Maura was on her fourth day out from her most recent base when a magic flare suddenly shot high into the sky. She was lucky to have seen it at all, but she was following the river bank and the break in the forest canopy gave her a good view.

She came to an abrupt stop and began to scan the skies. Using magic that openly was a death sentence in the wilderness. Especially firing into the sky like that.

There were true monsters that flew through the skies.

Strangely, while she noticed a few monsters get close and take a look before flying off again, the skies remained clear of any of those titans.

Maura waited, sure that the hammer was about to come down on whoever had sent that flare, but after a half hour without any sign of danger she began to relax. She had noticed that the saturation of monstrous animals had been declining slightly from what she was used to for the last two days but the lack of reaction to such obvious magic was what confirmed her new theory.

She was probably getting close to civilization. Almost certainly, really. If people had gathered together for protection then once they had gotten past the initial troubles they would certainly begin to proactively clear nearby threats.

The magic flare was probably a signal of some kind. She had been heading more east than southeast because of the river but the flare was fired from further south. She would have to cross the river the next time she found a large tree across it. They were pretty common, so she wasn’t worried about that; what worried her was that whoever had fired that flare might be in trouble.

She decided to pick up the pace a little bit. If this area of forest was less populated with threats she could afford a little more speed. Her emotions were all over the place trying to distract her but she ignored them to keep focused on scanning for danger. Her mantra continued to sharpen her focus and keep her on track:

I am the enemy.

“Get it together, Muara! Whoever that is might need help!” Maura whispered as she picked up the pace.

She might be meeting people for the first time soon.

---

She smelled them before she could hear them.

She heard them well before she could see them.

She sat huddled under some brush near a poisonous but non-ambulatory tree as she studied the people that she had found.

It had taken her a day and a half to find them, even with her increased speed and the lower concentration of monsters. She just couldn’t force herself to be too reckless while traveling. Time had proven again and again that that path led only to pain.

There were two distinct groups, and it seemed like she had arrived a few hours after the second group had. There was a large group of merchants with gigantic sleds that had found themselves in a bad situation and used the flare to call for help, she assumed. The second group were soldiers of some kind from a nearby city or town, probably.

Hopefully!

Maura had no problem hearing them talk as their normal volume of speech seemed to be screaming, at least screaming compared to how Maura talked. These people clearly didn’t know that in the wilderness; sound was the enemy.

If they did, they were either very brave or very stupid.

Maura had tried to make out what was being said but they had a heavy accent and used some unfamiliar words. Also, she was too distracted by just looking at real people in real life!

They were in a clearing along an open stretch of forest that might be a purposefully cleared road or path of some sort. There had been some sort of battle, but now everything was calm and the two groups were interacting with one another. Maura was enraptured and couldn’t help but stay still and just watch them interact and listen to the sounds of life.

Their sleds could more accurately be called yurts or little mobile forts with multiple metal runners instead of wheels. There were ten of the huge things, each being pulled by four gigantic shaggy looking buffalo-esque creatures.

The back half of each sled was packed high with what she assumed to be merchandise and supplies while the front half had thick leathers stretched over a frame that was clearly a living space with a porch on the front that had places for more than just the driver to sit. There was a guard armed with a crossbow on top of the back of each of the sleds checking the skies and bush to the sides.

There must have been fifty or sixty people in the caravan. While some of the group were obvious guards there were also a few children and people not armed or armored. Maura couldn’t tell what races everyone was from this far away while they were all bundled up against the cold, but that wasn’t really too important just yet.

The sixteen soldiers were much better organized than the caravan guards and had uniform shields, spears and short swords for weapons. They wore chainmail overtop thick gambesons and warm padding under helmets with large fur cloaks.

The leaders of the two groups were talking while the rest of the soldiers spread out around the caravan in groups of five.

Maura could smell the animals, the smoke being vented from the sleds, cooking smells, people smells. She could hear relieved laughter and a few people crying, but mostly just conversation that flowed over itself.

She found herself with a huge dumb grin on her face and tears in her eyes.

I found people! I can’t believe it!

As she began to calm down somewhat, she was able to listen to individual conversations. She still had trouble with the accents and words, but was beginning to understand small clips here and there. They were talking about losing a mage or something and having issues with monsters.

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Maura snorted and said, “Well of course you are. You’re so loud and smelly that anything could find you!”

As she was slowly getting better at understanding the words she was startled out of her silent studies as the caravan began to move out, now with the soldiers as escorts. Maura slithered back under the canopy and began following them on a parallel path inside of the trees. She had to focus on her surroundings too much to continue to pay attention to their conversations because of the speed of travel. They were moving at what Maura considered a swift pace, but she did hear some of the guards complaining.

There were a few monsters she noticed, but the number of people in the caravan must have been enough to dissuade any attacks. Maybe that’s why they didn’t care so much about the smell and noise?

She still couldn’t believe they were just out in the open like they were. She would never be able to be comfortable doing that. Aerial monsters loved to swoop down at her for some reason. Maybe because she looked like a tiny fuzzy thing…

“Okay, well it seems obvious when I put it like that. How have I never thought about that before?” She whispered to herself. Though she had never seen anyone not attacked while out in the open before, so it made sense.

Maura only had to put down one belligerent bear-looking monster with her spear as she followed them for the next several hours. The caravan did attract a few monsters, but judging from the swiftly ended noises of combat and the fact that they never stopped, she assumed that the guards and soldiers were… guarding. Obviously. At constant intervals the head soldier would call out a roll call and everyone would count numbers off. It was all very strange, and Maura wasn’t sure why for the longest time.

As she traveled she argued with herself.

Why had she not gone and introduced herself?

It was stupid, and she knew she sould have just gotten over her trepidation and met them, but every time she thought about doing it she would have a panic attack - which was not condusive to staying hidden while she moved through the forest.

She tried to rationalize it in a bunch of ways.

I can’t understand them well yet! I should take time to learn the language better.

They might be all Human and might not like Ovoure!

I’m not really an Ovoure, but I am designed to look like them…

They were too loud!

And smelly.

They had nice clothes and I’m embarrassed.

I mean, I love my clothes but they do paint a sketchy picture.

They might think I’m some sort of barbarian raider in my furs…

Or maybe a bandit?

Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m acting pretty suspiciously.

...

Am I a bandit?

Etc.

After a few hours arguing herself into circles, something changed.

During one of the roll calls the numbers stopped at twenty-two. There were a few moments of silence, then all hell broke loose. They started yelling and she heard a few crossbows discharge.

Maura sprinted towards them until she could see what was going on. She hid herself at the base of a tree and looked out on the commotion.

THe caravan was slowing to a stop as a larger wave of monsters came out of the woods. There were five seemingly floating monsters that were obviously magical on one side of the caravan. She had seen these kinds of monsters before, but they rarely noticed or bothered her and were easy to avoid.

The soldiers nearest to the monsters were just standing in a daze and not moving for some reason. Maura could sense tendrils of a magical ability reaching out from the floating monsters and affecting the soldiers and other nearby monsters. Two of the soldiers had been hurt by the monsters already, but the rest of the caravan was now responding.

Before Maura could get past her indecision to help, she witnessed some truly remarkable things happen that stunned her.

One of the soldiers placed their splayed hands together and fired a bolt of fire that hit with the force of a thrown boulder. Maura barely caught the mana moving inside of the soldier's body before the blast fired.

A caravan guard threw a small metal javelin at another monster like it had been fired from a ballista, while a second guard somehow imbued his crossbow bolt with energy and it exploded inside of a third monster.

Maura didn’t catch how the last two floating monsters died, but die they did. It was over so fast and now she had so many new questions. Once those particular monsters died, the strange magical tendrils snapped and there was an explosion of chaos as some monsters went berserk while others fled back into the forest.

She witnessed the soldiers using some sort of formation magic to strengthen themselves and the guards kept using their own abilities. Soon enough it was quiet once more and they began to bring the wounded back and to start harvesting parts from the slain foes.

She had thought these were mundane people as they hadn’t used any magic despite having elevated mana levels in their bodies. She had noticed the fading spellworks on the sleds earlier, but after hearing about their mage dying or something she had assumed that no one else could cast spells. She was so very wrong.

It seemed like some people used mana to reinforce themselves, while others could use it externally. Or maybe they could all do both but it was such a short fight that she only saw a little bit? How did they do that? What even were they?

It was certainly impressive. She was pretty sure she would be able to dodge or block a lot of those, but wasn’t certain. They didn’t seem like spells at all to her, more like monster abilities. It was almost as if, instead of placing their mana in a proper framework for magic, they used intent like how she often used her air magic and did… something. Who knew how many different kinds of abilities they even had! She certainly didn’t.

The two wounded soldiers were brought into one of the tents and Maura winced as she berated herself for not being able to show herself. She was a healer and she could help those soldiers. She was simply too afraid to try just yet.

Luckily their wounds didn’t seem life threatening so she had time to get over her strange phobia of not only being out in the open like all of these people were, but her fears of actually talking to someone as well.

She had been alone since she had awakened over five years ago and ever since beginning her journey to find people she had hoped for a situation almost exactly like this one. Now that the moment was here, she was afraid. Scared that she might be rejected or that something would go wrong.

She knew it was irrational, and her mind ‘helpfully’ cited several studies and books about mental health, but she couldn’t help it. It was all happening too fast. She had wanted to meet people, yes, but now she was plagued with indecision and felt overwhelmed. Her feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed just fueled her guilt at her inaction, and then the fact that she felt guilty made her feel like a terrible person, which just fed back into the feedback loop of feeling inadequate.

She had to stop a few times because of these feelings and even had a panic attack. She felt simultaneously hot and cold and couldn’t catch her breath and wanted to cry. It was almost a physiological reaction which made no sense but that didn’t stop it from happening anyway.

She was stuck in her mind running in circles as she followed the caravan. Eventually the sun began to set and the caravan stopped in a large open field to get ready for the night.

Maura found herself hiding and listening to them for hours as they lined up all of the sleds close together in a loose arch with the beasts in the middle and set a perimeter around the beasts and on top of the sleds.

She could smell food being cooked and listened to laughter and comradery while she huddled into herself and watched life from out in the cold and darkness.