Chapter: Close Encounters

Scene: Narrow Miss

Passerine is going about her day, trying to dodge her mentor so she can go paint, but gets sucked into a conversation with a herd-keeper her age about their upcoming Midsummer rites and whether they'll be participating in the Hunt. Passerine tries to brush him off but he's persistent, wheedling at her until a hunter a few years older than them tells him to knock it off. They're friendly with Passerine, though she's felt more distant from them since their own initiation. She hopes their previous closeness will rekindle after she's received her rites and wonders whether they'll be pursuing anyone in the Hunt this year, but doesn't ask. They tell her about a clearing in the forest they stumbled across recently, and she mentions painting it for the village maps. They're about to ask her something when Passerine catches sight of her mentor and books it, leaving them to cover for her while she makes her escape.

Scene: First Contact

Having successfully made it out of the village, Passerine sets out along the main trail through the forest, consulting her personal map to break off from the path and find the clearing Flint told her about. As she reaches the clearing, she gets the creeping feeling of being watched, but shrugs it off after seeing the silhouette of antlers in the trees. Because she expects to see a deer, she does, and sets up her easel to paint having resolved to move slowly and not spook it. It watches her as she paints into the late afternoon, slowly getting closer, and she starts to get the sense there's something not quite right about it. It moves silently, stands preternaturally still, hasn't turned its head away from her once since she first spotted it, and when she gets close enough to see its eyes she finds them to be an uncanny green, and holding a too-human intelligence. She packs up quickly and heads home, checking over her shoulder every few steps until she reaches the safety of the village lights.

The reader learns about the upcoming Midsummer Rites, the presence of Fey and gheástryn in the world, and a bit of background information about Cuédleür day-to-day life from the perspective of an initiate-to-be.

Passerine is trying to avoid a lecture from her mentor and get some time alone to paint, but gets sucked into a conversation with Branch and then Flint. She learns from Flint about a forest clearing and resolves to go add it to the village map.

While painting in the clearing, Passerine realizes she's being watched by what she believes to be a deer, allowing it to approach her over the course of the afternoon. Almost too late, she notices there's something off about the deer.

Passerine packs up quickly and hurries back to the main trail, but realizes it's getting dark and that she won't be safe in the woods much longer, if indeed she ever was. Something that might not be a deer is following her back.

She makes it back to the safety of the village and it refuses to follow her out of the tree-line. She is safe, for the night.