Cayn had curled up behind the dune, tapping his nose to ensure it had no cuts. He attempted to respond to the man, but only guttural sounds came out of his mouth. However, the words he wanted to say seemed clear in his mind! He had, in fact, understood what the man had said; he simply couldn't pronounce them.

The obvious hit him suddenly: his language was entirely different from what his body had learned. It was as if he suddenly wanted to speak in a language he had just discovered. What irony, he, who would have liked so much to confide his vulnerability, his despair, even to a man he didn't know. Even if he seemed dangerously skilled with a knife:

"To confide one's trouble and weakness to an armed individual is like leaping into the neighboring oasis, screaming and brandishing torches," he thought.

Cayn tried to grab his bow, which was slung across his chest, but his shoulder, stiffened by pain and the growing cold, forbade him this presumptuous movement. As he cursed his fate and his foolishness, not knowing what to do, a tinkling of glass was heard behind the dune:

"Come closer, crawling sir, the drink is always better with a hint of company. And in case dark intentions haunt you, know that the next time one of my knives takes flight, this time I'll take the time to aim."

The spontaneity of the invitation disturbed Cayn, who, since his supernatural awakening, had been assaulted by the man. His first impression of humanity could hardly be worse. Caution was therefore in order, especially as the strange individual seemed as ready to kill people as to invite them to share his company.

A chilling gust of wind swept away the young man's hesitations. If it wasn't for a knife, madness, or the cold of the night, it would take him in his weak condition. He straightened up, stumbling, and approached the warmth and the man who displayed a benevolent smile, although it did not warm Cayn's frozen heart of caution.

By the flames, he could now detail his host, so whimsical. He was bald, and a slight sweat made his round and imposing head shine as he worked on the fire. Moreover, round seemed to be a term that suited his entire morphology perfectly. Without being obese, the man was rather plump, even hidden under his broad attire. The corners of his lips formed two laughing hollows nestled in his cheeks reddened by the heat of the fire.

His bulbous nose was also scarlet, but the ardor of the flames was probably not the cause. Around his eyes, huge cavernous circles almost seemed to have been outrageously painted, they were so pronounced. The man probably didn't sleep much. As if to mock himself, the fellow had lined the contour of his eyes with kohl, which accentuated his tired appearance even more.

But, strangely, it wasn't his dark circles that shocked the most, but his gaze. There was something intriguing in his eyes, an invisible peculiarity that Cayn felt yet couldn't discern. As the young man unabashedly and insistently scrutinized him, the round man, in turn, had placed his enigmatic irises on the symbols in his guest's hair. He furrowed his inquisitive brows:

"Without meaning to offend you, friend, shouldn't you be dead?" he asked, pointing to Cayn's shaved and adorned skull. "Or perhaps you're the victim of a bad prank?

"Dead... be... prank," Cayn repeated laboriously, desperately trying to make his unfamiliar mouth utter the sounds he had in mind.

"Ah! Yes, death is a prank!" the jolly man replied. "But I gather you're clearly not from around here; it turns out I'm precisely an expert in linguistics, among many other things. I master almost all the civilized dialects of Opar, so don't be afraid to speak to me in your native language, that we may converse easily!"

Cayn sadly shook his head, gesturing to his mouth with a shrug:

"You don't know... speak?!" the rotund man exclaimed. "At your age?! By the Ytes, this will pose a problem for our dialogue! I was looking forward to... Wait, if you can't speak, how is it that you understand what I'm saying?

"The language... Not mine...

"Hmm... Curious... How can you not even manage to speak your native language?" the man muttered in deep thought. "Well, that's very strange... Never mind! We have food, drink, I'm not in a hurry, and I suppose no one is waiting for you, although it's quite likely that someone is looking for you," he added with a hint of mockery. "As I am naturally curious, I will therefore exercise you in using your language so you can finally express your thoughts, even though they may no longer be very clear by then!" the rotund man chuckled, handing a glass to Cayn.

They spent the night repeating sounds, then words, and finally sentences. Sometimes the plump man would articulate some diction rules to his guest, sometimes he would tell a joke. At first, he laughed alone, but over time, aided by warmth and alcohol, Cayn gradually relaxed and even managed to laugh in turn.

He ate half of the grilled lizard all by himself, which, to his surprise, tasted similar to shebla, although he couldn't recall exactly what that creature was. Starving, having not eaten for a long time, this meal was beneficial for his body, and the tremors due to his physical exhaustion ceased shortly afterward. Soon, a strange and unfamiliar warmth gently seized him, accompanied by a feeling of lightness and well-being that had almost nothing to do with the drink.

At daybreak, under the weight of fatigue and intoxication, the peculiar host fell asleep. Cayn, now more or less capable of expressing the phrases in his mind, lay down as well, feeling that a merciless sleep was imminent. In the span of two nights, he felt he had learned about the best and worst of what man was capable of. He did not yet know how much he was mistaken.

The sun was already high in the sky when the two men woke up near the ashes of their fire. They bitterly realized that bright light after a night of revelry could hurt as deeply as a sharp blade.

In a series of guttural and porcine grunts, Cayn's host, a victim of his own invitation, crawled through the sand toward his mount. Hoisting himself painfully to the level of his travel bags, as if he had been injured in the legs, he retrieved a small wooden box and returned to the young man before opening the padded container he held like a treasure:

"Here, put this... on your nose. These are spectacles of my own making," he mumbled.

"Spectacles?" exclaimed Cayn, who was now able to use his vocal cords more or less as he pleased.

"Yes, they are tools for better vision, originally. They are two lenses set like a magnifying glass... Do you know what a magnifying glass is? Perfect. Well, I slightly diverted the concept so that these spectacles dim the light."

Cayn scrutinized these famous spectacles with dark lenses, looking somewhat suspicious. He watched the man put on his own, and his perplexity only increased when he turned his head towards him, his strange eyes concealed behind the two small round black screens. With a shrug, Cayn also placed the spectacles on his nose and was amazed:

"It's as if the sun were shining less brightly!"

"Isn't it wonderful?! It's an incredible and recent invention from a strange people that I slightly modified. For a few decades, these little beings have continued to surprise and change the world with their incredible inventions. As if they had discovered an ancient magical knowledge, or had received help from the Ytes themselves... Anyway, I call them Sunshades."

"Sunshades?" Cayn repeated, still unsure in his language management.

"No, you know what, friend? Sunshades is even better! It sounds much more marketable! From now on, we'll call them Sunshades. By the Ytes, I feel like I've stumbled upon a juicy concept! I need to note it somewhere before I forget!"

Cayn, not having understood everything, contented himself with smiling, appreciating the respite in the flow of words from his host provided by the juicy concept to his poor brain. As he watched him take notes in an elegant red notebook, he felt that he was already attached to this jovial and generous fellow. He felt indebted to him. After all, it was his fire that diverted his attention from the meanders of madness, his invitation that warmed his heart, his generosity that filled his hunger.

Suddenly, he realized that he didn't even know the name of his benefactor, whereas just a few hours ago, his own name was the only thing he truly had. He turned his head towards the man, who was looking at him with a strange expression, a small smile playing at the edge of his lips, as if he had guessed the question Cayn was about to ask:

"I forgot to ask your name..."