10 Years, Forest. Forging Plans.

I wake up. Sun rays fall through snow-covered branches, and leave a pattern on my skin. I get up, and find myself on top of a tree.

Right, I remember. I sought shelter here yesterday – after running from the owlbear. All this anticipation I had before – of myself killing the beast, returning to the village, making things alright – feels ironic afterwards. To think I was planning to take on this monstrosity with Brian and Ione... They would have been torn to shreds. I can run, thanks to my self-lightening. With that, I can probably run twice as fast as anyone in the Village. And yet, the beast kept pace with me. There is no chance anyone but me could have escaped from that for even a few seconds.

Now that I am awake, I realise that my body hurts, and my whole skin feels like someone is pricking me with needles. An inspection of my hand confirms my expectations: my fingers are red, and a bit swollen. The forearm does not look much better. I lift my leg to get a better view on my foot, and immediately wish I had not.

The toes are coloured in a dark blue hue, and the skin is peeling off. The sole is a mess, the callus which formed through years of walking bare foot is flaking off, revealing open, painful sores. A jolt of distressing pain surges through my body as I stroke the right sole. At least I am still able to sense pain. From what my parents taught me, I should be concerned otherwise. This concern sets in once I come to the front of the left, to my toes, and start feeling nothing. This particular part seems especially dark, and gives of an eerie feeling.

I decide to not worry about it as good as I can, since I can not really do anything to treat it anyway. Still, I should be very, very careful with stopping my self-heating.

My shins are full of scratches that look very recent. I must have cut myself on branches and shrubbery. How did I not feel that while running? Maybe I was focused on different things. My robe is torn to shreds down there, as well.

I shudder. I made the mistake of neglecting the cold too long during the chase yesterday. I had to, or else I would have been caught by the owlbear. Still, it took its toll on my body. The pain is distracting, and also not really fading over time.

I sigh quietly. I need to live with it – and learn from this for the next time I encounter the owlbear. Still, thinking back of my plans only a week ago... I would have never thought things would go downhill like this. Back then, I would have pictured myself talking to Brian and Ione about magic, or sitting at home with my mother, and my father. The menace would be eradicated, and we would be happy.

In a sense, maybe it is a good thing that the preparations for the fight did not go as planned, that Brian took himself out of commission before the owlbear could.

It is still my fault. Ione acted right. We should have went to their father with this problem. If I had done that, none of all this would have happened. If only...

I hit myself. This can not be starting again. Looking back at things will not solve anything. I need to devise a plan. Brute force did not work at all against this colossus. I stabbed it in the throat. It did not even budge, and despite this gave furious chase at neck-breaking speeds, without showing any signs of exhaustion. I got close enough to touch its neck yesterday, and found it had no pulse, no body temperature, and did not breathe. Does it even have a vital weak point? If it does, it definitely is not the neck. Strange yellow liquid gushed out of the wound, not resembling blood as I know it.

Maybe I should accept the fact that there is no way for me to kill this thing. At least not until I learn more about it. I can hardly do a field study on it, though.

Thinking about it, killing it is not my primary goal. I simply want to keep it away from the village. Or, keep it away from Brian, Ione and my Mother. I do not think I could convince them to leave the village, so I have to keep the owlbear away from them.

If I leave it alone now, would it return to the village on its own? It is possible that this is not the case. Maybe it will wreak havoc in this forest, and eventually emerge somewhere else, and end up terrorizing people over there – I do not particularly care. Maybe this would solve this problem, and I could return to the village now.

“You know that is not the case. You can never return to your home, not even should you bring the head of this beast in your hands. The pain of loosing loved ones – it sits too deep.”

Why does this voice always say the words that hurt the most? I raise my hand, form a fist, but stop.

All things considered, the voice may be right. It is still painful to hear it, and hurts on a different level than my aching body.

“Even if they would accept you again, what IF the owlbear returns? What would you do when it ravages the village? Run, like you did before? Could you really live with that?”

I lower my hand. “No. I would not want that.”

“Right. You know what you have to do. Get to work, now.”

Sitting here idly will not help. I double-check my magic: A decent amount of cold precaution, and the rest of my power put into self-lightening. I am glad I do not need the breathing aid like yesterday any more – it was not a pleasant experience at all, as my body was not able to control my breath, but rather something else, foreign did. I know of course that it was due to my own doing, and I could have stopped it at any time, but that knowledge did not help at all soothing my lungs as they felt on the verge of bursting.

I jump down the tree, and land in the snow beneath it. My feet hurt fiendishly on impact, and it takes me a lot of composure to not immediately slump down, or release a scream of pain. Still, a silent grunt escapes my mouth.

“Ughhhhh...”

Alright. This is what I have to live with now. I take a step, which only sends a new surge of pain through my body.

I envy Brian and Ione for their nice, fur-lined boots. Had I worn them while running, my soles would be in a considerably better shape.

I crave water, and I need food. Those are my primary goals, if I do not fancy collapsing out here soon. I did not eat or drink anything since I left the Doctors house, and that is already a day ago. Hunger and thirst was not a problem when I got chased yesterday, I had slightly more urgent things at hand. But right now, I can at least do something against the first of those two.

I kneel down, and scoop up a layer of snow with my hands. My warming protects against the cold decently well, so I wont have to fear cooling out from eating snow. Therefore, I take a good bite.

It tastes bland as a rock, but also has something refreshing to it. All the heat from my self-warming can get into my head from time to time, and eating snow is a good way of cooling down a bit.

My fingers hurt when I grab another layer of snow after gobbling down the first one. Compared to how my feet feel, it is nothing, so I try to ignore it.

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The snow is fresh, it must have snowed while I slept. I reach down for a third portion, and then a forth, and a fifth. Finally, I feel like I have eaten something, and my thirst is gone.

Now, it is time to think. My thoughts seem to be clearer than they were before, and I do not want to waste this opportunity. I sit down legs crossed. To achieve what I want, I have to keep the owlbear away from the village. Therefore, leading it even further away from there would be a good idea. The further we are from the village, the narrower the chances of this beast finding the way back, should it search for it.

This would be the ideal solution for now – if it were not for a problem. I can not run in this shape. Maybe I can power through the pain somehow, and outrun this beast for a few minutes. However, to run for longer distances again, I would likely have to cancel my heating. I could be as determined to run as the sun is to rise and shine every morning, but if my feet fall off, it would mean nothing.

Adding to this fact, this location has a very important advantage to me. Without the ravine, I would have not been able to escape my predator, and if I would challenge the owlbear for a race again, I would be dependent on a similar opportunity.

No, I can not leave this place with the owlbear behind me, at least not in my current condition.

I need to fight it. There is not really an other option. If I just leave it alone, it could wander off who knows where – assuming it did not already leave, that is. If that is the case, I have no chance anyway. I could, probably, follow its tracks. They are not easily concealable, after all. In that case, however, I would have the same problem as if I would try to lure it even further away from the village.

How could I possibly hurt the owlbear? The knife proved ineffective, and even if it would work, I lost it, it may either still be lodged in the owlbears throat, or fell out somewhere, in both cases there are little chances for me to recover it.

I could try to blind it, rob it of its senses somehow. If I managed to do that, my options would vastly expand. Maybe I could use wind to create a little, sight-obscuring snowstorm?

That is not really realistic, given the amount of magic power that I have. Even if I was able to use it for effectively blinding the foe, there would not be much power left for any offensive actions. Then, what about attacking the eyes directly? I could try to launch pebbles at them, and once I managed to destroy them, it would only be a matter of time until I find a way to kill it when it is disoriented.

Yet, if I use up power to accelerate stones, I do not think I would have enough left to run fast enough at the same time. Additionally, aiming and running could be difficult. If only there was a way to get a few clean shots in every few seconds, while still being relatively out of danger...

I think back to a technique I only ever attempted when I first experimented with self-lightening. The owlbear is capable of uprooting trees, at least the kind that grows around here. I have seen it a few times when searching for tracks, and also witnessed it during the chase yesterday. Still, it can not just run them over and continue at full speed. If I stay in the trees, and jump from trunk to trunk when the one I am currently on gets attacked, I could get a few quick shots in – hopefully, at least.

How useful it would be to have a higher coefficient.... After witnessing what Brian was able to do, I think I would be able to crush the owlbear, if I had that power. Is it really fair, that there is such a discrepancy in people, from what they are able to do? Not only that, but also in what families they are born into? Brian and Ione had both high coefficients, and a wealthy family. I, on the other hand...

I need to stop. How can I even think that? They did not chose those things, or took them from me by possessing them. It is just the way this world works. After all, I just need to make the best out of this situation.

Alright. I get up, ignoring the protests of my legs, as good as I can at least. They still hurt as much as at the beginning, but I feel like I have at least accustomed to it marginally. If I want to bombard the owlbear with pebbles, I am going to need some. The snow is quickly pushed aside, and I start seeking and gathering appropriately-sized specimen: A bit larger than my fingernail, but not too small that it lacks power, and also not too large so I can still conveniently shoot it.

My hands are hurting a lot from digging through the cold dirt, so I grab a stick to loosen it before, and then pick the harvests afterwards. Like that, I manage to gather around thirty good pebbles in what feels like an hour, which I store in the pouch hanging around my waist. My hands are dirty, so I wash them with a bit of snow, and eat another handful of it.

Now, the only thing left seems to be to go look for tracks. The sooner I finish this, the better. I have serious doubts that I will be able to kill with just a few pebbles, but for the time being, I have no better idea. I climb up the closest tree, and try to move by jumping from tree to tree, grabbing branches and hanging from them. My arms and the branches are easily able to carry my alleviated weight, and I am able to jump quite far if I press my feet against the bark. Of course, it hurts using my feet and hands like this, but right now, what does not?

I arrive at the ravine. Without having to search for long, I find the spot where I jumped over it, easily distinguishable since on the other side everything is devastated. Getting here took me longer than just running, but speed could come with a bit more practice, and the main reason for staying in the tree tops is avoiding what is on the ground, not moving faster, after all. I let myself fall down from the tree I was hanging onto, and land on the ground, supporting my legs with my arms.

Still, it hurts.

I distance myself good ten meters away from the ravine, take charge, and finally jump over it. The jump is a bit harder than yesterday, as I am using less energy on lightening, and also am more injured. It is not a problem, though, as I pass the distance still without complications.

The owlbear seems to have raged on a bit after I escaped, as there are concentrated marks of destruction. The edge of the ravine is solid rock covered by a bit of snow and dirt, and I see claw marks on it. How in hell did it manage to carve the stone? Are its claws that durable and sharp?

It was the right decision to run from it, no doubt. After analysing the site, I come to the conclusion that the owlbear is not longer here. A second fact fills me with dread. My worst fear came true: A second trail of destruction leaves this place, headed in about the direction of the other trail. This means that the owlbear is headed roughly in the same direction it came from: the village.

My heart starts to beat faster, and I get up the trees again. Carefully, I follow the second trail. I swing myself from tree to tree, my heart still pumping and my muscles full of tension. After a short while, I calm down a bit. The trail here is way less violent than the one left by our chase yesterday. It reminds me more of the trails I saw back in the forest around the village, and on the sides of it, I also spot two mutilated animal carrions, a squirrel and a boar. This means that it is moving way slower than before, and also hunting while doing so. If that is the case, I do not have to worry about it rushing to the Village, and it should take way longer for it to arrive there.

Still, I should follow it at a steady pace, before it is too late.

With time, I learn to ignore my pain better, and I pick up in pace. Every few minutes I find another shredded carcass, and there are no signs of the owlbear having picked up its pace. After about and hour and a half of swinging around, I notice a squirrel, digging in the ground. I decide to make a short rest, since my arms feel like they could become sore any moment now.

The squirrel probably wants to dig up something it buried in the summer. Watching it, I feel my own stomach rumble, snow does not seem to do a very good job keeping one satiated for an extended period of time. I open my pouch, and take out a pebble. I should be able to hit at this distance, after all I spent a considerable amount of time doing target practice with accelerated stones back in the village. I sit down on a branch that looks sturdy enough to support my weight, and cancel self-lightening. My body instantly feels heavy, but since I am prepared for that, there is no danger of me falling of the tree.

The squirrel seems to be done digging, and pulled out a big acorn. It starts nibbling on it, and I throw the stone, accelerating its movement in mind using all the coefficient that got free. It shoots through the air, corrects its course a little bit mid-air, and finally enters the squirrels head, only to leave it on the opposite site. Well, that was to be expected.

I reapply the lightening, and jump down, again supporting my weight with both arms and legs. The shot left a splatter of blood behind the squirrel, and I see the big hole in its forehead. I pick the body up, and climb up the nearest tree again.

However, a new challenge presents itself: How am I going to eat this? Previously, I had my knife to skin small game, and could cut it up into pieces that were easily cooked on a small stone. However, neither do I have my knife, nor do I have a suitable stone for cooking. Should I just heat it as a whole, and try eating it with the fur still on? That sounds unpleasant, and potentially unhealthy. I would rather refrain from that.

Maybe I can prepare it with magic, apart from just grilling it? I think about how a knife works. It forces itself in between a thing, and pushes that thing apart. Apparently, things do not hold together very well when opposing forces play tug of war with a very small portion of it. It is the same concept of applying a lot of force to a small amount of material, such is that small pebbles fly faster then bigger ones when I put in the same coefficient and time, and that small water droplets immediately evaporate while pots of water take a long time to cook when I heat it.

If I apply this knowledge to this problem, it would be possible... I make a bit of coefficient free from my lightening, and try to envision a plane going right through the squirrels neck. I can not use this destroyed head anyway, so I might as well get rid of it. Then, I apply movement to both sides of the plane, but in opposite directions.

“Shhhrhhtaith...” A disgusting tearing sounds, and the squirrels head falls off and down the tree as if lobbed of with a cleaver. That worked... surprisingly well. Sadly, I can only use I on dead animals, since I can not apply movement to living ones. I also have to be careful, in theory, I could use this to cut off my own hand as well.

Now, I just have to prepare the squirrel with this technique. I skin it patch by patch, since the corpse has no perfectly flat side. What falls off is just discarded down the tree, I have no real use for it. Then, I dice it, spreading the front side of my robe over my legs, using that as surface to store everything. I discard the guts as well, and everything that I cant identify as plain meat. Now, all that is left is to fry it.

Sadly, I have no proper surface for that, the tree bark is not very even, and I do not want the meat to fall off accidentality. I think I will just use no surface at all.

I completely shut of my self-lightening. I do not really need all that coefficient, but I have a hard time concentrating on three separate spells, four could be too hard. For what I am planning, I need two spells maintained at the same time.

In a similar fashion to my self-lightening, I let a piece of meat levitate in the air, hovering at an arms distance. Then, I use heat manipulation to fry it good. The meat immediately starts to sizzle, and over the course of half a minute, turns brown-greyish and then suddenly black. I cease the heating.

Dammit, I overdid it. This was a little bit too much heat. I contemplate whether or not to eat this still, decide in favour of it, and stick it into my mouth. As expected, it tastes a bit burned, but apart from that and being a bit bland, it is not bad. Most importantly: It is something of substance, not snow.

I make another one.

Then, another one.

Another...

Finally, I am done. I clean my robe of tidbits left on it, and reapply my self-lightening.

Then, it is time to continue.