We get up early this morning and I'm struggling to open my groggy eyes as I stretch out my still new body, amazed by how flexible I am now.

"Enjoying yourself there, cub?", Hati calls out.

"Come on now, we'll have to get going soon and we still haven't touched those boxes" she says, pointing to our haul.

"Ah, coming" I call back, slowly walking over, still rubbing my eyes.

 

When I finally make it over to Hati she's already gotten to work opening the crates, their tops simply caved in with a stomp to reveal the contents before moving onto the next, effective.

 

Not wanting to let her do all the work however, I walk up to a box and pull out the sword, jamming it under the lid. After some pushing and twisting eventually the nails pop free and I can take a good look inside before, before moving to the next.

 

It takes about an hour to break into all of the boxes, and not all of them were holding anything useful, but we did manage to get a few good things out of it. The main things being some carpentry tools, and a bunch of food along with some nice hemp sacks that've really boosted our carrying capacity here.

 

The food it was mostly just more of the hard bread, and some strange blue scaly fruit that even Hati hadn't seen before.

I carefully loaded all I could into my sack, making sure to stuff in the rest of my salted kento beans in there too, whilst Hati carried the tools and some more food in hers. The tools weren't that useful for us, but Hati wanted to bring them along, saying they'd be worth a lot to any clan.

I'm surprised all of this was able to float so well actually.

 

A few minutes later when we're all packed we start moving south, following the cliff edge in hopes to find a way up. And we do, after a few hours of walking we come across some secure ropes hanging from the cliff, left by someone else while ago.

 

Getting to the top of the cliff was easy thanks to the rope, and we were stunned by the change in scenery when we'd made it up. The dark and craggy cliffs giving way to lush forest, with the sun coming from directly overhead the large & dense trees, it was beautiful.

 

"Do you know where to go from here?" I asked Hati.

"Well I barely have a rough idea of where we even are.", she says.
"But since we're on the coast, all we should need to do is head east for a few days to see where we are".

I hike my bag up at that, ready to get moving.

 

We wander through the forest for the next couple days, Hati showing me some edible plants here and there. Though she gets especially excited when she sees a large pair of twin mushrooms growing straight out of a rock, and she eagerly cuts them free, stowing them in her bag.

"What's with those?" I ask curiously.

"Oh you'll see soon Cub, these things are a damn blessing, just need to dry out for a while first".

 

We walk for another few hours and the trees start to thin out suddenly, opening up to a small human village. And whilst I'm happy finally seeing civilization again, Hati immediately panics.

"Mars, we need to go. Now." she says as she grabs my arm, dragging me back into the woods with her.

 

"Hati wait, why all the panic? What could a few villagers do?" I ask, confused.

"It's not the villagers I'm worried about", she replies.  "It's the damn adventurers."

"Border towns are usually packed with them, here to either clear monsters from the nearby forests, or to hunt wargs like us." She says, keeping her eyes forward as we walk

"If even a single villager even spots us they'll run right back to town and tell the lot of them. In which case we wouldn't be able to rest until we get to a clan."

"It's how I was captured before." she admits.

 

As we're making our escape, we step through some bush and come out right in front of a man carrying a couple of rabbits and a bow. He freezes for a second as he makes eye contact, just staring at us, confused, before suddenly dropping his catch and running off for the nearby town.

"Fucking Damnit!" Hati cries, Grabbing my arm as we run in the opposite direction.

"We need to go straight to the north, now, and we can't stop until we get there." she says in a panic.

 

We're running for the next few days, and I while I have a lot more stamina than I'd remembered, we still need to stop and rest from time to time.

 

At one stop I pull out one of those large blue fruits from my bag, hoping to finally try one.

I spend about 5 minutes fiddling around with the thing before i figure out how to actually open it.

And peeling off the scales one by one, the soft fruit presents itself, smelling very sweet, almost overly so. I take a bite of it and the sweetness hits me, it's so rich, there's even a little sour coming through as it tingles on the tongue, I love these things.

I peel open another and pass it to Hati, glad to see her enjoying it as well.

 

It's taken just over a week of traveling but we've finally made it to the north end of the forest, and without any sign of adventurers tailing us.

Stepping out of the tree line we walk into a large golden valley, fields of nothing but long dry grass that seems to go on almost endlessly.

Hati just looks at me and smiles, "Welcome home Mars"

"Huh? What do you mean, there's nothing here?" I look around for a village, or even an encampment, but I see nothing for miles except the grass, all the way to the mountains in the distance.

 

However she just chuckles and replies, "This is warg territory now, we're not near any clans yet but there won't be anyone chasing us through here."

"Oh, so you're saying we can finally take it slow then?" I huff, completely exhausted from all the running we've been doing. [Oh please just let it stop.]

I may have some insane stamina now, but even beastmen get exhausted.

Hati notices my exhaustion and sighs, "We've got a lot of walking to do yet, Mars. No clan would even risk settling so close to the human border, that'd just be begging for a raid."

[Nope, nope, this calls for drastic measures.]

 

I look up at Hati and give her my best puppy dog eyes, really hamming it up with a whimper.
"Ugh. ." She sighs. "But yes, I guess we can take it a little slower now." she finally relents.

"Oh sweet release." I say out loud, immediately collapsing on to the grass to rub my sore legs.

 

 

" You were an elder right, Hati? Where's your clan?" I ask, watching the clouds.

"Destroyed." she says curtly "It was raided by a far larger clan in the east, the Brey Horns. And I was caught by some adventurers as i was escaping, winding up in that ship along with you." She sighs, clearly not enjoying the memories.

 

Suddenly she seems to think of something, "How about you pup? Do you even remember which clan you came from? You haven't seemed to be able to recall much of anything since you woke up next to me on that ship. ."

"Oh, ah, right" I stammer, "Well that's actually it, I really don't know anything. Not what clan I came from, who my parents were, or even who I am. I really have no knowledge of this world."

"Damn. . " Hati sighs, "I'd suspected as much bit still, I'm sorry Mars, that must be painful for you."

"Though I'm glad at least you remembered your name." She notes.

"Ah, actually I'd just made it up on the spot." I admit, "Sorry. ."

"But things aren't all bad" I add. "I mean, at least I've had you looking out for me."

Hati just freezes for a second, before pulling me right into a tight hug which I sink right into.

 

Things really aren't all that bad.