[center][h2]Part One:[/h2][/center]
[center][h3][i]Birds[/i][/h3][/center]

He ran screaming, or he slunk away in the night.  They caught and beat him, or he escaped before they even knew to look.  He lived it or he dreamed it, but which one was a question he’d long since abandoned.  He dreamed it differently every night.  Or maybe he remembered.  Who was he to say what was real, if he couldn’t tell the difference.

After all, as he woke from another dream, he was still here.  Alone.  He’d been alone ever since it’d happened.  It had been months, years, maybe longer.  He couldn't be certain, but he did have a beard.  So it hadn’t been recently, not that it made a difference.  All that mattered was he couldn’t return to the great city, even if he knew where it was.  Where he was.  Who could have guessed how easy it was to lose yourself in the woods.

Who could have guessed he’d survive them.  That was due to his skill, his magic.  He could carve Runes, imbue stone with great magic.  It had kept him warm and fed in the winter.  The winters?  That wasn’t certain, but he did know he was alive.  Magic had made it so.

Magic that had become him, in a way.  He wasn’t even sure he knew his name anymore, but he knew he tried not to recall it.  Or any of his past, save that which lingered in his dreams.  All that he was, was gone.  Now he was the Runecrafter.  The man who’d survived the depths of the forest, who’d journeyed long to find no one and nothing.  Not one village,  villager, or road.  He wondered if that was normal.

People vanished, of course.  He’d known that before he’d run to, or been left in, these woods. Most left it to Trolls, Vampires, the wicked things in the world.  Few credited the forest, and why would they?  It was just trees.  

What they didn’t know was that the trees were worse.  You didn’t have to go far off the road before they swallowed you.  The world wasn’t tame.  How easy that was to forget behind the safety of ancient walls.  Walls that held back only the smallest fraction of nature.

Yes, it made sense.  This was normal, expected even.  He could wander for a thousand lifetimes, and never see another soul.  Never even cross an old path.  He was only alive because he was the Runecrafter.  The forest had swallowed all the others who’d found their way into it.  It would swallow him, eventually.

A somber start to any morning.  

[center]---[/center]

By afternoon he’d packed his camp and begun moving.  He had stayed put during the winter, but by now the snow had melted and as life returned to the world, so did he.  A man could accept he would die, but it rarely stopped him from trying to live.  So the Runecrafter moved, week to week, day to day.

The heavy pelts he slept in were rolled up at his side, and as warm light filtered through the forest canopy in ethereal rays he couldn’t help but grumble.  The thick bedding was hot, even to carry.  He’d tried something else once, a hammock?  He wasn’t sure, but he knew it hadn’t worked.  He was carrying the pelts, after all.

The Runecrafter’s thoughts wandered as he trudged through the forest, ignoring beauty that few ever experienced.  The wonders of nature had long grown familiar to him.  His gaze didn’t wander to appreciate his surroundings, but to watch them for any sign of danger.  Like, perhaps, every bird within miles taking off at once, and flying in a great stream towards the horizon.

That made the Runecrafter pause.  It was something that, well, it was something that didn’t happen.  He imagined he’d been out here long enough to know.  With a mix of the greatest caution, and a curiosity he’d long since forgotten, the haggard man began to follow the birds on their peculiar migration.

He couldn’t have anticipated where they led him.  As it was, he almost didn’t recognize that what he was looking at was a village.  Nor did he truly see the people eyeing him.  They looked agitated, and perhaps that wasn’t so odd.  What did you say to a man who’d stumbled out of the woods covered in mismatched furs, whose arrival had been heralded by a tremendous flock that still circled overhead?  

Evidently, nothing.  As the Runecrafter started at a small group of men, women, and children who’d come out of their houses to see the birds, they stared back.  He opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him.  One of the villagers held up a primitive spear, and at once the Runecrafter’s senses returned to him.

He ran.  Away from the thing which had consumed his every waking thought.  Away from what he wanted most in the world.  It was bitter, and glorious.  He’d found people, alive, and he knew at once how difficult it would be to ever speak to them.  How they’d mistrust him.  How he’d misunderstand them.

[center]---[/center]


When the sun began to set the Runecrafter sat against a tree, shaking.  He knew where the village was.  He’d not lost track, not this time.  He knew he’d return.  Even if he wasn’t the man who’d first gotten lost, even if he was more a wild thing than the craftsman he’d been.  Even if he risked everything.  The Runecrafter was willing to brave the village's ire.

Or he thought he was.  He was here after all, not there.  The thought was heavy, but the Runecrafter had little time to ruminate on it before a face poked out from a nearby tree and startled him.  The face of a boy.  One from the village.  The Runecrafter’s muscles tensed, and he prepared to flee, but he held back.  He wouldn’t willingly go back to hopelessness.  Isolation.  So he watched the boy, the boy watched him, and by the time the forest was engulfed in twilight the two sat face to face.

The boy, a hale looking boy on the verge of manhood, spoke first, “You know we need a fire wildman, before it’s dark.”

“Wildman,” The Runecrafter huffed in amusement before nodding slowly.  In a moments awkwardness he pulled a metallic looking rock from his thick furs.  Without a word, he dashed what was an intricately carved crystal against a rock between him and his guest.  The crystal shattered, and then its shards exploded into sparks and flame. 

The boy scrambled backwards, and the Runecrafter watched his little fires ignite the brush beneath them.  They burned white hot, and their glow didn’t fade.  It endured, burning long after the moss and twigs beneath had been turned to ash.   With a smirk the Runecrafter gathered what sticks were nearby and heaped them onto the little fires.  Within a few seconds there was a small, but respectable, fire.  It’d cost the Runecrafter something he’d labored on for days, but he had spent enough time alone.  There was no reason to waste this chance.

With a disused and croaking voice, one he hadn’t used in ages, the Runecrafter motioned towards the fire and asked, “A wildman’s work, village boy?”

The boy stared at the flames.  They flickered in his wide brown eyes, and the Runecrafter saw something familiar in them.  It was no surprise when the boy’s next words were one’s he’d spoken, and heard, in the past, “Teach me.  Please?”

Of course, there was only one answer.

[hider=Summary]We follow a Ketrefan outcast, a runecrafter.  He's wandered the wilds for a long time.  Anyway he sees some birds, they're cool, and they lead him to a VILLAGE! Unfortunately he's not seen people in ages so, he runs away.  Thankfully, he's followed.[/hider]