Submission (#4555) Approved

Thanks to a friend’s parent offering to be a chaperone, Ciri was in Faerindell for the feyhallow season and feeling a bit more on edge than usual. For a kittom that spent an awful lot of time in Enmir it was a bit humorous for her friend, Mallow, to see her so jumpy. Maybe his childhood friend Wick had rubbed off on him a bit over the years. Contrary to his usual interest in plants his attention was mostly on Ciri this trip and had a mischievous glint in the corner of his eye. Usually the two friends got along quite well back in swampy marsh towns. They would share mundane chatter about the reeds and weeds found between various trees in Enmir usually too. Mallow had been suspiciously quiet ever since they had arrived in this region. Ciri didn’t expect Mallow to discuss every plant, but Faerindell was teeming with flowers that the silence was really bothering her.

“Hey Mallow, what’s this one called?” She asked, pointing to a flower beside the cobblestone pathways of a local town that one would swear looked like it had come straight out of a story book. She glanced over her shoulder as she was about to touch the flower and the look on Mallow’s face made her freeze. “What?” She asked, drawing back her small paw quickly. She could see his shoulders slump with relief. “Well I thought you would know, usually the colorful ones are dangerous.” He responded so matter-of-factly that Ciri scrunched her nose at him a little. “Dangerous? But there’s colorful flowers everywhere.” She denied it with a bit of a huff, but after the response Ciri noticeably passed up the flower she had just been looking at and she seemed a bit more keen to keep well to the cobblestone path.

Staring at all the pink trees in the distance closer to Elenion she wondered if those trees were possibly dangerous too. Her brain began to reel a little bit trying to sort out if this place was really that dangerous. Mallow had been here many times, and he wouldn’t lie to her, right? She pondered. In the first place, the whole reason the two kittoms were walking down a local path together was because Mallow had mentioned wanting to show her something. He wouldn’t disclose what it was he wanted to share with her though.

Instead Mallow began to make small comments. “You know they say you have to be wary of fairy rings that pop up in Faerindell so if you see any mushrooms around be careful. The faerie shrouds too…I heard a kittom once disappeared in them and they looked and looked and couldn’t find them anywhere amongst the flowers.” Her friend diligently explained as though it were incredibly important information. She had half been ignoring it but Mallow did know a lot about plants. Still some of the claims just felt a little too stretched to be true. She listened with half an ear as they walked further down the path. 

Soon enough something came into view that seemed a little less colorful, or at the very least it was a place Ciri could recognize would be fairly safe. It was a farm of sorts, there’s no way they would let anything toxic grow here. Probably because the fields had been worked and various crops were growing in them, the flowers seemed a little more sparse here.

“Wait here, I’ll be right back.” Mallow said as they wandered off into a field, and the minutes passed. Ciri hadn’t really thought much of it at first but after looking at a farm building a bit she wondered what was taking Mallow so long. She thought she heard a branch snap and her eyes narrowed suspiciously on the field.

“Mallow, what's taking you so long?” She asked, but didn’t project her voice too much. Afterall she was a bit nervous. The sun would be setting soon and what if the branch snapping hadn’t been Mallow she had a bad feeling. Under her foot she heard a familiar snapping sound of a stick being crushed by her paw. The lush green Faerindell grass had hid it mostly and it had also hid a mushroom or two that she spotted. Mallow’s warnings echoed in her head but she just shook it a bit. Turning to check another direction, she ran face first into something hard.

Ciri blinked, looking up at a frightening stranger not realizing they seemed awfully stiff and unmoving. Their face from what she could see beneath the brim of their hat was so dreadfully strange, she felt her paws quickly pivoting to escape. “Maaallllloooowww, where are you?” She cried out hearing a branch or two snap behind her. Her little paws raced out of the field and she tripped between the planks of a fence and half glanced over her shoulder before going face first into some faerie shrouds growing behind the farmhouse. “They’re going to eat me.” She screamed, limbs flailing as she clumsily tripped over a pail hidden amongst the foliage. Half toppled over and startled she closed her eyes, fully expecting something to eat her before she heard Mallow’s voice pipe up.

“Ciri, who’s going to eat you? We’re the only one’s out here.” Mallow said, as he rolled a particularly glorious looking squash out from the side of the farm house. Ciri opened one eye, to glance at her friend before the other followed suit. “What took you so long?” She asked critically, eyeing the squash in slight disbelief. Had this been what he wanted to show her? But then why had he gone into the field if it was right next to the building?

“Well I thought I would find it in the field and then bring you there, but they must have harvested it and moved it near the farm house.” He said smoothly. “Isn’t it neat?” He asked, eyes seeming to twinkle innocently at the question. It was hard to suspect any funny business, but why had he said this place was so dangerous? She took a solid few minutes to admire the squash with him before announcing she wanted to go back to the inn where his parent was staying, and most likely still doing paperwork.

As they left to wander back down the path she heard a stick snap behind her, looking back to see Mallow had stepped on one. Ciri glared daggers at him before quickening her pace a little and Mallow followed with a faint smile. The mild mannered Mallow was satisfied. If he had learned anything from his friend Wick, it was that every once in a blue moon a prank wasn’t so bad. Ciri was smart too but neither of the kittoms were the sort to stay bitter. Even if he was found out he was fairly confident he would be forgiven this time for breaking a few twigs and dropping a few mushrooms and giving his friend a little bit of a fright.