It was only then that Ludo released his held breath, his muscles relaxing, shoulders dropping and face softening. Among the air that escaped his lungs was tension and wariness; uncertainty and doubt. It was as though he was breathing out the bad and a new sort of trust formed between him and this stranger. “What’s your name?” Ludo asked, tilting his head.

The stranger hummed softly, thin fingers pushing stray strands of raven black hair out of his face. The man then turned his gaze onto Ludo, and for the first time the boy realized that the stranger’s eyes were not the dark orbs he originally thought they were. Instead, the two gems were glowing yellow, rimmed in a thick circle of onyx black. “I have many names,” the stranger mused in a low voice, with perhaps a slight British accent, or a peculiar emphasis on his vowels. He raised a gaunt hand, slender fingers stretching to scratch the head of a raven that had perched on the fencepost. “Old names… that only the wind and the trees can pronounce.”