The early afternoon sun hung high overhead, obscured by trailing clouds in the overcast sky. There was an unseasonal chill to the summer breeze that traced the curve of Cobblestone Keep's hill. Marian would've shivered were it not for the thick travelling cloak that surrounded her shoulders. As it was now, only her face and fingers felt the cool caress of the wind.

"Chilly," she observed.

She peered over the side of the hill. From this vantage point, she could see the town of Bluebell Fields as a cluster of buildings far below. If she concentrated, she could even see tiny people milling about the market.

Marian normally would have enjoyed the hour-long walk down and around the side of the hill. It was a good opportunity to get some exercise in - something she needed, judging by her pudgy reflection - and to take in the dry summer breeze and the natural smells of grasses and farmland. But with the cold wind, she found herself wanting to curl up with a pot of tea and a book, as she'd done to pass so many lazy autumn days. She decided to spare herself the effort of walking to avoid the cold.

Marian fixed the pear in her jaws so she could use her hands. The subdued sweetness of the dried fruit filled her mouth as she retrieved her tome, then started fingering through its pages. Many of the book's pages were empty, but she'd managed to fill some during her adventures with the Wyvern Hunter. One such page towards the back was titled, "Travel". Only two spells were written here - "Egress" and "Migrat" - but Marian couldn't fathom needing any more.

Marian's long pointer finger traced the words next to "Migrat". The memory transcribed there described a moment in her travels with the Wyvern Hunter, back when Wendy and Nathaniel were still with the group. The gang had made camp at the edge of a marsh. Marian had been the first to wake the following morning, and she had chosen to greet the day by watching a paddling of ducks quacking in the pre-dawn twilight. The moment morning had broken, the ducks had taken to the air, starting their flight south for the winter. The sight of dozens, then hundreds of birds appearing and moving in formation had given Marian the same burst of inspiration that she felt now.

Holding in her mind the memory of the flock of ducks, she split her concentration and conjured a second, separate memory: that of the bustling marketplace in Bluebell Fields. The effort was like writing a sonnet on heartrending loneliness with one hand while using the other to draw a picture of a bull wearing motley. Still, this task was not beyond Marian. Working her hand in a gesture over her head, the witch felt the spell's enchantment cascade over her. There was a tug at her core, then the young woman found herself whisked away, her sense of self collapsing inward as the castle courtyard around her disappeared.

Marian felt like a knot being unraveled as she appeared in the marketplace of Bluebell Fields. There was a brief dizzying sensation, combined with what felt like an invisible force attempting to extrude her stomach through her esophagus. Then, Marian came to be again, standing in the middle of a crowded street. A few people around her were staring, surprised at the sudden appearance.

The young witch returned her magic tome to its holster, then took a bite as she plucked the pear from her mouth. She chewed as she strode away, her boots scuffing the open dirt path. The sheer banality by which Marian treated the miracle of teleportation was enough to convince her onlookers that nothing was amiss. Just another day in the life of a spellcaster.

Marian took in the marketplace as she strode down the street. Simple stone buildings lined dirt streets wide enough for a half-dozen wagons to pass side-by-side, though this layout wasn't designed with travelers in mind. Informal market stalls had been erected along the sides of the street, with an array of vendors hawking homegrown vegetables, berries, and cheeses. Loaves of bread cooled in the chill breeze. Handmade crafts and garments were displayed; seeing a little girl purchase a set of crocheted mittens prompted Marian to tug her own leather gloves over her hands.

The open market opened even further as she came to the crossroads in the middle of town. The four-way intersection was full of people. Some were treating themselves to their lunch, some were walking their animals through, some were sitting and enjoying the day. A motley crew of children were running around the fountain that marked the center of the crossroads. Somewhere, a band of street performers were playing a gentle, ambling tune.

Marian took one last bite from her depleted pear, then inconspicuously dropped it on the ground, near where a man with a pig had stopped to chat up a doe-eyed young woman. With a grunt, the pig wobbled forward and helped itself to the rest of the pear.

Marian wiped some errant pear guts off her face with the back of her gloved hand and stopped in an open stretch of the crossroads. She stalled as a mustachioed man rode to the side of her on a horse-drawn carriage, then started looking around in earnest.

She couldn't see anyone in the area who was obviously named 'Tracey'.

"Guess that would've been too easy," Marian said under her breath.

She contemplated how best to find the person who wrote the letter. She could always find a town crier or start putting up notices, but time was of the essence. It seemed silly to go through official channels to get the word out when it was entirely possible Tracey had already moved on. Thus, the best course of action was...

"Tracey? Tracey?? Hello?"

The people around her continued their business, oblivious to Marian.

"Right, have to actually raise my voice..." Marian took a deep breath before calling out, "Hello? I'm looking for someone named Tracey?? Helloooo???"

This caught some attention, but most people turned away again, their names presumably not being 'Tracey'.

Marian wandered around the intersection for a bit, continuing to call for her contact. Finally, she felt someone jostle her from behind.

Marian turned around to face an older man with a flat, stubble-coated chin. His greyed hair was cut short. He wore a set of overalls over a plaid work shirt, stained with dirt and sweat. He looked and smelled like he'd just come in from a day of hard work on the farm. A distinct, long-healed scar carved its way down his face, partially obscured by the grey bandage over his right eye.

"You calling me?" the old man asked in a grumpy tone.

"You're Tracey?" Marian asked.

"Yeah. What's up?" His good eye fixed Marian with a distrustful glare.

"I, uh, I got your letter? You said to meet out here...?" She started to fish for the letter in her satchel.

The man chuckled. "Was wondering if you'd actually show up. You got guts."

She'd just found the letter and was starting to pull it from her bag when she paused. She looked back at the man before her. "'Guts'?"

"Yeah," he laughed mirthlessly, "after what your friend done to me."

"...my friend?" She suddenly felt nervous.

"I know I ain't handsome no more, what with this scar and havin' only one eye an' all..." the man started to walk towards Marian. "...but that don't give your friend no right to make fun of my looks."

Marian knew Sandra was tactless, but she'd thought she at least knew better than that. "Look, I don't know what my companion said, but-"

"And that especially don't give your friend no right to come thievin' my sheep!" The man punctuated his frustration with a few violent points in Marian's direction.

Marian blanched, waves of guilt cascading over her. "Honestly, I didn't think Sandra was the type to steal farm animals..."

"Sandra..." the man laughed his joyless laugh once more. "So that's what that creep's name is. Well, you go and tell Sandra that if I ever see him trespassin' on my farm again, I'm gonna make him wish he weren't never born!"

Marian's guilt vanished as confusion set in. "Wait, 'him'? 'He'?"

"Don't you go playin' dumb on me, girl! I saw the two of you runnin' from my barn with my sheep!"

"...what was your name, sir?" Marian asked, cautiously.

"Tracy Blandings. You know, the guy you done stole from."

"...'Tracey', with an 'E'?"

"No! Not with an 'E'! You don't spell 'Tracy' with an 'E'! What, do you think because I only got one eye that I'm stupid?" The man was now a single step away from Marian.

"No! No, of course not! I just, uh..." Marian could think of nothing but to show the man the letter. "I got this from a Tracey with an 'E'."

"You don't spell 'Tracy' with an 'E'," the man repeated as he took the letter. He scanned it, then gave it back to Marian. "I never wrote this."

"I-I gathered, sir." Marian tucked the letter back into her bag. "I guess I had the wrong person."

"Hmph! Thinkin' I'd spell my own name wrongly."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"See that you are." He started to walk away, then turned back. "If you see Sandra, you tell him that old Tracy Blandings is comin' for him."

"I will, sir." And because she figured it wouldn't hurt, she added, "Good luck finding your sheep, sir."

All Marian got for her troubles was another "Hmph!" as the man disappeared back into the crowd.

Marian grimaced once the man was out of sight. "Oooookay! Not doing that again. Gotta find the town crier-"

She turned around to head in the opposite direction and almost tripped over a small child standing right behind her.

She made an indistinct "Geh!" as she hopped back a step. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there-"

Marian trailed off. The person now before her appeared to be a girl, roughly three-and-a-half feet tall. She wore a modest floral-print dress, over which hung an off-white apron. A mottled yellow kerchief was tied around her head, which was...

When Marian had been very little, her father had once described her great uncle - whom she'd never met - as having a "round head". Being little and unused to the figure of speech, Marian pictured a man with a completely circular head. During the first family get-together, Marian was confused to the point of tears that she couldn't find the man whom she thought was her great uncle. Her father finally pacified her by introducing her to the man, whose head had wide cheeks and a receded chin. He later explained that he'd used a figure of speech: the man didn't have a literally round head, just one that was more round than her blood relatives.

This memory came to Marian as she observed that the girl before her possessed a literally round head. It was almost completely spherical, marred only by the contours of her face. Her face was, in a word, "cute". Her circular eyes were far larger than any other feature of it, yet they were so simple that they appeared like a child's drawing. Her nose looked as though the Divine Lady had teased out a pinch of modelling clay when sculpting her head. Her mouth formed a tiny horizontal line that broke the pronounced, featureless expanse of skin below her nose.

It was difficult for Marian to put into words how much the girl contrasted with the other folk wandering around the town square. Some aspects of her were obvious: the girl's proportions were wildly different from everyone else, with a head far larger than her limbs and torso. Her hair appeared as a pink helmet around her head, tucked underneath her kerchief. But there were other ways in which she simply looked different from everyone else. It was something to do with how the light played on her, or the general lack of detail to her appearance. Marian might have found the contrast unsettling if the girl didn't look so adorable.

The small girl stared up at Marian. Despite her strangely cute appearance, her simple facial features conveyed a sense of someone who always took careful stock of the world. After a moment, she said, "Heard you were looking for Tracey."

"...that's you?" was what Marian was eventually able to get out.

"Yup. I'm Tracey."

"...No last name?"

Tracey tilted her big head to the side like a cat. Her expression changed abruptly, the small horizontal mouth shifting directly to an upside-down curve and her round eyes suddenly becoming semicircles without any gradual transition. "Last name?"

Now was Marian's turn to be confused. "Yeah, you know. Surname? Family name?"

Tracey shut her eyes - a motion that reduced them to small horizontal lines on her face - and shook her head. With it as large as it was, the motion was exaggerated, taking her little shoulders with her as she went. "Just 'Tracey'."

"Ah." Marian wondered how someone could possibly get through life without a last name. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Tracey. My name's Marian Harradin." Then, after a heartbeat, "But you can just call me 'Marian.'"

Tracey nodded in another exaggerated motion, looking more like a bow. "Nice to meet you, Marian." Her expression became a polite smile, with eyes wide open and mouth forming a gentle curve. She extended a reedy arm that terminated in a crocheted mitten. The contrast between the mitten's appearance and the rest of the strange girl was striking.

Marian accepted the proffered hand tentatively and shook. Despite appearances, Tracey didn't seem to be lacking for strength.

As they shook, Marian made a connection. "I saw you earlier. You were buying mittens from that shop up the road."

Tracey broke the handshake, then nodded once again. "Must've missed you then." Tracey stared at the mittens on her hands, her expression neutral. "Forgot mine at home. Didn't think I'd need them 'till today."

"Where are you from? You don't look-"

Marian abruptly realized how this sentence could be misconstrued.

"Err, I mean. You don't look... like you're from around here?"

Tracey smirked, transforming her eyes into semicircles and her mouth into a perfectly diagonal line. "Wonder why you think that."

Panic gripped Marian. She never knew how to handle these situations. "I'm sorry, is that rude? I didn't mean-"

"It's fine. Accurate." Tracey's shrug was as over-the-top as the rest of her gestures, fully bringing her upturned palms parallel to her shoulders as they moved. "Not the worst thing I've heard since coming here."

"Speaking of..." Tracey swiveled her head around in a scan of the area. "Where are your friends? Don't see them here."

"Ah..." Marian rubbed at her arm awkwardly as she continued, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but they're not back yet from their quest. You must've just run into them on their way out."

"Shoot." Tracey slumped her head and arms forward, her face changing into a close-eyed frown. "Can you call them?"

Marian thought back to her awkward search for Tracey. "That wouldn't work. They're long gone by now."

Tracey gave Marian an odd look, then shook her head. "Never mind. When will they be back?"

Marian grimaced. "It'll be a while. Usually when they leave on a quest like this, it's a month or two before they return."

Tracey was apparently so caught off-guard by this that she staggered a step backwards as though she'd been struck. "A month or two?!"

"I-if you'd like," Marian stammered, placatingly, "I can take a message for them and pass it on when they return."

Tracey shook her head, frantically. "No time. Don't have that long."

The gravity to Tracey's tone brought Marian back to the crux of why she came here. Suspiciously, she asked, "What's going on here? You said there was a 'great danger' in your letter?"

Tracey shook her head again. "You need to find your friends. Bring them back here. Will explain it then."

Even though Marian knew she was weak, she didn't need to hear it from a little kid. She crossed her arms and looked down at Tracey. "And what am I supposed to tell them? You didn't give me much to work with in the letter."

"Not good with words," Tracey admitted. "Very important you hurry, though."

Marian let out a sigh, then snaked a hand up to massage her forehead. "So, if I have the gist of it," she grumbled, "you want me to go into the field and find my companions, tell them to stop what they're doing, drag them out of whatever hole in the ground they've crawled into, and bring them back home, because... a little girl insisted?"

An angry frown appeared on Tracey's face. "I'm not a little girl."

Marian lifted an accusatory eyebrow.

"I'm not."

Marian sighed again. "Look, I'm sorry, but unless you can convince me that something serious enough to involve the Wyvern Hunter is going on, I can't really help you."

Tracey's frown shifted to a look of concentration. After a few seconds, she nodded. "I'll show you. Follow me." She turned and started hustling down one of the streets.

"Wait!" Marian watched for a second, then started after the strange girl at a jog.