"Are you lost?" The demon asked him.

He turned his head, silent. He'd been standing just outside the perimeter of the forest, the cool breeze ruffling his mane, bringing the smell of trees, of water, of old, drying blood.

The demon, all blacks and grays, grinned at him from the shadows, her smile too wide, her eyes unblinking. "Lost in thought as well as lost in body, perhaps? Where were you going, traveler?"

He turned his head away from her, looking back into the shadows. Still, he spoke no word.

The demon tilted her head, this way and that, considering him with pale green eyes. "You don't look lost," she decided aloud. "You don't have the smell of fear that any properly lost person should have. But..." she sniffed the air, "neither do you smell of purpose. You might not be lost, but neither do you know where you're going next..." she grinned again, showing her sharp teeth. "Is that a bit closer?"

Still he made no reply. She could tell by the tilt of his black ears, though...he was listening.

Well, well. An audience was all she needed to keep talking. She chuckled and said, "This is a dangerous place, you know. For wanderers, I mean. Most folks that wander into these woods never come out again. Most of them end up split open on an alter, offered to the crazy deer-goddess." She showed him her toothy grin again. "Maybe that's what you want, eh? A trip to the next world, to say hello to Cerva herself?"

Still as stone, silent as a shadow, he made no reply, his only movement the twitch of his nose as he took long, slow breaths of the flowing forest air.

The demon ran her eyes over the mottled fur, the streaked blue hair, the spiked shards growing from his hide. He looked thin, she decided, and careworn. Like he'd journeyed a long time without rest, never able to stop because he didn't know what he was looking for.

Her smile faded a bit. Surely she wasn't feeling...sympathy...not for a complete stranger... she ran her tongue over her teeth and tilted her head. "Maybe you're just looking for something to eat," she said. "When was the last time you had a meal?"

She almost jumped out her skin when at last he spoke, a rumbling, creaking voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in weeks. "I don't remember."

"Well, then," she said airily, shaking her mane out a bit and turning her back on him as she walked deeper into the woods, "You'd better follow me. I've got more than enough food to share."

For a second she thought he wouldn't - his posture seemed as still and eternal as a fossilized tree.

And then she heard it...slow, steady steps, following after her, into the shadows.

She heard it, and smiled.