Silver Creek here we stand

Halfway between him and the creek, a stranger calls out. Wymond looks up and the face he sees immediately breaks him out in a cold sweat. An alien and mathematical look -- spotted, strange vectors that run across his cheeks and nose, symmetry as an afterthought. His face is very white and very still as if molded out of paraffin. 

Cursed, he thinks, far beyond saving. When he says Hello, back, what he's really thinking is you are damned, you are damned. An intense pity washes over him. This is only a fraction of martyrdom but it is martyrdom nonetheless. 

No, but I will be. Just as you are not intruding, but you will be.

No threat in his voice. Axiomatic, just as two and two equal four. Inflectionless, reptant. In times of distress he thinks, I am nothing more than an unthinkable idea. A noumena. Not even flesh and blood. The High Elk has blessed me with this and this only.

They are my family. Remember their smell.