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She had been out of the foothills before sundown even truly began, the end of an ordeal of nearly five days stuck in the mountainous woodlands that lined the western coast of mystic lands, leaving behind fog and haze for deeper, quieter, older woods that seemed to sink into the night itself as she approached. Even her mount seemed ill at ease when they hit the border region between the two, Sirossa taking the time to stop and find a good place curtained by a ring of trees. 

Darkness began to come swifter here, it seemed to her, as she watched the sky descend from sunsetting to sun gone to darkness in just a portion of the time it normally took the world and heavens above to dip to black. Not just darkness, but black, the moment they hit the forests of the Witchwood. Sirossa edged off the road again and dared the forest to test her, and the dapple grey palfrey, soft-footed and smooth gaited beneath her. 

Momentum beckoned her forward, but the appalling strangeness of the woodlands around her gave her very real pause. Magical energy stirred, mystic energies flowered in fits, matted and beaten down in places in the Witchwoods. It felt to her as if the witches badgered and manipulated magic into their bidding, while the wizards droned and explained, using logic as their crutch to have magic abide them. 

It all resulted in ‘muddied waters’ to a sorceress of her talents. 

The pale grey palfrey trotted slow through the wooded opening, the canopy of trees above thick in places, open in other places, the path below covered in a thin layer of half-dried mud. At the sight in the middle of the path, the palfrey gave a snort and a shake of the head. Sirossa damn near followed suit, surveying the scene and the witch with a nonchalance as the horse came to a tired halt at a sprouting just off the path. There she lifted her right foot over the horse and allowed her body down, her feet hitting the ground with a weary weight to them. An apple, glossy and green, appeared in her hand as she spoke soft to the palfrey, giving the horse a treat with her left hand, patting and petting its head with the right. 

“Good evening, good witch,” Sirossa spoke out to the woman, her eyes and attention still otherwise on the horse she cared for, “you can relax the shadows, we only mean to travel through, and quickly. No trouble from us,” she finished, her voice with a sing-song quality, using the words in half-song to soothe the horse she patted and smiled at, green eyes finally sparking up to the witch.
“If that would be alright with you?”

Somewhere in the Witchwoods, magic echoed magic, as spells cast lingered in forgotten layers of creation, building an undercurrent of latent mystic energies that Sirossa could feel and breath in like a cold air at night.[/color]