The Great Mountains were a world unto themselves. My battle with the velocicar had taken place in the foothills of the foothills. As rugged as the battle terrain had been, as I ascended it become more and more mysterious. The forest where I had sheltered to escape from the Pridish bombardment gave way to a wide strip of ascending land that was nothing more than loose grey rocks and boulders. As my worn sandals struggled to find purchase, I fell numerous times and without my miraculous healing surely would have perished.

Above the mountains and at a height of what I guessed was several miles above the plains, the land evened out slightly and became a dense jungle. The trees here were tall. The shortest was still taller than me and each trunk was massive, I tried uprooting a small specimen but I could not even wrap my arms around all the way. The foliage and tree tops here were dense and walking through the jungle, only shimmering sunlight filtered through. Moreover, the coolness of altitude and the dampness of the vegetation covered the entire forest in a sort of slight mist. It was neither hot, nor humid yet my clothes and body were always covered with a sheen of moisture. There was an ancient and surreal quality to the forest which I couldn’t shake. I felt as if I was in a daze for most of my time in that jungle. Somehow, despite my bulk I didn’t feel like an intruder in that space.

I couldn’t afford to remain in a daze forever. I had to sustain myself and I had to watch for the Prids who I just knew would soon arrive at my doorstep. In those early days in the jungle I mainly ate fruits and nuts. The ones that I had eaten before were few and far between so I began to try out whatever I could get my hands on. I fell sick frequently in the beginning and then less and less until I was able to consume most of the foodstuffs that I could find. They tasted like nothing but they kept my hunger sated. Ghost Kishni was no help in my foraging and that made me doubt that she was a real spirit. Lolo would have been a much better companion, the fat beast would have pointed me to the best food with drool dripping down her smiling face and her tail fanning me. I thought about Lolo a lot in those first few weeks and it made me sad, but it also kept my anger against the Prids burning.

It was difficult to find clearings in the jungle from where I could observe the plains below and see any approaching army. And the jungle was like a maze, I once thought I had found the way up only to find myself facing the layer of grey shingles that I never wanted to see again.

Eventually I managed to lose myself in the jungle and wound up above it. The dense foliage gave way to bright green grass. Further up the mountains I could see that the grass died out and there were masses of brownish grey rock. And finally a ways above me the summits, covered in white and blanketed by swirling clouds. I wondered whether my body could survive up there near the clouds if I wasn’t able to stop the Prids. I wondered what lay on the other side of the peaks.

When I finally found an escarpment from where I could observe the plains below I discovered to my dismay that anything small was either difficult to see or difficult to discern. I could make out the river but really that was it. I thought I could see the remains of the Kesi village but it looked like a black smudge on a sea of green. Disappointed and troubled I returned to the jungle.

A survivalist I was not, but some truths become self-evident. I figured out eventually that I never saw any animals because they could hear my heavy gait and smell my somewhat stale scent from far away and had the sense to disappear. Upon this realisation, Ghost-Kishni made a cutting remark about my smell which I laughed off but felt bad about for a day. It’s not like I wanted to smell bad, any pond that I took a dip in would soon empty of water as my bulk displaced it. And I didn’t have a full set of clothes to change into every day.

I also learned to notice signs that I was perhaps not the only sentient being in the jungle. I saw signs of intelligent life that gradually opened my eyes to a whole new world of observation. I came across a granite rock that had an edge chipped off in a way which I doubted could happen naturally. I saw a tree with a single deep cut in the bark out of which some hardened yellowish substance had emerged. I licked the substance and it tasted kind of sweet. I also saw evidence of twines being twirled into ropes although by the way the efforts had been cast aside I suspected that the twirler had left in a hurry.

Days turned into weeks which turned into months. My hair grew long. All over my body. I started combing my head and beard hair with rough shales of rock and binding it with twine. I learned to step quieter and to stand still like a tree to hear and observe everything around me. I also created my first fire, striking together pieces of rock over dead grass that I had recovered from above the treeline. My sense of pride when the sparks finally caught on the grass and turned into smoke and then a flame was absolute. I roared out my supremacy and the jungle was shocked into silence. I was a king at least for that one night.