The morning of his departure came softly.
There was no grand sendoff. No fanfare. Only a light fog draped over the trees and the quiet hush of the forest around their home.
Lucas stood at the edge of the porch, his pack slung over one shoulder. The map Elizabeth gave him tucked safely inside, the twin daggers strapped at his forearms, their weight familiar now.
Steven stood beside him.
No words at first. Just the silence between two people who had said everything that needed saying over the course of years.
Then, quietly, Steven pulled him into a hug.
It wasn't long. Just long enough.
When they pulled apart, Steven handed him a small envelope.
Lucas glanced at it. Then back at his father.
"She wrote that for you," Steven said. "Told me to give it to you, when you feel the time is right - open it."
Lucas opened his mouth to ask when that would be.
Steven stopped him with a quiet shake of the head.
"You'll know."
Lucas held the envelope for a moment longer, then tucked it into his coat's inner pocket. He turned toward the path that wound away from the cabin, through the woods, toward the world beyond.
He didn't look back.
But he felt it. The weight of his father's gaze. The quiet promise that, no matter where the road led, he wouldn't walk it alone.
...
The road stretched long and quiet beneath a grey, humming sky.
Lucas walked alone.
His boots scuffed at gravel. His bag was a little too heavy, packed with books and essentials pulled against his shoulder. He adjusted it without complaint. The weight, somehow, felt right.
Like proof that he was carrying his own story now.
Now there was just the road.
And the world.
He moved from town to town quietly, cutting across backroads and train lines, sometimes hitching rides with truckers who didn't ask too many questions.
He watched the world roll by through smudged windows and bus stop benches, cheap diners with sticky menus, fields dotted with rusting cars, graffiti-scrawled underpasses filled with bored mortal kids who played with skateboards like they were weapons.
Lucas watched them all.
He didn't speak much. Just observed.
He noticed how people held their coffee. How they smiled when they thought no one was looking. How they slouched beneath streetlights or laughed too loud into their phones.
He was learning.
The mortal world didn't feel foreign.
But it did feel fragile.
A thin veil of order over something much older, and much more breakable.
It happened near a forgotten stretch of Louisiana forest, where a rickety gas station hadn't seen people in years.
Lucas had veered from the main path to rest near a stream, unpacking a bit of dried food and the map Elizabeth had given him.
That's when the wind changed.
Sharp. Bitter. Wrong.
The trees cracked and something massive stepped through.
Ten feet tall. Skin like cracked leather. Eyes like pits of tar. The stench of rotted meat rolled off its breath.
A Laistrygonian Giant.
It spotted him. Grinned with broken teeth.
"Little half-blood," it rumbled, voice like wet gravel. "You'll make a good snack."
Lucas didn't respond.
He just moved.
He dove sideways, rolled across the grass, and came up beneath a tree limb, daggers drawn. The giant's fist slammed down where he'd been a heartbeat ago, shattering rock and earth.
Lucas didn't strike.
Not yet.
He moved again. Flickering through the underbrush like a shadow, breathing slow, steps silent. His heart pounded in rhythm with the thud of the giant's stomps, and for a moment it felt almost like music.
He leapt over a fallen log, then vaulted off it mid-run, catching a branch and swinging himself onto a thick oak limb.
Below, the giant snorted, tracking his scent.
"Run all you like," it growled, peering upward. "I'll rip you apart when I catch you."
Lucas flipped down from the branch, landing behind the monster in a low crouch. His movements were silent, precise.
Lucas darted in, two quick cuts at the back of its knee. Not deep enough to truly injure, but enough to sting.
The giant roared and swung its arm in a wide arc. Lucas ducked beneath it and danced backward, weaving between trees, baiting it.
Taunting.
The forest became his theater. Roots, branches, fallen stones, he used them all. Running up the side of a tree and flipping off it just as the giant lunged again. Daggers flashing like silver flourishes in stage lighting.
He never stayed in one place. Never let the fight become a test of strength. He knew he'd lose that game.
So instead, he turned the fight into something else.
A show.
Lucas feinted left, then rolled right, dagger flashing in his hand. He jabbed into the giant's wounded leg, aiming for the hamstring.
The creature howled, stumbling. It swung wildly, but Lucas was already gone, slipping into the trees like smoke.
The giant turned, bleeding heavily now, movements sluggish and uncertain.
"You think a mere dagger can kill me?" it snarled, voice wet with fury.
Lucas didn't answer.
He was already in motion.
Circling.
Waiting.
Then he struck.
He rushed forward, blades low, and drove both daggers deep into the backs of the giant's knees. There was a sickening crunch as tendons snapped.
The giant let out a final, furious bellow, then collapsed, shaking the earth as it fell. Dust and leaves spiraled into the air.
Lucas ducked under one last desperate swing, then stepped in close.
Calm.
Deliberate.
He climbed the brute's shoulder and plunged both blades into its eyes, driving them deep until he hit bone.
The monster stilled.
Lucas stood atop the corpse, chest heaving. Sweat streaked his brow, the weight of the kill settling over him like a shroud.
He slid his daggers free, wiped the blood on the giant's hide, and returned them to their sheaths. Turning back toward the stream, he exhaled.
And then...
A sharp crack.
Trees splintered behind him.
Two more giants stepped through the broken underbrush, towering and snarling, their eyes glowing red with rage.
One pointed a clawed finger at him.
"You killed Lenny, you filth."
The other licked its lips, drool dripping to the forest floor.
"We'll eat you for that."
Lucas sighed - tired, but steady. Then he ran to meet them, blades drawn, heart calm. Apparently, the show wasn't over yet.