[ The birds that have come close enough, in their little hopping jaunt along the riverbank, finally begin to settle on him once more just as he shrugs a shoulder and disrupts all but the one who flaps its way up into the tangled nest of undergrowth that serves as his hair.
He does pay attention - or did, as it were - to those smart enough to know the proper way to curry favor of his kind. From minding their lost livestock (his last three sets of clothes had come from a struggling young farmer on the far outskirts of her village's territory), to replenishing and maintaining the places where the rarest herbs grow (and the food he distributed to the creatures that would have it, as often as he made the appropriately mannerly gesture of actually consuming it, himself) - he keeps to his private nature, but isn't neglectful of even the lowest request.
A brief, terse silence comes with his recollection, before, cautiously, he admits, ]
I don't know.
[ The lifespans of humans aren't the shortest, but it's still easy enough to miss them in the interim. (A hint, perhaps, at his almost grudging fascination with the one within his presence, now.) The woman she knew had either been too young or too senile to think for certain that she might've recognized him, in the spare few times he had run across her so directly. ]
no subject
He does pay attention - or did, as it were - to those smart enough to know the proper way to curry favor of his kind. From minding their lost livestock (his last three sets of clothes had come from a struggling young farmer on the far outskirts of her village's territory), to replenishing and maintaining the places where the rarest herbs grow (and the food he distributed to the creatures that would have it, as often as he made the appropriately mannerly gesture of actually consuming it, himself) - he keeps to his private nature, but isn't neglectful of even the lowest request.
A brief, terse silence comes with his recollection, before, cautiously, he admits, ]
I don't know.
[ The lifespans of humans aren't the shortest, but it's still easy enough to miss them in the interim. (A hint, perhaps, at his almost grudging fascination with the one within his presence, now.) The woman she knew had either been too young or too senile to think for certain that she might've recognized him, in the spare few times he had run across her so directly. ]
Don't make it a point to introduce myself.