There have been so many THINGS HAPPENING that he didn't get particularly splotchy about her previous handling of him, but now he definitely is.  Maybe he can angle the light away from his face, while still illuminating his path, while not doing whatever the girl doesn't want done with this cloak?  Hm, maybe not.

....What on earth is up with his feet.  Whaaaat is haaaappening.  He can just - move them?  Like that???

He's still too nauseated and head-woundy to go fast per se, but his pace is substantially improved.  Weird.

She makes a - warning? - gesture as they approach the sound of other voices, speaking the ?same? language as her. Digs around in her bag and finally rips a hook-shaped thing off the ceiling octopus and uses it to clip the cloak closed, muttering to herself. Beckon beckon.

There are a handful of people, all about the same weird color and ear-shape as her, in the next chamber. His rock is the only source of light, but that doesn't seem to have impeded any of them in the moments before he walked into the room with it, even though they're hanging out sewing and one of them is reading a book. They look up and a couple speak to her; they glance briefly at him and then say more things to her rather than nodding to him or anything. She replies and ushers him along through the cave into the next tunnel section.

Sure, he can go along with this.  Her clipping the cloak shut gives him a more confident guess about what that whole deal is, and he can shuffle slouchily past the gray people without revealing the toes of his sneakers.  (Or tripping!)  And fine, okay, pointy-eared people can see in the dark, that makes about as much sense as everything else.

There are more tunnels and twisty little passages, though they're mostly big enough to stand up all the way in. Some of the twisty little packages have doors set into them, others have curtains. There are stairs, mostly down, though there are also many opportunities to take stairs up which she is ignoring. There are foreign symbols etched on the walls here and there. She pauses occasionally when no one's around to re-do the Noseboop of Foot Obviousness.

He blotchifies a bit every time, but gives up on hiding it.  The risk of failing to hide his apparently sinful-or-something Monty Python T-shirt is apparently too great.

Also, going down instead of up: not thrilling.

Well, if he doesn't comment on it she can't make any reassuring noises.

Eventually she goes through one of the doors. There are some people of her species in there, and some teeny-tiny people, like about waist-high on Beau but proportioned like adults. She has a slightly extended conversation with the women and one of the men about something that may or may not include Beau in its scope. The tiny people don't speak; they're cooking and scrubbing out iron cookware with sand and presumably before Beau and his glowing rock got there they were managing with the faint light from the coals.

Or maybe they can see in the dark, too.  He doesn't quite know what to make of the skin colors on the midgets being pretty normal human ones; he'd figured that the grayness wasn't just a trick of the light but it's still different to see someone who isnt him without it.  Maybe most people here paint themselves.  (...And have pointy ears for some other reason.)

The conversation goes on for a while. At one point it's definitely about Beau. They talk over each other a little. Finally, his rescuer beckons him through this room, down another tunnel, and into a room that doesn't have anyone else in it. There's a hammock hanging from the ceiling with a nightstand sort of situation carved into the nearest wall, and a similar bookshelf on the other side of the room, and a storage trunk, and what might be a chamber pot. It doesn't have a door or a curtain but she takes the cloak back and hangs it up from some hooks that are convenient located.

The conversation is deeply concerning but it doesn't seem like trying to do anything would help.

Oh good, this looks kind of like an endpoint.  If he starts making to lie back down on this bit of cave floor does that get him stopped or sent any scary looks or anything like that.

No, he can sit, and she's also now taking out his other possessions from her bag and putting them near his duffel. Words words words?

He's going to lie all the way down and put his face on the stone, actually.  He feels both too warm and too cold but between the blanket and the cloak, putting a cool thing on his face (or, the reverse) sounds incredibly appealing right now.

"Thanks," he says of his objects.  And adds an "I think," of the conversation.

Encouraging smile! Words? Words words?

...Huh.  Yeah, he can do words.  "My name is Beau."  He taps his chest.  "Beau."  Point.  "You?"

"Belmarniss." Encouraging gesture.

"Hi Belmarniss.  I..... don't know what else to say when we can't understand each other."

She cups her hand over her ear and makes more big encouraging gestures.

Oh boy. "Uh - 'The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious, and, puzzling phenomenon, which, um - doubtless no one has yet forgotten'?"

......what is that about.

"Sorry, I'd be better at picking things to say if I knew why you wanted me to..."

Ear cupping!

"Can you understand me??"

Great big smile! (Look, she doesn't know that nodding is crosscultural.)

"Is that a way concussions can work?  With me being able to say things but not understand them."

Headshake. She picks up the hook she got off the ceiling octopus and makes it light up too.

"Okay."  He sits up.

"Um, my full name is Beau Swan; I'm from Phoenix, Arizona - though I was just moving somewhere else..."  What sort of reaction does that get.