The forest never slept.

Even in the dead of night, the trees whispered, the roots crept, and the undergrowth trembled with unseen movement. Leshy could feel it all—the pulse of the land, the steady breath of the wild. The creatures that skittered through the brush, the vines that curled hungrily around fallen branches, the ancient roots that stretched ever deeper into the earth. This was his domain.

And yet, something was wrong.

Leshy stood at the edge of a clearing, his claws curled into fists. The air was too still, the scent of damp moss and decay disrupted by something unnatural. The trees were listening, their branches leaning in, tense and waiting. The hum of life had quieted, like the moment before a storm.

Something had entered his forest. Something that did not belong.

His eye narrowed as he stepped forward, the ground shifting beneath his weight as though welcoming its master. The forest would always answer his call—roots would rise, thorns would tear, the very trees would bend at his command. But he needed to see it first. To understand.

Leshy moved through the underbrush with effortless ease, his presence an extension of the land itself. And then, as he stepped past a gnarled oak, he saw it.

A figure, cloaked and small, standing in the center of the clearing. A trespasser.

Leshy’s eye gleamed in the darkness, his voice low and rumbling.

“You’ve wandered too far, little one.”

The trees loomed taller, their branches stretching toward the intruder like grasping hands. The ground trembled beneath them, shifting, warning.

The figure did not flee. Did not speak.

And that was when Leshy realized—they were waiting for him.