[center][h2][color=red]Sheffield[/color][/h2][/center]

[i]Mentioning [@hotsyrup].[/i]

[i]“Uh.. Ahm.. Well. It seems there is nothing much out here. I was wrong. So I’m going to… pop back into the tavern.”[/i]

Was it the smell? Or what he said? Was it what he was hiding? Or literally everything he just did?

Whatever the case, staying out in the wild too long must have done horrible wonders for Sheffield's social skills, even as someone who lived around forests. He made a surprised sound and raised a hand to... do whatever. Stop her? He let his hand fall to his side in shame. It was his fault he scared Lyra off. It's been weeks since he actually sat down and talked to someone. Even if she was a troubled person, he had a feeling she was practically harmless.

Except now it was clear she was going to do something. Call someone on him maybe, that a kid covered in blood was rambling. He quickly stood up and wondered what could happen if he ran, or if he stayed.

There was another tavern, said the townsman from earlier. He could probably stay there, but seeing as there had been nothing notable about it, a cleaning of himself was in order, as much as he could anyway.

The well. Or maybe stables. No, the tailor, and perhaps a blacksmith willing to accept some scrap metal.

He promptly shrugged off his upper armor, revealing his black tunic, a tabard with a little splash of red over grey colors over it, torso-protecting chainmail, and arms thinner than what the plated sleeves suggested. Then he slipped off the lower part, showing off black trousers tucked into boots.

The young Hunter's elbows felt a little colder now, but he shrugged it off. Without the covering armor he probably looked less leery or messed up, and maybe less imposing what with the height the whole set seemed to show.

Sheffield looked back at the windows of the tavern. He considered what to say to the shopkeepers of this town where Hunters often visited. But he managed to spook Lyra, for all her aloofness.

Maybe he should go inside the tavern and apologize after all, then see if this Bobby would get him a room--

[i]Sheffield?[/i]

The young man felt chills all over him. He spun around. That sounded like...

[color=red]"Teresia?"[/color] he asked aloud. There was no one walking by at this point in nighttime, but he heard her.

He walked over to the road. Then he looked to the Forest, where the borders of the town met an unspoken line.

The moonlight could barely pierce through the canopies, but there, a girl that seemed to catch what pitiful amount was left.

She had brown hair, braided into twin ropes over her back. She wore a cloak, red as blood, and robes as white as ordinary canvas. Her tough messenger bag would sway a little at her hip. Her purple eyes would shine like amethyst. She stood tall, acting neutrally, carefully, and expectant.

But that was then. This girl was much shorter, perhaps a little over Sheffield's waist. This girl still had her face, her eyes still like purple gems, but her hair was a sheet of ghostly white. She was dressed in a more lily-like white, short-sleeved, flowing dress, with black frills running down her sides. Even her bag was there, despite these changes.

She stared at him. Then she turned and ran into the gaping jaws of darkness, into the forest where the strange and the impossible awaited.

[color=red]"Hey, Teresia! I-If you are... wait!"[/color]

Sheffield shouted desperately, but the girl who seemed to glow in the dark still ran off.

The reasonable part of Sheffield said he had to wait until morning. He was no one-man battalion for all that he survived. He could ask the Hunters for help. But no, that would be asking much of them, especially so for two strangers involved.

The other part told him to just go then! This was a chance he should not risk missing.

And he often listened to that other part. He registered everything he had against the Forest; terrible odds. But there was his best friend.

He started to walk. At this moment, he wished for someone who would be walking out, someone he could simply ask on what might be a suicidal search.