Chapter: 2. What a Wonderful World
Font meanings:
𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐬
𝑺𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒔
𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹
[Thought]
Speech
The horseman raced through the woods on his trusty steed never having felt such a thrill, the beautiful scenery the wind in his hair and the oxygen-rich air made him feel more alive than ever before.
Though he wished for it to last forever it seemed that his mount burned through its energy soon after they had first started their breakneck pace and slowed down its pace to a slow trot.
They continued on their while not exhilarating but very relaxing walk along the trail and soon came upon a lake calm lake glistening in the sun.
His horse seemingly had decided that this lake was the most interesting thing around and immediately went towards it and lowers his head to the water and drank deeply of it.
Realizing that he should probably give his friend some time to rest Ilianor dismounted and stood on the bank of the lake.
It like seemingly anything in this forest was beautiful and it was most definitely purer than any water he had ever tasted so he decided to follow the example of his equine and lowered himself to one knee and leaned down to cup the water but stopped as he saw his reflection.
What stared back at him was not his face with its sunken eyes over blue circles which were permanently present and skin clinging to the bones but instead was a visage of oval shape, symmetry, and light complexion it had high cheekbones and full lips and with pure white hair and Irises equally as pure which seemed to glow from within.
["This would explain my voice."]
Ilianor thought to when he made his avatar and remember just how overwhelmed he was with the hundreds of sliders for face facial structure alone that he decided to randomly pick some human variant and downloaded YGGDRASIL Online face preset pretty boy #47 and just jumped in the game.
Standing up to investigate the rest of his new body he saw that he was still wearing his gear mostly consisting of low-level items barely better than regular clothing. Simple black jodhpurs with a brown sword belt and Paddock boots covered his legs with the only other article of clothing on him being a simple white tunic.
["Probably should have spent more time looking for gear."] He thought to himself realizing that he has no idea where he is or what danger could be lurking all around him he quickly patted himself down looking for a weapon only to realize that his sword belt was empty he hurried to his mount who in the meantime had lain itself on the ground to rest and checked the saddle bag finding a leather-bound notebook, few days worth of food a water skin his cloak and a 12-inch dagger with a sheath he could loop around his belt.
After equipping the sheath he took the water skin and walked to the lake to fill it and took a sip of the cool liquid he could feel running down his throat and then hurriedly drank the rest of it in big gulps of the best drink he had ever tasted.
["Never could have thought that water could taste this good"] he thought to himself not caring for any bacteria or germs which might be in the pool as they couldn't possibly be worse than the frequently chemically polluted water back "home".
After refilling the water skin he got up and tried to get his horse up and continue their adventure but his friend seemed to be in no mood for galavanting and remained on the ground.
Ilianor decided to let him be and went into the forest again to scout around the lake and not to fawn over every little thing he finds.
Walking along the shore he saw a few fish in the water and was intrigued at their differences he saw one big one with dotted stripes on its side a few smaller ones with pink along their sides and many tiny little silver ones in his world most fish were dead and the few remaining ones were raised for the ultra-rich to eat or kept as exotic pets.
Turning his attention away from the fish he went back into the forest to keeping an eye out for anything that might catch his interest.
As he went deeper in he once again started to hear the chirps of birds again and even saw a few in the trees these ones were much more colorful than the woodpecker from before they were light yellow blues and reds and even saw a beautiful raven or at least he thought it was one it was a deep shade of black with beautiful blue undertones.
Ilianor stood there looking up at the raven for a while enchanted at its appearance regretting that he hadn't taken any bread with him to lure it closer so he could take a better look and he whist fully watched as it took flight somewhere above the tree line and strolled further in the woods.
He kept going marveling at the nature around him smelling the pretty little flower and picking a few to bring back with him and even saw a weird brown creature that kinda looked like a small horse but its head had branching horns and was shaped differently he tried to sneak closer but it heard him and ran away from him so he just went back to his walk.
It had been not even an hour but the sky was starting to turn this wonderful shade of orange which he knew from YGGDRASIL meant it would be night soon so he decided to go back but thought to himself that a few more minutes couldn't hurt and soon was rewarded for his stubbornness to leave when he saw a tree that was dwarfed by the ones around it not even being a third of its size with red fruit growing on it as he came closer he realized it was an apple tree his grandpa would tell stories about before the wild ones went extinct and apparently were delicious.
Picking one he bite into it and was stunned by the flavor and realized just how right his grandfather was and devoured it like a starved man being presented a buffet consuming and reached for another one or six of them and only stopped when he chocked on them.
After nearly dying of asphyxiation he decide it was a better idea just to take as many of them back with him as he could carry back with him and hurried back to his friend before the sun would set.
He made it back to the lake and like many times today stunned and awestruck at the calm clear lake a reflecting pale pink and purple sky with countless clouds in it he walked and just stood there for a moment and then went to his friend who was now grazing not far from where he had left him.
Ilianor knew he was going to need a fire if he wanted to stay warm tonight but luckily he remember the stories of his grandpa from when he used to go camping with his great grandfather and how he was taught about how rubbing sticks together would create fire so he gather a few sticks and some leaves made a stone ring from rocks he found along the shore and tried his best to make flame but grew less and less optimistic as the rubbing of wood went on for minutes and just before he was going to give up he saw a spark of orange and slowly blew on it and dropped a more leaves on it to get it started and was greeted by a small fire which he fed the rest of the sticks and leaves to and sat back in contentment at his minor accomplishment and was soon joined by his mount who laid itself down slightly behind him and he took the opportunity to grab his cloak from its saddle and wrap it around himself like a blanket and decided to draw and write about things he had seen today in the Blank journal he found and to his delight they didn't turn out half bad.
Then he after a wonderful day rested his head on his friend and stargazed but before sleep could claim him he could only think to himself
["What a wonderful world"]