Elphaba strode through the fog the early morning had layered upon the forest.
Small whisps of humidity had gotten stuck in the branches like miniscule clouds.
Nessa, riding on her back today, would grasp at them occasionally and cry a little when they evaded her reach, or chuckle in amazement , when the fine silken threads of a spiders web brushed against her small fingers.
Elphaba's pace was a brisk one, with each passing day and hour, she could feel the restlessness in her heart begin to grow.
It was a soft whispering on the wind, that would wake her from her sleep, the cry of a seagull that would echo through the valleys of her journey, while the ocean was hundreds upon hundreds of miles away.
She only allowed herself to rest, when sheer fatigue and exhaustion made it unavoidable to lay down and surrender to a dreamless sleep.
Picking up branches along the way, she would light a neverendingfire on them, to guide their way through the dark.
There always was a soft footed echo in the forest..there were the animals, that sensed the great power in her and, leaving their beaten tracks to the use of her heavy shoes, gave her the courtesy of a wide berth.
And there were the humans..those traversing the forests in the nights, with evil intentions, worse than most of the more sensible four legged creatures.
But they, too, the tradesmen of destruction, recognized in Elphaba, the great power that lay within her..and bent upon them..were they to deter her from her singular purpose..they, who dealt in misery, knew the possible consequences.
They kept free of her path..the one that preferred the roads of paws to those of feet.
Occasionally, however, a farmer, a gatherer of berries, mosses, woods, would happen upon her in her long wanderings.
In the daylight, he might greet her and seeing the urgency in her eyes and the small creature on her back, even give her a piece of bread and cheese, or just a friendly nod as a way of greeting.
Those that saw her in the night, bearing a torch through the swamps of their homeland, went home to whisper a new chapter of their local ghost to their wives and children.
But due to Nessa, Elphaba was often forced to abstain from her hurried footsteps and bathe the child, feed her, and comfort her, when the journey became too tiresome and stressful for the tiny human.
It was thus, sitting upon the stone encasings of a human crafted fresh water well, while she sang to her oldest, that an old man sat down next to her, keeping her company.
The originally green skinned woman froze under her white sheets of make up, as the bearded, forlorn looking old tramper began to sing a sweet lullaby to Nessa who began to doze off in the grass after chasing after a cricket.