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The thing chuffs at him. It's small, barely rising to his knees, and Techno looks at it with thinly-veiled amusement. Its snout - a thing half-decayed and peeling with rot on one side - wrinkles up in delight at catching his attention. It looks up at him with big eyes, blank, yet somehow full of so much wonder pooling beneath milky white irises.
"What do you -" Techno begins, low, gruff, then cuts himself off. The thing gazes at him, uncomprehending. And Techno shouldn't be here - shouldn't be setting foot in this snowy coastal region, shouldn't be gazing at a zombified child who seems too cared-for to be out alone in the icy night, shouldn't be speaking to it like it can understand him. Because he isn't piglin, not really - he hasn't been since he first left the Nether, trading a part of himself for the ability not to decay like this kid's done - but then, neither is this thing, not really. Not entirely. They're two of a kind, these half-piglin outcasts, but Techno knows better than to bother with zombified things. He knows better than to fight losing battles. He knows better -
"Hello," Techno murmurs, in low, butchered Piglin - a form of his own old dialect, accented by his years upon years in the overworld - and the child blinks back up, face splitting into a huge grin.
"Hello!" he oinks back, clouded gaze sharpening in delight. He blinks again, studying Techno. "You are very big."
It catches Techno off guard - the fact that he laughs catches him off guard even more.
"S'definitely a word for it, yeah," he says, kneeling down beside the child. It takes him a moment to find the right words. It's been a very long time since he's had to speak Piglin. "Are you al-" Fuck, what was the word? "Are you lost?"
The child shakes his head.
"Me an' Bee an' Boo live over there." He points out towards the big mansion in the distance - "C'mon!" - and grabs Techno's hand to pull him along.