It wasn’t much longer after that Leola spotted the first of the plants they had come to find. A yellow-green moss clung to the shaded side of a tree, only a small patch of short tendrils were present, but Leola instructed him to take some of it. Following her directions, he carefully peeled a small section of the plant from the tree’s bark, and she explained how the moss would grow and spread over the course of the month, fed by the frequent rainfall and from the bark of the tree itself.

A short ways down the path he was stopped again by a firm hand on his shoulder. “Do you see, over there?” Leola asked, her voice a soft whisper as she stopped in the middle of the path and knelt stiffly down to Eldred’s level, pointing toward something in the undergrowth. He stopped short, squinting as he tried to follow her arm to see what it was. He caught a gleam of black, and took in a sharp breath of excitement as he recognised the frozen shape of a small creature, chest moving quickly with its fast, shallow breaths. As he stared, the shape resolved more clearly. It lacked the long ears of a rabbit, although it was of a similar size, and it stood with one foreleg raised, long snout pointing toward the path ahead as it waited. Its eyes were dark and round, its short ears quivering as it strained to know everything it possibly could about its surroundings.

He turned his head to say something to Leola, and the small creature burst into movement, darting off into the woven undergrowth, and he exclaimed in disappointment. “What was that?” he asked, after he’d run over to inspect the place where it had been.

Leola, straightening with some effort, smiled at the question. “They’re common around here, they’re called meckots. You’ve never seen one before?”

He shook his head in wonder, peering into the tangle of branches and thorns, trying to see where the creature- the meckot- had gone. “There’re only rabbits and foxes back home,” he said as he stood back up, going onto his tiptoes to see if he could spot the creature from above. He had no such luck, and turned back to Ness and Leola, who had not joined his search.

“Oh?” the old woman said, “Well, we’ll have to see if we can spot another.”

As they moved through the forest, it started to get darker. The trees grew taller, their branches layering thickly overhead, and the sides of the path seemed to narrow and close in, with taller bushes and plants rising out to either side. At some points, the small group had to move in single file, Eldred falling back to walk between Leola in front and Ness behind, although he was always eager to run back out ahead when the path would widen again. A few more times they stopped, Leola taking them a short ways off the trail to a clearing or a grove of different trees, and she would show Eldred a new plant or feature, explaining how he should collect it, and pointing out other features of the forest. A few times, he thought he caught a glimpse of another meckot, but each time the creature moved too quickly for him to see it properly, noticing them long before they noticed it.

An hour or two into their trip- time Eldred was certain had passed due to his growing hunger- they reached a fork in the path, the wider, main trail they had been following splitting as a secondary trail moved off between the trees, barely a slit in the encroaching undergrowth on either side.

“There’s something I need to do just down this path- if you two would be so kind as to wait here, I’ll be just a moment.” Leola smiled, “There’s a trap just beyond that tree-” she pointed behind them, to an unremarkable tree a few paces from the edge of the path “-if you’d like to check it while I’m gone?”

Eldred nodded, excited to finally be allowed to go off of the path and see a trap for himself. Up to this point, Leola had insisted that Eldred keep back from the traps, telling him to just wait on the path while she checked. He was already starting to navigate the tangled brambles off the path when the old woman turned down the narrow path.

The way was hard to navigate, thorns catching at his legs. His covered eye did not help the process, either, his depth perception hampered somewhat. He tried to be careful, lifting each foot and putting it back down with great consideration, but his impatience to complete the job caught up with him as his foot snagged, and he tripped, falling toward the ground, barely able to get up his hands to break the fall.

He stopped half-way, an arm pulling him back to his feet. He looked up to see Ness, dropped his gaze to the floor to avoid her gaze.

“Go slowly,” she said after he had regained his balance.

“I was,” he protested, starting to pick his way forward again.

“Then go slower, so that you do not catch your foot again.”

At first he did not take his advice, figuring that the averted disaster was just a stroke of bad luck. When he almost fell for a second time, however, he did start to move slower, although it pained him to do so. Ness seemed to have no such problems, and kept pace with him with seeming ease.

They reached the tree, the thorns growing sparser at its base, laced with tunnels. Small hoof prints dotted the mud around here, weaving between obstacles, and it was nestled within a group of these prints that they found the trap. It was, like every trap they had checked so far, empty. Eldred stared at it in disappointment. He’d been so sure that this one, of all of the traps they had checked, would have something in it. He’d been so certain. But it was empty. He bent down to investigate the trap- perhaps it had gone off, but failed to catch its prey?

Reaching out, his hand was stopped suddenly by Ness’s grip on his shoulder, stopping him from getting any closer. “Don’t-” she warned, kneeling beside him, although the thorns caught at her own clothing. “It is still set, you see?” she pointed toward the ground around the base of the trap, and Eldred saw now the jaws that sat beneath a light layer of leaves. He pulled back his hand, staring at the jagged metal teeth.

He wondered what it would be like for a rabbit to get caught in the trap, imagining the metal snapping closed. He winced as he thought of what that would feel like on his own hand, and backed away a little. Ness, satisfied, released her grip on him.

“The tracks around it are old- nothing has been this way for a little while, it would be best to leave be, Leola can adjust it if it does not catch anything for too long.

Eldred frowned, trying to understand how Ness could tell that the tracks were old, and crouched down again to look closer, although this time he kept his arms close to his body. When the answer did not immediately appear, he looked up at her and asked, instead. “How do you know?”

She looked surprised. “About the tracks?”

A nod.

“You can see the edges are rounded and smooth. And this one here-” she pointed to a track close to the mechanism of the trap. “- is blurred. These tracks have been out in the weather for a while, longer than this trap has been here.” She pointed then to the leaves disguising the trigger of the trap, and Eldred saw how they overlapped the tracks, lying on top of the ground without being pressed in from the weight of an animal running through the area.

“Oh.” He glanced at her again. “Why do you wear armour?”

She straightened, smoothing down her coat. She looked thoughtful, staring out into the trees as she pondered the question. “My work can be dangerous, at times. I deal with creatures similar to the grims that chased you in the forest often, and it helps to have something solid between their teeth and my skin.”

“So that’s why you have the sword, as well?” He had risen to stand beside her, looking into the forest as well.

“It is,” she answered, gesturing back toward the path they had left from. She helped him step over the first of the brambles, offering her hand to steady him.

“But you don’t have to wear it all the time if you wear it for work, do you?” He glanced back at her as she shrugged.

“No, I do not. But when I am travelling, it is easier to wear it than to attach it to Ardghal’s saddle.”

This answer didn’t quite satisfy him- “But why don’t you take it off to sleep?”

Her expression was strange, a mixture of reluctance and indecision, her brow furrowing. “That’s… complicated,” was all she said, and Eldred got the feeling that he wouldn’t get farther even if he tried to push her for more.

They reached the path again without much issue, Eldred managing the stretch without stumbling again, although Ness remained close in order to catch him before he fell. He was glad to have clear path once more beneath his feet.

The excitement of the task over, Eldred started to look more closely at the path Leola had disappeared down. He approached its start, peering down the trail to try and see the old woman. The path wound and twisted far too much for him to see very far, however, and he was about to start down it in search of Leola when Ness spoke in a warning tone.

“There are dangerous things in these woods, it is best that we heed Leola’s request.”

He looked around at her, tilting his head in question. “But she’s down there-”

“She is aware of the dangers of this place, and is used to them.” Her tone wasn’t unkind- Eldred could tell that she was not telling him off- she was cautioning him against taking an action that would result in injury, similar to when she had stopped him from touching the trap just a short while earlier. He looked back to the trail, staring at the encroaching vegetation, daring it to reveal its hidden dangers. When nothing revealed itself, he shrugged and turned back to the main path, kicking up leaves from the ground as he shuffled back towards its middle.

A few more minutes passed in silence, Eldred entertaining himself by attempting to climb one of the adjacent trees. “I like it here,” he said, to no one in particular. The statement was true- he felt more at ease in the woods, even in the cottage, than he had since he had left his home. Initially he had been wary of Leola, the old woman who lived out in the woods on her own, strange in her manner and holding secrets that seemed too important to keep secret. But over the course of the day, her insistence on making sure he was well fed and well tended to, the care and kindness she had shown to him on their walk through the woods, taking the time to teach him about the plants they had come to gather, she had grown on him. His initial uneasiness, his initial suspicion, had started to melt, thawing out some of his inner peace.

“I-” Ness started, the words dying in her throat as the sound of Leola’s shuffling footsteps became audible once more. They both turned to watch the path, Eldred abandoning his climbing attempts to stand at its entrance, waiting for the old woman to come back into view.

Leola’s face broke into a smile at the sight of him, features crinkling like paper. “I hope you weren’t too bored waiting for me,” she said, rejoining them on the main path. Her bag, which had been heavy on her shoulder when she had left down the path, looked to be considerably lighter.

Eldred shook his head, returning the smile with a grin of his own. “The trap was empty, but I climbed up that tree, and reached that branch-” he pointed, Leola exclaiming in surprise and praising him. They started to walk again, Ness once more falling in step behind them as they continued deeper into the woods.

They walked for a bit longer, before Leola declared that they would stop for a picnic. Eldred, although surprised, was more than happy to eat, the morning’s walking leaving him hungry. They stopped a small ways from the path, settling beside a wide stream that was almost big enough to be a river, deep enough that the water would rise to Eldred’s chest if he were to step inside. They sat on the grassy bank, Leola pulling packed food from her bag to feed them.

The boy ate hungrily, watching the water intently. The old woman had suggested they might catch sight of one of the river’s inhabitants- a group of people who, Eldred was very surprised to hear, spent almost their entire time within its waters. He had been initially suspicious of this claim- it seemed ridiculous that someone would want to spend that much time in water, and even more so that they would actually go through with the plan. However, as they had came in sight of the water Eldred had caught a glimpse of something in the water. He had run to the bank, dropping the basket he had been carrying, which was now full of plants gathered by the small party. As he reached the edge, the shape in the water had resolved to be a humanoid figure- a young woman, her brown hair pooling around her head in the water. She had watched him, her dark eyes curious, and she had waved back to him when he had waved to her. He had started to shout to her- to ask her why she was in the water- when she had twisted in the water and dived in, swimming faster than Eldred could believe downstream. Ness had come up beside him, watching the girl go. Leola, trailing behind a little, had come up to see a last glimpse of her before she had rounded a bend in the water and disappeared from view. Disappointed, Eldred had asked if he had done something wrong.

“Of course not, love, I’m she was just shy,” Leola had soothed, patting his shoulder in sympathy, although she had not taken her gaze from Ness, who stood watching the water.

Periodically as they ate, Eldred had asked about the water-folk, fascinated by their very existence. Leola had continued to answer his questions without reservations.

Ness did not join in the meal with the other two, sitting cross-legged with her eyes shut.

“Aren’t you hungry Ness?” Eldred asked after he had finished his own food, wiping off his fingers in the grass around where he sat.

Her eyes opened, and Eldred had to suppress the urge to squirm as she looked at him. “No, I am fine,” she said. Eldred frowned, trying to recall if he had seen her eat even once in the last few days, finding himself unable to do even that.

Now it was Ness’s turn to look uncomfortable, and she looked away from him, over to the river. “We should head back, should we not, Leola?” she asked after a moment of prolonged silence.

The old woman shrugged with indifference, “We can, if you’d like?” The question was aimed at Eldred, who shrugged as well.

“We can go back,” he agreed, still watching Ness.

They stood up, Ness taking the initiative and standing first, starting to walk back to the path. Eldred and Leola lingered a few moments longer, Eldred to go and look into the water again, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of another one of the naiads, as Leola had called them, and Leola to pack up the cloth she had used to wrap the food, tucking them neatly back into her bag.

She called to Eldred, and reluctantly he turned away from the water, picking up the basket as he ran past to catch up to the two adults.