Blackfeather Woods your wallet is on a permanent diet

Fonas. Was that a name, an explanation, or a curse? All three?

Fonas, he parroted, assuming the former. Gavrel, he gestured at himself. He chewed on his lip, trying to figure out a sane way to emphasize his question.

He worried at his wrist with his teeth, gingerly gestured at the torn skin on the stranger's back, then cocked his head in exaggerated inquiry.

Who? he mouthed, before realizing it was a pointless pantomime anyway, if the man couldn't give him a real description.

At a more measured glance, he seemed to be as scared of the lightning as Gavrel was. Something like empathy percolated through Gavrel's thick skull, made him shiver. Though tall and undeniably imposing, there was a youthfulness to the way the stranger hunched in on himself, and in the anxiety that permeated his entirety.

Old habits, memories from his past life as an elder brother -- they welled up inside of him like oil under cap rock.