The projection drops. Sakshemar is looking at him with concern.

“Really good,” Lionstar manages. “Strong.” He’s not trapped anymore but he’s still hurting, he has enough of his own horrors to outlast the projection. “Good weapon,” he repeats, and then tries to focus on his breathing, calm, but the unfamiliar body isn’t making it easy and he still feels on the verge of panic. “I need...can you... Help?”

He nods, takes a deep breath, and projects calm. There's a bit of lingering fear around the very edges for the first couple of seconds before he gets settled, but then it's just as good as it was before, and also he is moving closer so he can give Lionstar a hug.

"Sorry for hurt you," he says.

Being hugged is very good. Lionstar would like to keep being hugged for a while.

”Glad we tried,” he says, his voice only a little shaky. “Good to know your capabilities. You use that in a fight, it’ll knock your enemy flat. Know you won’t want to use it, but good to have backup plans, right?”

He nods. "Yes. Hard to use in fight, but yes."

More hugs. Hugs and calm soothing projection. (A little of the rest of what he's feeling comes in around the edges again - care, concern, regret-for-harm-done.)

Lionstar feels...better than he’s over felt before in this body, actually. Tension he hadn’t realized he was holding slips away.

It takes him a long time to name it, but he hasn’t felt this safe since the day he graduated and left Urtho’s Tower.

”...Sakshemar, are you all right?” he finally thinks to ask. “You had to feel that way, to project it, no? Is there anything I can do to help?” The words slip out before his mind catches up, but he means them. Sakshemar is his ally and friend.

...he smiles a little. (Wry amusement flickers at the edge of the projection.) "Is... easier, feel it on purpose," he says. "More like remembering. But - hard, yes." Hug. "I... I all right." He seems uncertain of this conclusion at first, but a moment later repeats it more firmly, and with better grammar. "I am all right." The projection steadies again. Calm and safety and peace and calm.

“Enough practice for today,” Lionstar suggests. He doesn’t especially want to move yet. 

(I trust you, he said to Sakshemar before, and he does. With his mind and emotions. His secrets...? No, not now. Not yet. He doesn’t know what he needs for that to feel safe, except that it’s more than this.)

"Enough," he agrees. He keeps the projected calm going for another few seconds, though, before it starts to falter anyway and he has to withdraw it.

It’s been a productive morning, and they still have plenty of food, so they can spend a relaxing afternoon talking about Gifts. Lionstar can tell Sakshemar the snippets he remembers of techniques for Empathy.

He listens thoughtfully and compares them with what he's managed to put together about his own Gift, and shares his conclusions with Lionstar. Apparently he doesn't actually have much in the way of ability to shield out others' emotions, and instead has just sort of learned how to handle them and keep them separate enough from his own experience that he doesn't get lost in someone else's feelings. He concedes that shielding would probably be a valuable thing to practice, although he's oddly reluctant to try it.

Lionstar agrees that shielding is an important skill, even if Sakshemar can manage fine without most of the time. He can sort of teach it, even, because the mental motion isn’t so different for mage-sight versus Empathy.

He’s curious about the reluctance but doesn’t prod.

Well, then, perhaps Lionstar can teach Sakshemar to shield.

He's not very good at it. He's not very good at languages either, though, and he manages fine with those on sheer patient determination to put in as much work as it takes to succeed. Shielding looks to be going the same way.

They have lots of time! Hunting, collecting plants and firewood, and some basic cooking and maintaining (or improving) the little camp, can all be accomplished quite efficiently. Their routine can fit in plenty of practice sessions on shielding and/or languages. Lionstar is hoping to pick up more of the Haighlei tongue and script as well.

Sakshemar is happy to help with that! They're still short on writing materials, but he can do a decent rendition of the alphabet in the medium of Scratched In Dirt With Twig, and write out various words the same way—though in a few cases he's not totally confident of his spelling.

And then one afternoon, on the way back from a hunt, he startles slightly and stops in his tracks.

"People," he says. "That way." The way in question is, specifically, ahead. He frowns. "Found our camp maybe...?"

“Oh.” Lionstar lowers his voice to a whisper. “Are they looking for - can you tell if they are from White Gryphon.” He glances at the underbrush by the path. “We ought perhaps try to approach unseen.” 

He nods, and murmurs back, "Can't hear them yet. They feel—wanting to understand—" There's a word for that, what's the word for that...? "Curious. They feel curious. One is hungry." A pause, a soft sound of amusement. "Less hungry now. Maybe he take our food."

And he proceeds cautiously forward.

It transpires, when they get close enough to hear, that the interlopers are speaking Haighlei. Sakshemar pauses to listen; they're still far enough away that the words are hard to make out.

Lionstar hovers behind Sakshemar. In his still-relatively-new body, his woodscraft skill hasn’t caught up yet, and he’s more at risk of stepping on a twig or something else unfortunate.

He’s passingly familiar with the Haighlei language by now, but not enough to pick out the muffled words either.

He listens harder, moves closer.

"...they argue about taking our food," he says quietly. "I go talk to them, I think. You come, or stay?"

“I can come with you.” It’ll make for a greater show of strength, and he can reasonably claim to be a White Gryphon local - a random Haighlei hunting-party have no reason to think otherwise.

So he strides out onto the path.

The interlopers see him first, and are a little surprised to see another Haighlei so far from home. One of them calls a friendly greeting; the other apologizes, a little grudgingly, for having taken a bit of meat off the smoke rack.

Then Lionstar comes into view, and while he hasn't had a lot of time to learn the Haighlei tongue, he probably doesn't need that much of it to understand when one of them turns to him and asks, "Are you Lionstar k'Leshya?"

Sakshemar looks back and forth between the strangers and Lionstar. He is pretty thoroughly baffled by this turn of events.

Lionstar is just as confused, and thoroughly caught off guard. He rapidly considers: telling the truth and saying yes, lying and saying no, throwing a levinbolt at the party (he’s been practicing), or turning and fleeing into the underbrush.

He settles on a fifth option: stalling. “Why ask?” he says in badly-pronounced Haighlei.

The stranger's response is too rapid and complex for Lionstar to catch, but it has Sakshemar frowning.

"He say, White Gryphon look for you," he translates. "He say, gryphon people very worried, want you safe. Give money for safe return."

Well isn’t that inconvenient.

”Tell him I’m not Lionstar k’Leshya,” he whispers hi Sakshemar. “See if that works.”

He turns back to the stranger and speaks Haighlei for a bit.

The stranger makes a skeptical face and responds.

"He not believe me," Sakshemar relays, somewhat redundantly. The stranger says more things. "He say, you come to ship, go to White Gryphon, he get money, gryphon people see you safe, all good. If you not Lionstar, maybe he get money for try, you not hurt, all good."