As he seated himself once more next to them, half-surprised that the sun was still high, Wul and Vydis acknowledged his return with a glance and a nod. Silence ensued, filled with the lullabies of the leaves and the scurrying of Skëadh's smallest children, broken only by the sound of Vydis' knife biting into the wood. Robird thought he could hear the forest breathing. He closed his eyes and tried to draw as much of it into his own lungs, then let it flow out with a sigh beginning in content and ending in frustration.

"Oaks," he hummed, knowing that would be enough for Wul to begin. He could sense the hunter nodding next to him.

"Useful trees. Tough wood. You can use the acorns for flour, if you leach them in cold water, or eat them if you leach them hot. Uses plenty water though."

He paused and looked around. Several oaks grew within sight, neither young not old ones. Then he continued.

"The old ones are very useful to the forest. Whole kingdoms in their own right, they are. So much life about them, even when they're dead. Bugs, birds, moss, lichen... Many grow far from their mother tree, from the hoards of squirrels."

There he fell silent once more, making room for Robird's inevitable next question. He was always full of them - there never seemed to be an end to them and they usually veered wildly, leaping from answer to question like a squirrel between trees. One sentence from Wul could prompt half a dozen questions and he'd be at a loss for which to ask, hoping that the others would be answered someday too. It made him wonder where all unanswered questions went.

But today, there was one particular question he needed answered and he didn't know how to put it in words. There was something in Wul's brief oak lore though that he could hook onto. What was it now? Frowning, eyes closed, he grasped for it and gently tugged, as if drawing in a fish that had bitten.

"Mother tree..." he mused. "What about father tree? Aren't oaks both?"

This caused the hunter to actually stop his work and turn slowly towards the young man. 

"Now that is a thought," he conceded. "I don't rightly know. If they are, then I'd say all trees are." He paused, rubbing his stubbly chin. "The tree where the fruit grew is what I call the mother tree, be the fruit acorn, berry or pear.  A father tree ought to cause fruit but not bear it, just like with beasts. But who ever saw a tree that never bore fruit?"

"Holly," said Vydis huskily.

Robird and Wul both turned towards her in surprise. Not so much at her speaking at all - that was not unusual, but only when she saw something they missed.

"There are holly trees that never bear fruit?" Robird asked.

"Why have I not thought of that?" Wul said, nodding. "I must watch the holly more carefully."

"No need," said Vydis. "Not very useful, expect they're pretty. But only some of them ever have berries. You can tell which from the flowers. Those that do have a large nub in the middle and small ones on the stalks around. On those that don't, it's the other way."

They pondered this for the space of a slow breath. Then Wul resumed.

"Oaks have flowers too. Nothing you'd make a midsummer's wreath out of, just little green tufts or knobs with some purple in them. I daresay... that's two kinds of flowers on the same tree. Mayhaps they really are both mother and father. Maybe only one sort of oak flower grows acorns? I have to watch them." He shook his head in awe, then turned to Robird. "Baffling. How did you come by that thought?"

"Oh, I..." Robird blushed, unprepared for the question. But he had an inkling of how to explain without revealing too much. "I had a strange dream. I've been visiting a great oak on a hill."

 "Ah," Wul said. "The King."

Robird lost his speech and stared. "The... the King?" he managed at last.

Wul shrugged, an unusual gesture for him. "What else to call such a tree? A dream, you said?"

"Oh, aye... I dreamt that I went into that hill and met the... the King. Sceptre, crown and all. And a princess. He asked me to marry her and have a son. And..." he frowned, trying to remember his talk with the Oak king under the hill, then gave up. "We talked about it. At some point he told me that oaks are man and woman at the same time." He grinned sheepishly. "Strange dream."

"I daresay," Wul said again. "So did you marry her?"

Heat exploded on Robird's cheeks and he stammered. "I woke up," he said. "If I dream it again, maybe. I mean, how can a man marry an oak?"

"In dreams, all is possible," said Wul. Vydis hummed agreement, smiling.

Flustered, Robird realised that this was his chance to ask their advise - but that now he couldn't do so without admitting that it might not have been a dream. That he even believed it was not. Would they believe that he was dreaming awake? Demented, like poor old Yerken?

Silently floundering, he cast about for another way of asking what he needed without appearing to be raving. His frantic mind stumbled upon another thought he'd had yesterday and without hesitation, he dived into it.

"Going into the hill, too, that was strange. Isn't that where otherfolk live? They looked otherfolkish, those oaks in my dream."

Wul chuckled. "That's what the tales say, aye. Sometimes in enchanted glades or trees, but mostly in hills. The tales I've heard, they always take the guise of beasts. Fox, deer, eagle... but I guess they could look like oaks if they please."

"Have you seen them?" Robird asked eagerly. The tales of the otherfolk were told by the hearth at home, he never connected them to the hunter's. Here, the tales of the living, waking forest were wondrous enough. But Wul said nothing, picking up another snare for inspection. There was a mischievous smile on his lips though and Robird waited, expecting more.

"I have," he heard from behind him.

Turning around, he looked straight into Vydis' eyes. She rarely met his gaze and when she did, she usually appeared to be looking into the distance rather than at him. Now, for the first time, they were clear and sharp, digging into him like full moons. And her smile was gone. A sudden chill ran down his spine, spreading out into every last limb of his body and numbing it, at this new face of Vydis suddenly before him. He couldn't speak.

"They are beings made of living dreams," she said. "I could have stayed with them. I wanted to." She nodded at Wul. "He woke me up. I was so angry with him."

"You were," Wul agreed. "You tried to claw my eyes out."

Vydis laughed once, briefly but sincerely, and the moons of her eyes misted over once more, the smile back in place. "You held me. And I'm glad. This is home. With them, I'd have been..." she searched for words. "Not Vydis," she concluded. "I'm glad to be me."

Robird nodded, the spell broken. But where did that leave him?

"Has anyone married into the otherfolk and yet remained themselves?" he asked. "In the tales, I mean?" he added, hurriedly.

"Tales or no," Wul said, "I haven't heard. Still thinking of your dream of oaks?"

"I am," Robird admitted. "Say I'd marry that princess in the dream. Would I be lost?"

Wul silently rubbed his chin again, but before he could come up with anything that made sense, Vydis spoke.

"Not if you can wake up again, young one. Some people can find their way between dreams and waking." She turned to him again, eyes and smile soft and distant as ever. "Those who see the wonder of tales both of the waking and the dreaming... perhaps those are the kind who can."

Then she resumed her carving as if nothing remained to be said. That was the thing about Vydis. When she talked, she would either say something practical like pass the knife, please, or she would talk in riddles, all in the same tone of voice. Robird turned to look helplessly at Wul.

"I've no better answer for you," said the hunter, gently pulling a snare string between his fingers. "Better ask a storyteller about the otherfolk. I've no lore of them."

Robird nodded and rose. "Thank you," he sighed. "Where are Ylwi and Arnir?"

"About," said Wul, meaning anywhere within an hour's walk.

"Tarn, may be," said Vydis.

Robird stood for a moment watching them, engrossed in their work. They looked as if they'd forgotten all about him, yet he knew that they were as aware of him as of everything around them. If needed, they would talk. If nothing more needed to be said, they would not. Robird had what answers they could give him and they all knew it.

Silently smiling, he turned and walked towards the tarn.