All I could hear was the pouring rain around me, luckily the shield I had up kept it off me, but it was nevertheless cold enough that my breath was more than just fogging, I could almost feel frost forming against my skin as the fog rolled along my cheeks. There weren’t any people around me sese I was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, just endless forestry to either side of me and a bottomless night sky above past the thick dark cover of the rain clouds. In the past few hours, maybe four-five cars have passed by me, but there was no chance they would have been able to see me because of how far off the shoulder I was walking and the various spells I have casted on my person.

              I breathed into my hands as I wrapped my threadbare coat around me tighter, shivering intensely in my too thin of clothing for this kind of weather. My hoofs clacked on the wet stone and asphalt, all I could do was keep moving. I don’t have anywhere I could possibly go, nobody was missing me or looking for me, there was…nothing I had to my name that I wasn’t carrying on my person. I could see a haze of light at the horizon line ahead of me, probably a small town of some kind or something along those lines, which if I was lucky, there would be a building that with my magic and abilities, I’d be able to hide out in for the night, dry out my clothing and clean myself up a bit before heading out again. It’s usually libraries I find myself hiding out in, they let the homeless in during daylight hours, so I’ll spend from opening to close reading so they couldn’t kick me out, use the bathrooms to clean myself up, maybe sleep in one of the study rooms, but I’ll usually leave, make myself invisible to duck back into the building so I sleep the rest of the night indoors for once.

              It was a very, very small town I stumbled across, if I had to guess, it took me maybe ten minutes to walk from one end to the other end of the town, most likely a farming community or maybe logging because of all the forestry, but luckily there was in fact a library, however because it was probably close to three in the morning or so, long sense locked up. As I walked up to the door, I dropped the invisibility spell I had on and brought up a spell that I instead could just dip into the ethereal plane for a second or two, walk forward and come back to the material plane on the other side of the doors. There was no chance of a security system with this kind of building, I’ve those kinds of mistakes before and accidently set off an alarm or two, so I’ve learned to be able to pick up on how large a building has to be to have a form of security, this was way too small to have one. I can also see in the dark fairly well, so I didn’t need to cast any spells or something to be able to see.

              I made my way to the bathroom of the building which was nothing more than one of those public bathrooms with the one door you lock and it opens into a standard bathroom like room; all white tiles on the floor and halfway up the wall, but…it was clean. I set my bag on the floor as I casted cantrip after cantrip prestidigitation to completely clean myself up and dry out my clothing before I started doing the other things I needed to do to keep myself clean and out of that downpour. It…it is probably a lot easier to be homeless when you have magic like myself, I mean…I even have a degree from Paradise Academy and all, but…there was no chances of me returning to where I’m from when I graduated. So, I just started walking and never stopped.

              I can cast some spells that would make it easier to be out in the wilderness, like the tiny hut spell or, I even know the mansion spell, but the tiny hut spell at most keeps you out of the weather which what I use most commonly, the mansion spell needs a component to cast that has to cast at least $1000, which…I’d never had the ability to get. When I find myself in magical locations, I will busk and do things like that, put my bardic magic degree to use, but a good night of performing at most will get me 30-50 dollars, most of which I’ll spend on necessities or something I can use over and over again. I’ll sometimes crash in magical homeless shelters, but they are all so focused on getting you more than on your feet that I find it relatively uncomfortable to be in them for more than a night because they’ll start asking questions about what your degree from Paradise or one of the other schools is and you’ll wake up to a stack of job applications or apartment listings or…anything like that, they’re aggressive with trying to get people off the street. I’ve just never found somewhere I am comfortable enough to give that a passing moment of thought.

              I sneezed loudly as I wrung out and dried off my hair before I casted a few spells on my hair to clean it up and dry it out, I ran my claws through it while rifling through my bag with my tail before I grabbed my hairbrush and ran it through the mess of knots my hair was then as usual, braided it back as tightly as I could to keep it out of my face and keep it in a way where someone couldn’t grab it and keep me in place by it, though…the tail and horns give them more than a few handholds to try to do that.

              The library also had one or two vending machines which were off because of the time of day, but there was still stuff in them, which I could use the mage hand cantrip to slip into the slot and into the machine to get stuff out of it, I’d just feed the change in the machine, but most of the quarters I’d keep sense those are a little more practical to keep on me, so wildly wrong payment, but…I was still leaving something. I found the most cushy corner of the building as I put my bag down and collapsed on the floor, curling up with my arms around my knees as I shivered in the cold of the building, but more than happy to be out of the rain for the night. I was exhausted, so sleep was something that came easily to me, but…even in this kind of place, I cannot get a proper night’s sleep, I’ll always be sleeping with a metaphorical eye open. I’ve woken up to someone or some sort of animal going through my stuff despite the fact I’m using it as a pillow, so…I’m a very light sleeper, but sleep came, it also went and as usual, I was waking up every other hour of sleep I got which I was used to. I still couldn’t stop myself from wanting nothing more, than to be able to get a proper night’s sleep, a proper bed, a proper meal…just a night off the streets where I could feel like a person again and not like the disgusting beast the people from whence I came believed me to be. The last day I ever felt like a person would have been the day of my graduation…and that was going on three years ago, after the ceremony, I packed my things and just walked out of the pocket dimension and I’ve never stopped sense.