I leaned against the trunk of the giant tree, closing my eyes.  My long hair brushed against the bark in the soft breeze while I just listened to the sounds around me.  The sounds of animals, of nature – of no humans within miles of me.

I smiled to myself, happy with what I heard, until my ears also caught something back towards my cabin.  I opened my eyes and headed in that direction of swift, silent – but bare – feet.

The cabin was a very simple affair.  Someone had, decades ago, started to bring the materials into the forest in hopes of building a hunting cabin.  The human who’d planned this didn’t last, and my mother had found the building materials (and the skeleton, which she’d ignored) and decided that it would be perfect for the two of us.  She’d used magic to build it, meaning that when she’d secured the logs into place, they’d ended up rooting instead.  Each of the four corners of the cabin was a tree now, slowly growing ever upwards towards the sunbeams, trying to join the giant flora that filled this ancient forest.  Inside the cabin, there were very, very minimal furnishings, mostly because neither my mother or I had a regular source of money or the desire to build furniture, meaning that my table and chair were stumps and I slept on the floor, in a bed of moss.  Very simple, maybe even primitive to some people, but it had served my mother well enough while she’d lived here and I was happy with it now.  It wasn’t like I spent that much time in the cabin, anyway.

I stood in the door, taking a moment to look around, trying to spot what was wrong.  My eyes narrowed when I spotted one of the windows ajar and some objects in a crate dragged out on the floor.

Thieves.  Small ones, likely.

I spun around, reaching out with magic until I found what I was looking for.  With a bit of a smirk, I started running again, through the trees, across the rocks, until I stopped at the end of a small lake.

On the other side of the lake were three pixies, dragging a bag with them and chattering excitedly amongst themselves.  They could move quickly when motived, which is how they’d gotten from my cabin to here so fast, but they couldn’t use that ability endlessly, so judging by the fact that they were now flying along at a normal rate, so they’d probably used their magic to get this far, but then assumed they’d be safe even if I followed them.  Sure enough, when they spotted me on the other side of the lake, they pointed and started mocking me, figuring there was no way I could get across the lake quickly enough to catch them.

But what they didn’t count on was that I wasn’t a human, and simple things like lakes being in the way weren’t actually an obstacle for me.

I jumped lightly from the bank onto the surface of the water, then ran directly across the top of lake, giggling to myself at the pixies’ clear panic.  Two of them actually ran straight into each other and the other one attempted – vainly – to drag the bag away, but it lacked the strength without its friends helping.

Before they could get control off themselves enough to make an organized attempt to escape, I was already on their side of the bank and, with barely a motion from me, they were all dangling in the air by their feet, chattering angrily at me while I smirked at them.

“Never steal from me,” I warned them.  “You know any food I have is free for anyone who needs it, but stealing?  Come on.”  I poked the bag with my foot, then turned it upside down to empty out the contents.  “Let’s see what you got.”  I paused, then gave the pixies a look, one eyebrow raised.  “What is this, are you amateurs?  Kleptomaniacs?”  I picked up the first object.  “A button?  What on earth do you need a button for?  You can’t eat it, it won’t do you any good, and pixies don’t just hoard things they can’t use.”  I shook my head, putting the button in the worn pouch tied to my waist.  “On the same vein, a spoon?  Seriously?  You can barely lift it, and something shiny like this will attract birds of prey to your nests, you know.”

One of the pixies chattered angrily at me, and I paused to listen, but then shook my head.

“Of course I know it’s shiny, but that’s exactly the problem!  You want to draw the crows and ravens into your nest?  How about notifying the hawks and owls about where your nest location is?  A spoon is a liability for you.”

These ones were young, or they wouldn’t have stolen such ridiculous things, but they were still very clearly annoyed that I was taking back their haul, even if the things they’d stolen weren’t at all useful for them.

“Kindling,” I shook my head at the next object.  “No idea what you want with that, but fine, you can keep it.  The rag, though, no.”  Rags weren’t going to be helpful to them – they’d hold too much water during rain and therefore add significantly to the weight of their nests, leading to potentially knocking the nest out of the tree during a storm.  Another stupid thing for them to steal.  “The berries and mushrooms you can have, too.  And why do you need this?”  I picked out the final item, a worn, frayed ribbon.

One of the pixies calmed down a bit and tried to explain.  I shook my head a bit, wondering why these pixies were thinking pretty things was a good idea – their elders would likely scold them when they got back, pointing out that bright things would make their nests too obvious to all the potential predators in the woods.  Pixies were small and had limited magic, so avoiding unnecessary attention was usually important.

I looked at the pixies, then at the ribbon, then shrugged abruptly.  “Fine, you can have it, I guess.  But don’t be surprised if your elders make you throw it out.”

I released my hold on them, letting them flutter back down and start stuffing their stuff back into the bag.

One of the pixies fidgeted, coming a bit closer to me, the fidgeting so obvious I rolled my eyes a bit and then gave it a pointed look.

“What is it?”

They chattered at me, this time sounding a bit repentant but also a bit hopeful.  I shook my head again at their request, but retrieved the button from my pouch.

“All right, you can keep the button, too.”  It was probably doomed to be tossed from the nest as well, and I actually preferred to keep buttons since I didn’t have many and it was helpful to have extras if one of mine broke or tore off and got lost in the woods, but the pixie was really attached to the idea.  When I handed them the button, they looked super excited and hugged it before putting it in the bag.

I watched them fly off with their prizes, hoping their elders let them keep their “pretty things” close, at least, since they mattered that much to them, then returned to my cabin to replace the spoon and the rag before going out again, this time vaguely planning on looking for some food to replace what the pixies had taken.

I was working through a bush, picking off the berries and ignoring the small mice and other creatures that kept taking them from my basket, when I heard another sound.

The small animals next to me paused, too, listening as a haunting howl echoed through the trees.

I straightened up and looked around, using my magic to look for the wolves.  Not regular wolves, magic ones – some of the Arcane, like me.  Humans called them Ghost Wolves on the rare occasions they were sighted.

The wolf pair was some distance off, but they were coming towards me, so I returned to my task until they got close, and then waited for them to make their appearance.

I wasn’t surprised when they approached me directly.  It was fairly well known that I was an ally to the creatures of the woods, and even on the occasions when I needed meat, I was careful to avoid any sort of creature that (1) had come to me voluntarily and (2) was Arcane.  I never ate Arcane, of course.

Greetings, Friend, the male wolf touched his nose to my shoulder.  Do you have time?

“I have time,” I agreed.  The wolf was politely asking if I could help with something, and I had no problem doing that.

Thankfully, the problem turned out simple.

There is something in his fur and I cannot get it out, his mate told me.  Can you get it?

A mat in his fur?  I reached for the ghostly fur, my fingers searching the area where the female wolf had touched with her nose.  Ah, I found it.  Tangled fur mixed with something sticky, likely sap.

“I can fix it,” I confirmed.  “But I’ll need my comb from the cabin.”

I picked up my basket, tossing a few extra berries at the small creatures who were observing this exchange curiously, then headed off towards the cabin, the wolves trailing along behind.  I retrieved a bit of oil and the comb from the cabin and then worked on the tangle, listening to the wolves chat as I did.

There are humans along the edge of the forest, the male wolf observed.

“Hunters?”  Hunters rarely did well in these woods.  There was too much magic and too many dangerous creatures for humans to survive here.

They have weapons.  Metal ones.  But they do not look like hunters, I think they are soldiers.

Soldiers.  Huh.  I rarely saw soldiers, maybe once or twice when I went to the nearest village.  I didn’t go often, of course – I pretty much only went when I needed something I couldn’t obtain on my own, like when my clothes became too worn and I needed to go into town to trade things for new ones.  Usually once or twice a year was more than enough.  And the village was a small one, not close to any major cities, so there was rarely any cause for soldiers to be in town.

“My mother knew the prince when he was younger,” I remarked idly.  “He’d been sent to a cabin near the edge of the woods as punishment and Mama found him.  The king now, I guess.  Apparently the old one died.”

Well deserved, the female wolf snorted.  He attempted to kill many of our kind.  It’s quite poetic that he fell at the teeth of a non-magic wolf, though.  All his attacks on the Arcane, and yet it was a non-magic creature that took him down in the end.  Foolish man.

I was only vaguely aware of human politics, isolated as I was, but I did know that most Arcane thoroughly hated the old king.  The new one, I remembered a bit from the couple of times he’d visited, but my mother had discouraged him from returning, mostly because she knew how much danger he was in whenever he tried to visit – danger he himself didn’t seem to realize.  Perhaps it was because he saw my mother and me living alone in the woods and he imagined, therefore, that it couldn’t be as dangerous as people said.  Why he hadn’t realized that we were Arcane, I didn’t know, but on the other hand, it wasn’t uncommon for humans to assume that someone who appeared human was human, even if there were indications that they were actually magical creatures instead.

It’s probably about the geists, the male wolf shifted a bit as I worked through the last bit of his fur.  Humans find them disturbing, and there’s been several sighted near the edge of the forest.

Disturbing?  Maybe, yeah.  They looked similar to decaying humans or bones with bits of flesh hanging from them.  Creepy to humans, probably, but they didn’t bother me much.  And the wolves, I knew, were more curious about chewing on the geists’ bones to see if they tasted different from normal ones.

“Let’s hope they don’t wander too far into the forest,” I said out loud.  “Geists don’t come near here anyway.”

The wolves agreed and then, as I finished getting his fur tangle-free, then both bowed their heads to me briefly, thanking me, before they disappeared into the trees, their ghostly forms vanishing in the sunlight.

I went back into my cabin, feeling thoughtful as I licked my fingers clean of berry juice and oil.  If the humans started wandering into the woods regularly to try to hunt for geists, it wouldn’t be great.  Usually, they knew to avoid traveling deep into the woods, but soldiers might be dumb enough to think they could handle it.  Maybe I could put up warning signs?  No, that wouldn’t work.  I could warn animals to stay away from wherever they were?  Probably, but that could be a pain if they stuck around.

On the other hand, maybe I should just let the soldiers learn the dangers of the forest on their own.  Sure, they weren’t likely to survive the lesson, but it was one anyone risked if they stepped foot amongst these trees.

I thought about it for a bit longer, then shrugged abruptly.  Not my problem, I didn’t need to come up with a solution.  It wasn’t like the soldiers would affect me at all.

Unfortunately, it turned out I was very wrong about that.