Felltree Marsh but i've wandered much further today than i should

The stars were comforting for reasons Bat didn't bother trying to pinpoint. She sucked in a breath and gazed upward, further soothed by the sight of the moon rising. It was only a sliver tonight, thin as a human fingernail clipping, but she had by now seen that same moon from just outside Hougeda a handful of times and she knew she wasn't that far from home.

She jerked slightly when a deep voice called out from close by, her mercurial eyes dropping and her big ears standing ramrod straight atop her small head. "Hello?" she replied tentatively, squinting through the gloom until she spotted a silvery shape moving toward her. Bat licked her lips a little nervously, though otherwise remained calm as the stranger approached.

She had never met anyone outside of Drageda before and, aside from some instinctive wariness, Bat didn't really have much sense of stranger danger. There was certainly nothing threatening about him. He was larger than her, though he made a point to stop several yards away. There was something friendly about his face, a benign luster to his eyes. He spoke with a casualness that immediately endeared the youngster to him. There was also the fact that he was a (presumably) responsible adult come to rescue her from being alone and lost in the dark.

"I'm lost," Bat said, quelling a sudden lump in her throat as the weight of her predicament settled on her all at once. "But, um, I'm okay," she added, peering at him and letting herself be reassured by that charming look on his face, even if she was too little to recognize his handsomeness. "I'm Bat," the Goufa offered, "who're you?"