The forest would have been beautiful if it didn’t make her skin crawl. Objectively, it should have been perfect—delicate flowers dangling from the branches, jewel toned insects flying by innocently, emerald green moss softening the edges of boulders—but the whole place just reminded her of grave dust. Still, suffocating, and ominous, and that was [i]before[/i] the whispering started. Lily gritted her teeth, the sibilance hitting just the right spot to raise the hair on the back of her neck, and kept her eyes on the sunlit break in the trees before them. Once they left the forest, she could think about the things she actually wanted to—like which question to ask Spook first, and what to make a new bandage for Meryn out of, and how to politely ask Alexander if she could steal his pistol for a while.

One moment it was tranquil—rather, as tranquil as it could be, walking through a creepy whispering forest with the tension still thick between the group, a neatly folded magic glyph tucked down the front of her shirt when a few hours ago she hadn't truly believed magic existed. The next, a tree was trying to eat their guide.

From a new low, to a newer, even lower low. 

So soon after being menaced by a giant dragon, and as a usually levelheaded person, Lily's reserves of panic were spent. Her first instinct was to chuck a torch at the thing, but considering the proximity to Spook's face and the fact that the trees were [i]already[/i] understandably upset about being set on fire, that was probably...not wise. She also doubted that reasoning with angry trees would do much good—it wasn't like they were [i]wrong.[/i] Which left one obvious course of action: run.

[color=DDA0DD]"Buggery [i]fuckwit—"[/i][/color] she growled, hand twitching toward her front before she hesitated—she didn't want to waste the only magic she had minutes after she got it. Instead, she reversed its path and lunged, grabbing Spook’s flailing free hand with both of hers. She dug her heels in and heaved with all her might towards the end of the path—and the edge of the treeline. One was bad enough; they didn’t need to give those other [i]things[/i] the chance to attack. [color=DDA0DD]"Come on—head for the plain!”[/color]