[Fairleaf]

One of the smaller trees that lined the hedgerow along the road to the Inn seemed to be moving . . . and not just with the morning's breeze. The little hawthorn’s branches bent to the left and then to the right, looking for any movements on the broad, wide dirt track to the north of it. Since the sun had risen, there had been an increasing number of carts and ponies trundling along the roadway. The drivers had not noticed her, their wide-brimmed hats shading their eyes from the rising sun. But often the ponies looked her way and whickered as they bobbed their heads.

Creeping amid the trunks of the trees standing in clumps along the road, the slender trunk eased itself along, hiding in the shadows of the oaks and beeches, slipping its limbs carefully through the branches of its rooted kin. Excuse me its leaves whispered as they trailed through the lower branches, disentangling themselves from the mossy limbs with their clumps of browning leaves.

There in the distance stood a sturdy wood building. The Inn she thought, wondering if the craftsmen had been kind as they shaped the frame and walls and roof of The Green Dragon. How funny! she giggled, her leaves twittering against one another. It’s neither green nor does it resemble a dragon in the slightest.

She stood quietly for a moment taking in the lovely gardens that dotted the front yard. And just at the corner round the back, she had a little view of the herb and vegetable garden. Very nice . . . well done. she nodded in approval.

Fairleaf inched forward until she stood along the edge of the trees that lined the grassy verge leading up to the Inn. It was a fair day. She stretched out her limbs into the sunshine, rustling them in delight. Her dark eyes, flecked with a green and golden light, shone out from the shadows of the other trees. With a patience learned in her long travels, she waited to see what the creatures of this place were like.