her face. Narrow chin, thin lips, cheeks kind of gaunt, eyes looking big with how open they were—even as she narrowed them, eyebrows low and bunched. Closer, her pale skin glowed when it caught the light, the dirt on her face like carefully applied makeup, drawing the eye.

“Klin’graht!”

Belatedly, I realised her gaze was on me, that, still as I was, I wasn’t invisible. But what she’d shouted to me, raising an arm in not quite a wave or a salute, I had no clue. So I could only awkwardly give a little wave back and say, “Hello?”

Closer, she came. It was hard to tell with her loosely-fitted clothes, but she wasn’t skin and bones underneath, fabric painting a picture as she moved. Some weight to her walking too, footsteps not quite heavy, but confident, never fretting over where to step, just moving at her pace. I would have wondered if I’d misjudged her gender, but there was one part of her clothing that wasn’t so loose.

Coming out from the forest, into the clearing I thought of as my camp, she spoke again, not a word of it making sense to me. It sounded German, some rough sounds to it, but I didn’t hear anything like “ich” or “bin” or the handful of other basic words I’d picked up.

Maybe my face showed my confusion, her voice trailing off. A deeper voice than usual for a woman, rich, the same confidence to it as her walking, neither pausing nor changing speed. Of course, thinking how nice she sounded didn’t exactly help our situation. Feeling pressured to reply, I said, “Uh, Deutsch?”

She looked back at me with a frown.

“English, I speak English?” I said.

After a moment, she spoke that same language again, slower this time, carefully enunciating, yet it was all Greek to me. Or Arabic. Or one of the many other languages I didn’t know a single word from.

It didn’t take long for her to give up, a long sigh slipping out from between her lips. I hated feeling like I had let her down. Desperate, I tried to come up something, anything.

So I pointed at myself and said, “Louise.”

She looked at me like I was crazy. I probably was.

“Louise,” I said again, pointing at myself like an enthusiastic child.

After staring me down for what felt like a minute, she pointed at me. “Louije.”

Almost, but not close enough. “S, s, s—Lou-i-se,” I said.

“Louis’s,” she said.

“Louise Louise Louise.”

She pursed her lips, eyes narrowed. My heart skipped a beat, wondering if I’d upset her, but I couldn’t look away. Maybe because I hadn’t seen anyone else in so long, her eyes looked so pretty. Tropical seas, light blue tinged with green, turquoise. Turquoise eyes that looked like they had waves, light catching different with every little movement she or I made. A whole sea trapped in her gaze.

“Louise.”

A shiver ran down my back, and I smiled. A rush of joy from hearing my name after so long alone and her voice sounded so nice saying it. I wished I could hear her say it over and over, but now wasn’t the time to be indulgent.

So I pointed at her.

She caught on, pointing at herself and saying, “Hyraj.”

Except it wasn’t quite a j. “Hyrasch,” I said, going for the German sound.

“Hyr-aj,” she said, emphasising it.

A kind of coughing sound. “Hyrach?” I said.

“J, j, j—Hy-r-aj,” she said, making me want to crawl into a hole for how I’d done that to her a minute ago.

Well, she didn’t look upset, back to her flat mouth and narrowed eyes, so I pushed through my embarrassment. “Hyraj,” I said, trying for something between a ch and j.

And she pointed at me. A lot of tension I didn’t know I had left me, shoulders sinking, a sigh slipping out.

However, that was the end of our conversation. What else was there to say? Especially me, there was no point teaching her English words if English didn’t exist in this world. I didn’t want her to go, though, not after spending so long alone. Even if we couldn’t talk, I just had to think up something else.

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For now, she was looking around, maybe interested in my camp, so I had some time. What would interest her? She had a bulky bag on her back, looked heavy, and a sword on her hip. At least, there was a scabbard and a sword handle.

Maybe we weren’t so different. If so, then I knew what she’d like.

“Ah, Hyraj?” I said, carefully saying her name. Unhurried, her gaze slid back to me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned to point at my larder, then started walking, checking over my shoulder to make sure she was following. Thankfully, she did follow.

It wasn’t a long walk, yet I still managed to work myself into a proper mess, realising with every step how stupid this was. Would it be more embarrassing to just stop and shrug my shoulders?

Yes, it would; that was all that kept my feet moving. At the larder, I moved the slab-like rock I used for a door, then started taking out fruit to offer to her. My mouth opened, “Here,” on the tip of my tongue, but I kept it in, silently holding out an apple and pear.

She looked at them for a long moment, then looked at me.

“Hyraj,” I said, stretching a little farther.

Another long moment, then she reached up and pushed my hands back.

Bowing my head, I awkwardly lowered hands back, then put the fruit back in the larder, staying like that to regain my nerve. Maybe she just didn’t like those ones, I told myself. A lie to make myself feel better. Didn’t work, though.

Overcome by something, I grabbed the basin of sprouts, showed it to her. She looked, flat smile curling into a frown. So I balanced it, holding it in one hand, and grabbed some, shoving them into my mouth and chewing. Show her they’re fine to eat. And I held the basin out to her again, hands on the verge of shaking.

She stepped back.

I was so stupid, so very stupid. But I couldn’t stop myself. I put the basin back and picked up a bunch of other things: carrots, onions, asparagus, bell peppers. Surely, she’d like one of those.

Oh, but, I had to cook them first. Rushing past her, I left those by the fire pit and then ran to the tree to pick up dried reeds and some straw. With those in the fire pit, I took out my fire sticks, almost dropping them as I started making a fire, clumsy in my haste. Pausing, I took a deep breath, then kept rolling the stick between my hands.

The sticks nice and dry, my technique well practised, a thin tendril of smoke soon rose up, familiar smell in the air. I had to fight the urge to try starting the fire right away, knowing I would look more stupid if I failed than if I took longer. So I kept spinning it, building up the hot charcoal dust stuff, trying not to see if she was watching me.

Then I couldn’t help but look at her as she stepped in front of me and picked up a reed. I stopped, watching how she held it in her hand, fingers wrapped around it—long fingers with such short nails.

And then the reed burst into flames, making me jump, fire sticks clattering to the floor. She didn’t so much as blink. Or, well, I didn’t notice her react at all, apparently expecting that.

Squatting down, she set the reed in the middle of the straw, flame quickly spreading. Her gaze lingered on the fire for a few seconds before drifting over to me. Unhurried, always unhurried, like she could only move her eyes at that speed.

She spoke again, but quickly stopped and clicked her tongue. After standing up, she strode off, going to a tree by the edge of my camp. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but her backpack was there and some things were out. A kind of blanket, it looked like, folded over a few times, which was where she sat once she reached there.

Snapping out of it, I snapped back to the fire. Yes, she did magic, that surprised me, but it wasn’t surprising. Right now, I needed to focus.

I pushed myself into the familiar routine and worked on preparing and cooking all the vegetables. Wrapped up the carrots and bell peppers to roast, “fried” the pea pods and asparagus on the cooking slab, picked up the onions by their leaves and held them over the fire. It was kind of hectic doing so much at once, usually only cooking carrots and something to go with them. Didn’t even cross my mind to flavour anything with mustard leaves.

So I cooked, piling everything on a reed plate as it was ready. Once it was all done, I picked up the plate and took it over to Hyraj, saying her name in my head a few times to make sure I wouldn’t mess it up.

Busy looking where I was walking to make sure I didn’t trip, I only saw her face when I was a step away from her. Well, her normal expression looked stern enough, but now…. Another shiver ran down my back and she didn’t say my name to offset the chill.

Kneeling down, I held the plate out to her and said, “Hyraj.”

Her gaze flicked down, then back up. “Acht,” she said—or something like that—and leaned back, crossing her hands on her lap.

I guessed that meant no.

Frozen, I couldn’t think of what to do, a very painful pause until I realised that I should start by getting away from her. So I forced my legs to stand, trying not to drop the food. One step, two steps, then I couldn’t help but look back.

She still sat there, her very narrowed gaze staring at me.

Lesson learned, I quickly turned around and kept walking, heart pounding. It wasn’t like I was scared, though. I thought it was because I felt like a nuisance.

Regardless of how I felt, the more pressing issue was the big pile of food I didn’t have the appetite for. I couldn’t waste it, though, so I had to sit by the fire and, bite after bite, force the food down.

While I did, I ended up looking at my hands a lot. Such different hands to hers. Brown and pink, fairly rough before I even came here.

Then it hit me: maybe she thought I was dirty?

I mean, I probably was, water and ash only doing so much. Probably smelled terrible too, but there was even less I could do about that. At least I wore long sleeves and trousers so she wouldn’t know I hadn’t shaved in months.

Thinking all that, a fire in front of me, early in the day… I came up with another horrible idea I had to do. Forcing down the last of the food, I hurried over to the ash pile with a rock “bowl” of water and made up some paste. Bringing that with me, I strode to the stream, stripped off all my clothes, and started washing. It was colder than I was used to, normally cleaning my bottom half and then my top half, but I wasn’t thinking. Well, wasn’t thinking anything helpful.

I wanted her to see me clean myself, but knew it was weird to call her over to watch, so I decided I had to strip off entirely and take a long time—because she would surely look over eventually. Great idea.

Whether she did or not, I didn’t know, too busy suffering from the cold wind.

After putting up with it as long as I could, I grabbed my clothes and rushed over to the fire. Desperate for warmth, I squatted close, using my hands to brush off as much water as I could, wringing out my hair, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

While waiting to dry enough to put my clothes back on, I looked over at her. She was sat in the same place as before, something in her hand—a book. Reading, probably. No way she’d paid any attention to my “bath”.

An empty laugh slipped out, lowering my head until my gaze was on my hands, fighting the urge to clench them.

What a wonderful first impression I must have made.