It was pure chaos in the Lily Vine Chalet. Lisŗa had turned away as politely as she knew how at least a dozen girls all trying a different argument on her. None were convincing, not that Lisŗa was looking to change her mind. It had been a month since they returned from the Order’s basilica. Lisŗa had been preparing ever since.

She held the letter of acceptance in her hands, reading it for the umpteenth time. A thumb felt the contours of the melted seal on the envelope. The wax sign of the Falerian Hawk with the Karavane distinction. She tucked the envelope inside her duffel bag, slung it over her shoulder and left her attic, pausing on the doorway. She hated this place. But in as she was leaving, she only felt nostalgia.

Madam Licelle stood by the bottom of the staircase with her arms crossed. As usual, the woman wore a split leg dress with a daring décolletage. Lisŗa paused next to her, neither facing Licelle nor leaving just yet.

“Come on,” Lisŗa said. “You’re never this silent.”

“I used to change your diapers you know.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“Now you’re leaving the nest.” Licelle sighed. “She wouldn’t want me to say this but… This is going to be the hardest on her.”

“Valdren will be fine without me.”

“You think she worked here for herself?”

“…No.” Lisŗa nodded, reminding herself why she was doing this to begin with. “I know. I understand. I’m working for myself now. Besides I hate it here.”

Licelle laughed. “No you don’t,” she said with a snort.

“I hate you,” Lisŗa said.

“That’s not true either.”

Lisŗa smiled, then continued out the main doors. Where Valdren waited on the sidewalk. Her mother stood there facing Lisŗa as the doors swung shut. They met eye to eye for a silent moment. Lisŗa’s mind raced, not in the search of something to say but in the inability to choose what to say. She had so much she wanted to give voice. She took a breath.

But Valdren spoke first.

“Good luck.”

The lily and haemadril scent swept past Lisŗa, then the doors opened and closed. And Lisŗa was alone in the sidewalk.

“Thanks.”

Lisŗa walked away from the Chalet. Each step taking her somewhere colder, alien, towards an unfamiliar world where new flames awaited fresh meat.

---

It had been a month since Jorge made it out of the woods, near death from thirst. He had followed the two-headed deer, who didn’t seem to mind this little round creature tailing it the entire time. And within an hour he was back to the river. He realized he had been walking in circles. A new respect for woodland creatures grew within him.

Jorge had not learned much about this world in the time he had spent here. He had learned which fungi were safe to eat and which took him out of commission for days from a single nibble, when he spent all day writhing in pain and all night in troubled sleep. Some berries were edible. Others made him lose weight in a very, very quick manner. He tried once to start a fire. He had gathered kindling and a pyramid of sticks together and tried to create an ember using the bow-and-stick method. Before a spark was allowed to live however, a hoof as wide as a dinner plate smashed into it, snuffing its potential. The deer then regarded him sternly with both pairs of eyes, then walked away.

Jorge didn’t know what to think of the animal. It was hard to call it a simple beast when it looked so aware of its surroundings. The thing made a moose look childish. He reckoned the tip of its antlers scraped past twelve feet in height. Occasionally the antler stubs on the inner side of its heads glowed. When that happened, it sprang away faster than what ought to be possible for a creature of such a size.

Whatever it was, Jorge understood it was the reason he was alive. Whether it was on purpose or not its habits had taught him much. He sat on the shoreline, binding his third hatchet in a new knot he had figured out. This one was unbreakable. He had used his old hatchet to carve out the new blade edge. Instead of using any old twig as a handle, he found that the fallen branches of the ‘super redwoods’ made for a much stronger base. Putting it together had taken him days. As a joke he had set the pieces in front of him and said, “Craft,” out loud. Despite being alone it made him redden in embarrassment.

There, the last knot. The new tool was a shiny black and as sharp as he could get it without a whetstone. The rocks here seemed volcanic in origin. Jorge looked around, wondering if there was a mountain nearby, but it was impossible to tell on the ground. He went to work trimming new branches for his shelter instead of wasting his time with idle speculation.

An eerie cry caught his attention. It wasn’t human in the slightest. He grabbed his hatchet and waded across the river. There, again, the cry sounded. He quickened his pace. Vines covered the path. He swung his hatchet, cleaving them out of the way. The sky was darkening. He was moving into the deep woods, where flora fought their slow wars for sunlight much harder than anywhere else. Something drew him to move forward.

Another cry. Longer, drawn-out, out of breath. It was desperate. Jorge felt his heart pound. What was it? I shouldn’t be approaching. But he towards it nonetheless. Two ferns blocked his path. He pushed them out of the way and sprung onto a clearing at the base of a tree between two roots. The deer was on its side. The grass soaked red. It was surrounded by wolves. One on a lifted root several feet in the air. Three on the ground, circling. They turned their heads in his direction.

They looked like wolves, but Jorge had never known wolves to have six legs. Gunmetal steel fur lined their backs, infested with greenish vegetative growth. Open mouths revealed two rows of teeth. Each was larger than any canine on Earth. Jorge couldn’t move. Tears blurred his vision. If he hadn’t relieved himself earlier in the morning, he would have then and there. Images of being drawn and quartered filled his head, followed by memories long ago. When he was young and far stupider.

A fourteen year old Jorge stood before his broken bike.

They laughed and laughed. Why? Numbers. They were three and he was one.

Jorge didn’t remember their faces. He was too steeped in grief.

The bike was new. His parents had gifted it to him officially because of good grades, but he knew what it was meant to do.

He didn’t care. He didn’t care that his parents’ every move passively pointed at his belly. He didn’t care about the unoriginal jokes the other kids made at his expense. He didn’t care that he was out of breath after a minute of pedaling.

That bike was his. And it was broken.

He stopped seeing human faces. Just for a minute.

And when he was done the asphalt was black-red. He saw one of the kids shaking, unsteadily picking up molars off the tarmac. The other pulled their third along, who had gone limp. He saw their bloodied faces and felt their fear. Jorge thought about offering help. But it felt inappropriate.

He thought he had forgotten.

Jorge was screaming. He had never seen so much blood at one time before. It made him want to hurl. But he held on and pulled the hatchet out of the wolf’s skull. Spurts of it spread on the grass. The other wolves hesitated for a moment, mostly out of surprise that their pack member was defeated, but their instincts returned quickly.

The one on the root jumped down and joined the others in a circling motion. They barked at him at random. A part of him, a genetic memory from mankind’s prehistory perhaps, warned him. Distraction. Jorge forced himself to not look in the direction of the barking. He took slow steps back, keeping them all in his line of sight, until his back met tree bark.

The wolves stopped circling. The one on the left snarled and howled. The one on the right attacked immediately after. But Jorge was ready. He swung his hatchet with the entire arc of his right arm, catching the lunging wolf in the cheek. The other two joined just as their third fell away, whining.

Jorge leapt away. Claws caught his shoulder. He felt warmth spread in his shirt and smelled iron. Adrenaline snipped the pain in the bud. His position had changed, and the wolves were forced to reposition. They attacked again. He tried to dodge. He was simply too big. They were shaving at his flesh, never quite catching on. But the wolves had smelled blood. They chased him through between the vines and the trees. This was their turf; they knew it better than any creature. Little did their prey know he was being corralled into a wall of earth. Impossible to climb and with nowhere to go.

They saw him there now, trapped, unable to run any longer, back against the wall. And they attacked. Snarls and biting filled the air, following by whines. It didn’t make sense. A pack member was sent to the side by a large stone to the skull. Their already wounded member was split across the face by the black weapon in the prey’s hands. The leader was all who remained. It attacked, biting down on the weapon and tearing it away from the prey. Now the prey was finished. The wolf leapt forward again, jaws snapping. But its teeth bit air. The prey was restraining it somehow. With what? It howled and roared in confusion. Then it became short on breath. The world was going dark.

Jorge ignored the wolf’s kicking at his chest and stomach. He added another ring of vines around the wolf’s neck and tightened even harder. The seconds ticked past. One. Two.

Jorge was beginning to feel numb.

Five.

The paws were aggravating the swipe wounds on his body. His shirt was wet and stained red.

Ten.

The wolf convulsed. Jorge didn’t let go. Every bit of give the animal allowed he returned with a tightening of the vines, like a python’s vice.

Twenty.

The wolf stopped moving. Jorge didn’t let go.

Thirty.

Jorge’s heart felt as though it would burst.

A minute had passed before Jorge let go, panting. The wolf’s neck looked mangled and constricted to a thin tube. Eventually, he picked himself up, piloting his body to pick up his weapon. Then he brought the edge down on each of their necks. Just in case.

Dazed, reeling, he returned to the clearing. The last wolf had been the first to attack. Its head was open, its brains exposed. It trembled on the spot, but its eyes focused when it saw Jorge emerge. Then it saw a slash of black. Its eyes rolled back and its body became still.