In the forest, every day felt so similar, passing by so quick. I couldn’t blame Hyraj for possibly losing track of the day before she’d found my camp. Even with magic lessons again, each day was mostly just walking while looking out for food and firewood.

One day, one week slipping past, almost a month since we had left. Walking, always walking. I had thought my chores around the camp left me in good shape, but keeping up with Hyraj left me tired. Not exhausted, not like I struggled, but the hard floor never kept me from falling asleep and I always had an appetite.

Almost a month since we’d left… half a month until the stormy season. It had a name that didn’t mean anything, much like autumn, but Hyraj always called it the stormy season. The other seasons, winter and spring had sort of archaic names. Winter’s came from an old language’s word for the winter solstice, which was still used even though “winter” started after the solstice. Spring’s was to do with a certain flower’s first bloom, but no one knew which flower, especially since the calendar had moved around.

The other two seasons were summer and autumn, their names meaning more like “dry harvest” and “wet harvest”; the summer crops were harvested after the relatively dry spring, while the other crops were harvested after the wet stormy season.

Our conversations were often her saying too much and me asking her to say more. After breakfast today, though, she had something short to say: “We shall be heading downwards now.”

“Okay,” I said.

So we packed up and started walking, following the gentle slope, a little slower. I didn’t mind that, knowing all too well from walking with children that going downhill was dangerous once you lost your balance.

Of course, that danger didn’t mean we couldn’t talk, so I asked, “About the harvest, what food is growed?” No worrying about grew or grown with this verb.

“That is it,” she said, her unhurried steps careful. “Well, I did not exactly… cook, but I may say what was commonly served in the seasons. For summer, breads and such made from wheat.”

Her monologue continued, listing foods I didn’t know, but they sounded like normal enough vegetables. When it came to the autumn harvest, one crop caught my ear.

“Ousickle is grown in fields flooded by the heavy rains and comes out as many small seeds. I told you how hichkle has ‘kle’, yes? Ousickle is the same. If you see a dish with ‘kle’ on the end, it likely has ousickle in it.”

That sounded like rice to me! “What does it look like in a dish?” I asked.

“I suppose it is often like a pile of seeds, but soft to eat, lacking flavour on its own,” she said slowly. “How I would have it is with… helvith.” Meat. “I was taught to have some of one and then the other to emphasise the flavour.

“Oh, but, that isn’t quite what you asked,” she said and paused there to sigh. “Other than as-is, I would say it is most served as a side-porridge. Rather than water, a, let’s see… thin soup is used to give it flavour.”

I wondered if “thin soup” meant “stock”. At the orphanage, we’d only ever had rice with gravy as a side for a roast. Unless you counted breakfast cereals made from rice….

“Thin soup is helvith?” I asked.

Her silence answered my question, but she eventually did too. “It can be made from animals and called stock. However, I would not worry about any of your food having helvith in it.”

I didn’t know much about this world, but I knew in my old world that, until like fifty years ago, meat was very expensive. After all, it was biomass again: raising animals took more food than if we just ate their food.

That conversation coming to an end, we walked in silence. The leaves rustled up high, birds twittered in the distance, and our footsteps crunched on dry leaves; about time for another rain.

The rain didn’t come this day, though. We made some good distance down the mountain. Until now, I hadn’t really gone far up or down, no farther than half a day’s walk so I could spend the other half walking back. Going up, it was steeper, but I went slower, so not too much of a change.

Maybe it was all in my head, but it felt warmer and easier to breathe when we stopped to make camp. Tempted to take my shirt off and sit by the fire in just my vest. If this world was old-fashioned, well, I knew Hyraj felt uncomfortable with nudity, so I wasn’t going to do it. Thought about not wearing my vest tomorrow, though.

We sat and we ate and I spent some time staring at my hands. She had talked a little more to reinforce what she’d told me, but it hadn’t helped. I was being asked to wiggle my ears. Something I knew other people could do, but knew I couldn’t, the sort of thing that didn’t just happen because you wanted it to. At least, that was how I saw it. How I saw magic.

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I thought that I might never be able to do any magic, never mind fantastic things like her, and that was fine. I didn’t need to be special. If I was going to be living on my own in the forest, then it would have helped. But I wasn’t, was I? I wasn’t going to live in the forest and I wasn’t going to live alone.

So no, it didn’t matter if I couldn’t do magic. But I kept trying and trying. It was embarrassing to admit, but I wanted her to praise me. Like how she smiled when I learned a new word or said something complicated. Every time she told me how hard magic was, I felt like the praise would be even sweeter when I finally did it.

Was that weird? Or was I weird before, so desperate for praise, but always telling myself I would never be good enough to be praised?

Every day, who I had been changed so much, looking back at myself with all kinds of different lenses. Lazy or hard-working, dumb or clever, kind or selfish—I could be neither or both, changing by the minute.

Although I wasn’t as tired as usual, that didn’t mean I couldn’t sleep and so sleep I soon did, the day’s routine over.

In the morning, the routine began all over again. I had washed my clothes on the last rainy day, so it was just me washing today, using the tiniest bit of soap to save the plants and not waste her stuff.

The warmth was much more noticeable now, almost pleasant even without clothes. I still put them on, just in case she came back, and sat by the fire. Hopefully, I wouldn’t end up sweating enough to need another bath.

Just kidding. It was warmer, but not so hot yet. Still, I didn’t sit too close, admiring the flames as the heat barely reached.

Though I could have gone to find her, this was also a precious time when we weren’t together. I liked being around her well enough, but, growing up in the orphanage, I knew how important space was. Like little grievances built up and up with no release except an explosion.

Well, I didn’t have any grievances with her, but who knew if I annoyed her in little ways.

The leaves rustled, birds twittered, fire crackled its last crackles, and eventually footsteps crunched through the leaves. I turned to look, unsurprised to see it was her and her unhurried pace, a few fruits in her arms.

She sat down next to me and said, “Have some.”

I took one, took a bite, then winced. “Sour,” I mumbled with my hand covering my mouth.

“That is it.”

She used that phrase to mean all kinds of things, but my favourite way she used it was like that, as if saying, “Did I tell you it was sweet?” The closest she came to a joke.

Still, I ate it all. The taste wasn’t like it was off. She did too, taking small bites with more narrowed eyes and a thinner mouth, apparently not a fan of the taste. Kind of cute. Reminded me of kids reluctantly eating the vegetables, afraid of being told off.

Once she finished, we set off on a long, meandering walk down. Hardly noticeable, but the trees bunched closer and were mostly like pine trees now. I was fine with that, more of the garlic cones to pick up as we went. The air felt thicker too, humid, maybe the warmth keeping more of the recent rain in the air. What breeze did blow down below the trees wasn’t as refreshing as it had been either.

Small changes that grew as the day went on, maybe all in my head, but I hadn’t noticed anything like it before.

Sitting around the fire, there wasn’t much point in asking her about it. I knew the air was thinner the higher up you went, gravity pulling it down. Just hadn’t realised how high up we apparently were, or how much elevation actually mattered, the slope so gentle….

Another evening of cooking, eating, and staring at my hands. Another peaceful sleep beneath the trees, albeit not as close to her as I used to sleep. Too warm for that.

Morning came and we went, walking down. My thoughts these days were about what life was like in villages here and today was no different. It was just….

“Do cottages have ovens?” I asked.

“I cannot say.”

She had said that a lot, but it didn’t surprise me she didn’t know about how “poor” people lived.

So we walked and I had a lot of questions in my head, keeping me occupied, step after step. The ground wasn’t always a slope now. At least, not a slope downwards. It sometimes flattened, sometimes sloped to the sides, sometimes up for a little bit. Still mostly down, though.

I wondered if we’d find a river soon. Something I hadn’t thought about until following the stream by the camp, water had to go down. Like, once a stream started, it had to go all the way to the ocean. You could only get around it by walking all the way up or crossing it.

But rivers also liked to join together, so, if you followed a river down, you’d definitely end up stuck between two rivers eventually. Hopefully, one would be easy to cross. If not, you had to go up and around.

My new worry. That, after walking all this way, we would get trapped by rivers and have to go back up.

What I should have been more worried about was the rain that we were expecting. It thankfully started falling in the afternoon, so we hadn’t wasted a whole day. Used to it by now, we didn’t even say anything, just found a nice spot beneath a tree. More cramped than we were used to, the trees more narrow down here, but enough to keep us dry without a wind to blow the rain under.

Like last time, I used this break to wash my clothes and she unhurriedly scurried off.

I wondered what our routine would be like once we found a village. If I would still cook and she would still wash up, if we would take turns doing all the washing or split it between us like now, if we would both work or if I would be stuck at home, sewing and knitting to pass the days.

Well, I would have to learn how to knit first….

When she returned, I was back in my fresh clothes, her things neatly on top of her backpack, and she had some fruit in her arms. Not sour this time.

I thought about asking her what our future would be like, curious how she saw it. But I didn’t ask. The more I had thought about it, the more an old voice spoke up, saying, “What if she doesn’t want to stay together?”

Maybe she was being kind and bringing me to civilisation, but not so kind to babysit me afterwards. Maybe she only wanted me to come along to make it safer and easier to get through the forest. I didn’t know and, if I asked her, that wonderful little future I had imagined might have come crashing down.

So I didn’t ask, but I slept a little closer to her when night came.