In the quiet of the night, Valyrie has time to reflect on her life. How it was before as her anger begins to reside for a moment. She lived a harsh life as a Cimmerian, hunting and foraging in the chilly highlands, killing wild animals bigger and faster than her to survive. Hardened to be a fighter. But she felt something while she was on that cross. Something she's felt too many times.

Helplessness. Fear. This time it felt like nothing she's ever endured before. For days, she was dying in the middle of nowhere. Nails in her wrists. Bleeding out. Not a soul in sight. Until someone finally saved her.

She can't get the mysterious rescuer out of her head. His name. Where he is. She has so many questions.

The baby only managed to satiate Valyrie's appetite for a short moment, and she has to get something more filling. Her mind then snaps to the waterskin the man gave her, and wonders if she can make her own. But first, she has to focus on food, and she needs a tool. One of them needs to be a torch. She gets some branches and plant fiber, starting a spark as she strikes it against the crystal she got earlier. As the torch is ignited, she hears something nearby. She stops for a moment and listens. She thinks it's a creature walking by, and she stands up and holds the torch up. She hears some footsteps against the grass. Quiet. Slow.

She steadies her breathing and hides behind a tree and grabs a big branch nearby and a pebble of stone, sharpening the branch with it. She doesn't have much time to craft something more effective, in case it happens to be a threat. She steps around the tree as it gets closer. She grips the branch tight, only to be greeted with one of the wandering creature she encountered earlier. She grips her branch and impales the creature in the throat as Valyrie listens to its dying breaths, the warm thick blood flowing out, coating her hand. As it slowly collapses to the ground, Valyrie gets ready to get some meat, only to be attacked from behind.

She shouts in pain as a stone javelin finds itself in her thigh. In the dark, she can't see the damage, but someone apparently can. It would have been a smart move to staunch her torch. Perhaps the attacker missed his intended location.

Valyrie can't tell where the attacker is, but she can hear him or her approaching. Valyrie isn't strong enough at the moment to remove the javelin out of her leg, and she feels it's only going to get worse. She fumbles around for her branch, and as she obtains it again, she turns around and readies herself to strike. Despite this, she's knocked down as a man ruthlessly pummels her, and Valyrie puts her arms up to protect her face. The man then grabs her arms and pins her down as he whispers, almost insidiously, "Man flesh!"

Through the light of her nearby torch, she sees the man's teeth, sharpened to points. Valyrie's stomach churns as she thinks about he's about to do. She struggles to get out, though the man is much stronger. She spits some blood in the man's eye, but this only angers the attacker. He keeps his iron grip on her, despite being blinded. He hisses and goes to bite down on her neck as she screams, though she counters this as she bites down on his ear as hard as she can.

The man rolls to his side as he clasps his ear, grunting as he grabs something from his nap sack. A knife. Valyrie rolls to her side as the man prepares to strike down, but the javelin stuck in her leg hinders her. The man steps on Valyrie's chest as he swiftly and carelessly pulls the projectile out of her leg, and gets ready to impale her. Valyrie has to think fast. So she grabs the knife the man used and stabs him in the leg, then she pulls it out and stabs him again.

The man collapses to one knee, clasping his leg as blood pours out. Furious, the man grips his javelin and almost cuts the side of her temple as she rolls to her side. She gets on her good knee as she grips the knife and gets ready to strike, though her weapon is much shorter, she imagines she'll get impaled first, but she isn't stopoing now. The man grunts angrily and Valyrie scowls him.

He thrusts his weapon forward, aiming for the heart. She holds the knife against the stone as it grazes along the side of it, grabbing it and then using her weapon to stab him in the throat. The man grunts and winces as he feels the pain, but it's as if something is rendering him nigh invincible. The man whispers something, but Valyrie can't understand it.

She's frightened now, and the stranger grabs Valyrie's arm, pulls the knife out and twists her wrist. She shouts in pain as the knife falls to the ground. The man tries to use the knife and gut her, but she grabs the javelin now and stabs him through the throat again, shoving it in as far as she can this time. Making sure he's dead. She takes the knife and is about to stab him, but the stranger grabs her hand, shaking, and tries to force the weapon to her side. While she's busy trying to fight back, she then looks into his eyes. Void of anything. She's a little frightened by this, and lets her guard down for a moment, giving the man the leeway he needs to stab Valyrie in the abdomen.

While she grunts in pain, she takes the javelin and forces it in with what strength she might have left. As the two begin to lose more blood, their strength wanes, and the stranger is winning thus far. Valyrie grits her teeth as she pulls the javelin out to speed up the blood loss. She starts to feel her eyes getting heavy. Her body weakening. She feels herself fading in and out, and the next thing she knows, the man lies dead in a pool of blood.

Valyrie feels weak. Exhausted. Before she has a chance to accept fate, she sees some meat on the man's belt.

She winces as she crawls to the man's corpse, and takes the meat. As soon as she takes a bite, she feels a rush of fulfillment, and something else she can't explain. Something unpleasant. She then swears she heard a garbled voice nearby. She listens and waits for it to come again. Nothing.

She doesn't know the cause or the reason, but she goes back with cutting up the creature she killed earlier, and puts it over the campfire, keeping the meat from the stranger handy. Then she hears that voice again. Clearer this time. She almost swore she heard it say her name. The voice sends chills down her spine, even colder after her name was announced. The voice sounded evil.

She's on edge now, but she tries to steel herself to stay on guard despite the draining experience her day has been so far. As she cooks the meat, she lies her head on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable.

She's killed countless wildlife to survive, but never another human. She's a little shaken, but she doesn't let it get the better of her. She tries to take her mind off of it. Focusing on her plan in the morning. Tools. Build some sort of house. Weapons. Another torch. Getting clothed. More food. Then she can focus on rest as she forces herself to stay awake, staying as alarm as she can. But though she makes an effort to focus elsewhere, the mysterious voice haunts her, second guessing whether or not it actually said her name. And what else it knows.