Idelle was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, somehow, but she didn’t want to wake up. After all, her dreams were showing her memories.

Walking down a path to a strangely unfamiliar village. A pretty girl, smiling at her. Someone calling a name. Not her name, a man’s name. Whose, then?

Learning to use a sword. A grizzled older man was teaching her, with an affable smile that never quite reached his eyes. Practicing drills.

More fragments of everyday life. Grumbling about washing clothes in a river. Eating proper fresh cooked food for the first time in a week. She felt detached from it all. Maybe because it was a dream?

The memories swirled around her, growing ever more broken and piecemeal. She didn’t mind, really. As long as she could stay asleep a little longer. Oh. She was doing that, wasn’t she? That thing where you just want to sleep a moment longer because you have something unpleasant to wake up to. Bleh. Now that she’d thought about it, she knew that she’d wake—

…

Idelle woke up to the sun in her eyes. The shadow of a tree had crept just far enough onto her forehead that the red was bright even through her eyelids, and she reflexively covered her face with one arm and rolled away a little. A branch poked her in the cheek and she groaned and reluctantly levered herself off the ground.

Shaking a few twigs from her hair, she looked around. She was under a tree. Maybe not the best sleeping choice under normal circumstances, but, well…

She hoped Damon was OK. Normally he’d be here with that miracle soup of his, but she guessed that wasn’t on the menu given that she- she- she- sHe- ShE- SHE HAD-

She guessed it wasn’t on the menu given that she had no idea where she was right now. It wasn’t close to Damon’s shop, that was for sure. She stared intently at the tree across from her impromptu bed, and then at the one next to it. Yeah. Totally lost. Ugh.

Her eyes stayed fixed on this new, third tree a little longer. She felt… Different, somehow. The constant headaches, the horrible bizarre hollowness like someone had scraped her insides out with a rusty metal spoon, the way her thoughts had been fuzzy and disconnected? All utterly vanished, without so much as a whisper.

She flexed her hand experimentally. It felt normal. No, better than normal, it felt great. She looked down at it. It looked just like her hand. Probably. She didn’t think she’d ever bothered to memorize what her hand looked like, but it felt like she’d notice if it was different.

What had been wrong with her? Damon had said she had a fever, but what kind of fever made someone like THAT? What kind of fever made someone forget their own name? She hadn’t even understood him when he said it; it’d been like she had been trying to speak a foreign language and only knew a few words. The whole thing felt like a twisted nightmare somehow, even ignoring that taste that was so good it made her want to puke and how—

Idelle wrenched herself out of her thoughts, more twigs and debris flying from her hair as she shook the last of the sleepiness free. Now was not the time. Looking at it objectively, her situation was… ah, not great. She was lost, somewhere in a notoriously nasty forest filled with magically mutated wildlife. She should count it as a blessing that she seemed to be over whatever insane sickness she had, and start trying to either find a landmark or somewhere safe to shelter at night and a little food.

She looked up at the sun, considering. It was autumn, right? So in that case, west should be… Ugh, that way maybe? How do people do this again? The sun is south at midday on this side, right?

She sighed and rose to her feet. Turning resolutely in the exact opposite direction of where she’d just decided west was, she took a few strides before pausing. Her legs were stiff. She stretched down to her toes, frowning as she realized how battered and filthy her clothes were. Uuugh. But it wasn’t like she could fix that problem right now either.

A few seconds later, she slowly rose out of the stretch and fixed her eyes ahead, between the trees. What was she doing, worrying about looking filthy at a time like this? She… couldn’t even remember her real name, and she was worried about clothes. She sighed, seeming a little smaller than before among the trees.

“Idelle… I guess it’ll have to do.”

With that, she started off between the trees, her stride just slow enough to not be hurried, staunchly NOT thinking further about whether it was possible for a fever to make you forget things like the magical beasts that populate the forest (that you had also forgotten existed until you woke up just now.) Not to mention making her act like such a child…

It was much better to just forget that ever happened, that’s what she would have thought if she was thinking about it. Which she wasn’t.

…

This was not going well. Idelle thought she was pretty mature for being willing to admit that honestly. Someone else might have pretended they knew exactly what they were doing, or just broken down and cried for help. But her? She was resolutely taking the problem face on.

Unfortunately, none of her feelings on the matter really changed the fact that she was still lost, that the sun had gone behind clouds several hours ago and she didn’t know if she was still going straight, and it was getting dark. Her legs were getting sore, she was thirsty, she was filthy, and with nothing going right, she was actually pretty ready to give up. Not that she could.

Oh, and there was a hundred fifty kilogram direwolf staring at her from about 20 meters away.

“Go! Leave! Bad wolf! There’s nothing for you, get out of here!” Idelle winced at the way her voice shook as she shouted, but pressed on regardless as she peeled a rock from under a layer of dirt and detritus and hurled it at the creature. It jumped back, growling, and her rock scattered leaves and dust in the air where it’d been standing. The sight boosted her confidence, and she grabbed another, larger, rock and stepped forward.

“I said leave, you overgrown dog.”

The wolf stood its ground and the two locked eyes. Idelle kept a firm grip on her rock, trying to look as intimidating as possible. Her new enemy shuffled a few steps back and her heart leapt; only to have her hopes dashed as it exploded forward in a burst of motion.

Her eyes darted to either side. Should she run? Climb a tree? There wasn’t time to plan, she needed to move NOW.

But she didn’t move. She could have tried. Her pulse was racing horrifyingly fast, and a part of her was screaming to just move, to not be stupid, to just try and escape some way, any way she could. But some other, more primal part of her rebelled at it. At trying to run. She just didn’t want that. After all, it raged, what did she have to lose? She’d already run away, hadn’t she? How else did she think she’d got here?

Strangely, though, neither of those was the strongest thought dancing through her head. No, that was something far more rational and cold. A thought that felt at once both alien and like it was born to fit perfectly inside her mind, gripping the rough surface of the chunk of stone with both her hands and twisting her face into a smile

She knew she could kill it.

The direwolf reached her.

It came at her like no normal wolf, no wild creature trying to survive, but like a hurricane of teeth and fur flying through the air in a great leap, its mass alone enough to crush her, utterly inexorable from the moment it started forward.

And, as if they were dancing, the girl moved next to it, her improved weapon already in a position to smash into its open maw with the full force of the beast’s own charge. Its incisor gashing open her left arm as it tries to lock her limb between its jaw; only to be stopped short by unyielding stone as she somehow twisted around its head with mere centimeters to spare-

The moment ended as the wolf’s body and forelegs smashed into Idelle’s shoulder, smashing her off her feet and into an awkward roll on the ground with a muffled crack that sent daggers of pain through her side despite the adrenaline coursing through her. She let out a hoarse scream of pain that was echoed by a furious snarling wail, and despite the pain she pushed herself up and into a crouch, trying to find her bearings.

Her eyes widened at the sight that met her eyes. The wolf’s jaws were locked unnaturally wide apart, several teeth missing, and with her rock wedged nearly into its throat; blood running over it from where one end cut through the roof of its mouth. The cut was jagged and deep enough to reveal a glimmer of bone. It continued to wail, a horrible keening whimper of pain as it awkwardly pressed its face into the ground in a seemingly futile attempt to somehow dislodge the source of its distress. It turned to face her as she rose, shaking its head and taking little hops forward before shuffling back, as if to warn her away.

Idelle took a slow step forward. The adrenaline was gone. She clasped her hand over the cut on her left hand, blood leaking around her fingers. Her enemy let out a choked snarl as it continued its little dance.

She knelt, and her fingers closed around the biggest of its missing teeth. The right upper canine. Long, even compared to the already enormous size of the magically augmented animal. Long enough for what she needed.

She took another step forward.

“You should leave. Maybe you can still survive.” The wolf made no real response to her soft words, only pacing and jerking its disabled head again.

“I mean it. Just walk away. It doesn’t need to be like this.” Her voice came out unbidden. It wasn’t like the wolf could even understand her.

“Last chance.” They were close now, almost as close as when they hurt each other, and for a second neither one took the last step. It could leave, Idelle thought, it could just run away and she could never catch it and that would be that.

But it didn’t, in the end, it lunged at her again. And this time she let it, one arm going almost tenderly around its neck while the other drove the tooth into its eye as deep as she could force it, her hand covered almost instantly in its blood. They fell to the ground together, it atop her, heavy and warm and it spasmed for a few moments before going still.

For a long moment, Idelle’s lips moved with no sound. Her eyes fixed on the wolf and the blood and bone and distended jaws with her rock still lodged between them. When her voice did come, it was a barely audible whisper, too quiet to hear even had someone been there.

“Sorry… I’m just. Thirsty. Or hungry, or something. Maybe next time I'll…”

Her voice trailed off.

Then, she pulled the tooth from its eye, violently forced a jagged cut into the hide on its neck, and gently bit into the wound to drink.