Martin McGee, I have a gift...

Zav paced forward to the edge of the river, a quiet figure in dark leather, the night wind stirring the sleeves and trailing hem of her surcoat.  She glanced around, seeing nothing, and spoke to the darkness, quietly so that her voice would not carry to any unseen and unlighted dwelling or traveler.

"Martin McGee, I bring you a gift."

She could not have said why she had chosen to participate in such a foolish tradition; she wished for nothing but the impossible in return, and any meaningless trinket she did receive would likely be cast aside at the most convenient opportunity.  Perhaps it was because she missed interaction with anyone who was not a potential employer or a target.  That alone was not a promising sign.  If she softened…  She reached out, finding her husband's presence like a shadow in the corner of her eye.  "Drem, I miss you," she mouthed, mentally clinging to the shade, but a sudden noise made her start, and she lost the contact.

Her white-knuckled grip on the silver cylinder at her side loosened when she saw it was nothing but a small, unfamiliar animal, in search of nothing more sinister than a drink at the river.  She decided not to bother with an attempt at identifying it; if it didn't attack her, it could live.  She cared for nothing on this backwater planet save the task at hand.

"Martin McGee, I bring you a gift."  No answer still, but she was unconcerned.  Creatures of his nature had a way of knowing things regardless.  "I understand you enjoy puzzles.  I bring you one unlike that which you have encountered before.  It is called a holocron."

It was a lesser one, one of the first that she had encountered.  It had been easy enough for her to open, and it had told her little that she had not already known.  She had cleared its memory and replaced the knowledge inside with a perfunctory message of congratulation and instructions on how to replace the recording with whatever he wished.  She had no way of knowing if he would be able to open it at all; perhaps his power was different enough from hers that the holocron would not respond.  But perhaps it would realize that the rules were different on this world, and cooperate accordingly.  She didn't care.  She didn't plan to return, or ever see Martin McGee again, if indeed he ever chose to show either of his faces.

"Martin McGee, I bring you a gift.  I will leave it here, since you will not take it from me yourself."  It was not unwise, she reflected.  She would not take such a gift from a stranger without carefully scanning it first.

She pulled the bundle from a bag at her side.  The holocron was small enough, about the size of her fist, but the cloth she had wrapped it in made it bulkier.  The research she had done indicated that the human men of this culture wore knee-length skirts, and so she had included a length of black cloth in her gift.  Perhaps he would use it.  She hardly cared.

She knelt and carefully settled the bundle in the hollow formed by the roots of a tree.  It would be fairly safe there, and she thought he would have little trouble recovering it if it fell into the water by mistake.  She did not think that it would.

"Farewell, Martin McGee.  Enjoy your gift."

She turned away from the river and vanished into the night.