Minutes flew by like seconds for Kelari as she absently wandered through the crowd, barely noticing as stranger and friends alike brushed by her. The constant murmuring of her own and her uncle's advice in her head drowned out her friends with the rest of the crowding villagers.  Her speech seemed uncharacteristically cold and distant. Best wishes for her safety were met with at most a brief smile, and then back she retreated into her own head.

'Focus on the landing. Gliding distance means nothing if you crash. Look for a clearing, aim for it. Injury risks lost time. Lost time risks no return. All else fails, survive.'

'Survive'. While setting up her hang glider, that word echoed among the other tips she remembered. Several unknowns about the world below left too many uncomfortable voids in her mind, but the reminder to just 'survive' filled them in temporarily. 

The grip of Kelari's familiar hang glider and harness were the only comforts left after leaving the island. She held tightly onto her emotions just like she clutched the control bar, trying to keep herself and her flight together at least long enough to land. 

Kelari swallowed hard. Something about passing the point of no return and seeing the open land beneath her made her heart drop, but she clenched her hands again and forced her eyes to stay focused on the path ahead. There was a clearing some distance ahead of her, easily reached by the leisurely pace, and large enough to descend into with ease. Kelari subtly adjusted her course for the clearing and idly drifted, trying to keep her mind occupied with that one word. Survive. "Alright," she murmured in the breeze, "How?"

Resources. Find what resources could be used in place of what she took with her. Anything she didn't have to expend from her adventurer's pack was something saved. Food. Basic materials. But what about the dangers? Were there hostile animals? Inclement weather in the future? Environmental hazards? The thoughts were interrupted by a strange feeling during her careful descent into the clearing. A chill shot through the top of her head and crawled down her back, but it wasn't the cold air.

Ignoring the unwelcome buzz, she hovered over the ground with her boots brushing gently with the grass, taking a few moments to gather her nerve. Once she was comfortable enough, she tilted her hang glider up and planted her feet firmly on the ground. Kelari huffed a breath as the residual thrust jerked her forward by surprise, but stabilized enough to qualify the landing as graceful and leave her glider intact. Not like it mattered, she thought as she undid the harness and tossed it in a pile under the glider.

Then, Kelari winced and placed a hand over her head as a headache kicked in. Stepping back, she stumbled over an exposed root and rolled onto her back. She made a guttural noise of frustration, laying in the grass for a while to get her bearings again. It must've been the stress of the adventure and the overthinking all hitting at once, but there was something undeniable in the air. When Kelari took long enough to focus on it, she could feel it. There was power buzzing in the forest, and it was all over, but she didn't have the presence of mind or knowledge to put her finger on what it was. Something told her to go. Stand up and start moving. A half-hearted attempt to lift her arm pull her torso forward was all she gave before limply flopping back into the dewy grass.

At least from here she could get her bearings, so Kelari turned her head one way, then the other, and then forward to get another look at the forest. It was hard to appreciate the majesty of something so colossal and untouched by humans when it felt like an anvil was being pounded on in your skull, and a bit of sleep deprivation wasn't helping much either, but a gentle sigh was enough expression for Kelari.

Something peculiar in the corner of her eye caught her attention enough to get her to prop herself up on her elbows and look. She squinted at it. Was something reflecting the sunlight? No, too dim, but too bright to be anything else, and it wasn't falling to the ground. It was hovering toward her. Among all the familiar sounds of birds and wetland creatures, something entirely unfamiliar approached her alone in the clearing and singled her out.

Kelari attempted to distance herself, but between the headache and a dull ache in her limbs she only managed to shift half a foot before one arm slipped in the damp grass and she flopped onto her back again. By then, the ball of light reached her and it's decidely passive disposition was very clear, since it just hovered a couple feet over her body. Another weak guttural sound of frustration rumbled in Kelari's throat as she stared up at the wisp. A corner of her mouth quirked up in a small smile, then a low chuckle came through her nose.

"Well," she said, her smile broken briefly by another wince, "I've read of stranger things, haven't I?"