//Author Note// I strongly suggest you read my other webnovel, sister to this one, 'Bloody Æther' //End Note//

The hunt for food is never ending, my stomach is a pot that will never be filled for more than half a day. So, every passing moment I invest myself into the hunt, and when I’m too full to eat, I focus on refining myself. Tomorrow I’ll be hungry again, and if I can be just a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, then maybe it’ll be that much easier to find my next meal.

Seasons flow by, as they tend to do, and I grow bigger and stronger for each passing day.

“Syr. Syr is hungry.” I repeat my name, it used to feel silly to say it like this. No one in the village used to talk this way, using their own names, but that was because they had others to remind them of who they were.

I haven’t heard a voice, a real voice, in such a long time but I don’t want to forget how to speak. I don’t want to forget my own name.

Even if it takes years, I will find my way back home again, and I’ll need to know how to think and reason like a person does.

With every moment I can spare, I remind myself of what it was like in the village but the memories are more faint with each passing of winter. My own mother’s face is illuding me, I can’t remember where the town elders used to live, or what my uncle’s name was.

“Syr will remember,” I whisper to myself.

Even if I sound silly, I need to keep my mind strong.

“Breakfast,” I mumble the word so that I don’t forget it.

Winter’s cold touch still lingers on the stones around me and hangs in the air that I breathe, but even so, I push myself out from under my furs. I stir some flames from the æther that runs through me and heat my cooking stone.

The flat stone is slow to absorb the warmth of my meagre flames, but I wait patiently spreading the flames around in small circles, slowly the heat seeps into the stone and spreads throughout my small shelter. When the stone is hot enough, I release the flames and lay out my breakfast.

Old meats soon to go bad, sizzle on the stone right beside some eggs that I stole from a nest just yesterday. A few stray roots and beats add colour to the meal, they were buried under the melting snow; I was lucky to find them.

Back in the village, we’d only ever eaten fruits and vegetables; I don’t know why. However, out here, I eat anything that I can find or catch. After eating the cat’s guts that first time, White taught me that eating nothing but reeds and berries was what made me sick.

No amount of searching led me to the fruits or vegetables I remember growing in my old village.

I learned to cook my meats early on, about the time that I found out that bugs aren’t so bad as long as you chew them properly so that they can’t crawl around in your throat. More recently I’ve taken to mashing the insects into a paste and disguising them amongst my other foods.

 Most importantly, I’ve learned to cherish fruit and vegetables. I’ve taken to finding as many different sorts as I can because they’re the only foods that don’t fight back.

I pull the cooked food from the hot stone, burning my fingers a little. The pain isn’t so bad, I’m getting used to it.

The tough meat fights against me but I manage to chew it down before chasing it down with the seared vegetables, my stomach stops growling but I keep eating. The eggs I scrape off with a sharp stone and gulp down before they can get cold.

Today I had enough food around to eat, but if I don’t hunt, then I’ll have nothing for tomorrow.

The angry, red burns on my fingers throb painfully. I’ve hurt them pretty badly this time, but that’s largely the point. I’ve been trying to toughen myself against the pain and sharpen my healing magics as well. I know that I have more æther veins now than before, but it’s not like I can count them to see how much stronger I am.

Weaving the æther flow through my wounds, I focus hard on the particular nature of healing and where it is that I need the most effect. It is a gruelling task, and the pain itself is a constant distraction, but every season I get a little better at it.

The burns fade quickly but the stinging remains even after I withdraw the magical flow. I’m still not all that good at healing, it takes me far more effort than it ever would have for my mother, but this is the only way I can learn and improve.

Healing is the thing that I’m worst at.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time over these past years enhancing everything I can with my strengthening magic.

I’ve been near to death so many times now, all while knowing of a magic or skill that could have saved me all the pain. I don’t want to be in that situation again.

Regretfully, I recall my time in the village, as children we were all exposed to the many different forms of magic that we could learn. It was important to the adults that we could use magic well, but I’d never really tried as hard as I could have. I was stupid, always playing around and not paying attention to what mattered.

Now I’m alone.

I’ve been focusing on my necromancy, whenever I have the chance. Mother always told me never to use it, but I don’t have a choice anymore. Everyone out here in the wild uses everything they have to survive, every tooth and claw has been wet with blood, and I’m not so stupid as to surrender one of mine, even if it was mother’s wish.

As my skill with necromancy has grown in the passing seasons, I have been able to keep my companions’ flesh from rotting away. While I’m far from being able to heal them as with a living body, at least now my friends are no longer doomed to a short life.

My last friend, Sera was sadly too badly beaten for me to save. Small rodent as she was, she was eventually consuming so much of my æther just to stay with me that when one night I lost my focus, she slipped away from me.

I cried even though dad told me I shouldn’t.

I need a new friend.

I need to build my own pack, just like the wolven do.

For a successful hunt, to strengthen my necromancy, and for the company.

It’s lonely being alone.

“Syr will find someone,” I say, pulling myself outside and facing the open plains. “Syr will hunt a friend.”

I’m still not as swift and quiet as the black cats are, not as fierce as the great bears, and I’m not as smart as the wolven. I’m still too weak.

I hunt through the morning, watching the plains around me, travelling up among the lower parts of the mountains where the trees are scarce, as I look for someone who I might befriend.

It is as the sun begins its descent that I see her. ‘Midnight’ I know her name at first sight. A large black cat, standing only a little shorter than I. She’s certainly someone I can befriend and would do well to aid me in my hunts.

I can’t hurt her too much, though. I need to choke her or bleed her out with a few small strikes.

She sees me at almost the same moment as I see her. Her pale purple eyes glow with hunger as she nears me, glaring with such ferocity that she has me frozen.

No.

It is not the ferocity of it.

I can feel it through my æther flow, settling deep in my heart. It’s magic. Her eyes never leave me, and never let me leave.

I’m paralysed.

Or so it is meant to be. I’m not so weak as I was before.

I force my æther flow to reinforce my body yet again, breaking from her power. Still, I’m left tired and heavy from the weight of her attention.

The great black cat nears me, but I remain frozen, waiting for her to draw closer still. I’m weak, I need every strength that I can steal, every surprise, every blade, and tool, and magic.

I wait, and wait… her steady eyes locked on me and her magic never fading. She is as I am when I wrap my hands around a bunny’s neck, she knows the hunt is over.

This will end in a single strike, win or lose.

She’s done waiting, and with too much confidence, she leaps at me.

Now.

I push my strengthening to its limits, sharpen my hand and step to the side, letting the beast leap right by. Without waiting a moment, I dive into her, grabbing at her fur and pulling myself on top of her.

Riding on her back, I wrap my arms around her neck and thrust my fingers into her throat, reaching for where the blood flows. The cat is quick to throw me off but still too slow to save herself. She glares, with her shining lilac eyes drowning in despair, and hatred, and the same want to live.

The same desperate want to live that burns in my own eyes.

In moments, she’s dead.

In moments more, she’s mine.

Midnight raises her head and rubs her cheek on me in affection.

“Ewww, you’re still bloody,” I tell her, laughing at just how silly this all is, but I hug her back anyway. She’s still warm from lingering life and she’s here with me.

I check on the æther burn in my veins, waiting for it to get worse, but it doesn’t.

I’m strong enough.

Midnight can stay with me.

I won’t lose her, like the others.

“Thank you, Midnight.” I smile and pull her closer, “Do you want to go hunting?”

She purrs lightly as I stand, my hand still resting on her head as I walk home. I might not have anything to eat tonight, but I can hunt again tomorrow.

~  ~ ~ ~ ~

We pound across the summer plain, chasing deer that leap into the sky, Midnight falling to the ground without so much as hair between her teeth.

“Good try!” I call out in support, rushing out to join her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Grrrr.

She snaps at a bird that has not yet noticed her, but quick as a dart the bird flies away. Midnight can only ever remember hunting with her magic, but as my friend, she can’t use magic of her own, so we’re learning how to hunt with what we have.

Still, she’s happy that she’s not alone anymore.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Winter comes again, and I’m hungry. Our hunts haven’t been going very well, but my stomach doesn’t accept that excuse. Midnight goes and pulls out some of the meat that I buried outside. The cold doesn’t affect her as much.

“Thank you, Midnight.”

I don’t think I’d make it through the winter without her company.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We play among the blossoming flowers of the open plain. Tossing each other about and rolling through the pretty flowers.

I can feel the wolven watching from a distance, but they don’t approach. They rarely ever do.

White saved me, but there’s a distance between us that I’m not sure I can cross.

Under the warm sunlight, I hold Midnight’s cold body close, clutching at my only friend.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Midnight, my most long-lived friend has now been with me for the last five winters of the eight that I’ve been here, and she is still yet to rot away or to become as ash, faithfully staying by my side.

Each day I’ve exhausted myself magically, barely keeping myself from burning out and maintaining Midnight with the last trickles. All this so that my necromancy would keep her with me; so that my body strengthening could save me from injury and my healing fix what I can’t avoid; all so that I might be strong enough to find my home.

Crawling to the exit of my small shelter, I look down at the old, rusted sword that I’ve left leaning against the wall. Rust has taken it almost entirely now, but I still remember that cold winter day fighting the great bear alongside the wolven.

I’ve survived.

I’ve become strong.

Summoning Midnight to my side, I arm myself with a massive, wooden club, something so heavy that even with all my body strengthening active I can barely swing it.

Resting it on my shoulder, I gaze about the early morning plain searching for prey. I have a plan to get back home, but for that to work, I need an offering for the wolven. I’m not passing through their territory without being polite, and mom and dad would always offer the neighbours food when we visited.

A dead dear would do best, mom and dad would have used something else, but they’re gone. And they hated the wolven.

I’ve taken deer down before, but it’s all about luck. If I can’t get the jump on them, they’ll prance away on the treetops.

Just past the little creek, running by my shelter, a small group of the deer graze on the tufts of long, sour grass growing by the water. I still don’t know how they eat that stuff, it made me sick the last time I tried it.

We’ll be a little exposed, trying to sneak up on them, but there’s a chance.

Today’s a lucky day.

“Midnight, they look juicy, don’t they?” I whisper the question, while she rubs up against me.

She responds with a little purr before lowering down and sneaking around the back of the herd. Her black form hugs the earth, easily circling the deer without them noticing.

These deer have the strangest magical ability; with the smallest of steps, they can leap into the skies, prancing along the treetops as if they’re light as a feather. If they’re startled, there’s no chance of me catching them.

Readying my club, I set my feet into the dirt and strengthen my body for a forward sprint.

“Midnight. You can do this,” I whisper to her, pushing her to leap forwards into the herd. In a shockingly quick moment, the herd has taken flight, but Midnight has done incredibly, landing atop one of the deer and forcing it back down with her added weight.

Sprinting forwards with all my æther-driven might, I throw all of my momentum into my club and dive at the deer. With all my weight and strength combined, I smash straight into the neck of the beast, half knocking the head off with the tremendous force behind the blunt stick.

Our prey falls to the ground, twitching but dead.

 “Good job, Midnight!” I celebrate, running over to pet her as she proudly strides right up to me, pressing herself into me. “We did it.”

I let myself smile, as we look down over our prey.

We spend the next few hours moving the body to the snow pile I’d built up by the side of my shelter. Then, exhausted, we gaze out over the horizon enjoying the peace.

Something catches my eye before I have the chance to fully relax. A small group of crows has begun circling nearby, it is a sign I’ve quickly come to recognise out here in the wilds.

It means a potential friend is waiting for me.

“Let’s check it out.”

Midnight ‘meows’ a weak response and we race off to the scene. We run at full speed knowing how quickly flesh disappears into hungry stomachs, I don’t want to miss a chance like this.

Crossing over the hill to where the crows feast, we see the hulking body covered in crimson-streaked fur.

A great bear.

“Gnome.”