"Well, it's been nice seeing you again, Walter." Philia told her unmated husband, which technically meant that they were engaged to be mated but weren't even though they had thrown a wedding ceremony.

Walter nodded. "It's been real and it's been fun." He agreed with a smirk.

"Has it been real fun?" Philia questioned with a grin.

Walter made a show of being deep in thought. "I think so."

Philia raised an eyebrow in question. "You think?"

Walter chuckled and pulled her into a hug. "Take care of yourself." He told her. "I'll be back much sooner than last time."

"You'd better. If anything happens to my team, or if they just can't handle it, I'll need you to remove the lindwyrm." Philia informed him before she turned to Isaac and Lenna. "Safe travels, new friends, understand that the next time I need help with something that requires your specific set of skills, I will be calling upon you."

"She says that, but the Errantee Guard are rangers and scouts of the highest order." Walter cut in. "And if she needs anything slayed, she'll probably just call me."

Isaac nodded. "Still, if you need anything, we do kind of owe you for the racket I caused." Isaac agreed.

Philia waved him off. "The skins and meat more or less paid for the hassle, as we had no casualties, so I am just out two thousand gold for making Walter shoot his anti-dragon rifle."

"Anti-material rifle." Walter corrected her.

"And two thousand gold to a rich heiress is hardly worth mentioning." Philia continued. "I'll be sure to pay you if I do call on you, but friends are expected to answer when a call for help goes out."

"It's a light elf thing." Walter explained to Isaac and Lenna. "Friends are worth more than anything else when you can keep a friend for longer than platinum enchantments last without upkeep."

Isaac nodded again in understanding. Lenna stepped forwards to stand slightly closer to Philia than Isaac and offered the woman the same nod that she gave Serentia Von Arbencroft. "Thank you, Philia, for treating me like an equal." Lenna was anything but verbally eloquent or graceful but Philia seemed to be able to read between the lines.

"Of course." Philia replied. "If I ever find myself in the dark, I'll be in your care, so please don't let a Tunnel Horror eat me in my sleep or something." She joked.

"What about me?" Walter asked Lenna with a faux look of hurt and a hand on his chest.

"You are different." Lenna told him flatly.

"She means that you are so weird that she had forgotten that you were even an elf until she learned that we had similar experiences." Isaac helpfully explained. "At that point, well, any stereotypical light elvish racism coming from you would've been just as odd as it would've been even more uncalled for."

"Ouch." Walter said and took half a step back as if he'd been shot. "Probably fair, but still, ouch."

Philia took a deep breath and smacked Walter on the arm. "Alright." She began. "Get out of here you five, before I find a way to make you stay." She gave Isaac and Lenna another nod. "We haven't really been able to get to know each other well yet, but we will have plenty of time to do so throughout the next centuries. Or maybe for a few weeks during your return trip?"

Isaac laughed and Lenna chuckled. "We'll see." Isaac told her. "I don't know about 'a few weeks' but if we come back through here, I'd be willing to stay for a week or so."

Walter quickly mounted Copper who was waiting patiently next to them. "Let's try to hit the second resting spot." Walter told the duo. The road had dried out enough in most places that it would be fine to run with minimal risk of sliding and falling so it was a doable proposition.

"Agreed." Lenna replied.

"I think I've spent enough time on the road in the last month for the rest of the year so I am all for it." Isaac joked. Seeing as there was less than six weeks left in the year, he wasn't saying much.

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"Hi-ho Copper, away!" Walter called out and leaned in. Copper immediately started off at an ever increasing speed which Isaac and Lenna had to hurry to keep up with. Eventually, when Copper started pulling away from them even while they were sprinting, Walter slowed her down to a canter that moved just shy of Isaac and Lenna's dead sprint.

As the first day went by, so did the colorful forest. Over time, the forest turned to juniper, ash, and maple with plenty of underbrush along the way. Most of the underbrush was modified in the manner that Walter had originally explained. When they stopped for lunch, Walter made tea just like how he had described at the beginning of their journey. He took two leaves and a berry and dropped them into a cup, of just barely not boiling water, which he had made in a tin cup. By the time the tea was cool enough to drink, it had made perfect peach-adjacent tea. Isaac and Lenna joined him using Walter's spare cups and they enjoyed an experience that few humans or dark elves ever had the luxury of having.

The second day went by much like the first, at least it had until just after lunch. They had continued their journey for only around half an hour before they came across a rather interesting sight. A mountain lion was engaging in a melee battle with a brown bear three times its weight. Swipe, dodge, lunge, bite, dodge, they went back and forth with unnatural grace. Mountain lions were quite graceful creatures on average, they were cats after all, but not as perfectly graceful as the one that was just barely dodging the bear's bone crushing jaws and murderous claw swipes.

The group all slowed to a stop around a hundred and fifty feet away from the melee that was happening on the side of the road. At least five small trees and a dozen bushes had been utterly bowled over by the two apex predators before they had wound up halfway out into the road.

"This… doesn't seem natural." Isaac commented.

Walter chuckled and shook his head. "It's not. This's just what elf territory's like." He told them. "Give them another few minutes."

Isaac gave Walter a look that seemed to just question if the artificer was crazy or not. "Okay…" Isaac reluctantly agreed and they just settled in to wait.

It was another three minutes before the bear took a swipe from the mountain lion's claws in order to land one of his own. Blood was drawn on both accounts and the two predators collapsed in exhaustion right afterwards. Both rippled and shifted as their forms molded back into the shapes of two elves who were definitely siblings. The mountain lion was actually a lioness and the bear was an elvish man, though something about him just made him feel younger than his sister.

"Let's go say high." Walter told Copper and she started sauntering over towards the siblings who were panting like dogs on a hot day. The ground under them had turned into wild violets and clover so they weren't lying on the stony and muddy road.

Both siblings saw Walter and company approach at the same time. "Free-walker." The man said. The woman just gave him a nod.

Walter gave them a nod. "Haffa, Keffen." He greeted them. "You know, sometimes important people come through here." He told them and nodded behind him. "I got a demigod and his mate with me, on the way to the capital, and this's the first substantial sight they've seen since we've left the great forest."

Haffa, the lioness, looked embarrassed and then scowled at her brother. "We," She started to begin but was breathing too hard to get more than that out in the first breath. "would, not have, been fighting, if this, big oaf-"

"this catling,-" Keffen tried to cut in.

"I'm older than you!" Haffa yelled back with a voice that got so high it was almost painful.

Walter looked back at Isaac and Lenna. "These two are the current druid caretakers of this area of woodland. We've passed through nine of them so far, but usually druids prefer to spend more time with the animals and trees in their care than these two." He explained. "Lord Darkness, Lady of Hellfire, this is Haffa and Keffen Tw'ine. They are strong but idiots. They might be able to help us though."

"After that, introduction?" Keffen demanded without even trying to get up.

Haffa got up onto her elbows. "Greetings, foreigners." She told Isaac and Lenna. "The free-walker introduced us."

Isaac nodded. "Yes." He agreed.

"Can you 'tree-walk' us to Lambda's territory?" Walter asked the siblings.

"That's far." Keffen commented.

"She might not like it." Haffa told him.

"It was worth a shot." Walter said and shrugged.

Haffa smirked. "I never said I wouldn't." She reversed. "Lambda's a bitch."

"Are you saying that because she's a wolf or because she's annoying?" Walter questioned. "I've never met her."

"Both." Haffa replied.

"Well, I like her." Keffen commented.

"Of course you do." Haffa said flatly. "She's attractive and the only female other than me that borders with you.

"Hey!" Keffen tried to fight with his sister but it was clear that neither of them had recovered yet from their last fight. Their wounds had healed almost instantly but they were still decently winded.

"Do all elves fight like children with their families?" Isaac wondered aloud. "I sort of expected age to bring maturity."

Walter laughed. "Oh you have no idea." He replied honestly. "It is the one piece of entertainment that never gets old." He then looked down at Haffa and Keffen. "So, who's gonna open the trees for us?"

"She volunteered." Keffen grumbled.

Haffa reached out her hand towards Walter who leaned far down off of Copper's side to grab it and help her to her feet. She gestured to the other side of the road, where her territory started and half walked, half stumbled over to a wide maple tree. "Get ready." She told them. "You'll have ten seconds, at a minimum, but if she's feeling extra bitchy, that'll be all you have." She then smirked at Walter. "Grab one of her apples on the way out."

Walter rolled his eyes. "Maybe." He told her. "Thanks Haffa, Copper is thankful. She's been running hard for the last few weeks."

Haffa nodded and scratched Copper under her chin. "He's been working you hard, huh?" She asked and pulled a plum out of seemingly nowhere. She twisted and the plum came apart into perfect halves. She then pulled the seed out with ease before she fed Copper both halves.

Walter patted Copper on the side of her neck while she was enjoying her tasty snack. "So, demigod of Darkness huh?" Keffen asked Isaac as he eyed the dark mage up and down. "You don't look that scary. Everyone always says demigods are stupidly powerful or something."

Isaac nodded. "I rarely choose to announce my presence everywhere I go. The plants tend to die and the animals all run for the hills." He replied calmly. "But since you asked, yes, I am Darkness." The shadows cast under all of the trees nearby almost seemed to expand into the road as everything darkened even though it was just after noon and the sun was still beating down hard on them. The light levels around them had gone from extreme with plenty of shadows to dusk with a word. Isaac let everything go back to normal almost instantly but both druids had frozen entirely stiff as some of the mana in their gardens had been forcefully wrested from its path in order to fulfill Isaac's order.

"Right." Haffa said and gave Copper one last pat. She turned and placed her hand on the tree next to her. "Line up and get ready to run through. Copper, free-walker, it might be a bit tight for you but you'll fit."

"I tend to not do well with teleporting." Isaac told Walter. "How close is this to normal teleportation?"

"It's different." Walter told him but did not elaborate as Haffa was already pulling the tree open with her hands like she was opening a pair of sliding doors.

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