*Mutter* *Grumble*Where the *&$#@! am I? Kryschenn wondered angrily. Let's see, I think I was going... this way, or was I?
Because the underbrush was farily springy, it was hard to Kryschenn to see where she had come from. She could have only backtracked a few yards before her trail was obscured by the vegetation bouncing back to its original shape.
Great, now I'm lost in the woods, she berated herself furiously. Well, if I can't find Macula, maybe I'll just stay lost and starve to death and get eaten by wild animals, either way I'll get out of everyone's hair.
Macula, however, seemed to have other ideas, and offered her another way of finding the city. Just when her anger at herself was threatening to spiral into depression, she caught a whiff of a cooking hearth from a household somewhere in that town. She inhaled deeply, trying to get a bead on the direction the invisible tendril of smoke was coming from. Pot roast and carrots, she decided as she finally got her bearings and began to follow her nose. At last, she was back on track and heading towards the city.
Led on like a bloodhound by the unseen trail, she carefully pushed a young, thorny branch out of her way, releasing it as she passed by. The branch sprang back, and then the elasticity of its stem caused it to whip back at her from behind, striking her with its thorns where very few people would appreciate being struck.
"SHYTTE!" she yelped, then drew her Sgian Dubh and whacked the end off the branch just for good measure.
