Context clues help him guess the meaning of words he hasn't learned through song yet, and he nods, sighing, He figured as much, but it seemed worth checking, as a backup plan. "How long until next harvest?"

"Oh, different things at different times. If you're going to be near here then my wheat comes in in another thirty wakes weather permitting."

A good reminder that he'll need to carefully track "wakes" in some method other than his own sleeping patterns, or else he'll drift too far off schedule from everyone else. "Maybe I'll see you then. Oh, excuse my manners. I'm Danny."

"Ashimba."

"Good fortune, Ashimba."

He continues walking, spirits lifted from the good news and simple (and successfully navigated) human interaction. He knows he shouldn't be less on guard because of things like that, but one thing he quickly learned in the Hedge is that real constant vigilance is exhausting, and is better as a series of triggers to look out for, notice, and react appropriately to.

Just because he realized the risk his rocks pose doesn't mean they suddenly became a new risk, and he resolves to think about them more when he has more immediate concerns taken care of (and hopefully more ideas about what might even be possible, in this strange place).

He walks with one eye on the horizon for any sort of wooded area, and one on the sky.

It didn't hit him immediately, upon leaving the ship. He had too many new things to look at on the ground.

But the sky is...

They sky is full of rounds, and suns, and distant thunderheads. It's blue, but it looks more like a fantasy painting of a sky than like a real sky.

It's hard to tell how surreal it would feel even if it wasn't so obviously different from Earth's. But strange as it is, it's still beautiful... and similar enough that he feels a deep shift in his stomach that rises up in a warm wave and spreads through his chest.

He missed the sky. He missed its blueness, he missed clouds, he missed the sun... and these many suns don't feel different enough to care, in this moment, that they're not his.

He keeps walking, searching for forests and taking in the sky and letting the emotional waves gently crash through him.

Eventually he gets past the cultivated area and finds some trees. They look totally normal unless they are more than about thirty-five feet tall and then their branches act weird up there.

Sup, weird-trees? How's the air up there?

He guesses the height where they start to grow weird is where the gravity disappears. He'll have to test that out at some point... carefully.

His observations are consistent with this guess, at least.

The woods don't look cultivated but nor do they look really remote. Some trees are old but none are ancient behemoths. There are paths, if not very substantial ones. People probably come in here for wood and mushrooms and herbs pretty regularly.

He'll follow one of the paths for a bit, part of him suddenly wondering why the gravity on this "round" is about as strong as the Hedge's, or Earth's for that matter, so far as he can remember. Given how small it is it must be more dense, but... what are the odds that the round is so much smaller but exactly the right density for gravity to feel so similar?

Something to think about later. For now he's going to keep eyes and ears trained for any signs of small game. After the dense, thorny foliage of the Hedge, his instincts are to naturally minimize contact with greenery, which would result in him moving very quietly through the trees, bow still over his shoulder. If he finds any mushrooms or wild berries or vegetables before he finds spoor, he'll stop at those. He'll also keep his eye out for any clusters of vines he can cut to weave a basic carrying basket, as well as any long, relatively straight branches. 

There are mushrooms - it rained recently. There's some creepers creeping up a few trees that he might be able to weave were he so inclined. No obvious berries besides a juniper bush.

Squirrel!

Squirrel!

Is it holding still?

Haha no.

Next time, squirrel. Next time.

If he's got a vinesack and some mushrooms in them, he'll still keep an eye out for a long stick or two, but meanwhile he can hang the loose sack from one of his pants' belt loops and he'll draw his bow and knock an arrow so he can be ready for the next animal.

He'll also keep an ear trained for any running water; rivers attract animals, or might be a way to find beavers if there are any here. Back on Earth, beavers make for a good intersection of small animals with valuable hides, and he saw some pelts that might have been beaver pelts in the market. (He really needs to learn to read soon. He would probably have asked one of the merchants a bunch of questions, if he'd felt less Overwhelm from all the Everything).

Does he want this muskrat?

That'll do. He's never eaten a muskrat before, but heard some of his dad's friends debating what animal they tasted similar to (no consensus was reached, but no one implied they tasted bad).

He nocks the arrow, then slowly pulls back until he can feel the strain and takes aim...

...and holds, a learned reflexive caution, watching for any unusual behavior, anything that might indicate that it has some magic or might not be what it seems...

...it's just muskratting? Doing as the muskrats do?

It's just hanging out, yup.

Release.

Now he has a dead muskrat.

He watches the body a bit, then looks around, feeling antsy.

It's too easy.

It didn't teleport around when he blinked.

It didn't shoot a stream of boiling and/or freezing water at him.

It didn't burst into bloodthirsty hummingbirds instead of dying.

It just died.

He feels odd as he looks down at the muskrat, like he should apologize. Instead he takes out his arrow, checks to see if it's damaged, cleans it if not, then uses his knife to start field dressing the muskrat (he'll save skinning for later).

Hunting got way harder in the Hedge, but also a bit easier given the life and death circumstances. Now that that's missing, it's gotten way easier... and a bit harder, maybe.

He cleans his hands in the stream while the corpse finishes draining, looks around again for a good stick and more vines to tie the carcass to one end and his loose basket to the other, then hoist them onto his shoulders, shifting the stick to balance the weight before he retraces his steps toward the path he left.

The feeling of off-ness stays with him. It's been waxing and waning since he arrived, but it's getting harder to ignore. Something feels off about all this, and the problem is that he'd probably feel this way even if it's all just normal enough to be strange for him after the pasts few years...

It still feels off. It feels fake.

Maybe he'll get attacked by a boar in a second, and the feeling that things are too safe will disappear. Maybe he'll see someone get "made" when he gets back to town, and the process will look... not understandable, exactly, but less like that everyone he meets is a hastily constructed fetch.

Or maybe he'll see something obvious, something like trees growing in sudden odd shapes as the gravity abruptly disappears above a certain height, and it'll be impossible to deny that this whole world of breathable space and small moon that can be walked on as if they're planets is a carefully constructed fake. A zoo for humans maybe, where the exhibits are able to wander. Or instead of a zoo, an experiment. Or something that's none of those things, but weirder and worse than he can imagine.

He almost hopes a boar attacks him on his way out of the woods.