"This sucks. I've been walking for half a day! How long has this torture have to go on?"

I expressed my exhaustion while kicking up some dust. The city is much farther away than I thought it would be. I just really hope I don't have to walk for another day.

"At least forests can be interesting in some ways. This is just a dirt road and I think there never will be anything interesting about them in any way," I said aloud to myself.

Walking bored some more I saw a big tree next to the road and decided to rest there. I sat down and leaned next to it, humming. I didn't know where the melody came from, I couldn't remember. The humming turned into whistling and soon after that, it turned into singing. It mostly was just me making incomprehensible noises in the tune of what could be interpreted as a song. If anyone was nearby they'd be thinking a crazy person was yelling around.

Now that I thought about it, some company would be lovely right now.

Relaxing after walking for hours felt really good. I had been stiff since what happened in the forest, my joints felt most affected. I felt like an old man and a bit lonely too. This would be the first time I was on my own and having no one to rely on. Even while running away I had someone but turns out he was kind of a jerk, maybe bit of a maniac too. But I don't begrudge him for what he was feeling. The events he had lived through, even though similar to mine, were harder, I think. He did say something about a burned mother.

I wonder how mine was doing right now?

I slapped my hand to my forehead. I only realized now I never asked for his name, and he never asked for mine too. I don't think I will tell someone about him. I could still refer to him as 'Him' or 'The boy' in my mind. It wouldn't make much of a difference but it would be nice for him to have a name, even if it's just in my head.

"Bah! What does it matter?" I yelled out, ripping out some grass and throwing it in the air. It was his decision to split, and I don't think I could have changed his mind. He seemed dead set to ruin his own life with stupid decisions. Oh well, some people have to learn things the hard way.

I took out a bit of meat I had in my pocket. After I cleaned it a little, I started chewing on it. The small pieces of dirt that were still stuck on it gave it a bit of crunch but I just swallowed them too. It wasn't that bad but maybe I shouldn't have put them into my pocket and the saltiness of the meat made me thirsty, so I stood up and went searching for a water source, straying heavily off the road. I don't know when I will be in the city so looking for something to drink would be better sooner than later.

I found a stream rather early. It looks reasonably clear to me. If it was too dirty the whole purpose of finding it would be in vain. I cleaned my hands first, I didn't want to swallow more dirt after eating some with the meat, then took a handful of water and began drinking. I stripped out of my clothes and jumped into it. It was freezing cold and less than knee-deep but that was more than enough to clean me and my clothes, when evening rolls around they should be dry too so I only freeze now and not in the night.

I was splashing the water around pretending that I could bend it to my will. Imagining myself to be a wizard but froze in the middle of my exaggerated movements. Can they wield water as magic? I'm not too sure. I put my hand to my chin and scratched it. I've heard tales about mages controlling the elements. Moving mountains, creating tornadoes and the such, but could they really? I know not to take things like that at face value. Things such as these are often blow out of proportion in ballads and poems. They most likely can control 'some' elements, at least water and fire, right?

I didn't feel like playing with the water anymore. I just cleaned myself some more, especially my hair, it must have collected a lot of dirt. I scrubbed, counting, one, two, three, then looked at my reflection to check if I missed a spot. I wasn't the most handsome fellow but I liked how I looked but I realized that my hair had changed somehow. It seemed much darker, it already was black but now it lost its shine in the sun. My eyes were different too, they should have been brown, should have.

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I gave a small "Huh?"

They were as black as my hair. I held one of them open to check more thoroughly. Great, now it looked like I had two big buttons instead of real eyes. Is this because of the thing that happened in the forest? There better not have any other effects. I checked my body once again. I didn't feel any different and there wasn't anything wrong as far as I could see. Except for my hair and eyes, I am my regular self.

I thought of a theory where the goal of the fairies was that they wanted maybe to color the forest black to mark it as their territory or something but we crashed into the ritual and accidentally absorbed the magic but I threw it out when I remembered that my skin was still light with a healthy tan and that 'He' was the same. He still had light skin and hair too. Maybe the magic only showed effects later on? No, it would be a stupid plan, and I can't understand why they wanted to color things but as 'He' said, 'Beings' beyond comprehension. I put on my wet clothing and after finding the road again I made my way on.

I started skipping, with nothing to do but walk for so long anything that would distract me is nice. I didn't skip all the way, after a while walking like this I got tired and it was already getting dark. There was nothing around but grass, so I just decided to sit down next to the road. I fell backward on purpose. I just wanted to lie down for a bit. I didn't want to sleep, but I'm tired and I still had a long way before me before I reach the city so resting, again, is a good idea. Yeah, I'm quite smart. Closing my eyes, I started whistling again but stopped when I heard something approaching. It was a cart that was pulled by, what else, a horse. We never had any horses, just chicken, and some cows. Its fur was an almost bluish color, very common but also very pretty in my opinion. It was comforting but thought that a red horse would be the best, red is, after all, the warmest color. I always wanted to ride one, hopefully, I get the chance too, one day.

The driver was an older man. I didn't bother to get up but did look up when the cart stopped next to me. The old man jumped off the cart and then stood next to me.

"Another one?" I heard him whisper. He asked me concerned, "you doin' alright?"

"Sure," I gave a thumb up.

Made sense that he had worries when seeing a young man spread eagle on the grass in the middle of nowhere.

"You sure you don't need any help?"

"Yeah, yeah," I waved off his question, "I'm fine by myself. But you could tell me when I'm gonna reach the city. I've been walking for a long time already."

"Oh boy, you've been walking the whole distance? It could take you another day or so."

"Aww fuck," I rubbed my face still lying on the ground. "If you're going to the city too is there room for one more passenger on your cart?"

He gave me a smile, "sure, hop on." He held out his hand to lift me up, gladly taking it we jumped on the cart.

After getting more comfortable I started to talk, "So, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know, why are you on the road, eh?"

"I'm just delivering something to an old friend."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing important, just small gifts. I could tell you more, but it would be more polite if you start first. What are you doing out here?" He raised his bushy eyebrows, "you said yourself that you had been walking for a while already. Why would you go from one city to the other, on foot especially?"

"Well, I haven't been going from city to city. I walked some days already. I came out from the forest to the ...west? A day ago."

"Why the blazes would you do that?"

"Have you not heard yet?"

"Heard what?" He gave a genuine look of confusion.

"The attack? The village west of the forest west of here, Trudin, was attacked. Have you really not heard?" I expressed a bit of shock.

"No," he looked baffled, "that is grave news, and I don't think that anyone I know has heard such news."

"Really? It has almost been a week, and I think it was soldiers from Orilid, not just some bandits or raiders. Genuine declaration of war style of attack, you know. With all the burning and the killing that would include."

He was silent for a while, "I see," he said in an extremely serious tone. "I'll have to tell that to the city guard as soon as we reach the city. If you did it, I wouldn't be sure if they'll even believe you."

"Whys that?"

"I don't want to offend, but you're just some youngen off the street for them. They would assume that lying would be in your nature. That you'd just tell them that for entertainment or attention."

"If you're going to do it then I thank you very much," I leaned back and closed my eyes, sleeping shouldn't have come as easy with the cart rattling on the road and with me still being rather wet but surprisingly I fell asleep almost immediately.