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The fog is wonderful and horrible. The fog is evewhere, thick and white. It supplants the air we breathe -- we take in great breaths of mist, our lungs filling with half-formed water. We hear the howling of invisible beasts, foriegn things hanging around the edge of the forest, unable to enter, but unwilling to leave. They shake us in our bones, when we fear something, they become that fear.
But the fog drives us close to one another, blinds us to old grudges, when the light of our pictograms is so bright against the fog as to be meaningless. It is a great cloud, and it makes the world unknown -- it makes it marvelous and strange, something dying like the blackened poppy blossoms, but alive again, hidden in the mist.

I awoke and found Sluggs and two others resting in the fog -- Sluggs alone I recognized by set. And, of course, by the fact that after a minute, he began his usual tricks. He hid himself in the earth, growing and dwindling when he arose to be seen. When he appeared, he'd be angled like he was about to shoot up in the air. Mostly, though, it was only the thin light of his pictogram, bursting forth from the earth like a seedling. We played around. Some tried to sit over the spot, while I tried to duck my head beneath the surface of the ground to see his face, to see the Sluggs I remember from when I was small, winking at me. I almost succeeded. Almost. After he went, I ran off to sleep, hidden in fog and willow branches.

Later, I awoke and found Nevilly in the gof, huddled beneath a tree. She was shivering like a baby bird, jumping at the sound of the wolf-calls. She offered me a nervous smile as I approached, and rushed to my side. I could feel the shaking of her body when she stood next to me. She was so happy to see me, confident that I could find some way to make her feel safe -- and, to my surprise, I did. She makes me feel better than I am -- somehow gentler and stronger all at once, wiser and more noble, so much more pure.

Where: Saint Albans - Hertfordshire

Notable Wildlife Sightings:
Three hunting Red Kites and a Heron in the same field!

Keme

"...does it, Sir Osias?" He smiles bitterly, a strange sight on the fawn's face that is normally alight with laughter, curiosity, something innocent. Not today...something is strange about the fawn. His antlers have been growing in, now, fast in this magical forest...He will have his first set soon. Little candles, complete with a glowing flame, lay in front of the first tine, flickering in an odd beat with his heart and blinks.

He had found this deer because he sensed that Osias knew something, something that he wanted to know too.

He stares at him, sitting above the fawn like a king on his portion of the broken stone. Keme sits below, with no illusions. He is not a king, just a fawn. Just a fawn attracted to strange, often dark creatures, leading him to ones like the Demon sitting above him. The bitter smile fades as he begins to speak softly to himself, murmuring.

"My mother...adopted mother. I don't think she'd like you, Sir...But then again, she didn't even raise a hoof to say 'don't'. Not like Kaoori at all...I think she loves somebody more than me, Mister." He looks for confirmation from the Demon, then suddenly continues.

"It's this fawn...'Empty Child'. Miss Joro loves it...It'll be a fawn forever, you see, Mister Osias. Not like me," He looks up, attempting to see his own antlers, "'Cause I'll be a stag soon." He sighs and looks down, frowning.

"And she said she loved me too, but she didn't say 'forever'. I think she gave up on me..." He looks back up suddenly as the demon moves to sit beside him, for reasons he can't quite understand. Osias is warm, a welcome friend in the atmosphere of the mist he is so frightened of.