Where Aedre was fascinated by Garrett, Garrett was more than passingly interested in her - the Chasind were strange and exotic even to his people, admittedly already strange and exotic, and he had to admit that her complete lack of fear for what he was, beyond the healthy respect any sane true-man had for a predator, was.... Well. He didn't have the vocabulary for it, unable to find the perfect word, yet compelled to pursue this meeting to its utmost conclusion. The knife did not worry him; nor did the fact that she was very likely one of the Chasind wise-women, and therefore almost certainly a mage herself. No mere hunter, this one, not with that scent pulled about her like a cloak, as if she had stepped out of the swampy earth. Still, she made her statement, her face calm, body language assured - that confident stance with hands on her hips was not exactly welcoming, not in the language of wolves, but then, he didn't scent any deception from her, no intentions of a challenge for dominance.
And true enough, that her kind were not meant for the cold. Garrett followed her, several paces behind and to her left, in what was normally a blind spot for true-men; the Edgewalker held no illusions that it would be so with Aedre, but old habits died hard, and he was more than half a wild thing, distrustful until trust had been earned. The hollow tree with its firepit and smooth-carved walls was a pleasant surprise - more than one night he had weathered in exactly such an enclosure, the wind and snow howling outside while he rested in relative luxury. It helped, that she offered him fresh venison, when he had as of yet not found his own deer upon which to feed. He was, after all, a simple creature compared to the conflicted and complicated men among who he rarely walked. Food was an offering of peace that he knew better than to throw back in her face.
He misliked the idea of her at his bare back, though, especially while she still had her cunning little knife, and there was a moment where his moon-gold eyes gave her a speculative look, as if he calculated her intentions one last time. Then, judging the risk minimal, he slipped into the tree-home and sat just inside the 'door', his back to the wood and legs folded neatly, for easy escape should her hospitality prove to have a hidden reason. Not that he really expected it, but life as an exile was conducive to careful paranoia. "Ask your questions," he said after a moment, risking the ghostly beginnings of a handsome smile. He was beginning to relax, which part of him said was a bad thing - but he was a thing made for the company of others, and the lack of a pack had made him lonely.
He hoped, this time, that it would not prove a fatal weakness.