Marcus didn't take them to the elders that morning.
"They'll want you eventually," he said, leading Valen and Cael past the half-built palisade instead. "Let them hear about you before they see you. It goes easier that way."
He brought them to a long, open-sided shelter near the center of camp, where a dozen people sat eating from the same pot, a communal breakfast, plain and unhurried.
Conversation died as Valen and Cael approached, and it took a moment before it picked back up again, quieter than it had been.
An old woman ladling porridge caught herself mid-motion, bowl half-filled, staring at Valen's ears before she seemed to remember what she was doing and finished the job anyway.
"Here," she said, thrusting the bowl at him. It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold either.
"Thank you," Valen said.
She blinked at him, as if she hadn't expected him to speak her language, or perhaps hadn't expected him to speak at all.
