She was an idiot, an absolute idiot to let her guard down, to let him walk away without checking in with him. And then she has to go and get entranced by some floating lights, like some weak-willed fool! Well not entrance, not really, she tried to make the excuse, the shades of failure less but it didn’t stick. She was an idiot and she should have known better. 

So busy was she chasing after him, NOT looking at the lights and beating herself up for the degree of her failure that she didn’t quite comprehend what it was she saw when he vanished from her view. She stopped, eyes wide and scanning the underbrush and the cursed shadows that covered everything including whatever it was that was luring them in with its cursed lights. Her employer, Alexi, his friend had called him, was gone. Her knuckles on the hilt of her sword turned white, her stance shifting from a step stopped midway to something more combat ready. One heartbeat, a second and then she heard it, a muffled, pained cry that might well have been her name. She took a step forward, the sound of her own footstep was deafening in the eerie silence of the forest and all the while, just ahead those cursed green lights floated and bobbed. Were they closer? She was afraid to look lest she be snared again. 

There.

She heard him call out his warning about the ground. She wanted nothing so much as to bring her gloved hand, palm open smack into her forehead. Of course, the ground. The thing was luring them in, what good was that without a trap to devour them at its leisure. 

“On it.” She called to him. It wasn’t like the thing didn’t know it had been seen. She risked a look up and saw that the lights were moving faster, more erratically. Great, the thing, whatever it was, was agitated. [i]So, no sneak attack,[/i] she advised her fool self. 

She walked with speed and care over towards where Alexi was, uncertain how deep he was in or how hurt he was. “Hold on!” she called as she neared the edge, her eyes still drawing back towards the thing and it’s green lights which whipped around with considerable speed, moving towards her employer at a rate that nearly matched hers.