After the months of hiding, disguising himself, and the constant fear of being found out and killed, the dangers of the forest almost felt like a vacation. Over the last week, Tamiel had adapted quite contentedly to the freedom and solitude of the forest.

But even alone, the burning desire to become stronger guided him. “I know you will!” Nahira’s voice echoed around him constantly, keeping him focused on the future. Only his confidence that she would be treated like the princess that she was prevented him from running back to the city in a doomed attempt to rescue her. The potential political ramifications if any word of mistreatment got out were overwhelming. Even King Raitan, in his rage, would surely understand that.

Tamiel’s logic also told him that the rumors he had heard during his escape from the undercity were probably being suppressed and that the official version of events was probably very different from what had actually happened. He was convinced that, officially, Prince Valorous was dead, the victim of some evil plot or tragic accident.

Though it frustrated him, Tamiel followed Nola’s guidance. “The clans will certainly notice you long before they make any sort of contact. You must act as though you are being judged from the very moment that you enter their domain. Your best bet? Show off. Go wild, but not too wild, Tamiel. Don’t cause any unnecessary destruction.”

Master Koh replied scathingly, “Stop babying him, Nola, you’ve already done the best you could have. If he’s enough of an idiot to get himself killed at this point, let him die.”

His life in the forest was surprisingly rewarding. He diligently trained the skills taught to him by the retired ranger. “It’s all about efficiency,” Nola had told him. “If you can train more than one skill at the same time, you’ll find that your muscle memory remembers each of them faster. Rely on your subconscious to do the heavy lifting so that you can observe and make minor changes in your overall form. This will also help if you ever find yourself commanding an army one day.” With that method, he was currently suppressing his aura to hide his presence, keeping his sword skills well oiled, and catching his dinner, all at the same time.

Tamiel smiled at the memory. Taking a deep but silent breath, the former prince returned his attention to the task at hand. He was sneaking up on a pack of small boar like animals. They stood around two feet at the shoulder, and their long, matted fur trailed along the forest floor as they sniffed at the ground. Called swoons, their primary defense mechanism was to release a foul-smelling odor and collapse, as though dead. With a diet primarily of roots, tubers, and mushrooms, their meat had a pleasantly earthy flavor. Nola cautioned him that it was of the utmost importance to remain undetected while hunting them, or else their own rank gas would spoil the flavor.

Tamiel crept slowly along behind the grazing herd, concentrating with everything he had to suppress his presence. One of the swoons snorted and looked up. The boy froze and tried to keep his mind as empty as possible. Grumbling to itself, the delicious creature bowed its head and continued its meal. The would-be hunter remained motionless for a long moment before gradually sidling up to a swoon that had wandered slightly away from the rest. Tamiel aimed his knife at a precise location along the base of its neck and struck.

The peacefully snacking creature never even noticed as it died. It kept chewing calmly. Tamiel left his knife lodged in its neck and slowly made his way back out of the clearing. Despite following Nola’s instructions to the letter, he was still completely taken aback when it continued to chew. Tamiel made it all the way back to the treeline before it slowly dropped to its knees and fell over sideways.

A few of the other swoons twitched and snorted at the odd behavior, but ultimately they just continued their own suppers. Shaking his head in disbelief, Tamiel spoke softly to himself. “They really are just apathetic gluttonous pigs. I just saw it, and I still don’t want to believe it.”

He knew that the smartest thing to do was wait for however long it took for the herd to move on. But after three hours, it didn’t look like they had any intention of leaving. An ever widening circle of bare earth was left in their wake as they fanned out, attempting to eat every last plant in the spacious clearing. Tamiel had been meditating serenely for at least two of those hours, but his thirteen year old patience was at an end. He continued to wait for a bit longer, but couldn’t help drumming his fingers against the branch while kicking his legs in agitation.

Finally, when he was at his wits end, an absurd idea occurred to him. He grinned and giggled to himself as he stood up on the branch. Climbing higher, he leapt from tree to tree until he was almost right above the herd of swoons. Crossing his legs again, he closed his eyes and focused himself. This had to be absolutely perfect, or else all the time he’d spent waiting on the swoons would be completely wasted. An image slowly took shape in his head. It was a creature that he had only ever seen pictures of, a jaegee. Fundamentally, jaegee were what hamsters would look like if their mouths extended across most of their bodies, were filled with razor sharp teeth, and they were the size of a four-seater carriage.

Tamiel needed something so overwhelmingly fearsome that the swoons would run screaming instead of releasing their gas and passing out. Regaining his patience now that he had a solid goal, the boy fabricated an illusory jaegee in the air before him. Once he was finally pleased with its form, he methodically added a steaming breath and dripping fluids along its massive teeth. Its bloodshot eyes darted wildly back and forth. He nodded, believing that if he didn’t know that it was fake, he would be absolutely terrified.

He beamed with the confidence of an experienced con artist as he silently crafted the most wickedly horrible shriek he could imagine. The illusion in front of him stretched and shook its rear in a reflection of Tamiel’s own enthusiastic anticipation. Completely ready, the beast let loose an ear-splitting roar so loud that it shook the surrounding trees. Simultaneously it dropped from the air in front of its creator and down towards the ignorant victims below. Tamiel unleashed every bit of his aura, bleeding the intent to destroy and devour. This will was the result of Master Koh’s harsh lessons, and Tamiel’s own drive.

Their spines weren’t built to look directly above themselves, and Tamiel laughed at the ridiculous sight of them twisting their necks sideways in order to see overhead. Things progressed exactly as the boy had hoped. When the swoons caught sight of the pouncing and slavering jaegee, they let out raucous squeals of their own and bolted. The frantic creatures ran into each other, falling over and scrambling back up in their haste to vacate the clearing.

For several long minutes, Tamiel desperately held onto his branch, afraid that if he let go, his roars of mirth would carry him over the edge. When he finally gained control of himself, he had to lay there and gasp until his vision cleared and his sides stopped hurting. He glanced down at the emptied clearing and smirked victoriously as the dust settled and revealed the spiritless body of his unspoiled prey.

Jumping down from his branch, he got right to work on field dressing his catch. The amatuer ranger still felt a little queasy cutting into the corpse and removing its entrails, but hunger was a great motivator. Tamiel sighed as he thought about his dinner. Despite his best efforts at cooking and seasoning, the results were just edible. He could still recall the wonderfully prepared meals of Nola and Koh, and even further back, the palatial meals that he had been used to for almost all of his life. His own cooking was a poor substitute. But, he supposed, at least he had upgraded from the rotten and raw diet of his lousy stint as a thief.

He threw the dressed carcass over his shoulder and left the viscera for whatever animals discovered them. “Thanks for the bounty,” he said, expressing his gratitude to the forest. “Enjoy your meal.” It was going to be dark soon, so he hurried back to his temporary abode. On his way, he checked the various alarms and traps that he had placed around it. None of them had been triggered, so he believed that he was safe. He climbed up his tree and started preparing his kill.

His home was an unused hollow about halfway up one of the monstrous trees that composed the Forest of Giants. Poorly constructed blankets of fur lay crumpled under the finely crafted blanket that Nola gave him. Pieces of meat and a few fish were strung from a corner of his ceiling, curing. A pile of various roots and other edible plants were hanging next to them. With his magical flames he didn’t have to worry about burning down his current dwelling, so he could do his cooking safely inside and out of the weather.

After his filling, if unsatisfactory, dinner, Tamiel got to work on cleaning and repairing his gear. Blades needed to be cleaned and sharpened, rips and tears needed to be mended, plants needed to be hung out to dry. He whittled a couple extra arrow shafts for when he inevitably broke one. There were even some feathers from when he had caught some bird-like creature the other day, so that he could refletch them as needed.

Finally, he worked on tanning a few of the hides that he had acquired. This was his least favorite thing to do, but with the weather starting to drop, he needed something to bundle up in. He stripped down to his underwear, so he didn’t stain any of his clothes with the rank tanning processes. He stepped out onto a branch a bit away from his hollow. Using a skinning knife, he scraped the leftover meat from the hide. Then, he placed it in a bucket of water that he had hung from a branch, hoping to keep scavengers from it while it soaked.

The lonely nomad had an orderly operation set up. Because the entire project took several days for each hide, he now had several in each stage of curing. Finished with his newest acquisition, he moved on to his previous batch, which was ready for scraping. He did the best that he could, but was eminently aware that his work was not particularly comely. Next came the grossest part. Tamiel had to make a solution out of the brains of his prey and soak the leather in it. He was pretty sure that his disgusted face could frighten off small children.

Though he was already tired from the day’s activity, he stretched and pulled another piece of leather until he couldn’t anymore. He rested for a while and chewed on some swoon jerky. “I’m so tired,” he complained, “But there’s only one more job, before I can go to sleep.” He smacked his cheeks lightly and stood up.

A few trees away from his den there was another hollow. This one was used for smoking the leather and meat that he hunted. Hanging the newest piece of finished leather and some meat, he magically started a controlled but smokey fire. Then he meditated outside of the cavity until the leather was done. “Finally,” he groused, as he grabbed the leather. Making sure that his enchanted flame was contained and unable to start a forest fire, he left it to continue smoking overnight. Then, Tamiel drifted back towards his shelter and his bed.

………………………….

After a huge storm that lasted for three days, a playful group of squirrels ran around the trunk of a tree while Tamiel watched in amusement. He was eating a meal of mashed roots and dried swoon meat. “I’ve finally got it!” he was congratulating himself while he devoured his simple fare. Little did the group of lively rodents know, but two among their number were fakes. The young mage had been practicing his illusory magic and the results spoke for themselves. Ever since he had fashioned the jaegee, he felt that he had a deeper understanding of his conjured phantasms.

Sound, smell, sight, even touch to some extent, his illusions were now capable of fooling the average onlooker completely. The delighted expression fell off of his face as the chittering of the happy squirrels reminded him of Nahira’s laughter. He wondered how she would react to the massive improvement of his images.

As his attention wandered, the counterfeit rodents froze and then popped like bubbles. Their authentic brethren stared in shock and dismay at the sudden disappearance. Tamiel tried to choke off his laughter at their horrified expressions, but he ended up choking on his food instead. The little creatures glared at him and then raced away to continue foraging.

Tamiel left the clearing himself and decided to go deeper into the woods. An enticing smell teased his nostrils, and despite his misgivings, he decided to follow it. He didn’t realize that the scent that was drawing him closer was clouding his judgement as well.

He followed the path of the aroma in a distracted daze. The boy wobbled to a stop about twenty feet from the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her sun-dappled skin seemed to shimmer and shine with an internal radiance. Large and enticing eyes were pulling him in, filled with seductive suggestions. A breezy gown revealed an overwhelmingly luscious figure. Her face was framed by lustrous hair the color of liquid gold. She bit her lip enticingly and beckoned him closer with her perfectly formed hands. Tamiel’s heart raced and his blood boiled as he was overcome with desire for this gorgeous being.

As he took an eager step forward, Nahira’s glowering face appeared in the back of his mind and he blushed with embarrassment. The embarrassment led quickly to annoyance at the honeytrap he had almost fallen into. Focusing mana into his eyes, Tamiel broke through the hallucination and beheld the abhorrent reality of the creature before him.

Scraggly, twiglike hair jutted out in a crooked crown around a horrifying semblance of a human's facial features. The dryad’s skin was pitted and lined like bark. The previously graceful arms had distended and twisted into long clawed branches that scratched at the air in an attempt to grab onto the disturbed vagabond. The once enticing scent had transformed into a vile and rotten miasma that burned his throat and choked him. Its gnarled torso was fused into a diseased looking trunk. A twisted and toothy maw opened up under its ghastly visage. Even its grey and ashen leaves looked sickly. Bones littered the ground in front of it, some of them woven through its grasping roots.

Even as his eyes watered from the stench, he glowered menacingly at the disgusting thing. “How dare you!” Tamiel’s hand curled into a shaking fist. “As if I could ever fall for a foul trick like that. No matter how beautiful you pretend to be, my heart belongs to another. Before her, you would never stand a chance. Trying to get between our love is the last mistake you’ll ever make, you hideous crone!”

He was overcome with revulsion, and shamed by how easily he had been seduced. Enraged, Tamiel evoked every last splinter of his power and unleashed it on the object of his wrath. Forming into one of his father’s paramour spells, he called, “Xertonos, burn away my enemies. Sundering Burst!”

A billowing force condensed in the exiled prince’s outstretched hand, igniting the very air around him. He sent it rushing towards the immobile monster as it shrieked fearfully. The golden ball of flaming energy melted into the abomination’s stomach, above the massive gibbering mouth. A hissing smoke billowed out of the hole and the dryad tried to rip and tear into its own flesh to remove the burning object. Flames licked out of the wound before bursting forth like some sort of infernal tongue.

The creature looked up pleadingly at Tamiel, silently begging him for mercy. Its eyes grew wide when smoke started pouring out of both its mouths. A thunderous crack rang out across the woods as the entire tree-beast exploded, raining smoldering splinters.

Lowering his hand, Tamiel snuffed out the flames. After all, he wouldn’t make a very good impression on the clans if he burned down their homes. He kicked a large piece of the trunk that had ended up near him because of the explosion. Then he stalked away, stomping back towards his temporary abode. He muttered pleadingly to himself the entire way, “I’m not a cheater, I promise, ‘Hira. Don’t get mad. It’s not my fault, I swear.”

……………………..

Several weeks in, Tamiel was now completely adapted to his solitary lifestyle. “I could stay like this forever,” he mused as he stretched pleasurably. “No princely responsibilities, no annoying lessons in statecraft, no bothersome elders who complain about every little prank. My only boss here is my stomach.” The constant ache in his heart reminded him otherwise. Sighing, he spoke again, “Maybe, after our reunion, we could both live here.”

With her aptitude in plant magic, her supreme reflexes, and her attention to detail, Nahira would probably have an even easier time roughing it in the woods. Her phantoms were a near constant presence in his solitude, spurring him on, and keeping him focused. They flitted around the edges of his vision, giggling when ever he made a mistake. Sometimes they lectured him whenever he took a foolish risk or missed an easy target.

“I’ve been on my own too long,” he complained to one of them. “How is it that you're a product of my imagination, and you're still funnier than I am?” She just laughed and skipped away. Tamiel rubbed his forehead, “I guess this is what going crazy feels like.” He called out after her, “At least you’re cute.”

……………………………

The exiled prince was hidden under a row of thick bushes. He skillfully circulated his aura to disperse his presence. Nearby, a giant boar, easily ten feet tall at the shoulder, snorted with its nose to the earth. “I feel like I’m hiding from the elder brother of a kid I picked on too much,” he muttered to himself. “It’s not my fault that swoons are tasty. And easy prey. And good training…” Tamiel’s tone sounded like he was trying to convince himself that this wasn’t some sort of karmic retribution.

He had been picking berries when his instincts warned him that something was coming. Ignoring the thorns, Tamiel dropped and rolled deep into the berry bushes. Not a moment too soon, as the aggressively large beast ambled up to the berry patch and started munching. “I’m so screwed. If he catches me, it’s all over. There’s no way I’m making it to that tree over there.” He swore with all the freedom of a thirteen year old that knew he wouldn’t get caught. Or rather, he thought, a fourteen year old, as his birthday had come and gone during his solitary existence in the Forest of Giants.

The boar slowly turned away from Tamiel’s hiding place. The boy slowly started relaxing his muscles, not entirely convinced that the boar was going to leave. Just as he was about to move, his instincts screamed at him to freeze. With that as the only warning, the ground underneath the boar exploded outwards. A massive purple wurm erupted from the hole and immediately latched its maw onto the side of the startled boar.

Squealing and bucking, the boar trampled around the clearing, trying desperately to shake the wurm off.

Still hidden, Tamiel remembered his teacher’s caution. “Carnage wurms always hunt in packs.” Feeling a minor vibration under his stomach, he immediately leapt out of the bushes. He dodged the second, smaller wurm’s eruption by a hair's breadth. Cursing violently, Tamiel beheld several more of the smaller wurms drill their way out of the earth. The boy ran with all the speed he could muster, towards the tree he had taken note of earlier.

The smaller wurms looked back and forth from Valorous to the still thrashing boar. Three of them leapt for him, while the other two latched themselves onto the boar. They had truly earned the carnage in their name, as they violently tore into the boar. Blood fountained out of the boar’s flesh as the poor beast tried to fight back.

Making it safely, Tamiel skittered up the tree and stopped above where he thought the carnage wurms could reach. “By Texnosha’s regard, fleeting clouds rain down. Water Blade!” Droplets from the air condensed into three shimmering crescents. They launched through the air towards the pursuing wurms.

The curved blades tore through their targets and knocked the three wurms to the ground. A high pitched keening breached the air as the wurms writhed in agony.

Tamiel couldn’t rest, because when the largest wurm heard the agonized cries of its brethren, it let loose a monstrous wail of its own and bodily threw the boar at him. A sickening crack came from the boar as its body bounced off of the tree.

Tamiel, once again, barely managed to jump out of the way. He landed on the forest floor and rolled, immediately racing across the ground, away from the remaining carnage wurms. His warrior’s instincts saved him again. He had barely skidded to a stop when six more of the smaller creatures burst out of the ground in front of him.

“Xertonos, coat my blade in the righteous fire of your wrath. Searing Blaze!” Launching himself forward, Tamiel whipped his sword from its sheath and covered it with a scorching golden flame. With a short series of slashes, he cut all six of the newly arrived wurms into smoking ribbons. He spun around and unleashed the fiery aura from his blade, hurtling it at the two smaller wurms that were slithering towards him.

The rending volley hit one of the wurms directly and tore part way through the other. The powerful hit left smouldering wounds that incapacitated its victims and left them thrashing around and keening loudly.

The largest wurm almost couldn’t believe its senses. How could its mighty children be destroyed by such a tiny mouthful? Enraged, the last and biggest carnage wurm shrieked so loudly that Tamiel was forced to grab his ears in pain. The massive beast flung itself across the clearing, traveling almost faster than the boy’s eyes could keep up with. Its dripping and horrible maw was stretched open as wide as it could go, wanting to swallow this new enemy whole.

Tamiel tried to swallow, but ended up choking on his spit. His eyes were enlarged with fear at the imminent advent of the wurm. He tried to turn and run, but couldn’t focus while also attempting to catch his breath. He tripped and whirled so that he could see the charging wurm. Frantically, he spat out a patchwork spell. “With the awakened blood of Korovix, patron of corrosion and genesis, seize the flames of Xertonos from my veins, wreath my foe in devouring fury. Combination magic, Scouring Flames of Gehenna!

The wurm’s journey appeared to be in slow motion to Tamiel as he focused everything he had on this attack. The auric flames in his chest, which used to be a cheery and golden hue, darkened into a frenetic conglomeration of flickering shadows and swirling embers. They burst from him like a cannon blast before becoming an enormous torrent of phantasmagorical fire.

The fires rammed into the stampeding wurm and bit into its roughly armored flesh. The carnage wurm’s skin bubbled and smoked wherever the flames so much as grazed it. The causitic flames roiled past the wurm and started to melt through the surrounding trees and undergrowth.

The wurm was so massive that the force of the blast barely slowed its forward momentum. Even though its head was a smouldering ruin, the body continued to sail towards the half-prone young mage. Tiriel got one last shriek in as the wurm’s boiling corpse smashed into him.

The boy struggled weakly for a moment, trying to get out from underneath its grotesque bulk. His vision started to go dark from the pressure. His final thoughts were of Nahira. She seemed to sadly turn away from him. As the weight continued to press down on him, Tamiel uttered softly, “Sorry, ‘Hira. looks like I’m not gonna make it after all.” Then he passed out.

……………..

“So dramatic.” An entertained and husky voice declared as a lithe form gracefully dropped out from high up in a tree. It had been previously hidden behind a few of the tree’s massive branches. “But, impressive, nonetheless.”

The girl grinned as she landed on the last surviving wurm and skewered it on the end of her unornamented spear. She shook her dreadlocked hair and nimbly padded towards the trapped and unconscious boy. Her dreads were dyed the mottled shades of the forest, browns, greens, greys and reds. Little rounded furred ears poked out from her hair. Her face and exposed skin were covered in green paints, drawn in ornate patterns. Piercings adorned her ears and nose.

Her light brown eyes were colored with honeyed amusement, but they also held a serious attentiveness that came with traveling through wild lands alone. She appeared to be around sixteen and wore tight leather armour along her torso and shorts that covered her upper legs. A bow and quiver of arrows were slung assuredly across her back. Though she was barefoot, her feet were calloused and she walked confidently and surefooted.

Trailing her fingers along a part of the wurm that hadn’t burned, the girl whistled a command.

A six-legged beast loped out from beyond the clearing. He was larger than a horse, and looked closely related to a squirrel. He had a feathered mane that trailed partially down his back and a long thin tail that whipped around erratically. His species were called gorgels, distant cousins to the gorgers that Tamiel had hunted with Nola. An oddly shaped leather saddle was tied across his back.

Before the beast made it to her, he got distracted by the dead boar, with its limbs splayed out in a slightly comical fashion. He padded up to the partially dissolved corpse and sniffed at it. Shaking his nose while backing away, the squirrel-like animal turned and looked at the girl curiously.

“Yeah, that’s gross, buddy. Can’t eat anything killed by carnage wurms.” She patted the creature's head comfortingly, then replied, “Come along, Sasha. Let's get this idiot out from under momma carnage wurm. Help me push her.”

Even with both of them giving their all, it still took time to push the bulk of the carnage wurm off the unconscious boy. Sasha dug into the corpse with his foremost shoulder and strained mightily. The girl was crouched, with her back against the wurm, in an attempt to lift it even a little. Luckily, Tamiel’s hand was visible from under the side of the wurm. With hard work, comes a reward though, as eventually the pair had shifted it enough to drag the kid out.

As soon as he was out, the girl gracelessly sat down on the dirt and sprawled against the still warm corpse while panting. The mammalian creature spun around a couple times and then curled up at her feet. “Wooh, that was heavy.” She glanced over at the kid. “Well, at least he’s still breathing. Hey, Kid.” When he didn’t stir at the sound of her voice, she scowled at him. Picking up a nearby stick, she poked him a couple times in his side. When he still didn’t move, she threw her hands up in exasperation, letting the stick fly out of her hand and hit the dead wurm behind her.

After she had cooled down, the girl pulled herself up and dusted off her legs. “These were my favorite pants, kid. You’ll owe me for this, for like forever.” Some of the still-bubbling goo from the carnage wurm had oozed onto her while she worked to free Tamiel. The girl expertly checked over the boy’s bruised form for any broken bones or tell tale signs of internal damage. Pleased by what she found, she stopped to admire his face for a moment. “I bet you get all the ladies, pretty boy.” She stood up and toed him gently, but he just continued to lay there. The girl shook her fist menacingly before grabbing him by the arm and wrestling him upright. “C’mere, Sasha.”

The gorgel bolted straight into the air from his resting position and wagged his tail as he sauntered over. He sniffed at the unconscious boy before wrinkling his nose in distaste. The girl laughed, “I know he smells bad. We do too after all that rubbing up on momma wurm. I wasn’t asking you to eat him.”

Sasha looked at her, his expression asking, “Then what good is he?”

The girl nodded in agreement. “I’d normally agree, my fair gorgel, however. This young man is going to treat us to dinner tonight. Now come here, let me get him into your saddle.”

The beast shied away, glaring at his friend.

“Oh come on, you big priss. Don’t worry, Sasha. I’ll make him clean your saddle after he wakes up. It's really the least he could do, after you saved his life, and everything.” The girl tried to cajole her mount.

Sasha considered this for a moment. Chirping his acquiescence, he took a couple steps forward and knelt down. With his permission, the girl picked Tamiel up and dumped him unceremoniously in the saddle.

“Good boy. I’m sure he has lots of tasty meaty treats for you in his hollow. If he’s not awake, he can’t tell us not to eat them all.” She expertly tied the slumbering boy into the saddle and jumped up behind him. Sasha wheezed as she landed, so she smacked his rump. “You had better not be calling me fat, rodent. Or else I’ll eat everything in this boy’s camp and not leave you anything.”

Sasha yipped fearfully and jolted forward, racing up the nearest tree. Travel by the giant squirrel monster was surprisingly smooth, even as he slithered laterally up the trees. His movements were more like a coiling snake, than a horse’s jarring back and forth gait. He was also wickedly fast as he rushed from one branch to the next. Even his jumps were smooth, since he had six legs to distribute the impacts.

Circling the trunk of their destination, Sasha darted into the opening of Tamiel’s hollow.

Once inside, the girl dismounted and snapped her fingers. A luminous green orb rose from her extended hand and drifted lazily around the ceiling. Then she untied the battered boy from Sasha’s saddle and laid him down gently.

With an unexpected efficiency, she stripped him. Shock wrote itself across the open book of her face when she uncovered his wings. Trancelike, she traced the jagged curves and red scales as she wondered why he kept them hidden. Returning to the task at hand, she rinsed him with water from a vessel that he had stored in a corner and checked his bruises again for anything serious. After she was happy with his cleanliness and the state of his injuries, the girl picked Tamiel up and laid him gently in the poorly made leathers that he used as a bed.

She turned to her mount and unstrapped his saddle, placing it in an unused corner of the hollow. Then the girl stepped back out onto the branch with her mount and brushed him down with a comb from one of the saddlebags. “Tomorrow, it’s definitely time for a bath, guy. Your smell is definitely not friendly.”

Sasha’s response was to snort in annoyance. He ruined the act when he rolled onto his back and shimmied across the branch, trying to scratch an itch.

“Hey pal, I’m not saying that I smell great. But I also don’t have fur that’s matted with carnage wurm gore.” She jokingly kicked him away. He wagged his tail furiously and begged her with large hopeful eyes. “Fine, you're good enough. You can go raid his pantry now. Leave something for me though.”

The gorgel rolled back to his feet and rushed into the hole and climbed up to the ceiling so that he could reach the hanging meat. Happy noises filled the space as he munched greedily.

While Sasha was stuffing his face, the girl stripped down and cleaned herself off with more of Tamiel’s water stores. She brushed off her clothes and left them out to dry. In the meantime, she grabbed one of Tamiel’s better looking leather blankets and wrapped it around herself.

The girl walked back inside and found Sasha rolling around with a piece of meat in each of his six paws, trying to stuff all of them in his mouth at the same time. A vein popped out of her neck, and she swore at him. “There better be some left for me, rodent!”

Sasha jumped in surprise and at least had the decency to look embarrassed at his own behavior. He looked at the six pieces of meat and tentatively offered her the piece with the least amount of his slobber on it.

“Ew, gross. Fine, you overgrown rat, I’ll just have to catch my own.” She leapt at Sasha menacingly. While she was in the air, he squealed with fright, absolutely convinced that she was going to eat him. He bolted for the opposite side of the space.

She had anticipated his escape already, and kicked off of a magical platform. The girl back flipped and landed right on top of her mount. They wrestled loudly around the room. Somehow, Tamiel remained unconscious through all of it.

Now even hungrier, the pair gorged themselves on the boy's supplies. Sasha sprawled out and patted his swollen stomach. With her eyes half-lidded, the girl sat down cross legged in front of the former prince and chewed her stolen jerky slowly. “You better not end up making me regret saving you, kid.”

Her contemplation was interrupted when, even hidden up in the tree hollow, a cold wind swirled through the canopy and down her spine. Shivering slightly, she gracefully stood up and whistled at her friend, “Come on, you snuggly furball. Let's get some sleep.”

Without a single care for her virtue, she pushed the wounded boy over on the furs and lay down next to him. Sasha oozed towards them, and after circling a few times, surrounded the pair with his warm fur. She comfortably curled into Tamiel and Sasha. She was asleep in seconds.