<span style="font-weight: bold">"Unlike you and your kind, I prefer to pay back others' kindnesses with kindness of my own!”</span><br/><br/>Naeths lip curled. Bah! Sentimental drivel! Why did humans insist on being so naïve and mollycoddled?!<br/>He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms across his chest, fingers plucking fruitlessly at the tiny lines of feathers across his outer wrist as he started to tune her out. Call it self-preservation mechanics; too much of that slushy shit and he’d vomit up guts.<br/><br/>Then something, a fascinating nugget of information in the guise of a tiny slip of the tongue, snagged his attention.<br/><br/>“Deer creature?” he repeated curiously, studying his young apprentice-to-be’s expression, as if digging away to find some hidden meaning beneath all of her fear and bravado. For a moment a terrible, gut wrenching moment of familiarity hit him like a wall of cold water, but it quickly passed and he shook it off without a second thought…<br/><br/>Well…. Mostly…<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">My goodness… where have we seen that before?</span>a snarky voice purred in his head, before hauling up a few snapshots of his past to the surface of his mind. Himself. In his youth. Growling something or another about going back for someone with all the fear of God in his eyes and all the determination of the devil.<br/>Amora… she wore that same expression now—although it irked him something terrible that she wore it MARGINALLY better.<br/><br/>“Did he speak?” Naeth cocked one eyebrow, suddenly interested. He’d heard stories, legends of nature spirits and their special relationships with humans, but saving one from the dinner table of one of their own wards… well it was unlikely as hell, nature spirits had a spiritual respect for the order of the food chain.  But there was a glimmer of truthful resolution in the girls eyes that made him doubt his own logic…<br/>When was the last time THAT had happened?<br/>Women like that came along once every few generations… and he preferred it that way, they terrified him!<br/><br/>“No—don’t worry, it doesn’t matter. We’ll go back for them…” he sighed pulling a reluctant face at the woods. Well, spells weren’t in the cards, he’d used up all he had on emergency and it took time to build up enough energy to create any SERIOUS self defence spells, hell, lighting their way was going to drain the last dregs thirstily from reserve … so a long, uncomfortable treck with a burdensome bow and arrow clutch it was…<br/><br/>“Don’t get too excited, this is NOT for you!” he snapped, shooting the girl a sharp glance in case she got any clever ideas about who was running this freak show, “the creature you saw is somewhat famous in these parts. And from what I know of him he’s not down with coming between a beast and its meal. Normally I’d have dismissed everything you’ve told me as the ravings of a hormonal and fear stricken mind of a human girl, but something tells me you aren’t lying. Keep up!” he strode back towards the woods, clearing the shadows in the path ahead like someone bustling through a busy market place.<br/><br/>It was an odd sight to behold.<br/><br/>The path wasn’t lit up, but instead it was almost as if someone was sweeping away the night, shovelling the dark to either side of the path or parting it like Biblical waters, what was left was a small tunnel of that same forest only caught in the light of a miserable, cast-over day.<br/><br/>One of his crows swooped from either a tree or sheer nothingness, it was getting hard to tell, before fluttering to a halt, perching clumsily on Amora’s shoulder and jostling its beak against her cheek in affectionate greeting.<br/><br/>“Maud, shoo to the house and fetch my bow,” Naeth addressed it without so much as sparing a quick glance over his shoulder and the birds head cocked at that unnatural angle all avian things revel in. It pretended not to understand, toying with the poor girls hair before it’s master snapped its name again and took off.<br/><br/>The undergrowth was starting to get treacherous now, crisp, dense bracken and twigs snapping like gunshots in the night and threatening to snag any unwary foot deep into the slippery earth. Brambles scuffled in frustration against the thick leather of his boot. How was the girl faring?<br/><br/>“Are your legs and feet bleeding yet?” he sneered, casting her a sideways glance.<br/><br/>Either the light or the magic or just their plain old presence seemed to be keeping the wildlife at bay, so far their journey had gone undisturbed. Perhaps the two were intruders to the eerie quiet….