p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Real grand of you, miss," Puck drawled as he stepped out of the tree line, startling the woman enough to jump and nearly crumple on her bleeding leg. He still clutched his nose, though the bleeding had stopped rather quickly after the impact. Luck had allowed him to catch hold of a branch before the satchel could drop him to the ground; the last thing he needed was to draw the hedge wolves' attention to himself./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanThe bag hung in his grip, and Puck lifted it up like a severed head, a trophy of a battle. Something miniscule inside it thrashed and clawed at the fabric. "Troublemaker, aren't ya? Pissing off hedge wolves enough to chase you this far out into the wyldwood, then nailing me in the face with your purse." She cringed when he dropped the hand covering his nose to flash a wolfish smile. He knew dried blood was smeared down to his chin. "Looks like you just can't catch a break, huh?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"I had no intention of hurting you. I hadn't known you were there when I threw it. I'm sorry." Puck lowered the bag and held it out for her to collect, but she only took a step away from him. Skittish thing, he thought. Probably had never been outside of the Iron Realm. After a couple more beats, he tossed it the small radius of the clearing. She did not move to catch it, instead watching it soar and land just to her right. Her eyes jumped between it and him; not a muscle unwound as she teetered on her fight-or-flight. Puck huffed a laugh and sat on the spot. Crossing his legs, he propped an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"I'm not gonna do anything to you. Fix your leg." After another hesitant glance, she dropped to one knee and clutched at the bag. Whatever was inside had kicked up its fighting again, and he heard the woman's muttering as she tried to free it./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanA piskie shot up like a firework, matched with a high-pitched, metallic whine. It disappeared into the canopy, and while Puck tilted his head back to see it would barrel back down, he caught a wisp of a laugh. His neck popped as he looked back to her, injured leg stretched out with the other tucked beneath her. A roll of bandages unraveled in idle fingers as she watched him back, a blip of a smile in place./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"She's a bit…wonky."/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"You don't say," he answered as the piskie's shriek zipped by somewhere in the woods behind him. Gasping a laugh, she bowed her head to roll the remains of her pant leg up to her knee. A clear bottle of clear liquid came from her bag, and a splash of that to the wound made her yelp. The noise sent the piskie careening in from the trees to glance across the crown of her head, whipping up a cloud of strands loose from her ponytail. Puck barely managed a snicker before the speck zoomed by and nicked his ear./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Alloy!" The piskie trilled and rushed back to the woman, ripping into Puck's sleeve. She swung at it like killing an insect and trapped it between her hand and the ground. Its muffled screeches reached him as she fished a clear casing, meant to display a necklace, from her bag. She dropped the fistful of dirt and piskie into it and snapped it shut. The piskie, Alloy, writhed violently in its container, knocking itself from the woman's hand and throwing itself about./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanPuck cackled at the wasp-like fury and sounds of the little thing, and the Iron fey timidly joined. Her hands made quick work of the bandaging, a neat sleeve curling up her leg just turning pink as she yanked her pant down over it. She rocketed to her feet, stumbling in her haste to test the injury. That moment of fragile truce must have fled her, for before Puck could stand and attempt to help steady her, she had collected her bag and thrown the livid piskie in. Panic seized her expression as he stepped closer./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span"Hey, like I said, I'm not gonna-." A caterwaul muted by distance silenced him and trained both their attention toward her clumsy warpath./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanIn an instant, her body wound itself tight, and with a near-shrill, "Bye," she shot off in the opposite direction./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanPuck watched her go, listened to the trampled grass and snapping branches and frantic footfalls until he was sure he could not easily track her. He was finally learning; he knew that continuing to fraternize with the iron gal would land him in a parallel situation that Ice Boy and Meg did. There was a reason she was in the wyldwood, and it was in his best interest to not entangle himself in it./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanHe turned and made to blaze a path perpendicular to hers, thinking of how much trouble he was saving himself from by having some goddamn common sense for once./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanJust as quickly, he swiveled on his heel, muttering an exasperated, "What the fuck." Since when did he have common sense? That shit got in the way of all the fun, and just as much as that girl reeked of trouble, she was a shining opportunity to wreak havoc./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanHopefully, she had only made a bee-line toward the border of the Iron Realm./p