—Orion—

  It took about half an hour for me to give up, having come up with no new ideas apart from trying to train Sally, which still felt like a terrible idea. I’d never been particularly good at forcing myself to feel certain things, and relaxing wasn’t something I could just 'do', especially in a situation like this one.

  Having given up brainstorming, I took a look at Sally to make sure that she was still well, and immediately saw that something was off. She was sitting in front of the entrance to the mound, swaying on the spot as her head drifted downwards, not looking at anything in particular.

  "Are you okay?" I asked, immediately feeling stupid for saying the words out loud, knowing that she couldn't understand a word of what I'd just said.

  I walked over to her and gently nudged her side, making sure not to face the open entrance to the lake, in case the monster was lurking out there. As I poked her, I took note of how distressingly little she complained about the unannounced contact, only slightly opening her eyes to look at me—in any other scenario she'd growl at me.

  At the slightest of touches, she fell over, collapsing to the ground like a precariously piled mound of laundry. Her muscles had become unable to tense hard enough to even hold her upright.

  "Sally!" I shouted—louder than I should've—as I rushed to her side and raised her head up off of the cold ground with a hand. I laid a finger on her side, feeling the scales of the drakeling and realising that they were much colder than usual. She must already be quite deep into chill-induced stupor.

  Without hesitating I picked her up, laying her against my chest again in an effort to share my heat—like I did less than an hour ago. I would really prefer a heat lamp for this, but there wasn’t a better, or even another source of heat to give her.

  The infant didn’t even try to let out a warning noise, at the very least she would usually put up a basic protest to anything I did involving her. When I did this for her earlier, she still complained loudly about every movement inside her personal bubble. The lack of complaint was enough of a hint for me to see how dire the situation was for her.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: Sally, Drakeling Companion]

  [[Hunter’s Senses] upgrades the level of [Appraisal – Lvl 1] when facing a beast!]

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 2] on: Sally, Drakeling Companion]

  Her health has already dropped by a couple of points to [2/4], the [Hypothermia] and [Starving] conditions the culprits if I had to guess.

  Immediately I used my [Talent] on her, my mana having recovered enough by now to help her heal back up to full.

  Though while I placed the pads of my fingers on her back to transfer the power of [Self-Healing], it struck me as incredibly odd that she hadn’t made a single noise as she began to wither away. I know that starving to death while slowly freezing is not a pleasant experience, and infants shouldn't have that kind of pain tolerance.

  I’d assumed that the drakeling, while hesitant to let me help her, would still at the very least show her discomfort to me, not hide it. She’s been very… vocal about her feelings at every other opportunity.

  I took my fingers off of her spine as the Path showed her health becoming full. I then hesitated for a second before I laid my hand onto her back fully, my palm almost big enough to fully cover her. I decided that it was more important that I give her the best care that I could before she becomes conscious enough to bite me for being too close.

  As I observed the creature in my arms, I realised that she is very willing to let herself come to harm if it meant not having to express to me her need for assistance, or any sort of discomfort. It is a very peculiar quirk for an animal as young as her, who should cry out for help at the first opportunity, whether or not it’s with trusted people.

  It must’ve come from what happened to her parents. A distrust in everything around her would make her less likely to cry out for someone she knows isn’t coming, still it's a strangely complex series of emotions and thoughts for an infant.

  I suppose that I’m just going to have to keep a closer eye on her, and make sure that she doesn’t end up in this situation again without letting me realise it.

  Though, I'll have all of the time in the world to make sure she's alright now. We'll be stuck together for the rest of our lives, maybe even longer. That thought, the thought that's been nagging me for the past day returned with grating, almost painful feeling in my chest.

  She is now bound to me for the rest of her life, however long that is. Maybe like her [Intelligence] the Path has also increased her life-span to match mine.

  So realistically—if I don't die in this mountain—I've stolen eighty years of her potential future. When she grows up, is she going to blame me for it? Even now she's hesitant to trust me, how will she act when she learns what I did? How much will she hate me when I tell her what I did to her parents, and then to her soul, once she grows old enough to understand me and has forgotten those first hours of her life.

  I ruined her life, in almost every way I could've, but that's not what made me feel sick. While I regret how it happened, I don't regret that it did happen.

  I realised that if someone offered me the choice of being able to go back and stop it from happening in the first place, spare Sally but stop me from ever bonding with her, I wouldn't take the offer. It made my insides greasy and nauseous as I processed that I didn't want to ever give her up.

  She is… the closest I've ever been able to be with anyone—anything. It's only been a couple of days, but I don't ever want to be separated from her, even if it's what she wanted. After years of wanting, and months of trying and failing, I finally had a true friend. Even if she's forced to be around me, she's more comfortable around me than anyone else had been, and I actually like having her around me. I'm not uncomfortable whenever she touches me, and her constant closeness when we moved locations is yet to make me want to crawl out of my skin.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It made me feel disgusting, that I was willing to do this all over again, even if it meant her suffering through it all a second time.

  I let out an audible sigh, and returned my attention to Sally. No matter how twisted up it made my insides, it didn't matter anymore, it's already been done.

  After at least ten minutes of petting her, Sally began to move her head, her flexible neck allowing her to get a good view of where she was and what I was doing. Before she could make a noise, I removed the hand covering her, letting her get comfortable and aware of the situation before I dared to move it back.

  She kept staring at my hand, and even as I lightly placed it on her back again, she didn’t protest. Our current understanding of each other seem to be that a lack of verbal or physical resistance was a sort of permission. Maybe in the future I could figure out a better way to communicate consent for actions between us.

  This time, I also ran my finger along her spine once, hopeful that she’ll let me pet her like this again. She did seem to find it enjoyable before, well, she liked it enough to put up with being close to me far longer than she usually did.

  After she silently accepted the first stroke without even grumbling, I continued, finding myself much more hopeful that she truly enjoyed me doing this for her.

  A few minutes passed until she fully relaxed. I felt the muscles underneath my hands untense as she laid her head onto the upper part of my forearm, and a breath—that I didn’t know I had been holding—slipped out. When Sally relaxed, I relaxed, finding myself much less worried now that the scare from her sudden collapse was passed and dealt with.

  It struck me again just how small she was, my hand was almost big enough to wrap around her and cover her entirely.

  But I'm already getting close to running out of mana again.

  How long did it take for Sally to lose half of her health? It couldn't have been more than a few hours.

  And each time she's drained by the cold and hunger, I have to spend another mana point to keep her alive. At this rate, and assuming that her health continues to drain this fast, we have a day—probably less—to escape before she risks dying.

  Whether from the cold or hunger, it doesn't matter. My mind is screaming that she needs help and that the situation needs to change now.

  Already I could see the colour of her scales wilting, dulling that sparkling silver to a tarnished and dulled shade of its former self. They'd already started to lose their shine. I could tell simply by looking at her that she was unwell.

  That was… new.

  I remember struggling to understand what she needed a day ago, but now I can simply tell how healthy she is by looking at her scales?

  The only thing that had changed was me equipping that [Emergence].

  Which would completely explain the phenomenon I'm experiencing now that I give it some thought. I felt surprised that it took me so long to figure it out.

  If my new-found ability to understand Sally was from the [Emergence], then it was surprisingly more intrinsic and natural feeling than my other Skills and [Emergence]s. They all felt more artificial and separate from me, relying on Path messages to function.

  This [Emergence] felt like a new part of me, rather like a habit, that's become so ingrained that I could hardly remember that I had to be taught it. I don't think I prefer it over the normal way the skills functioned.

  But before I let myself get even more side-tracked by the strange new ability I’d gotten, Sally had more important needs at the moment than my curiosity.

  I really only had two options for what to do next.

  Wait, and try to figure out a better way to escape without risking an attack by the monster, which was definitely still lurking out there somewhere. Maybe even try to train Sally to warn me about the monster's attacks.

  Or I could make a run for it.

  Maybe I could use something to protect my eyes as I made the sprint to the next [Checkpoint]. Would a blindfold work? But if I was wearing one, how would I make sure I'm still on the correct path? I might accidentally run into the water.

  Another look at Sally confirmed my choice, and I stood up with her still in my arms. The sudden jolt startled her, waking her up out of her limp, half-asleep state—well, as much as the cold would let her. Training her still felt like an impossible task, and I'll leave it as a last resort, in case the next [Checkpoint] doesn't offer another, better option.

  Hopefully there's something there that can help—like the mysterious arrow—or an alternative path forwards that's not trying to teach Sally while she's in this condition.

  I gently lifted her up onto my head, and she instinctively grasped my hair before doing anything else. It was nice that she was already so used to the spot that she held on to it before doing anything else, even complaining.

  I made my plan the moment I organised the information I already had about the monster, and picked up a rock.

  I took a couple of deep breaths, readied my throwing arm and the pebble shifted in to my palm.

  I turned around and threw the stone as hard as I could, only looking towards the open air of the cavern for a moment before sprinting towards the tunnel and diving into its opening.

  I grunted in pain as I slid on the gravel, little rocks were embedded into my skin and my lower stomach was cut up, unprotected because of my damaged shirt. Sally's claws also dug into my skull as she struggled to stay on top of my head as it rotated ninety degrees in the air.

  But I didn't let something as insignificant as pain stop me.

  I continued, and crawled on my hands and knees as fast as I could. A few seconds of crawling later, I reached the end of the tunnel, and closed my eyes as I waited just before its exit for my cue. In the distance I heard the quiet crack of a pebble hitting a stone, and a second later the much louder sound of a landslide of mass crushing a mountainside of stone echoed across the cavern.

  I started sprinting, Sally tightening her grip as I furiously ran across the short distance to the next [Checkpoint].

  Behind me I heard the beast toss stone in the lake, a loud splash heralding its attention returning to me. I pushed myself harder, I only needed five more seconds before I reached the tent-like building on top of the rock.

  It was awkward running with a weight strapped to my head, but luckily Sally was light enough for it to not cause a problem.

  A second later, the sounds of the monster grew closer, a hissing noise began echoing from behind me. The snake-ish noise goaded me into running faster, which didn't feel possible before hearing it.

  More than just its hissing, I could hear its body scrape against the stone, and splash the water around it. I had to resist the urge to glance back at it to see how close it was to striking.

  It was almost painful to resist the need to look at what's hunting me.

  But I managed to stop myself from indirectly killing myself and kept running, glancing down at my feet before locking my eyes on the stone building less than thirty metres away. It would take less than a couple of seconds to reach it.

  A loose stone on the path almost made me almost trip over, but I righted myself before it could slow me down at all. Another snarling hiss was loudly roared out from behind me, but I did my best to pretend it didn't exist as I got within the last couple of steps.

  I looked in front of me to see the rock path a dozen metres away turn into a more natural, rough and uneven outcropping that sprouted a small plateau above the water. The platform it made held up a primitive building, a thatch roof, clay walls and a wooden door, all petrified and turned to stone.

  In a few steps, I would need to jump up onto the platform and dive for the doorway. Hopefully the mostly closed door is as brittle as the corpse was, and as easy to break and force my way through.

  A metre before I needed to dive for the door, I prepared to crouch and leap, my legs tensing-

  The—now confirmed as some sort of snake—properly roared for the first time, a violent noise that caused the black lake all around me to froth and vibrate in resonance.

  It made me panic.

  I jumped half a second earlier, and instead of flying shoulder first into the doorway and rolling to safety, my legs hit the stone outcrop before anything else. I careened forwards, far more than I meant to, and slammed my forehead into the ground.

  From there, Sally was tossed to the ground, and I rolled into the door, my back slamming into it. After a second of leaning against the door while upside down, the stone slab gave way, and I tumbled to the floor.

  In pain and confusion, I slowly gathered my wits, and took in my surroundings.

  I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that I was inside the building and started to stand up. I took in the building around me and saw that it was completely stone, and without any interesting artifacts, unlike the last one.

  As I stood up—barely able to steady my legs as I felt blood start to run down my face—I looked out the door and froze. I instantly realised what sort of blunder it was.

  The monstrous snake's face was right there, its pale, clouded eye gazing at me from only a metre or two away.

  It let out a wheezing hiss as it turned its fa-ce and sh-on-e its ligh-t fr-om i-ts g-em.