In a rare case, Patik uses the punctuation prefix Deptka has been persistent about. 

"Statement: I don't care about the other stuff. Suggestion: you could talk more about your languages! If they don't have any common origin with ours then recording information about them before contamination is Important." Patik is leaning forward now, practically vibrating.

"Statement:  I won't forget things about languages I know in one conversation.  Question:  how are clients and patrons useful immediately?"

"Statement: You'll want miscellaneous things like food or shoes. If someone wants you to do more of your-thing*, then they'll arrange for you to have resources you need. That's a client or patron.

Inference: A client or patron isn't a step one. It's a step two. Step three is anything else you want to do. "

*A single word that has a lot of connotative importance to it.

"Statement: Depkta does that for me."

Patik does a kind of shoulder/head wiggle, then skips forward a few steps despite the weight of their pack and the exhaustion in their legs. 

"Statement: I have a friend in my reading circle. Bas* not publicly paired."

*A pronoun that refers to the kind of person Depkta is, not the kind of person Patik is.

Hm.  The thing Patik just said is - maybe important to come back to later but it doesn't seem like worrying about being 'paired' is necessary quite yet.  (Also... she definitely isn't dating Colley anymore, according to their agreement, but thinking about that would involve having more emotions than really seem helpful at the moment, so she won't.)

"Question: what's my step one, then?"

"Question: What do you want?"

Depkta and Patik haven't stopped walking, and are still going slightly uphill back the way Zarian was first coming down. 

"Statement: If you want to be hired for your talent and get lots of nice things for it, step one is to go downhill that way-" they point down the path "-and go to the train."

Depkta hesitates for a long moment, before saying somewhat reluctantly, "Statement: If you want to spend time in the wilderness with just us, step one is to walk with us until dusk."

"Statement:  you two have been helpful so far.  Question:  is it plausible that the best way to be hired for my talent and get lots of nice things for it is to spend time in the wilderness with you?"

"No."

"Statement: We can also walk down with you and help you get to the city and help you get set up! Statement: I want to hear more of your language."

"Statement: I moderately want to spend more time in the wilderness with Patik."

"Statement: New language with no connection to any of ours? I majorly want to learn their language. Maybe massive."

"Acknowledged."

Zarian recites a short bit of Cretari poetry with a tightly-interconnected rhyme scheme.  "Statement:  I would be appreciative of some help in getting to the city and set up."

"Statement: We'll try to help."

Deptka and Patik stop, and Deptka fishes a map out from a hip pouch on the backpack before unfolding it. There's a brief debate, mostly driven by Deptka, about the best route to the train, before they turn around and start back down. 

"Question: Are you hungry, cold, or tired?"

"Statement:  I can superpower milen all of those from you!  ...But my body being warm enough when it's this cold outside is a little uncomfortable."

Patik speedwalks ahead on the trail, then unsnaps a few buckles on their bag and drops in on the ground to rifle through it for a moment. By the time Zarian and Deptka catch up, Patik has a long bright green jacket out and held up for Zarian. It's got a hood, a plethora of pockets, and goes below Patik's knees when unfolded. The material is light but surprisingly insulating for that, if not something that Zarian would use in the winter, and it blocks the wind completely which is a lot of the trouble keeping warm up here.

"Statement: I have spare pants too if you want. I don't know if they'll fit." Patik does some kind of head bob and a wave that seems friendly. "Question: Do you want to try my things or Deptka's?"

And then (after Zarian tries some pants if she wants) the pair set off back down the mountain.

"Just this is fine," she says of the jacket.  "Thank you!"  And she can babble off a limerick-adjacent poem for Patik's trouble.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything in your colour." Patik seems genuinely apologetic. 

-and then Patik dives into trying to recite the limerick, going tor as accurate a pronunciation as possible. They have a relatively good handle on a lot of the phonology, but there's still some mistakes and there's a tendency to smoosh all the sounds together. It's only after Patik has the poem mostly memorized that they ask what any of it means, and from there start playing with word order and checking if the grammar allows them to do that.

There's no small amount of detours to just play with sounds.

If Zarian's happy to keep providing corrections and occasional infusions of new material, Patik seems happy to keep working on this and hiking until Deptka decides to call a halt around sundown. If Zarian wants to talk about a different subject, this is possible, but will require blunt or repeated efforts to get Patik off the subject of Cretari for long.

The hike, if Zarian still appreciates wilderness views, is stellar. A winding trail along the mountain peaks where frequent breaks in the treeline reveal the whole of a valley spread out below, with nothing resembling a city or town or so much as a solitary log cabin visible. The line of sunset sweeps across the valley floor - this trail is on the western side of a mountain range going north-south - and with Patik's borrowed jacket the wind isn't as fearsome and Zarian has the option of enjoying the clean crisp air.

Zarian doesn't mind her outfit clashing under the circumstances and is quite happy to continue commenting Cretarily.  Wilderness views are plenty nice when you aren't afraid of dying next to them and don't feel freezing!

They're stopping for the night?  With what accommodations?

They're stopping in a short turn-off from the trail at a patch of roughly flat dirt about ten to fifteen feet across. That's it. Beyond the split in the trail, there's not so much as a sign to mark the spot as anything other than a convenient patch of dirt. There's at least a small mountain stream nearby.

That's okay though, because Deptka came prepared. Well, better prepared than it's going to look at first.

Both Deptka and Patik set down their packs. Deptka pulls a wadded bag of a thin sheet out of Patik's bag along with some narrow rope, and in a few minutes has the rope strung between two trees and the fabric hung over them to form a tent. Also emerging from the bag are two colourful sacks and a very compact thin sack that crinkled as Deptka prepares to open it up.

"Statement: We need sleep. If you want warmth while we do, this will keep you warm." 

As Deptka talks, Patik has returned from the stream with water in a pot and started boiling it over a tiny fire conjured from some device they pulled out of Deptka's bag. 

The accommodations are apparently a sack under a sheet. This would be more impressive if Zarian understood the materials science involved in good lightweight camping gear, but alas.

It's tentatively impressive by implication!  These people are clearly outdoorsy enough to tolerate all sorts of things Zarian would prefer not to, but if they say this flimsy thing will keep her warm she'll believe them until she notices evidence otherwise.

Does it look like she'll have any chance of sleeping herself?  She can just copy off her tiredness in the morning, but that won't make the night pass any faster.

The sack is incredibly well insulated, but offers nothing in the way of padding. So the question is, how does Zarian do about sleeping on dirt if she's warm enough and the tent shelters her from any rain?

Deptka and Patik put together a meal, combining things from their backpacks with the boiling water. As they're waiting for it to cook, Deptka reads a book and Patik prompts Zarian for more Cretari poetry, then for any famous speeches. The pair offers Zarian some of the food when it's ready, handed to her straight from the firepot in a little bowl. Their manner suggests there's some kind of ritual component to the gesture, repeating the words from before, that she's welcome to their food and their fire. 

The sack and tent seem likely sufficient to keep her from having to copy the state of being asleep too many times.

Zarian has more monologues than speeches per se; is that alright?  - Fine, she'll eat the food since it's clearly important to them.  How is it?

The food is bland if filling, basically beans and rice and some kind of shredded vegetable mix. She doesn't have to eat more than a bite or two before her hosts relax. They dig into the food as though they haven't eaten for most of the day, and were hauling heavy packs up a mountainside.

Patik lifts her mask up to let it sit on top of her head while she eats, sitting facing out away from the tiny stove. They look back over their shoulder a lot as they carry on animated lyrics about some Cretari grammar.