And all I ever wanted...

He made it, steam rolled from his nostrils in smokey puffs against the morning sunlight with each exhausted breath. The sun melted around his form contrasting him as a dark silhouette against the yellows and greens in the blaring light. A deceptively bright and beautiful day yet cold enough to see your breath.

Otz took a pause for a moment in his tracks to lift his head and warily look about his surroundings. To where exactly did he find himself? The trees were still, it's too early in the morning yet for the wind to blow. His ears perked standing atop his skull like sentinels on alert, but the forest was deafeningly quiet. With a calm sigh Otz moves on, carving a path through the trees. He wanted to keep moving and make his stops brief, he didn't know if he was still being followed or not. Though he did doubt Kaldora would send soldiers after him this far from home.
Brushing too close to a tree Otz grunts in pain as the deep lacerate across his chest is re-opened and drops of blood sprinkle to the ground. Otz snorted in agitation, he's left several trails of blood behind him and he'll be forced to eat something sugary if he doesn't stop bleeding all over the damn forest. Cuts and lacerates marked all over his body, he was in good health but he'd clearly been in a fight with something before entering Helovia. Still his footsteps remained strong, though some of them he had to force. Climbing down a small slope took little effort though, his cloven hooves cut into the soil like toes and his feet almost seemed to cling to the unsteady ground.

A gap in the trees caught his eye and pasted a smile on his face in pleasure of his luck. Like one of those convenient miracles the trees opened up to a small clearing with an apple tree on the edge. Otz couldn't help but chuckle, I mean honestly how often does this happen? Only in fantasy lands I'm sure.
Never the less Otz cautiously approached the tree, though his posture was beyond strange. His head low, he picked up his feet almost hunching his shoulders slightly as he entered the clearing. He almost looked like a deer ready to spring into flight at any sign of trouble. Stopping at the base of the tree he looked up into the dying branches, most of the apples had been eaten off by other creatures or had fallen to the ground in a rotten sticky mess below him. Only a few apples that weren't eaten away by insects or time remain tantalizingly out of reach in the tops of the tree.
But a lower healthy looking apple caught Otz's eye, still with his short stature it was barely out of reach. Undejected Otz positioned himself directly under the apple, and using his tail for balance he rears up under the apple, his feet tip-toeing in a dance for steadiness. With a quick swing of his head his horn smacks the apple out of the tree and it falls to the ground and rolls to a stop. With a proud smile Otz reaches down to take the apple in his teeth, now... where to from here?

Was rest.