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Back in reality once more, the stranger before me nodded, smiled, and clapped me on the shoulder supportively. It almost made me sputter, the mouthful of tea I had swallowed was not quite all the way down yet. "I'm sure your family is worried about you, but if you went away for a reason, I bet they're waiting for your safe return..." His expression became one of befuddlement as something must have crossed his mind. "Say, what's your name anyhow? Don't tell me I forgot to ask!"

I nodded to him, and that only caused him to sigh and put his head in his hands.

He spoke with the voice of one hoping for self-redemption, looking towards me once more. "Did I at least tell you _my_name?" The look on his face was pained when he saw me shake my head, and it occurred to me that manners must have been a big part of his culture, for him to be this distressed over what seemed to be, through my understanding, such a simple oversight.

He straightened his slouched form and extended his right hand towards me in a formal gesture. "My name is Alrick. Alrick Kraustin." He smiled.

I reached for his hand and clasped it with my own, giving him a firm handshake. His palms were hard, calloused from working on a frontier. "My name is..." I knit my eyebrows together in a panic. I had no pseudonym! I cursed and played my pause off as my "amnesia" for the time being. Soon, once I had cooked up an adequate false identity, I would suddenly "regain" part of my memory, including my name. But for that moment I sat there, concentrating on appearing to be concentrating. I suddenly looked up with a dejected face and slightly exhausted voice. "I don't remember..." I gave him an apologetic smile that was half-wince, half-grimace, and entirely embarassed. All of it was fake.

He simply laughed it off and released my hand, clapping me on the back once more. "That's quite alright! Although, we ought to give you a temporary name, just in case someone asks, and so I have something to call you other than some embarrassing word, like 'boy', or simply shouting 'hey you!'."

I thoughtfully chewed on some of the meat he had given me, my stomach graciously accepting the tough pieces of jerky, despite the fact that it was half gristle. Food was food. Being poor all my life had taught me that, and it was ingrained into my very personality.

"So," he began, "what would you like to be called? Make it something believable, now! And make it easy to remember, I'm terrible with names. I even forget my own sometimes!" he ended the sentence with a raucous laugh and a swig of his own tea.

I sat back and thought carefully, gnawing on a particularly stubborn tidbit of meat. It made a rasping noise as it travelled down my throat. "Hmm... How about..." I looked back towards him, as if the sensation of finally getting solid food in my stomach had provided me with an idea. "Cedric Landre," I said, nodding as if it sounded agreeable to me, and was worth the pause it had garnered. It wasn't a far cry from my real name, Cecil Anders, but it didn't matter. So long as it wasn't my real name, no one back at the guild would care.

Alrick took another sip of his tea and swished it around in his mouth, as if he were swishing the sound of my name through his head, and judging it by the way it flowed. He swallowed and looked back at me with a toothy grin. "Sounds good, Cedric! A pleasure to meet you." He sat back with a relaxed sigh before lifting his cup and giving me what seemed to be a toast. " Cedric Landre, Walker of the Wastes! That has the sound of lore and legends about it, don't you think?" He ended with another one of his laughs and a drink from his cup.

He looked at me again, once his laughter had died down. "You said earlier that you don't remember where you're from, eh?" He swirled his tea around in the cup with a motion of his wrist. Before my eyes the cup changed in composition, from wood to glazed ceramic, without Alrick's noticing. My, this world was progressing.

I nodded. "Can't remember a thing."

He looked towards the ceiling then, scratching his chin. "Mayhaps one of the beasts that roam the Wastes cast a spell on you, and made you forget everything. Spells like that wear off after a while, although victims never can tell exactly what manner of beast cast the spell to begin with. Or maybe you just hit your head. Come here for a second." He motioned me over with one hand, setting his mug down. I scooted towards him and, without any sort of warning, Alrick's hands went roaming about my scalp, feeling for a bump or a bruise. His touch was gentle, although that doesn't mean that I welcomed it. I didn't know what to do. I could have told him to stop, but a part of me didn't really want him to. I was confused.

"What... are you doing?" I barely managed to keep myself from stuttering.

He laughed softly as if it were obvious. "I'm checking for lumps or something that will tell us if you hit your head. Does it hurt?"

I shook my head, but only slightly. "No, you just caught me off guard, that's all. I wasn't expecting this." I thumbed at a piece of jerky absently, my eyes trained on the dancing shadows in the back of the fireplace.

Alrick took his hands away and clapped me on the back once more, giving me the all-clear. "Couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary, although you do have a flat spot on the side of your head. Doesn't feel new, though, and you didn't tense up or anything when I touched it, so I'm betting it's old."

I answered without thinking. "Oh, when I was just a baby, I would always sleep on one side, and my head obtained a flat spot because of it, or so my mother had told me." I instantly put on a perplexed expression, trying to mask my slip up as some awkward recovery of memory.

Alrick regarded me thoughtfully. "There, ya see? Things are already coming back to ya. You'll have your whole memory back in no time, Cedric." He finished his tea and got up, walking up the steps towards what I assumed to be where his quarters were. "I'll fetch you a spare pallet and mat, you must be tired after all that walking you did."

I finished my own tea and watched him go, intrigued by the amount of warmth he was showing. I absently wondered whether or not his hospitality was normal or not, but I fell asleep before I could even finish the thought.