It took Maura almost a half hour to get back to her hidey hole. She cleared the opening of the moss and snow covered leather flap before sliding her spear inside butt-first and then following and replacing the flap.

Once the entrance was hidden well enough, she allowed her eyes to brighten so she could more easily see inside the hidden space. It took a while to cast the earth into a suitable hiding spot, but she had enough experience in making them and had come up with a simple standardized design. She didn’t have the same innate control of earth spells as she did with wind, but she had been focusing on teaching herself. Feeling the air and the earth, along with her other senses, and being able to create safe spots to rest is what had kept her alive.

The tunnel she used for an entrance was just barely large enough that she could fit her small body in while crouching. After twenty or so feet, it banked sharply to the right before opening up into a much larger area separated from the tunnel with another leather drape. As she slipped past the second drape, she quickly checked the open room.

Her ‘sword’ was sheathed and leaning against the wall past the tunnel entrance and was small enough to use in the close quarters inside. It was more like a long dagger with the blade at just over two feet, and it was made out of a ground down monster claw with a leather wrapped handle, but she called it a sword because that was cooler and at her relative height the proportions seemed right.

Her thick fur cloak was on the ground currently in use as a combination bedroll and carpet next to her large mostly empty pack and waterskin. Small tools were scattered here and there near the things she had been working on. Along the walls were different materials like bones, spools of spider silk, nice looking rocks, and certain useful plants she had gathered over the last few weeks while exploring and then waiting for the weather to break. In a neat pile to one side was her ‘medical kit’ which just consisted of strips of soft leather with clean downy short fur still attached to the inside.

She placed her hand on a rock protruding from the wall and murmured a quick light cantrip so she could see. The rock began to emit a glow with a subdued yellow light that would last for hours. She then began the arduous process of one-handedly un-binding her arm, then stripping off her headdress, gloves, bracers, bindings, and furs covering her torso.

As the furs and wrappings came off, her body was revealed. Pale pinkish white skin with strange almost invisible patterns, runes, and lines covered a thin girlish frame. The strange patterns were occasionally intersected by a plethora of barely noticeable silver scars, most on her back and arms. Her wavy and smooth brown hair fell around her shoulders, some of it in small braids with thin leather strips intertwined, pretty stones, carved bits of bone, and one spectacular small brown feather she had found a week ago. Her gently pointed ears poked out slightly from the sides of her head through her hair.

She shivered from the cool air against her naked skin and began to inspect her damaged left arm. She couldn’t see very well with the awkward angle so took a plate of metal that was polished to a mirror shine out of its protective fur-lined leather pouch to get a better view.

As she checked for any scratches on the plate, she glanced quickly at her face. Elegant cheekbones and full red lips were smoothed by a button nose and her larger gentle green eyes. Here, too, thin silver scars could be seen - the most noticeable split her lips vertically on the right near her chin and another that circled her left eye.

Placing the mirror against her pack for a nice angle, she studied the damage. Three deep gashes were on the outside of her forearm. Golden flowing liquid was still seeping from the cuts, and there was some dirt and debris inside of them.

Maura berated herself internally for having lost her concentration and allowed her magic to surge. It had been close to six months since she had been injured and, though she had put herself in a perilous position for a reason, she had been sloppy. She had learned the lessons on how to survive well, but had broken them tonight even if accidentally.

She unstoppered her waterskin and slowly trickled the clean water over the gashes to flush the dirt out with a hiss of pain. With a few wipes and a bit more water, they were nice and clean and the bleeding had slowed almost to a stop.

She could see the strange inner ‘meat’ of her arm clearly, but didn’t stop to examine the strange metallic substance closely. It was a sight she has seen many times before.

Over the next ten minutes, she arduously maneuvered her arm and the ‘bandages’ into place to hold the gashes closed. It would take perhaps a week for the rejuvenation process to fully heal the arm, but she should be able to move her hand by tomorrow, albeit weakly and with much discomfort.

Draping her fur jacket over her shoulders and holding it closed against her modest chest, she plopped down on her cloak. She placed her working hand on another larger rock in the middle of the room and chanted a longer and slower spell to heat it evenly throughout so it would radiate and warm up the air.

With a heavy sigh, she began un-wrapping her feet.

“Well, Maura! That could have gone better, but we found lights!” She whispered excitedly to herself. Another part of her mantra skips through her mind:

Sound is the enemy.

She just had to keep her excitement mostly silent while inside her den. She hadn’t spoken above a low whisper for as long as she can remember; the idea of making any unnecessary noise is painful but she had fallen into the habit of talking to herself whenever relatively safe just to be able to hear some words.

She continued in excited whispers, “They looked so close! I’ll be able to follow the river almost the whole way there from what it looked like. I wonder who I’ll meet?”

She smiled and hummed gently as the air warmed up and continued to unwrap her furs while imagining the people she might soon see.

She mumbled in a sing-song voice, “They are most likely human, but maybe not! Perhaps there is a mix like in the republic of my memories?

“They will certainly have a nice big wall, maybe with strong guards patrolling in shining armors! There will be a big marketplace near the town center filled with people in colorful clothing and nice smelling food too, of course.

“Ah, and there could be a school and a library!” She grins wide at the thought.

Ohh how that would fill her with joy. To find a place of learning and peace again.

Her humming drifted off and her hands went still as she pondered that last thought. There was darkness in her features, but also hope.

She had memories of the before time, but they were all sterile and flat. More like simple information than her more recent and vivid memories.

She could remember with perfect clarity the small parts of the university she had been in along with the information that had been planted inside her. Books and maps and notes and music… all sorts of things were hidden away in her mind, but they lacked any attached feelings when she thought of them. It was a strange dichotomy that she held in her mind and body.

She hoped that some of her questions might soon find answers as to what had happened to herself and the world.

With a quiet snort and a little shake of the head she finished pulling off her boots and then dug into her pack for some of the jerky, nuts and dried berries she had inside.

Maura didn’t understand her body at all but one thing she knew was that food and fluids would help her arm heal much faster. The smoked jerky was from a very tasty monster she had killed early last week. The actual smoking of the meat was the hardest part to accomplish with other monsters always nearby. Without her air magic to move and disperse the smoke and scents, it would have been a lesson in futility to try to actually cook anything.

As she chewed on her jerky, she took a look at the sleeve of her fur coat and the ruined bracer. It was pretty damaged and had been soiled rather well from the fight. She would have to cut off the damaged part and replace it with something new. She had some tanned leather patches, but it wouldn’t match her color scheme very well.

“I hope that wing is still there tomorrow. I could sew in the smaller feathers to the outside on both sleeves for extra armor. They were really heavy and strong! Then just cover the whole left sleeve with feathers and it would match well enough, I guess. Or maybe I’ll hunt something else for the inner arm? No way I’ll be working on that till my arm heals up a bit, though.” She mused.

As the moon crept across the sky, Maura finished her meal then stripped out of the rest of her furs. She curled up in her cloak and settled down in her little den to fall into the land of dreams. The monsters would be too busy arguing amongst themselves to try to bring her any trouble tonight.

---

The next day right after dawn Maura prepared herself then set out of her hidden base and began to make her way back up the hill. She left her spear behind and brought her sword today. Using the long spear required two arms to do properly.

She had securely tied her damaged arm to her furs across the chest to keep it secure and out of the way. She had cut the damaged part of the sleeve off of her coat already, and was now going to check to see if the wing was still where she had left it.

Right as the sun was peeking over the mountains to the east was the best time to move, she had found. The nocturnal predators were mostly back in their own dens or wherever and the daytime predators had yet to fully wake up and begin to move around.

Still; moving deliberately and keeping a vigilant watch on her surroundings was of paramount importance, especially with only one working arm.

Slow is fast. She reminded herself.

She had high hopes for the wing still being around. Avian creatures had barely any meat on the wing, especially further away from the shoulder, so she was hopeful that it might have been gnawed on a little and then left mostly alone.

There was no way she would go all the way to the clearing on the summit, especially if the battle for food last night had created more wounded or dead monsters. There would be too much blood and smells up there to risk it.

Daytime travel through woods was Maura’s specialty. Her glowing eyes didn’t give her away in the light and the dappled shadows and more turbulent air allowed her to better blend into the environment. She used well timed and hidden bursts of intent under the soles of her feet to temporarily harden the snow so she would leave no tracks or fall into the deep drifts.

Nocturnal predators relied much more on stealth and ambushes, which were harder to protect against while moving across long distances. They generally had better senses as well and could occasionally pick up her tiny magics as she stalked.

So far the forest was mostly calm with only a few spots she had to avoid. What took her thirty minutes at night to traverse took her ten with the better light.

She found the spot where she had left the wing, but the area was rather torn up and the wing was missing. There were some drag marks leading away so she followed the tracks and signs, seeing a few feathers she might pick up on the way back, until she found the wing.

As she suspected, it had been somewhat ravaged during the night, maybe half of it now missing, but the wing was huge. The monster had been three times her height, which meant its wingspan was… uh, much more than that. Even just the outer segment would be enough for her needs. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, it would be much easier and less smelly to just cut off the damaged part at the joint and bring the outer area back with her.

Before she did anything, she walked a circle around the wing while humming gently to set the perimeter of the area with her intent. A few mumbled words and a gentle flex of her mana later and the air rose slowly but steadily with an updraft coming from outside of the circle she had set. This would cut off the smell from traveling along the ground and maybe alerting a monster when she made a fresh cut on the wing.

She checked her perimeter one more time and, satisfied she was safe for the moment, moved to the wing and began to harvest. She had brought her pack with her in case all she found were scattered feathers, but with her new plan for the wing she would use it to hold handfuls of the clean softer down closer to the shoulder along with any really nice secondary flight feathers before separating out the part she wanted and then taking that back to her den.

She worked steadily and silently, pausing every minute to check for anything trying to sneak up on her. There were some insects, and a few were definitely monstrous, but they were more interested in the bits she cut off than in bothering her at the moment.

Like she suspected, the feathers were very strong and light. The softest feathers were still about as sturdy as leather, so they would work well for camouflage while the stiffer feathers were difficult to bend at all and the primary flight feathers were strong enough to use as a weapon. Well, a weapon against like… normal things. Not monsters out here that generally had defenses harder than wood.

It took perhaps twenty minutes to complete her harvesting and to gather up the part she would take back to the den before she was ready to go. Her updraft spell area would last almost an hour so she didn’t need to worry about that, but she was worried about the time. It was fully daytime now and some of the more active wandering creatures would be moving around soon.

The sheer diversity of the flora and fauna of the wilderness was still difficult for Maura to wrap her head around. She had information in her head from the before times that referred to a constant dying off of monsters over several centuries that was generally acknowledged to mirror the slow fading of atmospheric mana levels. What she had witnessed in the last year was wildly divergent from that information.

It was possible that she had been somehow transported to another universe or something, but her observed data pointed at that not being the case.

As she began her slow trek back while using a closer air spell to hide her scent, she pondered the options she had come up with long ago yet again.

Either she had been transported in some teleportation accident or something, she had fallen into a temporal stasis field, some crazy event had happened that spread over the world and she had been stuck inside of the isolation lab until something changed, or she was dreaming and nothing was real.

The first option was the least likely, as she had found landmarks around where she awoke that lined up with her memories as well as many ruins of the towns and cities she had made her destinations during her travels while following an old map in her mind. There were certainly lots of differences in the landscape, atmosphere, flora, and fauna, but she had compiled enough data to make that theory not very plausible.

The second option was also pretty unlikely. First of all temporal fields were almost purely theoretical, secondly the room she woke up in would have interfered with something that complex, and lastly something had changed her body and mind that couldn’t be explained by time simply passing.

Her working theory was that it was most likely that there had been some sort of event worldwide and lots changed, but it had changed very slowly for her. She had woken up in the old basement of the university inside of a research lab that was almost completely isolated from outside interference in order to achieve the most accurate test results. She had been… working? in the college school of medicine with some of the best minds on the planet to create new treatments and combat different diseases and such so it was unlikely that some sort of rogue experiment from within her university had anything to do with the changed situation.

As for everything being a strange dream where nothing was real and life was meaningless… the jury was still out on that one. People more qualified than her have been trying to figure that out literally forever. Or did she just think they had?

No. Not falling down that hole again.

As Maura tucked herself back into her base, she knew she wouldn’t need to leave again for most of a week while she healed and worked on her new project. She had plenty of that monster spider silk thread left spooled to attach the feathers, plenty of gutstring to work the leather with, and enough food to last a week with how little she needed to eat.

There were some clouds making their way toward the mountains that she had noticed on her way back, so it was possible she would get snowed in a bit, anyway. That was fine. The theoretical people probably weren’t going anywhere, and she was relatively safe for the time being.

In a week, the final leg on her long journey might be coming to a close.

In fact, now that Maura thought about it, her ‘birthday’ was coming up in a couple days.

She would celebrate with a cool new cloak!