Bronze and freckles flashed in gaps wrapped in green and my eyes couldn't resolve their source until I heard a titter from the bushes.
"That wee lad
he's up an' gonoff on us, gramma! Left your sweet Mae to pray for the sweetgrass and weeds all by her lonesome-
mayhaps he scrambled
*rustle*
a tussle out of thy branches, my tree
*rustle*
or mayhaps he's as tree as thee? Eh, now little lad? A skinny tree?
I know if I were a tree, I'd be-"
This mad person would near my bush, I knew it - this little beast of the wood with her words - and I had to escape before-
"Hey now, there's the boy!" A swish and whip of the branches above landed the beastling before my bush. Gasping, her, definitely a "her", smell sent cinnamon and cloves and garlic into my senses, and I couldn't remember when I'd last been able to smell so much-
"He's still as skinny as we seen him, too..." she complained, careening herself sideways to stick a filthy twig through a hole in my t-shirt. "Ah well, skinny is as skinny eats, I guess. And what skinny sweets treated thee, huh my lad? Close your mouth, dear, there are flies." She waved her stick at what presumably were flies, and carelessly yanked a strap of her overlarge tank top back onto the point of her shoulder.
"There's roast chicken and greens at the house if you're feeling hungry for something dead. The big 'un's'll tell you where they found you and whatnot, I'm just the message-person." Her eyes wouldn't stay still, and she did a hop step to the side to challenge a hanging vine with her twig.
"And then- " -wap- " you can figure out-" -wap- " what you'll do with the rest of your night- " -wapwap- " Ha!" wap!
"Hey!" I wailed.
"-and if you're lucky, we'll get to practice my swordplay a little-" -swish- "Drat-you're-fast! before bedtime!"
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