Araes flew for days, incessantly flapping over the desolate blue ocean surface. Mike continuously supplied her with radiance during his flight and with each day, he felt the dwindling of his strength. His wants and needs he could ignore previously began to surface.
His tummy rumbled, and his mouth felt dry. He desperately needed to put something in his belly. For over a week now he had not put a thing into his mouth, merely radiance had sustained him.
Mike could tell that Araes flight was a thing of muscle memory, she had left her forest to wherever she had flown to repeatedly, or so he hoped. He was naked, scrawny and nothing for the eyes. Though his radiance still protected from the cold, he had deduced that it would not be long before he got hit with the brunt.
"I hope we find a place to settle before that happens." He told himself. The chains had gone into hiding as they often did, and he, not only did he have to deal with hunger, his body had once again begun feeling fatigue. He fought to stay awake, and though he was certain that Araes would not let him fall, he could not still give himself that leeway, not when they were hundreds of meters above an ocean.
Mike's eyelids had sunken, his vision a blur when he noticed a slightly part green dot quite far away from them. He opened his eyes, and lightly shook his head. It was more than a green dot, it was land.
'At long last.'
Araes' flight had slowed, and her flaps felt weighty from fatigue.
"Just a little more, just a little more…" Mike cried with excitement.
"What the…" Mike turned to his captive radiant beast. Its face told of exhaustion and he could tell it was going to disrupt their landing. The once overflowing radiance surging through him had been reduced to merely a shadow of its former self. He harboured just enough for three elemental spells, enough for sustenance as a radiant.
Araes went terribly low all of a sudden, and Mike almost fell from her clutch. He was tightly gripped in her large feet claws, and he was close to slipping away with that descent.
"Just a little more…" The sandy beach harbouring bleached soil and tropical trees was just in sight, he could practically taste the juices in the trees' fruits.
"Don't fail me now."
Soon as they zoomed past a spot, a large fish jumped out, intending to have engulfed the two. It had been terribly close.
Mike held the splash, turned, and saw the enormous fish—about five times his size fall back into the Ocean.
Mike turned back, and before he knew it, he was dropped right at the very edge of the beach. He rolled across the wet sand, and rose.
Araes' on the other hand continued her flight through the trees, hitting them as she descended from fatigue. Eventually, she stopped upon hitting a thicker tree stem and fell to the ground. A red glow of light encompassed the radiant beast and she suddenly vanished.
Mike did not worry however, he understood that it had simply returned back to the space the crimson chains hid it. A knowledge that he was not privy to.
He let out an exasperated sigh, his hands on his waist turning about, trying to capture the entirety of where he now stood.
"Ohh…" he spotted what looked to be coconut trees, Araes had even fallen through a number them, and he scuttled to the ones nearest to him.
Radiance streamed from his core and balled in his fist as he sent a punch of wind tearing through the atmosphere. The violent gust struck and round husks burst from above and fell with a rush.
Mike helped himself to them.
'They do really feel like coconuts.' their green husks were just as identical and when he shook them, he could hear the movement of water within them. Getting through the husks was the hard part, he tried hitting them against a rock but they didn't budge. Then, he remembered, he had radiance and one thing he could do was to boost his physical abilities. He focused an ample amount into his right hand and gently applied pressure on the husk until his fingers sank in, and then he pulled back his hands swiftly, tearing the husk with a swipe.
He did these for half a dozen and cracked them, feeding on the flesh and drinking the water.
'That would suffice.'
He turned about once again, there was not a living creature in sight except for a few colorful birds perched on the trees.
He looked at his junk, remembered that he was naked and let out a sigh. He needed to get clothes, and fast. But first, he would need directions. He was away from the hell that was Talcaf forest, but once again, he was back to square one: no clothes and no radiance.
He stood adjacent to the forest before him, looked to the sides, and nodded. The trees reminded him of Talcaf, and he did not want a repeat of such once more, and he decided to take the left, and began walking.
He walked for hours, until the suns set, and yet, all he had seen were birds and trees, his radiance would not hold him for so long, and he needed a proper meal.
Just when things didn't seem like they could get worse, it began to rain and thunder, and the cold ate into him—his radiance no longer granting him temperature resistance.
He managed to scuttle and find shelter at the foot of a tree. Still, the wet soil and the cold did their best to make him utterly uncomfortable.
That night, Mike cried. He missed home, he missed the few friends he kept, he missed good food, and most of all, he missed not worrying about dying.
It would take an enormous amount of will to get through this.