Swiftcurrent Creek out of his heart will flow rivers of living water

The elders had used fables to teach about the evils in the world, and then when he got older they became tales shared between the adults as if they were hard and fast truths; couched in realism, twisted to their purpose, naming people from the tribe's history to make things sound real. Yet it wasn't the forest he was afraid of, nor the shadows. Python had not been thinking about the duality of the universe when he departed the tribe — only of the scorn that they held for him, the derision in their voice when they spoke of his long-dead mother, and he'd needed to escape it. Thus, he arrived on the fringe of an unfamiliar territory (perhaps by accident, perhaps by design), and was soon set upon by one of the guards patrolling nearby. 

The rabbit's burst of activity was tracked with his sickled ears, but as it dimmed there came another sound - someone approaching, then speaking to him. Python could not read the stranger too well. He looked them over with a sweep of his gaze, glanced towards the vanishing path of the startled rabbit, and back again. There was nothing in Python's history that would prepare him for a moment like this; the tribe was secular, insulated, protective. He thought, suddenly, about what Susannah might do if she were found by an outsider in the wilderness like this — what would her training have demanded of her? A smile unfurls on his sharp snout at the recollection of his sister, but before it locked in to place Python pauses and lets it fade.

I don't think anyone can help me, he offers, and then counters the cryptic statement with, unless you know where someone can get a bite to eat — or, I dunno, somewhere safe to sleep. Been on the road for a while now. He wouldn't outright ask for help (especially from any outsider), but he'd play nice... For a while.