Somewhere deep in the Perien Forest, the sound of footsteps echoed between the trees. They came quick and measured. A girl’s footsteps, not that one could tell. She looked young in a scrawny sort of way and seemed a little shorter than average even when considering that. Her clothes were filthy, with a strip having been torn off her shirt to bandage a cut on her arm, but they were mostly covered by what could very charitably be called a “mantle”. To the less magnanimous, it was just a very smelly (and poorly skinned) swath of what appeared to be wolfhide, held together at the neck with another torn piece of cloth.

Idelle trudged on despite the smell. She figured that if anyone was going to be in a position to criticize her current crimes against fashion, they would also be in a position to tell her where a road or something was and she felt that this was, all in all, an acceptable tradeoff. Also, it kept her warm. Something she was becoming more thankful for as it felt like the last night had been particularly cold, for whatever reason.

She sighed to herself. The worst part of this was starting to be how bored she was. Despite her injuries, she felt more than capable of walking basically all day, and she was trying not to think about how she hadn’t really been hungry since drinking the wolf’s blood two days earlier. Or particularly thirsty for that matter. Maybe it was something with the blood, she’d heard somewhere that it had restorative properties.

Where had she heard that?

She angrily shook her head. She wasn’t going to kill a direwolf with her bare hands just to go insane from being stuck alone with her thoughts a few days later. Well. Her bare hands and a rock. Either way.

“What do people do to stay sane while walking, anyway?”

She said the question aloud, more just to say anything at all than for any real reason. Singing, maybe? She didn’t know how to sing. Still, she found herself humming a strange, jumpy melody as she wandered along. She didn’t know the song’s name, but it’s not like she knew her name either.

She wondered if she should try not to think about that as well, but decided she was overthinking it and had come to terms with it. Probably.

Her fingers ran along the length of a chipped tooth that was shoved into the waistband of her bloodstained trousers as she unconsciously walked a little faster to match the beat of the melody.

…

The next day, Idelle found a river. It cut through the middle of the forest, far wider across than she could throw a stone, the sun reflected off it in shimmering ever-changing ripples of light. She stared at it for a long time, watching the endless play of the water and listening to it gurgling over the rocks littering the banks. Then she smiled, and despite the cold, she splashed her way deep enough to throw her whole body into the water. She couldn’t swim very well, but that wouldn’t stop her from taking a bath.

After she was dry and slightly less smelly, she turned left and with renewed confidence followed the banks of the river as it meandered north. People liked to live by the water, and she could have confidence in not going in circles regardless of how visible the sky was. Surely she’d find someone soon.

The day after that, she found a bear. And this time, she did climb a tree.

When the bear tried to climb after her, she jumped from the tree and drove her tooth as deep into its face as she could manage. The tooth and her wrist broke from the landing, but the bear’s neck broke with them.

Then, with tears in her eyes and blood on her face, Idelle fed from it, too. She wasn’t going to. She wasn’t even hungry yet. But a voice in the back of her mind whispered; a voice that pointed out how she’d been stronger since she fed on the wolf, how her wounds healed faster, how it stopped her growing hungry, how good it tasted—

She was afraid. She didn’t want to die. She thought it was going to kill her. If she could stay alive by taking blood from dead things, that wasn’t so bad.

She was afraid.

…

Idelle lost track of the days after that, but not too long after the bear she had to throw away her rotting wolf hide. Fortunately, she hadn’t felt as cold the last few nights.

She hadn’t known what to do about her wrist either, but the pain had already mostly subsided. The cut on her arm had knit itself closed already too. That wasn’t normal. She knew it wasn’t. 

But she knew she wasn’t in a position to complain about it, either.

The river that had been so welcome seemed interminable now. She wondered if she should just try to cross, but she’d be able to see any major traces of habitation on the other side from here anyway.

The day she found a thick section of branch washed up on the shore to use as a walking staff and weapon was the same day she found a torrent of rain crashing from the sky a little before what should have been sunset. She huddled under a tree, cold and wet and miserable, clutching onto her stick before finally breaking into tears. They didn’t stop until she’d cried herself to sleep. The next day she got up and pretended it hadn’t happened.

Finally, maybe a week after she found the river, she looked up and saw it. A thin line stretching across the same river. She stared at it, uncomprehending, then stumbled forward into a run. The run turned into a sprint, the river on her right and trees on her left, feet flying across the rocks faster than she’d known was possible. She’d seen right; It was a bridge, wooden and weathered but clearly well maintained, with many of the planks recently replaced. Big too, it was wide and sturdy enough for carts and animals as well as people. 

On either side of the river, a dirt road led away through the trees, rough and scattered in parts with rocks. Clearly visible among the rocks were the tracks of wheels, furrowed deep into what must have been mud at the time they were laid.

Idelle gulped in the cold air and leaned on her staff as her breathing slowed again. After that, she stood up straight and crossed over the river, humming her little tune again as she stepped onto the other side.

Two days after that, she came up behind a large covered wagon and the pair of huge oxen who were plodding along diligently despite having to pull it.

…

“So you mean to tell me you’ve been lost out here hungry for a whole week? You poor thing! Look at her clothes, dear, they’re barely rags at this point!”

The speaker was a tall and rather pretty woman named Mirabel, with an even taller tower of muscles and beard dubbed Aldo nodding indignantly next to her. They were a married couple, itinerant merchants who carried wagon loads of seasonal goods through the forest. But Idelle was too busy wiping tears and snot off her face to find this out quite yet.

“I, I think? I lost track of days, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry for that, my goodness! It’s to be expected in such a fearful and wild place. You must be starving!” 

Idelle glanced up at her and nervously nodded.

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Well, it’d hardly be sporting of us to leave someone who’s barely a child hungry under such circumstances now would it?” Aldo’s voice was brighter than one might expect from such a big man, but with a rich smoothness to it that reminded Idelle somehow of honey. “We’re more than happy for you to ride with us to the city if you need. And I’m certain we can find someone trustworthy to take you back the other way to wherever your home is?”

Idelle gulped at the querying tone clear on the word ‘home’. 

“I—um… Actually, I don’t have a home.” 

She looked away as she mumbled the words, so she missed the glance of understanding and worry that passed between the two. But Mirabel quickly interjected again before the silence could linger.

“Ah, don’t worry then, we’ll take you to the city and figure something or other from there. I know the gatekeepers are sticklers but surely they wouldn’t turn away a hungry child! Here, come with me darling, I’ll get you something to eat and find one of my extra dresses. I’m sure we can make it fit with the help of a sash or something. Honestly, a whole week, it’s fortunate you were by the river for most of it or you’d be dead of thirst by now! It was a terrible risk you took walking away from it, you know… Yes, right over here.”

Idelle nodded her way guiltily through the torrent of words as the woman nimbly climbed into the back of the wagon and pulled open the side of something resembling a bench to reveal a lined drawer of garments. The woman pulled one out to consider before she turned to her husband again.

“Actually, Aldo, shouldn’t we just camp for the day? Let the poor thing rest?”

He was about to respond, but Idelle jumped in before he could say anything. “N-no, it's all right. I don’t want you to be delayed or something. I can rest in the wagon if I need to.” 

Mirabel gave her a piercing stare, but Idelle forced herself to meet the older woman’s gaze despite herself, fidgeting awkwardly at the look. Mirabel weighed her a moment and then nodded.

“Very well then, we’ll continue for now. But I insist you lie down here in the wagon once we get you fed. And let me know at once if the ride is too rough for you to rest, you understand dear?”

Idelle could only awkwardly nod in response before she was whisked away to be laboriously fed a surprisingly tasty porridge and dressed in a baggy dress that fell nearly past her ankles under Mirabel’s ministrations.