Although their father seldom spoke of his past, there were stories that Fiepet and Delph had learned by heart. All a little too fantastical to be true, and with characters quite removed from their own; Mr Strahl had devised a magical world of his own creation, and invited his sons to visit awhile in their imaginations. There were villains and monsters... and very rarely, something like a hero would appear.

Fiepet gathered all his courage as they entered the riverside woodland, their father's tales still echoing in his ears.

"No rocks underfoot at least," said Delph, "So long as we don't lose sight of the river, we shouldn't find ourselves turned around. How far from home do you think we've come?"

"We'll find out when we come across someone to ask. Before then, I worry about our wet clothes... maybe we should try to start a fire and dry off before the air turns cooler?"

"And you can do that, can you?" asked Delph, "Start a fire without tinderbox or even a flint..? You know as well as I do Fie, we're quite at a loss without the comforts of home."

"I'm not above trying!" Fiepet declared, "A fire would be just the thing..."

"Like that one..?" suggested Delph, catching sight of a gentle orange glow amongst the trees, "Maybe there are hunters camping? Fishermen perhaps?"

The eerie coincidence was not lost on Fiepet. Cautiously following in his brother's soggy footsteps, the pair journeyed deeper into the forest; the sound of the river growing quieter in their ears.

"Hello..?" called Fiepet, approaching the clearing where a little camp was set and seemingly abandoned, "We're quite turned around... is there anyone here who might help us?"

"You're talking to yourself," Delph rightly pointed out.

"The fire's still lit, whoever made it can't have gone far."

Delph sat on a stump closest to the flames, removed his shoes, and drained the water out onto the forest floor. Tiny drops of spray sizzled in the fire as he shook them out before setting them to dry.

"If only there were a pair lying around that might fit you," said Delph, "Then there'd be one less problem to worry over."

No sooner had the words left his brother's lips than Fiepet found his feet tripping over an object on the ground. Two objects in fact... a pair that seemed just his size.

"What have you got there?" questioned Delph, an awkward smile masking his growing concern.

Fiepet kicked them away and scanned the trees for signs of movement. He was beginning to realize he'd lost sight of the direction from which they'd come; shadowy branches stretched out on every side.

"Maybe it really was just-"

"Don't!" snapped Fiepet, "Don't you dare say it! You said so yourself, there's no such thing. I'm sure the men camping here have merely gone to collect some firewood or relieve themselves away from their beds... Delph..?"

Testing a theory he hoped would be disproven, Delph bent down and brushed his fingers through the detritus of the forest floor; a glimmer of smooth and polished metal caught his eye. Holding his find to the light of the fire, he near dropped it all at once.

"Delph... you didn't happen to wish to find a compass, did you..?"

The youngest of the brothers fearfully nodded his head. The fire, the shoes, and now a compass... out in the wilderness where it ought not to be. All that they'd hoped for, all that could relieve them of their natural concern for being lost so far from home... What a wonderful stroke of luck that they should have found them... purely by happenstance.

Delph turned on his stump, catching his coat beneath him, and startling himself with the sudden tug at his clothes.

"Hurry on with your shoes!" cried Fiepet, "And come away from the fire..! We must return to the river at once."

It was preposterous of course, there was no such thing as the Happenstance! Father had merely served to scare them from playing in the woodlands after dark, in fear of getting themselves lost and in trouble. That malicious forces were lying in wait, fulfilling your wants to appease your fear, before eating your flesh; of course it was impossible. That their current situation had become so seemingly so similar, why, it was merely a coincidence.

Delph quickly pushed his feet inside his soggy shoes, grabbing hold of Fiepet's hand as the two grown men ran screaming through the trees. A light appeared ahead of them.

"Did you wish for a light?!" Delph asked his brother.

"I'm sorry! It's just so dark!"

They turned away from the ominous light, and continued onwards until a large fallen tree blocked their path. An obstacle was surely not a glamor of the Happenstance, they scrambled over it, colliding with an eldery man hiding on the other side.

"Ow!" he cried, before quickly covering his mouth and motioning for the others to do the same.

Delph and Fiepet kept quiet; a rustle in the trees to the right made its way across their path, failing to notice the three men huddled in the darkness. Holding their breaths and trying to clear their minds of thoughts of weapons that might miraculously fall into their hands, the brothers waited for the man's cautious vigil to relax.

"Pardon me," whispered Fiepet, "Do you think you could help us find our way out of this forest..?"

The eldery man nodded but did not speak in reply. Remaining low and hunched, he had them follow as he found the path. Creeping through the dark, with only beams of moonlight through the canopy to guide them; the brothers exchanged a look.

Surely the man before them was not another illusion...

Something in the distance had caught his attention. He suddenly stopped, and waved for the brothers to shelter at the side of the path. Footsteps were approaching, and this time, the light that appeared up ahead was gradually moving closer.
   
The old man knew it was too late.

"There you are, you old bastard! Six hundred years of running away every time my sister comes to visit, and you think I wouldn't find you?!"

The eldery man straightened his posture and bowed his head. He was planning to return in a day or two; his sister-in-law would usually have recovered from the journey by then, and wouldn't be quite so difficult to handle. Rather than stop to help the two drenched gentlemen he'd found in the wood, he should have just run in the opposite direction.

"Fringilla! Of course I wasn't running away," the man lied to his wife, "I was just coming back after helping two lost souls."

He motioned to the brothers, clasped his hands proudly behind his back, and proceeded to clear his throat. Fringilla hadn't noticed them at first, crouched in the underbrush and none too distinguishable from the large mossy stones that lined the forest path. One without shoes, and the other peering out nervously as though she might bite.

"Lost are you?" she asked them, raising her lantern to try and discern their looks.

"Indeed Madam," said Fiepet, awkwardly rising to his feet, "My name is Fiepet Strahl, and this is my brother, Delphin. We come from Strahl's Printworks. If you would be so good as to point us in the direction we require, we'd be eternally grateful."

Fringilla wasn't sure what to make of him. So well-spoken a young man; barely three hundred at a guess, and yet barefoot in the forest like a foundling. She knew of no 'printworks' to speak of, but wherever their destination, it was undoubtedly somewhere in the city. If not for her sister laid up at home, she might have offered to take them there herself.

"You'll want to follow us to the main road then," she told them, "Husband, off with your shoes; this young man has more distance to tread than you do. Besides, you'll have no cause to leave the house for quite some time!"

As much as Fiepet tried to refuse them, neither he nor Fringilla's husband had much choice in the matter. The shoes were a little tight and somewhat old fashioned, but they were far better than the alternative. When they reached the rough dirt road all scattered with rocks, he was even more thankful.

"I am forever in your debt," Fiepet told them with a bow, "Please, visit our Printworks at your convenience, and I will compensate you for your kindness."

He looked to Delph, hoping his example would be followed.

"Yes... My brother has lots of money. Please do ask him for some when you're free." He gave an awkward curtsey and skipped ahead; satisfied he'd said as much as he needed to, and leaving Fiepet to bow and bid them a proper farewell.

He caught up with Delph a little ways down the road.

"They don't need to ask me for money," Fiepet explained, "It's what they're owed for their service! They needn't have been so generous."

"You always think the best of people," sighed Delph, "I'm sure that giving you those shoes served their own agenda better than ours. No one goes to that extent just out of the goodness of their heart."

"Father did," said Fiepet, "Do you think he expected something in return..?"

"Father was a good man; but the number who exploited him for it far outweighed those who thanked him. People say they see him in me, but in all honesty, your personality's closer."

Fiepet slipped his feet out of the old man's shoes and nudged them over to exchange with Delph's. His brother had squelched too long, and he worried of the damage done by a long walk in wet shoes. Delph didn't hesitate to swap.

"You see?" he said to Fiepet, "This is exactly what I mean. Once again you're taken advantage of, and you're left all the worse for it! Say, brother, back there in the forest, wasn't it all a little too strange?"

Having met the old man and his wife, Fiepet was thoroughly decided on the matter.

"The camp must have been his," he said, "Nothing strange about it. We got worked up over nothing but our own imaginations. Even though he's left us, father's tales have clearly remained in our thoughts."

"But the shoes... and the compass? They clearly didn't look to belong to a man such as him-"

"Delphin Strahl! Enough of your musings. You're the same now as you were ten years ago; the simplest explanation is often is the most correct. We don't need to question everything."

As the brothers bickered down the road, Fringilla had a score to settle. Her polite demeanor reserved for strangers vanished as they disappeared from earshot. Shaking her lantern with a curse at her husband, she turned on her heel and started for home. He gingerly tip-toed behind her, rocks littering his slow and painful path.

"I already gave them my shoes!" he winced, "Haven't I been punished enough?"

"You foolish old man, you'd rather risk being eaten by the Happenstance than entertain my sister's grievances. All the while, I'm left to deal with her myself! Out here getting yourself into all kinds of mischief! And what of those two, claiming to be princes?"

"Princes?" echoed her husband, "Was that what they said?"

"Something like that; Princewards or some such nonsense. The Warlock laid waste to the Prince in the West so long ago, I haven't heard hide nor hair of princes in an age. You don't think they've come for the wedding, do you? I can't have sent a princeward off walking in a pair of your old latchets! They'd be turned away at the door."

"Never mind them!" cried her husband, "At least they shall walk in relative comfort! What of me? Fringilla..."

"No."

"Just a little spell..."

Fringilla huffed, almost nostalgic for the days when the Protectorate outlawed such magic.

"Very well," she said, casting an enchantment that lifted her husband an inch from the ground.

"And what if there are larger rocks?" he queried, discontent with his wife's 'little spell'.

"Oh I could take you higher Aves, if that is what you wish. But I may forget how to bring you back down again! Enough of your complaints, Carduella is waiting. She'll want to hear news of the princewards at least."

"What news have we to tell? Just two men on their way to Velmund."

Fringilla stopped in the road, casting the light of her lantern around them. It didn't do too well to speak such foolishness, there were ears everywhere.

"You forget what age we live in, old man..." she cautioned, the realization of the words he'd spoken dawning on Aves.

"To Relmund," he corrected, "Just two men on their way to Relmund..."