10 Years, Forest. A Trophy.

I get waken up by sun rays tickling my face. Irritated, I slowly open my eyes, and see stone walls stretching upwards, leaving only a slit in the sky for the sun to fall through. It is in the right angle – which should mean we are enclosing noon. The sun burns on my skin, but apart from that, it is something I had no chance to witness like this in a while, so I welcome it.

I realize I am laying quite comfortably. It reminds me of the time I got to sleep in the village's healer's bed, but only a bit more uneven. I try feeling with my hands what I am laying on – and with a sudden realization, leap from it, and take a fight-or-flight stance a few meters away from it:

The owlbear is laying there, motionless.

My chest did not take that sudden movement lightly, as well as my feet on the impact, and new to all this pain comes a burning on my whole skin. I observe the owlbear, but it does not move the slightest. Then, remembrance tells me what happened yesterday, just before I passed out. I triumph, but my body does not seem to accept the fact that it is over, and remains in unease and tension.

Finally, after at least five minutes of just observing, my body dares to come closer, and inspect the laying corpse, in fact a corpse, up close. It lays there in a yellow puddle of sticky fluid, which feels somewhat like manure on my feet. It's hind legs are gone, and a trail of the yellow pus leads to a heap of that stuff, with flesh-like texture. I remember the sound of it impacting on the ground. Back then, when still under the veil of an intense fight, it made me celebrate. Now, afterwards, it makes me want to vomit.

All the older wounds the owlbear is littered by, stemming from the pebbles I shot, have crusted over, but apart from that do not look like they healed. The single eye in the owlbear's head looks dead, as the glimmer it always had is now gone. The ground under the corpse is scratched, again showing what remarkable claws the owlbear had. Now, that the danger is over, my scientific spirit returned, and compels me to take a closer look at the owlbear's paws. Close up, they really look more like hairy and somewhat broad clutches of an owl, but with talons that are remarkably large, and seeing what they were able to do, also remarkably sharp and durable.

Now that I have seen that there is no danger left from the owlbear, a lot of tension and stress built up in the last days falls of my chest. I sigh up, relieved that this ordeal is over, and do not even mind my hurting chest. Then, I pity that I did not stay sleeping longer, the back was extremely comfy in comparison to the trees I slept in the days before. I contemplate whether or not to just lay back down again. I feel like I deserved it, and my whole aching body is also pleading me to do it.

Yet, I can not. Not only am I injured, but I am also hungry, and thirsty. If I get down to sleep now, who knows in which state I will awaken? My magic seems to work properly again, the energy must have returned after the owlbear died. The euphoria, oh how I missed it yesterday, returned as well, making all those wounds more bearable.

I take a closer look at my skin, wondering why it burns that much, and see all of it reddened and swollen. It reminds me of the time I accidentally poured hot water over my arm, but only on the whole body. I remember my body getting light and hot yesterday, and back then, I thought of it as an hallucination, but now, I think I know the cause. For some reason, my spells gained a massive amount of output, and that made the heating and lightening overdrive, lifting me from the ground, and singing my skin.

This also explains the owlbear's sudden burst of power, after which it collapsed. When the glimmer in its eyes vanished for the first time, magic energy bursted into the surroundings, and vanished shortly after, consumed by me and the owlbear. But where did this energy come from? In fact, I have no idea. Most likely, it stemmed from the owlbear. In a death struggle, it released this enormous amount of magic to finish me off, funnily enough so much energy that it ended up saving my live.

How this happened, I will ponder about another time. Now, I need to get away from here, and find some food. I am starving.

But first, I have to take a trophy, something with what I can prove I did it, something with what I can convince the villagers that I killed the menace threatening their lives. I look at the motionless corpse, and contemplate what I should take. Feathers would be easy, but not very remarkable. No, I need something more spectacular. The head? Too heavy. Unless... My gaze wanders, and finds its destination on the talons on the bears paw. This is it.

I try casting seperation on the paw, and somewhat surprisingly, it pops right of. Yellow liquid is dripping from the stump, but lacking pressure, it is not much that drips out. The paw looks indeed like a feathery clutch of a predatory bird, spotting three talons pointing forward, and a singular pointing backward. It is as big as my chest. I try lifting it, but is too heavy for me. Does not matter, I only need the claws. They are as long as my forearm, and their lower side seems sharpened, almost like a knife. It is quite straight, and reminds me of a blade the more I look at it.

I cast seperation yet again, into a line between the outer claw and the other ones. The paw splits, and leaves me with a hump of yellow flesh, in which the talon is embedded. I could, of course, remove the flesh with magic as well, but I fear the accidental removal of bits and pieces of my trophy, so I seperate another claw, and start cutting the meat straight of the first one with its cutting edge. It cleaves the meat of the talon with almost surreal ease, but fails to do as much as scratch the claw itself. This is truly a remarkable material. I try scratching it over the rock floor, and it leaves a scratch mark as soon as I apply the lightest pressure.

I inspect the claw in my hand. It has a nice amber colour, way less threatening than when what was attached to the claws was still out to kill me. It got a not sharpened side, looking almost predestined for being a knife handle. It is larger than the knife I lost, but not too large for me to use it properly if I use two hands to wield it. I originally intended to take only one, but given I ought to never return to this place, it would be a shame to let the claws, those perfect, brilliant knives, just sit here unused.

Half an hour later, I sit still at the bottom of the ravine, with eight cleaved clean claws spread out in front of me. The sun is withdrawing from its sweet spot that it illuminates the ravine in, so I need to make haste. Two are particularly big, to are a bit smaller, and four are of the same size in between. I untie the rope functioning as my girdle and attachment notch for my pouch, and string all the claws together to a bundle. I noticed earlier that for their durability and sharpness, a singular claw was surprisingly light. After bundling them all together, I am actually able to lift them all together. A paw was heavy due to flesh and bones, not the claws, apparently.

I divert a bit of magic energy into alleviation of the bundle, and it quickly seems to weigh not more than a feather, surprisingly quickly for the weight it weighed before. I pay no further heed to it, and cling the bundle under my arm. Applying pressure to my skin hurts, but so does seemingly everything at every time, no need pondering it. In my mind, I long suppressed myself of noticing the involuntary actions of pain my body does, actions unfit of me, such as whining, crying and whimpering.

I take a look at the bloody, mangled and defiled corpse of the owlbear, and turn around one last time to first pat its head, then, after thoroughly collecting spit in my mouth, spitting right into its face, and placing a heavy kick right onto its cranium. This sends new bolts of pain through my leg, and myself hopping backwards on the other leg while swearing profusely. After having taken proper measures to let this fiend rot in a ditch, I start climbing up the walls of the ravine, to finally put an end to this episode.

I trot along the trail of destruction connecting the ravine with my village. I ate some hare I shot right after leaving the ravine, but my mood is at a low. Now, that the menace threatening the lives of myself and my friends and family is eradicated, I have proper time to think about what actually happened. I have had an argument with the cold voice earlier, and although I knew its only purpose seems to be to drag me downwards more and more, it did what it does best and had me crying like a child who lost its parent, unable to do anything but bawling in the snow for so long of a time that I can only try to guess. In retrospect, I look down on myself for that. I have proven myself stronger, why fall back now?

Father... I freeze. Feeling another storm approaching, I panically try to remember my views of life and death. There are hunters and the hunted – the way of nature. The hunted must become hunters, or be hunted – the proper, only secure way of reassuring ones life. In the end, my father turned out as someone hunted, and not a hunter. Then I came along, and turned his hunter into the hunted myself. It is only right and proper this way... Right? Right?

I realize instead of striding forwards, I stopped an unknown time ago, lost in anguished thoughts. I try to take a single step forwards, to break the bane laying over me, but the images of my fathers head, together with eight others, resting in a pit, and getting dirt shovelled over to be never seen again, strikes me down again like a hammer, and darkens my mind like a gentle and cruel altogether embrace.

I slowly trot through the snowy forest, alongside a trail of destruction. I had a goal in mind, but with every step I take, I am less sure whether or not I will reach it, and even more important: whether I or not I want to reach it. A few minutes ago, I recovered from the fifth breakdown this day. They grew more violent every time, and each and every time it took me more conviction to get back up, to not just lay down and take a rest. Each time, they sowed new doubts into me what would await me in the village, and lessened my desire to get back. Each time, my body seems to arise weaker, with less power in its limbs, with less energy.

I feel hot, but not due to the magic heating. I was almost tempted to undo it, but I then remembered that this amount of heating was only good and proper, and served me well in the past. I can not let it go on a whim. So, I just bear with the heat, driving sweat down my body, burning on my skin, and continue to walk.

I do not know how much way I already walked, I lost track a long time ago. Am I halfway back? Maybe close to the village, even? Or is the distance still a few days marches... At this pace, with that much breakdowns, I favour the latter theory. The sun seems about to set, so I walked for about half a day now. It felt like an eternity.

I stand in a path of destruction, connecting two places with forgotten meaning. I had two breakdowns at this exact same spot, the first one striking me down after only a handful meters of travel, and the second one while still searching for the needed willpower to get going. I look into the sky, where beautiful red colours tinge the blue to announce the imminent departure of the sun. A bird seems to circle over me, watching me closely. Is it a vulture, and I am that close to death? But, I do not want to die...

I need to continue. I set a foot before the other, focussing only on the waning sun in the sky. Its gentle warmth seems to invite me, but I am unsure to what, and whether I should happily accept the invitation, or if I should be afraid and run from it. Step after step, I get going again. As if noticing the shift in my resolve, the bird of prey in the sky stops circling me, and flies away, in the same direction I am headed towards. My limbs have lost their integrity, they feel more like cloth than bone, but my left arm is still clinging to the bundle of claws, and my legs are still moving, step by step.

The light turns dim, the red fades into black. The gentle embrace of the sun fades, and leaves only cold horror. I take another step, but a branch obstructs my way, I stumble, and unable to save myself from falling, fall face-first into the snow.

I feel hot tears running down my cheek, but I so burnt out emotionally that I feel nothing, nothing except for burning pain.

I lie there. The outside is completely silent, but in my head, I hear blood rushing. Then, I hear the scream of a bird. Not the twisted scream of the owlbear, but the scream of a genuine bird. It does not sound like a vulture, however. Maybe it is one, still. Did the bird come back, and is declaring me for dead now?

I may very well be dead, for all I know. I admire the owlbear for its strenght now, to be able to fight on even though close to death. But, it had something to focus on, an object of hatred, it could always strive towards the goal of killing me. Now, I do not even have that. The only thing is my body, which I continue to loose control and feeling over.

A faint voice breaks the silence surrounding me, and gets my thoughts up and running again.

"Pipin was right! A... ...boy, a... ...here! I need..." I understand only measly fragments of what is said, but this excited, and exciting, voice peaks my interest, and gives me something to work towards. It is the high, but coarse voice of a woman.

"Holy hell! You are right! A child, at this of all places!" I hear a second voice, sparking my interest even further. It is a deep, manly voice, reminding me of the voice of a burly, strong man I once knew in the village.

I hear several footsteps rushing towards me, more than I can count.
"Did he spirits pass on?" A manly voice, with a calm, foreign accent mixes itself with other voices, which are all intermingling.

The footsteps come to an halt, and loud, incoherent chatter fills the air, but it is full with concern and surprise.

I feel a hand touching my neck, and hear a new voice, which sounds strict, and reminds me of the village doctor, with the difference that this is clearly a manly voice. "He is alive! Quick, prepare my field bed – he is feverish and hurt!" I hear rushed movements, and a short while filled with a heated conversation later two strong arms lift me up, and turn me around. I see numerous faces, but my vision is blurry, and I can not make out details. The voice of the man carrying me, the same voice I heard after the first one, exclaims: "He is so light... Poor boy must have eaten nothing in weeks!" I get then laid down on what feels like a straw matress, a feeling reminding me of home. I feel my consciousness fading, and I feel relieved: against all expectations, I have been found. I hear another man's voice saying: "What in the world did this boy carry under his arm? It looks like...", but instead of hearing what it looks like, I fade out.

Unrestful dreams are drawing themselfs through my slumber, but I can not make sense of anything what is happening. One second, I stand in a hut, like what I live in, then in a forest, in an unknown place, and lastly, in a black void. It all happens too fast to puzzle together the meaning of anything.