Sammy ran for her life yet once again. She so did not want to see Dista right then, and strongly suspected he was going to show up earlier than reported. An hour of running later, the escapee slowed and glanced over her shoulder. She could not see anyone following her, except Shadow of course, but then the air shimmered and Battlescar dropped to the ground a short distance away.

The girl cleared twenty feet away from the drey-drake. “Doe, don’t do that,” she gasped.

The creature smirked at her, which was amazingly disturbing on its face.

Sammy harrumphed and then shrugged. “You have to teach me how to shield like that. It’s kind of cool.”

The drey-drake turned his head away, pretending not to hear the human.

“Anyway, we should keep moving or they’ll catch me.” So saying, Sammy took off running again, now with a ground eating stride rather than a slightly panicked all out sprint.

A couple hours later, she came to a forest and dropped to a walk while still some distance from where the plains ended and the trees began. The forest seemed unhappy, distressed. Sammy had the impression of a gloomy dog, its head on paws with a sad expression.

She shook her head, dispelling the strange image, but a darkness that had nothing to do with sunlight or its absence still seemed to cover the area. Curious, the girl walked right up to the first trees. Peering among the trunks, she sighed. “Well, what can one look hurt?”

Creeping into the woods, Sammy was mildly surprised when nothing happened. The soft crunch of the leaf covered earth sounded loud in her ears, echoed as it was by Shadow and Battlescar following her.

Sammy stopped and turned to her to new companions and put her hands on her hips. “If you guys can’t walk quieter than that, don’t follow me so close.”

Shadow complained that Sammy was making just as much noise as he was.

The human harrumphed and held her hand to stop the vishap before continuing into the woods, now moving more silent than the wind. After about fifteen feet, she shot a look at the gecko-y bird-wolf. Shadow chirped and then fluffed out his fur before flying up into the branches of a tree. With a big woof of air, Battlescar moved away into the forest and vanished.

Sammy nodded with a grin, continuing into the forest on her own. Several hours later, Sammy discovered a pleasant little clearing filled with wildflowers. She paused at the boundary of trees but then strode forward. She stopped in the middle of the clearing and slowly turned in a circle. This seemed to be the center of everything related to the sadness.

Nothing particularly spectacular happened. Sammy sighed and sat down. She was not sure what was going on, but this was actually a really nice clearing so she did not mind waiting here for a while. If nothing else, it should throw stupid Dista off her trail. The forest that is.

Sammy opened her eyes to stars and a half moon. She could feel the warmth of several forest creatures snuggled up against her and she absently scratched something’s head. A pleasant jingle of bells floated across the clearing and Sammy sat up.

Three lavender lights floated a short distance from her. She could see the trees through them. Sammy looked up at the lights, still sleep fuddled. “Who are you?” She asked without thinking.

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The lights seemed to focus on her suddenly. They moved with sudden speed to surround her, leaving lavender trails in the air. Something buzzed in Sammy’s ears, but she could not understand what they said.

“I can’t understand you,” Sammy said, rubbing her ears. The animals cuddled around her fled.

Sammy stood, since she didn’t like sitting on the ground amidst the unknown. The lavender lights buzzed at her again, withdrawing away. One of them suddenly shot out into the forest, vanishing from sight. Sammy cocked her head to the side, puzzled. She didn’t feel any particular threat from these things, but she wondered why she was so calm. Normally she would have been a half mile from this clearing by now, but she was just standing there bemused. She even knew she was not behaving normally, but didn’t really want to run away even still.

Sammy sighed and moved past the glowing orbs. They buzzed their agitation, but Sammy ignored them and continued walking toward the trees. Really, even if she did not want to run away, she did not think standing in the middle of the clearing was a good idea.

The two orbs began circling her as she walked, buzzing and buzzing. When the girl reached the trees, her two escorts suddenly withdrew several feet and fell silent. Sammy placed a hand on a tree as she turned to look at her escorts. She could see that something hovered in the midst of the globe, but couldn’t see what it was. This made her quite curious.

“Can you tell me what you are?” Sammy asked, running a hand through her hair. The two spheres did not answer, not even with their strange buzzing. “Ah, come on. I haven’t done anything to you, so you should at least be polite.”

The two orbs remained where they were, silent. Sammy sighed.

Suddenly the third orb shot into the clearing from the left side as Sammy faced it. It paused then shot over to the other two and a brief spat of buzzing ensued. Sammy watched the three with growing suspicion.

The three moved suddenly to surround her again. This time Sammy jumped up into the trees and then shot to another tree. She avoided the clearing, not trusting that weird calm of a few moments ago. That was dangerous stuff.

The three orbs gave chase. One stayed directly behind her, the other two angled to her right. Sammy grimaced. She still did not sense any malice, but it was obvious they were trying to herd her. Cutting sharply, she charged between the two on the right. Since they wanted her to go left, right was obviously the direction she herself wanted to go. The sharp buzzing sound confirmed it for her, at least in her own mind.

Nearly a half hour of running here and there later, Sammy burst from the forest onto a cultivated field again. A glance over her should showed the three orbs stopped just inside the trees. A moment later they vanished.

“Not welcome, huh?” Sammy said. She shrugged. She might try exploring later, but for now she thought it best to just leave sleeping forests sleeping. Since no one was in the field, the girl jogged along the space between field and forest until she came to uncultivated land. Cutting across that area for a while, she spotted a road with a few travelers on it. Since she didn’t have one of those weird land related feelings pulling her at the moment, she got on that road and followed a couple of wagons half filled with produce. If they were going to a market to sell, they should lead her to a city, a town at least. Sammy was kind of tired of all this wilderness stuff.

After a couple hours on the road going straight through fields, up hills on switchbacks and twisting through a couple of wooded areas, Sammy finally crested one last hill. Below her still a distance away lay a large walled port city. Beyond that city lay a vast panorama of blue.

The girl sighed to herself. She could feel a lot of complicated things coming from that city that she had no idea how to categorize. Some felt good, exciting, some felt bad, scary, but many could not be so neatly identified. There were many that didn’t seem to even be related to the ideas of good or bad at all.

Sammy followed the cart the rest of the way to the city. Several other roads emptied onto the one she traveled, and then it became a tributary to an even larger road. The number of travelers increased, though the road never did get bogged down.

The gate guards stopped the wagon she followed, but ignored her when she continued past them. Following another wagon with produce, Sammy soon found the market place. Moving to a corner out of ready notice, she leaned against a building and contemplated the crowd. This was far more to her liking than the last few days. Still, now what? She didn’t know anyone here, didn’t know the roads and ways, didn’t even know if there was something comparable to her sewers, and certainly didn’t have a place to stay as nice as her home under the Foghorn Bridge.