The Sojourner

Hey guys, I decided I'd post the story I'm writing here in segments before putting the final version on my dA account.
I've been playing with the idea of writing something set in Felarya for quite some time, I had a few ideas for characters/situations but I could never figure out how to put these ideas in my head into words...
But I've been inspired of late, mostly by reading a lot of Felarya stories in the past few weeks, and finally something clicked and I started.
It's running a little long, and although I'll be writing it in distinct parts, I think I've started something a bit huge for my first story - hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.
So here it is, my first story.


Anton ran through the forest as fast as his legs could carry him, faster even, sometimes nearly losing his balance. He knew his pursuer was hot on his heels, he could hear her light giggles as she easily surmounted any obstacle he tried to place between them.

She was gaining on him...

His heart pounded in his chest, his legs were straining, he was struggling at keeping his pace even though he was used to running through this very section of the forest; he knew it like the back of his hand, as cliché as that sounded, jumping over fallen trees blindly, knowing where he could land safely.

Under normal circumstances he could outrun almost anything in this familiar territory. He had long powerful legs and a huge amount of endurance. He had been sprinting all out for what felt like miles, but his early lead was quickly evaporating. Somehow, impossibly, she was gaining on him.

Anton was running along the side of a rocky outcropping, avoiding the denser foliage that would slow him down, constantly looking for the clearest path ahead, towards his goal, but he feared it was just slightly too far off.

He had picked the wrong path, he realized; Her fey-like grace of carried her between trees and over rocks far easier then him, effortlessly even. He should have chosen more the open ground on the other side of the outcropping, she would have had to fly to keep up with him there. It was a stupid mistake, but it was too late for berating himself. He focused on squeezing every ounce of speed from his body and keeping his eyes glued open to quickly dodge obstacles and navigate the uneven, chaotic geography.

“I'm gonna geeeet you! Ha ha! Just you – wait until – I do!” she called out in a singsong voice.

The broken sentence gave away the fact that at the very least she was having a bit of trouble, the run wasn't completely effortless for her. He quickly dodged to his left, leaping onto the side of the long straight outcropping where it was at it's lowest, he rebounded instantly onto the bare trunk of a thick tree, and rebounded again with amazing speed, landing in a crouched position, his feet just contacting the top of the outcropping. He rose up quickly and was off again like a shot.

Anton ran on the flat rock, it stretched out for at least 200 yards in approximately the right direction, and on the even and smooth terrain he could take advantage of his greater strides, even though his feet pounded painfully on the hard surface despite his shoes. He hoped he could put some distance between him and his pursuer before having to jump back down.

He reached the end of the outcropping and quickly and leapt off, sailing through the air towards the soft ground, he rolled to absorb the impact, and kept running towards his goal: The Cave. He had found the small cave system with his brother when he was young, it was at the base of a tall cliff. He had spent a great of time there when he wanted to hide out in the forest. He hadn't been here in a long time though, and it brought back a lot of memories.

The cliff loomed over him as he navigated the maze of large boulders scattered around it's base, he was almost at the opening of the cave. The entrance was completely hidden from view, nearly impossible to detect without knowing exactly where it was.

This was it! Home stretch and he couldn't see or hear her at all!

He quickly slid down the edge of a boulder that rested against the cliff and squeezed himself into the cave's tall but narrow entrance with practised ease, though it was a much tighter squeeze then when he was young. He nearly whooped at his success.

But just then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

His eyes went wide and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. He nearly snapped his neck turning his head much too quickly.

Then he saw Deidra's mischievous grin in the dim light.

“Boo!” She whispered.

“AAAARGH!” Anton screamed at the top of his lungs, arms flailing about.

Deidra nearly fell over in laughter, it was rather painful as she was quite out of breath, but she just couldn't help it, seeing the look on her brother's face was worth a run twice as long as the one she had just endured, and now her sides were hurting with the combination of exhaustion and mirth.

Anton rushed his recovery from the shock and waited for his panting to ease a little.

“Didi you little... how? - Since when can you - run so damn fast?!” He said, still panting.

“Beat you! Haha! I found a shortcut in the rocks...” She smiled, wiping tears of laughter from her blue-grey eyes, “And I always could run that fast, just not for so long! While you've been away I've been running every day, training for the triathlon.” She grinned, smugness seeping out of every pore of her freckled face.

“As if - those poor girls - ever had a - chance against you!” He panted

She shoved him playfully against the cave wall, “Ha! Trying to get out of our agreement with flattery I see? Fat chance! YOU have to make dinner tonight AND pick up Nikolai tomorrow!”

He scoffed, “Yeah, yeah, I know... Besides, I'd have been stuck doing it anyhow, you cruel people, making a tired jet-lagged guy like me do all the work! – pah! Evil!” He spat, faking haughty indignation.

“Awww, the poor little guy needs his beauty sleep? Come on now, you can get plenty of that this evening instead of playing video games till 3am!”

“Psh! I couldn't sleep! It felt like it was barely evening!”

“Oh quit your moaning... unless you want a rematch?” Anton groaned. “Right, didn't think so, now come on, we better get started if you want to be done in time!”

Anton smirked “Okay, but It's your tastebuds! Don't say I didn't warn you! Now show me that shortcut.”

“You wish...”

****

Anton and Deidra entered the clearing where their home was built, It was an unusually hot and humid autumn day, the warmth was completely at odds with the brightly coloured foliage in the trees; chalk it up to climate change, Anton mused.

He looked over at Deidra, she had just turned 22. He had missed her birthday, again....

She was fairly tall and athletic, but still amazingly lithe. She had tied her long straight raven hair in ponytail that reached down to the middle of her back. He still couldn't believe she had finally gotten faster than him, albeit in favourable terrain. He would have his rematch, but only when he'd recovered. She was still glowing from her victory, but he couldn't stay cross at her; they were about as close as a brother and sister could be.

They kept moving down the slight incline towards the house, Anton picked up his pace, taking overly long strides to make Dei have to jog to keep up.

His parents had bought the very large land in a secluded region because they loved the nature, the peace and quiet and the privacy of the place. Indeed they couldn't have done much better at getting away from civilization; from here, you could barely tell the rest of humanity even existed. The land covered a large valley and the surrounding steep mountains, the nearest road was well over three miles away and rarely travelled, to get to it you needed to take a winding dirt trail, and even when you got to the paved road, the nearest town was a 30 minute drive, another 20 if you wanted to get to something most city-folk would call civilization.

They walked in front of the barn, Anton veered off and opened the smaller door in the side and peered inside, Deidra waited for him patiently. The land had been a very large farm once, the gigantic wooden structure that was the barn stood as a testament to that. It was the last remaining building that hinted at the property's past, they used it as a garage, a workshop, a general storage space and even a hangar for Anton's amphibious ultralight. Even then, the barn was so enormous it seemed mostly empty...

The wood the barn was made of had turned grey with time, bordering on black in some places, but it still stood incredibly solid and well over 70 feet tall with a rusty metal roof. It had a huge square set of doors in the front, easily wide enough that he could taxi his plane in and out of.

Anton gave his plane a once-over, making sure it's cover was still securely in place, and after he was sure everything was still in order, he left the barn.

He looked at the landing strip he had cut in the long wild grass of one of the old fields, it wasn't quite flat but still quite usable once he got the hang of it. He would have to cut the grass before taking his ultralight out again though, he was eager to get back up there for a short flight, hopefully tomorrow. Anton really loved to fly.

He approached their house, it was a cozy looking log-home, two stories tall with a lot of windows, a big stone chimney and a wide porch. Only a small area around the house had any landscaping done, with a few small rock encircled gardens with perennial flowers in them, and it would probably remain that way despite his mother's desires for something much more extravagant; they were all quite busy and rarely at home to do much work anymore.

Anton and both of his siblings still technically lived at home, although he and his brother Nikolai spent so much time away it felt more like a kind of home base than a real home. He still liked to come back here after one of his long trips though. Like his parents he too liked peace and quiet, and he really enjoyed the time he spent with his family.

Just past the house was the utility shed and the large solar panel array. Without any utilities coming to the house they had to make their own electricity. Communication and TV was done via large satellite dishes attached to the shed, which also housed a generator and the batteries for the solar panels. He was pretty proud of the new system; he had designed and built it to be powerful yet elegant and aesthetically pleasing. His parents had built a much more primitive setup along with the house, and he remembered always having to worry about how much electricity he used when he was younger. That was no longer a problem.

“Hey mom!” Deidra called as she entered the house through the front door.

“Hi, Dei!” Their mother, Daphné, called back to her from somewhere in the house.

Anton walked in the house after his sister and spotted his mother coming down the stairs, her arms around a large clothes-basket, which he promptly relieved her of.

Daphné was a petite woman in her mid fifties, she had short mousy brown hair that was just starting to grey, and a small round face nearly always locked in a warm smile. She had been a nurse until she had started her family, after then she had stayed at home to raise the kids. Her husband's job as an architect had made them fairly wealthy, and there hadn't been any need for both parents to work; she had been quite happy with the arrangement, it was just what they had envisioned when they had decided to get married.

Daphné gave her children a quick look, then a gave sly grin to Deidra; no doubt guessing who had won their little race just by the look on her face.

Anton just rolled his eyes and brought the clothes to the wash room, then he proceeded to the downstairs bathroom for a quick shower so he could grudgingly get to work on dinner afterwards.

****

Dinner went way better then Anton had feared, proving he wasn't completely useless in the house. And although he did burn the rice... slightly, he felt he had done a fairly good job, and counted dinner as a success.

Which was fortunate, in the end, since he wouldn't be able to keep the other half of the promise he had made to his sister, and pick up his brother tomorrow.

Tomorrow he would be very, very far away, and not becoming dinner would be his primary concern there.

He took Dei's advice and went straight to bed after dinner, wanting to catch up on some sleep, he tossed and fidgeted but fell asleep fairly quick.


So there's the prologue, not much of anything happens, just introducing my main character Anton and his family, and where he lives...

I have the actual first chapter done but i have to proofread it extensively - Should be done soon enough.
But if you spot any general errors I tend to make please point them out! I'm just learning this, I've never written before.

Constructive criticism is very very welcome

You... You...
This is amazing. The opening sequence here builds up so much tension, I thought that this started in Felarya! But you disperse it all in the second scene, informing us that it was just a competition between (human) siblings. That's an excellent technique.

However, I have one concern; you have directly linked what appears to be our Earth to Felarya. In general, this is not a good idea. It can be handled right, but often writers who chose to do it do not handle it very well.

De Dway agrees with de AJ, de beginning scene was full of suspense as man running from big person in jungle, but it was not! Hopefully, you might add some uniqueness to de next part of your Earth, but de Dway is confident that you know what you are doing. Til then, good luck with de story my friend.

TheArchvile wrote:

I'm just learning this, I've never written before.

Lies, but seriously this is very good. The tension you built up in the very beginning was excellent, as were the descriptions. I can't wait to see what you have in store for this.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

However, I have one concern; you have directly linked what appears to be our Earth to Felarya. In general, this is not a good idea. It can be handled right, but often writers who chose to do it do not handle it very well.

i strongly disagree. it is in general a good idea

Wow, thanks for the praise guys!
I promise I have a lot of places I'd like to go with this story, hopefully I can keep it high quality...

Anime-Junkie wrote:

You... You...
This is amazing. The opening sequence here builds up so much tension, I thought that this started in Felarya! But you disperse it all in the second scene, informing us that it was just a competition between (human) siblings. That's an excellent technique.

However, I have one concern; you have directly linked what appears to be our Earth to Felarya. In general, this is not a good idea. It can be handled right, but often writers who chose to do it do not handle it very well.

I don't think I've directly linked Felarya and Earth, what gives you that impression? (Giving his family too much background? or where he lives?)
Anton comes from our Earth yes, and he will end up in Felarya (duh) - and what will happen in Felarya will wind up having a large effect on him and his family, and a tiny effect on the Earth at large, but that's for much later in the story, and you'll have to wait and see how
I do hope I can pull it off and do it right.

Thanks again for the nice comments, and you have my word buddha, besides occasional long rants on the internet I never write anything past a few hundred words

You have linked what appears to be our Earth. You are using specific names, like 'America' and 'France' that exist here.
There's nothing wrong with using an Earth-like world or "alternate" Earth though.
Of course, you're probably wondering why I'm saying this. The explanation is long and would derail this thread. You'll see it eventually though.

Right, I see what you mean though and yeah, I'll be careful, this is the good ol' Earth we all know and love/hate.
It's going to be alternate enough though, I'm not going to have any real people or recent events of Earth in my story, aside from the rough social/political/technological background of the earth it won't really matter... so I guess it can just be a parallel dimension Earth or something - up to the reader's imagination I guess.
I guess it's a bit like Frenchsnack's Lost in Felarya series (Which I adored) - his human characters were from Earth and I really found I connected with them because I knew where they came from and what it was like there.
That and it saves me from building a world from the ground up so...

Indeed, I understand the need for a familiar background to give characters so that readers can identify with them. That is why I suggested using an alternate earth.

Woah, okay, where did you come from? How did you do that? When can we see more? I know that mostly all that's been done here so far is praise you, but this seriously is a very strong start.

Now, personally, I see no problem connecting Felarya to our Earth, so long as it's done organically and convincingly, but it is generally discouraged and I suppose I can see why. That's something you may want to keep in mind for the future, but for now I don't think it will be much of a problem.

I'll be keeping an eye on you! Now I seriously need to get to work on my own stories, I'm falling behind here.

Very cleverly done - and well written, too. A great start. It makes me look forward to more.

Thanks!
I will make a few changes though, you guys are right, the fact his home was on Earth is probably holding me back more than anything, I scrapped a few ideas I liked because of it actually.
I can easily give detailed descriptions of places and people instead of just giving them some sort of easily identifiable Earth label, it's a bit more work but it's more flexible, and this way I don't have to tip-toe around the issues caused by Anton's origin being Earth.
It causes almost no rewriting of the part of the story I've put into draft to make his home an earth-like planet instead our Earth either, which to me says that it wasn't at all necessary to go that route.
Lost in Felarya was made better with of the Earth origin of the characters because of the backstory Frenchsnack put into them all, I think. I don't intend to do that.
Actually it gives me a little creative leeway that might just help me out. Chapter 1 should be done today -I hope- stay tuned.
Thanks for the input guys.

Like others pointed, I think it's starting really nicely
I loved how you built the tension, only to better fool the reader. It was very effective XP

That was just awesome, I cant wait to read more!

Very very very promising start thus far. I love how you start with so much tension only to come off like that

OK Here's part 1 - now set on an earth-like planet I haven't named yet!!
It actually made the story flow much better and made Anton's character much more plausible, because, as you'll see, Anton isn't completely normal...
Thanks for the feedback, guys, I really appreciate it!

Oh and before I forget! This story has references to vore in it! You have been warned etc. etc.


==========

Chapter 1

Different

Anton woke up with a jolt, sitting upright instantly, looking around his room he spied his alarm clock; it was 5:17am.

What had woken him up? A nightmare? Was it the jet-lag? He tried to calculate what time it would be in Temria, but his brain refused to fuction properly.

He collected his thoughts, “No, this isn't jet-lag”

He threw his legs over the side of his bed, put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, and tried to focus on the strange feeling that was creeping up on him.

He had had this feeling before, often, though it never came so quick, it made him feel restless, not quite comfortable in his bed, in his room, his house, his country and eventually in his own skin, he had to move, had to go... just go, somewhere, anywhere!

It's how many of his trips started, travelling was the best way to ease his restlessness, but flying and any activity that was either highly physical or that gave him an adrenaline rush helped as well, for a time at least. It was one of the reasons he was into so many extreme sports.

When he did take a trip though, usually the restless feeling faded on the airplane, even on his way to the airport it became somehow, less. Or maybe he just forgot about it; the awareness of it replaced with the excitement of visiting new places, meeting new people. Usually it didn't come back for weeks! But he had just come back from Temria! The memory of it's gigantic shimmering snow-capped mountain ranges and it's peaceful valleys filled with exotic plants were still fresh in his head. How could he feel like this so soon after a trip like that? And why was it coming on so fast? It had only been three days!

“It's different this time...”

He was going to have to try and walk the edge off, he started getting dressed. He opened his window to let in some fresh air and to quickly pick out what to wear based on the temperature outside. It was still quite warm, sunrise wasn't for another hour at least judging by the sky.

Anton quickly selected what he was going to wear for his short walk in the woods, a pair of grey cargo pants, the kind that could be unzipped into a pair of shorts if need be, good for the warm weather he would probably run into on his way back, a black quick-drying T-shirt made for hiking, and a thin green jacket over that, he tied his favourite hiking boots on tight

Anton thought of his gun on top of his bookshelf, a short barrelled 5 shot airweight revolver. He had bought it after he had a run in with a bear in the woods once, but ever since he had been carrying it around he hadn't so much as seen a single set of tracks; he didn't let his nerves get to him as much anymore, but the uneasy feeling he had right now made it all the more tempting to take it along. He thought better of it, and left it on the bookshelf. It was very light and quite easy to holster but still slightly uncomfortable.

Anton walked out of his room and crept down the stairs so as to not wake Dei or his mom, but he shouldn't have worried about the latter, as she was sitting in the kitchen, seemingly waiting for him.

“Morning mom.” he whispered

“Hi Anton, are you okay?” Daphné asked, concerned.

“Yeah, no problem I was just... you know, not feeling right”

“You getting that feeling again?”

He grimaced, then nodded, after hesitating a moment.

“Already?”

He nodded again.

She sighed, she wished she could help him, these episodes he had really bothered him. She knew it was much more than the travel bug that caused her son's discomfort, the side effects of his more severe episodes left her very worried. She wished he would talk more about it, she believed every word he said, no matter how strange it seemed.

But she knew that in the end, even if he told her everything, even if he himself could understand what was going on well enough to talk about it, she couldn't really help him, and it broke her heart to see him struggle alone.

Deep down she knew Anton was different, even if not Gifted; there were plenty of strange things in the world that science couldn't explain yet, and she knew her son's “Condition” wasn't anything remotely normal, despite what the so-called experts claimed. The other Gifted were well understood and looked after, but for some reason the scientists didn't recognize Anton as one of them. She was just glad they lived in a country that accepted and even welcomed people like her son which had such anomalies.

“I think I'm gonna go take a walk, OK? I'll be back soon, in time for breakfast. If you want I'll make eggs!”

“Okay just... just be careful, alright?”

“Yeah, I will mom, don't worry, I'll be back soon.”

And with that, he left.

Anton walked quickly to the end of the fields, deep in thought, not really paying attention to where he was going, letting familiarity guide him.

The edge of the forest was slowly reclaiming the fields; they let the wild growth encroach freely for the most part, welcomed it even, except for keeping the barn clear of course. Though his mother had planted climbing vines at the back, and they gave the illusion that even the barn was being slowly swallowed by the forest.

He looked to the house, the kitchen light was still on. He could still make out some familiar constellations of stars in the morning glow. He stood there for a long time, squinting to reveal fainter stars he knew the positions of by heart, but soon lost interest as the glow of the coming day slowly permeated the sky, and he started walking north, into the forest.

****

At the same moment, in a very different forest, a giant naga was quietly making her way towards a small clearing she liked to visit, she had good luck there early in the morning, she had caught humans and nekos there several times as they slept or were just packing up camp, it had been a while since she'd seen any though. She usually left her shelter as soon as she was confident the dangerous nightly predators had gone, and started her own hunt.

She had caught on quick, that her favourite and most illusive prey considered the time around dawn safer for travel, and they often let their guards down, some of them still groggy from uneasy sleep, or no sleep at all in some cases.

“Early bird gets the worm” a young looking harpy had once told her, quite sound advice, really.

Of course though, it had been followed by “But that would be cannibalism for you wouldn't it? Slimy bellydragger, Is that snot in your hair? Makes me want to rip it out! I'll be leaving now, try not to get eaten, not that anything would want to...” And with that she had flown off, three squirming humans in her talons.

It had been a little jarring, but she was fairly sure she was just being nice, if a little smug, judging by the smile she had given her. She had been a little jealous of her catch.

She wasn't the best hunter when it came to catching humans and nekos, she hadn't seen any for days now. Of course it didn't help lately that even when she did catch humans, sometimes she wouldn't eat them...

She felt sorry for some of the humans on occasion... They often begged and pleaded pitifully. Some were very sweet to each other, huddling together. Others were very brave, sticking by their friends even if the situation was hopeless. But the worst was the crying, she hated it when they cried, it made her feel awful. Often she released those humans...

But sometimes she was just too hungry and couldn't bring herself to even let the ones who cried go. And why should she? They'd just get eaten by something else eventually, and she was always as nice as possible to them. Many other predators would tease or play with them; she found it cruel, and never did it herself.

She hated feeling conflicted; her stomach, her instincts, her foster-mother, all her friends and her own logic told her eating humans was totally natural and good for her, and that there was nothing wrong with it, and that she should eat every single one she caught. So why did she regret it sometimes? She didn't really know why it bothered her at all when humans pleaded for their lives, it certainly didn't bother any of her friends. But it just did, and she found herself deliberately hunting them less and less.

But they tasted so good! And thankfully for her, they were often complete jerks, or at least the more competent ones were, saying really mean things to her, or selling out their companions. She didn't mind though; they just made for guilt-free snacks. She really didn't get why they came out here all the time, She certainly wouldn't if she had a nice safe city to hide in.

Nekos were better, They were a little harder to catch but they tasted even more amazing, plus they all ate tinies, so really, if they had a problem with her eating nekos, they were just being hypocrites.

She got sidetracked, noticing a small palm-like tree, it's leaves completely yellow. Her favorite color! Why was it yellow? She had to find out! She didn't remember this tree being yellow.

She was a very curious and inquisitive naga, frequently investigating unusual plants, animals or the things humanoids sometimes brought with them to her territory. She would sometimes ask them about the strange gear and what it all did, but usually they just rudely refused to explain anything, or said nothing at all, too frightened to speak. Offering to not eat them sometimes worked, but she never made promises she couldn't keep, and her instincts made keeping her end of the bargain difficult. But when they did tell her things she was always fascinated, even though their explanations were usually quite rushed, or hard to understand.

Her foster mother was always frustratingly sparing with her knowledge; while she was living with her, she almost only taught her about things she said were useful or important to her survival.

But she wanted to know more! So she did the best she could by investigating things on her own.

Most of her friends didn't share her curiosity, and even when they did, they were mostly interested in stories and such. She liked stories too mind you, but really understanding the world around her was far more fulfilling.

She inspected the small tree, it was damaged, only holding up because it was propped against other similar trees. Something big had probably carelessly bumped into it, maybe even her, or maybe a Kensha beast did it, many packs prowled her territory, she was always very wary of them.

She left the tree alone and continued her hunt, staying close to large trees she could easily climb if she sensed a Kensha approaching. She slithered up to the clearing, quiet as a ghost, and let out a little sigh of disappointment; she couldn't sense any prey nearby.

She was about to turn and leave when she caught a scent, very faint, but definitely human, coming from the clearing. She moved into the open and started to track the scent. Maybe it had camped here and left already? No, the scent suggested it was fresh, but it was weak, so the human probably hadn't slept here. She kept tracking until she noticed that the trail ended near a tree,

Under closer inspection, she noticed a podmaw concealed near a low branch. Excited, she poked at the podmaw, if it hadn't been too long the human might still be quite alive in there, and surely it wouldn't mind feeding he instead of some plant!

After poking it several times and not seeing any motion she proceeded to carefully open the podmaw, although her predator sense was completely blank, she still wanted to make sure it wasn't edible anymore. She carefully started to open it up...

****

Anton walked through the woods, the feeling getting stronger and stronger instead of fading, he hoped it wouldn't get much worse, or he'd have to do something he'd surely regret. He tried to play his usual mindgames. “Ignore it and it fades” he thought, but this episode was far too strong for that particular trick. “A distraction, I need a distraction” If he paid too much attention to it, if he focused on it, it would get much worse, fast.

****

He had understood from a very young age that he was somehow different.

He had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour at age 5, it seemed benign at the time, and the doctors told his parents it was nothing to worry about, that as he aged and his cranium expanded, the tumour would remain tiny and allow his brain to develop properly. However, as the years went by that proved to not be the case.

The very first sign something was off was when his father was working late one night in the basement, poring over plans for a new suspension bridge, when Anton, then 8 years old, had walked downstairs and plopped down on the chair next to him.

“Can't sleep Anton?”

“No”

“Is something bothering you? Is Nikolai crying? Is Mommy up?” Anton shook his head to every question in turn.

Alexei rolled his chair closer to his son's, put his big hands on his tiny shoulder and squeezed him “You should go back to bed son, I'll come with you if you want.”

But Anton sat, seemingly fixated by the blueprint flattened out on the desk,

“What's wrong with your bridge daddy?” He asked

Alexei was surprised by the question, he hadn't told Anton he was having trouble getting his design approved by the state. Anton probably wouldn't be able to understand, but Alexei made it a rule to always answer his children's questions.

“I don't know son, the numbers just don't add up, I keep checking and everything seems fine, it's a good bridge but the people I work for don't think it can stand up to strong winds, they think it would get blown around too much.”

“I think they're just not checking it right.” Anton stated, quite confident in his analysis.

Alexei smiled, his son's unfailing confidence in him was always touching, in truth, he HAD suspected the oafs that called themselves engineers that had reviewed his design had botched their calculations somehow, there was no way he would have overlooked a mistake that would make the bridge 30% weaker laterally than what his own calculations showed, he was just going to have to find out tomorrow at the meeting. He was fairly confident he was right, if not it would be back to the drawing board and it would cause enormous delays.

“What's this daddy?” Anton put his finger on the blueprint.

After a few moments his father father's eyes widened as he stared at the point Anton had indicated.

He had been right, they HAD made a mistake, the numbers there could easily be misinterpreted, but all of that was quickly forgotten, he stared at his son in awe at first, but awe quickly turned to anxiety – a chill ran down his spine, even the greatest of all child prodigies would have needed at least a basic understanding of engineering to decipher the myriad of dark blue lines on the paper! They didn't even look like a proper bridge!

This had no logical explanation at all – after querying Anton he realized that in fact he didn't understand the blueprint, only that somehow he knew the engineers had made a very specific mistake, -on both their reviews- in the area he had pointed out. Anton just shrugged when his father asked him how he knew.

Alexei immediately thought of the tumour for some reason, it almost seemed like something out of a movie.

Something is wrong with my son.

The thought terrified him, and they rushed him to the hospital.

The doctors would confirm his fears, the tumour had grown exponentially, over the next few months Anton was put on any and every known medication to stop the tumour, but nothing helped; Anton started to develop severe headaches, and one day fell into a coma. His parents awaited the worst for five long days, but somehow, miraculously, Anton simply woke up, seemingly unaffected; his headaches were gone.

The doctors were baffled; the tumour was still there, but it wasn't growing anymore.

Anton didn't remember the incident, but he suspected that the tumour was responsible for his condition, and his unusual abilities as well.

He had a sort of overdeveloped intuition, a deep insight that couldn't be explained by intelligence alone. He could accurately guess at past events, know the positions and states of objects and people he was familiar with, understand the workings of complex systems at a glance.

He also seemed to be able to perceive other people's thoughts on occasion, whether it was actually what you could call telepathy or just his intuition making him know what they were thinking, he couldn't tell.

But frustratingly, these only worked when he wasn't trying to use them.

They mostly manifested when he was daydreaming or otherwise spaced out. Things also came to him when he was concentrating on a conversation or task, completely absorbed. The knowledge almost seemed to want sneak into his brain when he wouldn't notice; it was pretty annoying, not being able to control it.

They called people like him the “Gifted” and, in his country at least, there were only a handful of them per million “normal” people. The Gifted were people who had strange abilities or anomalous anatomy. Some could raise or lower the temperature of things, even light fires with their thoughts alone. Some could move small objects at a distance without touching them. Usually though these abilities or differences were quite minor and didn't affect their daily lives at all. Though in many countries they were often persecuted.

Even amongst experts though, there was a lot of uncertainty whether he really was Gifted or just quite brilliant, because of how sporadic his intuition was. It didn't help that most of them didn't believe him about his third and most bizarre ability. He kept quiet about it these days, after having been ridiculed for his claims more than once. They had even gone so far as suggesting going the building down the street from The Center; the Psychiatrist.

Anton gritted his teeth. He could tell most people thought he was quite eccentric, or a genius, either one made him uncomfortable. He didn't feel like a genius at all, and he certainly didn't act like one. The massive amount of knowledge he had gathered in so many fields had just appeared all by itself, how could he take credit for that? And it was fickle, with many blank spaces he had nearly as much trouble filling as anyone else. He had done very well in school, but he had needed to study almost as much as the other students to complete the information that came to him through intuition.

Except for consulting some experts early on he tried to keep it mostly a secret. He tried his best to seem normal around others, but it was supremely difficult to separate what he did know and what he should know, most people had a hard time saying just why they were uncomfortable being around him, so he seemed to have some success at least.

Anton still managed to keep a small circle of close friends that accepted his quirkiness, and his family of course.

One thing he was very thankful for though, was that the episodes of “telepathy” - or whatever it was - were extremely mild, that particular ability rarely showed itself at all, and he brushed off the occasional embarrassing situations it caused.

Anton continued walking down the well trodden path in the familiar woods, deep in thought, still unaware of the place this path was about to lead him...

==========


Ok there's part one - it cuts off weirdly I know, I hadn't planned for the chapter to end here
Not much happens... again, but we do meet my second main character! And we find out part of what's up with Anton.
Anyways, the rest is coming up real soon... And things will take off then! Promise!

Felarya is Karbo's and all named named characters are mine so far.

A great chapter ! It flowed very well with good descriptions and I really liked your introduction of the naga, it was smooth and made me want to see more about her ^^

<< "surely it wouldn't mind feeding her instead of some plant!"
And that quote was kinda cute XD

Here's part 2, I think I'll combine it with part one when I post it on dA though...
Contains gore, but no vore

==================

Part 1b

Displaced

Anton clutched his head, he hated this! He just wanted it all to go away! Why him? Why now? What was he doing wrong? Was it going to keep getting worse till he couldn't control it at all anymore? What would happen to him then? Was the tumour growing again?

He desperately tried to get excited over the prospect of a new trip to distract himself, he would go... somewhere, anywhere! The Emerald Islands! Yes, yes! He would go to the Emerald Islands! Tomorrow if need be!... Nothing.

This feeling, this energy demanded release - there was no way he could contain this or distract himself - it felt a hundred times worse than ever before! He'd have to give in, and the sooner the better. There was no other way out now, he'd deal with the consequences... He hoped his will was strong enough to fight the side effects, just one more time, especially if they would somehow be stronger than usual as well.

Knowing he wasn't going to fight it anymore made it more bearable, even pleasant, empowering... That was the worst part.

He stopped walking and stood perfectly still, his expression becoming calm and focused, nearly serene. His back was facing the slowly rising sun, it's light shining narrow rays through the branches of the trees.

Lots of people had a good intuition, some people called it a “gut-feeling” or “instinctive” knowledge, he could have just been much more attuned to it.

Lots of people sensed intangible connections between them and others; Many people he knew claimed they often felt when people stared at them behind their backs, or had found themselves thinking of someone a few moments before the phone rang, the person in question on the other end of the line... And there were some Gifted who really were telepathic, and could read the surface thoughts of others reliably; he couldn't do that, and sometimes it seemed like he was just making lucky guesses.

But no, what made him sure he really was Gifted, and not just making this stuff up, was his ability to project: to cast his sight outside his body somehow. Doing so quickly consumed the energy that tormented him like a terrible itch, or an extra limb that wouldn't stop flailing about, completely beyond control. It put out the fires, so to speak, and doing it was an incredible rush, being able to fly around his planet freely. His vision was greatly enhanced, and he was able to perceive things ordinary humans could only dream of. He could gain incredible insight into just about anything at any distance, provided he brought the knowledge back into his waking mind and held onto it afterwards.

But there was a downside.

In more ways than one, the visions acted like a powerful hallucinogenic drug. After projecting, the massive “down” he got was worse than anything he could imagine a drug addict feeling after the perfect high; the world would seem bleak, colourless, out of focus, meaningless. Even though he usually could scarcely remember what he saw, and even then only for a few moments, like a particularly elusive dream. Though some of the interesting information he gained would still be there, learned by his brain, as if from a book, the actual memory of what he saw would fade entirely in time.

And afterwards he couldn't do it again for weeks! That was the time it took to build up enough strength or energy to do it. He would try though, uselessly: again and again and again... Much like a junkie, he quickly realized. And that was why he feared it, he feared it would drive him mad, that in time it would finally break his mind.

He could often tell that he had already been affected, just little signs and thought patterns... There was no more terrible feeling than knowing you were slowly going crazy.

He hadn't done it in over two years, he thought fighting the symptoms, ignoring the energy, keeping himself distracted by travelling the world had worked, that he had finally figured out how to beat this thing. He had hoped he could keep it in check forever. Obviously he had been wrong, it had all just built up, unnoticed.

He stood there in the middle of the path, trying to prepare himself. But a sudden, unexpected jolt in his head sent him staggering. What the hell was that?!

And then he blacked out...

****

In front of him hovered a small yellow leaf. It remained motionless, frozen in mid-fall; time stopped while he was projecting...

...so vivid... so detailed... he looked around. Shadows and light meant little to him now, though he could perceive them. He saw perfectly into the dark recesses between roots of trees, and could spot the little blemishes of sunspots, speckled across the sun, all at once. But something was very wrong...

He was confused, disoriented, he was submerged in a cacophony of conflicting signals. If projecting was the ultimate drug, then he was having one hell of a bad trip... and it was getting worse.

He didn't panic though, his more primitive emotional responses were suppressed, he suspected his biological brain and it's lower functions were completely left behind when like this. He still felt emotions though, he wondered why that was at times... but not now.

What had that jolt been? Normally, projecting was a slow process, requiring careful concentration... But somehow this time it happened all by itself, as if something else had caused it... something from outside...

Suddenly he felt a tug, like something was pulling him, though not in any direction. Rather than up, down left or right in space, it was pulling him through. He tried to hold on to something, anything, simply a reaction to being moved unwillingly.

His vision became wildly distorted: melting away, evaporating, flying apart and collapsing all at the same time. He was thrown into a void where no anthropic principle of reality could be applied. Colours and shapes meant nothing, distances irrelevant; he was nowhere and everywhere at once.

Though he was sightless, he could perceive billions of abstract concepts of places, scenes, of entire worlds – of EVERY world, around every star in every galaxy; some concepts were familiar, some were beyond alien. Singling one out was impossible: he couldn't tell them apart, they were spinning wildly, swirling, shifting, twisting, colliding, overlapping... Trying to make sense of any of this was beyond him, he drifted, dazed, completely unable to comprehend the apparent chaos of this unreality.

He was being drawn to something; as he became aware of the thing it stabilized and became a place, singular and defined. This place had rules like his home – order imposed by physics: space, time, mass, energy, gravity... Though in many ways it was different, small and yet infinite: a universe unto itself. He longed for it's relative familiarity and let himself drift towards it.

He was pulled into the strange place, and reality returned to him. This was an entirely different world, he knew it instinctively. Whatever had happened, he had left his planet behind, and doing so had consumed most of his energy.

He was above a strange jungle, it's dense canopy was composed of a variety of different, strangely shaped leaves he didn't recognize, the jungle looked like a sea of green from his vantage point. He had trouble telling scale like this, but somehow something seemed “off” about the trees, as if they were much too large or the undergrowth much too small. He was about to investigate when something in the distance caught his attention.

...Fascinating, the massive tree against the horizon defied every rule of physics and biology he knew, he wondered at it's size, unable to find a reference he couldn't say how tall it was.

Rising higher he spun around, taking in more strange sights: tall mountains, rivers, an exotic city...

He was instantly fascinated... Forgetting his ordeal in the void. What was this place? How had he come here? Was it even real?

He dropped down to ground level, and began observing the jungle at ground level. He noticed that moving in this strange place consumed a great deal more energy then usual, something permeated the air and made it very hard to move, like pushing through water. He felt as if he had barely spent a few moments exploring, and most of what energy he had left over after coming here was gone already. He would have to investigate quickly before he would be returned to his body, he hoped he could visit this place again later and see more of it's strange sights.

Even though he greatly disliked the void he had gone through to get here, it hadn't been too bad, and it hadn't felt dangerous at all. It would be worth it to come back.

He noticed a clearing nearby, and moved towards it, taking his time to look over every little plant and flower with his enhanced vision as he moved.

He finally reached the clearing, and there, near it's edge, he saw the strangest creature he had ever seen, heard of, or otherwise perceived in his whole life.

Close a tree across the clearing from him stood a girl, seemingly in her late teens, perhaps 20, but a few things were quite bizarre about her: She had green hair, was stark naked, and below the hips instead of legs, she had what appeared to be a serpent's body.

And she was very, very big.

Again he had trouble with the scale of the scene, but some things that surrounded her had certain constraints to the size they had to be. The veins in the leaves, for example, had to be a certain diameter to function, and judging quickly he could tell she would “stand” at least several times taller than him.

Her snake half was covered in scales in a vivid shade of indigo, and two zigzag patterns of more violet scales ran down it's entire length.

Her human portion was strikingly beautiful, she was thin, graceful, and her deep-green straight hair ended just before her shoulder blades did. She had lightly tanned skin and attractive proportions, her face was heart shaped, with a delicate chin and full lips, most striking of all though, were her big, electric blue eyes.

Since time wasn't flowing, he couldn't be sure of exactly what she was doing. Her face was fixed in an expression of great care, and her hands seemed to be gently peeling open some sort of fruit, as if trying to extract something very fragile from inside it, perhaps to eat it? Why not simply take it off the tree?

His time was running out fast though, he could feel it. He was a little saddened he would never actually get to meet her, or maybe even see her again; as strange as she looked, and as tall as she was, he would have loved to get to know her. Whatever boundaries separated his world and this one could not be breached with current technology, that was for sure, he had considered the existence of alternate universes or dimensions before, plenty of scientists did, but now it was obvious to him that they did exist, and that he could see them! Though he wasn't quite sure how he had done it, he would try to come here again, as soon as he could.

But for now, it was time to go back...

****

Daphné sat in the kitchen alone, wondering why Anton's parting words had sounded so foreboding, and slowly losing the fight against the urge to run outside, jump on an ATV, and go intercept him. She somehow knew something was wrong, and she had to go after him.

She had just gotten to her feet when it happened.

There was a very faint flash outside, a brief moment later a very loud explosion echoed through the valley. It sounded like thunder, only much too loud, she physically felt the shockwave pass through her body. She immediately though of Anton.

She rushed out of the kitchen, then bolted out the door into the morning light. To the north, she saw brightly coloured leaves, thousands of them, drifting through the air. Their already tenuous grip on the trees had been shattered by the strange shockwave that had traversed the forest, tossing them high in the air.

“That's close to where Anton would be!!!” She realized in horror...

“Anton!!!” She yelled, and ran for the barn where the ATV's were parked...

****

Farra had just managed to work her fingers delicately into the podmaw when she was assaulted by a blinding flash, accompanied by powerful blast from the clearing.

She saw stars, as if someone had just slapped her in the face, her ears were filled with pain and a loud high pitched ringing sound, every inch of her skin tingled. She rubbed her temples and blinked rapidly to clear her vision, she felt slightly dazed... “Lightning?”

Farra looked into the clearing, near the middle of it was a human, quite tall, with short black hair, a green jacket and grey pants, his eyes were closed and he had a weird expression on his face.

She hadn't felt him approach at all!!! Was he the human she had been tracking?! Had he been hiding, waiting to ambush her?! Why were his eyes closed? She didn't want to find out, he was surely a mage!

She felt her gut clench in cold, icy fear, her pulse quickened. She had never faced a mage before, she heard some of them were so powerful they could kill a giant like her in one shot!!!

His eyes were still closed! She could still get away!

She let out a frightened “Eep!” and ran, as fast as she could, panicked, frantically trying to get as far from the clearing and the mage as possible, crashing through the jumgle, charging through hanging vines and nearly bouncing off trees. The fact he could turn invisible to her senses made her paranoid. She was sure he was right behind her! just trying to get a clear shot! She continued to flee long after she would have lost even the fastest of humans...

Many minutes later, Farra collapsed against a tree, her energy spent, her breathing ragged. She was fairly sure she had lost him, unless he could fly or something... But she still peeked around the trunk of the tree, twice to be sure.

What had just happened? Had a human really just attacked her? Was his spell supposed to knock her out so he could finish her off after? Why wasn't she dead then? She had given him plenty of time to prepare... and why did he close his eyes right after? This didn't make any sense!!!

One thing was for sure, though: She wasn't going back to that clearing for a long, long time...

****

Anton let his senses return to him slowly, fully absorbed in memorizing the strange sights he had seen while projected. A whole other world! Filled with wondrous sights! He couldn't wait to try and go back!

He wasn't down at all! He had a million things to write down in his notes. He could hardly believe such things existed! It would have to wait though, for now he had to memorize as much as he could.

The imprints were much more vivid than usual, and even though he could tell they were slipping away from him slowly, he was able to “store” nearly everything he experienced by recalling it over and over, till it would just stick. Normally he could only choose one or two details and the rest would be lost but now...

The Jungle... The giant tree... The mountains... The city... The clearing... The snake-woman...

He replayed the sequence a few times more, making sure it would stick.

He took a deep breath... and frowned. The air smelled very different, and those birds calls, they weren't familiar to him at all, they sounded panicked...

His eyes snapped open, and his mind reeled.

Impossible!... He was still in the jungle!

His BODY was standing in the clearing!

A million thoughts, fears, questions, theories and realizations did battle in his skull, fighting for his attention.

“How did this happen? Why am I here? Where is here? I moved myself? How?! How do I get back? I'm... I'm TINY! No... everything is HUGE!!!... Where is the snake-woman?”

The snake-woman! He looked at the tree she had been standing next to. There was the fruit she was picking at but... It was at least sixty feet up the tree! It looked fairly squished now, but it was definitely the same fruit! So that meant she must have been... Close to 80 feet tall? That's impossible!!!

“You're here, dumbass! And you're still calling things impossible?” he chided himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

So where was she? Time had obviously passed between his projection ending and the time when he “woke up” here somehow, but how much time?!

He fought the rising panic within him as best he could.

“Get you head right, Anton. First things first, assure your survival, then you can figure out what happened, and how to go home.”

Anton calmed his mind and started assessing his situation, or at least what he knew of it; The world he was on might as well be considered completely alien, he was in a jungle environment; it was safe to assume this place was just as dangerous, if not far more so than any jungle on his homeworld.

He had no equipment, only the clothes on his back. He cursed at himself for leaving the gun behind, the ONE time he would have needed it. Though he wasn't sure what he would need it for: besides the very weird birds he could hear and see, he had no idea of what the fauna was like.

The flora was for the most part vastly oversized versions of plants that roughly resembled species found in tropical jungles on his world. The trees towered hundreds of feet up, thick vines hung from their boughs. There were flowers and smaller plants growing on the forest floor and even on the larger branches up in the canopy. He stared in amazement for a few moments; the scene was incredible, beautiful, breathtaking. He had been many places in his life, but never anywhere so vibrant, so full of life.

He quickly returned his focus to his predicament: He would have to stay on the move, and hope to find help or some form of civilization. He couldn't recall in which direction the strange city he saw was, he cursed under his breath for not memorizing that. It was quite far anyways, he'd just have to pick a direction and hope.

Food could be a problem, water too. The remains of the odd fruit he had seen the giant snake-woman poking at were far out of reach, but he should investigate them anyways. If she could eat those fruits then maybe he could too, no way to know for sure if it was toxic to humans, but her upper half looked human enough and that was the best he could go on. Finding an accessible giant fruit like that would keep him fed for a long time, so Anton started walking towards the strange plant.

He tried to avoid thinking too much about the impossibility of this world, the nature of the snake-woman most of all; he kept his mind focused on the situation at hand, if he was successful he would have plenty of time to ponder. He was quite good at controlling his thoughts, he did it a lot when having one of his episodes.

Anton weighed his options: Should he try to track her down? Surely something that size would leave some trace of it's passing through the undergrowth, and if he did find her, what would he do then? Certainly they didn't speak the same language, if she even could speak... And what would her reaction to him be? He had no way of telling, and if she turned out to be hostile, at her size... well he'd rather not think about that actually.

Were there other sentient humanoids here? The city he saw didn't seem to be built for giants; now that he had some idea of scale, the remaining fuzzy memories he had made it look like it was filled with normal sized buildings, but he could be wrong...

He moved quietly to the edge of the clearing, the size of the jungle made his progress feel very slow.

Whatever she had done to it, the huge fruit looked thoroughly squished; maybe only a part of it was edible? A large portion of it's contents were hanging out of it, looking like slimy tendrils, something was hanging in them...

His eyes widened in horror and a wave of nausea overwhelmed him. Hanging from the tentacles was the body of a man, his skin was white and waxy and peeling off in places, the remains of some kind of fabric hung from him, his body seemed stiff. One of his eyes were gone, the other was milky-white and had a horrible, broken up gelatinous surface.

Anton gagged and looked away, the tentacles were still moving! Sliding over one another slowly, twitching, pulsing. It was the most horrible thing he'd ever seen. He was in shock, he felt ill; he surely would have thrown up if he would have had anything in his stomach. He backed away from it, dizzy, the world started spinning as he fell to his knees.

He slowly managed to calm himself, though he deliberately avoided looking at the awful sight again. What the fuck was that thing? It certainly wasn't just a fruit. He thought back and searched his memory for what it had booked like before it had been damaged.

“It must be some sort of giant, carnivorous plant,” he guessed at the thing's workings... either by normal deduction or his intuition. It would capture prey by shooting those tentacles out at it as it passed underneath. He would have to be EXTREMELY cautious while moving through the jungle; without having known it's position beforehand, it would have been very hard to spot. And who knew what other horrors were in this jungle...

One way or another he had to find someone native, human or otherwise, or he was surely going to die.

“Die...” Anton let that word sink in, this was the first time his life was really at risk. He'd done lots of pretty crazy things before, but compared to this they were nothing. He wondered if he was made of strong enough stuff to survive this place. Hopefully his abilities would give him an edge here, if they started being more cooperative.

He stood up, he didn't like how this newest revelation affected his odds of survival. And what had the snake-woman wanted with that thing if it wasn't a fruit, exactly? Had she known someone was trapped in there and tried to help? Why would she have just let him to dangle there? Maybe she was just squeamish and ran when she saw his condition?

Later on, he would come remember this as the biggest and most dangerous misinterpretation of someone's intentions he'd ever made...

He decided to follow her...

A logical assumption for him to make, but a very dangerous error, indeed.

This continues to prove an interesting, quite captivating story. The description of the mental/psychological effect of his "ability" came across as very convincing, coherent, and rather poignant. I also very much liked Farra's reaction to his arrival. It was unexpected and surprising, but it makes perfect sense. Even giant nagas need to be careful, and it's natural for her to fear a creature with apparently powerful abilities, who seemed to have attacked her.

Great job on that chapter ^^
Interesting development of your characters and that misunderstanding from Anton promise some akward moments to come XP

Thanks so much guys! I'm glad I seem to be doing something right

Yeah, despite his ability, Anton doesn't really know what he's in for...

I've put the two last parts on my dA Account as a single entry.
I've also revised part one slightly after Anime-Junkie pointed out some flaws (Thanks again btw! ) I wasn't completely happy with the way I portrayed Farra's hunting habits and attitude towards humans and such... Might not need to re-read it though, it's nothing too major.

Here's the next part! Already up on my dA account here.

There's vore in this one, if you don't like vore: RUN!

Took a while longer than the others, RL has been killing all my writing time... But hey that's the beginning of summer for ya! Could be worse



The Sojourner

Part 2

****

Anton found that for something so large, the snake-woman was quite difficult to track.

She left wide arcs of crushed undergrowth and disturbed soil, but he couldn't see them well from far and the distance between the arcs was quite long. It got even more difficult when she changed directions.

Anton had never been in a survival situation before, but thanks in part to his unusual ability he was quite knowledgeable on survival tactics. Even though this place was completely alien to him, the basics of survival remained the same. If he failed to find help quickly he would need to locate water, build a few tools, find food and locate a shelter, all before the day was out.

He moved completely silently, a skill picked up playing with his siblings in the forests around his home, and kept his head on a swivel, his senses on full alert. He carefully scrutinized every new plant he saw, steered clear of anything that looked too unusual and stayed close to cover when he could.

The jungle was beautiful, teeming with life and incredibly noisy. A cacophony of alien bird calls and other animal sounds he couldn't identify filled the humid air, echoing strangely. The sun was starting to warm the cool forest floor, drying the humid vegetation and causing a thin mist to fill the still air near the ground. The sun itself didn't seem to be the same colour as on Adara, it had a slightly warmer hue, and it made the scene even more surreal as it cast long rays of lights through the misty forest.

Anton allowed himself occasional pauses to take in the picturesque scenery, it was impossible to completely ignore the beauty of this place anyways, and he started to feel just a bit more calm than before. No matter what kind of trouble he was in, the forest was so breathtaking that he couldn't help feeling at least a little glad he had come here. That was a good thing: One of key ingredients in a survival situation was to have the correct mental attitude, maintaining the will to survive. Seeing the body earlier had jostled his nerves, but he carefully controlled his thoughts to stay positive and focused.

So far, so good.

Little did he know that, intentionally or not; this jungle really wasn't the kind of place where you could come into with a bang and not get something's unwanted attention. And at that moment he was already being hunted.

He was backtracking after having lost the confusing tracks again when he first saw it through the trees: A very big animal, covered in grey fur, moving where he had just been moments earlier.

His heart slammed into his throat. Adrenaline began flooding his system immediately. It came into view and he got a good look at it: It was canine in shape, resembling a Mountain-Wolf back on Adara, but it was well over twenty feet tall! It had three pairs of legs: two pairs were configured as front limbs with wide, independent shoulders. Its six legs moved with uncanny coordination, making its movements fluid but extremely bizarre. It looked young despite its size though, gangly somehow, its paws were slightly too large for its body.

Its head was low to the ground, sniffing the soil. It was obviously tracking a scent - his scent? The snake-woman's? Either way it was only a few hundred feet away and closing faster than Anton could move without making a lot of noise. He had no cover near where he was standing, so he crouched down low and started creeping away from the trail.

Staying silent was difficult, the fight-or-flight response was taking over his body, adrenaline was coursing through his veins, it made him twitchy and clumsy, his hands were shaking violently.

A twig snapped under his feet.

Even though the beast was still quite far, it heard the quiet snap. Its head jerked up, ears raised, and it immediately spotted him.

Anton froze, paralysed by fear. What should he do? What COULD he do? He was staring down a creature nearly as tall as his house. It didn't seem hostile but...

Of course it didn't seem hostile! It had no reason to be, he was no threat to this creature, if it wanted to eat him there was very little he could do to stop it.

Anton steeled himself; back home, when facing a potentially dangerous animal, standing your ground and looking tall and imposing was the best course of action. But the notion seemed utterly ridiculous now! He was a rodent to this creature, less then that even.

But he had nowhere to run! Running would trigger the thing's instincts to chase him and it could surely run him down in seconds in the open, long before he could get to the nearest tree. There was nothing to do but face this thing... It hadn't made a move yet except for tilting its head slightly, curious, as if waiting for something.

With his face a mask of grim determination, Anton stood tall, his eyes never leaving the predator's own golden ones. The huge animal began moving towards him, with its head held high and its ears perked.

Anton cursed under his breath. This was very, very bad.

It closed the distance between them quickly. Anton tried his best not to panic, it took every bit of willpower to stand his ground.

"What the hell are you trying to accomplish anyway? Why not run? What the fuck are you hoping for? Run!" Anton resisted the instinctive urge to flee.

"No point running!" He told himself, "It'll attack for sure AND I'll have my back turned. It might just be curious... Don't do it! Don't run, Don't run! DON'T!" It got much closer and stopped again, Anton had to tilt his head back to look at its face, terror nearly overwhelmed him.

Suddenly the huge beast took a quick step and pounced playfully at him, Anton reacted blindingly fast and dodged backwards a few steps. It pounded the soil where he had been with all four of its gigantic front paws, the ground shook from the violence of the impact.

It hadn't been an aggressive action, it seemed to be having fun! Like a young dog, playing with a mouse.

The mouse was definitely not amused though. Anton's body was in overdrive, there was so much adrenalin in his system it felt like it might overload itself somehow; he was covered in cold sweat, every single one of his muscles were taught, ready to explode into movement, his heart pounded painfully at his ribcage. His mind however was crystal-clear, fully aware of every little move his gigantic opponent made, completely focused on this lethal game, shutting out everything else.

Still supported by its other legs it attacked him with its razor sharp, black claws. Anton was caught off guard by the sudden and distinctly un-canine move and barely avoided getting shredded, dodging backwards again. The giant wolf-thing paused in its assault, still playful, its tail was wagging left to right lazily and it let out a strange yowl at him; the sound was so loud it was painful.

Anton regained his focus and crouched down low, choosing a direction to jump next; it would expect him to dodge backwards again... He quickly formulated a plan, he couldn't afford a single mistake. He crept slowly to his left, then feigned a quick acceleration, but instead of running left he switched his stance and leapt right.

The ruse worked, the inexperience canine pounced far left, only realizing its mistake mid-air, though it still took a swipe at him with its claws. Anton ducked the inaccurate blow and closed on the creature.

It stood up tall and started to try and stamp on him. Quickly Anton found himself surrounded by huge clawed feet, spinning and dodging, staying close to paws that were already on the ground to encumber its playful but lethal attacks.

Without warning the creature lowered its front so its limbs nearly contacted the earth, trapping Anton between its forelegs. Anton went to run, but it immediately attacked him with its jaws. He saw the thing's vicious teeth close in on him as if in slow-motion, its jaws were so wide he wouldn't be able to dodge them sideways, Anton made a split second decision and rolled forward, towards it. He quickly dropped under its gaping maw, hitting the ground prone, barely avoiding the massive teeth.

He found himself in a world of fur: the beast had brought its head down to the ground to catch him in its jaws and now Anton was pinned under it. In a desperate move he rolled onto his back and grabbed its long, thick fur with both hands and was promptly lifted high into the air, holding on for dear life.

It only took a second for the creature to realize Anton was hanging from its thick mane, clinging to it with all his strength. It tried to bite at him, spinning around on itself many times in an attempt to get at the little human, but it couldn't reach him. It twisted and shook but Anton just barely managed to hang on, dampening its quicker movements with his arms.

And suddenly it froze, ears erect as if it had heard something. Dangling there, Anton thought he heard howling in the woods, but it was hard to hear anything beyond his pulse pounding in his ears, sounding more like banging than a proper heartbeat. The pause only lasted a few seconds at most, barely giving him time to get a better grip, higher up on its neck.

The beast started trying to snap at him again. Its jaws were coming very close to his legs and his arms were getting tired. He heard the giant teeth slam together right behind him; Way too close! He had to move! With an immense surge of strength he threw his legs over its neck and shifted his hands to place himself in a better spot on top of it, just behind its ears.

It was clearly not amused by his new position, and all semblance of play were erased, replaced with vicious snarling and growling as it tried to dislodge him much more violently.

Anton held on desperately, "This it it," he thought, "I'm going to die..." There was simply no way out of this, it would get him off in the end: he was only delaying the inevitable... But he just couldn't bring himself to surrender, he tightened his grip and flattened himself against the beast's neck.

He heard another howl in the woods, quite clearly now, and the beast froze again.

Was it being called?! By others of its kind? It would make sense, wolves on Adara hunted in packs! It was obvious the pup was torn between heeding the call and continuing its efforts to remove the bothersome human attached to its fur. Should he jump off now? He was really high up, but he would survive the fall, probably not without injury though. He hesitated...

Another howl, much closer this time, caused the great beast to surge into motion. Now ignoring him entirely it took off with a powerful lunge, Anton barely managed to cling to it.

Jumping off was no longer an option, at this speed he would probably be crippled by the fall, so he gripped the fur tightly again as his unwilling mount charged through the jungle. Its speed was incredible, the trees flew by as it ran, but after getting used to the way it moved and adjusting his grip Anton managed hold on more comfortably.

He wasn't in immediate danger for now, his grip was good and even in tight turns he just had to lean a bit to stay solidly mounted on the huge wolf-like creature. He really had to get off before it reached its destination though, he could hear more howling close by and spotted other grey shapes moving quickly though the trees. They were probably hunting something else now, but winding up in the middle of a pack of these things, especially adults, wouldn't end well for him...

But he had a chance! He might actually live! If he managed to get off in one piece he would atleast have a shot! This realization, along with the all the adrenaline in his veins nearly made him giddy... Hope glimmered in his mind; He didn't recall exactly when he had given up on hope on making it out of this alive, but he had, and now with the inevitability of his demise lifted he became twice as determined to survive.

Anton focused on where his mount was headed, looking for a way off; water or mud would break his fall, or particularly thick foliage. There! The beast was headed towards a fallen tree that was still supported at an angle by the branches of other trees. It was covered in vines that hung down in loops from the trunk. The beast would have to pass under it, through the vines! He readied himself...

Just before it would pass under the tree Anton sat up and threw his arms out, hands grasping. Ducking slightly the beast ran right through the vines, ripping through a few of the inch-thick stems as if they were thread. Anton impacted the mess of vines painfully, he was swept off the creature's neck but he managed to grip the vines to avoid falling to the ground.

He was off! But he wasn't safe just yet... Calling on all of his willpower he forced his already over-exerted arms to climb up the vines and onto the trunk, then he ran up its inclined surface to get higher off the forest floor. He didn't stop until he neared the trunk of another, still-standing tree and jumped down onto one of the wide branches.

Anton immediately collapsed, he crawled into a small gap between the fallen trunk and the huge branch then surrendered to his exhaustion. The adrenaline was subsiding, leaving his strength completely depleted; every ounce of stamina spent. His chest hurt, it would probably be bruised from hitting he vines... He had a cut on the bridge his nose and his forehead, blood was running down over his lips, he was gasping for breath, shaking uncontrollably, he couldn't feel his extremities and his heart was palpitating painfully. But he was alive!

Relief washed through him and he let out a quiet, slightly delirious chuckle, unable to find any other way to express both the relief of still being alive and the disbelief of what he had just been through.

He lay on the branch for a long time, letting his body recover from the exertion and the extreme fight-or-flight response. He had time to think about his situation now that he was relatively safe, he couldn't really do anything else while he was recovering.

He played the attack back in his mind. He was incredibly lucky that he had only encountered an inexperienced juvenile, and that its instinct to obey its pack-mates was so strong that it would ignore a small creature crawling in its fur. He still couldn't quite come to terms with just how close he came to dying a very painful death, maybe it just hadn't really sunk in yet.

If the fact that this place was beyond dangerous was ever in doubt, it wasn't anymore: This jungle was a deathtrap! On the bright side, he had managed to access the trees, hopefully he would be safer up here.

Peeking out of his shelter, the canopy was a world unto itself, a three dimensional maze of intersecting branches, hundreds of feet in the air. It would surely be inhabited by its own dangerous animals but hopefully he wouldn't be as outmatched as before; if there were giant creatures up here they would have to keep to the larger branches, possibly giving him an advantage of sorts.

Anton's mind eventually wandered back to the snake-woman. He sighed sadly; her face was getting blurry in his mind's eye already. She had probably been his best shot at salvation, he had pinned all his hopes on finding her, and now her trail was lost for good.

He shut out the despair welling up in his chest... He wasn't even sure he would have manged to track her down in the first place, she was probably miles away now. But there was more to it than survival: Anton now realized that he had really wanted to meet her. He tried to imagine how being in her presence would feel... Probably pretty frightening at first, but he was a very good judge of character, and after seeing what was essentially just a still picture of her, he was certain she was a very kind and gentle person.

Maybe he could still find her somehow...

During his rest, Anton kept an eye on the way the shadows were moving, he would need something to guide him in order to not walk in circles up here: with the different layers of canopy he could easily go in circles a few times without noticing.

The sun was his best bet, but if he was near this world's equator it could be hard to get his bearings near midday. After about an hour he found that thankfully this wasn't the case: the sun moved at an angle through the sky and he would be able to judge his direction all day long. He had been moving with the sun to his right this morning: that would be north back on Adara's northern hemisphere. He would keep going in that direction, hoping either to find someone to help him or some sign of civilization he could follow to the city.

He crawled back out of his hiding spot, took a few moments to stretch his sore muscles, and set off again.

****

Farra slithered quickly towards her home. If the mage wanted to track her he'd probably follow her trail, and now that she was moving in the trees she felt a lot safer. She was fairly good at getting around in the canopy and knew many routes up in the branches. She often preferred travelling up there rather than on the ground when she wasn't actively looking for food.

Her shelter resembled a normal tree, but upon closer inspection its branches twisted and intertwined in unnatural ways, creating a structure that looked a bit like a gigantic basket. A slightly eccentric fairy friend of hers who was good with nature magic had shaped the branches, and Farra kept the giant structure filled with various plant matter to make it more comfortable. It stayed mostly dry in the rain thanks to giant palm leaves she had arranged like a thatched roof. It wasn't much, but it was home, and it was safe. From the ground it was completely invisible and very difficult to access. She reached it before mid morning, slithered into it and curled up, trying to calm her nerves.

When Moxy had proposed to build her what she called a "Treehouse" Farra had insisted that it wasn't necessary, but Moxy had been so keen to show off her skills to her new friend that she had gone ahead and created it anyway, right in her favourite tree while she was away.

It had taken Moxy an entire day to shape, and the poor little thing had completely exhausted herself: she had passed out in Farra's hands, right after presenting her "Masterpiece" to her, beaming with pride for the entire duration of what she had called the "Grand tour." It had been so very endearing, Farra still smiled remembering the little fairy sleeping in her hands.

After all the trouble her friend went through Farra could never have left the treehouse unused, just the thought of ever abandoning Moxy's gift would bring a big lump to her throat. She had never felt the need for a shelter before then, but she had grown very fond of her hideaway with time. She could relax her coils and not worry about falling off some branch, which was never pleasant, and the soft improvised bedding felt wonderful compared to hard wood. Staying dry was wonderful as well, she enjoyed the rain but sleeping was way more comfortable in her nice dry bed of leaves and moss. Even the location was good, it was close to a large stream that eventually ran into the Shard River, right across from the Fairy Pond where Moxy lived, and food was fairly easy to come by.

Farra let out a sigh. Although she was hungry, she didn't want to go back out there at all today. The memory of the weird little human still haunted her. She had never seen a mage from so close! Mages tended to have strange magical auras that would make them stand apart from others of their species, making them fairly easy to spot. But this one been able to hide from her! Just how long had he watched her? Farra shuddered at the thought of the creepy little human slowly sneaking up on her... She would have to be even more careful.

She couldn't stop imagining horrible scenarios in her head. Some of the stories her friends told her about what magic-users could do were really awful! They were so far-fetched they couldn't possibly all be true, but they were still really scary...

Her foster-mother had also warned her very often about mages, and her warnings combined with her friends' stories had caused Farra to develop a near-phobia level fear of them. Come to think of it, she was pretty scared of a lot of things for a giant naga...

But Farra's mood brightened instantly when she felt the familiar presence of a fairy rapidly approaching.

"Moxy!!!" She shouted happily.

The point of faint green light that was her best friend appeared between the branches, zig-zagging towards her quickly. She entered Farra's shelter, buzzed around her head a few times, then quickly flew to the other side of the treehouse, growing to about the size of a human.

Moxy was an odd little fairy, and not just because of her quirky personality. Her skin was a unique shade of green decorated with strange tattoo-like splotches of slightly darker green on her shoulders, down her arms and thighs, and from her collar bone to between her breasts. She had a few delicate markings on her face as well, looking like overlarge freckles in pretty patterns. Farrah had always found them fascinating and quite beautiful, as far as she knew she was the only fairy at the Fairy Pond who had them.

Her hair was dark green and went down to her shoulders, and it was always messy despite Farra's best attempts to tame it, for two reasons: First, Moxy refused to stay in one spot long enough for Farra to fix it, and second, for whatever reason, Moxy couldn't seem to grow herself any bigger than about a quarter of what most fairies could manage and hated getting even that big, she spent most her time a few inches tall, making her look like a speck to the naga.

Currently, her hands were behind her back and she was sporting a huge impish grin as she hovered near the trunk of the tree, her dragonfly wing buzzing quietly.

"Guess what I haaave..." Moxy teased, nearly singing.

Farra brought her index finger to her lips, concentrating. "Hmmm... Two nekos behind your back... Aaaand, three humans in you belly."

"B-But but!... Oh damn! That's just so not fair!" Moxy stuttered, looking half grumpy and half dejected. She set her hands into fists on her hips, sure enough, in each one she held a neko, one male and one female, both looking very frightened. Farra's couldn't help but to start salivating at the sight of them, even though they were currently minuscule to her.

"I saved these two just for you!" Moxy fumed, shaking her fist at Farra, thoroughly dizzying the male neko in the process, "Nekos, your favourites! I wanted to surprise you! And you- you... You could at least have acted surprised!"

It was Farra's turn to grin now, looking at her friend's grumpy expression. "I'm sorry! How can I help it if I've got good senses? They're the only thing I've got!"

"Hmpf..."

"Oh, you're so cute when you're grumpy." Farra poked her tummy with her huge finger, eliciting a reluctant giggle from the fairy and banishing the grumpy expression from her face. The nudge seemed to stir the humans too, as they started visibly struggling in her friend's flat stomach.

"Mmmm..." Moxy closet her eyes and shivered slightly, obviously enjoying their squirming. She arched her back, squeezing them a bit and making their struggles even more visible.

Farra felt slightly uncomfortable at the sight of the little moving bulges, not much though: she wasn't feeling all that charitable towards humans today... Still, she hoped they were the kind of humans she herself wouldn't feel bad about eating.

Farra glanced over at the nekos in her friend's hands. She was starving, and as Moxy had said, they were her absolute favourites. She didn't feel as guilty about eating them: they were very much a part of the food chain here and most of them knew it as well as her. It didn't keep them from begging of course, but these two had already been caught by Moxy; no sense in feeling bad about it.

Farra pondered at that for a second, but her stomach settled any remaining internal conflicts she had by growling loudly. She gave Moxy a mischievous smile, "So... Can I still have my nekos?"

"Well..." Moxy held the cat-people in front of her, as if contemplating them.

The male neko managed to free his face for just a moment, "Please! J-Just let me go! I don't w- mmmpf!" Moxy blocked his mouth again with her thumb before he could finish his rather unoriginal plea.

Farra ignored him, "Pleeeease? I haven't eaten anything all day! I'm starving!"

"Hmmm... I dunno Farra, I might just have a little room for them myself..." Moxy said, but she was obviously just teasing her now.

"Oh c'mon! You look completely stuffed!"

As if to confirm her statement, Moxy burped daintily, eliciting further vigorous struggles from the humans inside her.

Farra put on her very best puppy-dog eyes. "Please?... Pretty please?" she squeaked in the tiny, childlike voice that always worked on her friend. "Do you want me to beg? I will you know... Please don't make me beg!"

"Awww..." Moxy blushed slightly. "Okay... Here you go!"

She unceremoniously dropped the male neko onto Farra's palm and made a quick gesture with her hand. The fairy's size shifting magic quickly grew the unfortunate neko back to his normal size, a much more adequate meal for a giant naga.

Immediately he tried to jump off her palm, but Farra swiftly caught him by the tail, grinning triumphantly. He started screaming incoherently as she lifted him to her face, but Farra paused, staring at the thrashing neko. His frantic movements made it nearly impossible to resist throwing him in her mouth and gulping him down then and there, but she fought her instincts for just a moment: she had an idea.

"Moxy? Can you make him a bit bigger? Like, this big?" She gestured with her hand and adjusted her grip on the little cat-man.

"Ok!" Moxy giggled, and grew the neko to the size Farra had requested.

The neko's new stature made him quite a bit stronger, he was a little larger than her whole hand now and could actually put up a decent fight. He would be much more filling now.

She started stripping off his clothes; they were simple, tan coloured garments well suited for the jungle, easy to remove for the most part. Once she was done, Farra restrained his arms and opened her mouth wide.

The neko's frantic screams became muffled as she shoved him into her mouth. She started running her dexterous tongue over his upper body, tasting him and thoroughly coating him in saliva to make the enlarged cat-man go down her throat easier. She moaned in pleasure as she took in his flavor, but she kept herself from toying with her food for too long. Once she was satisfied that he was well lubricated she positioned the neko face down in her mouth and pushed him deeper, his upper body entering her gullet, with only his feet remaining outside her mouth.

She fought her gag reflex as she tilted her head up. His feet disappeared between her lips as she let him slide a little deeper into her throat. Then with one smooth gulp, Farra sent him on his way. The satisfyingly large lump travelled slowly down her throat into her stomach, squirming wonderfully all the way down.

She felt him plop into her stomach and turned her attention to the other neko. It seemed completely passive, either she was exhausted or she had simply given up. Farra gulped her down in much the same way as before, but a bit more gently. She didn't struggle at all.

Farra let out a sigh of contentment, feeling quite full and satisfied. She thanked Moxy for bringing her the nekos and curled up on the floor of her shelter.

The nekos didn't struggle for long, much to Farra's disappointment, they didn't last as long when she was full, they probaly ran out of air faster... She quickly switched her train of thought before she could start feeling guilty and started chatting casually with Moxy. They exchanged bits of news and gossip, Moxy filled her in on the latest antics her pack had been up to and Farra told her friend about few of her recent discoveries.

Usually the fairy settled on her scales or her shoulder for their chats, but today she was casually inspecting Farra's treehouse, making new branches grow here and there with her magic, rejuvenating others that looked weak or sickly and carefully decorating the place with fragrant blooms in varying shades of blue and pink.

"So, why'd you come back to your tree early if you didn't catch anything?" Moxy asked her after a few minutes.

She hesitated a while before answering, hoping Moxy wouldn't laugh at her, "A human mage attacked me. I was scared so I-"

"What?!" Moxy interrupter her. Farra flinched at her sudden, unexpected outburst, "Where? I'll make him pay if he hurt you!" Moxy started buzzing around Farra, looking her over for any injuries, her purple eyes glowing ominously.

"I'm Alright Moxy, he hit me with some sort of spell, it hurt a bit but I made it out in time."

"Tell me where he is Farra! I'll make him wish he was never born!" She nearly screeched.

"N-NO! Moxy, no! Please don't! It's too dangerous! He turned completely invisible, even I couldn't tell he was there until he attacked me! And if you got hit like I did..." Farra cringed, she couldn't bear the thought, the blast the mage had unleashed would surely shred the fairy's delicate wings, leaving her helpless.

"Please Moxy, don't go after him... I- I couldn't take it if you got hurt!" Farra pleaded, tears welling up in her eyes "Please, I'll just stay up here for a while, I'm sure he'll just go away. Don't go..."

"Farra, I can do this, tell me where or I'll just go looking for him." Moxy crossed her arms, her amethyst coloured eyes still glowing, pulsing with anger.

She rarely got angry, but when she did it was a frightening sight. Even though she couldn't grow as large as most fairies, her nature magic more than made up for it. You really didn't want to get on the diminutive fairy's bad side, but Farra spent a lot of time worrying about her anyways: she had an eccentric personality even for a fairy, and she was reckless at times. She really didn't want Moxy anywhere near that mage, especially not because of her... She should never have told her!

"Moxy, Please! Don't leave! Lets just give it a day, m-maybe he'll be gone tomorrow. And then - then we can go hunting together - it'll be fun! And - and if we meet him w-we can get him t-together! I'll take you to where I saw him and everything!" Farra really was begging now, she held back a sob, a lone tear running down her cheek.

That managed to calm the fairy down, Moxy thought about it for a moment, then finally relaxed. She flew up to Farra's face and gently wiped the tear from it with her hand. "Shhh, It's alright, you big huge sissy! Don't cry..." She landed on her shoulder and patted her neck, "We'll do it your way, I'll stay here with you... But I still wanna know what happened!"

****

*Drip*

....

*Drip*

....

*Drip*

High off the jungle floor Anton stood on a colossal branch, staring at the fingers of his right hand with a perplexed, slightly concerned expression on his face.

He was surrounded by tall vegetation that grew on the branch, years worth of dead leaves and other organic waste had piled up and decomposed on the branch, turning into fertile soil on which grew a dazzling array of ferns and flowers. Their colours and shapes were varied and exotic, each one beautiful in its own way, and it almost looked as if someone had planted them up here on purpose to form a garden; a garden of surreal, otherworldly beauty the likes of which Anton couldn't have dreamed of back on Adara. Up here, near the top of the canopy closer to the light they were fairly common, all they needed was a wide flat branch, but this one in particular was especially large, and it held something Anton was in great need of:

Water.

Near the trunk of the tree grew a trio of strange bowl shaped flowers, each supported by a thick rubbery stalk, they were full of what Anton had guessed would be rainwater. Upon testing the water with his fingers though he had been quite alarmed: the water was unnaturally cold to the touch.

*Drip*

There was no way the water should be that cold, Anton let it drip off his fingers, eyeing the flowers suspiciously. He rubbed his fingers together, making sure it really was a freezing sensation he had felt and not some sort of numbness, but the water really had been cold and nothing else. Condensation covered the underside of the flower in little droplets. What kind of mechanism allowed this plant to become so cold? Could he drink the water anyway?

-It's safe-

"Finally!" Anton muttered. At long last his abilities gave him something useful! Not just random bits of information on various plants or birds he couldn't use to his advantage. Anton plunged his hands into the water and tentatively took a sip, it was refreshing and tasted amazingly pure. He drank the cool water greedily, then splashed some onto his face, gasping at how cold it felt against his skin.

His thirst relieved, he walked to the edge of the branch. It was hard to tell how high up he was, but he guessed he would be nearly a thousand feet in the air. Anton thankfully wasn't afraid of heights, it went with being a pilot he guessed, most people would get a severe case of vertigo looking down at the ground as he was now. He surveyed the area much as he had done every few minutes during his trek, carefully scrutinizing every tree for threats and for the safest way to move through this maze of branches.

Anton closed his eyes and listened carefully to the wind and the birds, trying to discern anything out of the ordinary that could reveal the presence of a predator or potential saviour. The language of birds was universal Anton found, even across worlds their calls were filled with meaning that one could understand if they took the time to listen. But right now the birds were singing the same songs he'd been hearing all day.

The rest of the day had gone without incident up in the canopy, he had spotted more of those dangerous fruit-like carnivorous plants early on in his journey, but he had been able to avoid them. Their sweet scent was no doubt designed to lure prey, but it still had made Anton painfully aware that he had not eaten breakfast that morning. He had come across a few fruit bearing plants and trees, but without a reliable way to test them Anton decided he would wait till he was much hungrier before he took any risks.

The sun was slowly descending in the sky, he only had a few more hours of daylight to find some sort of shelter, he needed to keep moving. Anton extended one foot off the edge of the branch into empty air and let himself drop off the edge, the air rushed passed him as he fell down towards the next branch. He skillfully absorbed the impact of the the fall, wincing slightly; doing that repeatedly all day was starting to take it's toll on his feet.

The canopy was an amazing place, he often couldn't see the ground or sky because foliage was so thick. He moved quickly and silently, carefully balancing on thinner branches, crossing longer gaps between trees by using vines: Being suspended upside down on a vine hundreds of feet in the air made even Anton a little queasy, but often he had no choice.

A few hours later and Anton was much closer to the forest floor; there was very little cover in the canopy and he didn't want to sleep exposed. He walked on the very lowest of the large branches, "only" between one and two hundred feet off the ground, searching for a place to sleep. The light had already faded and Anton was starting to worry he wouldn't find anything before dark. The birds that had kept him company all day had settled down for the night, as had the wind. Strange new sounds filled the air, but overall the jungle was much quieter at night.

Finally he came across something promising: a round hole in a tree, about as tall as he was and partially obscured by a curtain of mossy vines. Anton cautiously approached the wooden cave, not wanting to disturb anything that might already call it home. He looked around at the surrounding forest, there was something else about this place... His mind was nagging at him, as if there was something important he was missing...

THERE!!! Anton nearly jumped when he saw what was unmistakeably a path, cut in the undergrowth directly under the hole! It surely lead somewhere. He could take the path in the morning, or at least follow it in the trees. Finally he had something to guide him, now he wouldn't feel like he was wandering aimlessly in the woods anymore! But that was for tomorrow, it wasn't a good idea to move at night in unfamiliar territory, and he was exhausted.

He carefully pushed aside the vegetation concealing the entrance of the hole and looked around, it was empty. He stepped inside, it wasn't very deep, but it would do.

Anton lay down on the ground. The wood was hard and uncomfortable, but he was very, very tired. He tried to play back all the things that had happened during the day in his mind, but exhaustion was taking hold very fast. He was surprised how easily sleep was coming to him.

All day he had doubted he would get any sleep at all on his first night, but as evening wore on he came to accept what had happened and the situation he found himself in: If he had transported himself here then there was a good chance he could transport himself back. And provided he survived the coming days, he might find his way home one day, one way or another...

He thought of his family back on Adara. Had his displacement left any indication of what had happened? Would they simply think he had disappeared? Would they guess what had happened, as unlikely as it seemed? It was a stretch, but maybe they could guess, Daphné knew he was having an episode... They would be worried sick though, that much he knew. But if and when he did make it back, he would have one hell of a story to tell.

And on that thought, Anton drifted off to sleep.

****


I really appreciate all the comments guys!

two times part 2?

You have a very engaging style, making it fluid and enjoyable to read. The continuation of Farra's fear of the strange human is amusing, and his own efforts at survival are well described. Neat idea with the plant treehouse that Moxy can maintain and upgrade with her magic.

Just one thing:

Quote :

It's six legs moved with uncanny coordination, making it's movements fluid but extremely bizarre. It looked young despite it's size though, gangly somehow, it's paws were slightly too large for it's body.

Its, goddamnit! ("It's" means "it is". "It is six legs moved with uncanny coordination, making it is movements fluid...")

Krisexy26 wrote:

two times part 2?

Heh, yeah I found the two first parts a little short, and part 1 ended awkwardly, so I merged the two parts when I put the story up on dA - I'll make them part 1a and 1b on the forum...

French snack wrote:

You have a very engaging style, making it fluid and enjoyable to read. The continuation of Farra's fear of the strange human is amusing, and his own efforts at survival are well described. Neat idea with the plant treehouse that Moxy can maintain and upgrade with her magic.

Just one thing:

Quote :

It's six legs moved with uncanny coordination, making it's movements fluid but extremely bizarre. It looked young despite it's size though, gangly somehow, it's paws were slightly too large for it's body.

Its, goddamnit! ("It's" means "it is". "It is six legs moved with uncanny coordination, making it is movements fluid...")

Thank you!
And oh my god I just realized I did that like, every time I could have... that's like almost as bad as they're and their!
Will correct it, thanks for pointing it out