There's a deer path, eventually, that eventually merges onto a wider trail, with trees blazoned with an off-grey along it. Walking the trail, clearly set up for a proper hike, is a teenaged boy, trailed by a slightly large wolf with bright silver fur. The boy looks human, although his clothes and pack are strange. The wolf looks off. The boy raises his hand and calls out a cheerful greeting in a strange language when he sees Varrin, then says something else, sounding slightly concerned.

(The watched feeling - hasn't quite faded, but has certainly changed.)

That's not a wolf. It might or might not be a spirit - oh who's he kidding it's totally a spirit. He says something excruciatingly polite in his foreign tongue back at them!

He doesn't seem to recognize the language.

The wolf tilts her head, and, in a distinctly feminine tone and not his native tongue but still perfectly understandable all the same, "Hello! Not many other hikers on this stretch this time on year, most humans think it's a bit cold. Are you alright? You seem tired."

How does he respond to that - he doesn't remember the rules they taught him other than 'be mindful of the balance of nature' and 'be very very polite' -

"Hello. It's good to meet you. I am Varrin... I'm used to the cold. Do you know where I can get some water, or perhaps some food?"

"I'm the Lowell Ancestor, and this is my human, Terry Lowell. Terry has enough food and water to share," says the wolf. 'Terry' says something in his language, causing the wolf to tilt her head. "Do you have any food restrictions? Terry mostly has nuts or things that have touched nuts."

"I would be delighted to accept some nuts. I - don't have anything to offer you in return probably, unfortunately."

Well, he has his furs and the waterskin and a few coins, but he lost the sealbear spear a while ago so he couldn't hunt properly even if there were something he knew how to hunt around.

Terry says something and fishes a clear, crinkly bag out of a brightly colored pouch at his waist. It contains a few varieties of shelled nuts, raisins, and some kind of circular brightly colored thing. He hands that and a bottle to Varrin, saying something apologetic.

"It's no problem!" says the wolf. "Paying it forward is important to humans, right? Someone helped Terry a few days ago, so we'll help you, and you can help someone else later! Then everyone gets helped."

Weird bag. But food: Very good. "I suppose so. I mostly want to get home... Am I still in the Spirit World?"

"The Spirit World? I haven't heard of that as something reachable. This is the ordinary world. We're in Maine, northern end of the Appalachian Trail."

"Oh, I thought since you seem like a spirit I was still there. Is Maine in the Earth Kingdoms somewhere or what?"

"It's in the United States of America. Where's the Earth Kingdoms? And I am an Ancestor God, yes, though most humans seem to think I'm oddly shaped for one."

"...Maybe I should draw a map. Or look at one. Never heard of America or a United States, but I couldn't say for sure. I'm from the Northern Water Tribes?"

"...Haven't heard of that, either, but I don't pay attention to human geography. Terry, he says he's from the Northern Water Tribes and hasn't heard of the States...?"

Terry says something, and the wolf asks, "Do you mean like the Inuit? Though he thinks all the Inuit are contacted, the United States is really big so you would've heard probably?"

Terry takes his backpack off (which is the size of a small child) and digs through one of the surface pockets, pulling out several folded up pieces of paper and riffling through them until he unfolds a map of the northeastern section of North America.

"I miiight be more lost than I thought I was? This doesn't look like any part of the continent. And I've still never heard of the United States. I was stuck in the spirit world for a while, then came out here..."

"...I think you might be very lost too! Can you feel your Ancestor?" Suspicious squint in the general direction of the tangled 'other' that is most useful for identifying godly connections. This one is very, very hard to read. "...Do you have an Ancestor watching over you, your -ness is very strange but I'm not sure if that's - other worldliness?"

"Do you mean Tui and La? The moon and ocean spirits that watch over the Water Tribes?"

"Ancestors are usually just one family, but I suppose it might be different elsewhere." That is very satisfying, and also Wolf doubts another Ancestor would appreciate her stealing their human.

"That is not how I am used to spirits, uh, working. But more important is me getting home, I'm needed."

"Yes. I don't know how to do that. A place god... Might? Moving between dimensions is probably too big for a new god to form for it, but there might be steps that we can find."

"You would know more than me, being a spirit. I hope I can rely on you for guidance in this, and find some way to repay you too."

"Repaying Ancestor gods here is a bit unusual, usually we're helping our humans out. Being kind to others, though, would be - in line with the philosophy I'm trying. And guiding humans is what I do!" She scratches at an ear. "Language might be a problem, though, most gods won't be interested in translation, and if you're leaving a service god might not want to attach to you for so short a time."

He's still definitely missing something.

"...Wait a sec, I want to, uh, try something. Have either of you got some water on you?"

Terry holds out a water bottle when prompted.

And he gets into a martial arts pose and moves, and bends the water out in a little stream, into a ball hovering in midair. And then puts it back into the bottle.

"I can still bend. I was worried for a minute. Tui and La still smile upon me, even here. So that's good."

That is startling!

The wolf perks her ears forwards. "That's not a power humans have, here."