When Turo first gives her something that he pulled out from that shiny mantle he is wearing, Sada can't help but get excited. Trading between other communities is nothing new, but it's always... The usual stuff. Furs, obsidian and other rocks and gems that they can't get here, like tooth and scales from creatures that don't live in this area.

Sometimes food. This was new; she had never seen such garments, especially not so perfectly made. She thought that she wasn't half bad at sewing clothes, but when she tried to examine that cloth, she couldn't find a single seam or hole where the needle went through. Whoever did that must have been incredible in their art.

And... And the feeling! It was so smooth to the touch and so different from the pelts she was used to working with: the creature it came from must have had some incredible fur. She had tried to ask him where he came from, but it didn't look like he had understood her question. She is so focused on examining that new material that it takes her a moment to notice that the man is running away.

« Wait!» she calls after him, but loses some precious seconds in grabbing her belongings: writing tool in one hand, the sheets of ... stuff in the other, she has to fumble around a moment before managing to grab her spear and start running. He is already far off into the trees, hidden from view, but the rustling of his clothes and the crunch of leaves under his shoes is still clearly audible... And then it stops, suddenly.

She catches up to where he was, and finds him just.... gone. Vanished without a trace. She checks the trail of footprints he left behind: the shoes he was wearing were also weird. Heavy and smooth, they almost looked like they were a single piece with his purple clothes. They honestly didn't look very comfortable: how does he take them off? Do they come off.... All in one go, all or nothing? But they do leave some nice, clear imprints in the ground... Which again, doesn't really sound that safe if you want to avoid predators, but makes it more convenient for her, so she is not going to complain. But the footprints don't tell her much: they also just vanish suddenly.

How? Is he a really good climber? She raises her eyes and starts checking the tree branches over her head. Did he... Climb them and start jumping from tree to tree? Did he step in his own footprints backwards to throw her off and then went another way? She keeps looking around for a bit, but can't find any other clue about what happened. Someone else would have been suspicious, troubled.... Maybe even scared.

Sada just tilts her head to the side.

"... interesting"

She gathers her things -properly this time -, and starts to make her way back. She is quite a bit away from her settlement; they've set up tents and plan to stay there for a couple more full moons, until the snow starts to fall more often and the herds of Steady Glaciers - the great wooly beasts with icy breath - will move further north. If she walks briskly, she will have to spend only one night alone before meeting up with the rest of her group; men usually are the ones who go out hunting, but it's not unusual for women who are not taking care of children to also explore and scout ahead. Finding new possible food sources, exploring trails and of course monitoring the creatures to make sure that nothing dangerous got too close to the settlement... There was always something to do, and no hands to spare. She personally enjoys exploring much more than being stuck paying attention to a bunch of kids, even if it was more dangerous. It gave her time to think, especially when it lead to strange experiences like that of today.

That man... Just where had he gone off to?

When the sun disappears and night comes, she opts to stop for the night; she's been following the river backwards the whole time, but cautiously decides that it's better to not stay too near the water. Night creatures could possibly come to drink, and she would be too easy of a target. She enters the thick of the trees again until she finds a nice spot to camp. With her back against the great trunk of a pine tree, she clears the area around the roots, gathers some rocks from the river and places them in a circle to light a fire. Still a bit damp, the rocks will prevent it spreading too much, and the little spiky leaves and branches will make for good fuel. From a little leather pouch tied to her hip, she pulls out some berries she has picked up along the way.

She's got a good variety gathered; they are perfect to eat while walking, and in a pinch, some of them can even be used against creatures. She has been carefully observing which kind creatures like to eat and which they don't, and the effect they seem to have on them. Satisfied, she quickly eats a dinner of some of the hardest berries cooked on the fire and then goes back to her most pressing concern: examining Turo's gifts, obviously.

They were also both from some never seen material - honestly, did that guy have anything she had ever seen before, except for his being a person?-. The pieces that he showed her how to paint on were both incredibly thin and light as feathers, and bound together with what she could only guess was some sort of tree bark. That sure was a smart way to make sure they didn't fall off... It was also both pretty flexible and fragile at the same time; it crinkled easily, leaving marks, and it also tore at the slightest pull.

That saddened her a bit: she didn't want to waste it... She stared at the little corner she had accidentally ripped off, way too small to draw on and, after a moment of consideration, cautiously licked it. It.... Tasted a bit like leaves. Less bitter, and much more dry. Was it a kind of leaf? Sada stares at the pine needles that she was keeping in a little pile near her for the fire for a second.

... She was not going to start tasting every single leaf to find which one this sheets were made of, even if a part of her kinda wanted to. Too risky. Better to just ask Turo when she saw him again.

Still... If it was a leaf... She threw the little piece in her hands in the fire and watched it burn almost incredibly fast, blackening and turning to ash in a split second. She nodded to herself, happy to have her little idea confirmed; with how dry it was, no wonder it burned so quickly. And maybe like anything else from Turo it had come from some unknown creature: there were quite a lot of plant ones, even if most of them didn't seem to like the cold. That was fine by her: the plant creatures were dangerous, with bright flowers that could shoot seeds and colored dust that could put a person to sleep, make them sick, or even immobilize them completely, leaving them in the worst state she could fathom, fully conscious but completely helpless.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold crawled along her back, and she made sure to check the branches overhead. Some of those creatures could even hang from trees, but if there is one thing they seemed to hate more than the cold, it was fire. She should be safe here. Still... If some group of people was really out there using leaves from some creatures just to make little sheets to draw on... They must have been pretty gutsy to try and do something like that. She distracts herself by examining the writing utensil next. This one is more familiar apart from the material, pretty much a tube filled with some tincture. The fact that it was still liquid and hadn't already dried though, that was remarkable. You could carry it around and there was no need to continuously mix ash or dirt with water. Maybe it was also an ability of some kind? She would keep an eye out for creatures that showed some power of the sort...

She keeps doodling on the leaves for quite some time into the night, unable to sleep, mind racing from one thought to another.

---

« Um, mother?»

The next day, after reaching the settlement, she first approaches her mom, who's busy mending some clothes with a needle made out of bone and some leather strips. Her mother is getting quite old; her hair has streaks of white peeking out, her hands are getting wrinkled, but her mind is as sharp as ever and most importantly, as the current oldest person in the settlement, she has experience.

« What is it, dear?» she asks, without pausing in her work, bone hook sliding in and out of the fur in her hands at incredible speed. She ponders how to best describe what she wants to ask.

« Do you know of some tribe that has some.... Weird clothes? I've met this man one night ago, and he was... Strange. Didn't speak our language, so I was wondering where he was from, and he got away before I could ask.» Now she pauses in her work, quietly lifting her head and waiting for her to continue.

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« He had purple clothes that looked almost like they were clinging to his skin, and I couldn't see any fur on them... They looked more like they were made from some incredibly tiny scales. »

« Were they warm clothes?»

Sada almost gasps, immediately recognizing what her mother was pointing at.

« No, they didn't look very warm... He also had this... shiny mantle to cover him, but it didn't look like it would do much... Have you seen people like him? Are they from the south?» she asks, hopeful.

Her mother thinks for a moment.

« Can't say I have... Purple and white, you said? And "shiny"?» she sounds confused.

Honestly, she feels the same. That mantle seems useless to her no matter how you looked at it, if not straight up dangerous. Way too bright to help in hiding yourself in the underbrush, and it flapped around making a lot of noise while moving.

« I had never seen such a pure white. It was like fresh snow. »

« That seems horrible for hiding, unless he is actually from the far north... »

« But he would die from the cold even with the sun out in those clothes, so he can't be from up there.» Sada objects.

Her mother nods, and slowly resumes her sewing.

« Then he must be from the south, where it's much warmer. Far over the mountains... We traded for a bit with a group that came from over there... Didn't have some "shiny mantle", but I remember clothes made of scales, smooth and really hard to the touch. »

That could be it! But if he is from the south... Something else does not add up now, she realizes after a second.

« There's also... another thing that is weird about him. » she ponders aloud.

This one was a bit more subtle, it had been nagging at her from the moment she had first seen him. Just this incredibly subtle feeling of wrongness that had lasted for a second looking at him, before being replaced by excitement.

« He is too.... Clean.» Her mother looks up at her again, now giving her daughter her full attention.

Sada tries to put into words what she has noticed.

« His clothes are almost impossibly well done, but it's not just that... He is incredibly pale, like someone who hasn't seen the sun... Ever, and his face, his hair and beard, his hands, they were just so...»

She stops, frustrated because she has no idea how to describe it.

« So... Tidy. No scars, no cuts, not a single injury that I could see. Not even a bruise! And he had no weapons with him... nothing.»

Traveling (apparently) alone, with no weapons, no signs of tear or use in his garments or on his body, with clothes that were just begging to get him eaten by some creature... It was more than strange. It was impossible.

« Pale, weird clothes, no marks on his body, disappears... He is starting to sound more like a spirit than a man to me.» his mother smiles shaking her head.

Sada looks at her for a second, almost disappointed. A spirit...? Some long lost ancestor of them that supposedly appears to give you advice, like in the stories told around the fire?

That would be.... so boring if that was the case. Also he didn't exactly give her advice, in fact it had been the opposite: some lousy ancestor that he was if he didn't even have some great wisdom to impart.

« No! He is a real person, I just know it...and I will find out what's going on with him. » she announces, determined.

---

First thing to do, of course, is meeting him again, which is easier said than done. She has no idea where he went off to so the only thing she can do is go back to the point of their first meeting, hoping to catch him there again. For a couple of days, nothing new happens, and Sada grows increasingly frustrated. How is it possible for someone like that man to just... Leave no traces of his passage behind? Not even traces of a camp, places where he could have spent the night? She starts to keep track of every place she checks on the leaves Turo gave her, sketching a crude drawing of the area; after a moment of consideration, a couple of crude symbols get added to mark places where she knows certain creatures have established their territories.

A little flame to mark the place where the pack of black fire breathing creatures usually hunts.

One stylized feather to mark the nest of one of those aggressive flying ones, and a long fang to mark an area where the rivers drops in a short waterfall, infested with Brutal Fangs.

Those places in particular should be safe to exclude from her search... Surely no one is going to just walk through places that are clearly inhabited and dangerous?

Sada gets proven wrong not even half a day later; she had just finished gathering some more berries for lunch, when a sudden loud roar from the waterfall echoes through the air.

She jumps to her feet, spear in hand, and listens cautiously: is it a struggle between two Brutal Fangs? Fighting for territory? Food? Those things are vicious, she has seen them (carefully, from a distance) simply fly into a rage and attack each other at random while peacefully swimming next to each other just a moment before. She waits for a second roar to echo, or for the telling sound of snapping teeth and wild thrashing.

What she hears instead is a muffled, panicked and obviously human scream. For a long second, she can't even move, dumbfounded.

... He didn't... no one can be that oblivious to their surroundings, can they?

Sada starts sprinting towards the river at full speed; bursting out of the trees, the nearby waterfall comes into view, and at its base, near the edge of the water and with his back to her, Turo seems to have fallen backwards and is desperately scrambling to his feet. The Brutal Fang, it's vivid red scales glistening from the water it just jumped out from, opens its mouth full of teeth and barrels towards the man, who manages to avoid it at the last second by rolling to the side, causing the creature to crash head first into the gravel on the riverbank, avoiding him by an inch. Not missing a beat and evidently not caring about being on dry land, the red and gold fish thrashes violently against the ground until it rights itself, it's eyes never losing sight of its target. Who, by the way, seems too busy being paralyzed by fear to actually do something useful like, oh I don't know, run for his life. Sada's incredulity turns first to worry and then rage.

She didn't spend the last three days camping here just to watch him get eaten by a stupid fish!

The creature jumps again, and she readies her spear.

« Get down!» she screams, hoping that the urgency in her tone will get the message across.

He catches sight of her at hearing her voice and hurls himself to the side, the spear passing right over him and hitting the Brutal Fang straight in the forehead. Admittedly, it doesn't do much, but it kills its momentum and makes it crash back into the shallow water. Before it can regain its wits, Sada pulls out a yellow berry from her pouch and throws it at the creature, stunning it for a moment.

Evidently deciding that they weren't worth the trouble, the creature lets out a last echoing bellow and then sinks back down into the river with a great splash, disappearing from sight and splashing them both.

Sada isn't fooled, though: they are not the kind of creatures that call for backup, but it could still change its mind and lunge at them again. She recovers her spear as quickly as she can and whirls around towards Turo.

Other than being drenched from head to toe, he appears unarmed, his purple clothes curiously glistening like the water was smoothly sliding off them instead of getting soaked. First thing he does is check his wrist, strangely; she pulls closer to see if he did get injured after all, but he seems to notice her intentions and slips his hand into one of the folds of his mantle, hiding it from sight.

She pouts a bit, disappointed: he's obviously hiding something from her, and that just makes her want to know what it is even more. Then she realizes what just happened.

« What. Were. You. Doing?» she asks, punctuating every word with a tap of her spear, stomping towards him.

Seriously, what was he thinking? Didn't they have Brutal Fangs were he was from? But even if he had never seen one before, how could you simply stroll near something that obviously had creatures nearby? With how strong they were, you had to assume that every creature you met was aggressive! Well... Almost every creature, there were some more docile ones admittedly, but... Brutal Fangs were obviously not docile. There was a reason they had given them that name after all.

If she had gotten there a moment later, he would have been lunch.

He looks at her spear somewhat alarmed, obviously not understanding her, his eyes flitting between her and the pointed stone tip. She sighs and lowers the weapon, even if just to reassure him that she has no real ill will.

« Let's get warmed up.» she offers him her free hand and he takes it after a long moment of hesitation, still keeping the other hidden.

His hand is warm, bigger than hers, but strangely soft and smooth, with long, slender fingers. She can't help but stare at them for a moment, puzzled.

That really looks like the hand of someone who hasn't worked a day in his life. They are children's hands, it's unnatural.

They go back to the camp she had set up in the past three days; she sits him down on a log and points at the ashes left from last night's fire.

« "Fire"» she then points to the ground, glaring at him like she would with a hyperactive child that won't stay still.

« Stay here. Don't move. I'm going to get some more food.» she huffs, moving away.

She pointedly stares at him for a couple more seconds, almost expecting him to pull another magical disappearing act as soon as she looks away, but he just lowers his head and scoffs, looking almost... Embarrassed.Seems like he got the message.

She is going to gather some more berries, trusting him to start the fire in the meantime. They can keep working on their vocabulary after she comes back.

« Sada....» his voice reaches her at the edge of the camp and the woman stops, looking over her shoulder.

« Thank you » The words are unfamiliar, but the gratitude and relief in them are palpable.

He suddenly looks so... Vulnerable and lost, sitting on that log with his strange clothes and eyes that still have that trace of fear in them.

.... A complete mystery.

Just who is that man?

She simply nods, and disappears into the trees.