Shephard's been doing his own preparations since a little before dawn anyway. Under normal circumstances back home he'd've been going out for a run with a backpack full of rocks, possibly with his gas mask strapped to his face, but this isn't his territory and he doesn't know the trails, so he's not about to do something stupid. That freed up a nice chunk of time for him to sit with the village's shaman and discuss exactly what was going to happen. (Apparently some of the outsiders who came to the village to escape the Combine thought some kind of vision quest was going to be involved, which... was not the point at all.)

So now that it's actually time he's more or less as ready as he's going to get. Predictably, he sticks out like a sore thumb, between being the wrong size, color, age, and so on; somewhat less predictably, he's wearing a pair of denim cutoff shorts, and still has his elbow length black glove on his right arm. Some of the younger men wave in his direction as he steps into the open space and removes his shoes; he waves back.

Mari, for his part, is hanging back with Grace and the trolls. "This should be interesting," he murmurs.