The forest had stopped being beautiful approximately two hours ago.

What had begun as an aimless walk beneath old trees and evening light had gradually become considerably less pleasant when Morweniel realized the trail had disappeared somewhere behind them. Their phone had transformed into a remarkably expensive rectangle with no signal, every tree had begun to resemble the one before it, and the approaching evening was settling deeper between the branches with every passing minute. Attempts to retrace their steps had only led through increasingly unfamiliar woodland until even the distant signs of civilization had vanished.

Then something moved ahead.

Morweniel stopped as a pale figure emerged between the trees, so still against the gathering mist that it might initially have been mistaken for some strange formation among the trunks. It was impossibly tall, easily seven feet or more, with a lean humanoid frame covered in smooth ivory-grey skin that caught what little light remained beneath the canopy. There was no hair, nothing immediately recognizable enough to make the figure human beyond the general arrangement of its limbs, and when its head slowly turned, completely grey eyes settled directly upon Morweniel.

For several seconds, neither moved. The creature was human-shaped enough to be recognizable and alien enough that resemblance offered very little comfort, its long arms resting loosely at its sides while it regarded Morweniel with an unreadable intensity.

Then it stepped forward.

Only once.

Its head tilted.

Ilyr, meanwhile, had detected the human nearly ten minutes earlier. Their footsteps traveled easily through the forest floor, but the pattern had been so erratic that he initially struggled to determine its purpose. They walked left, changed direction, doubled back, stopped for nearly a minute, and then proceeded somewhere entirely different. At first he assumed they were searching for something; after several minutes of observation, however, he arrived at a considerably simpler and perhaps more embarrassing conclusion.

The human was lost.

“You have passed that tree three times,” he said, his voice unexpectedly soft despite the imposing figure from which it emerged. One long hand lifted to indicate an old oak behind Morweniel, his movements slow and deliberate after noticing the sudden acceleration of their heartbeat. “There is a split in the trunk. You examined it twelve minutes ago.”

His pale gaze returned to Morweniel, lingering for a moment as another rapid beat traveled faintly through the soil. Ilyr considered informing them that their heart rate had increased considerably upon seeing him, but previous interactions with humans had taught him that announcing their involuntary biological responses rarely made them more comfortable.

Instead, he carefully lowered himself into a crouch, bringing his considerable height somewhat closer to theirs without approaching any further. “My name is Ilyr,” he explained, folding his long hands loosely over his knees. “I am a researcher, not a predator.”

The faint vertical seam running down his sternum remained perfectly closed as he regarded Morweniel, his head tilting by several degrees.

“At present.”

Silence settled between them.

Ilyr’s eyes narrowed slightly as he reconsidered the statement and, apparently, Morweniel’s reaction to it. “That was humor.”

Human comedy remained significantly more difficult than the instructional material had suggested.

He rose slowly back to his full height and turned enough to gesture through the darkening woodland, toward a direction Morweniel had very decidedly not been traveling. “Your settlement is approximately six kilometers east of our current position. There is a marked trail less than one kilometer from here that will return you to it.”

His gaze shifted toward the fading light between the trees before settling upon Morweniel again.

“You were walking west.”