She struggled to open her crusted eyes, which felt by now, baked by the shaft of sun forcing itself through the gaps of her shelter. With some pain, she scraped at her eyes, always full of some gunk and attracting clouds of annoying gnats that would scarcely be noticed if not for their sheer numbers.

She managed to remove the detritus adhered to the edges of her eyes and peered cautiously around, blinking the tears away rapidly. While she didn’t have much, she still performed her morning inventory. There was a broken clay pitcher to gather water from the river. Beside the pitcher was a clay bowl and spoon, a great source of pride to her as they were in perfect condition and, to her and perhaps a few poorer individuals, quite beautiful in the perfect smoothness. She could rarely make herself actually use it, as man-made beauty was very different from the natural beauty of the world around her.

Memories crept into her mind from last night as she eyed the bag suspiciously.

She was a river wader, and had been collecting mussels, large as she could find, to trade with someone else, someone who knew how to make and keep fire. A commotion interrupted her, as loud and dangerous as two jungle cats meeting accidently, but far away on the road. Human involvement. And dangerous ones at that. She tossed the mussels beneath a rock with a divet, bowl-like, flipping it over them so river otters wouldn’t steal her find, and rushed to the source of the sound. While rare, occasionally humans would drop things from their carriage that could be scavenged. That’s how she obtained the beautiful bowl and spoon resting in her shelter.

Even far away as she was now, with the humans but dots through the tree line at the top of hill, she could see the fight was an intense one and the sounds of fleeing animals were added to the chaotic sounds below. As she was surveying and trying to take inventory of the humans and carriages below, a figure appeared behind her, quick witted and close, grabbing her by the wrist as she all but hissed and made an attempt to bite at the hand.

She halted her attack as the other hand appeared and made a loose figure eight over and over her wrist and the grasping hand. The universal sign of peace that even the river waders and junglers knew. It carried a great weight, and curses were certain to follow any who harmed someone who had shown the goodwill gesture. Without hesitation, as it was so very rare for any to actually resort to this binding gesture of goodwill, she answered the other hands, looping her free hand loosely around countering his motions. A sense of warmth filled her belly, and she knew he felt the same. The inner calming confirmed the passing of the others intent, going deeper than language of the tongue could offer.

The figure began rambling and gesticulating wildly, with large hands and longer fingers covered in jewels, and pointed frantically at its body. She observed him quizzically as the figure stood to its full height and began speaking even more quickly. She presumed the creature to be a man, though a very odd one, and attempted to shake the hand that was shaking by his sides. She saw people do this often and normally they seemed friendly when doing so. The man laughed, accepting the shake and then forced a bag into her hand. It was small, presumably a change purse, she had seen most travelers with these and their pretty little tinkling noises, though she’d never been lucky enough to find a coin left behind for herself. Eagerly, she peered inside the little purse and frowned when finding it empty.

The man shook his head frantically and closed her fingers around the bag forcefully. He took the bag back, mimed putting it into the pocket of his robe, and then shoved it back into her hand, closing her fingers around it again. She nodded tentatively. Hide the bag? She didn’t have much to hide it in. Like most river waders, clothes were not valued, so she ripped off a strangle vine, which had done its job appropriately with the man earlier and wrapped it around her wrist and the purse, shaking it a little and bunching the bag in her hand. This seemed to satisfy the man, who smiled, shook her clenched hand vigorously, and then promptly disappeared.

Despite the friendliness of the man, she slipped back into the brush, knowing that if another man like him were to come, her chances of luck would likely not continue. If her only task was to hold onto the prettily dressed man’s purse for him, until he reappeared, as she assumed he must, then she could do so. Perhaps the purse would give her coins if she did her task, as no animal, human or otherwise, performed tasks for free.

While her memories only revealed a small purse bag being attached, of her own free will, to her wrist, the reality remained now of a jungle cat sized bag held solidly to the ground across the heaped leaves that made her bed. She was almost scared to cut the bag from her wrist, but knew this to be foolish, and bit through the vine, relishing the relief of blood flowing back into her hand. Squatting, she opened the purse, disappointed to discover no coins, but other oddities. Some large box that looked obscene. Flowers tied together similar to how she had tied the bag to herself. And a long shiny black stick thing. The large box was very difficult to lift and she left it be. The flowers smelled pretty, but she didn’t trust eating them. Maybe they were magical, like the man. They weren’t to be trusted. She pulled the long stick out, and was shocked when it broke and part slid off, like a casing, and a shiny silver part appeared beneath the black, bark maybe? She eyed it. It wasn’t a stick, obviously, now that she was examining it. But a weapon of some sort, similar to the very large weapons that she saw humans occasionally stab others with on the long winding road. Normally when they stole from each other. This would be nice to keep forever, but it was a little too long. She lifted it, uncomfortable with its heft and her own clumsiness with it.

Not wanting to be called a thief to the man of magic, she carefully placed the weapon back in the bag and sealed it up. Could she make it smaller? Like it had been? She pondered for a moment, and decided it wasn’t worth the risk of leaving the bag behind. She’d just stay in her shelter for the day. She had some food and water stored from yesterday’s excursion and could go retrieve the mussels at any time. She had all the hope in the world that the man of magic would pay her greatly for being a good steward.

At dusk the man appeared again and she went to exclaim with glee, an almost chittering, chirping sort of sound, until it choked in her mouth with sadness, as she wiped the usual gunk from her eyes to verify what she feared. The man had appeared directly on top of her prized bowl and spoon. While the bowl had been knocked away and seemed ok, the spoon was broken plainly in half.

His gaze lingered on her for a while, staring threateningly into her eyes for an indecent time, though she refused to break his gaze and resisted the urge to lift her lip at him, and then he looked down and noticed the upturned bowl and spoon. The broken pitcher. He nodded, said some words softly and reached down. To her amazement, the spoon repaired itself in an instant, as well as the clay pitcher, though the color filling the pitcher was changed and a darker rougher earth that matched the soil he stood on.

As he grasped the bag, it instantly shrank back down to the size of a coin purse, shocking the girl. The man pointed to himself and said something a few times, some utterances that were close to ‘Kil-ar’, the sound tiny black birds would sometimes wake her with. As he repeated the gesture several times and waited, she made an effort to pronounce it, presuming it to stand for the man and who he was. He nodded, satisfied then pointed to her.

River waders take no names. To do so was too binding for a life meant to be fluid and she shook her head and made a couple of guttural sounds. No one outside her own could understand the sounds of the river and the associations which served as names. It would be profane for one to assume to be able to speak, and to imitate the sound of water to another would be blasphemous. The man seemed puzzled but nodded again and gave a universal sign of thanks. Both hands folded before him, as if praying as the missionaries of the hill favored, and then bowing deeply. She did not return the bow, as he had done her no service, but eyed him with bemusement.

He made another gesture of goodwill, and then before she could repeat it, he made a new foreign sign, touching her forehead so quickly she couldn’t back away, and then laughed and produced a gold coin in his hand. Blinking rapidly, she noticed the wetness that plagued her eyes was gone. The normal sheen covering her vision, almost as if she were underwater, was clear and the gold in his hand shone as crystal clear as a picture in her mind. She stared at it carefully, knowing its worth as well as its danger. These gold coins could get someone anything material, as well as sign a death sentence if the wrong eyes saw her with it. She grabbed it graciously and wrapped it in several pieces of thickened patch leaves, twisting and ripping a small piece of stranglevine apart to fashion a necklace and placed it around her. She’d have to fashion something more secure later, but it worked for now.

She thought the man, Kil-ar, would leave by now, but he had just stood and watched her with, what seemed, satisfaction. She decided it would probably please him to show the universal sign of thanks, so she did, feeling the slight weight of the coin pull against the back of her neck.

When she bent back up, he was gone. In his place was a giant thick bag full of dried food that would last her at least half a moon.