The candy trail lead to what looked to be a abandoned water wheel, or maybe something akin to one. As he made it to the front door, Snufkin could already hear the brothers inside whispering about something.
Carefully opening the door as quietly as he could, Snufkin entered with no one noticing.
"What are you 3 whispering about?" The old man asked turning from the just lit fire.
"Wait what?" Wirt quickly turned to look behind himself, definitely not expecting anyone to be standing just behind him. He let out a high pitched scream, and fell to the ground on his butt. Greg snickered a little, Wirt giving his brother and the stranger a small glare.
"Thanks for the warm welcome" Snufkin chuckles out as he unshoulders his bag setting it against the wall. He slides down to the floor sitting cross legged.
"We were talking about running away outta here" Greg supplies to the Woodsmen who was watching them with a small speck of amusement in his eyes, then lets out a small huff.
"Leave if you wish. Just remember, the beast haunts in these woods, sing out his mournful melody. Looking for lost souls such as yourselves." The man warned.
"To help us?"
"No.. not to help you. Now I have work in the mill. When I am finished I will do what I can to hide you, that is, if you're still here when I return" He glances over the three, before going through the door that one could assume, led to the mill.
"Well I guess we could just leave" Wirt says.
"Seems so" Snufkin adds pulling out his harmonica inspecting it for damage. He looks up only to see Greg test swinging different objects around the room. He watches this for a few seconds before going back to inspecting his instrument.
"Do you really think there's a beast out there? Or do you think that guy was just messing with us? I mean… he could have done away with us by now if that was his plan" Wirt says somewhat skeptical.
"True" Snufkin adds before starting to softly play his mouth organ to test it.
"and he lit that fire… that's pretty nice"
"Yeah" Greg cheers.
"I guess there could be a beast, since there was a talking bird"
"That's odd to you?" Snufkin asks now somewhat interested in what the other is saying.
"Well yeah, the birds brain is to small for cognitive speech, but it was talk right at us! It wasn't a parrot or any types of those birds who could somewhat copy human speech, it was talking in full sentences! Or well sentence, it flew away"
"Huh"
"Yeah!" Greg comments while swinging a fire bellow.
"Oh I didn't know that, but did you know that if you soak a raisin in grape juice, it'll turn into a grape!" Greg pulls out the rock with a silly painted face on it. "That's a rock fact!"
Snufkin quietly snorts in suppressing his laughter.
"Why don't you go play with your frog or something"
"Ah beans, where is that frog oh mine? Hang on a second, brother and new witch brother oh mine I'll be right back for your plan!" Greg goes to leave, but throws fists full of candy around before heading out.
Snufkin could hear a faint calling of "Kitty? Kitty?" from outside. Shaking his head he began to play his harmonica, mulling over the new information, a calm melody playing. The two boys must be from pretty far away to not be used to talking animals. It certainly didn't help that they were human, very fickle beings, and them not being used to such a common thing? He remembered warnings of such humans from his mother, always keep your tail tucked and so on. She always told him and his half siblings this. What else wasn't normal to the boys then? That could be dangerous. Humans tended to lash out at what they didn't understand. Though Snufkin had to admit, the two were still kids and seemed pretty open minded, specially the youngest.
Snufkin pauses his playing as he suddenly smells a dark strong scent appear.
Wirt looked up from his ball and cup game he apparently had, hearing a crash and growl from outside. Seeing Snufkin look on edge certainly added to his concern.
The old man rushed through the door to the mill. "What's happening? Where's your brother!?"
Wirt shrugs and Snufkin stares at the door to outside intensely. The door opens and Greg walks through frog in hand covered in bits of splintered wood and barrel rings.
"Ohy moi, hot dog!" Was all Greg could get out before being flung across the room from the door pushing him. Snufkin quickly leapt from one side of the room to the other, carefully catching Greg before he collided with the stairs. He sets the youngest down and gives a loud animalistic hiss at the very large canine creature in the doorway.
"Its the beast!" Wirt cried out.
The old man surprised by the sudden jump from Snufkin, stumbled backwards accidentally stepping on a porcelain statue which tripped him to the floor, causing him to hit his head on a log knocking him out.
The creature slowly moved towards Wirt causing the boy to panic as he hid behind the fire grate. Snufkin began hissing again and clawing at the monsters hind leg drawing the attention to himself, causing the canine to loudly growl out in fury, as it began snapping at its attacker.
"Run Run Run Run!" Wirt chants as he does just that through the door to the mill , Greg doing the same only after throwing a hand full of candy to the floor.
It's attention quickly moves from Snufkin to the candy now on the floor. This gave Snufkin an idea.
Reaching into his pocket he pulls out a few candies he collected from the trail, quickly putting the blue hard candies back in his pocket. He hissed again drawing attention to himself holding the hand with the candy out to the creature.
"This better work" He hisses out to himself as he quickly retracts his hand from where the canine just snapped it's jaws. Snufkin quickly sprints outside through the broken doorway. The creature right on his heels.
