He pondered and ruminated, but came up with nothing. No rope he made from leaves would be able to stand up to the rigors of life for long, and he couldn’t use bark or something even if it was flexible enough. He had no way to stitch it, and once it dried out it would break with ease if it was.

Eventually, he came upon an idea, albeit a grim one. Tedrick separated part of the axe handle and made it into a razor sharp blade, or at least as sharp as he could pinch it into with a material so soft, which was pretty damn sharp. Then he considered his arm; he needed somewhere tough and meaty, without tendons near the surface.

Decision made, the mark was made with grit teeth. TS, on the back of his forearm near his wrist. Like a kid marking a tree for historical posterity.

Whoever he became, Tedrik was here, once upon a time. And there was a goal to achieve.

He restored his axe to its entirety and sighed. Sure, he felt like this was necessary, even if he didn’t actually know if it would do anything. Did fae even scar? The more he looked at it in hindsight the sillier it seemed. No regrets though. Even if this was nothing but a desperate swansong for his former life, he had to try.

He sure did wish it would stop hurting so much though. Tedrik supposed this body was unused to pain. It had never been pushed.

A thought occurred to him as he sat pondering how stupid it was to cut yourself open when you had no antibiotics. Maybe he could accelerate his healing? He had no reason to think he should be able to, but he never had reason to think he could shape stone, either.

Well… How did healing work, anyway? With rock shaping he just focused on the intended goal, and plotted how to do it. Pictured it in his head, and what he wanted it to do. So…

He touched the back of his hand, closing his eyes and visualized his goal, accelerating the healing but leaving the scar. A tingle started in his hand, lining the letters he marked. Giving it a moment of time, he moved his hand...

To no results. Well, he supposed not all magic would come so easily. That would probably be asking for a bit much.

It did stop hurting so much though, so… Perhaps he was at least on the right track.

His little encounter with the village turned out to be more problematic than expected, with search parties occasionally coming out. They weren’t directly communicating with him and he wasn’t speaking to them directly, so he couldn’t understand them. Or at least he guessed that was the reason. He really had no idea how his weird communication thing worked. He assumed that was so, since he couldn’t understand animals unless he spoke to them directly and deliberately.

He supposed it made sense; if this was a fae spawning ground then of course they’d respond to seeing someone with no idea how to act civilized running around. Think of the children.

At the worst, he could be dangerous to others. Which he supposed wasn’t entirely false; he had no way of knowing what his fight or flight response would be when cornered like he suddenly was earlier.

Thankfully it wasn’t a fight response. But still, it could have gone either way. He’d certainly organize to get such a wild person at least under control.

He had to be more careful going forward, at least until he was ready as he could be. He found that the river had not only that village but two or three others nearby; of course it did. Civilization exists near water. Duh. He’d have to find other sources of water.

Or so he thought at least.

It didn’t take him long to realize that after all this time, he hadn’t had any water. Yet, he still wasn’t thirsty or hungry. The last time he came across water he got sidetracked and never actually drank. What needs did he even have? It was definitely a good thing that he didn’t seem to need water, or at least not as often as humans did, but still.

This only exemplified his ignorance.

That ignorance would change little over what he’d recognize as a month.

The first lesson he learned was a simple one. Namely that size matters. Especially when speaking of what can eat you. It was easy, as a human, to take for granted your position at the top of the food chain.

Nothing wanted to attack you; why would they? Few are the things that could make a reasonable meal of you even if they did, and even minor injuries in the wild are likely to be a death sentence. It was never worth it unless you felt the alternative was death and you couldn’t flee from the giant hairless apes.

This was not the case for sprites. They weren’t just a reasonable size to eat, but were practically bite sized for many creatures. A light snack. Albeit one hard to catch… unless the predator in question could also fly.

While preemptively hiding from a party of sprites that were out looking for something in the canopy of a tree, Tedrick found himself bumping into something when looking away from where he was going. A soft, scratchy something. Zipping back from it, he saw what appeared to be a birds nest. It seemed that it was made of some kind of long, solid material instead of many small sticks and general litter; it was almost like a soft but firm silk.

Like Earth birds, though, it would seem that nests were only used when there was need for them… namely, babies.

As strange as the clicking, squealing cry that came from the nest was, it was clear that they were the cries of young calling for a parent.

If tradition held, said parent never came back happy.

Time to go.

Dipping down further into the canopy, Tedrick began to wind his way through. Those babies sounded easily as big as him. He didn’t care to see the parent of such young.

Unfortunately, it seemed like other plans were had by the universe, as seeing the parent was exactly what he did. Damn near ran right into them, actually. They seemed just as happy as he did about it.

The “bird” was as strange as anything else here; it was a pale green with feathers that seemed to end in sharp spines, and it had bare, bat-like wings and four short legs, with a posture more like a winged manticore or sphinx than a traditional bird. It ended in stubby claws, but they seemed ridged and hooked. They weren’t terribly long, but whatever they grabbed was coming with them when they went.

Their beak seemed similarly hooked and barbed, and had two very large eyes that were solid black.

Just his luck. Not just any bird but a freaky chimera bird covered in fish hooks. Excellent work indeed, luck. Attempting to zip above the creature, Tedrick shoved a branch in between them with telekinesis, hoping to lose it quickly. But this was quickly dashed. Because the damn thing just barrelled through the branch, ignoring the obstacle altogether, seeming to have known exactly where he was despite blocking its vision.

It was nimble, too, using its legs to bounce and steer off of objects when he managed to dodge it, like a cannonball determined to find its mark. This was getting bad; he wasn’t tiring out, but the thing was getting better and better at predicting his movements. Every dodge was narrower. He was outclassed when it came to hunting.

If dodging wouldn’t do… He ducked under one last attack, feeling talons rake both his shoulders, left thigh, and chest, and removing flesh by the chunk. A pale blue-white blood came forth like a fountain, the wound clearly rough, more like the ripping of a saw than the cutting of a claw.

If that hit somewhere more important, he was a goner.