Pearl
With the rise of a new moon, a blanket of velvet darkness shrouded the world. Rolling foothills and leaf-bare woodlands surrounding Briar Ridge's town proper were more quiet than usual. Perhaps that cursed kind of magic that lay in Briar Ridge's denser groves thrived by the light of the moon and slept in its absence. 

 She, of anyone, looked a daughter of the moon. Lanky, pale, and fair of hair, her movements were usually fluid with grace. Tonight, however, with no observer save for perhaps the looming specter of hypothermia, she was anything but. Her jaw clenched to fight the incessant chattering of her teeth, her eyes and brows were contorted in something resembling pain. A slimly-fitted black coat hung wide around her naked form, the belt forgotten. 

 "Blasted thing," She whispered, lips numb and nearly refusing to move. Moisture ran down her face, only visible by orange sparks flying each time she tried to strike flint to steel. The rudimentary firestriker was a failsafe, and clearly not one she was all that skilled with. She crouched by a small stone circle with gathered dried wood. It would only stay dry for so long, as water dripped from her trembling arms and hands each time she tried to drop sparks into tinder. 

 Though there was some advance preparation and even a little knowledge that went into building this place for a fire, something had gone awry. These were the actions of a person that had reached a point of desperation. Her mind moved sluggish, trying to count down the stretch of minutes it took from her home to reach this spot. Thirty five. Maybe forty? She'd freeze through before she made it halfway. She came here often enough to dare fate and fulfill obsession, but this had been the first time she'd actually felt danger. Home was too far, and the fire refused to light.

As if taunting her, to go back into its frigid depths and become *Clean* Again, the icy river babbled in its flow a few feet away. Even as her movements seemed to slow against her will, the water continued. Crumpled cardboard of a wet box of matches nearby maybe gave a hint as to maybe how she'd found herself in this situation. However, the pale wet hair dripping over one shoulder and the white linen undergarments completely wet through and draped across a nearby rock only spoke to some sort of madness.

 She wept. Just a little. Tears stinging her eyes against the cold. There was a frantic sort of sniffing and huffing, trying to keep all that emotion and moisture contained. Her fingers were beginning to disobey her, dropping the flint once, twice, thrice. Maybe someone older and wiser may have taken a scarce few precious seconds to collect themselves and ball their fists in hope of suffusing warmth back to their fingertips. But she was neither. Trembling fingers picked up the flint and tried again, rapping out a metallic sound against the steel.
Isaac
The hunt had taken longer today than Algernon would have liked, though he at least had two fat hares a-hangin' from his belt by the time night truly fell upon him. A small victory for which he was truly grateful - though the paths and woods were thick with the threat of those beasts that weren't quite deer, his traps still held strong enough to ensure there was meat here and there, and the greyish hides of today's catches would perhaps make a good pair of gloves to replace the worn ones that he'd forced to last through the last two winters. 
The moon was new and didn't hold much in the way of light, but he knew his way well enough, and he was soon back upon the beaten track that bypassed the creek, plannin' on returnin' to the jailhouse and seein' if Rafael was still around so late and might want to share a talk and a cigarette before turnin' in. 
That plan, it seemed, might be somewhat delayed, for he came across a figure in the clearin', and stopped dead in his tracks, a hand movin' automatically to his gun.

But then he blinked, and realised this were no threat to him, at least not in the moment. Not a monster, nor a man. A woman. What a woman would be doin' out in the woods at this time a' night was anybody's guess, especially seein' as how she didn't seem to be makin' her way home like any sane one would've when the light grew dim. Instead, she was crouched over a rudimentary campfire - or what would've been a campfire if the flint and steel in her hands didn't keep fallin' victim to the water drippin' from her hands and her shiny blonde hair. 
He watched her for a minute or two, as though watchin' a wild thing through the scope, awaitin' his moment to pull the trigger. But pounce or shoot he did not. No bullet would whistle through the air, nor would the door of a trap swing closed upon the stranger in his midst.

She was cryin'.

And Algernon would be the first to admit he didn't know shit about womenfolk, havin' been raised around precious few and knowin' even less of 'em as he made his way through adulthood. But he had a little chivalry about him from his days back in the army, when the boys had had it drilled into 'em to be good to the rare lady they came across, be she nurse, clerk or otherwise. You weren't supposed to stand by and watch when the fairer sex were brought to tears. 

"Evenin', ma'am." 

It was a start, at least.

"You'll have ta' excuse me for comin' upon ya like this in the darkness. I ain't meanin' no harm." He was aware he cut an intimidating figure, big as he was and loomin' up on the woman outta nowhere. "Was just headin' back into town and couldn't help but be noticin' you might be havin' some trouble with that there fire." He gestured towards her pile of sticks and rocks - callin' it a fire right now might've been a stretch, but he wasn't about to slander her efforts outright. "I can give you a hand if you're needin' one."
 
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Pearl
Throwing the flint and steel down, she scrambled for the matches once again. Her hands were shaking so hard now that the box sounded like a maraca. She flexed one fist hard, fingernails biting into the heel of her palm, and then gave it a frustrated shake. As if this might suffuse that precious warmth of flowing blood back into the fingertips. 

The matches rattling all around, she was putting so much concentration into pushing the box open, he could have watched her straight up until the moment she laid down and grew far too still. She would not have noticed him. For all her tributes, prayers, and rituals in the woods, for all her beliefs that she was attuned to shadows, they leaned in close to her, but remained silent. 

No forewarning, no whispered comfort. Only his voice out of the darkness that brought a stifled little yelp. She was too cold for the startle to follow through into any more motion than a lurch of her shoulders. Head snapping up, her eyes widened on him, unable to make out much of the details. Her own strange beliefs and experiences led her to find reliable comfort in massive masculine silhouettes in the shadows. He wouldn't understand the way she felt relief upon seeing him, but it was liable to come across in the way she seemed naive. Too trusting all at once.

"Oh yes, please," The words fell out of her mouth in a rush, her voice having gone smaller than she expected. Clearing her throat around her lower jaw refusing to stay still, she tried again. "I would be ever... So grateful... For your assistance." This time, the words came haltingly. Even chattering, there was a crispness to her speech, some of that New York infatuation with British poshness that infused the Transatlantic. It seemed remarkably out of place in these cursed woodlands surrounding nothing but a holler.

She sat back on her heels, giving the fire embankment just a little berth. Her hands fumbled with the buttons trying to close her coat, but it was an impossible task. She settled for the belt instead, grateful for the concealing darkness. 

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Isaac
Her voice sounded mighty funny, like somethin' Algernon hadn't come across for many a year, not since wartimes when he'd mixed with all kinds of people from all the walks of life you could imagine. Fancy and affected with a mighty kinda air, but who was he to judge the lady when all he knew of her was her tone and her apparent inability to do somethin' so simple as light a fire? But she was a young thing, he realised as he got closer to her now he had her permission, and perhaps could be given a pass, though he held his own reservations about anyone found out in the wilderness lackin' in the most basic skills for survival.

He dropped down to the dirt beside her stick-pile (not a fire, he decided, it weren't built half well enough to bear that name), and reached for the matchbox she'd discarded, only for her problem to become immediately apparent as his fingers touched sodden cardboard. "Ma'am, respectfully, you ain't gettin' no spark outta these when the striker's soaked through like that. You'd be best off in future makin' sure your hands and hair are dry when you pick 'em up." It was like talking to a child, he thought, not that he had any real experience with those. "Lucky for you, I got a set of my own just here." His hunting pack was dropped from his shoulder and a moment of riflin' through it brought forth what he was lookin' for. After taking a moment to disassemble and put back together her wood in a manner better for burnin', with the driest leaves stripped from the branches and placed atop for tinder, he struck a match in one try and held it to the structure until it caught. A moment of breathin' over it to spread the flame, and he sat back in triumph as the cracklin' began. 

He beckoned her forth, frankly worried for the possibility of how close she might be to freezin' to death. "There. Should do you well for the night," He declared. "Give it a minute and you'll forget you were ever cold at all."

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Pearl
The girl's mind felt blurry, like a camera lens with a smear of petroleum jelly, softening all the edges for a prettier picture. There was a great temptation in all of her bones to lie herself down in the snow there. Her parents had frozen to death. Soaked right through, bobbing in the Atlantic rimed in ice, under a dark sky full of stars, with a thousand wailing people around them. She reasoned she could hear them, if she breathed soft enough.

There was something like a buzzing gnat. Was that... Was he being condescending towards her? *He*. Her mind remembered where she was, that she was not alone, and she snapped away, ripping herself from the way it lulled her. 

"Obviously I would have..." Her thought went unfinished, trailing off on a chatter of her teeth. 

The strike of the match bought clarity back to the world, if only for a few moments. She listened and watched him blowing on the tinder, babying the flame, as if she were a thousand miles away from this scene, watching it on a silver screen.

Even as the flames grew larger, casting light on them both, she couldn't quite decide what was real and what was not. As if that had ever mattered much to her. Leaning towards the fire, her head swiveled, wide eyes beholding him like some kind of curiosity. She blinked slow. Was he real or some spirit of the forest? She had never seen a man like him. Not up close, living,
Breathing, outside of the grainy black and white ink of a photograph. What had it been? That book on American history. Some men that had forged a path west. Her lids half-closed for a long moment while she lived and breathed back in the classroom of her younger years. And then they opened again.

Dreamlike, she was slow in leaning forward on her knees and reaching out to touch him. His face, specifically. Her fingertips were small pinpricks of ice against the tip of his nose, the bridge of his cheeks. "Curious," She murmured to herself.

She lowered her hand, and the other made an appearance beside it, both extended towards him. By the light of a growing fire, her fingers were blue-tinged and very pale against the black cuffs of her coat. "Please." Her eyes drifted off into the woodlands around them, as if she were listening for a few moments, and then snapped back to attention. She found his face with her gaze. "Please, hold my hands. They are so cold." 

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Isaac
The cold had gotten to her head, that was the only way of explainin' it. Algernon had never known a woman - nay, had never known *Anyone* - to approach him like this, to throw caution to the very wind that chilled her to her bones and not only come so close, but touch him like he were a statue, or a creature mounted to a wall. He wondered if his eyes, in the light of the flames, were glintin' like the glass eyes put into that grizzly he'd shot back just outside of Charleston in '22, the one which had had its head pinned above the desk of the governor himself and netted Algernon a hefty price for it in the process. Her delicate hands felt as piercin' on his skin as the frost had when the January blizzard hit. He withdrew slightly, not wantin' to be touched no more. 

"You ain't gonna get no more warmth from me than you will from your fire, Miss," He told her, but this time his words didn't hold quite the contempt they had before. "You use 'em for what they're meant for. Sure I'll only get you dirty anyhow."

He held out his hands to show her - almost twice the size of her own, more like paws thick with old blood and soil than the way a good man's touch oughta be. He'd have been almost ashamed to tarnish her with 'em, considerin' how she'd clearly been bathin' afore the night fell and all he could see of her was milk-white and well cared for. It wouldn't do to put his touch upon a young thing. Wouldn't be proper, for all her askin' for it. 

"I'm only stayin' til I can be sure you ain't about to freeze to your death, besides. Once you're gettin' your strength back good I'll be gone from your pretty hair. Got places to be of my own, respectfully, see. But you'll be alright, we'll make sure of it. Say, why don't you tell me what a young girl like you's doin' out in the woods on a cold night all alone? And don't go tellin' me you ain't got no place to go to. Your coat ain't made around here and the ladies o' the holler don't talk quite like you do. You're a stranger to these parts... I was a stranger here too, 'bout six weeks back."

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Pearl
"Dirty," She echoed, like it was a foreign concept. At least her lips were thawing out enough to move. Her eyes swam out over the truth presented to her. Even by dim light of the fire and darkness of a full moon, his hands did look both massive and unwashed. Her eyelids slid down over those big eyes, and sat there half a second before opening again. And then they sped up into a rapid blink like butterfly's wings. 

"Oh, so they are, aren't they?" This was murmured to herself on a breath, as if she were commenting in passing on some new shoes she'd seen in a shop window. And yet, she couldn't help herself in touching one of those large paws, with just the tip of her index finger. Her fingers were long and thin like her limbs. She tested the thickness of the skin with the lightest prod, and wiped a small streak of the grime away with the moisture of her fingertip. A hint of unsullied flesh lay beneath, the color examined.

Rapt as her attention was on his singular hand for a few long moments, like a fixated child, it broke off abruptly. She turned back to face the fire, both hands extended towards it. 

He was saying an awful lot of words. Some of them seemed slow, and some went by so fast she barely caught their meaning. As her blood flow proceeded from a crawl to sluggish, she realized that it was her own perception and not his way of speaking.

"I come here to make myself clean. Every night." Scooching closer to the fire, she was liable to burn her toes if she moved one centimeter more. "And to pray." Her eyes slid to the side, considering him. It was clear she was coming to her senses and regaining some composure with it.

"You're right about my coat. You're very observant for a..." Pausing to lick her lips, she blinked at him, as if he might supply the answer. "Mountain man? Is that what you call yourself?" While she spoke, her gaze traced the silhouette of the furs around his shoulders. "Where is it a man like you would have to be at th–" Her eyes landed on the dead rabbits splaying onto the ground from his belt. Her instinct was to touch those too, but she stopped herself. "May I?" She asked, extending her hand for one of the hares.

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Isaac
*Odd* Was about the only word he could come up with to describe such mannerisms as the girl here was exhibitin'. Algernon was sure he'd never seen anythin' even close to 'em before. She was like some strange creature of another world entirely - the word *Changeling* Came to mind from a fairy-story told to him long ago, back when he was still small enough to sit upon his momma's knee and listen to those kinds of things. Babies stolen after birth and traded with the children of the fair-folk and left to survivin' without knowin' what they truly were. But fairies weren't real - though if they were he was almost sure it'd be Briar Ridge that kept 'em within its woods and walls. Damned holler. 

The water on her hands was still cold when she touched him, and it took away with it some of the filth from the back of his hand, leaving it not clean by any stroke of the imagination, but cleaner'n before. How she could stand to bathe nightly in the icy waters of the creek was a question far beyond him. How she'd gotten through Lord-knew how many nights of it with the apparent inability to light her own fires only puzzled him further.

A low laugh rumbled outta him unexpectedly when there she went again with her funny words. A *Mountain man*.

He rather liked the descriptor, unusual as it were. If there were to be a man of the mountains and ridges, of the brush and briar, that man would be Algernon Granville before any other for miles around. "You got a good ol' grasp on speakin', Miss. Strange way'a puttin' some things, mind, but I ain't about to say you're all wrong. Can call me a mountain man if you're inclined that way, but I find 'hunter' and 'trapper' work jus' about as well with folks round here. I go from place to place where the animals is and I catch 'em or shoot 'em. Whether they're botherin' the towns or just mindin' their own business, I gotta do what I can for survival. The meat's good, see, and in the right places I can bargain a good price for that an' the furs and the like, people often find themselves in need'a those, 'specially come winter, if they don't got the means to go out for their own." 

She was taking a distinct interest on the hares at his belt, and when she reached out and asked permission to touch one, he didn't waste no time in untyin' the limp thing from where it hung, , layin' it out in his lap for her to see, and indeed to feel should she still want to when she'd gotten in a good look at it.
"Set myself a trap for these two nights ago," He explained. "Found both of 'em in it together when I came to checkin' it before sundown. They'll make somethin' good and warm to wear and a hearty meal atop'a that once I've seen to dressin' 'em nice. Lovely fat specimens, the pair. Though I'm sure you'd've enjoyed their company a damned sight more if they'd been alive for you to meet 'em." 

The hare's grey coat was wet with its blood - it'd wash out, course, but he still half-expected the girl to recoil when she noticed it.
Pearl
He didn't explore uncharted lands, skillfully drawing maps. Nor did he lead lost settlers along unbeaten paths. Not like those mountain men of a handful of decades ago. They were indispensable pushing forward the western frontier. She supposed that made sense, the western frontier having been fully established now. What might he lead a settler to? The general store? A little disappointment showed in the twitch at the corner of her mouth, like a child that had been told mermaids weren't real. 

But he did move around, making a living off the land. And he also rid towns of burdensome beasts. She'd heard tale of wolves snatching sheep and worse, bears carrying away children. The more she thought about it, she supposed this was fascinating in its own right, the satisfaction faintly visible on her face as he explained this lifestyle that was so foreign to her. The fact that he was not boastful was something she especially appreciated, her very limited experience with men having dealt with more than its fair share of braggadocio. 

She turned on him a curious expression, first to his face, and then the hare he'd laid out. "I'm sure I would have." Enjoyed their company, that was. Leaning forward, her fingertip stroked the ridge of softest downy fur where the ear met the skull. There were bits of the sweet creature not covered in blood, and she was careful to touch those parts, leaning forward even more. Her eyes traced the slope of its skull, the tiny eyelashes peeking out from beneath closed eyes, the stiff whiskers like translucent filaments by firelight.

And just as quickly, caution was thrown to the wind. She plucked the hare up with both hands. There seemed to be a great desire in her to test out the weight and size of the animal's carcass, from the way she handled it. "Did you kill them? Or did the trap do that? Do you break their necks?" Holding the hare with one hand, the other tested the flexibility of its head, trying to determine the answer herself. Her free hand then set to running down the length of the hare's front legs. "They're quite leggy compared to the rabbits one might keep as a pet, aren't they?" 

"Thank you." With the utmost care, the hare was laid back across his lap. Dim of night concealed much of the crimson color now streaked against her hands, leaving it simply glossy dark against fair skin. Rotating her hands, she observed them almost as curiously as she had the hare, then looking back at his hands. It was clear she was considering him and his lifestyle in great detail. She supposed, with time, and enough layers of blood and whatever else, her own hands would eventually turn a soiled shade like his own. 

"My grandfather used to take me hunting with him sometimes. Mostly an excuse to gallop full-tilt. He let me fire his rifles, but..." A shrug and she turned to extend her hands back to the fire. "His dogs did most of the killing. Do you miss? Often? With your rifle. Or do you..." She puzzled, looking around the woods on half a sigh. When she'd first started venturing out this way, she had been surprised to find several foothold traps as the woodland became more dense. Fortunately for her, she had learned long ago to be careful in the woods. Especially foreign ones. "Do you just leave traps everywhere?"
Isaac
Every move the woman made had Algernon more cemented in his thinkin' of her as a queer one. But he also found himself warmin' to her oddities, in ways he couldn't quite understand. Perhaps it were that he, too, had had his fair share of interactions that might've been considered unusual to those on the receivin' end of his actions and words. He'd spent so long on his own that he still had his moments of misunderstandin', of bein' altogether unaware of what the customs were from place to place. Even since settin' foot in Briar Ridge he was sure he'd put his foot in it more times than he could count, whether that be in conversation with the sheriff or even, on the very first day he'd arrived, that boar he'd killed havin' bloodied up the whole town square. 

He watched the way she held the hare, turnin' it to and fro in a way that would've been dizzyin' for the creature if it weren't already long dead. 

"Sure, I killed 'em," He confirmed when she asked. "Some people prefer to buy 'em live in the big cities, so the traps don't do more'n break their legs sometimes when they go snappin' shut. 'Round here, though, havin' the meat and fur's enough for most, and if I can carry 'em on my belt like I have here, leaves my hands free to work, or shoot somethin' else along the way. I slit their throats, see." He flipped the hare onto its back in his lap, so she could see the neat cut across the jugular. "They're flighty things. The shock kills 'em jus' by bein' picked up more often than not, and their souls're onto better places before they can feel too much pain. Or at least, that's what an old man told me once long ago, an' I choose to believe it."

While he was no church-going gentleman, he rather enjoyed the thought of a place in the clouds where the little things could frolic without their bloodied coats. 

"I don't like wastin' a bullet on somethin' little like these. Save those for the hogs and the deer. When it comes to those, I ain't the kinda man to miss." There was a confident air to those words. He knew he was a good shot, and while he'd little need to ration his bullets now the sheriff had given him access to the town's ammunition supply, he took pride in knowin' he didn't need to waste none. Each shot still had to count for somethin'. "If you miss, the target's much more likely to get away from ya, see. Makes a hell of a noise to fire, 'specially in quiet woods like these, and I ain't fast enough to catch if I can't at least wound 'em from the start." When he was a younger man, he'd tracked and chased all kinds of creatures through thick briar and dense forest, but comin' on in his years made it harder to move his bulk at a runnin' pace. He preferred to lay low and wait for the moment to come to him. "Ain't never found a horse that could hold me, so there's no gallopin' to be done neither. The traps work well so long as nobody goes foolin' around with 'em."

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Pearl
Of all things this mountain man was talking about, it was that these creatures had souls. Her head canted to the side, not a bit of her teeth were showing but she grinned wide, lips stretched across her face. One long, dainty finger ghosted over the slit across its throat. What a peculiarity that he made some small livelihood off the bodies of these little beasts, and still had such a soft hope to wish them into an afterlife. 

"Oh there is a horse to hold you," She chuckled soft-like to herself, "Though I imagine the poor beasty wouldn't be so sure what to do in this sort of..." Glancing around them both, the thought went unfinished, a shrug taking its place. 

"What else do you eat?" She'd already sized him up. Another thorough once over with her gaze was not needed. He was massive. "Surely you can't live off the land alone? These little elegant things haven't a bit of fat on them. Have you heard of *Mal de caribou*? I'll bet you haven't." 

"A Danish explorer recently reported his findings after spent a great lot of time with the Inuit people. They subsist almost entirely off meat and fish. But those that could only eat lean caribou died before long, despite having their fill. Isn't that the most curious thing? I've often considered taking up the diet myself but..." Large teeth poked out from behind small lips in a sheepish grin. "I'm terribly ignorant of how to fish."

"I suppose you rely entirely on the whims of what mother nature brings you? There's something poetic in that." Maybe it was the sudden warming blood flow to her brain that kept her rambling along. Leaning closer to the fire, she almost folded herself over entirely, hands grasping her ankles. The cuffs of her coat were still wet. 

And then the idea seemed to strike her all at once, her eyes sliding over to glance at him and his catch. "Can you show me how you do it? How you... Take them apart?"

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