The Wooded Balance
The carousing in the woodland began at dusk, as it always did. Only, this night was different because of the hunting. Hunting only happened on special nights. The nights that followed days when the wood had been invaded.
By people. With their wily ways.
Wily ways mattered to the woodland creatures because it meant that kindred were harmed. But it did not dull the revels; it only changed them. For on those nights, the nights when their numbers had been lessened, they visited the invaders. The people in their beds. And gave them dreams.
And when the night was over — the creatures with their hunting, the people waking from their haunting — the balance sat level.
Until, of course, it tipped again.