[Indigo]

They say that Malachite Hunters are not cursed as the other Hunters are, because they are extremely lucky. But nobody ever said whether it was good luck or bad luck...

Mallack had been locked to Roraldi by his own personal curse for the better part of a millenium, although he never aged due to the magical equivalent of fine print. Technically he had the full range of the forest's sprawl, but he had found it easiest to stay within ten miles of his tree; sense of direction was not his strong point. The tree in question had his curse attached to it, as well as containing his makeshift home beneath its roots, and it contained his few important possessions.

One might think that living in Roraldi would be exciting, but one probably has an average lifespan for one's species. While Mallack knew nothing of the far reaches of the forest, he was incredibly bored of his tree's ten-mile radius. Since another part of the curse dictated that he didn't need to eat, most of his time was spent watching the world from under his tree in the hope that something new might come by.

He was also waiting, though he would never admit it, for someone to break his curse. Like the Hunters of the Shrine, he couldn't leave Roraldi on his own. Which was why, on the sixth of November, he happened to be awake to feel the tingle.

He had no idea what the feeling meant, but he knew that it was the most interesting thing to happen in the last five hundred years. Having nothing better to do, Mallack got to his stone feet and wandered off in search of the tingle's source.

[Indigo]

A lone bush bent, twisted, and split open, depositing a small glass ball on the ground. Had anyone been around to take a closer look, they would have noticed that it seemed to contain one small stalk of wheat.

Where was she?

It was very strange, she reflected, to be trapped in a ball. She could see everything around her, and could roll around to some extent, but she couldn't interact with her environment in any meaningful way. This could be very inconvenient at times, such as this one. She didn't recognise this world at all...

But it would never be said that she wasn't an adventurous sort, and so, with little caution, she rolled herself forward. There seemed to be a lot of plants here, and perhaps she could convince some of them to help her get out. She was a Spirit, after all.

[Indigo]

Mallack had spent several minutes crashing through the bushes before he realized that he had no idea where he was going. The strange pull that had drawn him from his tree seemed--not quite directionless, but as if its object were moving. Whatever the reason for its fluctuation, the result was the same: he was completely and utterly lost.

This had happened to him only once before, near the beginning of his curse. He had wandered from his tree in a foolish burst of exploratory spirit, accompanied as a motive by his habit of eating. At the time he had been lost in a place much like this one, in fact, though the trees had been smaller and there hadn't been nearly as many birds.

Great Zu'hai, was he really that old?

In any case, he no longer remembered how he'd found his way back, so there was nothing for it but to turn around and make a vague attempt to retrace his steps. This he did, discovering one of the few benefits of stone paws: obvious footprints. A faint tinkly noise sounded close by, but he ignored it. Probably just a bird.