He startles at the sound of her shriek, and flinches away, crouching slightly as though ready to spring into the air and flee at any moment; at Ragnar's roar he flinches harder.

"I? I am very, very confused," he says. "And you?"

"I'm a paladin." She swallows. "If you're not a dark thing, you can prove it." She pulls a Winter Light sigil pendant out of her pocket.

"I would tell you to save your unicorn the trouble, but that does not appear to be one. Has someone invented a portable unicorn substitute since last I walked among speaking creatures?"

"My order doesn't use unicorns. If you touch the sigil and aren't burned, you aren't a dark thing."

Eyeing the sigil, he asks, "And if I am a dark thing...?"

"Then you have until I get my armor on to run."

"You are not making a very convincing argument for touching your sigil," he says, rubbing the backs of his fingers against a burn scar on the palm of his other hand.

She considers this, then throws it at him.

"It's a sigil of the Winter Light. If you were a dark thing it would burn you. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're harmless, I'm particularly concerned that you wouldn't touch it willingly, but you're not a dark thing."

She catches it. "You look like a giant, red imp, but imps are usually small and black, so I wasn't so sure. If you would like to avoid being attacked by overconfident paladins you might want to just wear the sigil. I can get another."

"That... sounds like it might be helpful. Since your sigils seem to have a different definition of Dark than I am used to."

She tosses it back. "What's so complicated about your harmlessness?"

"The reason why I am an outcast Endarkened is because I do not like to harm people. But I am still Endarkened, so harming people is the purpose I was created to fulfill, and I don't lack for talent. Left to myself, though, I would really prefer to live somewhere nice and grow interesting plants and not bother anyone."

"You're not a dark thing, so I see no reason you shouldn't live somewhere nice and grow interesting plants if that's really what you wish to do."

"I would also rather like to find out why a mirror-headed snake appeared out of nowhere and transported me here," he adds, "and if possible return to the place I came from. But interesting plants will occupy me well enough in the meantime."

"...I don't know what to say about the mirror-headed snake. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Neither had I, until just now."

"And it brought you here? That's very strange indeed."

"Yes, it is."

"Where were you before that?"

"A nice island where I live and grow interesting plants."

"Would you recognize it on a world map?"

"Probably. The more interesting question is whether I would recognize the world map. The Endarkened... should not have been forgotten, even after all this time."

"Except for your resemblance to imps I don't know of anything that looks like you."

"And I am very surprised by that."

"So perhaps you are from farther away than some island somewhere. But I don't have a map with me to check. ...No one other than a paladin will be able to speak this language, so you're aware."

"I had been wondering how you were managing it."

"The Winter Light allows it."

"How convenient."

"It is, yes. I can bring you back to the compound, if you will follow in the air, and we can get you some pants and a map. Put the sigil around your neck," she advises.

"...There are no giant lizards to hunt. If you can make yourself pants out of grass and it will not take hours upon hours we may as well spare the novices a look at you without any pants on."

"Giant lizards or any comparably sized creature it's possible to make leather out of. I have magic with living things. But if you know of no large huntable animals nearby, the grass will do."

"You might be able to find a reindeer or something, but that would probably take hours upon hours."

"As I said, I have magic with living things and I like to grow interesting plants."

"It's very impressive magic!"

He grins. (Fangily, but who's counting.)

"Anyway." She apparently doesn't see the need to put her armor on before she gets on her griffin. "I assume you can fly."

She follows after, overtakes him, and leads the way.

Off they go to wherever it is she's taking him.

She is taking him to her compound of paladins. The paladins find him pretty alarming; she speaks with her voice oddly doubled, so that both he and any of the people in the compound who can't understand arbitrary languages yet can understand. "He wears a Winter Light sigil and is not burned. He is from impossibly far away, brought by some magic, but he is no dark thing."

The Endarkened lands and folds his wings and does not interfere with this explanation.

"I have not used one in a very long time," he says. "Although if I am to be around people very much perhaps I should think of one."

"There aren't... lots of you somewhere?" wonders the initiate.

"There are, or were, ten thousand years ago when I escaped imprisonment and torture by the rest of them."

"Are you some... kind of... red giant imp criminal?"

"That would be one way of putting it," he says. "Red giant imps are called Endarkened and we were created by a very cruel and unpleasant god to kill and torment all who do not serve him. I decided I did not like this purpose very much, and so they decided I was not serving their god sufficiently and should be tormented and killed. Then I ran away."

"I like to grow plants."

"...Oh."

"I would also like to find out what sort of strange magic brought me here. But I have no idea how to do that, and I know plenty about growing plants."

"There wasn't a mage around?"

"Not that I could tell, no."

"...Maybe there was an invisible mage around," suggests the paladin helpfully.

"Are mages sometimes invisible?"

"I think so."

"Then perhaps there was an invisible mage. But that would not explain the mirror-faced snake."

Blink. "No, I don't think mages can make those."

"It was very large, and as soon as it touched me with its mirror face I vanished from my island and appeared near that paladin. It was very startling to us both. The snake did not travel with me."

"...That's really, really weird," says the paladin. "Oh, the sister who brought you here is Kaja di Ragnar."

"It is very weird," he agrees. "Thank you, I did not know her name."

"She must've forgot to say."

"I also forgot to ask."

"So why are red giant imps called Endarkened if you aren't dark things?"

"I am not sure what it means to be a dark thing, so it is hard to say."

"They're evil destructive entities that oppose the Lights."

"In that case they do seem very similar in purpose."

"...but you aren't burned."

"That is so," he agrees. "Well, I do not think I am evil, and I do not like to be destructive, and I am not sure what the Lights are but I have no reason to think I oppose them particularly."

"And it looks like," says Kaja, returning, "the Winter Light has no reason to oppose you either. Thank you," she says to the initiate, "run along." To the Endarkened: "I would show you to the Bright Sister and then find a map for you; is that acceptable?"

"Yes."

So she leads him to the Bright Sister's office, and they have a wait, and then they are admitted, and the Bright Sister is briefly alarmed until she sees the pendant he's wearing and the distinct lack of smoke rising off his chest, and Kaja explains the situation to the extent it is understood.

The Endarkened waits patiently through this explanation, looking as nonthreatening as he can manage while being a red giant imp.

"...We are going to have to call you something other than 'Endarkened' or 'red giant imp'," the Bright Sister concludes.

"That is reasonable. I have not had cause to use a name in a very long time, but I would not mind having one again. What sort of name would be appropriate here?"

"People are named all kinds of things," says Kaja. "I'm not sure we should just give you a normal local name either, though."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure most people would want to be namesakes with a giant red imp, however harmless a Winter Light sigil finds him, and if someone were to hear of you without knowing the details it might lead them to expect a human being."

He shrugs. "Would they expect something other than a human being if my name were strange?"

"If it was strange enough, perhaps."

"Hm. Rilashe? Ninyth?"

"Strange," agrees Kaja.

"Ninyth, then, I suppose."

"Ninyth it is. Now there is the question of where to put you. Given what you did with the grass I imagine you can feed and possibly also house yourself anywhere," Kaja says.

"Yes," he agrees.

"There's some unused land up the mountain, even under the treeline where things can still grow. It's colder up there, but would that bother you?"

"Not especially," he says.

"Or you could go farther away, as you like, but paladins are the only people who'll understand your language."

"I can live on the unused parts of your mountain."

"All right. And if you need anything you can speak to us or ask us to translate and there may often be someone with time to help you. I can show you out."

He shrugs agreeably.

Kaja shows him to the gate, points him up the mountains, and waves goodbye.

Up the mountains he goes, and when he finds a nice spot he starts growing himself a cozy treehouse.

And he is left quite to himself for some time.