OK, I am back. Sorry for being absent for so long. Collage through me for a spin. I will be returning to my story "Within the Darkness" however I am having trouble with my other story "She fell" so I will be putting it on hold for a bit. I love both of these stories but I am thinking of adding a new one, something to do with either Greek or Norse mythology, tell me what y'all think and if I should do this. I am also wanting to do another story but that will be posted on Tapas, I am also bringing this series there, I will still Continue here but for the sake of readers I will be adding to my social platforms. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Wallkery was awake long before the rest of the guests were awake. she had had a fitful night of sleep and was in desperate need of some quiet time for thought. On any normal day, she would go into the woods and walk among nature drawing from its well of calm. but as she had previously learned it was a bad idea to take off without telling Maradith anything.

About an hour before dawn Maraidith finally woke up. Whether it was because of her schedule or because Wallkery was sitting cross legged near her head staring at her waiting for her to wake up, is next to impossible to say. But wake she did and the first thing that she saw was Wallkery sitting and grinning at her with an expectant look on her smug face.

"Morning" Wallkery started "so I was wondering if-"

"You can go for a walk after you help me set up the fire and gather the herbs." Maradith responded not needing to her the rest of the sentence.

Wallkery jumped up and started out the door to get the work done when a voice called "I also want to do a checkup before you go" at this Wallkery's solders slumped and she looked back in dismay. she hated checkups, they were long and involved her having to let Maradith poke and prod all of her mending wounds, though she knew better than to argue. Begrudgingly she set to work.

After all of the work was done Maradith went carefully over all of the burns cuts and broken bones that Wallkery had accumulated. Finding that they were healing nicely she gave the go ahead and let Wallkery leave camp.

After what seemed like hours of endless probing Wallkery was finally out among the woods and she had never felt freer. Over her stay at the cottage she had gotten a good idea of what the area around her was like. Currently she was trying to find her old cabin and the village that she had once called home. the last time she was out she had found one of her old hunting paths and now she headed straight for it.

Following the path she eventual reached a large clearing where she had found a den of wolfs and made friends, now when she arrived she found it deserted and a black powder on the ground, inspect ting the ground she found a trail and keeping her knife in hand she followed it. just inside the edge of the forest she found the source of the powder a large card of coal had been knocked over and had been ground and scattered, it looked to be done on purpose. But more interesting than that she found a trail of fresh blood no more than a day old, most likely less as it was still fresh.

Following the trail, she headed deeper into the forest and as she was about to came out near where her cabin was she found the source of the blood. One of the wolfs that she had befriended was laying with a large cut in its back. Upon seeing her it started to growl, but as she stopped the wolf seamed to recognize her. Wallkery drew closer and seemed to be drawn by the eyes of the beast. The wolf was large even for wolf standards seaming to reach mid-chest of the woman, although at the time it could barely stand at half of that height.

Wallkery helped the beast to stand and moved with it to the cabin where she had once resided. as she lay the beast down on the floor she looked around and saw that the place had been torn apart and that there was little to work with. pulling out her stash of hidden supplies she lay the bow and arrows on the ground near her feet and started to tend to the wound.