Danny flew steadily north until the sun set and it became too dark to see comfortably. He circled downward and searched for shelter until he found a nice outcropping of rock to camp under. He landed and tiredly transformed into Fenton. He checked over the egg and found it to be in the same condition as he'd left it. He swiftly changed out of his jeans and T-shirt and mournfully stowed them in his sack before donning his new attire. He made a face; the fabric was much rougher than he was used to.

Then his stomach growled.

Danny flinched as he realized he'd forgotten something crucial in Dras-Leona: food. He wasn't equipped for an extended stay in the wilderness: no camping supplies, no fresh water, no food…

He'd once been stranded by himself before for a few days in the Ghost Zone and had gone camping once or twice with his family, so he knew one or two things about surviving in the wilderness. His ghost form was extremely durable, and some of that translated to his human body, so he didn't necessarily need shelter even in harsh conditions, and it wasn't terribly cold outside, anyway. However, he still needed water, and he needed food, which would both be problematic to obtain.

Danny thought about what he'd seen during his flight from Dras-Leona and realized he was close to a river, having followed it up north. He could make a quick stop there for water. He could choose to boil it, but his immune system, bolstered by the ecto-energy his ghost form produced, could handle most illnesses that could strike humans. And for food… He didn't want to try his hand at collecting wild plants to eat, because if he found something his ghost form couldn't handle, he was in trouble. On the other hand, he'd never hunted in his life. He knew the basics: find an animal, kill it, and cook it, but the specifics escaped him.

Sighing, and resolving to go hungry and thirsty until morning, Danny miserably hunkered down under the outcropping and dozed. What he wouldn't give for a Nasty Burger right now… He wanted to go home.

Sometime later, Danny woke, feeling like he was being watched. He looked around in the darkness and saw nothing. He pumped energy to his senses, enhancing them until he could see individual stalks of grass under the moonlight and hear the rustle of a faint breeze.

And Danny could see the strange script again. This time, there was a circle hovering above the egg. He craned his neck and saw a furious man within the circle, watching the egg hungrily with cruel eyes. The man noticed Danny – or, rather, likely Danny's glowing eyes – when he got too close. An additional line of script joined the first, and suddenly there was a voice accompanying the image.

"So, you are the one who stole my egg, hmm? What manner of creature are you?" The man's voice was deceptively calm. Danny struggled with his comprehension of the language before he understood what had been said. By then, the man had said something else, this time in a language Danny did not recognize.

Danny remained still, feeling the weight of those eyes upon him. They reminded him of Vlad's eyes: powerful, greedy, evil, manipulative. If the egg had been this man's…

Great. I already have an enemy here. And a powerful one, too, Danny grumbled to himself. He looked at the egg. I should have just left you where I found you. Now I'm a fugitive.

Feeling disconcerted and not wanting to be in contact with the man any longer, Danny allowed ecto-energy to gather in his palm and waved his hand through the circles. There was an enraged shout before the script vanished, burned away by the ecto-energy.

Through the night, the rings of script formed several more times. Danny destroyed each circle as it appeared. He did so as Fenton, not wanting the man to see him entirely with his ghost form's glow. He hated being spied upon, and he didn't like the creepy feeling the man gave him.

Finally, the attempts stopped, just as the sky turned gray in the pre-dawn light. Danny sighed, exhausted from staying up all night. He was still hungry and thirsty, too.

He curled around the egg and waited for dawn.

After the sun had risen, Danny transformed back into Phantom, grabbed his sack, and flew west toward the river he'd seen. While he was starving, hunger gnawing at his stomach, water was of a greater priority. He gained speed as the river came into view, then landed at its bank. He knelt down at the river and, after a moment of deliberation, cupped water in his hands and drank. After drinking his fill, he stood and sighed contentedly. He was still hungry and tired, but he already felt much better.

Afterwards, Danny floated over the center of the river, looking for fish to catch. He eventually found a shoal of fish in the shallows and speared a couple of them with shards of ice.

Giddy from his success – as he'd never utilized his ice powers in such a manner before – Danny landed on the bank again. He gathered some shrubbery to burn and, after a quick ecto-blast, had a nice fire going. He put the dead fish over the fire – a quick infusion of energy to the ice spears ensured that they wouldn't melt in the heat – and waited for the fish to cook. He wasn't sure how long he needed to wait, but he figured that so long as the fish wasn't charred black, he was okay.

While he was waiting, he heard hooves nearby, enough for a single horse. Turning invisible, Danny watched as a lone horseman approached the river to let his horse drink. Danny cursed internally as he watched the man make his way over to Danny's fire, curious about the untended food. Then he started poking at the sack containing Danny's old clothes and the egg.

Danny had to intervene before the man found something he shouldn't. He invisibly transformed into Fenton, then quietly stepped up behind the man and poked him on the shoulder.

The man shouted in surprise, drew a sword from his hip Danny hadn't noticed, and swung. Danny almost got his head taken off for his trouble. As it was, when he leaned backward, the sword tip still came within inches of his throat.

The man blinked when he realized he wasn't under attack. "Sorry, friend. Didn't realize you were still close by!" He laughed nervously.

Danny carefully composed the response in his head before trying it aloud. "It's okay," he said slowly, making sure to get the pronunciation right. "Could you please not go after… my things?"

"You're lucky it's me instead of some thief," the man admonished, sheathing his sword. "I'm Jugh. What's your name?"

"…Danny."

"Danny, eh? That's a strange name," Jugh said. Danny shrugged. "Whereabouts you're heading?"

"North."

"Ah, I'd be careful heading that way, if I was you. I've heard stories of entire villages being burned to the ground by Urgals."

Danny was wary of asking what Urgals were – the man spoke as if Danny knew what they were, and what Urgals were was likely common knowledge – but he needed to know what he was getting into by heading up north. "What are Urgals?" he asked carefully.

Jugh laughed. "What are Urgals? Ha! What are Urgals, he says! Even city folk like you must have heard of the brutes." Danny shook his head. Jugh gaped. "Well, aren't you a sheltered one? Urgals are monsters that roam the countryside. They walk on two feet like men, but they fight and slaughter like savage beasts. I've never seen one, but I hear they're larger than any man and have horns upon their heads."

Danny considered what he had heard, translating it in his mind. Urgals sounded something like orcs or trolls. He would be fine while he flew. Maybe he should make camp in trees from now on?

"Eh, let's not let such unlucky talk foul the air, in light of such a good breakfast!" Jugh eyed the fish. "Say, what are you roasting those on?"

"Rocks," Danny lied, cursing himself for not finding branches to stick the fish on instead of ice spears.

"Strange rocks," Jugh grumbled, sitting down next to the fire. Danny saw no way of getting rid of him soon, or at least until the fish had finished cooking. Which would probably be soon, given the aroma in the air and the fish's blackening scales.

Danny pulled one of the spears of the fire and prodded the meat. It seemed to have toughened from when he'd freshly caught the fish. He tugged the fish off the spear and offered it to Jugh, who took it with evident delight and a thank you. Danny took the other fish and eyed it dubiously. He'd never eaten fish straight from the stream before. He surreptitiously eyed how Jugh did it.

Jugh had taken out a knife and was scraping one side of the fish's back off. He then took the strip and ate it whole, scales and all. Danny made a face.

"Here, let me do yours, oh sheltered one," Jugh said. "Bet you don't know how." Danny shook his head and handed over the fish. In quick order, it was split into pieces of fillet that Danny could eat and separated from the head, tail and organs. Jugh had sliced the fish into pieces so fast Danny hadn't been able to figure out how he'd done it. Danny thanked him and turned to his meal, ravenously falling upon the food. The nervousness from interacting with the man had turned his stomach into knots, but the sight of food in front of him brought his appetite roaring back.

"Hmm," said Jugh. "A little underdone, but not bad for your first try." Danny nodded, accepting the critique.

Both fish were finished shortly. Danny's stomach still ached – one fish hadn't been enough – but he couldn't go fishing with his audience, so he put out the fire by smothering it with dust and grabbed his bag.

"Heading off?" said Jugh. "You should go back home. You won't last long out here."

"Thank you for the concern… but I really do… have to go," Danny said slowly.

"Suit yourself," Jugh shrugged. "It ain't my business where you go and what you do."

Danny nodded before shouldering his pack and walking off.

Jugh let his smile drop. He grabbed one of the spears Danny had claimed were rocks. They were far too finely pointed and thin to be rocks. He fingered the spear, noting its bluish color and its frigidity. "Magic," he cursed, recognizing it for what it was. Jugh glanced in the direction Danny had headed in and shook his head. He buried the spears and obliterated all traces of their presence in the area. Of all the rotten luck…! Running afoul of a magician by himself, the king's or not, was bound to bring misfortune. Jugh hurriedly left, thanking his lucky stars that his destination was south, away from the young man.

Once Danny was out of sight, he turned into Phantom and invisibly leapt into the air. He considered staying by the river and catching another fish upstream, out of sight. He decided to catch another fish or two to eat, but to not make a fire. He could fry the fish with ecto-energy while he was flying.

On second thought, given how often his parents inadvertently brought food to life, maybe that wasn't such a great idea. Fire it was, then.

Upstream a ways from where he'd met Jugh, Danny found a secluded knot of trees by the river. He circled the area a couple of times and, seeing no one nearby, stashed his pack under a root system and formed a couple more ice spears to fish with. In short order, he had another fire going with another two fish cooking.

Let's hope I don't run into anyone else, Danny thought as he ate, carefully slicing into the fish with thin lasers from his fingers. I can't afford talking to anyone else. Knowing my luck, the egg belonged to someone super powerful and he's now touring the countryside trying to find me.

Finally sated, Danny buried the remains of his food, kicked out the fire, and took off, bag flung over his back. The sun was high in the sky by this time. With nothing better to do, Danny kept flying north, following the river.

While he was flying, Danny practiced speaking the new language he'd picked up. He needed to be able to speak it fluently; he was just lucky Jugh hadn't asked why his speech had been so slow or why he hadn't had any fishing gear with him.

Eventually, the river twisted off to the west. Danny debated between following it and staying north. He finally decided to stay by the river, as it was a convenient source of food and water.

Soon, the flat plain turned into foothills as a mountain range came into view. Danny shivered as he looked at it. It was a jagged range, quietly dominating the landscape. Danny had barely reached the mountains when the sun began to set. He made it to a small lake in the middle of the pass when the sun dipped beneath the horizon. That night, Danny found shelter in a copse of trees, well away from the road he'd seen. He huddled at the base of a tree with the egg.

Danny reviewed his situation. He had no idea where he was going, and surviving day-to-day would be a struggle. He was likely being chased by a madman, if his impressions the previous night had been correct. He was trapped here for the time being. After reviewing all this, Danny couldn't help but feel miserable. He consoled himself by wrapping around the egg, which sent feelings of happiness to cheer him up. At least he'd done something right in this dimension by taking the egg.

Despite his best efforts to stay awake – what if the circle of script and the menacing man within returned? – he drifted off to an exhausted sleep.

Danny dreamed. He dreamed of flying northeast over a vast plain. He dreamed of a city by a lake with a garrison. He dreamed of flying over the lake into a gigantic forest, larger than the plain. He dreamed of flying through the forest until he came to another city by a mountain. He dreamed of handing over the egg to a race of beautiful people with pointed ears. He dreamed of a voice whispering, You may find what you seek here…

Danny woke up, feeling like he'd been violated in some way. He looked over at the egg. It was oozing contentment, the first impression he'd gotten from it since the lake by Dras-Leona. Danny understood then that his dream had been no mere dream; he'd somehow seen a far-off place to take the egg.

"Is that where you want to go?" Danny asked, his speech in the new language much smoother. He received a humming sensation from the egg. "I guess that's a yes." He thought about the words he'd heard. Maybe someone was helping him get back home. His dream certainly felt different from the castle he'd fallen into or the man he'd seen in the circle of runes.

Danny mentally planned out his journey to the place he'd seen. He'd have to retrace his flight through the pass along the river, then head northeast to a city, then a lake, then a forest. He wasn't sure what he'd eat along the way instead of fish, but he'd figure something out.

He started off in the morning, feeling refreshed and much more confident now that he had a destination to go to.

This is pretty filler-y, so sorry about that. Action will pick up next chapter. Also, I have determined that I never want to be caught by myself in the wild because I would probably eat a poisonous mushroom or something and die.

Thank you for the overwhelming response I received for the prologue and first chapter! I almost can't believe it. Thank you again, and please leave a review on the way out!

-HM