She's in a forest: the ground is rocky, muddy, and sloped; the trees and brush are familiar in general form if not in exact detail; the wildlife is quiet except for a squirrel scolding her from a nearby tree. The sun is fairly high, but the air is comfortably cool, with a gentle breeze. There's no sign of people.

She manages to keep standing. Phaidra blinks at the squirrel and says, "I am sorry." Is the squirrel close enough she could pet it?

Phaidra figures that - given what happened - she will likely need to be rescued by her family. Which can take a while. But surviving can't be that hard, right? She says while being distracted by the first furry creature, she sees in a completely different world. At least she has powers.

The squirrel is well over her head in a tree a good twenty feet away, and pauses his yelling to scurry to a higher branch when she spots him.

The other sounds of the forest begin to start up again around her.

Okay. Phaidra better find a place to stay while she waits.

Luckily, her gifts are good for this situation, she thinks. Her fathers' blood did grant many advantages for this. Being able to purify food and water, resistance to cold, and the ability to breath underwater while looking like a standard giant means she can do this. Probably. And she can learn things really fast as a gift too. Go being the daughter of a sea-serpent and a giant.

What to do first?

Well, looking for shelter? And food? She can make anything she eats not-dangerous, but not nutritional. She picks her way through the terrain, going down. Looking for a river. Being mindful of the foliage.

There's a small river at the bottom of the hill, and if she watches carefully for a little while she can spot fish swimming in it. She also passed a few berry bushes on the way down; it seems to be early in the season, but there was a bit of fruit on them and more ripening.

She will collect some berries and taste-testing them while eating by the small river. How small it's small, here? She takes a moment to carefully purify each berry, holding them up and seeing as her power drains/evaporates the toxins away from them.

The river is perhaps fifteen feet across and comes about halfway up her calves at its deepest; it'd be knee-deep to a baseline human.

The berries don't seem to be poisonous, and taste quite good, sweet and a little tart.

There's a flash of feathers and splash of water as a fishing-bird makes a catch a ways downriver of her.

Ooh, she takes a closer look at the fishing-bird, trying to be stealthy.

Which, is not easy, when you can be twice as tall as the average commoner.

It's either flown away or too well-camouflaged to be found.

Huh, does it show up again if she holds still for a moment and waits?

Nope.

Okay, she should get back to trying to survive. Phaidra follows the river, looking around for places that look like it could have people, or be a good shelter.

It doesn't take long for her to find signs of people; there are two fish traps built into the riverbanks some twenty minutes' walk downstream, made of an odd grey plasticy waxy material, and a path leading off into the woods from there - it's wide enough to accommodate her but she'll have to watch out for low branches.

Oooh, people! She is being mindful of low branches all the while, but at least the path means she doesn't have to think about the ground flora. She keeps her head down and goes through the path. Wondering how the not-giants (the branches wouldn't be so low) made the odd gray material.

After a few minutes, there are crow-calls overhead, and three of the birds alight on a branch ahead of her, apparently unafraid despite the alarm calls.

She knows, by no clear mechanism, that the center one is curious about her, that he doesn't think she belongs here and wants to know what she's doing here and why she's so big and why her clothes are so strange. One of the others adds that their flock has gone to get the person-like-her who lives here and there might be a fight if she doesn't go away.

"Wait, what?" She blinks upwards. "Hello?" She tentatively says. "I am not looking for a fight. I am just very lost."

They startle a little when she speaks and are now curious about the noises.

"Hiii?" She says slowly and with a low voice. "Are you telepathic?" Then she repeats the question mentally, trying to open her mind to telepathy.

They stare back at her. The one who hasn't 'spoken' yet preens the middle one.

The middle one sees her, not talking to him isn't going to let her hide from him.

She holds her hand up, offering berries. "Friend?"

The one on the left swoops over and takes the berries out of her hand on the wing.

She really should leave if she doesn't want a fight, the bird repeats. Especially if she can't talk. Is she hurt, that she can't talk? Maybe she's lost because she's hurt. They should show her the way, if she's lost.

The crow is finished with her berry by now, and flits to another branch farther along the trail: the rest of the group should follow, and the other crows do.

Phaidra will follow the helpful crow.  If the people here are that territorial and don't use words to talk. Maybe they are spirits? If there are people that would create crows that can communicate like that, it would be spirits...

The crows lead her along the path, soon coming to a spot where the path they're on is one fork of a larger one; they lead her down the other side of the fork.

There's cawing overhead, again. One of the crows flies out of sight in response; the other two start encouraging her along, repeating that she should follow them and that she's doing well.

She follows. What helpful crows. She repeats what they say to see if they learn that she is speaks with sounds.

It seems like they're too focused on getting her out to comment on the noises she's making.

Two crows join the two she's following, and they calm down a bit: the other person-like-her has been told that she's hurt and lost and leaving, and she's still upset that she was here but she's letting the crows handle it as long as she does leave.

Ah, okay. Too bad she can't properly apologize. But she will follow. And talk. It sounds like that, even if it doesn't come across as communication, it at least conveys that she is different and unusual.

Where are they leading her?

One of the new crows is curious about her noises, but quickly scolded by the others for mentioning it - he can talk to her when they're out.

They seem to be circling around something, rather than taking the most direct route, but they aren't avoiding all landmarks; a few times they pass small clearings with platforms and furniture or garden beds built up off the ground - the waxy material she encountered in the river seems to be the primary building material around here, in a variety of colors. Eventually they come to a place where the path is flanked by two small pillars of the stuff; the crows identify these for her as territory markers.

Two of the crows fly back, once she's past them; the other two perch overhead and wait to see what she'll do.

The material is interesting, but she doesn't want to be rude and stop to take a closer look.

She waves goodbye to the departing crows and crosses the territory markers. Looking upwards for the birds' response to this action.

They're watching, but they don't seem to have anything to say about it.

She goes further along the path. Are they going to follow?

Yep!

Oh, good. "Thank you." She follows, matching their pace.

......well if she's just going to sit there they'll hang out, then?

What's the deal with those noises, anyway?

Huh... how about this. She points at various things and naming them. "Ground. Tree. Sky. Marker. Crow. Giant." She snaps her fingers while using the other hand to point. "noises." then to her mouth, "talking."

That sure is a lot of sounds! The crow still doesn't understand why she's making them. They're pretty cool, though, people-like-her don't usually make so many different sounds. - maybe she's playing?

Phaidra very visibly deflates (exaggerating her body language to see if that helps). Though the playing gives something of an idea. She sits on the ground.

She points. "Rock. Rock. Rock. Tree. Rock. Tree. Marker." Then repeats this, with a slightly different order. Then she points at a rock. Seeing if the crows have an expectation.

Ohhhhh! How clever!

"Clever," Phaidra repeats. Then she reiterates the meanings of Giant and Crow to see if those come across.

Yep, those are different sounds for the different species!

Maybe, the other crow thinks, one of the birds who picked up a little bit of writing will want to come and learn her sounds. But none of them are very good at it compared to her species, remembering all those fiddly samey things is hard.

Maybe. She tries to mime walking and pointing down the path beyond the territory markers.

The crow less interested in language lessons flits down the path a bit.

She starts walking for real. "Moving." She provides the word. She keeps moving and pointing "Here" and "There". Seeing if they get the concept of relative position.

They seem to have lost interest in the language, now. They do stay fairly close to her, though.

Do they make any comment about where this path leads?

Not immediately. After a while she comes to another set of territory markers, and they identify these to her as belonging to the person they call dog-friend for all the dogs he keeps.

Ooh, dogs. Phaidra goes in that direction.

They think this is maybe a bad idea? Also super weird for her species. ...is she sick, does she have one of those illnesses that makes creatures act weird. She should leave dog-friend alone if she's sick, they don't want him to get sick too.

Pout. She dejectedly steps away.

Oh, good.

They keep following her, identifying territory owners as they go - loud-whistle and chicken-foot and long-ear, clatter-house and bright-feather and hawk-friend. There are more berry bushes, too, and they point these out as well.

The sun rises to its zenith and begins to fall.

Phaidra might try to go into those territories a couple of times, but it will become pretty obvious that there is some etiquette issue here. Or something else? She picks up the berries. At some point after noon, she will gather some non-edible berries, plus some leaves and even flowers. She then turns it all into a paste and uses her purification to turn the paste into water. Less than she would've liked, but she is thirsty after all those berries.

The crows watch her: they think it's surprising that she can do that when she can't talk. Also they're not sure they've ever seen someone make water before.

"The noises are talking." Phaidra clarifies, knowing fully well that they won't understand. But she doesn't think it makes them less interested in her.

She repeats the floral-paste-into-water a couple of times before resuming walking at a steadier place. She wonders what kind of magic these crows find common. Too bad that she can't easily demonstrate most of her abilities.

They stay with her, except once when there's cawing overhead and one of them goes to check it out. The path splits a couple of times, which they don't offer any advice about, and starts to get more overgrown, though it doesn't narrow, and eventually they tell her that no more people-like-her live out this way.

Sigh. Phaidra starts looking for some shelter for the night. She really doesn't need much, not even to light up a fire. She can even use her clothes to pad the ground as long the surface isn't likely to tear the fabric, she is good.

If she keeps following the trail, the forest starts to thin out and eventually gives way to grasslands, which should suit her purposes nicely.

Sigh. Alright, she sets up "camp" against a rock after collecting more berries.

The berry bushes thinned out considerably when she passed the last territory marker, but there are still some, especially along the forest's edge where there's more sunlight for them. She finds a small stream while she's gathering - not big enough for fishing, but still a good source of water - and startles a pair of rabbits into dashing for their burrow.

Huh, do the rabbits try talking to her? She gathers berries that she can before it gets too dark. Her plan is to go to bed early to start foraging at the crack of dawn. Maybe try contacting people in case they are in a better mood tomorrow.

She could try to figure out some ritual casting? More of a long term project since the only source of power is herself. For now, focusing on more practical means of surviving.

The rabbits don't talk to her. The crows, on the other hand, point out berry bushes and wonder why she's not growing more berries on them and why she doesn't make herself a bag instead of using her shirt.

She has a few hours before the sun gets low, time to stash enough berries at her makeshift camp for dinner and breakfast and part of tomorrow's lunch. When it does, one of the crows flies off again, returning as it starts to get dim with another bird that at first glance looks like a big crow with a weirdly long tail. If she watches, though, it seems to be more different than that - it's hard to tell exactly what's off in the fading light, but the beak seems different, and the legs, and it moves less like something that belongs in the air and more like something that belongs in the trees, hopping from branch to branch without much use of its wings.

"I can't do that," she says, despite them being unable to understand.

"Hello," she says to the new bird. Taking a step closer to inspect them.

The new bird puffs up, revealing that his tail is solid and lizard-like with feathers along the length of it that can puff up too, and flaps, showing off stubbier wings than the other crows'.

He's curious about her - he's never seen a person-like-her so big, and wonders what her size is for - but for right now he's sleepy, he'll talk to her in the morning.

Interesting. "Good night."

Phaidra is also tired of walking all day, if less adapted to her accommodations. She thinks about magic to distract herself until sleep.

Nothing wakes her overnight, but the birdsong that fills the forest at sunrise isn't easy to sleep through.

She blinks awake and yawns. Honestly, it's good that for her to rise up early. Is the new bird still there?

It takes her a minute to spot the trio, in a different tree than they went to bed in, but they're there, snuggled up and preening each other; it's not bright enough yet to make out any more details of the newcomer.

Aww, she waves and whistles to get their attention.

They caw back. Yes, good morning!

"Good morning!" She approaches closer to see if they are okay with that. Then she points at things. "Giant. Crow. Tree. Rock." And points at the new bird and hopes that her face conveys she is asking a question.

They still have no idea what those noises are about. The new bird is a rare sort of crow; people-like-her make them sometimes or they're children of other ones like that, they're stronger and better at hunting. He's going to try to get a couple of rabbits for breakfast soon if she wants to watch.

"Talk." Phaidra says, she figures repetition is unlikely to have detrimental effects on getting the point across.

She kinda doesn't want to watch cute rabbits being killed. Then her stomach grumbles. But she might need to hunt at some point? Ugh. She will watch... the poor critters though.

They hang out there for a few more minutes, and then head off to where she spotted the rabbits last night. They slow down as they get close and warn her to stay where she is and stay still, and the big crow glides down to the ground in the shade of the trees before sneaking out to try to get close. It's more obvious now that he's put together more like a dinosaur than a regular crow, stalking along like a miniature velociraptor. (She finally gets a better look at his mouth, and that's a saurian snout rather than an avian beak, too.)

The hunt only takes a few minutes - he sneaks up until the rabbits spot him and bolt, running in all different directions, and chases the slowest, quickly pouncing on her back and dispatching her with a bite to the back of the neck. He holds her down until she stops struggling and then tells Phaidra she can come take this one.

Phaidra plasters an uncomfortable smile on her face and says, "Thank you." She also telegraphs that she wants to pat the crow-dinosaur in the head, but will back off.

He considers this.

If he tries to sit on her arm he will probably claw her by accident because she's not wearing the right protective stuff but if she crouches down he'll come over. And if she's rough with him he'll bite her and his friends will tell all the other crows she's bad, so, like, don't.

She smiles and crouches down and tries being veeerry careful about patting his head. What a good dino-bird.

He leans into her hand and makes a contented clicking noise.

Awwww, pet pet. "You're such a good dino-bird."

Cli-cli-cli-cli-clik.

Okay, they should clear out so the rabbits will come back and he can catch another one.

Alright. She takes the one he gave her and goes back to a hide place. Phaidra figures out how to skin the (poor) creature with her bare hands.

This is pretty gross, but made a little easier by one of the other crows helping her get started and offering tips, and then she has a skinned rabbit.

Cool - gross, but cool - she will gnaw on it, after using her power to make it safe to it raw. The air fills up with the smell of seawater as a result, but she has meat, that is a win. And she can use the rabbit's skin to wrap the meat. Making all the stains vanish in a puff of salty vapor. Maybe she should figure out how to start a fire. She heard how it is done, but never had the need to.

The crows are now distracted with their own meal, but probably wouldn't be much help with firestarting anyway. At least there's plenty of wood around.

She looks around for dead trees and dry wood for raw materials, maybe sharp rocks if those are in supply.

There's plenty of reasonably-dry branches and twigs, but she has a harder time finding a fallen tree that's not already overgrown with moss and lichen and starting to fall apart. Sharp rocks are similarly scarce, but there are some big ones that she could try hitting on each other, at least.

She wasn't expecting to find a lot of easily craftable materials to work with. At least there is no hurry, given that the fire will be more a comfort thing and to navigate at night. Phaidra can combine finding the dry branches with foraging for food.

Food is easy to come by - a little deeper in the forest she finds pea plants growing up the sides of a few trees, a big stand of artichoke plants, and some squashes nestled in the underbrush that don't seem likely to be ripe yet, plus experimentation with the less obviously food offerings reveals green onions, asparagus, leeks, beets, carrots, potatoes, and a number of tasty herbs and greens - she may find herself wondering if it's normal for every third or fourth plant in a forest to be edible like this.

Phaidra is not complaining, but she is curious, and until she figured out the herbs her theory was that the birds have led her to somewhere plentiful. She still thinks that, but she wonders how this place is this plentiful? Do people just make every plant grow food? Did this track of land used to belong to someone? Are the birds the owners of this territory or something? Maybe their flocks is mixed with some bird-fusions that are capable of gardening.

The crows turn up to follow her again after a while, and show some interest in the berries and other more obvious food plants, but they seem more interested in her than in discussing the terrain - it's still confusing that she's doing so much work and so little that they recognize as magic, and they come up with increasingly fanciful guesses about why.

What sort of guests? She might show excitement or interests when they are getting closer to the truth. Though, "person from another world" might be beyond anyone's capabilities here.

Maybe being so big makes doing magic hurt. Maybe being so big just makes you really stupid. Maybe people-like-her have a magic-using part and she used it up to get so big. Maybe people-like-her have a magic-using part and a big animal bit her and broke it. Maybe somebody copied someone else to make her and she came out wrong. Maybe she's a different species and her species can't do it. Maybe she's a different species and she's just a baby and hasn't learned magic yet. Maybe she's a different species and hers does territories a different way and that's affecting it. Maybe she does territories the same way but she's really confused and thinks she's in someone else's. Maybe she's from very far away and people there learn to do different magic things.

She tries to get their attention when the theories about her being from a different species and that she is from very far away.

Phaidra gets their attention and mimes with her a couple of pebbles. "Close" then setting them apart "far." Pointing at herself. "far far far far."

This gets her some excited flapping, they think it's very cool that she's from far away.

She giggles. Then sighs and deflates. Using a handful of pebbles she says. "Giant Giant Giant." Then she picks up one and points at herself. "Giant." She places the solitary pebble away from the others. "Far far."

They puzzle over this.

One of them gets bored and lunges to steal a carrot from Phaidra's collection, prompting the other two to chase her for it.

Phaidra offers a portion of her foraged food if they are interested. Though, for the moment she will try to start a fire.

They take what she offers them, but end up far too interested in watching her try to make a fire, and trying to mimic what she's doing, to do much with it.

That's okay. Though, it might be hard for them to mimic her behavior without having a body like hers, she got a stick of wood firmly planted against a rock, and is now "drilling" it with another stick while blowing on it. Which will eventually heat up enough to turn dark and produce smoke (but the smoke vanishes into a sea-scented breeze).

It's fun to try, even if they can't really do it.

It takes a few seconds after her sticks start to smoke for them to notice, but they're very excited when they do, and gather around to see what this new kind of magic is.

"Fire." She supplies the name. "Dangerous." They can look, but she will be mindful of how close they get.

Once the embers get going, she will start adding kindling to it.

They of course don't understand her words, but when the first visible tongue of flame comes up they scatter, making a huge ruckus in their alarm. That's fire! It's dangerous! What's she doing that for!?

Phaidra slowly blinks and points at the rabbit. She can eat raw meat, but it's not necessarily pleasant. Also, she wants to be able to see in the dark, which is the main reason, but that is harder to mime.

She takes a piece of rabbit and holds closer to the fire... do people here never cook?

The crows don't seem to have anything to say about this, and unless she spends a few minutes searching the trees instead of tending her fragile new fire she's going to have a hard time being sure they're even still there.

She will actually leave her fragile new fire to look around for the crows.

Two are still there, the dino-crow and one of the others, though they hop out of sight when they see she's spotted them. The third is either gone or too well hidden for her to find. The fire is back down to embers when she gets back to it, but she can build it up again with some work.

Aw, okay. Back to the grind, then. With an eye out for the crows if they decide to investigate again.

They don't. The rabbit is tasty, at least.

Small mercies. Phaidra will take the time to create a circle of stones around the fire. She definitely wouldn't want to validate the crows' fears by causing a forest fire. She spends the rest of the day time trying to gather more food and thinking about her own kind of magic. And the local kind of magic.

Toward evening, she returns to her campsite with an armful of greens to discover that her fire has gone out and the area around it is disturbed. Her other food supplies haven't been bothered, though.

Sigh. Does it look like the work of crows or someone more humanoid? And presumably there is some salvageable firewood that she can use to ignite the fire again later.

There aren't any obvious signs of humanoids. The fine tinder she needs to start a new fire has been scattered, but the larger pieces of wood haven't been disturbed, and tinder isn't hard to come by at the edge of the forest.

Alright. She doesn't have a lot of experience with wilderness, but this wilderness is sure convenient. Once she feels there is enough food for her not to starve if she focuses a day on doing something else, Phaidra will try to figure out some magics she can do on her own.

Back in her world, they were extracting magic from yet another universe to create rituals that were unprecedentedly powerful. But people still used rituals with less impactful results, they just needed to use what they had on hand. In her own case, this means either herself or figuring out how tap into the local magic. She dismisses the second one as dangerous. For one, she is not sure if she can do that without taking the magic from something else, and that might as well be one of the friendly crows. Better stick with what she knows.

So, having herself as the only source of power. And given how much the language barrier has been an issue, she tries figuring out translation. The crows friends can do, but again, she is unwilling to tap their magic. But her own world has translation magic as a gift. Knowing that she needs to work small, she decides to figure out a short and brief ritual for single "words".

Externally, it will look like the odd Giant creature is doing a lot of sitting still, thinking.

The sun begins to set.

A large black and tan dog wanders in, following the scent of meat, and pauses at the edge of the campsite, tail wagging.

By that point she has started trying to get the fire going, upon noticing the dog she retrieves a morsel of rabbit meat and tosses at it. "Hello, doggy."

The dog leaps to catch the morsel in midair and then comes over to see if there's more where that came from.

Phaidra ponders, but decides, to offer more. She is careful to make the air around not smell like blood and to clean her hands from any trace of it.

The dog will eat as much as Phaidra will give her, and then curls up to watch her work.

Aww, she will give it a pet. And go back to tending her fire while mentally trying to figure out single-word translation.

The rest of the evening will be quiet, then.

She will curl up over her clothes and try to sleep soon enough.

She gets maybe an hour of sleep before she's woken by growling.

...What?

It seems that her new canine friend has caught one of the crows sneaking up on her fire; the dog is bearing down on the bird, trapping him between herself and the rocks surrounding it, and glancing over to the giant every few seconds as if waiting for instructions.

"No, no." Phaidra approaches. Is the bird hurt? "Back away?" She tells the dog, while gesturing for him to step back.

The dog hesitates, but steps back, and the crow takes the opportunity to fly away.

"I am sorry!" She yells at the dark night. Then after a sigh, she looks back at the dog...

...Phaidra knees down to his level. "Don't hurt people, okay?" Head pat?

Tail wagging!

The rest of the night is quiet.

She will tentatively sleep curled up next to the dog, in part so a surprise like this doesn't spook her again.

The dog has no complaints about this.

Songbirds wake her up with the sun again.

It's a good way to wake up. She checks her surroundings to make sure nothing has been particularly disturbed since last night.

It looks like the crow got a few good wing-flaps in before the dog cornered him, scattering her tinder again, but no harm done.

Sigh. She decides to leave the tinder be. And check on the friendly dog. It might have been hurt. And she should use her purification on him, just in case.

The dog seems to be fine, albeit not very happy about being held to be checked over.

Does the dog's mood is improved by scritching?

Yep!

What a good dog. Like all dogs. Scritch. Okay, she should eat something and then figure out what to do for the day. The weather has been nice (not that she would mind being rained on), but does it look like it's going to rain today?

There's a few clouds in the sky, but it doesn't look like rain.

Good. Since she has a new companion, she should figure out how to feed him. Dogs can eat not-meat, but she figures that it's time to figure out how to hunt?

She is not happy with this prospect, but that was going to happen sooner or later. Sigh.

There's rabbits back in the spot she saw them before, if she gets there before the sun gets too high, or squirrels, commonly, and other animals, less so, in the woods.

She will actually go for the rabbits first. Since, she knows they are around. Hopefully observing the dino-crow taught her something about being able to sneak on them. Despite being at least fifty times larger.

They're very alert, though not so cautious of her as to run as soon as they spot her.

They do scatter when the dog emerges from the tall grass at a run, but the unfortunate one she picks to chase isn't fast enough to get away from her, and soon she's trotting up to Phaidra with her prize.

Poor bunny, but what a good dog. Phaidra pets him and - presumably the dog lets it - she picks up the "prize" to remove the skin.

The dog allows it, and watches with interest as she works.

It's much easier to do it a second time. If not necessarily less icky. Well, it's less icky because she knows better when to use her power to turn blood into water. The skin ends up more intact as well. Phaidra gives a large portion of the meat for the dog, it feels only fair.

The dog is pretty happy about this!

When she gets back to her campsite to cook her portion, the fire has been blown out and the tinder scattered again, seemingly more purposefully this time.

Okay, crows, you win this round. She eats her rabbit raw while contemplating magical theory.

The dog sits with her while she does, but gets restless after a while and wanders off.

She might eventually get up to play with the dog a little or forage some more. Or maybe trying to figure out how to take notes. She has plenty of materials to work as a some sort of ink, but not a lot of paper substitutes or other surface area. The rabbit skins and her tunics wouldn't do, the ground is vulnerable to furry and feathery friends. Maybe she can experiment with sufficiently large rocks or skin bark? She will give it a try.

There are a few boulders here and there in the woods, and even a couple of spots with a handful of them clustered together, but none of them are very convenient to her campsite, and smaller rocks tend to be too round to make a good writing surface; she could move her camp to one of the groups of boulders, maybe.

She won't move her campsite just yet. Clearly, she can't take long term notes, so she will just use the boulders to help her visualize the magic when the theory gets too big for just one brain to hold.

Which all adds up to her scratching larger rocks with a smaller rock to pin down some of her ideas.

She's mostly uninterrupted at it - at one point a turkey stumbles across her, leading to a brief chase by the dog that ends with the turkey escaping up a tree - until late afternoon, when she has a sudden intuition, similar to the crows' communication, that someone is nearby.

Phaidra watches the turkey shenanigans from a distance, but continues her work. And is very alerted by the sudden intuition, looking around. "Hello?" She calls.

The person wants to know if she's dangerous before he shows himself - he'll leave if she wants to be left alone.

Phaidra doesn't reply, because she doesn't know how... Well, she will think peaceful thoughts if that helps, and will drop the sharp stone she was holding and trying to look harmless.

Nothing happens for a couple of minutes, and but then she realizes that she should look over there, by that tree - there's a man there, roughly human, but only roughly - the shells of his ears are large and pointed, like a wolf's, though they sit at their customary places on the side of his head, and he has a long tail covered in brown fur that matches his hair and the fur of his ears. He's tall, but a bit thin, and wearing only a skirt of mottled brown material, and holding a bag with the end of his tail and using a walking stick with a decorative swirl on top.

When he sees her looking at him he reminds her that he'll leave if she wants; she can have this place if she wants it and he means no harm.

Phaidra looks were directed. She is naked and looks like a baseline human, with the only exception that she is very tall. "I can't communicate like that," she says. Then she taps her head.

After a moment, she pauses and beacons him to come closer.

He approaches, stopping while he's still well out of arm's reach.

The crows told him a bit about her, and he's curious about her modifications and why she can't craft and worried about her wellbeing and how likely she is to come into conflict with her neighbors here - she's really scared them, apparently. He's passing through, and she might be welcome to come with him if they can establish some sort of communication, or if she doesn't want that she can at least have the stuff he brought that will let her stop upsetting everyone by setting fires for light and heat.

Phaidra looks at him and against taps her head. He might think that she is hurt there, which is not correct, but at least more likely to get him into the right conclusions.

She shows that her hands are empty and puts them behind her back, taking a tentative step closer.

He's nervous about her getting closer, but stands his ground and swings his tail around to offer her the bag.

He's not really a healer and can't do much for a head injury - not that they often can anyway, at the point where someone's walking around - but he can ask if they have one here who can look at her, and if she comes with him they can ask at other places, too.

She smiles. And instead points between the two of them. And mimes with her hands walking, one after another.

She's doing really well for not being able to communicate normally, that's good! He can show her where his house is now and maybe put together a basic shelter for her before he goes to talk to her neighbors.

"Good," smile. See, she has a way of comunication, it's just weird and involves her food-hole directing noises at you.

She would also like shelter, so there is more reason to smile.

He flinches slightly at the sound, but waits another second or two to see if she'll do anything else, and then heads off through the trees, looking back after a moment to see if she's following.

She is following.

They're joined on their walk by a crow, this one a stunningly iridescent midnight blue specimen that she hasn't seen before who swoops down to perch on her companion's shoulder, where she looks her over - she's very big, she thinks.

Her new friend's house - or rather houses - are out on the grass, within sight but well out of casual walking distance of her camp; when they come out of the trees and she can see it he apologizes for crowding her camp even so. The structures themselves are lumpy, organic shapes or flat trays with plants growing out of them, of the same unfamiliar material as the territory markers, and he points out his main house, the largest one at the size of a small cottage, with a rookery on top for his crows and hawks; the smaller cavy house, chicken house, dog house, and storage shed, and two garden trays, where the selection of plants runs much more to variety than to quantity of any one thing - it seems like he might not actually have more than two of any one type. All of the structures have legs, three pairs each; the main house is settled onto its base, allowing entry, but the others stand a few feet off the ground.

He drops his bag off on the steps of the main house and asks if she wants a shelter before he goes.

Phaidra nods, then points at the structure. "Shelter." then at herself.

He is really not sure what the noises are about but he'll take that as a yes. - while he's busy she can sketch up a floor plan for her house, actually, he'll get the stuff for that now.

The stuff for that turns out to be half a dozen thick sheets of the plasticy material, firm on one side and pliable, like clay, on the other, plus a pointy stylus to mark them with; all of these are sized for her (the stylus is proportionally thicker than the writing implements she's used to, even), and large enough that they'd be unwieldy for him. He drops these off with her and goes to the storage shed (which lowers as he approaches it) to get more of the same stuff, in big blocks this time, and he sits on the stoop of the shed to begin shaping it into large thin plates, apparently just by gently stretching it and smoothing it out with his hands.

Phaidra can't wait until she figures out how to communicate with them. She eyes the plastic material with interest and after a tentative try does as instructed. She doesn't have that much of an experience making house layouts, and she is not sure if they let her have a fire inside a kitchen, but...

Sketch, sketch, sketch.

She comes out with a simple layout, with different alcoves for different purposes, but otherwise a very open space. She figures privacy isn't going to be an issue given that most people live so far from each other. And she wants room for casting purposes. It still isn't a very large house if you account for her size, but it will serve her purposes.

He's still working when she's done; he has a stack of the plates and is joining them up to make a curved surface that's on track to be a dome a little taller than she is when it's finished.

Phaidra looks for a moment, then, getting on his field of vision but not within arm's reach. She mimes if he can take one of the plates. Maybe she can help.

Uh, sure? He was under the impression that she couldn't craft.

That gives her pause, craft sounds (well, feels in her head) like not a typical action. Maybe the local kind of magic.

She shrugs. "Learn?" That probably will just be another mysterious noise. She then just tries to look curious, which she is, she wants to figure out if she can do it. And maybe he can show her how.

....that is confusing, he is confused.

She can have two of the plates to mess with, though. If she's... forgotten how? or something? then maybe it'll come back to her if she tries it.

She tries to do what he was trying to do. He seems to think it's not something too complicated? Or at least not something that involves a specific set of instructions?

Do the plates just... bend to her will if she mimics what he is doing?

Nope, not at all. He doesn't appear to be doing anything unusual, just running his hands along the plates to curve them and his fingers along the edges to join them, though he is paying a lot of attention to the plates while while he does it. They're stubbornly firm and separate for her when she does the same.

Phaidra will try for a while, focusing harder in case it helps.

Nope.

Aw. She will try for a while. But once it's demonstrably non-trivial a skill (or something only the locals may do?) she returns to her drawing untensils and starts uses them to take notes on magic.

He goes back to his work when she gives up, quickly becoming engrossed in it again. The dome continues to take shape, and when it's big enough to stand on its own he moves inside, adding a floor and then retrieving some miniature housewares from his house, each only a couple of inches long. He holds these in turn as he makes giant-scale versions of them in appropriate places in the structure: a mattress in the curve of the back wall, a light panel and small table next to it, and a fan in the edge of the dome on the other side. When he's satisfied with the furnishings he goes back to working on the walls and floor, pausing to get her attention when the dome is close enough to done that it's getting difficult to casually see inside.

"Hmm?" She says absently looking up from her diagrams.

He thinks she'll want to go in now, so the structure will feel to her like it's hers when he's done; also this would be a good time to show him anything she wants changed, before it gets awkward for him to be in there.

She doesn't find anything awkward and wonders if it's another cultural thing. But at any rate, she doesn't have much to be changed, there are some details here and there, and she would like that shelf not be that close to the mattress, but nothing complicated.

He shows her the simple touch controls for the light and fan and heater, moves things around as she directs, and resumes work on the wall from the outside, adding a short tunnel for an exit with a sheet of leather-like material for a door flap to complete the dome.

It's comfortably dinnertime by the time he's done, and he makes quick vegetable omelettes for the two of them, interrupting her to give her her portion when it's ready.

She accepts the omelette portion with a smile, vaguely regretting not going back for her clothes before it was too late in the day. Oh, well, she has a shelter, which is more she could've said today. That and a warm meal. She passes her hand over it to clean of any impurities absently. Then starts eating.

He hangs around for a moment to let her know that he's going to go make contact with her neighbors when he's done eating, and he'll check back in with her when he gets back - he should have time to do a little more crafting for her then if there's anything she needs tonight.

She would like a skirt? She mimes something around her waist to indicate that. It would be nice to be able to go outside without being afraid of a branch snagging on her lower parts.

Yeah, he can do that - he has a few designs in his collection, he'll bring them over.

He's gone for about an hour and a half, and then brings a box of swatches of leatherlike and clothlike material in various colors and textures and miniature clothing, each piece only a few inches in its widest dimension, for her to look at: he can make her copies of whatever she likes; probably not more than one or two outfits tonight though. The clothing itself is relatively simple and utilitarian, but there are a few styles of skirts, pants, shirts, robes, and long tunics available.

She will want a leatherlike skirt with a loop that goes over her shoulder for denser terrain and a lighter cloth-like tunic which in theory could be combined with the skirt. So she can walk around with both instead of packing. She doesn't have much opinion on color at the moment, but will pick one of the available ones without a fuzz.

There aren't any skirt-sash combinations, but there's something like a pair of overalls that she can get him to modify, and a shirt that will work well under it. Making the clothing is a multi-step process, with each resulting in a new copy: first he makes large versions of each piece she's interested in, then takes the top off the overalls and adds it to the skirt, then copies the resulting garment and the tunic again to get them in the textures she wants. The original miniatures go back in the box, along with a miniaturized copy of her new skirt-overalls, and he folds the extra enlarged copies up with the remnant of the block of material the copies were made out of.

That works and she will hug her new outfit and bow to him. For that and all the help.

Aw, cute.

Okay, he's got chores to do before bed, he'll see her in the morning.

Phaidra notes and will resume to taking notes. And trying to figure out magic. Which is easier with taking notes and having a roof over her head.

First she figures that it's a good idea to see if she can cast rituals here, so she tries something rather, something that makes a small blue light for a few seconds. If she is lucky, that will get done well before she will need to go to bed.

She's not interrupted, this time, and her ritual works perfectly.

She gives a tiny jump of victory, which causes it to wink out. But she managed it. Now it's time to work on some very simplified translation magic-

Yawn.

Tomorrow, she can do that tomorrow.

Her tent muffles the noises around her a bit, but not enough to make up for the fact that her host has a rooster. She can hear him moving around outside shortly after the crowing starts.

She peeks outside to take a look at him. Do roosters here talk too?

The rooster is perched on a stand in the chicken enclosure; he doesn't seem to notice her.

Her host, on the other hand, does; he'll have breakfast for her soon.

Phaidra smiles and waves. "Thank you."

She goes back to her work. By this point she needs to "wipe" the sheets quite often and erasing previous work, but they are still useful. She is trying to figure out how to produce a ritual that will let a single-word to be understood when spoken or written. At the moment, she is trying to decide which way of working is more efficient.

Her host does his morning chores, and makes eggs and porridge and fruit salad for breakfast, and comes to her tent to drop her portion off again.

He should get started on building her a house, today, if she's coming with him - he's not sure yet about letting her actually join his household but she can come along as far as the next settlement at least, and he should have a better idea by then, if she's interested - and the building will go faster if she can bring in materials for him, how does she feel about doing that?

Smile. She feels good about it! She will want to go fetch her clothes, from her camping site, but it's good to meaningfully contribute. And she understands that not everyone will adopt a random Giant off the road.

Good! He'll need to see her floor plan, too.

Phaidra kept it, it takes a minute to find between the rest of her notes (complex strange symbols that the mysterious person did for some reason). But here it is.

He politely doesn't comment on her weird writing system, but looks over the layout - it looks generally good, he's not sure what she's planning on using all that countertop for when she can't craft but it's not his business. Does she want someplace for her dog? Does she want her bed enclosed so he can craft the usual amenities into it or does she prefer an open one?

She is open to all these changes. That countertop space is for writing magical diagrams, but she doesn't try to communicate that concept. Yet, growth mindset.

Cool, he'll get started, then. He's not picky about what he takes for crafting feedstock, she can bring him whatever she likes.

Phaidra looks at him confused. "What?"

...

...

...

what?

Uh. Does she... somehow not know how crafting works at all. That's not something he thought could happen. Especially since she seems to have had some pretty significant fleshcrafting done? So she has to have been around crafters at some point? And followed crafting-related instructions to facilitate that?

Um. Okay, does she somehow not know how crafting works.

Head-shake. And an exaggeratedly confused expression.

...okay. (Holy shit.) Does she know why she doesn't know?

Smile. "I do!" Phaidra considers miming the concept of 'close' and 'far' but then remembers the sheets.

She takes one without any important notes and wipes it. Draws some simple humanoid figures to get the concepts. "Close. Far." Then she points at herself. "Giant far. You close." Does that help.

...he'd already put together that she's not really from around here, but he knows other places have crafters, that wouldn't do it. Even if other places have... some weird kind of thing where they don't raise their kids? or something? a kid like that would still pick up simple crafting, babies pick up simple crafting.

...he should probably let her explain more before he tries again to guess. Possibly also he should make more tablets for her, this could get complicated. And teach her the local writing system, in the long run. He'll do the tablets now though.

He goes back into his house and comes out with a mini tablet, a block of crafting material, and a chunk of log; he sets the log by his seat and makes her a couple more writing tablets.

"Giant far far far far." She tries to explain, but then lets him do the work.

Yes, she should have tried figured out if they had writing. Her fault really. She is now drawing a large eight-sided polygon and populating it with the simple versions of the species of her world: Giants, Sea serpents, dragons, humans, phoenixes, and so on. Labelling that with "Actana" in her writing system.

Then she will proceed trying to illustrate the situation with a humanoid figure putting a hand through a portal (represented as a simple door frame, though most portals are not shaped like that). The hand comes out of another portal draw further away in the page.

..............

Okay, if he's getting this right she's from so far away that there aren't crafters? And maybe something else instead, since he's pretty sure crafting doesn't do teleportation no matter how good at it you are?

"Yes!" She claps happily.

Okay.

(He's pretty shaken.)

Well, she's still going to need a house and it's still going to be several days' work, he can think about all of this while he's crafting. Literally any matter will do as feedstock - the first step is to craft it into crafting-material, which comes in different types and can be modified from there, he has a good amount on hand but not enough to make an entire house.

Aww. "Sorry."

She can help collect matter then. If there is a preference for a specific kind of matter, she can search for that. Or just use her larger size to carry more stuff.

He doesn't specify; he does seem to prefer larger things over smaller ones, though, as she brings various options.

Crafting seems to be pretty engrossing; he's not doing anything very interesting to watch, but he doesn't take breaks or even particularly acknowledge her when she drops things off. He does break for lunch, eventually; when she gets to camp she finds him in the chicken coop making the plants grow berries while the chickens mill enthusiastically around his feet to eat them.

Phaidra takes the opportunity to take a look at her former camp site and recover her clothing. And she doesn't interrupt him, though she is curious about the local magic.

He sees her looking when he turns to leave, and shows her on a bush on the edge of one of his gardens how he can make fruit grow at a touch. There's a crafting-material fertilizer that he has to feed his plants to allow for that, he explains; it works on unfertilized plants too, but they can't grow much without dying, since crafting can't make something out of nothing.

Interesting. Not that different from how Faen and spirits work on plants. She points at his ears with an inquiring face.

Yep! It's more complicated, growing something on a living thing that it wouldn't naturally have at all, but the same general sort of technique.

She nods. How to ask more things she wants to ask. Instead, she decides to demonstrate how she can clean herself by just making her dirty hands become clean with a slight puff of salty smelling vapor.

Huh, handy. They can sterilize things with magic, a few ways, but not clean them like that.

Smile. "Interesting," then she remembers that he mentioned writing. She gets her own notes to show him to remind of him of that, in case he forgot.

He's puzzled by this, but a little miming gets the idea across. He's hoping that the people who live around here will be willing to let him copy some kids' primers to teach her with; he can try to teach her without anything like that but he doesn't expect to be good at it.

Makes sense. In that case, after lunch she will get back to collecting feedstock, or working on her own magic. With a writing system, it's less of an emergency, but no harm in trying to figure it out.

He'll take as much feedstock as she'll bring him, today, but if she goes off to do her own thing, that's fine too.

Phaidra isn't sure how much is enough, but eventually she guesses there is enough for today and that she wants to write down some ideas that she had throughout the day. She goes inside and starts note-taking, figuring out how to flow the energy from here, to that then to do that other thing. Magic theory can take up a lot of your time.

The dog, which turned back up while she was working, follows her into her tent and flops companionably on the floor while she works.

Late in the afternoon, she looks up and barks briefly at something outside.

Good dog. Phaidra pats absently.

She looks out to see what it is barking at.

There's another person out there, a middle-aged woman with no modifications from the normal human baseline. She's hanging out nervously where the trail leaves the forest, and Phaidra's host has gotten up from his work and is walking over to her.

Oh, okay. Phaidra finishes the paragraph in her note and goes out. After a pause, she decides not to approach, but stay visible with her hands behind her back.

The woman is nervous of her, even at a distance, and her host quickly notices and glances over at her - does she want to come introduce herself?

Phaidra does, she will at least try to look small and nonthreatening? Or at least as much as she can.

She still doesn't like this very much, and gives their host a skeptical look as Phaidra approaches, but doesn't object further and does seem a little less wary after a moment.

She's come at his request to see what they need and tell him who to talk to; he wants to trade in general, and is interested in any crafting-material they can spare and childrens' books and tools, to get his new companion set up to travel with him; he has the usual traveler's variety of models and seeds, in exchange, and can do fleshcrafting for them if they have any use for that. He doesn't think he'll be staying long enough for it to make sense for them to make him a network connection, but if they have one spare he does have a machine for it, too. She says they do have a spare, and she expects his friend not to be very welcome - they've all heard she was setting fires, did he know she was setting fires? - but he can bring his things down to the main meeting-space tomorrow and people will come by.

He'd heard about the fires but he's pretty sure that's just because she couldn't craft and needed the warmth, she's been fine for him, but if they'd rather do it that way, that's fine, he'll be there.

He turns to ask Phaidra if there's anything else she'll want over the next couple weeks to months that she hasn't seen from him yet.

Phaidra shrugs. "Not really. And sorry about the fires, even if you don't understand the apology," she tells the old woman.

The woman startles, and the man hastily explains that she's been doing that and it seems to be harmless. She's still not happy, though, and takes her leave back into the woods.

He thinks that could have gone better, but whatever, some people just aren't very friendly. They'll be moving on before too long, she can make a better impression in the next place.

Aww, okay. Hopefully, she will escape her reputation as a pyromaniac.

Her host gets back to work; the base of her new house is coming together nicely.

He brings her dinner, and breakfast in the morning, and asks if there's anything she needs before he leaves to trade with the locals.

She smiles and is very thankful. Through miming, she tries to express that she needs more notation sheets.

Sure, he can do that before he goes - how many does she want?

Lots... at least enough to cover her table.

He might or might not have come inside and seen that she has started scribbling on the table.

He has not, in fact, gone into the tent at any point since finishing it, fairly scrupulously so in fact.

He can make her a whole bunch of tablets, no problem, and a box or something to put them in. Does the form factor work for her? He can make bigger or smaller ones no problem - it might make sense to make a section of the wall of her house out of tablet-material, later, does she want that?

The current size is fine for her needs, and she smiles agreeably at the idea of a wall tablet.

All right!

He drops two boxes of tablets off on her doorstep twenty minutes later and heads out, with two of his dogs harnessed to lead the chicken and cavy houses up the path behind him.

Phaidra bows and smiles and gets back on working. She thinks she is nearing a breakthrough.

She has most of the day to work on it; it's late afternoon by the time he gets back, and he immediately apologizes for forgetting to leave her lunch and goes to make some.

Phaidra waves her in and is very energetically happy and wants his attention with something before he goes make lunch.

...yes?

Phaidra slowly turns the tablet, so he can see what is written in it. There are many symbols, but very notable, right in the middle there are a few letters that glow faintly. The symbols are not recognizable, but... when together...

Translation

...Their meaning is obvious.

Oh, cool!

He wonders, vaguely, if that's what she's been working on all this time, but clarifies that of course it's none of his business. If there's anything he can do to make it easier for her that would be good to know, though.

Head-shake. Then smile. "Not really. I am working on my own to figure out words for 'speech' and maybe 'do not interrupt'." She says, more to herself than for his benefit.

...okay!

He goes to make her lunch; he gets a little fancier with it than the last few meals.

And then she gets back to working on 'speech'. Which she thinks it's easy to spin from translation, but there might be a problem since they don't have the concept of using one's voice for communication, which is the thing she needs to get across.

Next time she takes a break, he's sitting outside working on converting things to crafting-material again; when he notices her he takes a break himself to show her the books he brought her - there's about a dozen of them, with illustrations suggesting they're meant for small children.

That's okay. Given the givens, she wasn't expecting them to have how to teach adults. Is her friend going to teach her or is she supposed to self-teach?

He's not actually sure the best way to teach an adult to read, not having done it before, but he thinks it'd make sense for him to read the books to her, and she can take notes on what the glyphs mean and ask him questions and take it from there, does that sound good?

It does. She will write down the translations for various glyphs on a tablet and the rules of how their writing works on another tablet.

The stories are cute and simple, each taking only a few minutes to read; the set is a series, about a curious young crow who investigates the lives of the people and animals around him, in one book following a crafter as they do their household chores, in another trailing a herd of deer for a day, and so on, always returning home to his flock at night to tell his older flockmates about the strange things he's seen and how glad he is to be a crow.

Her host explains that the text of these books is a bit simplified, to be easy to read: writing for older readers is a bit less linear, with descriptive modifiers rendered as additions or modifications to the words they're applied to rather than their own glyphs like they are here. But it'll be an easy enough transition for her to make, he thinks.

Aww, that is adorable. She makes notes of what glyphs she finds most important. Are there any that mean more abstract things like "question" or "false"?

There are glyphs for those; they're the sort of thing he pointed out as usually being written as modifiers rather than separate glyphs.

Cool. She will write that down, figure out how to write things to the effect "request word", "yes", "no", and "other option". And be generally content with that progress enough to divide her time between that and the translation magic.

He's content, too, to spend most of his time putting her new house together, with occasional breaks to read to her and an eventual second trip into the forest for more books. The building comes together at a reasonable pace, and their shared vocabulary reaches basic functionality even sooner.

She is spending her time refining the magic translation. Not just single word translations, she tries her hand on figuring out a translating charm. She knows how to make a translating charm... using a conservative estimate of ten thousand times more energy than she has available now. Eventually, Phaidra decides it's a long term project and focus on more immediate solutions.

The basic functionality is very useful, and with a combination of that and her own research, she tries to pass on the concept of speaking.

It's not especially surprising; she does make noises much more often when they're communicating than when they're not, and it's not a huge leap to think that someone could encode meaning that way just like they could encode it in text.

This doesn't help him understand her, of course.

She guesses that shouldn't be surprising. Probably it works in the same way how it's much harder to learn merfolk sign language after growing up? Anyway, she kind wants to clarify a few things. Like, how it's a bad idea to interrupt her while she is doing magic.

He, uh, wouldn't do that anyway, probably, it's rude? If she wants to be really sure she can just do it in her tent or her house, he's definitely not going to bother her in there, but - crafters don't?

Phaidra guessed it was the case, but she wanted to be sure. It's dangerous. It's how she got here, and she is lucky to be alive.

Yikes! Well, it's not going to be a problem here, at least.

Which is good. She also wants to address yet another thing.

The vocabulary is good enough to pass the most relevant things, even if not all the details. The bottom line of it is that the world is dying/dangerous/dark the people there are trying to find a place to live. Which is why she was dealing with teleportation magic in the first place.

Is his world a good candidate for that? Is there someone she could talk to about that?

There are people who know more about the world as a whole than he does, who'd be better able to answer her question; he doesn't have a straightforward way to get in touch with any of them but he can work on it. As long as they aren't too disruptive and don't bring the problem here with them he can't imagine anyone minding very much though.

She is trying to figure out how to communicate the concept of "leader". It isn't in the basic vocabulary, and she is not having an easier time deriving from existing words. Eventually, she decides to ask if he knows "empty places". They have a lot of people (tens of tens of tens) that need some time away from danger (tens of tens of days), at very least. Phaidra thinks they can do not disruptive if they are apart? Phaidra was surprised by many things here.

Yeah, there are plenty of places that don't have many people - he doesn't have a map or anything, that's one of the things she'd need to ask someone who knows more about the world. He can probably get an atlas at the next community they stop at, he's trying not to ask the people here for too much while they're still unsettled.

Phaidra wants to apologize (written as 'Phaidra wants them to know she is sad because of fire') but doesn't know how.

Speaking of communities, do people live closer in other places? Does everyone here lives apart?

They'll be fine, they'll just be fine faster if he doesn't poke at them too much.

Crafters have territories, yeah, it's a species thing. That's why she can be sure he won't go into her house; once she's moved in it's hers and not a place he can be without her obvious permission. And settled crafters claim not just their houses but the area around them, the same way - if she sees a territory marker like this, that's what it means, that the land beyond it is claimed.

Huh, okay, so no poking. And respecting the territory markers very strongly.

Actanaians sometimes do that, but not as strongly? Dragons (a kind of Actanian which she draws as a lizard with wings) do that most often, but is not something common. Phaidra thinks most people live with a part of their family, and maybe the entire family claims the territory? And with the world dying, they have to fit a lot of people together, because they don't have other option.

Children live with one or the other parent, usually, or swap around, until they're old enough to live on their own. Adults live together sometimes but it's unusual for someone to choose that without some reason to need to; living in someone else's territory as an adult is stressful. But they won't stop her people from living however they want to, obviously.

Phaidra nods. She is just, telling how things are different back in Actana. In this case it means they need less space, but might be more confused by the locals. Plenty of people like to live alone, but she thinks most people prefer having others around, even as an adult. Shrug. Why is it stressful? Is something to do with the magic?

No, it's - he's going to need a second to figure out how to explain it...

...so crafters, as a species, are just not meant to be in each others' territory, more or less? They have a very strong instinct that that's just not something they should do. It's not something they have to think about or choose, it's just how they work; he's not going to be able to go into her house, once it's done, without either a very explicit indication that she wants him there, or a whole lot of effort to force himself to do it. And even if he did he'd still have a hard time with touching any of her things, or doing anything with them, because it's her space and her things. Being in unclaimed territory is easier - the things there aren't his, and that does mean it takes more effort to interact with them, but it's not basically impossible like it is in someone else's territory. And the only way to not experience that, for a crafter, is to have a territory of your own - having your own house in someone else's territory is livable, just about, but it means your ability to act freely ends at your door, if it even extends that far; most crafters in a situation like that end up having trouble with their territorial instincts even within their houses.

She can't quite get accross the concept of "this is interesting" but gets the concept "she understands" and is glad to know about it. Also, she is thankful that he is helping her so much.

Phaidra thinks her family will eventually find her, but unsure how long that will take. Pause, oh, and it might be surprising? One might show up or she might disappear.

He won't worry too much if she disappears, then. And he'll try not to panic if they show up too close, though, uh, he can't promise anything.

At least he is warned, it would be much worse if more people just appeared all of sudden. She sighs and writes "I want them to be safe."

He's not going to attack them, that's the opposite of the problem he expects to have - he doesn't have a territory claim here, just his houses, but it's still not done to get too close to a traveling crafter's house and might make him freeze up.

Really this whole thing is giving him an increasingly bad feeling... does she have an idea of how close to her they'll appear? Maybe it'll work for them to travel somewhat separately.

Phaidra was trying to say she wanted them to be safe back home, because it's dangerous there.

But to answer his question she expects that they will be able to get pretty close (same room or at least several feet) or very far, far enough that the new visitors might accidentally trespass into other people's territories.

She is okay with them travelling separately. More so now that she can write explanations about the situation.

Oh, if they'll be that close he's not worried. It will be pretty bad if they show up in someone else's territory - it's not impossible they'll be attacked - but he's guessing there's not much she can do about that?

Phaidra ponders for a moment and then writes, how maybe she could write all down on a sign that they could read if they figured out how to scry. But they would want to rescue her sooner rather than later.

He thinks it's worth doing - there's a good chance someone will get hurt, one way or another, if they land in someone's territory. Does she want a different sort of writing board? He can solidify one of the ones she has once she's put the message on it, if they're otherwise fine.

Sounds like a great idea. She can put a "Warning, read this" in her language and hang outside. Increases the chance they will spot the thing if they appear somewhere outside or have to travel to her location.

Do people care about the space above their territory? If they send fliers the rescue team can just fly over without interacting.

If they're high enough that's fine - high enough that it wouldn't make sense to think of them as something someone on the ground might interact with, basically.

Far enough that people can't communicate? That sounds easy enough.

Ideally more than that - far enough that they'd have trouble dropping something on someone on purpose. Different people have different sensitivities to that sort of thing, even just high enough not to communicate will help, but - trespassing on someone's territory can hurt them even if nothing else comes of it, he's not sure she's taking that seriously enough.

Phaidra apologizes, she will try take it more seriously. Far enough as not to be noticed or hard to tell apart from a bird, or to pose as a danger to the people below?

If they're high enough that they can't be told apart from birds that's definitely fine - crafters make balloon vehicles sometimes and spotting one of those overhead isn't usually a big deal, just if it looks like it might be landing somewhere it shouldn't. And if they're low enough to potentially be a danger to people on the ground that's definitely too close. Between those two - like, he'd know it if he saw it but there's not exactly landmarks up there, he can send her 'yea far up' but he doesn't expect that to help much if she's having trouble with the idea.

Phaidra reassures him there ought to be a flier among them that knows "far enough to not matter to people on the ground".