And then he's falling. 

- what, this doesn't make sense at all, that is not how dying in a conflagration of magic works - he felt himself die - 

His confusion is interrupted by a canopy of pine and fir branches breaking his fall, and then he lands sprawling on...something soft? Soft-ish. Also incredibly cold. 

He is apparently not wearing any clothes. 

Snow falls gently, heavy fat flakes, joining the white carpet that muffles everything. It's a bitterly cold January night in eastern Canada, not that the local geography would mean anything to Ma'ar. 

If he spends much longer lying here in deep snow then he's going to die, this time of hypothermia. 

...This thought is much less motivating than it ought to be. Everything feels numb. Unreal. He died, he remembers dying, and - 

- oh. 

There were contingencies. Measures laid in place decades ago. He had hoped that he might wake up again, he just really wasn't expecting that to take the form of falling from thin air into a snowbank. 

Well, that was a LOT of magic he sensed, at the end. Who knows what sorts of weird interactions could happen? None of his methods were supposed to do this, but of course, it's not like he tested any of them before. 

Focus. One thing at a time, and the first step is not dying. Not dying again. Whatever. 

If he thinks about how much damage he was just responsible for, in Tantara and Predain, he might never move again. So he isn't going to think about that yet. 

Ma'ar drags himself to his feet, already shivering, and - reach for his Gifts - his magic still works, at least. The pattern of energies around him is strange, less than he would expect, but maybe that's just the climate. Where is he worry about that later. 

...And then he is, yet again, tempted to sit down and curl up and not move for a long time. 

He needs shelter, though. Which means he needs to orient to his surroundings. He can sleep later.

Thoughtsensing? 

No human minds within a mile - 

- wait, no, there's a mind over that direction. Moving closer. Moving much faster than it has any right to. Horses can't move that fast; horses can't move a quarter of that speed. 

The mind is near and then it's moving further again. The speed makes it hard to focus on surface thoughts. The ones he can pick up are - definitely words in a language he's never heard of. He can get some of the content anyway but this fails to make it much less baffling. 

What. 

He can answer all his many unanswered questions later. Right now he's learned the most important piece, which is that wherever he's ended up is inhabited, and he should keep moving and try to find a man-made shelter rather than making do in the middle of the forest. 

A cursory look around with a mage-light shows deep snow and dense undergrowth in the direction he sensed the fast-moving mind. He could cut his way through with magic but it would cost him precious strength, and he doesn't have much to spare. 

In the other direction, though, he can see glimpses of open space. And a sky which is...the wrong colour. Too bright for night and almost orange-hued. 

His mage-senses aren't warning him of any dangerous magics, though, so he can worry about what that means later. 'Later' is a constant litany in his thoughts. It's getting to the point where it doesn't feel like a real word anymore. 

He struggles through the snow, his bare feet numb and aching despite the heat-spell. 

He emerges into what is recognizably a cemetery. 

There are paths. They seem to have been cleared of snow recently; there's less than an inch of new-fallen flakes. 

There are also orange-hued lamps or lanterns on the tops of enormous metal poles? They have the impossibly steady glow of mage-lights, rather than the flickering quality of oil lanterns, but they give off no hints of magic. 

He's even more confused now!

Also still at risk of freezing to death. Keep moving. He can see brighter lights in the distance. Walk towards those. 

He emerges from the quiet cemetery into - well, it's recognizably a city, but little else about it is familiar. There's a road, again mostly cleared of snow; the snow that remains is oddly slushy and melted, and also almost black with grit. 

There are houses. They have glass windows; some are made of brick, some of less familiar materials. The architectural design is strange as well. All of them have lanes in front; most of these hold strange wheeled metal contraptions, like wagons or carriages but perfectly sealed. And without anywhere obvious for horses to go, but they're just as unmagical as the strange lights... 

Not all of Urtho's inventions were based in magic - 

- and it's a bad idea to think about Urtho right now. There's a well of grief and guilt there that he doesn't dare touch, not yet, because he isn't safe here, in this incredibly foreign place. 

...Or foreign time? Could one of his spells have flung him into the distant future? The most confusing part is that he appears to have the same body that he died in. 

Later. Walk, now. 

Ma'ar walks. 

There are lights in some of the houses' windows, but the street is silent. 

One of the metal wagons whizzes past, making a surprising amount of noise, and Ma'ar has to jump out of its way. It slows, and a face peers out through glass. 

The driver sees the expression on the naked man's face, decides he does not feel like dealing with a homeless man clearly high on something at 10 pm on a Tuesday night, and keeps driving. Someone has probably called the cops already. He doesn't feel like pulling over for it. 

Oblivious to this, Ma'ar keeps walking. 

The smart thing to do would be to bang on some doors, beg the help of the locals. He isn't sure why he's failing to do that, actually. It just feels impossible. He's not sure he could bear it, looking into another human being's face right now. Let alone answering their inevitable questions. 

He does, however, desperately need clothing. 

Walking mostly in a straight line eventually brings him to a bigger, brighter-lit street. One where there are still people around. He gets a couple of alarmed looks, and ducks back onto the smaller side street, spending five minutes and energy he can't afford to give up and covering himself with a sketchy illusion. It wouldn't hold up in daylight, or against real scrutiny, but it should do for random passersby on a snowy night. 

In the better lighting, he can see that the buildings, for all their strange materials and impressive height, look...kind of decrepit? Around a quarter of the not-mage-lights on poles are broken. The road is visibly potholed. 

There are shops. Many of them have metal bars pulled across in front of the glass windows, evidently a measure against theft. But through one such set of bars, he can see racks of clothing. 

...Well. Starting off with theft isn't ideal, but at this point Ma'ar is mostly too exhausted to care. He doesn't have any money, local or not, and he really doesn't want to answer questions about himself until he has some vague idea of where - and when - he is, and either way, approaching one of the locals is going to go much better if he's wearing clothes. 

Bars over windows and doors are not actually very effective at keeping a mage out. 

He waits until no one is within twenty yards in either direction, and hopes that the not-carriages speeding past aren't going to be paying much attention. It's a quick matter to raise one Gate on the nearest outer doorway, and a second on the inside of the doorframe that he can see through the bars. Five seconds and he's through. 

He dares a small mage-light, so he can actually see the clothing he's stealing. 

Nothing happens for about five seconds, and then a loud shrieking sound is inexplicably coming from somewhere nearby. 

Ma'ar has not had a good day. Or week. Or year. He is especially jumpy even for him; he startles, flinging up shields, and barely manages to restrain himself from throwing a levinbolt at the source of the sound. 

...No minds inside. Some sort of non-magical wards? Clearly within the capabilities of this bizarre place. 

And he doesn't know what other capabilities they have, or how quickly the ward-alarm will summon whoever's keyed to it, so he had better be fast.

He risks a brighter light. There, those look like coats. He grabs one. Those are...skirts? He can't find tunics and he's only guessing at the gender norms for clothing anyway; probably the long skirts are for women, but they have the advantage of a more forgiving fit, compared to trews. He goes for the warmest-looking one, with a stretchy waistband and in red-and-black checkered flannel. 

- oh, blankets, even better. He grabs two, folding them over his arm. They're thin but very soft to the touch, the fabric with a nap almost like fur. And beside them are...robes? He's suspicious that they're for sleeping in, but this one at least is made of fairly thick cloth, with sleeves. It'll keep him warm. 

He finds the shoes. Finding shoes that fit in the next thirty seconds is a lost cause, but he can shove his feet into oversized bed-slippers, that will help at least a little. 

Robed and beskirted, trading his bundled blankets between hands as he stuffs his arms into the sleeves of his heavy coat, Ma'ar raises another Gate - this one using the gate outside one of the side-street houses as a threshold - and escapes into the night. 

He waits for thirty seconds, holding perfectly still, for any signs of pursuit. There are none. He keeps walking - or shuffling, at least, he can't lift his feet too much without losing the slippers. He returns to the bigger road, but walks in the opposite direction, head down. 

He gets a very odd look from a teenaged couple who pass him, but they don't try to talk to him. 

Shortly after that, a few of the not-carriages scream toward him, making not-dissimilar shrieking noises and flashing coloured lights. 

Caught off guard, Ma'ar half-instinctively flings himself to the slush-coated sidewalk, his reflexes screaming that he needs cover needs to be out of the line of fire needs to shield -

The bored cops responding to an apparent break-in at a Salvation Army store fail to see the probably-homeless man wearing a skirt and bathrobe flinging himself down.

An older couple on the other side of the street do see, but it's not that weird for the neighbourhood, which is really going downhill these days. None of their business, anyway. 

Ma'ar stays down for a while, Othersenses extended fully, until it seems clear that whatever THAT was, it wasn't an attack targeting him. 

His body finds this hard to believe; his pulse is still racing, his breathing coming short. Distantly, Ma'ar is aware that he isn't exactly thinking clearly. Shock, probably. He died, after all. He just lost a war, paid a higher price than he could ever have imagined, and now somehow he's here but it still feels fake. It's impossible to think past the next step. 

It would be a good idea to have a plan. In his current state, he's clearly not capable of that. He'll settle for walking, then, until he finds...some reason...to stop... 

He can follow this road for a long time, if he wants, toward the taller and denser lights in the distance. He crosses a bridge at one point, over a medium-sized river, frozen over. 

Here there are more people. Most of them avoid his eyes and step away; nearly all the women he passes actually cross the street to avoid his path. 

In another place, at another time, it's possible that this would bother Ma'ar. 

Right now, to the extent that he manages to feel anything at all, it's a relief. 

If he keeps walking this way, he's eventually going to hit downtown Ottawa. Which is fairly trafficked and loud, even at close to midnight; mostly students, out to enjoy the nightlife, Tuesday or not. 

He's getting a lot of uncomfortable looks.