Survival first.

  Despite being retively sure she was still in the forest surrounding the academy, that didn't mean things were going to be easy. Aside from Dalia, there wasn't another settlement within a hundred miles of the academy.

  With her mind set on necessities rather than pleasures, the gnawing want dwindled, mostly, and she felt she could focus again. Water, shelter, food. Azi wasn't stupid; she knew what order she needed to do things in, and the first was finding water.

  Luckily, she knew many freshwater streams ran down, collecting into a massive ke beset on the east side of the mountain. Though she had the skills necessary to survive, doing it stark naked wasn't exactly her idea of a good time. As, she pressed on towards her first goal.

  Water.

  "I guess any direction is good…" It was difficult to tell which way was headed from the forest floor; the canopy overhead did well to keep her cool but obscured her vision of the sun. Perhaps she should have paid more attention before she left the clearing. Which way did she come from again?

  Picking a direction at random, Azi trekked through the forest, taking note of anything that seemed useful or edible and trying her best to maintain a sense of direction. Much to her surprise, she felt rather unfazed by the physical exertion. Another oddity of her awakening she would think about ter.

  Though she couldn't help her mind wandering just a little as she aimlessly searched the forest. The main concern pressing on her mind, aside from the new addition between her legs, was where the men had gone. It was stranger to her than anything else; they had her, so why just let her go? Did they let her go?

  Azi's muddle of thoughts was broken by the faint rushing of flowing water. She stopped, slowly turning her head to pinpoint the direction of the sound. It took her a moment, the forest doing a good job of keeping her lost, but eventually she found it.

  Stepping out of the forest, the trees overhead gave way to a cloudy blue sky overhead of a small bank clearing. A steady stream trickled down a terrace of small waterfalls before giving way to a gentle flow that disappeared further into the forest.

  "This should be safe… probably." Azi approached the water and cupped her hand beneath the lowest waterfall. The water was exceptionally clear and showed no signs of pollutants or even sediment floating within. Hesitantly she raised her hands to her lips, suckling what water she could before it dripped between her fingers.

  "Tastes fine; flowing water is supposed to be safe, right?" Reassuring herself despite a lingering fear of sickness in the back of her mind, Azi drank a few more handfuls. If she was going to get sick, she was at least going to do it with her thirst quenched.

  With water secured, Azi looked to complete the next task on her list: shelter. She deemed the stream bank as good a pce as any to stay for now. There was a small overhang eroded out of the small cliff where the water originated. It was a few feet up from the stream and just rge enough for Azi to lie down in with her legs curled up.

  It wasn't much and definitely needed some work, but it would do for now. Azi felt a sense of pride in how quickly she had solved two of her three issues. Of course it was mostly luck, and she had done nothing more than simply wander. But it was something, and she was going to take it.

  Food was next, and while she wasn't particurly hungry, she had spotted a variety of berries and nuts in the forest. It would be a pain to carry them back and forth from her temporarily founded home, so she decided otherwise. If she was hungry, she would forage; she wasn't expecting to stay in the forest long, and keeping a stockpile of food seemed a bit silly.

  Instead, she focused on a bit of comfort.

  While it was a shelter from the rain and sun, it was just an alcove carved into the rock by the wearing of time. As such, the floor was rough and uncomfortable, a mixture of gravel and sand atop a stony bedrock. There was no way she would be able to lie down, much less fall asleep.

  Scanning the tree line, Azi spotted her target: a leafy bush that grew against the base of pale trees. It was a common pnt and one she had seen numerous times back home. The roots of the bush didn't grow too deep, and with a gentle tug, the whole pnt ripped from the ground with ease.

  "A few of these should work just nicely!" Azi, feeling a jovial sense of excitement, collected half a dozen of the soft bushes. Azi's newfound prizes were soft and malleable, the branches inside more akin to a flower stem than the woody trunk of a tree.

  She id them down, fttening them as best as she could and forming a makeshift mattress of green. It was still bumpy and uneven almost everywhere, but Azi was sure it was leagues better than the stony ground.

  "Haa… What am I doing?" Azi stared down upon her creation and slumped her shoulders. Despite her mind's best efforts to push the questions and worries out of her mind, she couldn't ignore them much longer.

  Meandering down to the edge of the stream, she knelt, resting her elbows on her knees. She stared down at her reflection in the water, a frown growing on her lips. Fluttering in the gentle breeze, a mess of white and pink casted shadows that danced in the water.

  Two piercing silver eyes stared back at her from beneath the faint waves. Features far too perfect to be considered natural and a fullness to the skin that would strike jealousy into anyone. It was the most beautiful woman Azi had ever seen.

  But it wasn't her.

  She had tried to ignore the signs, the pink catching in her vision as the wind blew. The amazingly clear skin and healthy stamina she was sure were not hers. That damned addition to her body she felt with every step she took. Even the gnces of her reflection she had caught just moments ago.

  But despite all of it, this was evidence she could not expin away. No trick of the light or mental fatigue.

  "Did I really die? Or maybe I possessed someone? At least they made me beautiful." Azi tried to joke, that ever-present calm attempting to force its control back over her. Something truly strange had happened to her while she was asleep. Whatever had happened, she wanted an expnation. Before that, though, she wanted her clothes back; it was starting to get cold.

  RUSTLE RUSTLE

  Azi spun around, panic entering her mind as she eyed a figure moving through the underbrush. The obscured figure circled the bank clearing, cutting behind a tree before Azi lost sight of it.

  "H-Hello? Is someone there?" Azi asked, unsure if she should run or not. She stood, grasping a small stone she had plucked from the stream. If it came down to a fight, could she win, or maybe it was just an animal? It could be a student; she was still sure the academy wasn't far.

  Something dashes out of the brush directly at Azi; it's… it's…