All characters in sexual situations are 18 years of age and older.
*
Novik breathed in the warm, clean air. It was mid-morning somewhere in the Hawthorne Forest, a lovely if not well known place. Tall spruce trees mixed with oaks, creating thick canopies in places that shadowed the ground below, but there were plenty of copses and clearings where the grass grew tall, and the flowers bloomed.
Soft shrubs were scattered about between the trunks of the trees, and Novik himself was following the wending edge of a stream, burbling quietly on its way to its destination.
Deer sometimes lifted their heads to observe him as he walked, sometimes bolting when they felt he got too close.
Foxes peered at him from patches of tall grass, and rabbits bounded here and there.
It was not a mysterious place, but it was poorly mapped, and its deeper recesses were seldom visited because of the tight clusters of trees making movement somewhat difficult.
And most of all, its lack of mystery meant few were ever invested in exploring the place. Despite its sometimes odd mixture of flora, it was a forest like any other.
But Novik was a spirited man, still youthful, and full of curiosity and scholarly intrigue. He'd already received a commendation from the Cartographer's Guild for his work exploring a previously unnamed island in the middle of Govan Lake, about twenty leagues north east of this forest. It wasn't a big island, and there wasn't much value found there, but his thoroughness and quality of his work was well appreciated by the Guild, comparing it to his previous help in rectifying and updating some other maps.
The little islet was renamed after him, though beyond that, he had yet to make much of a name for himself, but it seemed people in a few Scholarly institutions believed he had what it took to become quite renowned.
It was small belief at this stage, only passing but positive observation and praise, but Novik accepted it gladly, and it motivated him. His skills, it seemed, were appreciated, and that made him worthy of some note. He intended to make himself even more noteworthy.
He crossed over the stream as the side he was walking on became a bit more unstable thanks to a large number of gnarled roots from a row of oak trees growing at the edge of the stream. It was things like that which made people not bother going too deep, but his intuition was serving him well, the stream was making his journey a bit easier. And if he had to, he could always walk through it, the water no higher than his ankles, and he sported tall leather boots, sealed and treated, for the purpose. They were also just very helpful for cross country walking.
He came across a bush partly obstructing him, and it caught on a thread of his flaxen shirt. He tugged, and there was another tear.
He sighed and continued on; the flaxen shirt he wore over a more comfortable cotton one was covered in small rips and frayed threads from his many forays into the wilderness, but he had grown fond of its rough appearance. The dirty white colour didn't offer the best concealment, but Novik rarely ventured into places known to be dangerous; he was skilled in recording and research, and quite fit after so much hiking, but he was no warrior. For defence he carried a small iron dagger, and he mostly brought that along to cut rope or vines or carve up salted and preserved meats, and to put marks in trees, assuming there wasn't a local nymph or dryad ready to make him consider turning the blade on himself.
He wouldn't make
that
mistake again.
He sidled past a tree that was growing close to the stream, unable to hop back over to the other side. He scraped along its trunk, and got his cotton trousers scuffed and stained with some leaking sap.
He grunted in disgust, it was always hard to get sap out of his clothes. But at least it wasn't on his skin or in his hair, and the charcoal grey of his trousers helped hide the stain.
He checked his pants, and other than the sap stain, they were still in good condition, nice and comfortable, held up by a quality leather belt that nonetheless bore the evidence of a lot of ad hoc use, its rich brown colour now quite faded.
He sighed, and continued onward, taking off his leather pack and carrying it behind him as he passed between two oaks that grew close together, still unable to cross over to the other side of the stream. He grumbled as his flax cap was pulled off his head, leaving his messy black hair to get some cobwebs caught in it. He brushed his hair and put his grey cap back on, and continued once more, the path along the stream becoming a bit easier now.
He stopped for a rest, taking out a canteen from his pack, a recent upgrade from a leather waterskin. The canteen was made from wood and metal, and bound in leather, and it was much easier to carry and much sturdier.
It also seemed to keep its contents a bit cooler, which is throat and body appreciated.
He gazed around, back to the trunk of an oak, its gnarled roots twisted in such a way they formed a recess between two of them, providing a rather comfortable seat for Novik.
It wasn't as bright here, the boughs of the trees quite tightly clustered together, but the sun was shining brightly above and there were no clouds to speak of, so the threads of light that filtered through the canopy proved illumination enough, filling the space with a dim but sufficient light.
He spied orange and grey fish flitting through the stream, a crayfish menacing some fry that passed too close to it.
He also spied the discarded shells of crayfish tossed onto the bank of the stream, and that caught his interest. Eyes narrowing, he moved over, and picked up a piece of shell, and noted that they appeared to have been shucked, if crudely. He pondered the carapace in his hands quizzically, wondering if a person had come through here, since it did not seem like the work of an animal. But who in their right mind would eat raw crayfish? He couldn't see any signs of a nearby camp -- or prints for that matter -- and removing the shells of larger crayfish before transporting them to one's camp seemed strange to him.
He placed the shells down and took out his notebook, jotting down his findings thus far.
"... thick tree cover in parts... wildlife typical of the region... signs of fishing of crayfish... discarded shells... no signs of camping... investigate further when able..." he recited slowly, using a piece of charcoal lodged into a special stylus to put the writing to paper, Novik not wishing to risk ink in the wilderness, even though charcoal could potentially smudge. It was still a safer bet.
Closing his notebook, he placed it back in his bag, and hefting it onto his shoulders again, he continued further into the forest.
He had half-expected the place to get more foreboding as he ventured deeper, more ominous, but the areas with thick tree growth seemed to be separated by spaces with much more spacious growth, even the occasional clearing, much like the outer reaches of the forest, which only further exemplified its lack of mystery. It was just an inconvenient place to explore.
That did not bother Novik at all, it just meant he was going to have a proper job ahead of him. And there was always the possibility he discovered something special. That would've been exciting.
It put a pep in his walk, murmuring a tune to himself, whilst looking around and mentally taking notes of anything interesting.
A group of foxes began trailing him, darting away whenever he looked at them. He smirked and kept going, they were no threat. They were curious, like him. Eventually they forgot about him to give chase to a group of rabbits, so that further eroded any ominous nature the Hawthorne Forest could've possessed.
He heard birds singing in the trees, one even swooping at him and twittering angrily, either defending its territory or its nest.