An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
There were tough times, of course. Stealing was a necessity once in a while — it wasn't hard to do, but it still made him feel sick, even worse than the gnawing hunger that drove him to do it in the first place. On more isolated roads, he was sometimes robbed and beaten (that was fine — he'd lived through worse already. If he'd gotten good at anything in his life, it was tuning the ways his body could hurt like a radio until the feelings just became faraway static). Once, militia members harassed him into joining their efforts, even forcing a gun into his hand and laughing when he tensed at the sound of it firing. He played along until there was a chance to bolt, and then he outran them, not even realizing he'd taken their gun along by accident. He chucked the thing straight into the nearest body of water with absolutely no hesitation.
But all in all, he was happy enough. He liked a lot of the places he saw, even found them beautiful. People helped him more often than not, even if it was just out of politeness or pity. A few even smiled kind smiles and wished him well when he took off again. They didn't ask any questions about his plans or wondered if he might stay. They went on with their lives, not sparing him another thought. And that was fine. He was fine.
He went forward. He walked hundreds, thousands, millions of steps. He kept looking for home.
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([REDACTED] shares his story (while being an extremely unreliable narrator in the process). Also: are those dots? Badly needing to be connected? Mirabel starts to notice them...)