Valerie had never really considered herself in tune with nature or anything like that. Her homeland was almost entirely settled, with stretches of farmland separating the towns in place of uninhabited wilderness. There were forests and mountains, yes, but nothing that approached the untouched wilds she found herself in now. And while she traveled a lot, and enjoyed seeing the sights of new places and locales, she'd never really thrown herself entirely into them before, until now. It was a bit daunting, and exhilarating at the same time.

She allowed herself to drift away a bit in the sounds of the forest, and in the pleasant song Markus hummed. It surprised her how comfortable she started to become after a time. She still had to consciously stop herself from reacting when a small bird suddenly landed on her shoulder, but it soon took enough anyway. The flapping of wings right next to her face left her a bit flustered for a moment, but she turned it into a good-humored laugh of embarrassment.

Her little moment out of a storybook was brought to an end when they came upon the place where they would leave the road. Something about it made it all real for Valerie again. The marks on the trees that even she could track, perhaps. Orcs had been through here, maybe not recently, but their presence was unmistakable. They would have come for the bodies of their dead, at the very least.

"If we can find their trail from the battle yesterday, we could follow them back to their hold," she speculated, unsure what exactly to call it. Their [i]home[/i] made it sound a bit too personal. [i]Hold[/i] helped remind her of the military nature of what was going on. "I don't know the most about tracking, but if they were carrying bodies they would have to leave a trail, on these trees at the very least." The going quickly became more difficult and slow, even for light travelers such as themselves. The orcs surely would do worse.

Wherever the orcs were, Valerie hoped they wouldn't come across them here, while the terrain was so difficult to manage. She relied heavily on her balance and footwork, and didn't fancy her chances on a surface as harsh as this.