The Old Ways

The blood trail was three hours old.

Theron Moss crouched beside a broken fern, his weathered fingers tracing the dark stain on the leaf. The creature—something large, wounded, dangerous—had passed this way heading deeper into the Verdant Sprawl. Most hunters would have given up by now, returned to safer territory. Theron had been tracking wounded predators since before the Aetherfall. He knew patience outlasted panic every time.

Three hours, he calculated. Moving fast despite the injury. Desperate.

At 145 years old, Theron had outlived every person he’d known from his original life. The city he’d grown up in was unrecognizable. But the hunt—the hunt never changed. Prey still fled. Predators still pursued. And somewhere between, the wise waited for the perfect moment.

He rose slowly, conserving energy as he always did, and followed the trail deeper into territory where the Sprawl grew thick and strange. Here, buildings had been completely consumed by mutated flora, their steel skeletons wrapped in vines that pulsed with faint green Aether. The air was humid, oxygen-rich, and Theron breathed it carefully. Too much could make a man dizzy, and dizzy men made mistakes.

The blood trail led him to a collapsed overpass, its concrete pillars now supporting a canopy of luminescent moss. And there, huddled in the shadows beneath, he found his quarry.

Not a mutated beast. A young woman.

---

Ari Vox pressed her back against cold stone, one hand clamped over the wound in her side. She’d been leading her pack through contested territory when the Fleshbound ambush had scattered them. She’d killed two of the attackers before taking the blade that now wept crimson through her fingers.

She heard him before she saw him—the whisper of careful footsteps, the creak of an ancient bow being drawn.

“I’m Wildborn,” she called out, her voice rough with pain. “Same as you, old man.”

A figure emerged from the undergrowth. He was old, impossibly old, moving with the careful efficiency of someone who understood energy conservation intimately. Gray hair, weathered features, and eyes that had seen a century of hunts.

“I know who you are,” Theron said, lowering his bow. “Ari Vox. Pack leader. You’ve strayed far from your territory.”

“The Fleshbound pushed us east.” She grimaced as she shifted position. “We were heading back when they hit us again. I got separated.”

Theron knelt beside her, examining the wound with practiced eyes. “Deep, but clean. You’ll live if we stop the bleeding.”

“I can handle it.”

“You can’t.” He was already pulling supplies from his pack—strips of cloth, a poultice that smelled of the Sprawl’s medicinal plants. “Twenty years ago, you might have. Your generation trusts too much in Aether to heal what skill and care can handle better.”

Ari wanted to argue, but the old hunter’s hands were already working, applying the poultice with gentle precision. She’d heard stories about Theron Moss—the pre-Aetherfall survivor who tracked like a ghost and killed without Aether enhancement. She’d dismissed most of them as legend.

Watching him work, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

---

“They’ll come looking for me,” Ari said as Theron finished binding the wound. “My pack—”

“Your pack scattered northwest. They won’t find you here.” He helped her to a sitting position. “And the Fleshbound won’t track you this deep. They lack patience.”

“You tracked me.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his weathered face. “I’ve been tracking things in these woods since before your grandmother was born. Perhaps before your great-grandmother.”

Ari studied him. “The stories say you remember the world before the Aetherfall. What was it like?”

Theron was quiet for a long moment, his eyes distant. “Simpler. More boring. People worried about small things—jobs, relationships, what to eat for dinner.” He paused. “Looking back, those small worries were a kind of luxury. We didn’t appreciate them.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Every day.” He stood, scanning the surrounding undergrowth with the constant vigilance of a lifetime predator. “But missing something doesn’t bring it back. The old world died. This world lives. A hunter adapts or becomes prey.”

The philosophy was simple, but Ari heard the weight of a century behind it. How many friends had he buried? How many times had he watched the city transform around him, leaving him increasingly alone?

“How do you keep going?” she asked. “After everyone you knew is gone?”

Theron’s gaze softened slightly. “I hunt. I teach. I pass on what I know so that when I finally stop, something remains.” He offered her his hand. “Can you walk?”

Ari took it, letting him help her to her feet. Pain flared in her side, but the bleeding had stopped. “I can manage.”

“Then we move. There’s a Wildborn patrol route two kilometers north. Your pack will circle back to it eventually.”

---

They traveled in silence, Theron leading with the patient economy of movement that came from a lifetime of conservation. Ari watched him navigate the Sprawl—reading broken branches, disturbed soil, the angle of bent grass—and realized she was seeing something rare. Not Aether-enhanced senses or supernatural ability. Just skill, refined over a century and a half of practice.

This is what we’re losing, she thought. Every generation relies more on Aether, less on what we can do ourselves. When he dies, who will remember the old ways?

As if reading her thoughts, Theron spoke without turning. “You lead well, from what I’ve heard. Your pack respects you.”

“I try.”

“Don’t just try. Teach.” He paused at a ridge overlooking a valley of bioluminescent flowers. “The young ones see your strength and want it. Show them your weakness too. Show them how you compensate. That’s what makes leaders last.”

Ari considered his words as they descended into the valley. The flowers cast blue-green light across Theron’s weathered features, making him look ancient and eternal all at once.

“Will you teach me?” she asked. “The old ways. Tracking without Aether. Patience.”

Theron stopped, turning to face her. For a moment, she thought he would refuse—another generation too reliant on power, too impatient to learn properly. But something in his eyes shifted.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “When you’ve healed. Find me at the old hunting grounds south of the Remembrance.” A pause. “Bring others if you like. The lessons are worth more when shared.”

Ari nodded, and Theron gestured toward a gap in the tree line where distant figures were moving—her pack, searching for their missing leader.

“Go. They need to see you alive.”

She moved toward them, then stopped, looking back. “Theron?”

He waited.

“Thank you. For the lesson. And the bandages.”

The ancient hunter’s weathered face creased into something that might have been a smile. “The old ways aren’t dead. They’re just waiting for someone to remember them.”

Then he turned and vanished into the undergrowth, silent as a ghost, patient as stone.

Ari watched the shadows where he’d disappeared, then limped toward her pack. Tomorrow, she would find him. Tomorrow, she would learn.

Some things, she realized, were worth the patience to preserve.