Taro was happy that his friend seemed to be in one piece, but that moment of calm was briefly interrupted he found himself caught in a fire. The blaze was intense, but somehow he managed to escape from the fire with his life intact though with a few burns and a little worse for wear.
The panic caused from the sudden blaze left him little time to prepare an escape route.
The tundra? No, with how little clothing he was wearing he’d freeze to death within seconds. The desert? Sure if he wanted to die a slow death from heat exhaustion or starvation. The beach? There was too great a risk of running into Nixie again or some other aquatic female hellbent on making him hers.
So the mountains seemed to be the most logical choice, and it was to the mountains that he went. He managed to escape the blaze with only a few burns and scrapes, but the important thing is that he was alive.
Somehow, Taro managed to make his way to the mountains, finding shelter in a cave. Slowly, he was getting the hang of hunting and foraging for himself. He had just caught himself a rabbit, slung over his shoulder like a hobo’s sack as he neared Avery’s location.