When the afternoon has finally settled and the hearth calls, the burning sun sinks down beneath the tops of the towering pines. The light streams in through the boughs in both vividly brilliant and shadowy beams. In the summertime, they had been a magnificent white gold, illuminating the greens into iridescent riots, but now the gift of those warm days have passed for the season.
On the more bracing autumn evenings, the fogs cast the same beams of light, but this time into more of sepia toes and the woodland becomes the most beautiful for photographs. Leaves dance to an unheard beat, whispering their songs to the invigorating breeze; trees thick and old with twisted roots beginning to age past their former glory -- the changing of seasons is always bittersweet.
It won't be long before the trees that had sheltered so many with their spreading canopy of effervescent green will become lifeless sticks of charcoal, no more vibrant than the old lamp-posts in the neighboring town. She wonders if it will take on the form of a creaking shack, one created by nature with the hint of unnatural, chocking mist that swirled and sprawled on the forest floor.
Phoebe positions herself at the foot of one of the larger trees, back pressed against the bark as she watches through the branches. The forest was one of those places which had no palpable reason to exist, but she had always enjoyed coming here. It was a lonesome wood, however, and rarely had visitors besides herself and unkindered spirits.
To see another human here, especially another female, was somewhat bizarre, and if she had to choose the word, almost suspicious.
With her curiosity triumphing over her other virtues, the elite decides to follow the young woman through the forest, though her sneaking is obvious as her large blossoms poke out from behind the withering trunks, branches too thin to disguise her tanned skin and strange, hawaiian-esque attire.
“ Come in, Mightyena, over, “ Phoebe whispers, her voice muffled into her palm as she pretends to speak into an imaginary walkie talkie, lithe frame half visible from behind another slender tree, “ This is Dusclops One, over. Person of interest spotted on the outskirts of the Trackless Forest. I’m going to pursue and investigate, maybe even apprehend if they are hostile, over. If I’m not back at base before 0100 hours, please tell Sidney he can’t have any of my stuff, over. “
