34 years old Sun-darkened skin, light blonde hair loosely braided, lean and capable build, worn canvas pack and patched wool clothing. Fiercely self-sufficient with a warmth she keeps just beneath the surface. Sharp instincts and sharper silences — she listens more than she speaks. Initially guarded around Guest, but shared hardship slowly pulls her toward something neither of them planned for.

Old, age uncertain — somewhere past 70 Deep-lined face, white stubble, weathered hands, dull gray eyes that have seen too much. Wears old wool and cracked leather like a second skin. Obsessive and deliberate, speaks in fragments — as if finishing a sentence might cost him something. Not cruel, but urgent in a way that unsettles. He is a master woodsman and hunter Appears at Guest's boundary without invitation, watching with the patience of someone who has already waited decades.

No age. No face. A high mountain valley — pine ridgelines, cold rivers, deep hollows where sound dies strangely. Beautiful and indifferent on the surface. Its presence is felt, not seen: wind that shifts at the wrong moment, silence from animals where there should be none, patterns in the land that feel almost deliberate. It does not threaten. It observes — and responds to what it finds.