1.1 Chapter 7

In the morning, Blossom was the first one up. Will awoke right after her. She stood up, looked around and gasped.

"What?" Will said. He leapt up to join her and gasped as well. The trees were full of glittering ice covering their branches, and there was a lovely blanket of snow on the ground, making it look like a Winter Wonderland.

"It's beautiful," Blossom breathed, her eyes shining.

"Yup, it sure is."

Later on, the four friends were on their way, and after a while, Acorn started recognizing where they were. "This is only a two days walk to that place I was telling ye about, the place we will be able to get the Herb of Life. It should only take us one more day after we camp tonight."

Blossom smiled happily, as did her friends.

Suddenly, a Weasel in a pirate like get up and an eye patch jumped out from behind a tree. "Aha! Oi've got ye now." He laughed evilly as Will moved in front of Blossom, who had already drawn her sword.

"What do ye want?" Will said, his pulsing anger building with every word. He knew that this Weasel could be part of a Sea Rat's horde.

The Weasel laughed again. "You can call me Captain One Eye. All Oi wont is yur valuables and maybe yur lives."

Bessie cowered behind Acorn, who was rather brave despite his age. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Go away Splity, you can't scare us." He glanced at Bessie, who was so scared she was shaking, and shook his head.

"Oi'm not Splity, Oi'm Captain One Eye!"

Acorn whispered to Will, "This nut held me up when I was trying to make this journey. Really, he is no threat. We should keep going."

Off in the trees somewhere, sounded an Owl's "who." That sent the Weasel scurrying away.

"See, what did I tell you?" Acorn smiled. "Come on, we have to hurry!"



~*~



Later, they set up camp in a small pine grove. This time though, Will went out gathering firewood without falling into a hole. Blossom was thankful that they didn't have to go rescue someone else. Then they had a dinner of soup and biscuits. Bessie went off to bed early claiming, "I need my beauty sleep, wot."

Blossom was cleaning up form dinner, and Will and Acorn were sitting up talking.

"You know, we only have a day left in this journey."

"Yup, it sure went fast. I thought that it was farther south."

"No, it's not."

Before bed that night, Blossom decided that she should make her way alone to get the herb. Acorn had given her a map, so she knew where it was. Blossom didn't want to endanger her friends any more than they were, so she made up her mind, left a note, and scampered off to their destination without looking back.