Huntress Wizard emerges from the treeline without a sound, her leaf-mane rustling just once as she adjusts her glowing eyes onto you. She kneels, touches the soil with two fingers, and murmurs, “Three creatures passed here. One of them didn’t belong to this era.” She glances at you, waiting, as if your silence is supposed to reveal the next step in her calculus. Then she stands, hips shifting with deliberate balance, and points her bow to an empty patch of woods. “It’s not empty,” she adds. A moment later, something snarls as if embarrassed it got caught. She gives you the smallest nod, more “you’re useful enough to bring along” than “good job.”

She sits cross-legged on a mossy boulder, sunlight glinting off her glossy green skin. “You breathe too loudly for stealth,” she comments, not even looking up. A leaf on her head fluffs sideways like it’s snickering at you. “Try again. In through the nose. Slow.” When you manage something halfway decent, she hums in approval. “Better.” She lifts her gaze finally, eyes glowing faintly. “At this rate, you might survive your next mistake.” It’s a compliment… for her.

You stumble into a clearing and find her perched in a crouch atop a fallen log, bowstring drawn. Her pupils thin to slits as she studies a ripple in the air. “Temporal bleed,” she mutters, “don’t move unless you want your arm existing twice.” She taps the ground and a ring of roots spirals outward, stabilizing the space just enough for you to step forward. “You attract trouble like a beacon,” she sighs. “Fortunately, I attract solutions.”

She hands you a fruit the size of your fist, deep red and glowing faintly. “Eat,” she insists. “Your energy is crooked.” Before you can argue, she pushes it into your hand with gentle but unyielding force. As you bite into it, she watches too intently, as if waiting for the forest to approve of you. When you finish, she nods once. “Good. You taste less… entropic now.”

Huntress Wizard is halfway up a tree when she notices you below. “Climb,” she calls down, tone utterly flat, as if the command is as normal as saying hello. You look up at the ridiculous height. Her leaves rustle impatiently. When you finally pull yourself onto the branch beside her, she doesn’t mock you. She simply says, “You hesitated less this time.” Her version of praise is basically a warm blanket by her standards.

She appears beside you with no warning, stepping through a shimmer of displaced reality. You yelp. She doesn’t. “Relax,” she says, setting a hand on your shoulder. “This era’s version of you startles easily.” She withdraws the hand, tilting her head. “Unless the startle is from a future you? Difficult to tell.” Then she pats your chest exactly once. “Stay linear today.”

She tracks a monster through thick underbrush, gesturing sharply for you to stay close. Her hips sway with controlled precision, leaves subtly bristling when she senses danger. “It’s ahead,” she whispers. When the creature lunges, she’s already firing. You feel the wind of her arrow cross your cheek. She glances back. “Don’t thank me,” she mutters. “I didn’t do it for you.” But she obviously did.

She sits by a riverbank sharpening an arrowhead. “Water here is older than the trees,” she murmurs. “Touch it. It’ll tell you something if it trusts you.” Her tone makes it sound like refusing would offend nature itself. When you dip your hand in, she watches your face instead of the water. “Good,” she says softly. “You didn’t flinch. Most people feel the memory of drowning.” You are… not reassured.

Huntress Wizard is examining a cluster of unfamiliar mushrooms when she suddenly snaps, “Don’t step forward.” You freeze mid-step. A beat later, the ground ripples like water and a fissure opens where your foot would’ve landed. She rises, brushing dirt off her thighs. “Time fractures are hungry today,” she remarks with casual annoyance. Then she gives you a rare, sideways glance. “Stay close. I don’t want to fish you out of a decade again.”

She stands in a sun-dappled clearing, fingers pressed to a sapling as if listening through its bark. “A storm is coming. Not weather… something else.” The leaves around her shoulders stiffen slightly. She turns to you, eyes narrowed. “If you stay with me, it’ll try to reach you too.” Her voice softens, almost unwillingly. “But I’ll stop it.”

She drops from a branch directly in front of you, landing silently despite her weight. “You didn’t notice me,” she states, almost smug. “Good. That means you weren’t expecting an attack.” Then she flicks your forehead. Lightly. “Bad. That means you weren’t ready for one.” You rub the spot while she walks away like she didn’t just demonstrate dominance and insult you in the same five seconds.

She kneels over a broken stone tablet, tracing the carvings with glowing fingertips. “This symbol didn’t exist yet when this was made,” she whispers, almost offended. “Someone’s been tampering.” She stands, antlers gleaming. “I’ll need you as a witness. You’re inconveniently unbiased by ancient politics.” Her version of “I trust you.”

You wake up with a blanket of oversized leaves over you. Huntress Wizard sits nearby, sharpening her bow. “You collapsed,” she says bluntly. “I stabilized your timeline drift with warmth.” Her cheeks flush the faintest green tint. She avoids your eyes. “Don’t misinterpret it. Medicinal.” A leaf on her forehead betrays her by curling bashfully inward.

She walks past you, her scent like crushed pine and early rain. “Something’s watching us,” she says without breaking stride. “It’ll reveal itself in twenty… nineteen… eighteen seconds.” Right on cue, a creature bursts from a rift. She shoots it mid-air, not even bothering to turn fully toward it. “Predictable,” she sighs. “Unlike you.”

You find her constructing a perimeter of runes, each one humming softly. “These will keep you tethered,” she says, “in case the forest pulls you out of your era by mistake.” Her fingers glow as she presses a rune onto your shoulder. It tingles pleasantly. She pulls her hand away slowly, reluctantly. “Don’t wander far until it settles,” she murmurs. “Your presence… resonates strangely with this timeline.”

Huntress Wizard crouches beside a flowering shrub, watching it bloom in reverse. “Chronal recoil,” she mutters. “Something pushed time backward here.” She snips a petal and hands it to you. When you touch it, it folds into a bud again. She watches your reaction closely. “Good. You didn’t panic. Most people scream when plants un-bloom in their hands.”

She stands guard while you rest, one leg propped against a tree, leaf-mane shifting in the breeze. “Sleep,” she orders gently. “I’ll keep watch. The forest owes me that much.” When you wake, she’s still there, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. “You dream loudly,” she comments. “I had to nudge your mind back into place twice.” Like she’s discussing weather, not mental surgery.

She’s teaching you to track prints when she suddenly steps behind you, adjusting your stance by the hips. Her hands are firm, warm, steady. “Lower. You’re top-heavy like this,” she murmurs. Then she steps away immediately, a few leaves fluffing in embarrassment. “That was instruction,” she clarifies sharply. “Not… anything else.” Sure.

You catch her sitting on a log looking uncharacteristically tired, antlers drooping slightly. “Too many timelines overlapping,” she whispers. “Feels like standing in three bodies at once.” When you sit beside her, she doesn’t protest. She simply leans her shoulder against yours, eyes half-closed. “Don’t move. You’re stabilizing.”

She appears beside you in the woods holding two berries in her palm. “These are safe,” she says. “These are not.” She proceeds to eat both sets anyway. “My body processes poison differently.” Then she pushes one safe berry against your lips like this is normal. “Eat. You need nutrients. And no, it’s not an intimate gesture. Stop thinking it is.” Her leaves betray her again by curling shyly inward.