Azania made sure to not trample any plants as she made her way through the forest undergrowth. Around her the Forest glowed in various shades of green. There was warm dark brown and cool dry brown and birch white nestled among the green. The Forest loam was soft and from it arose herbs, grasses, shrubs, saplings, and trees of all sizes as well as mushrooms and fungi. Soil edged along half-decomposed tree roots that were covered in moss. Between the trees she could see the sky as it stretched bright blue. 

It would be a lie to say she was at peace here. She still held onto the grief she felt of missing her friends, who were more like family. She felt so bad about leaving them, her heart was overcome with worry. But she knew they understood. This had been her chance to get free and Azania had taken it. She loved her friends. More than life she loved them. But she couldn't stand the rest of it all. She couldn't stand the demands of her masters, the way they looked at her, the way they talked to her, the way they yelled at her. She couldn't stand knowing that they were the people who took her away from her family. She couldn't stand it when they bragged about her to their friends as if she was a shiny thing that they bought. She couldn't stand the crippling loneliness of that big house that swallowed her whole. She couldn't stand the quietness that enveloped the nights or the constant, crippling pressure of work, work, work and more work that enveloped the days. She couldn't fucking stand it. She just couldn't. 

The adults in her life saw her as no-one, as nothing, as a shadow to be ordered around and used. And she hated it. It tore her up inside and left her screaming silently, drowning invisibly, bleeding in her mind and in her soul. But she was clever. She was good at lying. She was good at thinking outside of the box. She had a plan, a plan that took three long arduous years to accomplish. 

She pretended to be a perfect, meek, submissive, broken girl. She pretended to be emotionless and loyal and completely brainwashed. Until they trusted her. Until they trusted her completely. And then she took the money for buying groceries. And it was a lot of money. And smiled meekly and softly as she stepped outside the locked door - locked by a key she didn't have - to go to the store. And she bought a wooden snorkel with it, tied herself to a rock of carefully-measured weight, and threw herself in the River. She almost died. But she wouldn't have cared if she had died. This was the way to freedom. Eventually she felt the temperature of the water cool. That indicated that she was finally in the Forest. 

She kicked and swam until she found herself on shore. And it was the most beautiful place she had ever been in. Not beautiful like how a painting or a dress was beautiful. Beautiful like how the reflection of firelight in the mischief behind her friends' smiles were beautiful. Beautiful like how a gentle hand brushing over your own was beautiful. Beautiful like how a greeting embrace near the shared stairwell between different flats was beautiful. Beautiful like the songs she only half remembered and the stories she knew she must've once heard but now forgot. 

She cried. She cried like a lost child finally returning to the arms of their mother. She cried like a soldier coming back from a war. She cried like a farmer seeing rain clouds after a drought. She cried like a prisoner setting their first foot into freedom. She cried until the sky got dark and then she saw stars for the first time and she cried more. When the morning came she was cold, she was hungry, but she was free. She walked until she found a bush of berries. She hoped to the gods that they were edible. They were tasty and just a little bit sweet on her tongue so she assumed that they were. She gorged herself until her stomach hurt. She drank from a clear stream. She felt so light, so free, so calm. More than she ever had before. Yes her grief was still unimaginable, unbearable. But her joy was as well. 

She couldn't describe the way she ran with life and joy and beauty. It was the type of beauty that wasn't truely seen no. It was felt in her heart. The Forest held her like a mother. Like the mother she had had but barely remembered. The Forest held her like a lover. It hugged her like a child. It held her hand like a best friend. It flowed and moved and reached out all around her. She never knew it was possible to love a place before. She only thought you could love people. But she realized what it meant to love a place, to be loved by a place. Because in honesty you could only love what was alive. People were alive. And the Forest around her was alive. So very alive. It sang and hummed and shone and shadowed and moved and stood and flowed and danced with so much life. All in perfect harmony. As she couldn't help but be inspired, so inspired. 

She was still full of misery. Still full of grief. She was still beside herself with worry, with mind-numbing, crippling anxiety for her loved ones. But she was held more than she had ever been before. She was freer than she had ever been before. The Forest nurtured her, nourished her, soothed her, loved her, protected her, and wanted her like a mother and she couldn't even begin to process the emotions she was feeling right now. 

She though that maybe she should be scared. There might be predators here after all. She had no clothes, no weapons, no rope, no knowledge of survival. According to all logic she should die out here. But she didn't. She stumbled upon a berry patch every time she got hungry. She found clean, dry wood to make a fire as well as rocks to ring it and even spark rocks to start it. The stream was easy to follow. The day was neither too hot nor too cold. If she didn't know better she would say the the Forest was going out if it's way to protect her. She had always believed in magic. And now she did more than ever before. 

She found a warm patch of sunlight on soft dirt and curled up and went to sleep there like a cat. She woke up, stretched out, and moved to find the stream so that she could fill her cupped hands with the cool, clear water. 

Walking by the edge of the stream, she did however find a sight that brought fear into her. Pressed into the soft ground were the unmistakable tracks of a wolf. Well she thought they were at least, because they looked like a dog's tracks but much larger. They didn't scare her in and of themselves, no. They seemed like just another part of the Forest. But she knew what wolves were and she knew what they were capable of. And that scared her. Still she knew it would leave her well enough alone if she avoided it. She made her way the opposite direction as the tracks. The day was cooling down now, just marginally. She didn't feel like walking. She was overwhelmed. So once she put a bit of distance between herself and the wolf she lay down on a patch of dirt without any plants on it and she stared up at the sky. It was so bright, reaching up and up and up above her to who knows here. But not really. She couldn't describe what it was. Not at all. Even in her old life she could never describe the sky, never comprehend it. And she still couldn't. 

Maker, Azania spoke in her head, wherever you are, please keep my friends as safe as you can. Thank you for this. For all of this. I can see you in every piece of it. Thank you for holding me, Great Mother. Thank you for holding all of us who are suffering. I know you cannot take care of us in the way that you want to. I know that your reach only extends out so far. But I know you love us all and you always have and you always will and I thank you for it. I will keep your Land safe. I understand how it is a piece of you. Teach me how to care for your Land and how to respect it, protect it, and look after it. And I will. And please. How can I give back to you? You have protected me - no all of us - with your life and your blood and your tears and your joy and your rage and your pain and everything you have. And we must all take care of each other. I know. We are all a part of you. So how can I take care of your people? What should I do? I hurt so much. I long to go back and free my people. And I will. I know that the people are your people. All of us who live under the heel of suffering. I know that I swear to you that I will. But I do not yet know how. Give me strength. I have my freedom and with it I will give other people theirs. I swear it. 

Azania felt invigorated, now that she had a goal. She stood up and kept walking. 

Soon she heard a shrill cry, not unlike a newborn baby. Overcome with worry, she ran towards the source of the sound. She gasped at the sight. She hadn't been wrong. It was a newborn baby. Wrapped in the arms of a woman lying under a tree there was a newborn child, swaddled in a thin cotton cloth, crying. The woman's dress was soaked in blood. She was not moving. Holy fuck. Was she dead? Azania's heart thudded in her chest. So hard. Despite being surrounded by death in her old life, she had never seen death with her own eyes like this. When she cried they were not tears of joy, or mixed emotions, like they had been earlier that day. They were tears of pure, unshakable grief and sorrow. She knelt beside the child and mother, heart lead-heavy with sorrow. She touched a hand to her forehead, then her lips, then her chest, and then reached out to hover it over the mother, offering a silent prayer for her departed soul, so that she may finally be at peace and free now. Then she moved to quickly yet carefully pick up the baby, holding them softly in her arms. She cradled the baby girl - well they were probably a girl and she would just assume they were unless they said otherwise - in her arms and tried to get her to stop crying. But the baby continued crying. She quickly realized the baby was probably hungry. 

How would she feed the child? She had no idea. The child couldn't eat berries or roots or anything. The child needed milk. The child would die. She wouldn't be able to save her. The baby would die just as the mother had and she wouldn't be able to save her. No matter no no no fuck what would she do? She kneeled there, a newborn infant in her arms, panic racing like lightening through her heart. And she heard a haunting, piercing howl move through the air. 

The child stopped crying. The teenager whipped her head around to see what it was. There, standing only a yard away, was a wolf with silvery fur and pointed ears. The wolf looked at them, steadily, evenly. It was so much larger than she thought it would be. She could see how strong it was. How easily it could devour her if it wanted. And the child. She was very glad the baby had stopped crying. She held the child close to her and she didn't dare move. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, the wolf stalked closer to them. Azania didn't dare move. The baby looked at the wolf with big, round, ember-dark eyes. She didn't seem aware at all of the danger they were in but was rather mesmerized. 

The wolf was coming closer. It was coming closer. It was coming closer. Azania was frozen. She could not move. Soon enough the wolf was right beside them, its head just above their own. The wolf made no move to hurt them. Just silently nuzzled its nose into Azania's shoulder, then softly nuzzled the baby. So softly. The baby made a sweet gurgling noise at that. Azania was still afraid. Slowly the wolf stalked away, but only a couple of meters away, to a bush full of fat black berries. Azania watched it closely, with wary eyes. The wolf took a bundle of stalks in its mouth and pulled them off the bush. There were stems, leaves, and a dozen or so berries that came with. The wolf then walked over, with the berries in its mouth, to Azania and the child. Slowly it inched the berries nearer to Azania's face, until the leaves brushed her lips. And it waited there. She slowly, tentatively twisted her mouth around a berry and bit it off its stalk. It was ripe and full of juice. The wolf stayed until she ate all the berries. 

Azania cradled the baby close as the wolf slowly crouched down to nuzzle the child. The baby looked at the wolf and she cooed. She was so cute. She needed food. The The wolf nuzzled the baby again before lifting its eyes to meet Azania's for a moment. It lay down on its side and stayed there. Azania recognized this gesture from the way dogs at home would feed their pups. Was ... was the wolf offering to feed the baby? Azania did not fully understand what was happening but she was no longer afraid of the wolf. She didn't understand, but when she looked at the wolf she saw a strange, beautiful sort of power. Like lightening or a River rushing. She saw the sort of power and energy that permeated through the whole Forest, electrified and pulled into the form of the wolf before her. There was something deeply, fiercely protective about it. Something fiercely kind and nurturing, life-giving and loving. Nature was strange. The Maker was strange. Everything was. Azania was no longer scared anymore. She didn't understand. But she did feel in her heart that this was where she was meant to be. This was what she was meant to trust. She laid the baby next to the wolf and held her as she drank. This was so strange. But it was what was happening. Once the baby was full, and burped, she held her close and moved to stand up. The wolf stood up with her, and trotted a few step ahead of her. 

She followed it through the undergrowth, through the maze of green. And she thought to herself that this must be some strange gift from the Maker. Well, who was she to turn down a gift? Especially when - when the baby needed it. Hmm? What should she call the baby? She did not know. She knew names should mean something. That they should be significant. She knew the child was her salvation. Her pathway to her destiny, whatever it was supposed to be. The baby was beautiful. She had huge, piercing eyes and warm skin the colour of wood right on the verge of catching fire. She had a small button nose and soft little lips and fingers that were so so so tiny. She had her destiny spread out before her. All the rest of her life. She was free. And Azania would make sure she stayed that way. Azania would free everyone she could. 

Around her the Forest glowed like a haven as she walked carefully, making sure to keep the baby properly supported. The wolf walked slowly, keeping pace with her. The ground was uneven, but it was glorious. 

Soon enough they got to a place near the crest of a small hill, where where were about other adult wolves, and four pups. They were sharing meat and they all turned to look at Azania before they all came and nuzzled her. She moved to sit down and they nuzzled the baby as well. 

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