Elise had found the bear's paw prints quite quickly. These had led to a large tree standing in the middle of a clearing filled with a handful of flowers in various colours. A considerable portion of the tree's roots were above ground, forming something like a small cave. The entrance to the wooden cave was quite small. If Elise had crouched down, she probably could have entered the cave. However, that would have been extremely foolish. Animals were afraid of everything that seemed strange to them. She doubted that the bear had ever seen a monia or a human in its short life. She certainly didn't want to find out how much the attack of a bear cub would hurt. So Elise decided to just keep her distance and tried to speak to the bear in a soothing voice.

She knew he wouldn't understand her, she wasn't Jacobina, she couldn't talk to animals. However, Elise firmly believed that the bear, much like a dog, could understand what she was trying to say when it realised she didn't mean any harm.

It took ten minutes for the bear's muzzle to protrude from the dark cave. It sniffed a few times before backing away a little, perhaps to consider what to do. A few moments later it emerged, carrying the small fox on its back.

Elise smiled, she had managed to gain the bear cub's trust, or at least some semblance of it. She frowned, how much time was left before the others would start to worry? She looked at the animals and shook her head, carrying the bear would be impossible. Its shoulders almost reached her waist. It was certainly quite heavy.

"Look at me," she said as calmly as she could to the bear, "I mean no harm. But we have to be quick. I can carry your friend if you want."

The bear tilted its head in confusion. Elise took a deep breath, in moments like these Jacobina's gift would have been extremely useful. However, she did the next best thing, using gestures to convey something.

She pointed to herself, then to the bear's back, after which she made a lifting motion and began to walk without moving from where she stood. The young bear seemed to have understood what she was trying to say. It grumbled something softly before motioning for her to come closer.

Elise eyed the fox and noticed that it was badly injured. It was a miracle that this little ball of fur was still alive. Carefully, she lifted the fox and pondered for a few seconds how best to carry an injured animal. The young girl decided to simply carry the fox like a groom would carry his bride. Not necessarily the best strategic choice, in a fight she would not be able to use her sword as her arms were occupied. However, she could probably kick any potential enemy hard enough before running for cover, relieving herself of her burden and then drawing her sword. Or she could drop the fox, but that would be a rather barbaric act.

The mismatched trio hurried through the forest, the bear awkwardly trying to keep up the pace, but it seemed weaker than Elise had expected. Or she was faster than she had expected. It was probably a mixture of both, or the bear was injured too, although she couldn't see any obvious injuries or blood on its fur apart from its back, but that made sense.

They reached the edge of the forest and Elise quickly noticed the group of children and the young mercenary in the distance waving at her. The bear rushed out of the bushes, causing him to stop. But the young man apparently had better eyes than a hawk, for he did not rush towards her to attack the bear, apparently having noticed that she was carrying a fox.

Her lungs were burning, but she decided to reach the group before she allowed herself a break. It took thirty seconds, or slightly less, she didn't count the time, before the trio reached the group.

"It seems you have found what you were looking for...." the young man said, somewhat perplexed, "Though I certainly wouldn't have expected you to find a bear and a fox ready to become someone's pet. Truly fascinating, but I digress. We need to get to town, the forest seems to have become quite restless, and I really don't want to fight anything with my wounded knee."

The group had reached Aschen without any problems worth mentioning, apart from a few children who complained that their feet hurt. The young mercenary had promised to inform the club about what had happened in the forest and that was that, as Heinz so often used to say, everything was done.

Unfortunately, it had been rather tedious to explain to the guards why she wanted to bring two, as they put it, dangerous animals into town. However, it was enough to drop the prince's name and explain that the animals were to be his daughter's gift, and she could enter the city without any problems. That is, if one ignored the guard who had been ordered to follow her, just as a precaution, as they had claimed, for no one knew what a wild animal would do in the city.

Elise sighed and approached the two golden gates of the estate, she turned and motioned for the guard to leave, which he did happily, perhaps wondering why he had wasted twenty minutes of his life following her. Elise shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't her fault. She had told them that nothing would happen, the angry voice had promised to take care of it, its presence was obviously something the animals could notice if the voice wanted.

"Hello," she said to one of the two guards, wondering if he would recognise her or if he was one of the new ones. The man dressed in plates looked at her before a loud audible sigh escaped through the visor of his helmet.

"Elise," he stated, his old grumpy voice obviously conveying no amusement, "I assume ... that these ... animals are something the young lady wanted?"

Elise shrugged, "Maybe, I don't know. Probably. But we'll see. Can you ... Get a healer and ask them to fix the fox. I don't feel like carrying around something that would die after a strong gust of wind."

The man instructed the other guard, who appeared to be a novice, simply based on the fact that he walked rather awkwardly in his plate armour, to fetch a healer. The young man unhappily complied with the older guard's order and tottered off, eliciting a grin from Elise.

"So," the old man began, "I take it you had another of your adventures in the forest?"

Elise nodded, "Yes. I saw the biggest wolf ever, almost heroically stumbled into a pack of goblins hunting said wolf, tamed a bear and a fox by just being as nice as I could, and spoiled one of the guards' day by somehow getting them to worry about a wild bear cub. I wonder why they expected the worst? Has Jacobina ever brought any strange animals into town?"

A muffled laugh escaped the man's helmet and he simply nodded before adding, "Yes. She had actually befriended some strange animals, well, so far no bear or fox, but that probably will change today. The strangest one she brought to town was a green-coloured stag, but as far as I know it had to leave for reasons I don't know. Rumour has it that it ate too much, but if that were the case, you wouldn't be here either."

He chuckled, apparently finding his joke more amusing than Elise. Elise ignored the remark and vowed to eat more when it was the guards' turn to serve the food. It served them right, she was growing, and so food was something she really needed. It wasn't her fault that the food just tasted so divine.

The younger guard appeared, followed by one of the few healers stationed with the estate's guards. As far as she knew, they rarely healed anything worse than a few bruises or superficial cuts that the guards got during their daily training programme.

"What a cute little fellow," the young healer noted, eyeing the fox before adding, "So, where did you find this little fur ball?"

Carefully, she approached the fox, her hands enveloped in a golden light before she touched the fox. It trembled slightly but seemed unafraid of the strange light or the woman who healed the fox. A few moments later, the healer stepped back and said, "I don't know exactly what attacked the fox, but whatever hurt it had been dipped in a moderately strong poison. Nothing that could kill an adult man, but it would make anyone pretty miserable for a few days or a week at most. So where did you find this little wonder of nature?"

Elise knew that some mages were quite strange, years of study while being holed away in some dark library, dungeon or one of those towers they liked seemed to have such an effect. The healer, however, seemed ... well, stranger than most healers. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was an elf?