(Mathew, as he was as a five-year-old, is in Appia, an Italy-like nation).
I sprint across the open field heading towards the treeline, jumping over a small ditch, barely making it. As quickly as I can I navigate thru the underbrush. It’s easier than I think, being small has its advantages. I can hear her calling a ways behind me, laughing. I can’t outrun her. Maybe I can outclimb her. I quickly look around and spot a relatively thin tree with low forking boughs I think I can scamper up and up I go. I suddenly remembered this nature show I watched as a kid where in the jungle a sloth up a tree is trying to escape a jaguar. It seems like it can’t be done. The same was happening to me. I was never good at climbing. “Ahhh. Little mage up a tree. Don’t worry, I’ll come get you.” She’s in jaguar form at the base of the tree. I’m about thirty feet up. I keep climbing. I can hear her growling with frustration behind me as the boughs of this tree are thin and she has to climb the one we’re on more like she’s climbing a rope. I’m very high up now, climbing out on a thin branch that reaches and touches a small cluster of branches of a neighboring tree. “You’ve run out of tree, little mage.” The bough is starting to sway a bit back and forth. Just like in that old nature video I do what the sloth did and begin to grasp onto the thin branches of the neighboring tree, I hang partways between both trees. The thin bough she’s on is swaying more, the only branches off this bough are at the top where I am. With a bit of worry in her voice, “Come back little, mage, we’ve had our fun.” I hang onto the net of little branches. She tries to keep climbing up and out on that bough, but there’s not much to grip, she’s has to hang onto the bough from it’s underside. “Come back now. You don’t want to have an accident. You’re valuable to us. Come back now.” Carefully grasping the little branches I slowly cross into the other tree. She growls a bit, starts towards me, gets a foot or two closer, the the bough gives way. She tries to claw and clamber for grip, but she falls and crashes to the ground. I continue my way into the neighboring tree and when I feel like I’m in a secure, steady place, I wait. I think I can make out her body from where I am. She’s in human form. Naked. I wait. I listen. I look around. I wait a few minutes, maybe ten. I don’t know.
