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The forest was damp and dank enough on a clear day, but today's rains had the woods at peak mustiness. Hyela didn't mind; she felt closer to nature when it was raging, more at one with the earth's life force. The forest came alive with the coming of the rain, drinking up the nourishment falling from the sky. The thick canopy of her ancient and twisted wood provided fairly decent protection overhead, reducing the downpour to a light patter as it reached the forest floor.

She had followed the river back from the northern edge of her forest, where she had parted with the golden stallion and pointed him in the right direction. She often needed to assist her visitors in finding their way, and was glad to do so, but she never left the borders of her wood. There was nothing tangible keeping her here, no rule that said she couldn't leave or spell binding her to the forest, but she felt vulnerable outside the cover of the trees she knew so well.

Navigating her twisted network of trails with ease, she meandered her way back towards the center of the woods, stopping here and there to consult a stash of bones, keeping tabs on the happenings in the woods. Though she usually preferred to light fire to the bones before reading them, the wetness from the storm prevented her from lighting any sparks today. But she had other ways. Pausing on her path, she turned to extract a set of neck bones from behind a small rock, grasping them with her clawed foot. Closing her eyes, she whispered a few indistinct words before tossing the bones out in front of her. She gazed down at them, silent and ponderous for several minutes as she considered the bones and the pattern they had fallen in.

"Ah!" She blurted out suddenly. "Ahaha, very busy we are lately. Another visitor has been." She lifted her gaze from the bones and sniffed the air. "Perhaps still here. Hmm. Hiding from rain." Depositing the bones back in their hiding spot, she continued along her path, sniffing occasionally, hoping to pick up the scent of her new visitor.

She made her way along her twisted paths as she started picking up the unfamiliar scent. She could tell she was getting close, but still had not locked in on her visitor, and still did not know their intentions. She had consulted a few bones along her way, but they had not revealed much about the stranger in her wood. This was slightly unsettling to her, as the bones were usually more revealing. Perhaps the rains had clouded her vision, she could not light a fire to reveal their true messages. This unknowing had her felling a little unsettled, ill-prepared in case there was an attack.

She passed a hollowed-out tree and moved to the side of the trail to unearth some bones. The moment she wrapped her claws around these bones, she could feel them almost screaming out at her. She gasped and tossed the bones to the ground, eagerly glancing over their patterns as they fell. The message was very clear now. There is a walker in the forest, and they are close at hand.

She spun around, her eyes frantically darting around her surroundings, trying to find the stranger. She knew there were some who were slightly more aligned with kindness, but overall the walkers were a vicious breed. She was unprepared for an attack, armed with nothing but her talons and her knowledge of the network of trails and secret paths she had created through the woods. If this walker meant her harm, she would have to outsmart them.

Hyela heard the stranger's approach just before they shouted out, so she had turned to see the opalescent ghostly form as it approached. They approached from behind her on the trail, and Hyela scolded herself for not catching on sooner, realizing she must have walked right past this stranger. "Hmm, hiding in wild form, it must have been," she mumbled aloud, noticing the feline pelt draped across her visitor's back.

She had a few choices here. She flexed the sharp talons of her front feet, digging her claws into the ground, ready if the stranger decided to attack. Hyela was a surprisingly strong fighter, but she preferred more nonviolent resolutions to conflicts. Keeping her guard up, she decided to try and help this stranger in hopes that their hostile and confrontational attitude would melt away with some assistance. She had heard that cats do not like being wet.

"Yes, know this forest well indeed! Hyela has always been here, knows it better than anybody else. No easy way out, no, but show you the way, I can." She flexed her wings, shaking off small droplets of water and smiled at the stranger. "Perhaps a dry spot first? Have a hidden dry place, I do. Wait there, we can. Perhaps read the bones for you." Hyela nodded enthusiastically, always eager to show off her skills. And if the stranger proved to be unfriendly, there were things in her hidden home that she could use to protect herself as well.

"Yes yes. Stay close, is a tricky path." Hyela noticed how the stranger floated through solid objects as if they were not there and cocked her head to the side as she turned to lead the way to her hidden home.

As she navigated the intricate network of trails through the forest, she glanced back occasionally, keeping an eye on the stranger in case they planned an attack. She still did not know their intentions and she felt vulnerable with her back turned. "Yes, bones tell much, if you know how to listen. Told me you were here, they did. Hidden bones all throughout the forest, tell me what goes on." She nodded enthusiastically as she took a sharp right turn onto a narrow path. The vegetation was thick, bursting with life from the spring rains, and the leaves seemed to follow her as she moved along the path, reaching out as if to grab her.

Glancing back, she noticed again as her visitor moved through the brush as if she was walking right through it and wondered exactly what type of shape shifter this stranger was. "Walk right through solid things, you do. How is this?"

After a few more unexpected turns, their path opened to a large clearing containing a crystal clear spring. Skirting along the bank of the spring, Hyela led her ghostly visitor to a rocky wall on the other side of the clearing. "Almost there, not far." Squeezing through a gap in the rocks, she led her visitor through a damp tunnel, and out the other side to another clearing. Here the canopy was so thick that the rain did not fall, and the space had an overwhelming smell of smoke and blood. There were hundreds of bones piled up around the clearing, arranged as if they were decorations, and there was a blood-stained area on the opposite side of the clearing. At the center of the clearing was a sunken fire pit with more piles of bones lined up along the edge. She turned once more to the stranger and fixed her with a cold stare.

"This is Hyela's home, stranger. Would be dishonorable to harm one in one's own home, yes? Both safe here, so long as you mean no harm. Share your name, and I'll share what the bones say."

"Ah, many there are who do not let go of this plane and stay in ghostly form. Perhaps learn more, some day, of your previous self."

She smiled broadly and bowed her head when they finally care to an agreement. Now she could relax. "Good, good. Well met, Natura." She turned from her new acquaintance and walked towards the fire pit. Bowing down to the pit, she struck her talon against one of the rocks that circled the fire pit, lighting a spark that caught in the kindling below a carefully arranged stack of logs.

"Come, by the fire," she said to Natura as she turned and made her way towards a table-like boulder littered with herbs and spices. She returned to the fire with several small bundles of dried herbs and tossed them one by one into the growing fire. She then gathered up several small bones from the surrounding piles and also tossed them into the fire, where they landed at the edge of the circle, the flames licking out and marking the bones with black streaks. Mumbling incoherently under her breath, she carefully pulled the bones from the edge of the fire with her talons and tossed them onto the ground between her and Natura.

"Cloudy your past has been, but cannot be changed. Bones will tell of what comes ahead." She looked down at the bones and pondered their markings in silence for several minutes before she spoke again. "Spring is blooming all around, new life coming forth. Rains may bring damp and dark, but needed, they are, for new life to come. Pass, this darkness will, and a new path shall be shown to you." As if to immediately speak this prophecy into life, the pattering of the raindrops on the thick canopy above began to slow. Looking up with a smile, Hyela let out a cackling laugh. "Ha! You see, rain stopping. And Hyela knows the path out. Show you, I will. Deeper meanings, the bones surely have, but that is for you to find."

Hyela smiled at her new friend, nodding and chuckling quietly. "Yes, know all the ways out, I do. Hyela made them all, ages and ages ago." She led Natura back out through the tunnel and past the spring before winding a complicated path back through the thick forest. As they approached the edge of the forest and the trees began thinning, Hyela slowed her pace.

"This is last path, no more turns after this. Follow this way, and exit the forest safely, you will. Hyela goes no further." She shifted uneasily, not liking to be this close to the edge of the woods. Shaking off her anxiety, she bowed her head to her visitor once more. "Return anytime, Natura. Teach you more about the bones, I can, if you have an interest."