I wake up in the morning feeling strange. I look around to see Lupa softly snoring nearby. I get up and head to the pond. I still do not understand what is going on. All this talk about gods is giving me a headache. The only thing I can think of is that I haven’t been sleeping well ever since we left the farm. Okay, so I am just sleep derived. That explains everything. I sit down with my feet within the water. Now, the real issues at hand. I am wanted for being with Lupa. The entire Green Belt must know about me and her. I would never make to the Southern Desert. The only place we would go is the Northern Mountains. I sigh guessing the only thing we can do is head up there for a time. I look over to Lupa. She is still sleeping.

I head over there after a couple of minutes. I poke Lupa with my foot. She wakes up instantly. “.. I am awake.” I shake my head slightly.

“I have a plan. We need to leave to the Green Belt for a while. Since the Northern Mountains are closer than the Southern Desert. We need to head there.” It is for the best I say trying to convince myself. Lupa gets a rather large smile on her face.

“Really? That’s awesome!” She hops up and hugs me. The hug feels amazing. Like all the stress in the world disappears. I let the hug happen without hugging her back.

“Okay.. okay.. let’s go already. You need to take the lead on this one. Okay?” I say finally breaking the hug. She nods and hops onto Bruce. She offers me a hand. I pause half tempted to take it. I shake that thought of my head. I climb onto Bruce. We start heading northward. Once I am out of the Green Belt. We will lie low for a couple of weeks. Maybe after that the searching will have died down. It’s all I can hope for at this moment.

We begin traveling. Getting to the Northern Mountains is at least a week’s journey. So far, we make good time, but we eventually run out of food. I make one more sweep through all the bags to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Since I find nothing I throw one of the empty bags to the ground. I let out a frustrated sigh as Lupa looks at me.

“Everything alright?” She pets Bruce as he eats some grass.

“No. We ran out of food.” I should have guessed that we would have run of food. We have been traveling for two days now. I reach into another bag and pull out some rope. I have started to carry around a knife since the soldiers attacked me. “I am going to set a trap. Want to help?” I know very well that my skills with trap making suck. I figure maybe she could be better at it. Lupa gets the biggest smile on her face as she comes over to me.

“Of course, what are we trapping?”

“A rabbit.” I say walking into the forest. The forest closer to the north still looks lush and full of life. It is has even more life, because of the lack of people that live here. The only real way you can tell that people have been through here is the road. Even the road looks like it is being over claimed by nature. I head to an area that looks like a good spot for the trap. I start to set up the trap. As I go to make the final touches, it falls apart. I grunt in disappointment. It isn’t that hard. It has been years since the last time I had to do this though. I look at Lupa and hand her the materials. “Here.”

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Lupa takes them and easily sets up a trap. I get somewhat jealous of her for a second. I shake the idea of out my head though. “Come on. We can set up camp and see if we catch anything later.” She follows me as we find an area that would hide us from the road. It isn’t difficult since the forest is so dense. It was difficult to look into the forest from the pathway. Lupa goes to get Bruce as I start a fire. I use the last of the tindering to do so. Lupa comes back with Bruce. She smiles at me. “Way to go starting the fire.”

“Thanks…” I have started to notice that I am warming up to Lupa. I would have never guess in a million years that I wouldn’t mind having her around. I still blame her for getting me into this mess but why make a problem when there doesn’t need to be one. I go grab one of the bigger bags that we brought. I sit down near the fire and relax against it. Lupa sits on the opposite side of the fire looking at me. She looks like she has a question.

“Yes?” I look at her as I try to get comfortable.

“Um… why do you guys hate me?” I pause at that looking at her puzzled.

“What do you mean?” Lupa sighs.

“Well… when I first came down here, the people started to attack me. The soldiers chased me until I found you. Even you said I was a monster..” She gets an expression of heartbreak. Which causes my stomach to get in knots. “… I just want to know why you hate me..” After a few moments, I collect from what I can remember what the army and the church told me. The pain in my back starts to act up again.

“In the Green Belt, we don’t have native monsters. All the monsters here now came from the Northern Mountains. The church says that monsters are evil, vile creatures, that deserve to die. Monsters are anything that isn’t human though. So, vampires, werewolves…”

“Shapeshifters?” Lupa says looking upset. I nod as I continue.

“.. Yea. A lot of people do not have any experience with them. Most of them believe them to be fairy tales. Only a few people actually know what is truly out there.” Lupa looks confused.

“What about the “monsters” in town then?” I make a face that shows how this could be confusing.

“Those were made by a mage. Mages are different then people. They can use magic to create and destroy things.” Lupa still looks confused about this. “Mages are rare. Extremely rare. Like one will only be born once in a hundred years. Some mages go crazy with the power they have. So, they turn out like the old man in town.” She looks like she is starting to understand now.

“How many mages are out there?” I shrug.

“Who knows? It won’t be more than 100 as far as I know. Usually they hide from the world. Not wanting to be killed or used.” She is now lying down with her hands on her chin looking at me. She looks like a big child.

“You sure know a lot about monsters and mages. How?” My back aches as I shift uncomfortably. I brush off the question.

“I just heard it from people. It doesn’t matter.” She looks confused by this, but she doesn’t press on it any more. Instead, she starts asking about mages and monsters. All the different types and what not. I answer all the questions the best I can. As I figured, she has a lot of the same monsters just by different names. They live in the Northern Mountains, so it would make sense. As soon as she stops asking her questions, I faintly hear the trap go off. I look at Lupa. “Ready for dinner?” We get up and head over to the trap. It contains a decently sized rabbit. I find a rock nearby. I notice Lupa is muttering something under her breath as I kill the rabbit.

After taking it back, Lupa makes swift work of gutting, cleaning, and cooking it. I watched her somewhat impressed. She eyes the rabbit the entire while cooking. I lie down looking up at the sky. Through the branches I can barely see the sky. Like usual the sky is full of stars. I watch the stars as Lupa pokes me in the side. I look at her as she gives me a leg to eat. She has her mouth full of the other leg already. I take it and slowly eat. After having my hunger satisfied, I stretch out getting ready to fall asleep. As soon as I get comfortable, I quickly fall asleep.