Private Finished Got Your Back

In what little time Alby had spent at the island, he'd heard a crazy amount of rumours. Most were about students lashing out at each other or accounts of vandalism, subjects that weren't particularly interesting to him. But there was one rumour that did hold some value. Apparently, a few people had gotten lost in the woods and discovered a beautiful white stag that led them back. Now that was something worth investigating.

So, in true Alby fashion, he took his compass and map out of his backpack, chucked them on the floor of his room and set out to get lost in the woods. He knew the way to the woods pretty well by now, having run by it a few times. However, all bets were off once he was beyond the lake. He'd never gone there. Which was a good thing, seeing as how his goal was to get lost.

He tried going straight so that he could get as deep into the woods as possible, but the result was kind of all over the place, mostly in a diagonal. Alby had jogged through trails in the woods before, but wandering around without the trail was actually pretty inconvenient. He cut himself a few times on the random brush and the bugs certainly weren't helping anything.

After about forty minutes of walking, he finally found something. Though, on closer inspection, it wasn't a white stag, it was a wolf. Alby had never seen one in real life, so it was hard to say whether or not it was supernatural or just a regular wolf. His first instinct was to try and get a closer look. He carefully guided his way through the trees to get closer, but right when he was starting to get a good view, the wolf looked back at him, startled, and ran off.

It was pretty disappointing to say the least, but the day was still young, there was still the white stag. Or actually... Suddenly a noise came from the brush up ahead, and with a squinted look, Alby could see the wolf coming back. He looked over excitedly, before realizing that it wasn't alone. There were about six of them. It only took about a second for the nature of the situation to click, and Alby was on his way up a tree.

He got a couple meters up by the time the wolves arrived, and while they didn't seem to be capable of climbing the tree to get him, they didn't leave him alone either. They stayed at the base of the tree, pouncing at it and growling. They must've had a den nearby or something. Alby didn't really know how wolves worked.

He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures while he waited, trying to examine them, but while he was taking them, his bag fell. That was all the food he had packed, but more importantly, his journal was in there.

Ready to die for that journal, Alby started descending down the tree.

@Saber

While slowly making his way down, Alby grabbed a branch from the tree and twisted it off. He would maybe try to hook the backpack and pull it up to himself. It was a bit of a stretch though, the stick wasn't really long enough and even if it was, there was a good chance it would've snapped. Luckily, Alby never got the chance to test this method. A large thud and cold wind came out of nowhere and while Alby didn't get a good luck at what happened, he did see the entire pack of wolves running away.

He worked himself into a position where he could see what was behind him, and was surprised to hear Eein's voice. This came as quite the surprise, though his response was pretty nonchalant. "Oh, hey Eein." It made it seem like he wasn't about to get mauled by wolves. "Just one second..." He started making his way down the tree, but when he got to about a meter left he missed a branch by mistake and landed on the ground. "Ow."

He got up right away, clearly unhurt, then brushed some dirt off himself and looked over at Eein. "I was looking for this white stag creature that supposedly exists out here. Oh, and those wolves started running after me so that's why I was in the tree." He smiled. "It's nice to see you here, thanks for scaring em off."

Alby's smile disappeared as he started to realize that Eein was unimpressed with him. He momentarily switched to admiration when Eein picked him up, thinking about how cool it was to be that strong. But quickly changed tunes and payed attention again when Eein continued speaking. "Well, I wasn't happy and smiley at the time, they almost damaged my journal, but now you showed up and they're gone, so it's all good."

He frowned when Eein pointed out the stupidity in what Alby had just done and the fact that he couldn't defend himself. But the mention of a forbidden forest seemed to throw any amount of regret he was feeling out the window. Reptilian bears and mini hydras were definitely must sees. But before Alby could even begin to express his interest, Eein cut him off. He made a sour face at that, quickly getting the message that Eein wasn't going to help him get there. At least, not intentionally.

"Yikes, I didn't know a place like that existed in here. Where in the forest is that? I'll make sure I never go that way." Alby looked innocent, but his words weren't really honest.

He grabbed his backpack off the ground, looking inside for his journal and sighing with relief when it was in perfect shape. He then followed after Eein.

As Eein told him that journals could be replaced, Alby made a face of disagreement. But he understood what Eein was saying and why he was upset with him, so he didn't try to argue about it. When Eein assumed he didn't have resurrection powers, Alby added an almost guilty sounding "It isn't."

He perked up as Eein was about to reveal the location of the all too enticing Forbidden Forest, but was let down when Eein basically dodged the question. He let out a mumble as Eein bapped him. The idea of being eaten by some crazy venomous serpent didn't even seem all that bad. It was a pretty cool way to die as far as he was concerned. Much better than growing old and dying from a heart attack.

When the tail wrapped him up, Alby didn't struggle at all, going with the flow while carrying a light curiosity with him. As the wings spread, he let out a very excited squeal. After take off, and while they were flying through the sky, Alby was giggling and cheering as if he was having the time of his life.

When he was set down shortly after, he made deep breaths trying to calm himself down, but his face was plastered with a look of joy and excitement. When Eein asked if he was done for today, Alby remembered what he was focused on from before the amazing air ride.

"Oh, right!" He put his fist down into the palm of his other hand and started thinking about how he was going to phrase this next part. "I was thinking, what if you flew us over the forbidden forest part?" He made a grin that basically said please. "That way, I can see it still but from a safe distance."

Eein's deal made Alby think. Getting to fly was really awesome and the added bonus of flying over the forbidden forest was great. But, there was a good chance that he wasn't going to see everything, and Eein's deal would prevent him from going back to do so in the future. He was pretty conflicted about this, trying to weigh the good and the bad against each other in his head. Reluctantly, he let out a "Fine."

When Eein repeated the deal out clearly to prevent any misconceptions, Alby added "Yep." to prove he understood the nature of their little agreement. Then when the punishment for breaking the deal was mentioned, Alby made a clearly unhappy face. As small of a punishment that might have been to most people, that was a huge deterrent for him.

Even with all the negatives, Alby was really desperate to go there as quickly as possible. He figured he'd accept this now and deal with the negatives later. Perhaps he could make another deal with Eein in the future to make him drop this one. "Yes, I promise I won't go back."