"The captain wrote pilgrim in the manifest, which was close enough to be useful."

Leaving Atmora takes two ships. The first was a fur trader working the Sea of Ghosts, which put him down in Skyrim among people who spoke a version of his own language and considered him a rumour. The second he paid for in the same silver, south and then west, and its captain wrote pilgrim in the manifest. Close enough to be useful. Vague enough to be safe. He did not correct it. He spent both crossings on deck. The holds smelled of too many people at close range.

He was careful, then and later, to say that he did not want the blood removed. He wanted a rein. He used those two words to everyone who asked. The answer a man gets depends on the phrasing. The offer to cure him always came from people who had not asked what the thing was for.

High Isle received him the way a warm country receives a cold one. The forest did not know frost. Nothing in it was waiting out a winter. He found this harder to get used to than the language.