The first thing Axel noticed was the crackling of flames and the smell of cooking meat. The problem with consciousness though is now he was feeling all that pain. Letting out a groan, he glanced at his damage readings and, yep, he messed himself up badly and his wounds had worsened still further. The readout stated that his estimated recovery time was 10 days 16 hours with current body stores, with the ability of partial functionality of 8 days 3 hours due to critical skeletal, joint, and muscular damage.

The Journal also shows the symbols above his basic readout that it is unlikely to be repaired without additional resources, the resources would be taken from current muscle mass and body-building materials that his body had used up to now preparing for the day of his first Trial, this would be a major setback to his plans if it happened.

In this situation, his training … his mind started to go back to a lesson with his father… but he forced it to stop just as, it started as this was not a good time for trips down memory lane, with another shallow breath this time, he reviewed his survival training and it said that he needed to kill beasts and eat their cores to speed up his healing process. A hard ask when moving was going to be a task akin to moving a mountain with his hand. As he was trying to figure out how to survive this situation, he heard a happy voice near his head.

“Oh great, you live!! Aria thought that you were not going to make it there with you having bones sticking out your arms there and your leg resting at that strange angle. Also, you were coughing blood for a while there,” said a genuinely worried sounding voice.

As Axel opened his eyes, he was staring at an upside-down face with silvery blond hair falling in a silken wave to the ground and eyes the color of a silver staring into his. The eyes held in them almost a pure innocent joy and look of wonder. Her face, like all her kind, had a nearly unnatural beauty, to just before the point that it would weird a human out.

“Aria was afraid to move you, so she returned to her camp gear and brought it with her here. Aria is not great at the healing arts, but Aria tried to put you together. Aria thinks that your Gift should be able to fix you all up now though,” the almost too-happy voice said.

“Thanks for that,” Axel said with some difficulty, right broken ribs not just fractured, “Would you mind helping me some more? My body seems to be running on empty building material. Would you mind if I take a bigger part of that Twilight Stalker kill’s meat? I know by tradition, as you landed the killing blow you should have the larger share of the meat but I am in a situation here.”

The woman Aria gave him a perplexed look and said, “But Aria ate that like two days ago now. You didn’t wake up, so Aria ate it to heal the wounds it did to her. Even when cooked right it tasted like poo though. Helped Aria heal right up and even get closer to the second cycle of my Novice core.”

Axel lightly sighed but could not blame her as unless you treat a kill correctly it would lose the potency of its blessing. The meat would keep longer and supply material for the body to work with but without the extra blessings in the meat or its beast core, the location where the Goddess blessed the beasts, holding a lot of the blessing to temporarily speed up the process of repair or building up to the next cycle.

“Well, I guess I will still thank you for guarding me during this time. Could you maybe help me get some meat from a kill so that I can get back on my feet?” Axel said with a tiredness that he was feeling to his very soul. Dealing with the pain was beginning to wear him down, as he knew it would from past experiences. Trying to keep up a hopeful mindset to not fall into a spiral, Axel said, “I would be in your debt for this help.”

“What?!?” The confusion on Aria’s face was almost comical. “Why are you asking Aria this? Did you hit your head too? Please don’t have brain damage, Aria does not know how to fix that!!!” The girl started to say in a panicky way, “Why would you need to ask Aria for help? You came and saved Aria! Do you think Aria does not even have the honor to help Aria’s rescuer?”

As her words began to go faster and faster, to the point Axel began to think he may be concussed, though his Journal Health Data disagreed. “All right, all right, I am sorry if I said anything that was stressing you.” Axel tried to placate her. “Look, I can smell something cooking. Could I beg your hospitality to have some?”

Aria stopped her rambling that seemed to have gone quieter and making less sense as it went and gave Axel a bright look. “Yes, let Aria help you up so you don’t choke on the food.” With that and what seemed more than a little effort, she helped him sit up next to a Guan tree. While this was not the same area of the fight, it seemed not too far away from the look of the drag marks on the ground.

From his sitting position leaning against the Guen tree, Axel could see the little camp. There was a sleeping bag that he slept in, another one on the other side of a fire pit. The camp had a fire pit in the center with what looked like a Gin, a bipetal herbivore that had a mild nature and moved fast when sensing danger, they were roughly as tall as a man and thrice as long with armored plates along its back and neck.

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The beast was butchered expertly, and its parts were cooking over the fire. Axel could see its beast core in the fire to cook it, allowing the blessings in the beast to be freed of their binding to the beast’s blood. The core was the size of one of the pastries the village cook would make of small round bread balls cooked in oil.

As Axel sat there, he saw Aria turning the spit to cook the food more easily. She also opened a small pouch and added a mix of spices. This caused Axel to say, “Please don’t put that on my portion. Those herbs are only for your kind. I really don’t want the stomach pains as my body tries to process that.” What Axel noticed her putting on the meat was an herb that her kind grew to help with the wings and feathers grow in a lightweight but strong metal. While not lethal to the other races, it gave humans stomach issues and long stays in the restroom.

“Oh sorry, Aria has not traveled much with humans,” she said and stopped before spicing more than half the meat. After it was cooked, she took the core out of the fire and walked over to Axel.

“Say Ahhh.” Opening her mouth wide while saying this. As Axel was trying to figure out what this woman was getting at, she didn’t seem to have the patience to wait for him to figure it out, she lightly poked his ribs.

“AHH,” Axel said in pain as he was also just as quickly shut up when the Beast core was shoved in his mouth.

“Now make sure to chew and swallow. You need that to feel better!!” Aria then headed back to the cooking area and started serving up slices of meat onto small plates. She then sat next to him, very much invading his personal space, to feed him cut-up slices of meat.

“Aria wanted to thank you for coming to save Aria from that beast. You were very brave and manly. Like when you were like YAAAA catching the beast and slamming it into the tree. You yelled so loud that you scared Aria into the sky!!” As she was talking, her hand went up to the sky to try and emphasize her point. “As Aria was coming back down, Aria saw the spot you said to hit and hit it with Aria’s daggers really hard. Also, Aria would not recommend doing that with broken wings!! Aria almost fainted like you did from it.”

As the woman happily regaled Axel with what had happened, he could see whole hours being shaved off his recovery time already. Many of the warning symbols for lack of body materials were also fading. The day continued like this with Aria leaving for a short time to hunt for more food to aid in both their recovery.

When she arrived back, she looked a little upset carrying a pair of smaller Snars. A Snare is a small furred quadruped mammalian creature that breeds fast but dies in large numbers to the local predators. The only danger they presented was a single spiral horn on their head between their large ears.

“Aria could not catch another of those big ones from earlier,” she said sadly. “They must have heard Aria. If Aria still had bow or working wings that were fully healed, Aria would have gotten it.”

Axel waved his hand. “That’s fine, I am more surprised with all the fighting and smell of blood in the area there was much prey to find.” With a grunting effort, Axel then rose to his feet. While a Snar or even twenty of the little bastards would not speed up his healing process much, they would at least give his body more energy to keep the pace up.

Each took a Snar and cooked it in a way they wanted to. Axel sat on a log so as not to get any scraps of food or juices on his sleeping spot. Sitting next to him, invading his personal space again, was Aria happily eating her Snar’s hind leg. As she finished she leaned in near his face again, asking, “So how long are you going to need to heal? Aria plans to hunt in the area for a while for her Cycle build-up phase. Aria would not mind company, would help to stop being ambushed as Aria dresses a kill, stupid twilight beast.” Saying this, she cutely puffed out her cheeks in anger. She then went on to mutter about how her original kill was taken by another scavenger.

Axel just let the woman wear herself out with her tangent, as what he had learned over the days' interactions was just to let her run her batteries out. Axel pulled up his health data and saw that full recovery recalculated down to 3 days 2 hours and he was about 12 hours from partial recovery. That beast core was more potent than he expected. “I should be able to get out of your way by morning. While not a full recovery, I should not be in too much danger.”

When Aria heard this, she looked at him eagerly. “Do you want to stay and hunt with Aria? Aria came out here alone as Aria couldn’t find anyone to form a hunting group with. The last ones Aria worked with were mean and rude after leaving Greenhaven. They wanted things that Aria didn’t feel like giving to them as they smelled like smoke and bad things. Aria left the dummies and decided to hunt alone, not that Aria has been that successful as the beasts around here are either too dangerous for Aria or very easy to frighten.”

As she talked, she kept getting closer and closer to his face with hers, Axel mostly tuned her talk out focusing on his recovery plans. Axe noticed that she finished speaking there was a slight blush of excitement on her cheeks. Having no better plans right now with going over his options and knowing having someone to watch your back in the jungle was a good idea, he agreed with her, saying, “Sure, numbers will help both our safety out here.”

With that statement, Aria grabbed his left hand, shaking it up and down causing Axel to wonder what women and intense physical contact was while he was injured. “Great, Aria always wanted a strong partner to work on, mean in, mean with? Yes, Aria looks forward to working with you.”

With dinner now done, Axel and Aria prepared for the night as the sun was going down again. With deep, less pain-filled breaths, Axel opened his Journal and started to do his long overdue entry to tell the Goddess how his life journey was. He had the first watch, and it would be a fine time to do this.