Elemental Thief Part I : Child of Calamity

Journey

The forest shade didn't stop the air from clinging to her skin and lungs as she jogged steadily deeper and deeper, away from anything familiar, anything close to a place where someone could think of finding her. Treasa had no plan, just knew that she had to keep moving as the sun rose with the temperature of the humid summer day, bringing certain discovery of her being missing.

Her only advantage was that they wouldn't know where to look, and that even if they smelled her from her starting point, she couldn't believe that they would understand what the scent meant, or when it had been started.

Treasa had never heard of anyone who could jump like she could. Surely they wouldn't know how she had disappeared.

Or understand where she could have gone without a scent trail.

Still, Treasa ran until the sun was high above her as she stumbled out onto a river bank and sank down on a rock to take a break. She hadn't realised this stretch of wilderness that wasn't Wild would be so large, having never encountered any portion of trees that didn't immediately become the protected land of the Feysha and she struggled to consider how much damage humans had done when they had gone unchecked, had allowed monsters to roam so freely over so much space. Seeing this desolation made her wish she had stayed at the work camp longer, done more to help bring back the Wild a bit more. Though they had never been lectured about it by the Rulin, Treasa could see how important it was to restore that which had been destroyed.

She had spent most of her life searching for the power to do something meaningful, and now she was running away from it all. Part of her wanted to blame Kethan for taking it away, or Lord Corvin, but she knew that the first rule of the streets, of life, was that you allowed other people to take things from you.

You were complicit in your loss, and she was more so than normal.

Treasa growled at herself, shaking her head and trying to will away the angry tears that blurred her vision, picking up a rock and hurling it hard into the water. "Well, you can't go back now. They'd probably put you into such a deep hole that you'd never be getting out. Even with your powers."

After a few calming breaths, she forced the thoughts of everything she didn't have anymore out of her head and stood, shouldering her bow and settling the quiver more comfortably onto her back. Her stomach growled, reminding her that eventually she would have to try to hunt, or find food, which reminded her how far she had gone and how tired that made her.

"Let's try to find the wild before dark, huh? One night of running in this half-place was bad enough." She was talking to herself as she moved down the river bank, her feet making the stones she was walking over clatter as she sought a shallower part of the river to cross.

She wasn't sure how she would manage another night in the darkness, with only the light of the moon to keep her company, and as she found her way into the trees and jogging through the woods, she was struck by the eery silence that had completely fallen over the trees.

Only the breeze rustled now, bringing with it the smell of death so faint that she thought she was imagining it, until she found the first half-eaten carcass of a bear, ripped into several pieces and gnawed upon, several days old.

Treasa froze with fear then, realising the bear would have stood head and shoulders above the tallest Rulin she had seen, with claws and teeth to boot, and something had ripped it to pieces. With a shiver, she shook her head and knocked an arrow, fighting the thoughts of how woefully inadequate her tiny weapon would be when faced with whatever creature her imagination was conjuring for her, based on the size of its prey and the skulls she had seen.

For the first time she could remember, she wondered if Kethan might be the lesser of the two monsters she had to choose between.

A scream shattered the stillness, sounding deceptively human, followed by a roar. Treasa froze again, knowing the sounds came from not far away, directly in her chosen path. She hesitated to respond, telling herself she could skirt the issue, that whatever was going on had nothing to do with her. Shortly afterward, a second, louder, more menacing roar rose, striking her in how certain she was that that sound came from a different animal than the first.