Trying to feel out into the surrounding web of tunnels, small caverns, and ice rivers for the umpteenth time, Puck felt like his senses were expanding through the ice, becoming one with the surroundings in the search for only one thing:

A way out.

They were caged in, and they needed to escape.

He could never be caged in again.

His will and his ideal wouldn’t allow it. Buckling ever more violently, his ideal brought testament to that problem.

It wanted out. It was freedom; it couldn’t be caged. And if Puck was caged, it would have to...

With a great deal of pain and sweat, Puck managed to pull himself out of his expansive search for freedom and the battle with his rebelling ideal.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder as he awoke from his search, Puck instinctively reached for it.

Gripping tightly, Puck slowly calmed down as Scarlet's calm presence grounded him.

Not speaking for a moment, Puck grew increasingly confused and irrational as he saw Brock speeding through the cavern in an uneasy zigzag. The bird was perhaps affected even more than himself.

For about two weeks, Puck had been actively searching for an escape route through his ideal, but he hadn’t found anything yet.

The only thing he could confirm was that the way through the old cavern of the heart was indeed only halfway broken in, and through a very long and arduous process, they would likely manage to break through there.

That would take years, though.

His ideal wouldn’t hold that long. He wouldn’t hold that long. That was the thing about ideals. In situations completely arrayed against them, they were the strongest. But if the situation couldn’t be overcome by the host of the ideal, the ideal would try to escape its host.

Puck estimated he had about a month before his ideal broke free, and he’d be left without it forever.

Slowly trying to stand up, Puck started to wobble away into the darkness. Feeling Scarlet’s grip around his shoulder, trying to hold him back, Puck turned around for a moment and looked into her eyes.

Feeling like she understood, he turned away again and slowly started moving.

Looking around, feeling lost and desperate, Puck could still appreciate the beauty around him. The cavern they housed in was beautiful, there was enough to eat, and he wasn’t alone.

He wasn’t alone. What an understatement. For the first time in his life, he felt like he truly had someone to depend on. Someone who valued him and someone he could value.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

A year here in these caverns, only hunting, training, and time with Scarlet, why couldn’t he simply live with that?

In fact, that sounded somewhat like a perfect reality come true.

A perfect reality but also a hollow reality. Without his freedom, without at least the possibility of trying everything he wanted, it was a hollow reality, a reality without drive.

Of course, he wouldn’t give up even if they did not find a faster way out. That too was an integral part of what he wanted to be.

But being caged in for a year right after he unearthed his ideal of freedom, it would change something in him. And not for the better.

Walking on through the well-known tunnels, Puck felt, on the one hand, like he was walking directionless without any goal, but on the other hand…

Something was pulling him, or perhaps guiding him. There was a purpose to his steps. Though he felt both directionless and still confused, he sensed himself walking towards something.

Hearing a screech behind him, Puck suddenly saw Brock flying toward him and making fast circles around him. The bird didn’t seem as confused as before, more like he, too, felt it...

Motioning for Brock to be silent, Puck walked on through the darkness as if drawn by an invisible strand stretching through it.

Walking upwards through a winding tunnel he had often traversed before, Puck knew where he was going.

This tunnel would reach into a relatively narrow but high cavern with a raging river at the bottom. What was he doing here?

Closing in on the cavern, Puck suddenly stopped as Brock landed on his shoulder. There, before him, at the edge of the tunnel, stood the feline beast he had fought before and that had been observing him for weeks in these caverns.

It had never come close or attacked. More often than not, Puck even suspected it had been there without him knowing, only watching and inspecting him.

Seemingly sensing him or perhaps knowing he would be coming all along, the beast looked over its shoulder back at him.

Flinching, Puck couldn’t help but be intimidated by the beast’s yellow eyes and the undulating snakes all around its head.

Hearing something like a deep rumbling, Puck took an involuntary step back, only to feel the rumbling get even louder as the beast slightly opened its mouth and let a pink tongue lol out.

Was it laughing at him?

Taking a step forward again, Puck was unsure what to do, but the beast looked like it knew exactly what it was here to do.

Turning its head away from Puck again, he couldn’t see its eyes anymore. Trying to figure out what it was doing, Puck saw muscles tighten, and the sting on the back of the feline started to wave from side to side.

Looking from the end of the tunnel to the feline, Puck had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was it going to...?

Ignoring Puck's fearful scream, the beast pushed off and jumped. For a moment, it looked like it was flying before it started dropping.

Running forward to the edge of the tunnel, Puck tried to make out the feline in the raging waters below. Had it decided to die? Had it felt so desperate?

Making out what he thought was the shadow of the beast in the waters below, Puck thought he saw it trying to swim towards something, and then suddenly it was gone.

Had it been pulled under completely? Was it dead?

Or could it be something else? Could it be that it had simply found a way out? A way that it had shared with Puck as a final act of thanks?