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They had been looking forward to this a long time coming now. Finally, after a long train ride, two children trotted through the peaceful forest of the Four Fronds. Flydra eagerly surveyed the area for anything of notice to jot down in her notebook, writing down tips about the landscape and layout of the place. For a while now, she had been hoping to come here and get a look at the hunting that took place at this very location. It sounded thrilling and wanted so badly to see how the hunted trolls acted under stress and analyze it. Perhaps it could be useful in her research on troll biology.

But tonight she was too small to take part. At least, officially. She and Scorpa would have to make do playing pretend, running from tree to tree in a game of make believe aggression.

"It looks like it might rain." The tealblood noted as they walked through the trees. The lack of starlight and moonlight on this clouded night was a bit obnoxious but without actual prey, she supposed visibility didn't matter that much. She dashed out ahead and hid behind one of the tall trunks, peeking around it at Scorpa in a quiet but playful manner.

"They say escaped criminals live further in the woods. Do you think it's true?" The scientist whispered to her friend, almost looking hopeful at the idea.

A misty night with a fog threatening to creep in was made for scary stories after all, wasn't it?

What a gorgeous night, the little greenblood thought to herself as she made her usual nightly walk through the woods. The smell of ozone was thick, rain must be on its way. And the fog rolling in? Stunning. There was a lovely strain of fungus she had been harvesting from a patch of eldertrees, Rianon was in a particularly chipper mood tonight.
However, unlike most nights there was a break in the sound of nutbeasts and other fauna scampering through the underbrush. Voices? There wasn't a hunt tonight, was there? The greenblood had been caught off guard a couple times, but it was usually much more raucous, not just a couple voices. As she started picking up on words, she knew that whomever was here was heading in her general direction.

Better safe than sorry, the little witch quickly teleported herself up into the treetops. Quietly kicking her feet back and forth she surveyed the ground below as a couple of young trolls came into view. How curious, she rarely found other kids wandering these parts of the woods. Her go to reaction would be to go and greet the pair. However, as their conversation hit Ri's sponge clots the greenblood's mood soured.
Rebels, worst of them all eh? The phrase was not a pleasant thing to hear. Royalists, of course. Perhaps hunter wannabees, or worse yet, maybe they were actually planning to train for the hunts.

A wicked grin spread across the girl's face in the branches. Well, if they were so curious about the ancient woods and the atrocious hunts that took place here, she would be doing them a kindness by showing them just how peculiar Four Fronds could be, right?

Making sure she herself was completely concealed, Rianon let out a deep cracking noise that bounced off the trees, echoing deep into the forest. Letting the crack raise in pitch to a shrill snap, it was obvious that the wind wasn't strong enough yet to be battering the trees around that badly.
Calling out to Crowma with these sounds, her lusus' massive figure glided briefly above the trees, her wings flapping loudly as she perched on a much farther tree. Crowma was intrigued by what Rianon planned to do, and luckily for the greenblood her lusus took a more observational approach than telling her charge how to act.

"I heard she eats them!" Scorpa whispered with a delighted grin at getting to contribute to the ghost story. Many different rumors were flying about the disappearing trolls in the latest hunts- all with crazy ideas about who was behind it and why. It was honestly more probably that the reason was to save the fleeing trolls but that wasn't as fun to try and spook Flydra with. The tealblood had an incredible poker face and Scorpa wanted to be the one to crack it!

Crack.

Huh, she hadn't expected it to have a sound effect. Nor for that to be enough. Looking at Flydra's face, Scorpa expected to see the results but instead was met with a look of uncertainty. Wait, so if that hadn't been Flydra.... who had it been?

"Pshhyeah right. Unless the witch is a total klutz! With creaky old knees!" The yellowblood laughed, trying to comfort the now tense Flydra as well as taunt anyone that was out there. The sound of creaking trees was certainly creepy but she couldn't write off the possibility that it was a random medium to large sized animal fleeing the scene from the sound of their footsteps. But if it wasn't, they would hear her loud voice and have to make a decision quick about what to do next! She felt pretty pleased with her plan until she heard a different sound. The sound of loud wings above in the trees that then suddenly stopped.

Wait, could the witch ******** FLY!?

A tap on the shoulder caught Flydra off guard and she gasped, whirling around in fear only to find-

"Scorpa? Stop messing around! It's not funny." The tealblood huffed, looking actually irritable. Geez, she'd honestly thought there'd been a real witch but it was just the yellowblood pranking her this entire time. Flydra was a troll of science and looked down on the concepts of magic anyways but there was a small part of her willing to pretend to believe at times. Ugh, this was so embarrassing and stupid.

"We need to focus on what we came here for. Finding the hunts." They'd gotten a little lost in the woods by now but with their lusii nearby, the girls would be fairly safe. "Maybe we can help catch a criminal! The Queen would be so impressed at our ages." The tealblood covered her mouth and giggled quietly. They were going to make it big someday and eventually their dream of hearing the Queen speak their very names would come true. Without a real witch here to stop them, they could probably pull it off, right?

"Remember, no more tricks, Scorpa." She scolded, fumbling in her bag to look for a snack. "Nnn, I think I ate all my goldfish on the train. Do you have any left?"