The forest pressed close around her, damp earth heavy with the scent of moss and rain. Lytavis shifted her satchel higher on her shoulder, bow in hand, and drew a steadying breath. She had been dropped at the edge of the wild with no warning, no supplies but her wits. This was the test.
And yet, as she adjusted the strap, her fingers brushed something that hadn't been there before—the cool, secret weight of steel. Illidan's dagger. A gift slipped unseen into her satchel. Not charity, not cheating. Just… an edge.
She smiled faintly, slipping it into her belt.
The first night came hard. She set snares clumsily at first, fingers stiff, then sharper as instinct took over. By dusk she had caught a rabbit, quick and lean. She whispered the words Athelan had taught her—Thank you, majestic one. May your spirit be embraced by Elune, knowing that you have served your purpose. Her voice didn't waver, even when the knife slid clean and sure.
The second day tested her strength. Hunger gnawed at her belly, her legs ached from climbing the ridge in search of fresh water. She found it at last—a spring threading through stone. Kneeling, she cleaned the rabbit's hide there, her hands steady, her reflection broken on the rippling surface.
By evening she built a shelter from branches and brush, crude but dry. She pressed close to the earth, Skye perched overhead, watchful as the night sang with distant howls. Her fingers traced the dagger's hilt before she slept, a silent promise to herself: she could do this.
The third day demanded everything. She followed deer tracks through tangled undergrowth, moving with the silence Athelan had drilled into her. Then—she paused.
The undergrowth ahead bore the marks of something heavier. Branches bent, bark scored clean at ankle-height. Not deer. Boar.
Athelan's voice whispered in memory: Do not follow a boar's path. They are swift, savage, and merciless when cornered.
But the trail curved back, angling toward the direction she had come. A cold prickle slid across her skin. For a moment, her heartbeat hammered louder than the forest.
She did not hesitate. She shifted course, quiet and deliberate, feet finding the softest earth. Every step carried her away, deeper into cover. She would not be reckless.
Only when the signs of the boar's passage faded did she breathe freely again, the bow firm in her hand. The deer's trail was still waiting.
Her bowstring thrummed once, twice—a clean shot this time. She dressed the kill with the dagger, hands quick and firm.
Athelan's lessons echoed with every cut, every knot tied, every fire coaxed from spark to flame. She wasn't just surviving. She was proving herself.
When at last he appeared from the shadows at the edge of the trees, golden eyes calm, she didn't flinch. He had been there all along—watching, measuring, silent as stone.
"You've done well," he said simply.
Lytavis straightened, shoulders squared despite the dirt on her face, the scratches across her arms. She held the bow in one hand, the dagger at her belt catching the light. "I did more than endure," she answered, voice steady. "I lived."
For the first time, Athelan's stern mouth curved into something like pride. "Then your trial is passed."
Skye swooped down to her shoulder, cawing triumphantly. Lytavis stroked her feathers, heart racing not with relief, but with fierce, quiet joy.
She had walked into the wild with only her wits. She walked out with steel in her hand, fire in her chest, and the certainty that she belonged to both the hearth and the hunt.
Notes in the Margin – Lucien Ariakan
I have taught her many things, but not all wisdom comes from books or patient hands. Today I learned she has grasped the hardest lesson of all—that strength is not only in the drawing of a bow, or the lighting of a fire, but in the restraint to turn aside from danger when pride would tempt her onward.
The world will praise courage in battle, yet the wiser path is often the quieter one, the step away from teeth and tusk. She chose that path, unbidden. My Little Star knows that survival is not a failure, but a triumph.