Exploring... (Open!)

[Gwynivere Fiennes]

A beautiful day. There was simply no other way to describe it. Gwynivere knew that there were days that one could simply call beautiful in attempt to make it so, but the day that she had experienced had needed no false proclamations.

The sun was setting, and through the trees a gorgeous golden-red light shone down through in little patterns, falling in little haphazard patches on the floor of, what appeared to Gwyn, a forest. She kept making her way through the trees, her chosen path ever-winding and twisting around in strange directions, though she never tired of it, for it always seemed new to her. And, in all reality, it was new. Gwyn had never been to such a place before, where the sun shone beautifully through the trees, or where such a path could be chosen.

Gwyn looked around her before setting up her blankets to rest on for the night. It was something she'd done since her very first expedition; checking her surroundings, that was. She liked to feel safe, sleeping out in the open, fulling exposed to all matter of wildlife both kind and not. She gauged the area that she was in and found it to be of little or no threat, and so from her bag she pulled two blankets. The first one, which was plaid and made of wool, she laid out on the ground on the softest spot that she could find, and the second, which was merely woven, she spread out on top of the first, to be used later to shield herself from the wind and cold.

Once Gwyn had set up her bed for the night, she set her bag down on top of it and headed off to explore a little bit of the land before the sun disappeared completely. It was then, as she poked through the trees, that she found a small clearing, in the middle of which stood a tree. Well, at least Gwyn thought it was a tree at first, but upon further inspection, she discovered that it was a lamp post. It amazed her that it was burning, and she realized that it must have been the post that her mother had told her about long ago; ever-burning for reasons even her father, whom she'd considered to be the most knowledgeable in all the land, had not known.

And so, Gwynivere went hastily back through the trees and found her belonings, which she proceeded to pick up and relocate. She repeated the bed-making routine that she'd done just moments ago and felt better knowing that she would sleep beneath such a lamp post. However, just as she pulled her book out of her bag and sat down on the blankets to enjoy it in the fading light of the sun, she heard a noise from in front of her and looked up abruptly.