(Year 997, 16th of Full Inji, 12:04PM)

"You're sure there isn't a better way to do this, Shimmer?"

"I am sure, Aedan. There is no better way; this is the only way. You are simply being... squeamish."

I shook my head, even as I was about to agree. "Can you blame me? This is gonna be messy..."

Shimmer came into view, hovering in a circle around me. "You are not being squeamish about messiness. You are being squeamish about the content of the mess."

Staring at the Status screen in front of me, at the words Flesh and Muscle, I said again, "Can you blame me...?"

Shimmer shook her head. "While your base instinct is... appreciable... you would do well to suppress it. Besides, you have nothing to fear. You have already practiced the trickery of producing fire from heat and light. To merge flesh and muscle into edible meat will not be a more complicated process, so long as you hold your focus."

I scrunched my eyes shut, trying not to picture the mess I'd make if I lost my focus. "And if I do manage to mess it up...?"

There was a weird feeling next to me, suddenly, like the air beside me was getting pushed around... or maybe getting turned inside-out. I opened my eyes and nearly flinched from the suprise of seeing Shimmer only an inch in front of me. This close, in broad daylight, I could see into the darkness of her hazy body in a way that hadn't been at all possible the night before.

"Unlike fire," Shimmer said flatly, "Entrails do not disperse when released. You can simply [Devour] them again and try once more."

I just stared for another moment, taking that in... until I had the thought that, since I was just staring into darkness, it didn't even feel like Shimmer was looking back at me.

"...alright."

I'd managed, with some effort (to keep them from falling into the fire), to set up a little "prop" of sticks over the fire. I didn't really know how to cook meat - well, in the sense that I didn't know how long or how hot it needed to burn - but setting the meat down on the 'prop' would work for a start, at least. Get it nice and close to the fire, close enough to cook but (hopefully) not close enough to burn easily.

All that was left to do, at this point, was to try out... making the meat. One last shiver ran up my spine, and then I got to it. Standing close to the fire, hands cupped together, I tried to imagine gory little bits of flesh and muscle coming out of the impossible holes in my hands, the ones that were only there when they needed to be. For my own sake, though, I tried to imagine it as vaguely as possible

Surprisingly, the actual look of creating meat wasn't that bad. Instead of coming out in bits and chunks, the flesh and muscle... flowed. Tiny little strings and threads of substance came out of my hands, and when they met in the middle, they started to weave together without any involvement from me. That felt weird on its own, really, like the meat was creating itself, and I was just the... portal? That was how that word was used in books, right?

Like I was just the portal through which the meat was entering the world.

Which was fair, in a way, since I was also the 'portal' through which the meat had been pulled out of the world... Really, I was just putting back what I'd taken.

Except for the part where I'd taken a whole deer, and I was only puttting back a tiny piece of it.

Not that that piece was tiny anymore, though. Before my eyes, as more threads of meat came together, it was assembling into a decent-sized cut of meat. The proportions were weird, though... it looked kind of chunky, or maybe a bit blobby, and definitely uneven. Thinking that it looked about right (well, not really, but it looked like enough meat to cook and eat), I decided that I didn't need to [Expel] any more animal stuff. The little threads of meat pulled back inside the gaps in my palms, and the meat chunk I'd created plopped down into my hands.

It was... wet. Squishy, squelchy. It was mine, though. I'd made it myself, more-or-less from scratch.

I looked aside at Shimmer, and Shimmer nodded. It was good enough for her, certainly.

Making my peace with eating this chunk of meat, I set it down on the prop of wood I'd made for it, and stepped back to watch it cook.

Of course, that's when the sticks collapsed under the weight of the meat (something I'd forgotten to test them for), falling into the fire and taking the meat with them.

I just... stood there for a moment. I wasn't surprised, not really. I was just kind of disappointed.

Shimmer floated into view. "The longer you wait before reclaiming your meat, the more of it is lost to the fire."

My eyes widened. "Aw, crap." That whole 'fire consumes' thing apparently hadn't stuck with me yet. Immediately, I dropped down and reached into the fire to grab the meat and the fallen sticks - thankfully, my shirtsleeves were already rolled up. I could [Devour] fire that touched my skin to keep it from hurting me (no matter where it touched me, apparently), but if the fire were to touch my clothes, I might not be able to fix that.

And with no home to go back to... replacing my clothes would be a problem if anything happened to them. If I got my hands on some cloth, I realized, I might be able to pull off a similar trick to what I was doing with the meat right now, spewing out strands of it and letting them knit together into an ultimately shirt-like shape... but getting my hands on some cloth would be the hard part of that, given what I was dealing with.

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Shaking my head, I realized I'd gotten lost in thought again. Meat and wood now reabsorbed (and plenty more heat with it), I stood up from the fire and raised my hand to my chin. How to build a prop to hold the meat that wouldn't fall apart...

Before I could even grab onto my chin and take a thinking stance, I reached up and smacked my forehead. "I'm an idiot." Immediately, I held my hands together and got to work making more meat.

Shimmer, who'd been flitting around as usual, floated into my view from above. "And yet, you seem to have come to a realization."

"Not like that, Shimmer, I mean - I'm an idiot for not thinking of this sooner. Or... maybe not? I guess this is normally something only an idiot would do, given it's fire and all..."

Letting a new finished piece of meat drop into my hands (smaller than the last, because I wanted to try out my strange new idea), I made sure my sleeves were still rolled up as far as they could be, and I simply held out my hand over the fire, meat lump held downward toward it.

Unexpectedly, my new idea worked more-or-less exactly the way I wanted it to. The power of [Devour] absorbed the heat that started to sink into me, but it didn't pull any heat out of the meat, and slowly but surely, I watched the little blob start to crisp and brown (although I did need to toss it over to my other hand once I started to cramp, and then toss it back again before it finally seemed edible).

I hadn't really been taught to cook at all (Dad had been meaning to get around to it, maybe, but we'd never sat down and spent time on it), but I knew the basic idea that brown meat was cooked and pink meat was uncooked, so when I pulled the lump of meat apart and saw that it had browned inside as well as out, I decided that it would probably be good enough to eat.

Shimmer had been hovering around the whole time, watching me, but it was only now that she chose to speak up. "Although your idea is rather... primitive... it seems to have played out in your favour. Are you ready to enjoy the fruits of your labour?"

I nodded, then I paused, thinking. I snorted. "Nice rhyme, Shimmer."

While Shimmer said "Unintended, I assure you," I raised one of the smaller meat pieces to my mouth and, ready to test my work out, took a bite.

Despite Shimmer's assurances, I honestly expected my cooking to taste awful, maybe even inedible. I was braced for the worst. As it turned out, though, the meat... was just kind of bland.

Compared to worse outcomes, bland was good. Bland was edible. I could eat bland meat, and I did. I realized, in fact, that this bland meat was my first meal since the previous day, and I had definitely missed my chance to eat breakfast during my wild escape.

That thought on its own made the meat a bit easier to eat... but it took my mind back to the night before, and the fire and the running... and it made me think about how I was supposed to move forward.

With that in mind, I sat down at the edge of the fire pit and asked, "So, what's next, Shimmer?"

Shimmer hovered over to 'stand' next to me, and answered, "That is for you to decide, Aedan."

I looked over at her out of the corner of my eye. "Well, sure, but... y'know, what's next? Where should we go, what should we do? How... What can we do next?"

Shimmer shook her head. "Again... that is up to you, Aedan. My purpose is to aid you in the fulfillment of your desires, but only you can decide what you desire."

For some reason, this conversation was starting to annoy me. I turned to look at Shimmer and asked, "Alright, well, you told me before that you are Desire, so if that's true, what do I desire? Go on, tell me. Let's see what you've got."

Shimmer just hovered there for a moment, and I was worried I might've spooked her... but then she spoke.

"You want to be safe and warm and dry. You want to be home in bed and see your father again. You want your books. I will point out, however, that I have only listed things you cannot have."

I stamped my foot, suddenly more frustrated than I knew what to do with. "Okay, that's unfair. Didn't you say you're supposed to help me make my desires come true?"

Shimmer nodded. "This is my purpose, yes. I am the manifestation of your desires through the power of Consumption. I am only a creature of the Path, however, and although the Paths expand what is possible... they expand it only into the future. They cannot change the past. They cannot force anything to be unless you are capable of making it so."

I sniffed hard, eyes wide. "So WHAT, MY - my life is RUINED FOREVER!? The village will hate me forever!? The church is going to be trying to KILL ME for the rest of my life!?"

I stomped again, frustrated and unable to do anything about it. I honestly wanted to hit Shimmer just then, make her stop saying these things... but something inside me gave me the idea that if I could even hurt her at all, given she was a weird shimmery magical thing... hitting her would be a bad idea. So instead, sniffling harder and starting to shake, I just slumped down and smacked the ground. I smacked it again, and then again, and then balled my fingers into a fist and gave it a good hard punch, as best as I could.

It didn't make me feel better.

"I did not say that, Aedan."

I opened my eyes and nearly jumped to see Shimmer's face in front of me. She was staring up at me, hovering sideways so that her back was toward the ground, and she was probably the closest to the ground that I'd ever seen her.

I'd never seen her move like that before. It made sense that she could, though... right?

"While the Paths are all-powerful in their extent," Shimmer began, "They can be... unpredictable. I know the powers you may attain in the future, but not the ways in which you will learn to use them. I can see ahead in the Path... but I cannot predict how you will walk it."

I just sort of stared at her, eyes still watery. "Which means...?"

Shimmer rose up into the air a bit, and my eyes followed her. "Which means that things may change. You may change. Your powers may change. Your home village and its people are entirely outside my view, and although I find it unlikely... they may change, too."

I pushed myself up off the ground, rising to my knees. "So there's hope."

Shimmer rotated, turning away from me. "There is nothing you can do about your old life right now, Aedan, but there may be in the future. If this brings you hope... then let it be so. If that hope can carry you forward, then so much the better."

I nodded, and got up to my feet. "Alright... okay, that's... we can work with that. So, if I can't fix things at home... we need to take care of the basics. Food, water, a place to sleep. New clothes, maybe... somehow..."

Shimmer nodded. "And you must also flee, Aedan. The people of your village will come for you - the church will see to that, and then chase you even further. Survival must be balanced with distance - particularly, distance between you and your home."

Shimmer turned in the air again, and it was like... something changed. Sure enough, she continued, "Which will be an issue much sooner than expected, it seems."

My heart skipped a beat. I scrambled to my feet and turned to see what Shimmer was looking at.

There was nothing to see, that I could tell... but the rustling of the leaves was different, somehow. I could swear, at the edge of what I could see, that something was moving deeper in the woods...

And it seemed to be getting closer.

"Swallow up the fire and the food, Aedan. You will likely need to move in the near future."