There's a deer path, eventually, that eventually merges onto a wider trail, with trees blazoned with an off-grey along it. Walking the trail, clearly set up for a proper hike, is a teenaged boy, trailed by a slightly large wolf with bright silver fur. The boy looks human, although his clothes and pack are strange. The wolf looks off. The boy raises his hand and calls out a cheerful greeting in a strange language when he sees Varrin, then says something else, sounding slightly concerned.

(The watched feeling - hasn't quite faded, but has certainly changed.)

That's not a wolf. It might or might not be a spirit - oh who's he kidding it's totally a spirit. He says something excruciatingly polite in his foreign tongue back at them!

He doesn't seem to recognize the language.

The wolf tilts her head, and, in a distinctly feminine tone and not his native tongue but still perfectly understandable all the same, "Hello! Not many other hikers on this stretch this time on year, most humans think it's a bit cold. Are you alright? You seem tired."

How does he respond to that - he doesn't remember the rules they taught him other than 'be mindful of the balance of nature' and 'be very very polite' -

"Hello. It's good to meet you. I am Varrin... I'm used to the cold. Do you know where I can get some water, or perhaps some food?"

"I'm the Lowell Ancestor, and this is my human, Terry Lowell. Terry has enough food and water to share," says the wolf. 'Terry' says something in his language, causing the wolf to tilt her head. "Do you have any food restrictions? Terry mostly has nuts or things that have touched nuts."

"I would be delighted to accept some nuts. I - don't have anything to offer you in return probably, unfortunately."

Well, he has his furs and the waterskin and a few coins, but he lost the sealbear spear a while ago so he couldn't hunt properly even if there were something he knew how to hunt around.

Terry says something and fishes a clear, crinkly bag out of a brightly colored pouch at his waist. It contains a few varieties of shelled nuts, raisins, and some kind of circular brightly colored thing. He hands that and a bottle to Varrin, saying something apologetic.

"It's no problem!" says the wolf. "Paying it forward is important to humans, right? Someone helped Terry a few days ago, so we'll help you, and you can help someone else later! Then everyone gets helped."

Weird bag. But food: Very good. "I suppose so. I mostly want to get home... Am I still in the Spirit World?"

"The Spirit World? I haven't heard of that as something reachable. This is the ordinary world. We're in Maine, northern end of the Appalachian Trail."

"Oh, I thought since you seem like a spirit I was still there. Is Maine in the Earth Kingdoms somewhere or what?"

"It's in the United States of America. Where's the Earth Kingdoms? And I am an Ancestor God, yes, though most humans seem to think I'm oddly shaped for one."

"...Maybe I should draw a map. Or look at one. Never heard of America or a United States, but I couldn't say for sure. I'm from the Northern Water Tribes?"

"...Haven't heard of that, either, but I don't pay attention to human geography. Terry, he says he's from the Northern Water Tribes and hasn't heard of the States...?"

Terry says something, and the wolf asks, "Do you mean like the Inuit? Though he thinks all the Inuit are contacted, the United States is really big so you would've heard probably?"

Terry takes his backpack off (which is the size of a small child) and digs through one of the surface pockets, pulling out several folded up pieces of paper and riffling through them until he unfolds a map of the northeastern section of North America.

"I miiight be more lost than I thought I was? This doesn't look like any part of the continent. And I've still never heard of the United States. I was stuck in the spirit world for a while, then came out here..."

"...I think you might be very lost too! Can you feel your Ancestor?" Suspicious squint in the general direction of the tangled 'other' that is most useful for identifying godly connections. This one is very, very hard to read. "...Do you have an Ancestor watching over you, your -ness is very strange but I'm not sure if that's - other worldliness?"

"Do you mean Tui and La? The moon and ocean spirits that watch over the Water Tribes?"

"Ancestors are usually just one family, but I suppose it might be different elsewhere." That is very satisfying, and also Wolf doubts another Ancestor would appreciate her stealing their human.

"That is not how I am used to spirits, uh, working. But more important is me getting home, I'm needed."

"Yes. I don't know how to do that. A place god... Might? Moving between dimensions is probably too big for a new god to form for it, but there might be steps that we can find."

"You would know more than me, being a spirit. I hope I can rely on you for guidance in this, and find some way to repay you too."

"Repaying Ancestor gods here is a bit unusual, usually we're helping our humans out. Being kind to others, though, would be - in line with the philosophy I'm trying. And guiding humans is what I do!" She scratches at an ear. "Language might be a problem, though, most gods won't be interested in translation, and if you're leaving a service god might not want to attach to you for so short a time."

He's still definitely missing something.

"...Wait a sec, I want to, uh, try something. Have either of you got some water on you?"

Terry holds out a water bottle when prompted.

And he gets into a martial arts pose and moves, and bends the water out in a little stream, into a ball hovering in midair. And then puts it back into the bottle.

"I can still bend. I was worried for a minute. Tui and La still smile upon me, even here. So that's good."

That is startling!

The wolf perks her ears forwards. "That's not a power humans have, here."

"Spirit world does some weird stuff according to the legends. And it looks like it dumped me into a third world, not the spirit world or the one I know. I think that qualifies as weird, yeah?"

"Very much so!" says the wolf. "Do you want to try learning our language? Terry's not super good at languages, but not bad, so he can try learning yours, too."

"I know southern water dialect, but I imagine a whole new language is going to be harder. Probably better for me to learn yours, since everyone here will know it."

"Reasonable. Do you want to stay with us? We're... Nearish people."

"I'd appreciate it! I could just camp if this were the arctic, but it, uh, isn't. I could probably do some work and find an inn if you get tired of me."

"Hm. What sort of society are you used to? We really don't have inns anymore, or at least not what that word implies - there's motels, which are close maybe, and hotels, which are sort of very large inns, but most don't let you work for a room. Couchsurfing - staying at someone's house - would be closest."

"I'm not sure how to answer that? I've spent a lot of time away from the water tribe, because I was with the warband a lot, so I know things are different in the earth kingdoms, and probably different still here. In the earth kingdoms someone might ask me to chop firewood or bend a lot of water into a storage tank or help clean a building or work on their fishing boat for a few coins. In the water tribe we don't do coins as much and I'd go hunting sealbear and bring it back with a hunting band, and then we cut them up and give the parts to craftspeople and cooks and things, and then if we need a new coat or something we just go ask and we probably get it without arguing because we feed everyone."

"We have societies like that, yeah. Here, everything is - well, we only use coins for small amounts of money, we have paper money backed by the government for larger purchases. Small chores in exchange for money are difficult to find, though not impossible. Direct barter is more common out in rural areas? So Terry could find someone's homestead - not by walking up to their door, but most likely by sending out an offer through me  - and offer to trade a night's stay for chores. I would talk to the other Ancestor gods, and see which family needs what help, and then I would vouch for Terry's reliability. People would be hesitant to trust a stranger without an Ancestor to speak for them. You'd have trouble trading chores for anything in a city without a steady job, but it's not impossible. Hm. If you're at a tribal level - does your world have electricity? Or cars and trains? Those are very common inventions, here, the later for getting around, the former for... Making everything more convenient, really."

"Can't say I have ever heard of those things. We use boats to get around. Or skis."

"They're very recent and very odd inventions! Make everything much faster. They do make an awful amount of noise, though. Hm. We should probably try finding someone who knows anything at all about dimensions, or else a very old god."

"Would it help if I told you what I know about the Spirit World?"

"That sounds like it might, yes."

"The spirit world and the physical world are separate but affect each other. A great fire in the physical world will cause plants in the spirit world to sicken and die. In certain places the connection is particularly strong. Some spirits can visit the physical world. They - have a lot of different goals, depending on who they are? And then there's the Avatar. They- Hmm. They're the living bridge between the physical world and the spirit world. They can learn all four types of bending, as if the ocean and moon and sun and earth and sky all gave them their blessing. Their job is to maintain peace and balance, both in the physical world itself, and between the physical world and the spirit world... Angering spirits is very dangerous, especially in the spirit world... And that's all I know about it."

"You've mentioned bending a few times. Is that the water magic you used?"

"Yep. There's four kinds of bending. Air, Water, Earth, Fire... Well, the airbenders might be gone now, but still."

"We don't have magic like that, not that I know of. Here... Humans don't get magic, unless you count the ways they can interact with gods. Gods have a domain, which is usually very small, and they have powers related to that domain. Item and place gods are really common, they're tied to a certain thing or location, and they keep it safe and maintained. Ancestor gods like me are also everywhere, we watch over our humans and can do things like always find them. Service gods have chosen to help a human with tasks, like if a human is blind a seeing-eye god will help them navigate the world. Concept gods are rarer, and can be a bit more powerful sometimes since similar concept gods tend to all work together as one. There's a couple other types. You don't want to anger a place or item god, that's a really bad idea, but you do that by threatening their domain, and they're usually very vocal about something being their domain. Other gods are harder to anger, and rarely have offensive powers. If you threatened Terry, I could do anything an immortal, indestructible wolf could do, or I could throw you back with a burst of magic - I'm actually not sure most Ancestors can do that though - or use the same ability to trip you or throw something at you, but that's limited range."

"...Very, very, very, very lost." He sighs loudly. He munches nuts and sips water. "I kind of suspect I'm not going home soon. I'd better figure out how to get work around here sooner or later. But for now I kind of want to sleep somewhere. Didn't let myself, much, in the spirit world."

"There's a shelter nearby. Relatively basic, but it has walls and keeps the rain off. We only have the one sleeping bag, but Terry says he doesn't mind you using his," the wolf says after a brief exchange with Terry.

"I could totally sleep on the ground, you know. Use my coat as a pillow. But thanks. Mind if I head there now, instead of staying and talking? Food's helping, but I feel like I'm going to fall asleep standing up soon."

"Of course, let's go now. It's nearby."

They lead him, which does involve a bit of backtracking on their part. The shelter is indeed rather nice, wooden construction with a patio with metal bolted onto dense wooden countertops for small-scale cooking, a decent-sized open area under the peaked roof, and two levels of platforms for sleeping on, a ladder leading up to the top.

(Terry provides his sleeping bag.)