She is not entirely sure why she had decided to go into the forest, but she was beginning to regret it.

She would not describe herself as particularly adventuresome; she preferred to keep the parts of the world that she found familiar, having grown up timid and shy in nature. But the spring sunshine had been invigorating, and the way the sunlight had streamed through the trees and created a dappled effect of shadows and light across the ground had looked so lovely that she could not help but to follow it.

Walking with a doe-eyed kind of wonder she had tilted her head up to look at the bright blue sky that peaked through the tops of the trees, marveling at how it looked as though the trees could touch the clouds but knowing full well they could not. On the ground she admired the variety of wildflowers that were blossoming, adding splashes of color to the earthen tones that filled the forest. 

She hadn’t noticed when the well-worn path she had been following had turned into more of a deer path, not until branches began to dig at her skin and snagged on her mane, leaving black tendrils stuck to them. She could feel the anxiety that began to constrict in her chest, and when the branches of trees began to turn into the sharp barbs of an overgrown briar patch, she knew that her only way out was to turn around.

It is a tight spot where she finds herself, and as she tries to twist herself around the briars latch onto her tail, her mane, and a particularly cruel vine finds itself wrapped around her front leg. Somehow she has managed to become entangled, and though she wills herself not to panic she cannot hide the fear in her high, clear voice when she calls out desperately, “is there anyone that can hear me? Hello?”

She thinks she can hear the muffled footsteps of someone approaching, and she wills her panicked heartbeat to slow, and quiets her own quickened breath to better listen. Focusing, she is able to pick up on his thoughts as he draws nearer, and she can feel relief flood clear to her bones at the realization that it is someone that can, hopefully, help her. But when he finally comes into view through the thick branches of trees and brush, she feels her heart lurch again. Horns twist from his head, and where a coat should have been are only scales.

Demon, she thinks to herself, but she swallows her fear away.

She is not entirely unfamiliar with dark things; her father could control darkness, could cover a land in shadow when he felt like it, or craft all sorts of creatures from it. That was not a side of him that Sheer often saw, but rather stories from his youth that she had been told. To come face to face with what she thinks might be a monster was entirely different than hearing a story about it.

Reflexively she grows tense, watching uneasily as he continues to step closer. He does not say anything — she notices though that he tries — but a quick, fleeting look inside of his mind tells her that he is not actively considering harming her. She did not much care for reading minds; not the way her grandmother did, how Starsin had loved to use it as a weapon, pocketing away secrets for later use. To her reading minds always felt like she was intruding, and so after she assures herself that he is not going to use her predicament against her she averts her gaze elsewhere, as if he might have felt her listening to his thoughts even though they never did.

“Thank you for coming,” she tells him, her voice soft and still uncertain. His demonic appearance was a bit unsettling, and it contradicted his benign thoughts and actions, and so she was not entirely sure how to take him. Unwilling to question it right now, though, she tries once more to step forward, only for the thorns to pull tighter at her mane. “Do you think you could maybe just…get my mane untangled?” She hopes that if she could only move her head better she could gain better leverage to free the rest of herself.

She can sense his frustration, and another quick glance into his mind tells her that he can speak, but that something is inhibiting him from doing so. There is the fleeting thought of ‘fairies ‘ that she just barely grabs hold of, but she isn’t sure what to make of it. She does not have any kind of experience with the fairies, or even the magic of Beqanna in general, other than what she had been born with. She is only vaguely aware of the idea of going to the mountain with requests, but she did not know how it worked, or that the fairies sometimes toyed with those who made the trek.

All she needed to know — and exactly what she had gathered — is that he is here to help, and not take advantage of her in her current state.

She goes still as he begins to unravel her hair from the mess of briars, as she can feel more of herself become free she is able to twist her head, breaking off long threads of mane in the process. With her head no longer trapped in such an awkward position she is able to look down to see exactly how to maneuver to get herself out of the vine that had been wrapped around her leg, and finally at long last she is able to stumble away from the wretched trap of brush.

Her eyes go to his, reflecting back the relief that also escapes her on a sigh. “Thank you for helping me. I shouldn’t have been out all this way, I don’t know what I was thinking. My name is Sheer, by the way.” Even though he cannot speak she did not think it was right for him to not at least know the name of the stranger he had so kindly helped.