"Oh. That's cool." Nightsong's short answers weren't giving her much to work on. "So....Do you live anywhere around here?"

Nightsong shook his head, kneeling down again to examine a bent leaf.

"Oh, okay. That's cool." Eleanor was getting a little irritated. She gave up on trying to make small talk, and decided to direct her attention to the leaf. "It's a leaf, what's so special about it?"

Nightsong didn't answer right away. He crawled foreword to where some grass blades had been bent, as well. He stood over and moved back to the trail, watching the footsteps. The footsteps ended abruptly six metres later, and a twig was broken at he side of the trail. From there, Nightsong followed subtle signs of movement, going back and forth between there and the first area he was at with the broken leaf, until the two paths converged.

Realizing that talking really wasn't Nightsong's thing, Eleanor shut up, and tried to make sense of all the things he was looking at herself. It didn't work very well. Eleanor grumbled at her confusion. "Stupid broken leaves and broken sticks...."

Nightsong began walking again, bending frequently to the ground to follow the trail.

Eleanor became very irritated by Nightsong's lack of speech. She flew off his shoulder and around the side of his head to look him straight in the eye. "Ugh! Can we please do something??" Her clothes started turning red. "I'm not scared of these stupid things anymore, now I just wanna kill 'em!" Sparks came out of Eleanor's fingers. "Thank you for putting me in the mood for this, now lets GO! I'm sick of just walking around, looking at broken twigs and cracked leaves!"

Nightsong was silent as the fairy spoke. He spoke up calmly when she was finished. 'This is called tracking. When something, anything, walks on the ground, it breaks whatever is underneath it. You can do what you like when we find them, but we have to find them first.'

Eleanor sighed, calming down. Her clothes changed back to green, and she flew back onto Nightsong's shoulder. She knew he was right. "Alright. Let's keep going."

Nightsong nodded. He continued walking, bending down frequently, completely silent as he walked.

Eleanor tried to keep quiet. She observed from Nightsong's shoulder, making comments here and there.

Nightsong politely nodded at her comments, still tracking. After a long while, he glanced up; evening was coming.

"Uh oh...." Eleanor's voice was quiet and shaky. "We had better get out of here, fast." Eleanor looked behind her. "We're too deep in the woods, we'll never make it back to the safer area in time...Cei Rai like coming out at night, usually to hunt or to...uh...mate." Eleanor flashed back to when she was a child. She was wandering around these woods at night, and she found a couple dark, shadowy figures, their bodies tangled up with each other in a tree. She backed away slowly, as to not disturb them. When she was far enough away, she ran back to her shelter.

Eleanor flashed back to reality, and tried to urge Nightshadow into leaving. "Trust me, you don't wanna see them at night. They're full of energy, and ready fight anything that gets in their way."

'If we go back now, we'll have to do all this again tomorrow,' Nightsong said. 'We won't get much farther than this.'

After thinking about it for a moment, Eleanor realized Nightsong was right. "All right....Just be careful." Eleanor was still hesitant to keep moving, but she knew if she was ever going to get her friends and family back, they had to keep going.

Nightsong stopped by the side of the trail and bent down, sweeping away any leaves and twigs. He surrounded the area with stones, then placed several dried leaves and small twigs from the bunch he'd swept way in the centre. He took a box of matches out of his pocket, struck one, and lit the tinder.

Larger sticks were added until Nightsong was putting on logs. Then, he sat back, taking the pack off his back and digging into it. He set up a makeshift spit over the fire, then hung dried strips of meat from it, as well as a copper pot which he filled with water and some greens. Only once this was done did he sit back, watching it.

Eleanor stomach growled when she saw the meat. "hehe...I guess I never realized how hungry I was..."

Nightsong glanced at her. When the meat was ready, he reached over carefully and cut a section off a strip, then handed it to her.

Eleanor snatched the meat from Nightsong's hand and took a bite. Burning her tongue, she screamed, "HOT!!!" She quickly swallowed the meat, not wanting to spit it out and waste it.

Nightsong sighed quietly. He took some meat himself and waved it in the air gently for a moment to cool it before taking a bite.

Eleanor waited for her meat to cool off, and took a bite. She closed her eyes, feeling the cool breeze of the night. When she opened them, she realized it had gotten almost completely dark.

Nightsong put vegetables into a bowl and began eating them slowly. He offered some to Eleanor.

Eleanor took the vegetables from Nightsong and started eating them. She took little nibbles, trying to make a single carrot last forever. Vegetables were her favorite foods, and she hated seeing the last one in the bowl.

When Nightsong had eaten his fill, he put the bowl down, leaving it for Eleanor if she wanted it.

Eleanor shoveled her food in her mouth, and took the bowl from Nightsong before he could even put it down. "Fanks," she said, her mouth full of meat and vegetables. She had gotten extremely hungry over the past few hours, so she was a little glutenous.