A Yet To Be Named Fantasy Novel (draft)

A Wandering Willow

The night was dark and sultry.

Kadlin had begun on the road of her latest quest to find the two of whom she had previously found in her quest to find sustenance, during her quest to return to the city of snow after a long month on the road. In the somewhat preferable dark and sultry, sultry darkness of the late evening, she now was able to observe the, now flame lit small town in detail. Dew covered grass filled the vast majority of the dirty, yet soft, and cozy landscape around her. The small, torchlit houses, built of wood, were numerous, although there did not seem to be many trees to surround them. The sky was almost entirely clear, as usual, it was too late to see any islands above, too early to see the stars.

The moisture in the air masked all of the scents around her, so she decided to retrace her steps and see what she can deduce from there; Though Kadlin could not stop thinking about the words of her employer, that old woman at the bar instructed her "First of all; you shall find my daughter, Pheliara, she has reddish skin, brown eyes and curly long hair and make sure that she remains with as few damages as possible; next you shall retrieve the mess of a construct that she ran after, I wish to have it back, with each piece in as good of a condition as possible." that part was to be expected, but the other was more... odd "I will pay you extra if you can find and tell me what is causing the current heat in the town, but you are under not to interfere, unless my daughter's life is endangered by it." Why would someone not want a problem like that to be fixed? Kadlin stopped, she had reached the point of which her trail had intersected with the two she was looking for; after a moment of contemplation, she searched the arm for anything valuable, she was unsuccessful. Now to continue with the search.

On the ground, out of breath, panting, Pheliara lost the creature's trail. This had been the farthest into the woods she had ever gone, after an evening of chasing it through her hometown, and she had lost her way back. A cool mist filled the hot air, seemingly retreating deeper into the forest. After recalling that creature went towards the mist, she attempted to get up, barely but she was successful, and began to follow the moving mist further into the dank old forest. Songs of all sorts of nocturnal birds began to sound, luckily, there were not any of the flightless, man-eating kind anywhere near Jororwy.

*crunch* something had cracked a branch behind her! *crunch* *crunch* It was getting closer! She panicked, desperately looking around for a place to hide! She saw a colorful light penetrating the mist around her, she felt the air around her heating, and a smell of burning! she tried as hard as she could to run, but she could not move her scrawny, shaking, aching legs. She began to see a silhouette, a short, hooded one, with a lantern. She saw the reflection of a specific pair of crooked glasses on the hooded figure's face. Pheliara sighed in relief.

"Pheliara?" a familiar voice called out, in an inquisitive manner.

It was Willow, her old friend Willow, from... almost her entire life. Trying to hide her embarrassment that she didn't notice any sooner, Pheliara replied with an awkward "yes, it's me."

"I'd never thought you'd have gone this deep into these woods in your life," Willow remarked, with the same curious tone. "What brings you here this night?"

"It's a very long story," recalled the usually town-living, aspiring musician.

Willow sighed, being a person with a distaste non-answers, repeated the question in a slightly irritated tone "What brings you into this forest this night?"

"I am chasing a man comprised almost entirely of farming tools of whom ran into this forest after hitting my mother!" Pheliara answered in the voice of someone who hasn't exactly had the best day.

In response Willow recalled "Is that so? I happened to see something odd running around earlier, sounded like a broken windmill, looked like a pile of garbage, kept running into things, adding to the number of random things showing up in my forest this last week."

"your forest? last time I checked, only the noble lords can own land," Pheliara jokingly asked.

Defensively, Willow exclaimed "I'm the only one who lives here... well until people started mistaking it for a zoo, what am I supposed to do about it? If I complain they might turn it into one."

Pheliara chuckled.

Willow continued "I'll be off then; best not to get yourself into too much trouble, considering your... let's say, lack of, well any muscle on your skinny ass; you look like you've never been more tired in your life, you could really use a larger diet. now where was I? Oh yes, your garbage... man, I'm assuming".

"How am I supposed to know?" questioned Pheliara

"Make sure to ask them for me, if you have the chance" ended Willow.

Pheliara quickly attempted to ask, "Who was your other unexpected visitor?"

Willow was already far out of sight.

The night remained a dark and sultry one.