David couldn’t stop running. His legs were screaming as he put one foot in front of the other, sprinting through the forest at a breakneck pace. He moved with speed that only magic could cause, practically flying through the woods. Trees whipped past him as he moved over hills, dove around bushes and even climbed and vaulted over small cliffs. He just kept moving. He couldn’t stop moving.

Until he did.

He didn’t know how long it had been but he couldn’t hear the fight anymore. He could have been running for minutes or hours. The forest was darker he thought, but by how much he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t really hear any wildlife around him, but to be fair all he could hear was his panting. He collapsed down onto his knees, breathing deeply. Trying desperately to suck in more air.

His ankles felt as if they would shatter, the impact of every step and leap compounding onto his unathletic frame. His muscles ached, but worse than that his bones ached too. They felt wrong, as if they no longer fit within him, the intense force of magical leaps and steps crashing into him all at once as the adrenaline and fear filtered out. His arms and legs began to shake. His sweat and the evening cold and the exhaustion over taking him. He fell onto his side and tried desperately to drag his limbs toward his core. Moving his uncooperative extremities into a tight ball took the last of the flight out of him and he drifted out of consciousness.

Dim light leaked through the canopy. The ache came back, claiming David and flooding in as his awareness returned. The pain was different now though, more distant and manageable. Leaving room for him to think, to feel guilt. Shame filled his gut, building layer after layer. His throat was too dry, he couldn’t swallow and the nails of his right hand cut into his palms.

“Push it down. I can’t think about this now.” He muttered, then laughed. The sound was wobbly and weak, but it made him feel a little better - to talk to himself.

“Makes me seem a little crazy too, but fuck it, it’s not like anyone is watching.” He laughed at that, a bit more fully before his mind started to wander again and the laugh cut short. He pulled at his magic. It had been a comfort in every fight and every dark moment he’d had since he’d first learned to touch it. The warmth of the strength flooded his limbs, heated his core and kept his mind quiet.

“Good.” His magic felt larger now, he wasn’t sure if it had been him pushing himself the night before or something else but the warmth was stronger now. Or maybe it was more stable. He remembered how intense William’s presence had been the day before and realized he felt a little like that. Larger than life, slightly more real.

The canopy was less dense here, which let the peak of the strange mountain he’d seen peak through the branches. He’d used it to navigate, the sun sinks behind that mountain, so let’s call that west. The mountain looked bigger, he could make out features that he couldn’t before. The blue stone below the peak glistened and he could see the clouds on the other side as strange darker blue blobs within it. That would mean I came sort of from the east, if I had to guess… more south-east maybe.

He walked through the woods, headed what he figured was probably north-west. His steps were quieter than they would have been weeks before and he kept his head on a swivel - searching with his eyes sure, but also with his ears. He knew he had to use everything he’d learned about surviving from Maria’s crash course. He had a good amount of monster repellant in his pack, and he knew how to forage to some degree. He still wasn’t totally sure that leaving Maria and William had been smart but he didn’t want to go back. They lied. No truth, no trust. Besides, the guilt stuck into him, biting at his heels and driving his steps steadily west.

It had been an uneventful day all things considered, or at least a less eventful one then… the trolls. He shivered. Huge unblinking, unfocused eyes flashing through his mind alongside a crushing wave of guilt.

“Okay, no more of that now.” He’d found a small flat area that seemed undisturbed, gray freckled leaves scattered across the dirt. It was sheltered, pushed up against the side of a small boulder that he hoped would block any wind in the night. Once the blue aurora began to stretch out from the mountains, filling the sky above him, he’d known it was time to stop and he’d begun searching for a spot just like this one.

The leaves were dry and soft, they’d make for a fine futon. Not even the worst patch he’d slept on since he’d come to this world. This world… it seemed so short yet so long. It was only so many weeks and they’d been a flurry of activity but it still felt like years since he’d seen his mom. Since he’d smelled her home cooking. He tugged at his magic, letting its warmth embrace him and empty his head again.

There’s still work to do. Animal traps to set, food to eat and repellent to lay out. He began the slow methodical work of prepping the camp as the light faded around him. The work wasn’t routine to him yet but it was at least familiar. His traps had worked before, multiple times even. They were simple snares, the knots familiar to him even when nothing else about the process was. He hid them near bushes and hanging above the base of trees, after spreading a paste that smelled like crushed apples onto oddly coloured vegetables as bait. He’d done this a few times now. Every night for the past few days. He’d even dealt with the aftermath and Maria had been right, it did get easier.

The monster repellent was something he’d been especially interested in and he’d been harvesting the plants that made it frequently. He could barely kill a goblin, nevermind if it got the jump on him while he slept. A few days ago Maria had taken him to a cozy shop on the main path in town and they’d bought a mortar and pestle, he’d thought at first for cooking. He now knew just how useful it was, for setting snares you needed bait, for repelling monsters you needed the stink of those weird purple berries. Maybe it was just that he’d never had to survive outside the city before but in this world for sure smell was the most important sense to consider in the wilderness. His pestle meant he’d never run out of pungent pastes, for attracting and repelling whatever he needed to survive.

It was hard to relax when he finally sat down. Hard to eat with the tension of being alone, vulnerable out here in the woods, the nerves ?playing in his stomach. He made himself, he swallowed down piece after piece of dried meat and drank around a third of the admittedly large amount of water he’d been carrying. That’s next, water. I know some ways to purify it and I should be able to boil it safely but… if it doesn’t rain…. That’s what I’ll have to look for first tomorrow, water.

After forcing the food down he laid the knit cotton sleeping bag that Maria had provided onto his makeshift leaf futon. The back of it was longer and provided some cushioning for his head, but he still slid the softer side of his pack underneath to provide a little more comfort. It was nowhere near as nice as home, but it was something. His muscles slowly relaxed as his body heat warmed the cotton around him. The last of the light had faded and he was bone tired, exhausted by the feelings he’d been ignoring, exhausted by running, exhausted by surviving alone for the first time in his life. As his eyelids started to flutter his focus slipped away and the magic he’d been swaddled in fell with it. David’s eyes firmly shut, his brow scrunched up in a tight mess and a soft pained moan slipped out from his mouth as he finally dreamt of home.