It had taken them a month of traveling along the river to reach the fork. One side of the Y curved northeast while the other curved southeast. After quite a bit of conversation along their way here, they decided to follow the southeast curve of the river. Going southeast would lead them to the Queendom of Kasmaya, to swim where they hoped to start a new life away from the regimented Chromatic Dominion.

Her father originally had wanted to go north to seek out Astresh. He wanted to study their beliefs and had an interest in seeing little people. Her mother argued that he would most likely see little people in Kasmaya, and women were less likely to be discriminated against there. Violet had also wanted to go to Kasmaya because the idea of seeing other races excited her. They all hoped for a new start to live their lives without being watched every second of the day.

By now, their food supplies were running low, and they were beginning to worry. The river was broad enough that it was difficult to get fish. It was not often that fish roamed close to the shore when they noticed activity in or near the water. Violet was frustrated that she could see them but not get them. In a stroke of brilliance, she created a massive net of ice across the river.

Due to the size of the net she had created, her mana was quickly dropping. She maneuvered the net to scoop as many fish as she could and pushed them all onto the shoreline. By the time the fish were flopping on shore, her mana pool was empty. Looking at her catch, she felt it had been worth it.

Her mom and dad were quick to help her catch the fish before they flopped back into the water. A few fish still got away, but they could gather twenty fish from the shore before losing too many. Each of the trout-like fish she managed to catch were fourteen to eighteen inches in length. It was enough that they called the day early so they could smoke all of the fish.

It took the rest of that day and quite a bit of the next day to finish smoking the fish they did not immediately cook and eat. Smoking the fish would make it last a week or more before it spoiled. She was sure she would be thoroughly sick of fish by the time they reached civilization. Sick of it or not, she was thankful she had found a reliable method to obtain sustenance for them.

One month later, their path became more dangerous. The river flowed into a cave on the side of the mountain where the trio had arrived. The options were to scale the mountain and continue following the river on the other side or cobble together a raft and use it to traverse the river.

The cave the river was flowing into was quite large. Violet estimated that it was twenty feet across, and the domed ceiling of the cave was ten feet above the water. Their main concern was they could not see the other end of the cave and did not know if it remained so hospitable the entire way through to the other side.

Their alternative was to scale the mountain or attempt to go around it. The mountain stretched north and south as far as they could see in a long connected chain. At the peaks of the mountains, they could see caps of white to indicate that there was snowpack still present. The incline heading to the top of the mountain was also very steep and would be difficult for them to traverse. While the further they traveled south, the colder the weather became, they were not yet in danger of becoming too frigid at night with a fire present.

“I think we should build a raft and float down the river. The current is slow enough to use Water Manipulation to help keep us in the center of the water. Hopefully, there will be places we can stop inside to rest, but we should build a raft big enough for us to lay down.” Violet suggested to her parents.

“What happens when the sun no longer provides light? You cant see in the dark to help navigate, and your Dazzle aspect will blind us rather than help us see.” Her mother replied.

“There is also the genuine possibility of the clearance in the cave lowering to the point where it ends up going underground. That plan is hazardous and could get us all killed.” Her father said, agreeing with her mother.

“But it will take us ages to go around these mountains, and they are too tall for us to be climbing. What happens when we leave the river and run out of fish to eat?”

“I think our best course of action is to walk for a minimum of two days along the mountain to see if there are any trails. If the animals are using them, it might lead to the other side.” Her father said.

Before they had left the river, they spent the day catching and smoking fish to supplement their food reserves. They still had some oats and jerky, but they wanted to make those last as long as possible. After Violet had become a pro angler, all they ate was the foraged plants and fish on their journey.

They chose to go south instead of north because they did not want to cross the river to head north. It was the middle of the second day when they found a trail that looked well-traveled. All of the footprints on the ground looked to be made by animals. What made her a little worried was the sight of the larger ones.

It had taken them three days to reach the top. Each night they had needed to build a fire up higher to ward off stray animals. Last night had been the worst night for animal encounters. Her father had to wave a burning branch from the fire in the face of a sizeable dog-like creature to get it to leave them alone.

The temperature dropped below freezing when they reached the summit. The trio had started to wear a blanket around themselves during the day to help keep warm. The leather armor her parents were wearing was helping them to mitigate the cold. They had enough leather scraps for her mother to fashion arm coverings for Violet because the vest dress she was wearing did not have sleeves.

On the eastern side of the mountain, there were quite a few flying animals in the air at all times. She was thankful they were still far from her group because some birds were large enough to lift her. Violet had never been afraid of heights, but the idea of flying in the claws of one of those birds did not seem like a fun idea.

“We need to avoid any clearings we come across. Those birds are known to carry children and livestock away to their nests.” Her mother said, almost as if she were reading Violet’s mind.

“Why are there so many of them up there? They don't even look to be the same type of bird.”

“It is not normal for that many birds to assemble in one place. That is either the site of a battle or a magical area. We will need to make sure to avoid the area regardless of the reason the birds are there.”

It was difficult to see any details on the birds from a distance, but she could make out quite a few different colors. Some were all one color, while the larger birds had several colors reminding her of a Macaw if it were the size of a condor. She had no plans to see any of them up close. The slope on the eastern side of the mountain had a gentle incline with quite a few trees, so avoiding the birds should be easy for them.

They spent the next two days under the tree canopy with no view of the sky. Animal sightings quickly turned into animal attacks. They had to fight off several dog-like animals as well as one enormous cat-like animal. Violet was fortunate to notice the cat before it pounced on them.

Her practice with Hypnotize had paid off because she was able to use it on the cat while her father quickly killed it. Hypnotize would fail quite a bit when she had lower synchronization, but her range and success rate increased as she gained synchronization. When she used it, the animals would freeze in place. Larger animals still broke out of her spell quickly, but it was usually enough for them to kill it safely.

When they made it to the treeline, it opened up into a large field, and it was clear that her father’s navigation technique had failed them. The birds appeared to be circling the remains of a significant battle in the field in front of them. After seeing the area, they immediately retreated into the trees.

They had made it three steps before hearing “HALT!” There was a man on a horse in their path into the trees. After getting a second look, she realized that the man was the horse. Centaurs exist in this world! He was wearing a dark red uniform jacket on his human-looking half, and he had a bag strapped along his horse half’s back to carry supplies.

From the trees, she spotted several skinny people with arrows trained on the trio. Quite a few of them had long hair and feminine features leading her to believe they allowed women into their army. She had made it to the Queendom, but it did not look like their reception was going to be a good one.

“Drop your bags and weapons and back up until you have reached the field. Only one of you appears to be from Astresh, and she is possibly a child. We will take no chances, submit, and no harm will come to you.” The giant centaur commanded.

They each dropped their things and began to slowly back into the field with their hands up. One of the skinny women came up to them with rope to tie their hands. The woman had long pointed ears that she could control the movement of. Knowing other races existed and seeing it was a big shock for Violet. The elven woman was beautiful with long golden hair that was in a braid down her back.

She changed her mind about the beauty due to the rough handling she received from the elf. The elf pulled her further into the field, inspecting her proportions. After the indignity of having her teeth examined, the elf grudgingly reported that Violet was a child and not part of Astresh.

“Stay put, human. We still don't trust you.” She said before walking away.