The first thing he felt was the itch of dust against his cheek. The second was the throbbing ache in his arms and legs.
When he opened his eyes, the blinding morning sun made him squint. He was lying on the side of a dirt road, with short grass growing unevenly at its edges. His clothes were torn, his skin marked with scrapes and shallow cuts, and the faint metallic taste of dried blood lingered in his mouth. The air smelled fresher than it had in days—no damp moss, no rotting leaves, no stench of wet fur.
Red: "Finally! Fresh air. I thought I'd suffocate in that forest." Blue: "You don't even breathe." Red: "It's the principle of it!" Yellow: "It's the sound of the wind, idiot. Makes you think you can breathe."
He groaned, sitting up slowly. "Where are we?" he asked, already starting to think of the systems as part of himself.
Yellow's voice was calm. "We are outside the forest. Near a village."
The memories of last night's chaos trickled back—the leader's furious eyes, the fight, the golden-maned white horse, the crowd of lalis surrounding him… then nothing. "How did we escape from there?"
Blue, speaking softly, answered. "The foal was with the white horse. Probably its mother. A group of lalis carried you here."
He rubbed his head. "Carried me…? And just left me on the road?"
Red snorted. "What did you expect, a bed and breakfast?"
He pushed himself to his feet, swaying for a moment before steadying. The road stretched ahead toward a cluster of rooftops in the distance. Beyond them, green paddy fields rippled in the breeze. The forest loomed far behind him like a dark wall.
Yellow: "We should move. You're still in bad shape, but you need food and water." Red: "And a bath. You stink." Blue: "Seconded."
He ignored them and started walking toward the village.
The closer he got, the clearer the signs of human life became—wooden fences patched with rope, a pair of oxen pulling a creaking cart, children running barefoot through the grass. Chickens scratched the ground near a well in the center. The houses were small, single-story, their walls made of sun-dried brick with timber frames. Thin trails of smoke curled from thatched roofs.
A couple of villagers stopped their work to watch him approach. He was dirty, scraped, and clearly not from around here. He hesitated at the edge of the well, unsure what to say. His throat was dry enough to make speaking painful.
An older woman, her sleeves rolled up and hair streaked with gray, stepped forward. "You look half-dead, boy. Come here and sit under the shade before you fall over."
She handed him a wooden cup of water drawn from the well. He drank greedily, feeling life seep back into his limbs.
"Where did you come from?" she asked, frowning.
He hesitated, then replied, "My friends… they bullied me and threw me into the forest." His voice was hoarse, but the lie slipped out smoothly enough. "I've been walking for days."
She motioned to a bench under the shade of a mulberry tree, and soon a younger man brought a bowl of steaming millet porridge.
"I don't have much to give…" he muttered, then remembered the weight in his pocket. He pulled out several gold coins from the hunter leader's bag—the lalis must have left it with him. The coins gleamed in the sunlight.
The villagers' eyes widened, but no one made a grab for them. The old woman pushed his hand back gently. "No need to pay anything."
He did as told. The porridge was plain but warm, the best thing he'd tasted in days. As he ate, the younger man sat beside him. "You're lucky to be alive. That forest's dangerous."
Swallowing, he replied, "I need to get back to the capital." Memories of the forest flashed—close calls, near death, the suffocating dark. He'd barely escaped.
The man nodded. "There's a town half a day's walk from here. Big enough to have merchant caravans going to the capital. Fifty kilometers, maybe less."
He did a quick calculation in his head—it would be faster by horse or cart. "Can I hire one here?" he asked aloud.
"Not in this village," the man replied. "We barely have enough animals for our own work. But in the town, yes."
Red, who had been unusually quiet, suddenly piped up. "Half a day's walk! That's so much better than tripping over roots in the dark while some giant spider tries to make you dinner."
Blue sighed. "You exaggerate everything."
"I do not! That last night—""Shut up," Yellow cut in. "Let him eat in peace."
He finished the last of the porridge and set the bowl down. He thanked the old woman and placed two of the gold coins on the bench. She tried to refuse, but he insisted. Finally, she took one and slipped it into her apron.
Before leaving, he refilled the wooden cup and drank again. The systems floated close.
As he walked out of the village, he glanced back once. The people had already returned to their work—repairing fences, tending anaimals, drawing water. Life here seemed simple, untouched by the chaos of the capital and forest.
The dirt road stretched ahead toward the horizon. His injuries ached, but they no longer slowed him much. Red started humming some nonsense tune about "freedom" and "fresh breezes, good for fire," earning groans from Yellow and Blue.
He didn't mind. For the first time in days, the air didn't smell like danger.
He thought about his mother. He was not the Gana they knew—he was the Gana from Earth. An orphan there, and now, here, he had a family waiting. He felt a flicker of excitement. What would I say when he returned? That the idiot prince had suddenly stopped being an idiot? That he'd fought and killed a man?
No. He'd keep it simple. He'd tell her he was better now, in mind if not yet in body. He pictured her face—surprised, maybe even hopeful. His sister's too.
And with that thought warming him more than the sun on his back, he kept walking toward the distant town.