Sada was pretty proud of her idea, but explaining it to Turo proved more difficult than she thought. Still, he seems to get it after a moment, and his reaction is to shake his head and try to refuse. She had been expecting this; from food to her offer to join her settlement, he seems pretty adamant in refusing any kind of help.

Was he really that fearful and wary of other people?

This time though, she is not going to budge. He needs those clothes, the ones he is wearing now are completely useless at best and dangerous at worst, and he obviously seems unable to make some himself. Which makes sense, if he's never even hunted before.

Sada starts to unravel some thread from her bag, together with some leather strip with little signs cut on it that she is going to use to take measurements - her personal invention. When she lifts her head and turns back towards Turo, measurement tape in hand, she finds him staring at her with a slightly confused look on his face that gives her pause.

... What? He's never done this before? That's impossible, how would he even get his current clothes to fit so perfectly otherwise? It's like there wasn't a single inch of wasted material on those robes... And now that she's thinking about it, this is the first time she's seen him without his mantle on and can actually get a good look at the clothes without the fluttering white cape covering most of it.

A really good look, which makes her realize two things. One, they are... incredibly tight, even all around his shoulders and arms; it makes her feel both amazed and kind of jealous of the sewing abilities of whoever created them. The mysterious material probably helps, normal fur from the creatures that live here just doesn't stick like that. If it did, it would make it impossible for someone wearing them to move.

Two, he is pretty lean, to the point of having barely any muscle on him... no wonder he was having so much difficulty simply walking before.

Sada approaches him and gestures for him to stand up, which he does after a moment.

She first slips the strip of leather around his neck, to get an idea of how large the hole for the head should have to be and grumbles when he stiffens up and tries to back away.

« Just a moment -» she takes a quick note on the notebook - an idea she had just the other day. Her mother taught her how to sew and she takes pride in being quite good at it, getting clothes to fit as much as possible and using the cloth she had available in an efficient way. Which is exactly why she is so determined in getting them right: she doesn't want them to look shabby compared to his current ones.

Next she measures his shoulders and chest, and in the meantime, can't help but keep studying the purple clo... no, it's definitely not cloth. It's also not tiny scales like she had originally thought. It really looks like some kind of...shed skin that he somehow wrapped around himself without tearing it, all in one piece. Which is kinda impressive, but also a bit gross. Also what kind of creature would give you a single piece that big?

"What even is this thing... why make it glow?" she wonders silently, almost absent mindedly prodding the part of his suit that had been glowing the other night,right between his ribs, completely absorbed in her work to the point that she doesn't notice his increasing discomfort until his breath brushes against her hair for a moment.

Only then does Sada finally lift her gaze from the little leather strip still wrapped around his chest to find herself eye to eye with him, and realizes that they have never been this close to each other. They have walked together, they've sat side by side passing the notebook between them, but she's never actually gotten this close to him.

The thought that her curiosity had also gotten the better of her and she had kind of prodded him all over without really thinking about it finally hits her, along with the realization that judging by how he had flinched before, he hadn't exactly appreciated it.

Turo's expression at the moment is evenly divided between slight embarassment and... something she can't quite point out at first. Frustration, she realizes after a moment.

That makes her suddenly release the leather strip, letting it fall to the ground, and take a step back. Was he... angry at her? Sada bites her lip and turns around, feeling suddendly guilty. Right. This had been stupid. He had sayed no at first, and she should just have listened to him, even if she didn't understand his reasoning. But... she had just wanted to help...

Sada gets pulled back all of a sudden; she turns around, surprised, to find that Turo has

grabbed her by the wrist with one hand, and picked up the measurement tape with the other.

« No, you... make clothes.» he nods after a moment, giving her a smile. Just a small one, the corners of his mouth barely twitching upwards, but his eyes light up in the subtle way that only a genuine smile can do. He isn't forcing one just to be polite.

He wasn't one for big smiles, she had noticed, apart from that one time he had exploded into a complete laughing fit for... some reason that she still didn't quite get. And when he had smiled with wonder at the stars, it hadn't been directed at her like it was now. Which makes his smile now look even more... Genuine. Special.

« Just... » he points to himself and starts to wrap the tape around his chest again. « ... let me do it.»

She returns the smile after a moment of indecision -what was that frustration just now, then?-, much wider, before approaching him again.

With her explaining how to do it and occasionally keeping one end of the tape, they manage to get all the measurements done quite quickly. She happily looks at all the notes she's taken, then starts rummaging around the pile of furs to select the pieces she will have to cut and sew together.

In the meantime, Turo sits back down - looking quite relieved for the whole thing to be over- and takes a little piece of cloth from the pile, turning it around in his hands.

« You make...» a slight pause where he looks around, before pointing at the spear left near them and miming using it to stab something. « ... this?»

She just looks at him perplexed. Is he asking if they got the fur themselves? Well... yes? How else would get them?

« Yes. My people hunted them. "Hunt"» she repeats and mimes stabbing something back at him, and he winches a bit and looks uncomfortable, looking back at the fur in his hands. It was mostly yellow, with just two brown stripes almost at the center, and belonged to one of the furry rodents that would sometimes sneak into their camp to steal food. Nobody liked them, so they didn't even bother giving them a name other than "the pests" and they were pretty much attacked on sight.

His reaction still puzzled her; it was obvious that he didn't hunt personally, but... of course he must have known that people did it for him back in his tribe? He couldn't have been that sheltered, didn't he? But then why would he look so uncomfortable at the idea?

The only thing she can think of to explain it is that maybe, back in his place, the fuzzy yellow creatures were actually seen differently...?

« Your... Turo's people not hunt them...?» she tries to ask, and after a couple moments of thinking, he just chuckles a bit and shakes his head.

All right. Weird.

Sada looks back down on the piece of Steady Glacier pelt she's working with, trying to bore some holes in it with a sharp stone she took out of her bag, where the needle will then go through.

« Why? » she asks after a moment, looking back at him. That's a bit of a difficult question though, and she doesn't expect him to understand her. It frustrates her, how slowly they are progressing. With stuff you can point at or mime, physical actions, they are getting by and learning words quickly, sure... the drawings are also helping for stuff you don't always have around. Some little things she also picked up by context, if he says something incomprehensible but is obviously referring to something they both know.

But other things... she wants to asks him why he had looked frustrated right now, if it wasn't for the clothes. Where he disappears every time (and especially how). How his life was before, if he had really never seen the stars or barely walked around, to the point of being completely out of breath after a stroll. Why he had left his group.

Was he on the run? Were they looking for him?

As she expected, Turo just shakes his head, then throws the little pelt back in the pile and sits back down, arms resting on his knees. Now that she thinks about it... she steals a glance to his right wrist. There. There's a thing on his arm that he's always fiddling with, she has noticed. It's usually covered by the white mantle, so now it's her first time getting a good look at it. It looks like some bracelet, made of strange parts attached together perfectly, like most of his stuff.

« What is it? » she asks, pausing briefly to point at it. He automatically tries to hide his hand away, before realizing that he is not wearing the mantle.

« My people... make it. » Turo still seems to try to cover it up by putting his other hand over it, even if subconsciously. It must be important to him. A memento?

But it always looks like he does something with it, because she has caught him slipping his other hand into the sleeve to touch it a couple of times.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Was it some kind of... ritual? Like how some hunters would paint their faces and cover themselves with furs of the creatures they wanted to hunt, to summon their spirit for good luck?

« Why...?» she asks again, before realizing with a frustrated sigh that that question would not bring her any answers. She had to word it differently. She puts the fur down and thinks quietly for a couple of long moments, biting her lip.

« Sada... um, "I" » she stresses the word and points to herself for good measure, trusting him to realize that she is still referring to herself.

« I am... "hunter". I "hunt". » Sada tries to emphasize the difference between the two words and mimes some quick spear attacks for good measure.

« Turo... "you"...?»

Turo's been completely silent the whole time, just listening and quietly staring at her, dark brown eyes completely inscrutable. It makes her heart start beating faster and feel suddenly nervous, the way that his face shows absolutely no emotion right now. Just what is he thinking...?

He breaks eye contact to stare at the ground for a second, giving another one of his almost invisible half-smiles.

« "I" am... no "hunter".» he chuckles after a moment shaking his head and her heart skips a beat, because his accent had been almost perfect this time, and this is probably the most coherently sound exchange they've ever had without having to stumble or mime their way through half the words, as basic as it was. He got it. He understood her!

"We can do this"

« What... are you?» she asks after a moment. She just wants... a word, even if in his language. They can start with that. Just... something to define him with, that lets her know that he actually has some kind of... role, or position in his tribe, to draw parallels from.

Turo hesitates a second, his left hand briefly scratching at his chin while he seems to ponder something. He lowers his hand and raises in eyes to meet hers again.

« I am... a scientist.»

« "Scient....ist."»

That... was that his word for shaman? What other roles could there be in the tribe?

His next words completely shatter her bubbling excitement, throwing her into complete confusion.

« You are... a scientist.»

... what? She is no shaman. She literally just told him that her position is that of huntress. Has he completely misunderstood her after all?

« No, I...»

« Yes, you are.» he leans closer towards the notebook that's been laying between them and flips back to the first page, points to the notes she's taken, the drawings, the little tests with the torn paper and the smudged ink where she had got it wet and realized for the first time that it would be better to keep the paper away from the rain.

« This. All this... make you a scientist.» there is an... intensity in his voice that she's never heard before. He is utterly convinced.

She doesn't quite understand what he means, but he believes in it fully.

So, for him, is it more like... a title...? For what?

« And that is... beautiful.» Turo whispers something to himself, something she can't understand yet. She will not be able to for quite some time.

---

Turo had left at sunset, walking back down the hill until he had disappeared through the trees, promising to come back after five nights at this same spot. As always, she had to suppress the urge to just sneak after him, choosing to keep working on his clothes. It would take a couple of days before she's finished with them, especially because she still has to provide for herself in the meantime - better to keep her berry bag untouched for the actual trip back to the settlement.

It happens right when Sada is out hunting; she's been looking for eggs to steal this time, and the fastest way to do it was to find a Slither Grip. Long and completely purple, she had noticed them wrapped all around tree branches to sneak over an unsupervised nest and swallow the eggs whole while the parents were away. Stalk one of them, scare it away while it's busy eating the first egg, and you had free access to all others. Easy.

She crouched low behind a bush, spear slung over her shoulder, staring at the purple and yellow creature that was making it's way up the tree, gripping the branches with two short claws near the upper part of it's body, when a low thud fills the air. Wings flapping, pretty big ones. Sada stares at the tree tops for a moment, worried; she can't see what kind of eggs they are, but if that is the sound of one the parents coming back to the nest, it would be better to retreat, fast. A shadow passes over the ground for a moment, and the creature seems to pass right over them; she manages to catch just to quickest glimpse of something red, and big, before it's gone, wings flapping heavily to keep it afloat. Is it going to land near here...?

The Slither Grip had also paused briefly, it's tail making a slight rattling noise, before deciding that the food right in front of it's nose was evidently more important. It opens it's jaw wide and gobbles up the first egg, and Sada stands up.

If she wants to act, she has to do it now. She throws a rock she has carefully prepared before at the creature, nailing it on the head. The Slither Grip is still busy swallowing and can't do much else than angrily rattle it's tail at her. Another rock chucked right on it's nose makes it finally decide that the rest of the eggs are not worth the possible injuries of getting repeatedly pelted with rocks, and it slithers away much like the name implies, rattling all the way down the tree. As soon as it's gone, she quickly climbs the tree herself and carefully makes her way to the nest by crawling along the branch, legs and arms wrapped around it. The remaining three eggs are a bit smaller than what she would have liked, but better than nothing. She really carefully puts the eggs inside her bag and starts making her way back down the tree, satisfied. If only finding something to eat would be so easy every day...

Sada freezes when she hears something moving right under the tree, in the direction of where the Slither Grip had disappeared. There is a threatening rattle - definitely the purple creature, then a growl from something else that she's never heard before.

She quickly finishes climbing back from the tree and grabs her spear, conflicted.

On one hand, caution tells her to get away while she can. On the other hand, her curiosity makes her want to at least see what the misterious creature is.

Her curiosity wins.

Sada prowls through the underbrush, until she manages to catch a glimpse from the creature. It's definitely the one that flew overhead just before, and she finds herself staring at it in complete amazement. It's beautiful. Much bigger than the Slither Grip that it is currently staring down, it is standing upright on two strong legs covered in red scales like most of it's body, except for part of it's tail and throat that are completely black, and a white underbelly. A magnificent crest of big colorful feathers runs all along it's back and head, and she immediately recognizes them as the same ones she had used for Turo's necklace.

The creature stares at the Slither Grip for another long moment, then pounches with unexpected speed, grabbing the purple creature in it's maw. The Slither Grip's struggle is cut short when it bites down on it and shakes it's head violently, then tips it's head back to swallow it. It licks it's lips, then lowers it's gaze... and stares straight at her, the dark pupils on bright orange eyes narrowing in catching sight of her.

It's throat seems to expand suddenly and another growl, much louder than the one it had done just before, reverberates through the air.

Along with something else; Sada finds herself drenched in sweat, and not just from nervousness. The air has suddenly gotten much hotter around the creature while it squares her up.

She tightens her grip on the spear, heart hammering in her chest while she considers her chances; honestly? They weren't good. No way is she defeating this thing with a single spear. It's gotten way too close to her and is way too fast. No, the only way she is getting away from it is by distracting it. Make herself not worth the effort.

She slowly, slowly slips her free hand into the bag and gets one of the eggs out. The creature tilts it's head to it's side and hisses, but does not attack.

She crouches and deposits the egg onto the ground, then takes some steps back.

It's looking at the egg, then back at her.

It goes on four legs to sniff at it, tongue darting in and out for a moment, then snatches it up and swallows it. It licks it's lips again, then looks back at her, still on four legs.

Sada gets the second egg out, and the creature waits until she takes another step back before eating that too. It's eyeing her bag now, sniffing the air.

She scowls for a moment, then gets the last egg out.

« This was supposed to be mine...» she mutters while it happily devours the last egg, before looking back at her. It growls softly and suddenly spreads it's wings, flapping them with enough force to send her sprawling to the ground and taking off into the skies. Sada is left staring at the spot where the creature had disappeared, where a couple of white and blue feathers were fluttering to the ground.

It hadn't attacked her. It easily could have, but it didn't.

Against all better judgement, she decides to leave some food for it out every day in the same spot.

---

Sada can't wait for Turo to come back, and those five day and nights seem to pass excruciatingly slow. She wants to show him his new clothes, which she has completed in the meantime, and proudly announce that she's discovered what the strange creature is, since he also had looked interested in it. She can't wait to see his reaction to both things.

The food she is leaving where she met the creature disappears every day; it could be any other nearby creature eating it, but Sada has been finding more and more traces of the red creature around the forest. More feathers of the same color and lenght, even some scales, and she even caught it flying high in the sky a couple of times. It definitely looked like it lived around here.

She tries to draw it as better as she can in the notebook, and takes some notes about it. Really strong and bulky, definitely one of the strongest predators in the area. Could fly with the feathers on it's head, and enlarge a part of it's throat. It looked like a meat eater, but she had tried to leave some berries and roots and those had disappeared too. If no other creature had been the one to eat them, then it probably ate everything... but had showed no interest in eating her. Why?

People were an easy meal for most creatures, and she had been pretty much defenseless. It had looked way more interested in her bag... or the eggs, more probably. Maybe it just had been full.

At midday of the fifth day, she notices Turo come out of the trees and make his way toward the cave, not without stopping to catch his breath. Guy probably couldn't run to save his life. She is way too excited to wait for him to arrive and sprints towards the man.

« Turo! Your necklace! I've found the creature! It's so beautiful and strong and it can fly and- » he probably can't understand even half of what she is saying, but she doesn't care, she just grabs his hand with both of hers and pulls him along.

She's pretty much dragging him up towards the cave, and she can't help but laugh at his absolutely confounded expression, both eyebrows knitted while he is trying to puzzle out what she is saying based on the words he knows.

« Look here!» she grabs the notebook and shows him the drawing she's done, pointing to the big crest of feathers she's drawn on the head, then to one of those same feathers she has found in these past days. He gets it immediately, his eyes starting to shine while he examines the page.

Turo sits down, takes his own notebook out, and starts to copy her drawing.

She squeezes close to him to observe him work; like the first time, he is quick to get the basic shapes down, and starts drawing little lines and symbols she can't understand near it, pausing every now and then to check his work.

He points to one of the symbols she has drawn on the page.

« This... what is it?»

Oh, that was the one she had drawn to note that it seemed to like eggs. It was just a small circle, but with no context, no wonder that he had no idea what it meant.

... how could she explain it?

« Umm... "eggs". »

No reaction from him, because of course he has never heard the word before.

« Umm... wait.» she flips back to the drawing of the Fire Wing, and draws a little nest with three eggs in it. That should be self-explanatory... as long as he isn't so clueless that he's never seen eggs before.

« This creature... » she flips back to the drawing of the red beast.

« "Eats eggs".» she mimes putting something in her mouth and he seems to get it, nodding and writing down something on his page, more lines and symbols. She tilts her head at his notes, curious. It doesn't look like he is drawing anything in particular, at least nothing that she can recognize, they are more like... squiggly lines that mean something to him.

Weird. What if he forgets what one line means? How can he make sense of it?

She kind of wants to ask, but is not sure how. Also, she has something else to show him. Excited, she gets his new clothes out of her bigger travelling back and scoots back to his side.

« Your clothes! » she announces with a big smile. Turo raises his head from the notebook and his eye go wide. They are done mostly in Steady Glacier fur - which of course means that they are perfect against the cold, warm and cozy. Light brown in color, there's three pieces. One garment to drape over the head, with a hood lined with thick purple fur - she's pretty proud of that little detail, to call back to his own clothes. A pair of long pants, and she even had some fur left for some boots. Not so different from what she is wearing, apart from material and color. He takes them slowly and stares at them in complete silence. It's actually making her a bit nervous: what if he does not like them?

Turo stands up, looking a bit lost. He takes off his mantle, then hesitates, before slowly putting the hood over his own clothes. She had expected him to take them off completely -she's still wondering about how he actually does that-... but he probably just doesn't feel comfortable without them. That's fine with her, as long as he isn't cold anymore.

When Turo finished putting on the rest of the clothes, though, she finds herself simply staring at him, surprised. Now that he's dressed exactly like any other man of her tribe, he suddenly looks completely different, much more... normal. He's still as pale as death, but the hair and beard look a lot less unnerving without the weird clothes making them stand out even more. He looks... good, she realizes with a little surprise.

... and then he slips the shiny mantle back on, and she finds herself laughing at how strange it looks. She kind of likes that about him, though.