With the noise undoubtedly getting closer, the weight of dread at the pit of my stomach grew. Should I go there or not? Should I risk having the collar placed back around my neck or stay here alone but free? Asked like that, the answer couldn’t be any more obvious.

I was better off turning on my heel and pushing my luck at survival in the depths of this forest. But a nagging little thought in the back of my mind screamed at me that a beast would do that. And I was not a beast.

‘I was NOT!’

No, I was still a human.

Yet, the idea of running away was so tempting.

‘Come on, you don’t have to talk to them, Korra,’ I tried to convince myself to move before it was too late and the carriage would pass by. In the end, all I needed was a peek to satisfy my curiosity - and avoid future regrets. For all I knew, this might be my only chance to find out more about where that damn bug dumped me. Besides, as long as I didn’t get caught, living like a wild forest woman should still be an option.

Closing my eyes for a moment and straining my sail-like ears in an effort to make out more of the noise, I bit my lower lip and made my decision. But after barely taking two steps towards the supposed road, I froze again. All my efforts to be as stealthy as possible came to naught the moment the remnants of the chains on my shackles shifted.

‘Shit!’

With three of them, I might as well have tied a bell around my neck like a stupid cow or screamed my arrival at whoever was driving through the woods. Thinking fast, I took the chain from the shackles on my wrists in my hand, wrapped the one on my right leg with Sage, and tucked the shortest one on my left leg behind the shackle itself. Not the most ideal solution, as the iron bit deeper into my skin, but a bit of moss lining made it bearable.

Most importantly, it worked - sort of.

Sure, with my huge ears, the rattling of the chains as I walked was still impossible to miss. But I had them on my limbs while whoever was driving through the woods was sitting on a rickety carriage. Banking on that, I carefully and rather awkwardly moved four trees forward, discovering that I hadn’t been sitting far from the road all along.

Well, calling it a road was a stretch. If I had no idea what to look for, I wouldn’t have even noticed the flat ribbon of moss blanket trailing between the trees. No doubt it was there, though.

And so was the carriage.

»Y-you hear that?«

It might have still been out of my sight, but the sudden horse neighing scared the shit out of me. Not only did it sound closer than I thought, but I...

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

‘...did I just understand the horse? What the bloody hell?’

Confused, I shook my head, sure I must have heard wrong. It had to be the human, a woman, judging by the rather high-pitched voice, and she obviously wasn’t alone. Either that or she was suffering from self-talk.

Admittedly, I found that somewhat relatable.

When you had no one to talk to...

‘Damn it, Korra! Focus.’

The carriage was getting closer by the minute, and I was standing there like a fool out in the open. A bit panicked, my heart beating wildly in my chest, and not having this part quite thought out, I rushed my brain for what to do.

In the end, I dared not approach within three trees of the road and wisely hid behind a massive trunk - and did so just in time. When I leaned out of my hiding place, I could already see the carriage moving among the trees.

»Heard you.«

»Not me. The weird clanking noise.«

»Look behind your tail. The old wagon is all noisy.«

»You old...« neighed the younger of the horses, a mare, both of them, as I listened to their conversation in utter awe. Had I not known better, I would have thought it was two humans talking to each other. But what reached my ears were not words spoken in any human language. What I heard was the neighing of horses, of which I could understand the meaning.

‘I mean, what the actual f...’

Was that a normal thing in this world, or just another way the bastard’s concoctions messed me up? Well, since all I could hear from the mice back in the cellar was squeaking, I leaned towards the latter. Either that or the mares weren’t your typical horses.

The truth of that notion gave me pause as soon as they came into sight.

The mares, or whatever they were, resembled horses in appearance, but all the same, they could not have been more different. Instead of manes, they flaunted long feathers in shades of brown, a finer variation of which covered their necks, backs, and legs to the knees. They still sported hooves, but instead of muzzles, they had beaks. And their tails? Long reptilian-like with the ends feathered with beautiful ample plumage.

The sight was truly bizarre.

For a moment, I wondered if they were some odd creations of a madman such as myself - and not just animals, perhaps even humans, turned into full beasts. That would explain their ability to speak - or would it?

They weren’t really talking, as in using a language.

The mares were neighing.

But then again, what came out of my throat back in the cellar when my inner ferocity took the reins over me was no less than a bestial growl with a meaning behind it, so...

‘Could it really be humans who were pulling the carriage?’

Horrified, any remaining thoughts of approaching whoever was driving the carriage left me. I hadn’t escaped the clutches of one madman only to willingly fall into the hands of another. No, I hunkered down in my hiding spot, silent, keeping an eye on the approaching carriage.

And wrong I was once again.

It was no carriage but a wagon that the two horse-like creatures pulled. In fact, it was a covered wagon with canvas stretched over the circular hoops above the hull, covering whatever was loaded inside. My eyes, however, were not trying to pry into what the wagon was transporting, but were glued to the human seated in the driver’s seat and handling the reins.

Though I was too far away for the Lattice to tell me anything useful about him, and yes, it was a man, I could at least tell that he was old. Not ancient like this forest; just aged by time the way humans get. His chin-length hair had long since lost its color; pale, heavy eyebrows shadowed his eyes, and a thick white beard covered his face.

The old man looked tired.