The forest greeted Lydia like a deep, cool breath—earthy and green and impossibly alive. Dew still clung to the ferns, sparkling like someone had spilled a handful of crushed gemstones across the underbrush. Hest padded ahead, tail high, stopping occasionally to glance back as if to check whether Lydia was still following.

  “I know, I know,” Lydia muttered, shifting the straps of her satchel. “I’m coming. Not like I can keep up with your tiny legs.”

  Hest flicked an ear at her, unimpressed, and vanished into a thicket. Lydia hurried after him, stepping carefully around roots and fallen branches the way Maera had instructed. Somehow, the forest already felt a little less overwhelming today. Maybe she was getting used to it. Maybe it was the way the air felt—cleaner, sharper—like every inhale was rinsing her lungs.

  Or maybe, she admitted to herself, it was simply nicer than pretending to meditate for hours while trying not to think about how weird her life had become.

  A quiet sigh escaped her. She wished she had grabbed her notebook before leaving. Maera had practically shoved her and Hest out the door the moment the village chief left, insisting Lydia “refresh her memory” on the herbs from the previous day. Lydia had scrambled out with only her satchel and a hastily eaten piece of bread.

  Now, of course, she regretted it. The forest was filled with plants she didn’t recognize—spiraled leaves, pinkish vines that draped from trees like ribbons, mosses that shimmered faintly when disturbed. It all begged to be cataloged, sketched, written down before she forgot.

  “Ugh… rookie mistake,” she groaned. “I should’ve at least brought a pen. My future self is gonna hate me.”

  Hest chirped at her from ahead, where he had perched on a fallen log. The cat’s golden eyes seemed to ask, Then why didn’t you?

  “Listen,” Lydia complained, “some of us aren’t morning people. Not all of us wake up perfectly groomed and full of opinions.”

  Hest hopped down, tail curling around her leg as he urged her forward. The two of them wandered deeper, the sunlight thinning into soft, scattered beams. The forest was quiet but not silent—not in an eerie way, but in a content way. Birds flitted above. Leaves rustled gently. Somewhere, water trickled over stone.

  Lydia let herself relax. For the first time since arriving in this world, her shoulders unclenched on their own.

  She found the moss patch by accident. One moment she was following the cat between two narrow trees, the next she stepped into a clearing where the ground was carpeted in thick, vibrant green. The moss was springy beneath her boots, dotted with tiny white flowers no bigger than a grain of rice.

  “Oh…” Her breath caught. “It’s so soft.”

  Hest immediately plopped down in the middle of it and began grooming his paw like this was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Right,” Lydia said, smiling. “You’ve clearly claimed this territory.”

  Still, she couldn’t resist. She sank down beside him, letting herself fall backward into the moss. It cushioned her like a mattress. Cool. Damp in a pleasant way. Embracing.

  Above her, the sky opened wide, framed by branches swaying lazily like curtains in a warm breeze.

  Her breath hitched.

  The sky here looked… unreal.

  Back home the sky was just sky—blue or gray, depending on pollution or weather. But here…

  It was blue in the way gemstones were blue. Deep, saturated, unbelievably vivid. Tiny motes sparkled in the air—so faint she wasn’t sure if she was imagining them. Maybe it was her new “abilities” acting up, or maybe this world just had cleaner air, but the whole sky seemed to shimmer softly, as if infused with magic.

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  Lydia reached her hand upward, fingers spread, as though she might grasp a piece of that glittering horizon.

  “…What do you think, Hest?” she asked softly, her voice drifting into the breeze.

  The cat didn’t answer—couldn’t answer—but he climbed onto her chest, circled once, and curled up. A warm, purring weight settled over her ribs.

  “Yeah,” Lydia murmured, running a hand over his fur, “sunbathing does feel lovely.”

  She closed her eyes, letting the sunlight seep into her skin.

  But the quiet had a way of nudging thoughts loose. Thoughts she’d been holding back. Thoughts she wished she could keep stuffed into a box until she was emotionally prepared to unpack them.

  “How am I supposed to… survive long term?” she whispered.

  Hest’s purring didn’t stop, but one ear twitched.

  It wasn’t a dramatic worry—not monsters or magic gone wrong or anything cinematic. It was a realistic fear, one she’d never had to consider in her old world.

  She was an introvert. She didn’t camp. She panicked when a microwave beeped too loudly.

  She wasn’t the kind of person who walked into a fantasy world and immediately started hunting boars for experience points.

  “How long will Maera keep me?” Lydia asked the sky. “She’s already doing so much. Feeding me. Teaching me. Protecting me from… whatever the chief thinks I am.”

  She swallowed.

  There had been something cold in the man’s gaze. Something that made her skin prickle even before she spotted those faint purple sparks clinging to his outline.

  “Teach said she’d show me survival basics,” Lydia murmured, fingers absently stroking Hest’s back. “But… what comes after that? Am I supposed to… just live in the woods like some hermit? Open my own cabin? Join a village? Wander around until I find purpose? Am I even—”

  Her voice cracked.

  “—am I even allowed to stay?”

  For a moment, only the forest answered her. Leaves shifting. A bird calling in the distance. Hest shifted his weight, pushing closer to her chin and butting his forehead against it.

  She let out a shaky laugh.

  “Right. I know. I know. I’m overthinking. Again.”

  The purring grew louder, vibrating against her chest.

  Warm.

  Present.

  Reassuring in a way no person had managed in a long time.

  “One way or another…” she whispered, “you think everything is going to be fine.”

  Hest closed his eyes, utterly content.

  Lydia reached up again toward the sky—softly this time, almost reverently.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  When she eventually sat up, the sunlight had shifted. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there. The moss had left faint patterns on her arms where it pressed through her sleeves.

  Hest stretched, shook his fur, and padded a few steps forward before glancing back expectantly.

  “You want to keep exploring?” Lydia asked.

  The tiny feline meowed.

  “…That’s a yes.”

  They walked deeper, and Lydia tried her best to recall everything Maera had taught her yesterday.

  “Okay, so Tagny-colored stuff is definitely poisonous,” she said aloud. “Which—uh—seems like a weirdly convenient rule, but I’ll take it.”

  She crouched beside a cluster of small thorny bushes. Their leaves had a faint purplish tint.

  “Yeah. Not touching you.”

  She brushed her fingers lightly over a nearby fern instead—bright green, harmless-looking, and thankfully not radiating the same unpleasant tingle she got from the Tagny plants.

  “Maybe I should start memorizing shapes instead of colors…” she mused. “Like… serrated leaves might be safe? Or maybe roots? Or I should organize them alphabetically? Ugh—I really need my notebook.”

  Hest chirped and darted ahead, weaving between trees. Lydia followed until the forest thinned, revealing another clearing.

  This one had a small brook trickling through it, clear enough that she could see pebbles glinting under the surface. She knelt beside it, cupping her hands in the water. It was freezing, but refreshing, and she splashed some onto her face.

  “You know…” she said as Hest drank beside her, “this place is… beautiful.”

  She didn’t mean just aesthetically. It felt beautiful.

  It felt peaceful.

  Even magical—but not in the dangerous, unpredictable way Maera kept warning her about. More like the kind of magic that came from existing somewhere untouched by chaos, noise, or fluorescent lights.

  Lydia dipped her fingers into the brook again, watching ripples distort the sky’s reflection.

  “I think… I might like it here,” she admitted quietly.

  Hest bumped his head against her hand, then shook water droplets everywhere.

  “Hey—!” she sputtered, laughing as she wiped her face.

  Maybe—just maybe—this world wouldn’t spit her out the second she found her footing.

  Maybe she was allowed to belong somewhere.

  By the time Lydia and Hest began the walk back, the sun was lowering, turning the canopy golden. The forest felt warmer somehow—like it had accepted their presence for the day.

  Lydia’s satchel bumped against her hip with every step, and she found herself thinking about the strange leather-bound book she had previously found inside. About everything she didn’t understand yet.

  About all the unknowns waiting for her.

  But for once, those unknowns didn’t taste like fear.

  They tasted like possibility.

  She glanced down at the cat trotting beside her and smiled.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  The word slipped out before she could stop it.

  Home.

  And strangely, she didn’t regret saying it.

  Not even a little.