Eenie, meenie, miney, no.

- Fey Lord rejecting a party of adventurers

The Chosen One’s party ultimately continued unabated. Avien went to stand on the pedestal his mother had teleported me onto and started saying thank you to everyone for showing up, even though half of those in attendance had only shown up because Garner had promised drinks afterward. At the time Mary was standing behind him, beaming at her son growing up nice and strong. Garner was holding Mary’s hand in a somewhat discrete way, but the important thing was that he wasn’t looking at me.

That meant now was a good time for me to leave, but I didn’t just stand and go. Mary and I had grown into this relationship over the period of my lifetime, and thus she had several methods of ensuring I stayed at events like these. The scrying stone that had disconnected when I was in the Mists of Du Sverenladen was one. Another was a woman that was seated next to me known as Adjutant.

She was Chosen, like Garner was, though she had been chosen in a similar capacity to me. She wasn’t really a Chosen One, more of a Chosen supporting character. Back in the seventh border dispute, she and Garner had worked together to repel the invaders, going on a quest where Garner had emerged in glorious victory, and Adjutant had enjoyed that vicariously.

Nowadays, Adjutant worked with Mary more than her original general, and thus got relegated to Amber duty. If I was too obvious about how I wanted to leave, she would stop me. If I was too sneaky, she would immediately become suspicious. That’s why I blatantly stood up and started walking away during Avien’s speech.

Adjutant caught my hand with a grip that was stronger than Mary’s. “You need to stay during your fiance’s speech.”

Her speech was flat and emotionless, she had sunk so far into her role as adjutant to the Shepards. There were a few people that knew her old name. Garner was the only one in Veliki, and all the other were forgotten or dead.

“I need to pee.” I told her honestly. The iced tea Bubbles gave me had gone right through me.

Adjutant looked at me with an appraising eye, no doubt using some kind of magic to determine my honesty. She eventually let me go because I wasn’t lying. The fact that I intended to go anywhere else instead of back here after going to pee didn’t factor in. The critical factor I was counting on was Adjutant wanting to stay for Avien’s speech.

“Come back right away.” Adjutant told me, and watched me all the way to the latrine.

When I came out she was back to watching Avien, since she was just as wrapped up in Avien worship as most others present. Instead of coming back right away, I simply walked away from the party and no one stopped me. Once I was away from that infernal place, I ducked into my own house next door to pick up some kind of weapon.

My quiver had been confiscated by Mary at some point when she was abducting me, not that it mattered when my bow was in two pieces with one sticking out of a sorcerer’s shoulder. I didn’t have a backup, unfortunately. Getting that first bow had taken months of relentless badgering on my part. Dad hadn’t been inclined to let me own something so wild, seeing as I had my whole life planned out ahead of me, but he eventually caved.

I was not looking forward to asking for another one. Especially when my explanation for what happened to the old one was ‘Bubbles’. That being said, Dad used to be in the military, and he kept swords in his room, hidden behind the head of the bed. I pulled on the boards and they came away to reveal the armoury that had survived his retirement.

There was a double bladed longsword, a short spear, and two knives. The longsword was far too heavy for me to life or swing, I’d get tired just carrying it around. The spear was appealing, but it didn’t have anything to help me carry it around. The knives on the other hand, were sheathed with straps intended to let them be hung from a belt. They were long enough for me to wrap them around my leg, so that’s what I did with one, and the other was put back.

This morning I had absconded into the forest around Veliki with my bow and some arrows to escape the party I’d ended up being forced to attend anyway. If there was one thing I wanted out of today, it was to finish off that deer I wounded. I remembered whereabouts I found it, so if I could find the trail again, then I’d be able to track it down and finish it off.

After putting the boards back in place and making sure the straps of the knife were secure around my pant leg, I went to my room and detached a strip of leather from my belt. Normally I took that charm everywhere with me, but it had the scrying stone that would let Mary find me embedded between the layers of leather, so this time it stayed behind. I then left through the window in my parent’s room and made to leave, but someone cleared their throat behind me when I was jumping the fence to leave the property.

“Where are you going?”

I flinched in midair and looked back, expecting the worst. When I saw who it actually was, I let out a breath in relief, and then I landed. It wasn’t Mary or someone sympathetic to her cause. Instead, it was a boy less than a year younger than I was, and not one that was liable to snitch on me either.

Casien had horns because his mother had made a deal with a fiend before retiring. I didn’t know the details, but I knew the price was something, something, joint custody of her firstborn. The woman had then exploited a loophole in the contract by never bearing a child, only to inexplicably fall pregnant anyway during a solar eclipse.

In a way, Casien had as much beef with the Shepards as I did, though I would never go complaining to him. After all, being forced to smile at an idiot didn’t really compare to having to spend every other week in the Hells because of a deal that my parent tried and failed to weasel their way out of. Other than his horns, he had a very red tinge to his skin, giving away exactly where his father’s side came from.

“Hunting a deer.” I answered warily. I didn’t spend much time around the other kids in Veliki, so I didn’t know how sympathetic they would be. Casien wasn’t the kind to go straight to Mary, but he might go to someone else that might. The kids in Veliki were practically aberrations to me, anyway. Mostly because of how Chosen everyone was.

Casien wasn’t the only kid that had to pay for the dealings of their parents. The whole ‘In exchange for your firstborn’ thing was a popular bargaining tactic of the beings of Below and other places too, so Casien wasn’t exactly unique in Veliki. He was one of the more obviously exotic ones though, so he was the prime example.

“Oh.” As the son of a Chosen One, Casien received blessings just like Avien did, though his were a touch more hellish in nature. They were all physical, however, so he didn’t exactly have his father’s glib tongue. “Can I come?”

I really didn’t want him to come. It must have shown on my face.

“I won’t get in the way.” He quickly added. “I’m good at hunting and being quiet. You didn’t know I was following you, so I won’t be the one to spook any monsters.”

“Wow, did you just admit to stalking me?” I arched an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Me? A young and vulnerable woman?”

Red skinned half-devils blushed differently to non-half-devils. Casien became purple instead of getting more red. “You- you were really obvious. You just walked right out. I kind of only followed because there shouldn’t be any way a ruse like that would work on that many seasoned adventurers.”

“There’s something called refuge in audacity, and I’m sure a lot of adventurers noticed.” I shot back, warily looking over his shoulder to see if anyone from the party was coming to look for me yet. I shouldn’t be spending too much more time here. “But have you spoken to them?” I asked, looking back to Casien. “They literally don’t care. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and get some godsdamned peace of mind because Mary teleported me onto a fucking stage.”

I turned and stalked away. A whiff of something burning made my nose wrinkle, and I brushed away the smoke that had somehow persisted in the hour or two since Mary teleported me. Whether or not Casien followed me didn’t really matter to me, so I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder to see what he did. But on the off chance he went to tell on me, I started running the moment I was on the street.

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Veliki was a town that didn’t really subscribe to any one theme, at least as far as the buildings went. There were cubes made from materials I couldn’t name for houses, shops that were upside down triangles and/or deceptively simple tents, and more than a few people lived in places that I could only see as crypts. Most of those were dwarfs. Each retired adventurer came from their own backgrounds and brought a piece of their old home when they came to Veliki.

There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to shifts in style as I made my way west towards the forest. The surrounding lands of Veliki were fairly simple to remember. To the north, things were hilly, to the east and south were flat grassland that some adventurers took to farming… things. And to the west was the small forest that I’d overheard some people refer to as obligatory.

On my initial excursion, it had taken me well over an hour to find a suitable target to hunt, but that was with me wandering almost aimlessly. After I found the tracks, it took me another hour still to find the deer. From that point it had taken upwards of two hours to reach the point where Bubbles had interrupted my hunt.

Since all I was doing now was finding a spot I already knew how to get to, things would go much faster. After running at near my top speed for almost fifteen minutes I made it out of the town and let myself catch my breath. Then I disappeared into the trees and relaxed with the knowledge that Mary would have a much harder time finding me now.

As I walked through the forest I pulled out the badge Bubbles had given me and went over it with my eyes. I was looking for any inscriptions or names on the back, hoping for a clue as to Bubbles’ identity from before he was Bubbles. Unfortunately, the badge was pristine and flawless. I almost ran an edge along a tree trunk to see if it would weather the damage, or if it was self repairing, but decided I didn’t want to take that risk.

It was perfectly inert. The way it had been thrumming before might have been my imagination, but I really didn’t want that to be wishful thinking. This gift supposedly had the potential to release me from the shackles Garner put on me years before I was born. I really wanted that.

Disappointed that I hadn’t found anything out about Bubbles, I put the badge on my shirt and kept walking. I wished there was something else to focus on. Walking through the forest was incredibly boring.

I tried to come up with ways to pass the time. There was a twig that I kicked along with me for ten minutes before I realised I was too invested in it and the twig was slowing me down. I missed the twig as soon as I walked along and didn’t have anything to kick. I tried again with a small rock, but I kicked it the wrong way and it made my toe hurt after four kicks.

Even as I did that, I kept an ear out. Just because I was on my way to finish off a deer didn’t mean I wasn’t wary of other potential prey. It was for that reason that I didn’t sing, though I couldn’t stop myself from humming some random tunes when things got really boring.

One interesting thing that happened was when I crossed paths with a rabbit. It poked its head out of a hole dug out from among some roots as I was passing by and we made eye contact. It hissed at me with its sharp front teeth, then disappeared back into its hole. I shrugged and kept walking.

All the while I turned over methods of getting what I wanted in my head. My goal was simple: freedom. The way to get there was much harder to pin down. The one I wanted freedom from was Mary Shepard specifically, because she was the one that could scry on me, teleport to me, and then teleport me back home, or who knew what else she was capable of. Just leaving Veliki wasn’t going to be enough to get away from her, I needed to make sure she wasn’t able to stop me or just snap her fingers and make all my efforts meaningless.

She wanted me as her son’s wife, so picking up some fighting training would make her mad. The only issue with that was finding someone to teach me without word getting back to her, but that was something worth pursuing since I was leaning towards the idea of simply leaving Veliki for good.

Retired Chosen ones liked to talk about their experiences, and more than a few of them had drunkenly told me repeatedly that experience trumped pretty much everything. With that in mind, me finishing off this deer would be a great way to start myself off.

After an hour I had to admit that something was wrong. This was far from the first time I’d been this far out of Veliki. It stood to reason that I should recognise the terrain, having traversed it many times before. The reason things were wrong was because I didn’t recognise the terrain.

I had first encountered the deer at a river. It was the landmark I was headed towards. The only thing was, I should have come across the river by now. It wasn’t a wide and fast flowing deathtrap, it was more of a gentle brook with enough water running through it that it could be heard before it was visible. I was entirely unconvinced that I could pass it without noticing. That hadn’t even been the first time I’d used it as a landmark.

So where was the river?

After taking note of which direction I was headed, I turned around to look at the forest around me. There was a whole lot of brown, and above there was a bunch of green in the canopy. The sounds of the rustling leaves competed with the singing of birds, and under that, the constant buzz of insects.

That wasn’t right. This part of the forest didn’t have birds or insects. The ground was covered with fallen leaves and twigs, which wasn’t right either. There should’ve been grass growing here.

I looked back in the direction I came and barely recognised the trees. Getting back to Veliki wasn’t going to be as easy as I remembered, but I’d been more lost than this before, chances were I’d be fine again this time. With nothing else for it, I faced forward once more, squared my shoulders, and started walking. My fingers brushed the handle of my Dad’s knife to ease my nerves.

This time I was on edge. Now I was minding my step instead of blundering through the forest without a care in the world. Even though I kept an ear out, I didn’t notice anything strange until I realised the songs of the birds were getting further away. I paused and listened hard. Eventually the songs faded entirely.

The buzzing of the insects faded as well. I was left with the rustling of the canopy. Somehow, despite how this was the sound I was used to out here, I couldn’t feel safe. Then I heard the sound of bending wood. It wasn’t unlike the sound my bow had made when it was still whole, but this sound applied that to something much larger than a bow. It was more of a bending tree kind of sound.

I was torn. Part of me wanted to see what was capable of putting that kind of strain on a tree, but another part of me was screaming for me to hide. Eventually the part that wanted to hide won out, in part thanks to the fact that the forest was already unsettling me, and I retreated in the opposite direction of the sound.

The first tree I passed became my hiding space, and it was a large thing, so there was enough space for me to hide between the roots. I pulled the knife out and gripped the handle with two hands, then made myself breathe. It was rough. My entire being wanted to run and scream and maybe draw some blood, but my mind was telling me that letting myself run wild like that would be close to the last thing I ever did.

What even was that thing? I’d explored these forests multiple times ever since Dad got me that bow. Never before had I encountered anything more deadly than a wolf, and every time I heard one of those things howling, I ran back home before things got dangerous. There shouldn’t be anything in the region that could bend trees just by moving around.

There were long moments before anything else happened. It was another bending tree, and it was close enough that I reflexively clenched my teeth and adjusted my grip on the knife. The tree groaned as it snapped back into place, and the rustling of the leaves intensifying as they swung back and forth. Then it lurched into my view.

What I saw was larger than I was, and that was just its head. It had a diamond shaped head, and had two curled horns that completed a three quarter turn going back and down its body, but the horns were tiny in comparison to the rest of it. The leather covering it was stretched and almost see through in places. The entire thing a dark blue colour that faded to a much sharper blue in places. The sight of it made my breath catch.

It paused. I didn’t dare breath.

The head drifted away from me, its neck following, and following, and following until I realised that it was actually wandering in that direction. A leg ripped with muscle padded its claw down within spitting distance of my hiding spot. It came down softly, without making a sound. Then it lifted up and went away. Then another leg came down. Then another.

This wasn’t supposed to be here. The forest bordering the east of Veliki only had the typical game animals and woodland predators. This thing wasn’t woodland. The horns made me think dragon, but it wasn’t red like in the stories. Dragons were supposed to have wings, and this thing didn’t have any, and it must have had ten legs instead of four.

And it was so close to town. Sure, Veliki was jam packed full of retired adventurers, but something like this could still do an impressive amount of damage before things were brought back under control. Hells, the obscene number of adventurers in Veliki was the whole reason I was allowed to go out hunting by myself in the first place. All the dangerous monsters had already been exterminated.

The beast’s tail whipped across my eyeline and a thought crossed my mind that made my heart skip. If this thing found me, then I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere safe in time. It was obviously measuring its movements to move that quietly, but it was still moving faster than I did at a brisk walk. If it knew where I was, it could be on me in a flash and there would be nothing I could do about it.

Thankfully, it was moving away from me. I only let myself breathe after its tail had disappeared from my sight and after counting to five in my head. The air I had been holding on to for longer than I thought I was capable broke out and I collapsed forwards, realising too late that I was holding onto a sharp knife with a death grip and shoving it away from me so I could put both my hands on the ground.

It took longer than I cared to admit to get my composure back. I picked the knife up again and checked the blade. It was still sharp, though it occured to me that I hadn’t actually checked how sharp it was when I picked it up. That epiphany came and went, and I couldn’t bring myself to release the knife. If that came for me I wasn’t sure how useful it would be, but it was comforting.

I needed that because I looked in the direction the monster had gone and realised it was now between me and Veliki.