The Woods

The next few days all went by extremely quickly. At the end of the week, Pavitra was doing well enough for the commander of the rangers, Eagle, to say that she was done with her crash course and that he was comfortable for us to join them on their scouting missions beyond the camp.

The next day Pavitra spent nearly it all, slowly getting all of what she would have to bring with her ready. She also got herself some ranger clothing, though it was just leathers and a green cloth under that so that they were able to blend in with their surroundings better.

Once she had it all on, she walked out of her tent and joined where the rangers were all gathered together. They all started to whisper among themselves when Pavitra appeared. She was not sure if they were more surprised that she would be joining them or the fact that she was wearing their uniform.

It was hard to tell, but one thing was for sure. None of them at least seemed like they were angry that she was coming. Although if they did show some kind of anger, she was sure that they would probably be brought off of the mission in the first place.

She doubted that the commander would try to put her in any kind fi server danger that was like that.

Then after seeing that she had finally joined them all. The commander simply waved his hand and began to lead them all out and away. They all fell into a small formation to walk, they were in two lines that ran parallel to each other. No one said a word just as I had been told that it would be. 

There were no hand signals for now as well, we were just heading into the direction of the woods and where the question mark in the map had been. Or that was where I thought that we were going considering that was the whole reason why I was tagging along in the first place.

The surroundings of the valley though were beautiful. This place was just filled with natural beauty. I wished that in the future as we slowly begin to develop the whole region that the beauty will be able to remain. It was the only thing that I wished would happen.

Then as we crossed the last few metres of the open ground we then entered into the woods.

It was like we had all entered into a different world. The spacings that had been between us all before, were then closed up almost immediately. I guess this was sp that no one could be lost while we were walking around and through all of the woods.

It was weird for her. being surrounded by so many people in brown and green. The whole thing with their uniform really did work and made them seem like they were just a part of the woods.

Aside from all of that, the woods themself was different to anything that she had seen before. Each tree had been growing for so long on its own without any kind of interference. This was what I would call a truly natural woodland.

There were birds singing and the trees all seemed to creak and some wind blew by.

she was immersed so much in my surroundings that she did not notice that our direction was slowly changing as we walked. Although this did not matter at all to me as we would be just reading more in the direction of the valley walls and that question mark.

Though one thing that she had noticed though was that you could not see throughout the leaves at the top of the trees. Aside from counting the paces that she had walked it was nearly impossible to tell how far that they had come in total.

Then the group stopped. SHe nearly walked into the person who was in front of her. As Pavitra had been too busy looking above her at all of the different coloured leaves. In a way, she wished that she could be up there and looking down from the sky instead of walking through the muggy forest floor.

Looking forwards she could not see why they had stopped. As the minutes went by of her just standing there and waiting for something to happen. She began to get bored, she nearly started to speak to the people who were around her, but then she remembered that there were not meant to be talking at all.

Then as if like magic they all began to set off again. As she walked past one of the trees she saw that it now had some kind of marking on it. Now she knew why they had stopped!

It was so that markings could be done of the trees to form some sort of trail so that anyone could find their way back if they were left alone. I guess the last thing that any of the people who were around her wanted was to get separated and lost from everyone. Though she did know that the most common death for a ranger was to just disappear.

It could be anything though, from being killed in the wild or disappearing or some could just desert. That was the problem of being so far out from any kind of site and the rest of the people of the world.

Then they stopped again, for someone at the front to draw another marking. This happened around fifteen more times. The woods so far that she had noticed were much bigger than she had thought they would be sp far.

Then as she was looking around, she worked out that the front had stopped but that she was still going forward. They were all binging to gather around and seemed to be looking at something that was in front o them all, As she got there she saw what they were looking at as well.