Rain flinched as the end of his step ended with a crunch of snow. When he was fully recovered, he had made his way out of the lair of the Guardian. He had a goal. He needed to be able to feed himself.


    To that end, he roamed the mountainous terrain in search of a few different small animals. Some, he had known; others, the Guardian had shown him in his mind, complete with some of their habits and natural tendencies towards hiding spots.


    Attached to the loops on his belt and back were a simple set of sharpened sticks. He had lost most of his combat blades in what seemed a long while ago. He still had the smaller hunting knife, which would still do in a pinch, but not significantly better.


    Besides, anything Rane encountered on this day that could not be killed with sharp sticks would more likely be hunting Rane than the other way around.


    He shook his head and focused around himself. He was not moving the surrounding ambient at all, and yet, he could control it still. It was a strange sensation. How could one be in control of a river without ever redirecting its flow? Apparently, the answer had been time, power, mastery, skill, and ultimately, the mental acceptance that he did not actually have to redirect anything in order for it to work.


    It was such a strange concept to him that he was sure that, despite some of his original thoughts on his training, he could have never learned to work with ambient this way from the start. There were steps that must be taken. He wondered also what other steps existed. It was equal parts fascinating and frustrating.


    He felt out across his area of direct control, looking for anything, tracks, burrows, or even droppings, any sign that something edible was in the area. Eventually, he found his sign.


    There were some droppings near the base of one of the threadbare trees that grew on this section of the mountain. From the rising steam, he knew that they were still warm. It had to be close.


    He quickly located its tracks, and began his task, thinking it ironic that something so mundane could be so difficult when outside of the civilization of The Empire.


    He leapt from bare rock to crunching snow, trying to make as little noise as possible, but not always succeeding. It only mattered that he did not startle the creature from far away. A forest was rarely silent. On this morning in particular, he could hear some strange birds making noises that sounded as if they were choking on their own long throats, and heard the chittering of a few rodent creatures that made no lack of noise as they sailed from treetop to treetop as if they could truly fly. At most, it could be described as falling with style.


    His boot stamped through a small layer of snow with a muted poof, and he sensed it at the edge of his control. It was a buck rabbit. Rane’s mouth may have started watering if it hadn’t been so dry. He had lost his waterskin, and found that such items were actually much more complex to make than he would have thought.


    Rane crept closer, not moving a single iota of ambient out of place as he moved, getting close enough to where his aura could be surrounding the small animal.


    When he deemed himself close enough, he lowered his head in concentration and steadied his breathing. He felt the bodies of three trees, one of which shielded him from the view of the buck rabbit. He felt the dried leaves from the last fall season layered over the rocky soil of the mountain, giving it many shades of brown and black on top of its gray surface. He felt a few insects crawling through the mildewing debris, though slowed as they were by the morning chill. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    He felt the loose stones that covered the ground, and began his deadly task as the ambient noise of the woods around him continued. One, two, three stones, all behind the rabbit and outside of its massive field of vision began to rise, tumbling slightly as they shifted into the air, as if unwilling to go against their immobile nature.


    The stones began to tumble with more speed. Then, with a near imperceptible shift, one of the stones shot forward towards the small creature, which to no surprise, twitched an ear and shifted its body, avoiding having the projectile strike at the base of its skull, instead hitting it in the shoulder.


    It let out a shrill cry, but as it tried to bound away, the second and third projectile had already begun moving forward with great pace, one striking an antler, the other finding purchase in its eye, penetrating deeply and killing the creature instantly.


    It was all Rane could do not to leap into the air and shout. He did not, though. This success had only proven him to be a strong enough predator to hunt the weakest of prey in the forest. With a shudder, he thought of the strange serpent that chased him here. In the grand scheme of things, there were much greater predators.


    And The Guardian would do nothing to cull them, either. They were of no threat to his rule, and simply a part of the ecosystem here in the Great Wood. Perhaps the creature viewed some of them as delicacies.


    It was a sobering thought, that a creature from which Rane could only run and hide could be viewed as no more than an exquisite meal by something.


    Nevertheless, Rane was ready now. With this skill mastered, though he would not blaze a trail through the Great Wood and back home, he could slowly navigate a long way around back into the territory of The Empire. Back home.


    Rane walked forward, slightly less caring about his footfalls now that the buck rabbit would no longer be hearing them. As long as he did nothing foolish, he should not attract any unwanted attention. He bent down to pick up the creature by one of its antlers. It was already producing a pungent scent of blood and viscera. He would need to make his way back to the lair of The Guardian soon to skin and clean it.


    He retraced his steps, only walking for a little under a half hour before arriving back to be a guest in the strange cave. It did not seem that his host was here currently, but Rane could never really be certain. It had shown no proclivities for hiding, but it seemed unwise to assume that it could not do it.


    Rane found a spot to sit near the storeroom and got to work. He had some skins and a small basin of water to assist with his cleaning, but this close to the storeroom, he did not think that the smell of entrails would change much about the odor of the place.


    He dug his knife first into the neck of the creature, drawing a circle around its head to begin flaying its pelt away from its flesh. The knife was a bit dull, and Rane remembered something from what seemed like a lifetime ago, when he was sparring against Bask in what proved to be fatal, despite their dulled weapons.


    Rane focused, took a breath, and pulled from the memory of what he had done. He knew what made something sharp. It was not a difficult concept. The thinner something is at its edge, the sharper it is, and so he focused on that concept, willing his blade to take on those qualities, then continued his task with less difficulty than before, tracing down its sternum and stomach, careful not to press too deeply into the guts.


    Intestines and other organs bulged from the opening, which he widened before reaching in to pull them out of the small creature, carefully cutting them away before discarding them on one of the skins to his side.


    He traced down each leg, and then circled each of them with the blade as well, then got to work on peeling away the pelt.


    Soon, he was finished, looking at what no longer looked like a rabbit, but more like what one would see in a butcher''s shop. His hands were bloodied and despite his previous thoughts, the smell was definitely worse than before. He would need to clean up a bit more thoroughly. He did not know if The Guardian had a sensitive nose, but it would likely be impolite to wait around and find out.


    Now, how would he cook this small bounty? He thought of his mother briefly, but banished the thought. He could not dwell on something that would diminish his mental clarity. She would think him dead; he knew this. He simply hoped that she would still be there for him when he found his way back, for what greater horror could there be than returning from a journey of a thousand miles to find that you have lost your home.