Tinea woke to the blinding light of the sun reflecting off of the snow through the window. It was probably midmorning, and she felt like she had been run through a blender. With a groan, she threw her arm over her eyes.

Was that really Delfina last night? It certainly felt real. She had heard if an Oracle spied on someone too much, the target saw them in their dreams. Whether it was really them was up to interpretation, and she had no way of confirming right now. She was miles away from any form of research. If only she had done the spell right. Now she was stranded miles from anywhere, with no provisions, no sword, no nothing. She knew how to live off the land, thanks to her mother, but she was more than a little terrified that she would die up here and regress yet again. See her mother die yet again. Live out a life like this yet again.

She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to do it at all. It all felt so incredibly pointless.

She was just going to assume that was really Delfina, and never once had she broken a promise. No. No, she had to get back to eat her alive. That was what she was going to do. Screw the magic tower, screw running away from Delfina. She realized what Delfina had done to her… One lifetime of eating her alive was not enough. She needed to do it one more time to make it fair. One more time, she would kill Delfina, and then maybe she would call for a ceasefire. See if Delfina could be reasoned with.

She didn’t think Delfina could be reasoned with. The girl had clearly lost her mind with her visions. She seemed to be under the impression that this was a book or something, but Tinea was pretty damn sure this was the real life. There was no reasoning with that. Tinea didn’t have the tools, the ability. No, it was better to just straight up kill her again and again until she got the lesson hammered in and left Tinea alone.

With a sigh, she sat up. If she was going to be here, she might as well burn through her magic and  try to reach the fifth ring. It was going to be a long day.

She got her cloak and gloves on, and then she headed out the door. The meat was still drying, so she ignored that in favor of marching past it. She needed to kill a creature to eat. Most of them were hibernating, so she wouldn’t see too many of them, but she needed to---

The butterflies were back, and she remembered that they were the symbol of the Oracle. Was this Delfina? Again? Was she still insisting on harassing Tinea? Annoyance struck, and she waved her hand, shooing them away, but they just split and converged on her again. Her breath frosted in the air, and she turned and shouted into the air.

“Haven’t you already learned your lesson?” she demanded, and there was silence. Of course Delfina wouldn’t respond. Why would she? Tinea felt like she was going crazy, too.

Delfina probably had a vested interest in keeping Tinea alive long enough to get back to her little ‘story’. Objectively, Tinea should listen to her, but she was not going to do that. She was absolutely not going to do that. Annoyance bubbled up in a wave, and Tinea trudged through the snow, her breath frosting before her. She needed to find a clearing to practice her magic without reservations. It was freezing cold, and she needed to eat first, find a creature to kill and kill it. There were no other options. Her meat wasn’t dry yet. It would take some time before it fully dried out.

She kicked through the snow as the butterflies fluttered around her insistently, trying to draw her off, to the left, but she ignored them as she let sparkles fizzle on her fingers, a nervous tic at this point. She slid through a snow bank, the snow falling around her, and then she got on her feet and let the sparkles fire up again. She missed her moths. They would make everything so much easier. She could defeat anything with her moths, and damn the gods for preventing her access to them. She was probably not going to survive up here.

Her breath frosted in the air and she reflected that at least she had her magic. Small mercies.

Tinea kicked through the snow, huffing and puffing, not sure of where she was going. Food was in order first. Her stomach was growling, and her feet hurt from yesterday and all of the hiking. In fact, every muscle in her body hurt, but she needed to eat. She could not afford to quit now.

The sparkles fizzled in her hand, and she continued on, her breath frosting the air before her. She didn’t know the first thing about tanning a hide, but she was sure she could figure it out. She had the furs left behind in the cabin, so maybe she could figure out how to line the insides of her boots with them, because her feet were freezing cold.

She was just cold in general. This was miserable. How did she fuck up something as simple as a teleportation spell?

The butterflies were still fluttering around her, trying to draw her off, and she wondered what Delfina’s personality was in that she couldn’t just quit. Tinea had never really gotten the chance to know her. There was something similar to banging your head against a brick wall. Tinea did not know what she hoped to accomplish with following the plot of a book, but if she had done it this many times while still missing the desired outcome, then maybe one would have thought she’d try something else.

But, no.

No.

She just did it again and again and ended up right back here, and Tinea was frustrated with her stubborn bullheadedness. Of course she would send her butterflies after Tinea after that outburst. Of course she would. Why wouldn’t she? It was what it was. Tinea wasn’t going to understand her, so why even try? Really, she could accomplish so much with that hardheadedness. She could change the world with her power and the ability to look at a brick wall and say ‘I can break that with my head’. But, no. No, she was going to do this instead. Murder some random noble girl with a fiance that really, really wasn’t worth fighting over on three separate occasions, because now Tinea was counting the first time just to be spiteful.

At least she didn’t have to deal with Adrius, too.

Small mercies.

There was a clearing ahead, and in the clearing was a massive shape. Tinea slowed to a halt as the butterflies fluttered more insistently around her, spinning round and round in a panic, and stared.

There was a wyvern eating the remains of a boar in the middle of the clearing.

Tinea froze, barely breathing. It was massive, with great red wings and a yawning maw, and she shook in place as she tried to process this. The butterflies swirled around her, and she swallowed despite herself. This was…

She needed to run, she realized as the sun gleamed off the scales on its back. It hadn’t noticed her yet, and she took a careful step back. Her boots crunched in the snow, and the wyvern looked up.

Their eyes met. There was no intelligence in its soulless gaze, simply hunger. It licked its bloody lips, and then it turned to her. She lifted one shaking hand, feeling like her bladder was particularly full, and braced in the snow. The wyvern tilted its head, and then it let out a roar.

She could smell its bloody breath from here. It smelled of entrails and its previous feast, and she screamed as she launched magic bullet. It whizzed through the air and struck the wyvern’s hide, glancing off of it, and then she turned and ran. The wyvern took flight, soaring over her head, its shadow cast over her body, and she launched off another magic bullet at its stomach. It glanced off of it, and she let out a scream as she tumbled in the snow.

The butterflies were fluttering around her, and she remembered the cave. She needed to get to the cave, as soon as possible. She could hold her ground there, and---

The wyvern dove, and she screamed as it snatched her up. On instinct, she drew the knife in her boot and plunged it into the wyvern’s clawed hand wrapped around her shoulders, and it let out a scream of pain and dropped her. She fell, fell, fell, barely managing to cast feather fall in time to catch her, and she disappeared into a drift, the snow slowing her fall as she made a hole in it, going down, down, down, with no end in sight before she hit the hard ground.

Wyverns had bad eyesight, and the snow had completely covered her in her fall. She waited, breathless, the snow freezing cold on her clothes, making her shiver and shake. They hunted by sound, so she pressed her hands to her mouth to ensure not even a whimper escaped. She was terrified. She wanted to go home. She had never longed for her father’s house, but she longed for it now.

Tinea squeezed her eyes shut tight and failed to breathe. It was all caught up in her lungs, in her heart, and she didn’t make a sound. She could hear the flap of the predator’s wings as it searched for her, casting about for sight of her, and she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if that would prevent the inevitable.

She shouldn’t have run, she realized. She should not have run, and now that she had, she had to contend with the consequences. She needed to get back to the cabin.

The wyvern let out a frustrated screech, and she listened to the sound of its wings fading away, back to the clearing where its spoils were waiting.

Safe.

She was safe.

She needed to… she needed to listen to Delfina, she realized.

She needed to listen to Delfina.

A/N: sorry i disappeared there for a second. i could not stop thinking about these two, but for some weird reason, i couldn't write. anyways.