In the morning she was cleaning up her campsite and decided to cut through the forest on the way to the next town. With no horse the traveling was slower, but not unbearable. She had been traveling for a while, when she heard a strange noise coming from deeper in the woods. She put her stuff down and silently made her way towards the noise. There she saw a strange sight. An ox strapped to a cart that looked like it was on the edge of falling apart, stuck in the underbrush. But that wasn't the strange part. A lion was cursing at the beast of burden.

As if sensing someone watching them, the lion whipped it's head around and roared at her. Well did its best impression of a roar. This made her laugh. And then a distinctly male voice came from the mouth of a lion. It sounded offended that she would dare laugh at such a dangerous animal. All at once, the pieces of the puzzle slid into place. Now she had never met one herself, but she had heard of them. She said if they were to communicate better, he must show his true form. There was a rustle of leaves as he positioned himself behind one of the cart wheels. She turned away out of decency. But he lewdly said she could watch, he didn't mind. She rolled her eyes and was glad he couldn't see.

When he assured her he was decent, she turned and saw he had barely covered himself. She sighed inwardly, once again her princess training that her mother tried to instill in her reared up. She introduced herself as Endermon and purposefully left her last name out of it, because she had met men like him before. And if he were to learn she was a princess, he would surely try to court her. And she was not sure she would appreciate such intentions.

She asked him his name and why he was so far off the main path. He said his name was Dresden Faewin and the dumb ox had gotten startled when he changed form. And nothing he could do would convince the stupid animal to move. She took offense to that as she could communicate with animals and plant life. She didn't want him to know this, so she made it appear that she was simply inspecting the wheels of the cart.

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After a while of looking 'clueless', she apologized to the ox for the idiot in charge of him and said if he would wait a couple of minutes more, he could have a bit of revenge on the man. The ox snuffed in agreement, and said that they were never really stuck, he was just hungry and couldn't care less what the man was. She asked if he had gotten his fill for a bit, and he said he appreciated her concern. She did all this within the space of a few minutes and with that she told Dresden if he were to get behind the cart and she at the front, because she couldn't possibly handle so much weight, that they could get the ox to move.

Puffing up with macho pride, he strutted up to the back of the cart and as he got into position to push, she said now!, and the ox took off faster than Dresden could register. And he fell flat on his face. He hopped up, hoping Endermon hadn't seen him biff it. Her face was the model of concern as she inquired after his health. He tried to play it off as something he did often, but she wasn't buying it.

He tried convincing her to travel with him to the next town, but she politely declined. She was not interested in being an object to be won or conquered. She said a silent goodbye and good luck to the ox and he snorted in response. Once they were out of sight, she went back to her stuff and was glad it was still there.

She thanked the earth for keeping it safe, but she knew she would not always be so lucky. Because she might encounter someone who was not just passing by. She pulled her hair back and set up her bag like a training dummy and practiced sparring like her father had always trained her to. After a while, she was worn out. She hid her stuff at the base of a tree, and climbed up for a nap