Once upon a time, there was a town.

This town was of a fairly average size, and while it wasn't overrun with large buildings and corporations, it did have most of the things required for day-to-day living: groceries, restaurants, gas stations, car washes, and the like. It seemed as if there was always a crew doing construction in the area, and at present, the eastern side of town was undergoing renovation.

This construction had long ago reduced the town's eastern border to thin forests that gave way to bluffs, with roads crossing everywhere between them. People who lived on the eastern side of town could hear echoes from the highway at night.

To the north, south, and west of the town there were seemingly endless stretches of hills, most covered thickly with trees, and the occasional clearing. The trees were tall, blocking much of the clearings to anyone who would view it from any view except a directly aerial one, and the trees at the edges of the clearings leaned inward slightly, as if deliberately trying to hide the clearings from sight.

In one such clearing, late at night, a figure paced, mud squelching almost inaudibly beneath feet clad in dark boots. The figure took a few steps in one direction, paused, and turned with a swish of wavy brown hair, walking back the other way. There was another pause, and then the process repeated itself.

"You're going to make yourself dizzy."

It was a male's voice, from the shadows at the edge of the clearing. The figure—a girl, who looked to be around her mid-teens—glanced at the patch of shadows the voice had come from, then grinned.

"Me? Nah. I'm a master of balance."

To prove her point, she stepped onto a half-rotted log, walking lightly across it. The log wobbled and nearly turned over, forcing the girl to step quickly off the log.

"Graceful."

"Yeah, yeah."

Silence fell again in the clearing, except for the usual noises of the forest at night. Crickets chirped; there was an occasional rustling in a patch of weeds near the forest. A few cries came from nocturnal birds, hunting rodents. Above all this was a steady squishing noise as the girl tapped her foot impatiently, ignoring the mud spattering onto the bottoms of her jeans.

"Do you think maybe we should have sent more guards with him?" she finally asked. "I know we've never had hunters here before, they're mainly in the bigger places, of course... but he has been gone an awfully long time."

"I'm sure that, even if there was something that he couldn't take care of himself—" The man paused. "...which is unlikely, anyway... the three guards we sent with him should suffice."

The girl sighed, and leaned against a nearby tree trunk, folding her arms over her T-shirt. "Well, he's sure taking his time, then. He does know that he has to get it finished tonight? After all, we've got the meeting tomorrow, so he won't have time to work on it then—and we'll need it the night after."

"He may be aging, but he's not senile."

She smirked, and started to make a retort, but stopped. Her ears twitched a bit. She stepped away from the trunk, turned around, and peered into the shadowy forest.

"Another squirrel?"

"...No. I think it's him, this time. Heavier footsteps, steady rhythm."

A moment later, the sound of leaves crunching became more audible, and a moment after that, there was visible movement in the forest. An elderly man appeared from the shadows. He wore a long, grey coat with patches in places, and had short, silver hair. He was looking to the sky as he tramped through weeds and vines, and the gibbus moon overhead was reflected in his brown eyes. He lowered his gaze to the girl, who stared steadily back at him.

"Well?"

He smiled. "It's done. Did you maybe think I wouldn't be able to complete it in time?"

"You cut it awfully close last year, from what I heard."

"Yes, but I've never missed the deadline, have I?"

The girl rolled her eyes as the man moved past her, toward the edge of the clearing. "Lurking in the dark again?" he asked, eyeing the shadows in front of him.

"...It's cooler back here. It's always humid after storms, you know how I hate the heat."

"That I do." The silver-haired man stopped just before the shadows, and crouched down with a bit of effort next to a weathered rock that looked half-buried in the mud and muck. He easily lifted it, revealing that the bottom of the rock had been carved out and hollowed. A small hole underneath it was lined with a few layers of patterned cloth. A few items lay on the cloth; there was a rather large fang, many small stones carved with arcane symbols, a flat box, and a strange-looking key. He reached in his pocket, and pulled out four dark blue bottles, setting them in the niche.

The girl had walked over, and was hovering at his shoulder, looking into the niche. "Wait," she said anxiously, "shouldn't we have two more bottles? We're getting three, aren't we? And we should have two for each. So, six bottles—but we only have four."

He shook his head, putting the rock back into place and standing. "I believe we—ah—" He glanced toward the shadows.

"We're getting three," the other man said. "But one is transferring from London, and won't need any... persuasion. You'll meet him tomorrow."

"Oh. Right." The girl stuck her hands in her pockets. "So... That's it, then?"

"That's it." There were sounds from the shadows, of the man standing. "You'll need to get some rest. The sun's about up, and we've got some full nights ahead."

The girl yawned, and stretched, walking across the clearing toward a trail. The old man walked back into the forest, carefully stepping over large branches and tangles of vines, and the shadows were silent once more.

A few minutes later, the sun rose over an empty clearing.