Chapter Text
Walking, walking, and then some more walking. Walking, aswell as running, are probably very familiar tasks to most strangers, though for E, not quite as long as most.
Hed wallked sure, even ran a little bit, mostly when hed been young and oblivious to the world, unaware how familiar it would become one day. But hed never done it for real untill a year or so ago.
Most outclass him in that regard by many, many years, undeniably so, however thats not to say hes bad at these things. People tend to learn pretty fast when they have to.
Atleast he had when the foundation had found him.
In the past year hes learned a lot, mainly how to walk, and of course how to run, but also that people who have been running since they were little think very differently than himself.
Between the handfull of people hed met, every one of them had been trying to escape the foundation since early childhood, and its evident how differently that makes a person think.
Not that hes a particularly drastic example of someone who hasnt been conditioned to the life of a stranger as long. Even before being found hed been reclusive, hiding away as much as possible, calm in danger, never phased.
Its not like he had a normal upbringing by human standards anyways, but not to the degree of the average stranger either. Sometimes its felt like thats left him in a strange limbo.
Humans obviously dont accept him, especially now that hes been found out, but even some strangers are apprehensive to him, calling him names simply because he hasnt been hunted since the ripe old age of 0.
But he wont complain, he has always been reclusive, after all.
Him and his runes against the world he supposes, even if they are the reason hes running in the first place.
Treading through the forest the grass has been getting taller, the wilderness more wild, he used to not mind as it helped not only cultivate certain plants, but keep unwanted visitors out.
Now hes the visitor though, and hes beginning to realise how effective the forest had been to keeping him safe and alone, no wonder he never had issues with people finding him.
It might be dumb going back to his little cottage, scratch that, it very much is dumb going back home, but his alarm system isnt going off anymore, which means that no one should be nearby.
Clearly the foundation doesnt think hes actually stupid enough to return. Either that or its a trap, but he likes to think it wont be.
Hes 100% sure the foundation arent aware of the sigil covering most of the area around his hut, and even if they were theyd have no way of knowing what it does.
The idea of them having figured it out is delusional, so once thered been no one within the range of the spell for over a month, he figured it cant be that dangerous to visit again.
He has sevral things hed like to grab from here before leaving again. He isnt stupid enough to stay atleast.
His foot gets caught in a vine or something and he trips, his fall is very graceless but it doesnt do any more harm than startling himself. He continues on, walking once more.
Before long he feels as he enters his security systems range, that means hes relatively close now, which is confirmed by a border of familiar purple flowers.
Its a relatively solid line, but sparse enough for a passerby to pay it no mind, if they ever got this deep in the forest in the first place. Even if the foundation by some sick miracle was aware this was part of his spell he highly doubts theyd ever realize the spell starts well before the actual sigil.
Treading past it, back into his own little domain after so long, he cant help but feel a sense of pride about his homes defences.
This particular circle had taken him literal months to set up. Making the alarm circle itself had been a feat on its own, weeks of planting only to have to wait for the flowers to bloom.
Then once that was finished he had to set up spells all around every last part of the lines to ensure they did not go out of bloom as this species usually does during the colder parts of the year.
That had taken him another couple weeks. Not to mention the prep work of collecting the seeds and weeking out every other blue flower within the radius of the circle.
If the work wasnt so arduous he mightve considered setting up a new home, but it simply isnt feasable at the moment.
Instead he plans to move this home!
But not right now. He doesnt have the resources or even knowlage, he never considered moving his entire home back then, figured that would be where he stayed the rest of his life. How naive.
Hes suprised it took the foundation as long as it did to find him, though he supposes its slightly more difficult looking for someone you dont know even exists.
Still, most of the defenses he actually had set up did nothing to prevent someone from simply stumbling upon his humble abode, he left that task to the assumption that no one would be willing to traverse the thick forrest surrounding it.
Of course, that hadnt lasted forever, and eventually some agents of the foundations had ended up within his alarm system while chasing another poor stranger.
Unluckily for E that very stranger had a similar thought to his own and tried to escape the foundation through the dense vegitation. Though it had ended up saving Domonoko it wasnt quite in the way he probably expected, and at the expense of Ecorridors peace.
He remembers quite vividly the first person hed seen in probably sevral years sprinting past only slowing down slightly from the suprise at seeing another living person there.
The foundations agents had followed not far behind and E had just barely managed to set off some of his ofensive spells as this stranger (literally) grabs him and bucks it once more.
They both likely have eachother to thank for their survival that day, and if it werent for Domonoko introducing him to the life of a more average stranger E probably wouldnt have made it long after that either.
In the fray he obviously never had a chance to grab anything from his home, but hed been dying to do so for a while now.
You see, while the magic E practices doesnt exactly require special resources, it does greatly enhance it, not to mention all his studies, he sadly cant memorise every useful sigil hes ever created and thus relied much on documentation.
Of course now, living as a traveler with barely any possessions, hes become much more reliant on his mind, and much more proficient with not only memorising sigils but making them on the spot too.
But alas, even now, his most complicated spells rely on a written guide in the small notebook hed found early in his travels.
He also wants to find some of his more powerfull creations hed made back then, and maybe just a few extra old grimoires he misses, hence the size of the backpack hed brought.
He found it abandoned on the side of a road 2 months ago and emedietly knew hed struck gold.
While it was far bigger than hed needed up untill now even in its retracted form he knew it would be usefull one day. And that day is today.
A beam of sunlight peeks through the trees that hits him right in the eye, the forest is much brighter near his abode than farther away. Still not exactly bright, but a step up.
Not long after, he steps out into the opening he used to call his home. The grass is much taller, vines grow around his home and its generally less well kept, though that is to be expected.
His home is relatively unscathed thanks to the powerful barrier surrounding it, but outside he can see small traces of when the foundation likely tried to break it.
The spells hed set up to heal the earth quickly after any mishaps with spell testing however, had worked wonders. Other than a few scuffs the destruction was probably barely noticeable to anyone who hadnt spent most of their life here.
Its honestly a little bit sureal being back here after a whole year away from it. Its pretty much the same as he left it, especially indoors.
Someone might not assume this is how he left it seeing the many papers and general suplies and clothes laying around the room and on the floor, and the absolute atrocity that is his desk.
Theres a few dark stains and he can not personally discern which ones are ink, food, or blood.
When he lived peacefully he did not even slightly imply that meant cleanly, and if you assumed so, it is your own fault.
He wanders around for a moment, taking the familiar steps without even worrying of trampling his possessions. Despite the time since passed, hes all too familiar with how to dodge the mess.
He aproaches his food cabinet, a sigil carved and inked across the 2 doors that pauses the foods inside.
He opens it to find it exactly how he left it. He remembers how proud he was when he first managed to get the spell to work.
Messing with time is no small task, but the practicality of being able to store his crops without worry of them decaying even a little is more than worth it.
He grabs an apple from one of the shelves with a cooling sigil, nice and crispy, but leaves tge rest for the next time he visits.
Hefigures he might aswell change out of his old dirty clothes now that he has a chance and sets down his bag to do so.
While he doesnt plan to stay long for his own safety, hes not above abusing the privelage of a home while it lasts.
Once hes in a fresh outfit he starts going through his things.
Theres many usefull tools and items here, many hed made by adding sigils to basic objects, others hed use to make the sigils, and others he used to learn.
As he thinks about how much his life really revolves around his spells a book catches his eye.
As he brings it down and opens it nostalgia floods his veins.
He remembers it sitting high up in his parents library, on a shelf so far out of his reach he really shouldnt even have been able to read the spine.
Hed always been curious why exactly it caught his attention, probably aleays would be, maybe it was fate, but the book gad sat untouched for many years even before he spotted it the second he was old enough to read.
His mother was an avid reader, and would always joke hed wander into her library and open books before he could even speak.
Its at the center of his earliest memory too, that fatefull day hed spotted it atop the shelf.
Though when he was old enough to ask about it hed been met by only worry and distaste from his parents.
He hadnt understood at the time, simply going through his usual process of learning the title of the book he wanted and relaying it to his parents to get for him if it was too difficult to reach.
It had felt no different that time, he was finally confident hed read the title of a book that had peaked his interest a long time correctly, and as such had gone to his mom.
He thought it was just like any other book, so at his young age hed been very confused when his mother responded in a disapointed frown and barely hidden worry in her eyes. Though hed always been good at reading people.
His father had been equally disapointed once he was told. It took him years before he truly understood why it had brought his parents so much dismay.
The first time he ever really did anything out of the ordinary was on his 8th birthday when, after the festivities that night, he snuck into the library and found the lader hed watched adults use so many times.
He wasnt a very adventurous child, so he had been worried he wouldnt suceed, but climbing up and picking out the book was relatively easy even for someone of his stature.
The hardest part was probably being silent while moving the large ladder.
Luckily for him he suceeded without either parent bursting in to yell at him, so he hid in a small area of the library he was sure his mom raeely visited and started reading "A book of spells".
It wasnt at all the adventurous story book he had expected, instead a sort of encyclopedia of sigils, their uses, and how to create them and such.
The suprise did nothing to dim his interest.
He spent hours that night reading and memorising before returning the book and the ladder to their original positions, hoping that his mother wouldnt notice its lack of dust.
Then he returned the next night, and the one after that, and so on. It became his own little adventure, instead of running out into the forest with the kids from school.
He didnt understand untill much later how drastically this would change the course of his life.
Slowly but surely he also started practicing the things he learned from the book with a sketchbook and graphite pencil.
Of course the spells didnt work at first, he read that unless you were special, you couldnt activate them without highly specific materials and concoctions.
It didnt stop him from learning though. Eventually he upgraded to tools more similar to the ones the book described by telling his father he wanted to borrow a caligraphy pen and practice.
Of course, he did actually practice caligraphy too, to the delight of his dad. But it was mainly to get better at drawing his sigils.
One evening in his teens he even had the courage to take the book with him to his room, and then outside to the forest the next day.
He returned it after, but with the newfound confidence it wasnt long before the book started following with him more and more often.
He even gained the courage to try activating one of his spells in the forest, a simple light spell, small and unpowerful. And despite the fact that supposedly only special people with controll of "mana" were able to do it this way, his sigil had lit up, iluminating the paper, barely noticeable in the light of day, bit he did.
That changed things. For the better or worse? Hes not sure.
Eventually he stopped returning the book to its spot on the shelf and it was left empty. His notebooks were filled with more magic sigils than he could count and he had to fight not to doodle them in school because logically he knew it was a bad idea.
He was a smart kid like that, maybe having no friends contributed to him not telling anyone, but he understood the risks of sharing this power of his even before he knew he could actually use it, but especially so afterwards.
Then his mother came into his room one day, luckily he wasnt dumb enough to draw sigils in his room or have the book out in the open anywhere but the forest, but his mom looked pissed either way.
"Ecorridor. Where is the book."
She said it in that calm tone that apparently only he could ever register as angry. He supposes thats where he got his own lack of expressiveness from, but hed always been able to read people like the many books he did the same to.
He tried to argue to no avail, and before long shed been handed the book and carted it off to some secret location and all he could do was pray she didnt open it and see all the doodles proving hed done more than borrow it a few days like she probably thought given her restrained anger.
She lectured him after the book was securely gone somewhere unknown to him, vaguely describing their family history and something about a danger to their lives or something or other.
He wasnt really paying attention, instead thinking desperately of ways to get it back.
Maybe that was where he really went wrong, he shouldve listened to his mothers pleas, heard her warnings about the foundation, and given up what had become such a big part of his life.
But he didnt.
Instead he kept practicing what he remembered and from the doodles he still had in his drawers and notebooks untill he managed out of some miracle to figure out where his mom had kept the book.
Hed been caught the first time and his mother had discovered his… Hobby.
It was such a haze he barely even remembers the details, just that its the angriest hed ever seen the usual stoic woman. Even his dad could see that she was angry then.
Hed been grounded, locked in his room and expected to come out the other end apologising.
Instead, like a moth to a flame, or more acurately and addict to a bag of drugs, he started asking for it.
At first he thought maybe he just had to ask nicely, and when the yells said otherwise hed started begging.
Those few weeks he was probably the most undignified hed ever been.
One day he cracked. He packed all of his notes and pens and ink and picked the lock of his door in the night like the one delinquent had taught him after letting him out of a locker in school.
He had no idea where the book was, he was almost scared theyd burned it, but in hsi desperation he managed to create a spell that let him see every book in the house.
And thus, he had broken into his mothees office and then her safe and hed taken the book aswell as a fair amount of money he found and left without leaving a trace.
At first hed traveled a bit, mainly a long distance by train before settling on walking.
Its during this time he figured out how to live not like a near aristocrat that hed been but a scruffy street kid.
He learned to duplicate bills with a spell but used it only cautiously, knowing the effects it could have on economy.
He met many shady people, accepted help from more of them than he should have, managed to get his hands on another books in the series, before eventually finding the forest he came to call his home.
The townspeople outside the forest told him not to go too deep, he remembers vividly the words as an old lady warned him of how dense and dangerous it was.
They rightfully believed that a simple traveling teen, freshly 18, had no chance at survival in there.
And they wouldve been right, but well, he wasnt so simple.
He takes down the rest of the series, 5 books total, hed aquired in the early years of living here when he still traveled out ocasionally, aswell as the 2 other grimoires hed found.
It would take a lot to convince him not to bring them.
He places them on his bed next to the backpack, but waits to start packing when he notices his old embroidery kit.
He remembers how he used to have a bag that was lighter than what it should be, something that had been very usefull when he was still traveling full time.
Of course back then his embroidery skills had been minimal and he didnt have any good materials, but now…
He picks it up and places it next to his backpack before emptying it of the scarce food and items he had before begining to pasionately look around all the papers and notebooks in his house before finding the one hes after.
An imporved set of sigils he always wanted to embroider on a backpack but never got to doing since he rarely traveled.
One makes the bag lighter than it should, easy to carry and wont hurt his shoulders.
Another that makes the material far sturdier, keeping it from wearing and tearing.
And lastly a sigil hed worked on very hard. It makes the bag much larger on the inside than on the outside, providing space for much more stuff.
Of course, the last one probably isnt as good as it could be, manipulating space goes against the very laws of the world and its therefore very dificult, similarly to his cupboard that freezes time.
With the sigils in hand he goes back to his bed and sits down to start embroidering. Its a special thread now too, made of a specific plant he doesnt remember the name of.
Hed had it made by a real master at her craft aswell, but never used much of it as he didnt embroider often after making a few small spells on his clothes.
The needle is also a work of art of his, a sigil carved around the thin metal making it far easier to use.
Hes not necesarily fast but before night falls his backpack is thoroughly upgraded despite its already quite significant size.
He also takes some time to carefully cover his work.
Even after all those years in near isolation, he thankfully never lost the habit of keeping his work invisible.
Once the blue and purple patches neatly cover every one of his beutiful sigils he begins putting things in it.
As he sees the sun set he figures he might aswell stay the night, so he gives himself some extra time to gather all the things he may need and even creating a few extra usefull tools for himself.
The first thing he does is find a decently sized box and copies over the time pausing sigil so that it lines up across the lid and only activates when closed, similarly to the original.
He also finds an old flat box that he thinks is probably meant for letters, but uhm… He never really got much use out if it for that task.
Either way he repurposes it as a portal that when opened send all the things from his backpack out on this end.
Even if it requires a bit of a last minute mod to his backpack he thinks itll probably be usefull in case of any accidents.
One day he hopes to make a proper portal rune that lets him quickly travel too and from his home.
Other than that he mainly grabs things like pens, knives and ink aswell as other stuff he uses for his spellmaking that hes been miserably without ever since he had to leave.
He also grabs a little bit of food for his make shift pantry but since it doesnt fit much hell probably have to rely on duplication spells if he wants it to last.
Before he knows it the sky has gone pitch dark as he carefully places all his things in his bag.
Its actually quite comforting, packing his bag, despite knowing his home isnt safe, the thought that atleast now his travels will be easier eases his mind.
Looking out at the moon from his little clearing he decides against his better judgement that hell spend the night.
He knows hell be alerted if anyone is even slightly nearby his home, and the second those alarm bells goes off hes out of here.
His bag is packed and ready to go the second he has to, whats the harm in staying a little longer?
So he does. Atleast smart enough to not chnage into pajamas or something, but sometime during the night theres a prickling feeling at his neck, like someone is watching.
But obviously no one could be watching! Its impossible to see him from outside his house, let alone from outside the radius of his alarm spell.
And well, hes stupid enough to ignore that.
By the time the sun rises enough to start warming the treetops E is already a solid distance away from the clearing.
Hed be lying if he said he wasnt a little sad about leaving, but untill he has the prep time and resources to set up larger scale spells again he wont be able to hide it well enough to guarantee his safety.
And hes not taking that risk.
So here he is, treading through the forest, much easier now with the little wooden disk hed made which parts the forest life and makes it much easier to walk through.
He never thought itd come in handy again after he stopped traveling, but here we are.
Getting out of the forest is much, much faster than getting in thanks to this.
Though he hasnt been able to shake the feeling of being watched since last night. Of course now, less sleep deprived, he knows that theres probably plenty of strangers with powers that could let them see him regardless of his homes defences.
Its not very conforting to say the least, even if hes relatively sure if that is the case, they atleast arent with the foundation.
Very few strangers choose to side with the foundation, and those who do are usually pretty common knowlage among other strangers.
Hell have to ask the next person he meets if they know of anyone with abilities like this.
Once outside the forest its already well past mid day, and hes had to pause once to eat already.
Hes long since become aware how privelaged he is being able to eat as properly as he does. Not everyone can duplicate food basically at will.
Hes attempted to share his gift with as many as he can when hes stumbled upon others throughout the past year, but its difficult when hes simultaneously trying to keep his precious sigils secret.
Maybe hes selfish for that, keeping it quiet and invisible, but honestly he couldnt care less.
His sigils are his life, pretty much, and even if he did share them the chances of anyone else being able to use them without complex materials are low.
Nevermind the fact that he personally thinks hes allowed to be a tint bit selfish every now an then.
Its not like the other time someone saw his sigils went very well anyways.
Though he cant deny he misses his parents a little despite it all.
He wonders what they did after he ran away.
Did they look? Did they orchastrate a search? Did they pretend he simply died to avoid the trouble?
Hes not sure what hed prefer.
So instead he keeps walking, the eyes on him eventually disapearing, only to return a couple days later.
After a few weeks that feeling fades into the background, hes able to tell easily enough wether its an actual person watching or just that weird feeling, so its not much of an issue.
He wonders if hell ever figure out what it is that is watching him.
Or maybe its just the shadows.