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[ Sharp eyes watching from behind tree. ]

Riding the Hedge isn't for everyone, Dils, Angel warned her. Maybe it's just not your thing.

At the time, all of six hours ago, she'd railed against his assessment. Not her thing, huh? Stick to kitchen magic and meditation, huh?. Well! They'd see about that, wouldn't they?

She concocted the flying ointment with steady hands, though her internal thoughts were all awhirl. Angel wasn't wrong about her aptitudes - she had a greater affinity for practical solutions, for work grounded in the immediate needs of the here-and-now, of the body, of the home. Dillie appreciated common sense and had little energy or attention to spare for riddles or extended metaphors, even when it came to magic. The dreamy imagery of trancework did not appeal to her, nevermind setting foot in other realms. Common sense rarely applied outside of one's own plane.

Or maybe practice makes perfect, she thinks as she puts a sprig of mugwort in her shoe, anoints herself and sinks into a meditative state. Maybe I need to get out of my comfort zone.

There's a reason 'be careful what you wish for' is such an old, universal saying. The universe doesn't even give Dillie time to reflect on that before it wrenches the fabric of her reality out from under her, dropping her right through into the next. She freefalls, tumbles, her scream frozen by the press of cold air down her throat. All around her is rushing darkness, so solid it may as well be the inside of a well. Her outflung hands catch nothing but air. Nothing, nothing at all, until--

--thorns bite at her flesh, sharp points prickling her fingers and scratching her arms. They snag her sweater, her jeans, tangle up in the strap of her bag. Hanging by her clothes in the dark, she gasps for breath, too stunned to even register her scrapes and tears. The pain begins to register through just as Dillie notices a faint glow filtering around her, like moonlight through leaves.

She tugs one arm experimentally. The thorns pry loose from her flesh with a hiss-inducing sting, but they relinquish their grasp and she falls another six inches to some kind of deep, loamy ground. Slowly, arms up around her face to protect against further scratches, Dillie shoulders on through the thick bramble. Every now and again she has to stop and blindly work her hair free of the entangling thorns, but she makes her way towards the strengthening light.

The last branches give way. A rumpled, bloody, wild-haired hedgewitch half-stumbles onto a mossy forest floor. She pauses to blink in the starlight, face upturned to its strange clarity. Her scored hands rise, palm up, as if to cup its glow. For a moment she just stands and breathes, any worries about where she might be and how she plans to get back suspended in beams of silver light.

The outskirts of the forest is usually where the intruders make themselves known. Teenagers wanting somewhere to drink without consequence, leaving glass bottles behind. Older strangers exchanging packages for envelopes of money. Lovers wrongfully assuming that the woodlands will mean privacy.

Those sorts are easy enough to chase out.

This deep into the forest though, it's rare that Fia finds himself surprised. Rarer still that company finds him. From a favourite spot amidst the branches of an old, twisted oak, one large, black rimmed ear flicks left at the sound of something...falling. Stumbling? Something appearing seemingly out of thin air where at first there was nothing.

He sits up, listens again, before descending feather-light to the ground several feet below. There's no real sense of urgency to his movements - he even takes the time to stretch his legs before heading in the direction of the disturbance. Those who carry threat or ill-intent with them radiate it. Even from this distance he would pick up on it, but there's none of that now. Just rustling. Could be nothing.

But it could be something. Something interesting, and that's what has him curious.

When he knows he's close, he silences his already delicate steps with a thought, before he finally catches sight of what caught his attention in the first place. A human; a magical one. How fun.

As he watches, he takes stock of her before that eventually gets too tiresome. Another suggestion in the back of his mind moves him as silently as fog much closer still, until he's leaning against the bark of the tree directly behind Dillie.

A purposeful exhale makes him visible to her, his voice soft but clear as he makes himself known.

"Lost?"

Does he mean to startle her? Quite possibly. Sharp, bright eyes are certainly watching for that reaction.

Next time she ought to take better care in selecting a destination before leaping out of her personal space. Is that the lesson, here? To be sure, her frustration has evaporated like the faint clouds of her breath, but now she's utterly lost. This could be any forest, anywhere.

...no, not just any forest. Setting aside the tickley fiddlefern feeling of strange magic on her skin, clues to help her pinpoint hemisphere, continent and country are literally sprouting up all around her. Dillie stands on her toes to squint at the underside of the leaves overhead - nearest her nose are broad, oval, toothy hazel leaves. Higher up are the splayed fingers and gnarled cathedral branches of an oak. Ground ivy springs up under her feet and pillowy primrose leaves shield tightly bound flower buds.

Northern Europe, then? Or North America. Or some plane that mirrors both to an unsettling degree? Everything is much bigger and disturbingly green for this time of year. Dillie presses her palm to the hazel's trunk and tugs at her earlobe. What else is she missing? Maybe the hedge of thorns itself?

She's just turning to look behind her when a voice, high as reedsong, slides through the quiet. Dillie's turn becomes a spin, one she barely manages to stick. The smell of bitter sage stains the air as the mugwort in her shoe is crushed into paste.

Dillie takes no notice; the person(age?) in front of her is too arresting. He...she...they? They're shorter than she is, measured nose-to-nose, but the antlers spiraling from their temples top her head by a good eight inches. There's an overwideness to their eyes and a strange cast to their nose that mars their human seeming, but otherwise they're as delicate and androgynous as a child. Which, unless Dillie mistakes her guess, makes them quite dangerous.

~~This is her first corporeal nonhuman entity, though, so that's mostly hearsay and conjecture.~~

"I'm--" her voice creaks on the first try. She swallows and takes another go. "I'm afraid I am. I took a wrong turn, or..." she pauses, and tugs at her ear again. Hmm. "Or something turned me wrong."

It's rude to ramble, but doubly so when trespassing, so Dillie hastily returns her attention to the...antlered being, and bobs a quick curtsy. "I don't mean to wander uninvited, but it might be I was sent here. I'm a--a hedgewitch and a healer. Sort of. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Edited (rogue tag!) 2017-11-02 05:07 (UTC)

A hedgewitch...how interesting. It's been a while since he's met one of her ilk. Sometimes a little serious, but always very polite. Soft, rounded ears turn forward, attentive to the tone of her voice. A little nervous, perhaps - but honest. That's good.

What's better is the curtsy. How long has it been since he's been curtsied or bowed to? Far too long, far too long. He straightens a little at that, preening with a flash of a smile at the show of courtesy, before stepping slightly closer. For a couple of seconds Fia just inspects her with the curiosity of the creature he was chosen to emulate, pinkies linked behind his back. Looking at what Dillie's wearing, wide eyes quickly flick down to the bag at her side, as if trying to see what she might have brought with her.

Her question of whether or not she could do anything for him has also been noted; again, not something he's been asked in a long time. People just don't have the same respect that they used to.

Not a moment later does he extend one hand to her, black-dipped fingers unfurling from an upturned palm as he tilts his head a fraction.

"Have y'brought anythin' for me? If so, I might be inclined to help you home. Or let you stay awhile. It has been some time since I've had company that uses two legs instead'a four."

His question may as well be rhetorical with this particular visitor, or so he's assuming. She knows to be polite and to apologise for her trespass, so it makes sense that she would know to offer him something now. A cereal bar wouldn't go amiss, actually - a teenager intoxicated by some sort of drug gave him one once and he's grown rather fond of them.

Not the wrappers so much. Those have been known to vex him.

Professor Gray always said, an ounce of manners was worth a pound of power when it came to the fae.

("How is it you've hung in there so long, then, you terrible old man?" Dillie'd asked him once.

"Whatever do you mean, Miss Noakes?"

"Only that my mother'd've hauled you up by the ear if she ever saw how you behave in faculty meetings. Professor."

He'd leaned back in his chair and tapped a lump of spent ash from his pipe. "Perhaps I have the magic to spare. As you do not, I advise the former tactic.")

Fortunately Dillie's mother had drilled perfect manners into all her children along with certain other habits. Among those was a tendency to carry snacks, because you never knew when you might miss your bus or be stuck working late and it wouldn't do operate at less than your best due to low blood sugar. More than once a stashed candybar or baggie of trail mix has kept Dillie awake and focused while on-call...so it's not much of a stretch to say her snacks have saved lives.

Right now they could very well save her own. "Oh! Of course!" she follows the personage's pointed stare at her bag and quickly slips the top flap's toggle. Some clever needlework transformed the interior of the basic canvas knapsack into a many-pocketed grab bag. Her herbs and vials all have their own slots, but so to does a simplified version of her EMT field kit. Dillie reaches for a zip compartment and comes up with an apple, a packet of cheese sandwich crackers and a chocolate mint Clif bar. There's some jerky in there, too, but she's going to assume herbivore until proven otherwise.

She places the apple in that dark, outstretched palm, and offers the two wrapped packages with her other hand. As she does so, Dillie's eyebrows pinch and then smooth back out, marking the quick passage of a thought. "If you'd like me to stay, I only ask that it be, um, the way people like me measure time."

God forbid she disappear into some faerie realm for decades. She's got second shift tomorrow!

Without much concern about appearing nosy, Fia leans forward and tries to peer inside her bag as she opens it, eyes lighting up when he sees what she has for him.

Jewellery and pretty, sequinned things were always popular choices, but food Fia held in very high regard indeed. Every time, he was pleasantly surprised by what he was given, and this would likely prove to be no different. Apples he knew well already, but the other two items have him almost theatrically enraptured. So much so that for a good minute or so he doesn't reply to her question.

Instead, while he inspects the packaging of the crackers, the hand holding the apple reaches up and deposits it between two of the smaller branches of his antlers. That'd do just fine for later; these wrappered treats were far more interesting right now. Said wrappers do confuse him for a second, but in the time between heartbeats, he's disappeared from in front of Dillie, and reappeared atop the trunk of a fallen tree several feet behind her, as if a quick sit down will help him work out how to get to the food item inside.

"An' how do people like you, specifically, measure time?" Ah, got it - ripping into the packet of crackers with his teeth, Fia glances over only once, but offers a playful smirk alongside his reply. "D'you prefer clocks? Or sun dials, perhaps?"

He knows exactly what she means; for once it's meant lightheartedly, but that's no reason he can't have a little fun.

Dillie almost waggles the cheese crackers and the protein bar back and forth, just to see if the fae creature's eyes track them. She chooses self preservation and stomps down hard on that urge. It helps that she, herself, is distracted when they use their antlers as a makeshift pantry. She's struck by the image of apples dangling from the branches, candlestubs lit on the prongs, strings of popcorn strung between the rack. In her defense, it's seasonally appropriate.

She blinks that picture away, and in so doing loses track of her host. As she's casting around, reflexively looking down for foot--hoof?--prints in the loamy soil, their voice pipes up behind her. She mostly manages to tamp her surprised jump down to a spin.

They've got the serrated edge of the cheese cracker packet between their teeth, which doesn't prevent them from asking a potentially loaded question. Dillie has to check both her immediate answer (By my watch, usually) and her offer to help them get at the snack. One could be too open ended, the other insulting.

"Well, I work night shift usually," she smiles back. "So how about moon phases?"

[The dog who has wandered into the forest is unlike any other creature. He's trapped within a robotic suit, clearly formed from man's twisted imagination. He's been used by the military to kill, to be a weapon, transformed into something he's not.

But beneath the exterior, he's still just an innocent animal, a dog who wants love, affection, and a home. His nose quivers as he smells the fae that is hiding nearby. He looks around, his voice robotic and dog-like at the same time.]

?Who there?

[ Humans he's used to, animals more so; but this is a first. Fia's curious, certainly - then the dog talks, and he has to investigate.

Stepping out into view, the satyr's ears turn forward as he tilts his head a fraction to the side, examining the robotic suit with wide, green eyes. ]

I could ask you th'same thing, little one

[The dog turns towards the...well, he's not sure what this being is. It smells like a man, and deer, and something that Bandit doesn't know what, but that makes his nose tingle. Even if he was told that was the scent of magic, he wouldn't understand what that meant. He's not frightened though. This being doesn't seem bad.]

Got away. From the lab. Looking 4 home.

[That is a very long speech for the dog, but his complicated past can be boiled down to simple terms. This was done to him by people, perhaps no better or worse than most, but uncaring of the feelings of the animals they were using.]

[ A lab..? Fia isn't sure what that means exactly. But the fact the dog's looking for a home makes sense to him.

Approaching a little closer, Fia crouches just a bit, holding out a black-dipped hand for the odd looking dog, palm up. He doesn't like to assume another creature wants to be petted or not; after all, he certainly dislikes being touched by those who haven't had his permission. ]

Well, y'more than welcome here - I've plenty of space for another guest.

[Bandit comes up to Fia, sniffing his hand intently. He likes the earthy, woodsy scents he finds, so he licks Fia's hand vigorously, tail wagging within the suit. It produces a muted thumping sound as he does so.]

Bandit stay. Nice place.

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