They were not doing well.

They had been on the seas for two and a half days. The water was empty, no land in sight, and the only living creatures they had spotted had been birds too small to be worth the attempt to catch them, fish in the same category, and a single whale that had the complete opposite issue.

Still, dehydrated and starving, Apexus rowed on. He had to keep rowing. Reysha looked too delicious, in ways he was not comfortable with, to allow himself an unoccupied moment. He knew that there were parts of him, locked not all that far down, ready to take over any conscious thoughts he had when it came to self-preservation. Denying that part of him was near impossible. After all, what successful creature would fade out of life willingly?

For her part, Reysha wouldn’t have had a lot of energy to resist. Three days without food were unpleasant, but doable for an adult human. It was the lack of water that made her lay like a wet towel at the tail end of the boat. She was hiding, as best she could, underneath the sitting planks and the folded mast, from the sun and Apexus’ gaze. The animal inside her own mind, equally close to the surface, recognized what exactly he was suppressing and that, if it came down to it, her chance of surviving the brawl were slim.

Aclysia knew nothing of that struggle. Of the three of them, she was faring the best. She was getting weaker, courtesy of her supply of magic being coupled to the excess lifeforce her companions had, but it was happening much slower than their biological processes. Just sitting around in the boat, there was not a whole lot to expend energy on.

The mental processes involved in near starvation and thirst were impossible to understand for Aclysia. That both of these were issues, however, she knew. Every now and again, she would fly up and try to spot something. She was on one such trip right now.

“To think that it could actually, after all of that, be the lack of water…” the raspy voice of the tiger girl echoed.

Apexus grunted a response.

“Like…fuck… I survived two droughts… in the desert… and then I’m going to die of thirst…” she took a deep breath. Her intent to scream was destroyed by a dry cough. “…in the… fucking… ocean…”

“Don’t talk,” Apexus told her. It came off even harsher than he had intended. Harsh and wanting for something that only existed in her. Their eyes met. They knew what they were capable of in desperate situations. In Reysha’s eyes reflected fear and trust. A part of Apexus was annoyed by the former. After all that had happened, should she trust him absolutely? ‘No, because I could do it,’ the slime thought.

That thought made him more afraid than anything and he quickly averted his gaze. His hungry, desperate gaze. The less he sensed of her, the better.

Aclysia landed at the tip of the boat with a soft ‘thud’. “I saw land – an autumn forest,” she excitedly reported. “Steer slightly west and we’ll get there.”

“Yaaay,” Reysha let out the tiniest sound of jubilation, while Apexus kept rowing.

And kept rowing.

Not thinking.

Ignoring the desire to let go of the paddles. Tear her throat out. Devour her whole.

He barely remembered how human tasted.

A lot of useful adaptations were to be gained there.

Were humans apex predator enough to count multiple times?

Her flesh would sustain him until they hit land.

Other issues were irrelevant.

No food, no future.

And…

Finally, the boat hit a sandy elevation. It was several metres off the coast, but Apexus didn’t care.  Letting go of the paddles, he immediately jumped out of the boat. He ran through the knee-deep water, stormed up the beach, and collapsed into a field of high coast grass that grew between the rocks, separating sand and forest dirt.

With no mind to question, he devoured the brown and green grass. Fistful for fistful, he tore at the dry plant matter and shoved it into his mouth. Individually, they did little to help his hunger. Mass was enough though. In his stomach, the grass was rapidly digested and turned into biomass and, as little as could be extracted, moisture.

Aclysia flew off to scout for a source of water, shortly after helping Reysha onto land. For her part, the tiger girl was still present enough to walk and look around. It was slower than usual, immensely so, but she could still move. Thirty minutes later, having replenished his biomass and needing more water, Apexus followed her.

They stumbled over a trickle of a river that ended in the ocean. It was far from optimal, but by making a small dam, they could cup what little water flowed with their hand and drink. Reysha went first. Despite her intense thirst, she only drank a couple of times. Her throat was so parched, her body so deep in emergency maintenance, that drinking what she needed the most was painful.

“I will return to examining the surrounding area. In case of trouble, I will stay close enough to come to your aid,” Aclysia informed them and took off again. The two of them continued their recovery.

“I’m sorry,” Apexus said eventually, when his form no longer felt like it was on the verge of destabilizing.

Reysha was between the high of survival and the beyond unpleasant feeling of lingering dehydration. She was also still dirty, but that was a side issue at the moment. “What for?” she asked.

“I was about to eat you.”

“You still on about that?” Reysha asked. She had no interest to even feign that she hadn’t noticed how close they had gotten there. It could have been minutes or hours more. Both were short timeframes when it came to the decision to eat a loved one. This particular loved one was not one to dwell on such things though. “I’d prefer it if you at least waited until I die naturally before you eat me, but otherwise you have my full consent.”

“This isn’t a joke, Reysha,” Apexus responded dully. He was too tired and too disappointed in himself to muster outrage.

Reysha wet her throat with another handful of water. Desperate thirst satisfied, she splashed some on her face. Dead skin, sweat and dirt loosened, as she rubbed the hydration in. She needed two more splashes to get the mixture off. “What makes you think I’m joking?”

“I shouldn’t eat you,” Apexus kept eating grass between words. By now, he was back to his regular size. His reserves were empty though and so the feeling of hunger was still intense, if manageable. “I shouldn’t even think about eating you.”

“Alright, look here, Apexus. You looking?” Reysha made sure they had eye contact. “Ya shouldn’t kill me, that’s clear. So yeah, try not to think about eating me while I’m alive. If I die before ya and my tasty curves are the only thing around, you better fucking eat me and get on with life, okay?”

“It would be wrong.”

“It would keep you kicking,” the tiger girl stated. “Which is more important to me than my corpse rotting away in some corner of the Omniverse.” Her stomach growled intensely. Filled with water, her body had hope for something more substantive to follow. “Not that you could even resist if we got to that point.”

Apexus had nothing to respond to that. It hurt that she was right. Even if she hadn’t been fine with it, at a certain point of hunger the slime knew that he would be unable to disobey his instincts. That he could eat her was terrible enough if he did it because they both saw the necessity in the moment. If he just did it out of animal instincts, then what was he really? ‘A thin layer of personality is sustained when the world around me is secure enough,’ he thought. ‘I need my own self to be stronger.’

Although he had no idea how to go about that specifically, he knew that there were urgent things that needed to be done. “Aclysia!” he shouted. After just a few seconds, the metal fairy came back into view, sailing over the golden canopies. Once she landed, he continued, “I’ll go hunting. Watch over Reysha.”

“And maybe heal my skin,” the tiger girl croaked, scratching her neck. “Fuck my life, I managed to suppress how merciless the sun can be.”

“Affirmative,” Aclysia just nodded, outwardly relieved that she was no longer the only one with a functioning head on her shoulders. Before the slime could leave, she asked, “Where did our boat go?”

The three of them looked to the shore together. The vessel they had taken to get there had just vanished in its entirety. Once they were certain of that fact, they just let it go. None of them were attached to the boat anyway.

Afterwards, the humanoid chimera moved into the woods, one step at a time. His weight, above what one would expect even for someone of his height and build, turned out to be an issue. One step into a mud pile was enough to teach him that semi-liquid dirt could be an impressive adhesive. He kept to the safe spots wherever he could, not eager to free himself a second time.

Most of the forest was relatively dry. The rainless stretch they had suffered through on the sea had left the forest similarly bereft of fresh moisture. However, the ground water seemed to be fairly high, the soil dense and fertile. A layer of golden leaves covered the floor, hiding under them slippery rocks and mud pools. Their slow decay filled the air with an earthy smell.

It was all beautiful in a way that Apexus found somewhat unsettling. Ripe fruit hung from the trees, small birds jumped between half empty branches, and the temperature was just below comfortable. It felt like everything alive had reached its zenith and was settling in for a time of hardship. That was autumn: the resignation of all things alive that winter was coming. Except that, on this Leaf, that wasn’t the case.

‘I prefer summer,’ Apexus thought and looked for something worthwhile to kill. That there were fruits, apples and pears primarily, hanging all around was reassuring, but he wanted to bring Reysha something she could enjoy eating. Unless he found no magical animals around, he wouldn’t resort to fruit picking.

Remaining still, Apexus focused on his senses in turn. His sight only spotted trees and the ocean he had left behind between them. His nose registered the earthy smell, the sweetness of tree sap, and, if he really strained himself, old dung. His ears turned him towards a scratching, grinding sound. Finally, the vibrations he felt through his naked feed told of something sizable repeatedly shifting its weight.

Apexus knew he wasn’t going to stealthily approach whatever he was registering, not with his appearance and all of the leaves rustling when he moved. His prey had to be blind and deaf to be caught. With that in mind, he made certain to approximate the location as closely as he could and then started running.

His feet drummed over the roots of trees, the most reliable safe ground he had in this forest. His path was a steady slalom through dense trees and brittle underbrush. Birds screamed and flew away, wood cracked, and Apexus kept running.

Unsurprisingly, his prey was alert when he finally reached it. It was a mixture between a boar and a lizard, a dense, fat body covered in scales with a big head and a large snout. It had no tusks, only large, dull teeth. It was an omnivore that primarily devoured sick trees, specifically the variants infested with mushrooms and insects.

It had been in the process of having one such meal. It was taking a threatening stance towards Apexus. The slime did not care, keeping up his tempo. Although the animal was prepared for a confrontation, it was not used to anything charging straight at it. It hesitated, waited, then its composure broke and it turned tail. Too slow to escape the slime.

Halfway through turning, the lizard-boar was rammed and toppled by Apexus. If it had the necessary cognitive function, that would have surprised it. Of the two, the boar was smaller than Apexus. Despite that, one would not have been certain who was heavier by sight alone.

Apexus was ready to capitalize on his toppled opponent, when three balls of mud suddenly flew in his face, formed by magic. The temporary blindness was bothersome, but it came with confirmation that he was hunting a prey suitable for his tiger girl. Relying on his tremor sense and ears, the slime brought his fist down like a hammer and hit the beast on the shoulder. Not the spot he had wanted to hit, yet enough to keep it grounded for a second and third hit.

The beast, impressive as it may have looked, wasn’t comparable to the dungeon monsters Apexus was used to slaying. Within two minutes, the fight was over and Apexus swiped the dirt out of his eyes, before hurling the corpse over his shoulder.

When he returned, Reysha looked a little bit better. Thirst quenched and skin healed, even if her hair and general hygiene was still in poor condition, she had clearly escaped dehydration.

“We should move further inland,” Aclysia suggested, after Reysha and Apexus had devoured most of the boar. “I spotted a lake.”

“I would kill for a bath and a fire,” the tiger girl supported the notion. The slime had nothing against it either, so they relocated.

It took them about forty minutes. What Aclysia had guessed to be a lake from a distance turned out to be a fairly shallow gathering of water between two hills. Shallow and dirty as it was, it was still enough and cleaner than Reysha. The tiger girl scrubbed herself down and then they moved to the hilltop to avoid any further mud. Aclysia had already gathered whatever dry wood she could find and ignited it with her magic.

“We’re like a giant signal fire up here,” Reysha noted.

“That is part of my intention,” Aclysia responded. “I saw no settlements around. If there are any humanoids, I would like them to approach us.”

“What if they’re hostile?” the slime asked.

“Given the strength of the boar, I expect the locals to be of average humanoid power, making them fairly non-threatening to us even in our current state. Worst case, we will fly,” Aclysia responded and sighed. “It is not my preferred strategy, but Reysha insisted on a fire.”

“It gets cold, okay?” the tiger girl put her hands above the flame and purred. The threat of danger was indeed less important to her than a well deserved moment of comfort.

The sun lowered over the horizon of the new Leaf they found themselves on.