I followed along the river just as Wayland advised me, and as I trekked inwards, I found myself wondering about the strangeness of the woods. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with them at first glance. Most of the trees had just the right amount of gnarls and knots to make them look very old and many of them had large canopies which looked very inviting whenever I got the urge to get down and rest. There were very few bushes or shrubs along the river to block out the wonderful view of the rest of the forest scape. Indeed, there were very few shrubs and bushes anywhere. No dead branches or leaves, nor any brambles except for those in those places where they looked nicest. It only became more like that the deeper I went into the woods.
I was reminded of the King's own gardens back in the capitol and I realized what was throwing me off. The woods that I had grown up tromping around in looked wild. Of course, the more well-traveled certain parts were, the better those same parts looked, but it wasn’t a guided tending by any means. It was the sort of haphazard thing that only a true woodsman might create. The King's gardens, on the other hand, were very well tended. Perfect rows, perfect unison, and perfect symmetry. If something was out of place, it was removed. The whole thing ran like clockwork, and had been crafted by master gardeners for hundreds of years to be so.
These woods reminded me of that, but from the other end of the spectrum. It was as if the faeries were cultivating, not order, but a kind of guided chaos. All plants were treated with equal care, of course, but some plants appeared to be treated with more equal care than others were. The noble trees with their gently climbing ivy dominated the woods; while the shrubs and brambles were only allowed to grow in certain locations, almost too only add emphasis to the beauty of the trees and the rest of it. I didn't trust it.
When I decided to finally dive into the breakfast that the Fomor girls had given me, I slowed Sen to a walk so that I could eat it without dismounting and thus risking whatever might happen to me under the strange trees I had seen. The bread was half burned, true, but the half that wasn't burned tasted quite good. The sausages were also very crunchy, but edible. When I finished them I found a bush and set the basket down.
“Thank you,” I said out loud. I didn't see anyone in particular, but I assumed that the girls had followed me and would take my gratitude and leave. I saw a bush start to shake and heard the sound of tinkling laughter. I reached for the basket I'd just set down and went to investigate.
“Girls? You didn't follow me all this way did you?” I reached the shaking bush and began to part it with my free hand when all of a sudden a swarm of pixies exploded out of it in a rainbow spectrum of light.
A number of the pixies flew at my face and I batted them away with the basket on instinct. They then flew behind and around me so when I tried to follow where they were flying I wound up falling on my back. A little pixie with bright blue hair flew down to my face and stood on my forehead. “Naughty, naughty. It's not nice to hit people,” she said wagging her finger at me as she did so. “Naughty boys should be punished!” With that, the whole swarm cheered, landed on top of me and tied me down to the ground. Once I was secure, they then launched themselves towards Sen. I could only watch with horror as all of my supply bags flew away.
The only thing that they left alone was, true to his word, the satchel. It was as if it was beneath their notice. They left Sen alone as well, but that was more a matter of angry stubbornness on Sen's part than a lack of trying on theirs. “He's a boring horse anyway,” I heard them say as they flew away from him.
I spent the rest of the morning collecting my supplies. Some were hidden in tree branches, others were inside bushes, but no matter where they were, the pixies would all groan when I found something. Once I'd been able to get everything gather together and tied back onto Sen, I was able to set out along the river.
