Luz ran at breakneck speed through the woods until Eda's house was no longer even visible behind her; she would have continued to run, but she was too tired to do so, and so she chose to continue walking. After all, now that it was daytime, the forest was very beautiful to look at, and it also seemed decidedly less scary than at night, so she wanted to take her time. And furthermore, despite the happiness of being able to see her mother again, she also felt a bit of fear in her heart. "I wonder how he'll react to seeing me again" she murmured to herself. "Oh, she'll definitely hug me and cry with joy, and spoil me with cuddles and kisses... but then? I doubt she'll be happy to hear about all the trouble I've caused... she'll definitely be angry, and not without reason. I would be surprised if this time she dragged me to Eda's house holding me by the ears. And I deserve it: I definitely made her worry too much. I behaved really badly towards her. But from today that's enough, from today I will always obey her! I won't displease her anymore! I'll become a good girl!"
She had been repeating these things to herself for almost ten minutes, continually promising herself to get her head straight, when suddenly her sensitive wooden ears heard a strange noise; it sounded like the whine of a wounded beast, but it was accompanied by what seemed like rambling words. Intrigued, she deviated slightly from the path to go and check; even though she had promised Eda to never leave the road she couldn't pass by without making sure no one was in need of help. After all it was a minimal detour, she could be back on the road in a few minutes; Eda would never have noticed it!
So she headed towards the source of the sound and to her enormous surprise what she found were two faces very familiar to her: Adrian and Terra, the latter sitting on the ground grinding her teeth while her companion treated a wound on her leg. "Guys!"
The two tramps were almost as surprised as she was. "Luz? What a pleasure! Where did you come from?" Terra greeted her.
"I was walking nearby and heard some noises. What happened to you?" the puppet asked, pointing to the wound on the woman's leg. It looked like she had been hit hard with a stick.
Terra opened her mouth to respond, but then quickly closed it again as if she didn't know what to say; but Adrian on the contrary chuckled slightly and told Luz: "My friend is too ashamed to say it, so I will answer for her: as we continued we met an old wolf who had been caught in a trap and asked us for help. Terra had the audacity to say: 'Don't worry, I'll take care of it'. Well, she managed to free him... but in doing so she ended up in the trap"
Luz didn't want to, but a laugh still came out of her mouth as Adrian described the scene. Terra hesitated for a moment, as if she didn't know what to say, then she gave her friend a slap: "You shouldn't tell anyone! It's embarrassing!"
Luz bit her tongue as she tried to stop laughing. "It's not true, you were kind to that wolf. Don't worry, I don't think you're embarrassing at all"
Terra let out a huff, swinging her green hair. "You really have a heart of gold, Luz. But trust me, even if we laugh about it now, at that moment I had a really bad time. I got into trouble on my own, and it was my fault that Adrian had to get hurt too because free me"
"How exaggerated, it's just some scratches on my hands" Adrian said showing his palms, on which there were indeed some scratches, although some of them looked more like spider bites, but Luz thought they were probably teeth marks of the trap. "And in any case you're not too bad either. If I stayed still and let you get treated I would have finished half an hour ago"
Adrian grabbed the bandage again and continued to wrap it around his companion's leg, who let out a whimper again and covered her mouth with one hand to avoid saying all the insults she was thinking out loud. "Ugh, Terra, seriously, you're worse than a child sometimes" Adrian grumbled. "I bet Luz would get treated without fuss, and you're at least four times her age"
"Um... actually I made quite a fuss too when I had to get treated" Luz admitted in an attempt to provide some support on the ground.
The two tramps looked at her in confusion. "Treated? For what? Yesterday you seemed fine"
"Well, after we separated, I chose to go to the Field of Miracles as you recommended, but I encountered some assassins in the woods..." Luz explained.
Adrian and Terra widened their eyes and opened their mouths. "Assassins?" the woman exclaimed, getting up even though it was difficult for her due to the wound, and she took the puppet's face in her hands. "Did they hurt you? Are you okay now?"
Luz felt grateful for all that apprehension. "Don't worry, I'm fine now. But I had a really bad time, I risked being hanged"
Terra looked furious with herself. "It was my fault. If I had known there were assassins in these woods I would never have told you about the Field of Miracles. You risked your life...!" she said as a couple of tears fell from her face. "Assassins attacking such a young and sweet girl... where will we end up?"
"Hey, hey, calm down, I'm fine now! And it wasn't your fault!" Luz reassured her. She felt sorry that Terra held herself responsible for what had happened. She was a really good person.
Terra seemed reassured by those words. "Thank you, Luz. Oh, I'm so glad you weren't hurt. But what are you doing in the woods again? If there are assassins here, you shouldn't be wandering around alone!"
"There's no danger, a friend of mine chased them away! And besides, it's well known that assassins only roam at night!" Luz replied. "Now I'm going to meet my mom. She's coming here, so I want to meet her!"
"You're so lovely" Adrian said, interjecting into the conversation. "Tell me, are your two friends, that spider and that cricket, with you?"
"Uh... no, I'm not here at the moment" Luz answered, then she realized something. "Wait... how do you know about Willow? When I met you there was only Gus..."
Adrian seemed taken aback for a moment, but he quickly recovered: "That spider told me about it, don't you remember? When I explained to him how to act he told me that you had a cricket friend"
"Uh... yeah, maybe I don't remember correctly" Luz said. In fact, she didn't remember at all Gus ever telling Adrian about Willow, but there was really no other way he would have known about the cricket's existence. She was probably just distracted when he did it.
"If there is no one with you, then we will accompany you" Adrian suddenly said.
"Yeah! We won't leave you alone in this woods if there really are such scoundrels around!" Terra added. "We will stay with you until you reach your mother, or rather until you both come out of the woods. And if any bad guy tries to get close I will show them that people don't nickname me 'the Fox' just because of my sly smile, but also because I know bite and scratch with the same intensity as an angry canine"
"Me too. Despite what people say, cats are tenacious fighters. And I'm 'the Cat' after all, I don't even need weapons to teach such ugly scoundrels not to get close to honest people" Adrian added proudly beating his fist on his chest.
Luz smiled. She was truly grateful for their kindness, but she didn't want to disturb them. "Guys, I really thank you, but I don't need protection. You can continue on towards the Field of Miracles, I can manage..."
"Absolutely not!" Terra said with extreme determination in her voice. "We made the mistake of leaving you alone once, we won't do it again! The Field of Miracles, tsk... who cares about money, there are much more important things in life! After all, we don't dislike at all the life we've led so far"
Luz was a little confused by those words. "What are you saying? Even if you come with me today, you can always go to the Field of Miracles another day..."
"Another day will be late" Adrian explained. "We found out this morning: the inhabitants of that town have decided that it is now too risky to continue holding that camp, because as we have already explained to you, it attracts too much attention, and given that they already have enough wealth to live comfortably for this and other a hundred lives, they will level it tomorrow so that no one can sow anything on it again"
Luz's heart sank: if that were the case, she too would no longer be able to sow her gold coins! And on top of that Adrian and Terra would have missed their chance too. "You don't have to do that; there's no point in throwing away such a fortune on me..."
"Nonsense. We told you, we're not leaving you alone. It's our choice, not yours" Terra said. "Even if my friend and I went to the Field of Miracles, I would never feel at peace with my conscience knowing that you could have been in danger and I wasn't there to help you. If I have to sacrifice someone to get the money, I prefer remain poor as I am"
"Yeah. Who cares about money" Adrian added. "Don't worry, my friend and I have always managed to survive without much money. We will return to our old life without regrets or tears"
But Luz absolutely didn't want them, and especially herself, to miss the chance to get rich. "Look... how far is the Field of Miracles from here?"
"Huh? Well, from here to the end of the forest it's a couple of kilometres, and then there are the fields, so... I'd say more or less half a day's walk" Adrian replied making a quick calculation.
Luz smiled smugly. "If it's that close, let's go there now! That way you'll still be with me, but none of us will have to lose any money!"
"Really? That would be wonderful!" Terra exclaimed with sparkling eyes. "But... didn't you want to join your mother?"
"Nah, my mom can continue alone. Up ahead there is a house, she will wait for me there; I'm sure she will understand after I bring her thousands of gold coins" Luz replied. She felt a little guilty for having to worry her mother again, and also for the fact that she was breaking the promise she had made to Eda, but such an opportunity only came once in a lifetime and she didn't want to miss it.
Adrian and Terra rubbed their hands together smugly. "In this case, follow us!" they said, and the three of them headed towards the edge of the woods.
In the original book, Pinocchio meets the Cat and the Fox again after leaving the fairy's house to reach Geppetto, and they convince him to go with them to the Field of Miracles, saying that this field was bought by a great lord and that from the next day no one would be able to sow anything else. In this AU the scam, as before, is much more subtle, given that both Adrian and Terra, in addition to once again inventing a more plausible story to justify the haste, play on Luz's sense of guilt, pretending to want to be with her to protect her and to be willing to give up a fortune for her. Truly two despicable beings.