Prince Jasper yawned and rubbed his eyes as he continued down the trail going east. He had been walking for about 5 hours now, and the sun had begun to rise, thankfully. He knew he would have to rest soon, but that wouldn't happen while he could still see Mornings tracks. He had to find the girls before someone else did. Jasper continued to follow the tracks, wondering, 'Is it a good thing that this has been a very boring walk? Or should I want something to happen so it would wake me up a bit?' Jasper pondered the question, not that is was very important, but just for lack of having anything else to do. He had to hold his eyelids open to see, and even then, his arms would get tired, and let him down. He just repeated this in his mind: 'Just find the girls, just find the girls, find the girls...

Jasper awoke with a start to see the sun much higher in the sky. Groaning, he sat up, trying to remember when he had made himself stop for a break. Turns out, he didn't make himself stop; he had literally just fallen off the trail. He was leaning against a wide tree. Turning his head, he winced, feeling a sharp pain in his head. Yup, he had defiantly slept wrong. But, on a more positive note, he had slept, which was better that the walking zombie he was last night/earlier this morning. Jasper leaned back against the tree as he heard the birds chirping. For some reason, the birds always made him happy. He loved the noise almost all birds made. He closed his eyes and smiled, not intending on going back to sleep, just resting for whatever journey he had ahead. A moment later the smile faded. The birds were stopping! Frowning, Jasper heard a rustling of leaves above him and looked up. The birds were flying away from him! Upset at the bids, he started to talk to them –

-Only to be stopped by the breaking of a branch somewhere behind him. He pushed his back harder against the tree, holding his breath, hoping whatever it was wasn't hungry. He let out the breath as he heard it cracking branches farther away. When he estimated that is was about 40 feet away, he peeked around the tree very slowly, praying it wouldn't catch scent of him. It is not to be said that Jasper was scared – he just had a bad history with animals. He had lost some very close people to very bad animals.

Jasper shook off the sudden feeling of depression that had started to befall him. He needed to concentrate. Jasper wondered what was making such noise in this forest. It couldn't be something native to the area, right? Then it would know how to walk quietly to it could stalk its prey.

A flash of black 50 feet away interrupted his pondering. Realizing that if it was at that distance it would be ok for him to move a bit, he moved his head around the other side of the tree, trying to get a better view. Peering between the branches, he saw –

-Men! Big men! Burly men. And they looked angry. He hoped that they weren't looking for him. He watched as the Biggest Burly Man leaned in and whispered to Shorter Burly Man, pointing to the trail. While he was whispering, Jasper thought he heard a familiar horse whinny. He frowned; Jasper thought he was the only one on this trail, except the girls...

The girls! It was them! 50 feet away! He had to get to them! Looking around the tree again, he silently groaned. There was no way he could get both girls out of there safely without the Burly 5 seeing them. Jasper was a sad spectator as he watched Biggest Burly Man whistle 2 piercing blows, then shot his hand forward. The 4 men around him rushed forward, apparently toward the girls; at this point, there were too many trees for Jasper to see what was going on. He was still in hearing range though, and hear he did. He listened sadly as he heard the two feminine screams, quickly being muffled, presumably by a sack or gag. "Ha ha ha" went the Burly 5, laughing at the girls apparently petty fighting attempts. Listening to them made Jaspers blood boil; they couldn't do that to his girls! Not on is watch – Wait!? What on earth made him call them that!? They weren't his girls, he had just been sent to rescue them. Even though they were only thoughts, Jasper blushed. He had no right to think of them that way. None at all.

While he was futilely trying to cool is cheeks down, he noticed that the Burly 5 had started walking away, with the girls slung over two of their broad shoulders. Jaspers face started over heating when he saw this. With the girls poofy summer dresses on, he could see up higher than he wanted. Casting his eyes down quickly, he realized he would never be able to unseen that. Groaning again, he picked up some old flower petals that were covering the ground and put them against his cheeks, grateful for the dew that remained on them. He knew he would have to tell them about that later. Getting his temperature under control, Jasper picked himself up and started to follow them, but not directly behind them; he didn't need another dress episode. He followed them on a path perpendicular to theirs to be safe. Every few feet he would get a glimpse of the Burly 5's black clothing, or the girls light blue and green dresses.

10 minutes later, Jasper came across a large, lovely clearing, with a beautiful lake in the northern edge of it, and a part log part stone cabin. The cabin was quite large in fact; just shy of the size of a barn. There was also a stable looking place to the right side of the cabin. He noticed there were 4 other trails that led to this clearing from different directions.

Realizing he was getting distracted, Jasper looked left and saw the Burly 5 had set the girls down and taken their sacs off. 'Good for them,' Jasper thought, 'Else I would have had to beat the living daylights out of them.' It didn't occur to Jasper that the only reason he would have done that was because they had put potato sacs of his friend's heads; it wasn't like they had committed murder or anything.

Shaking his head, he saw that Biggest Burly Man was getting ready to talk to the girls. Jasper wanted to hear what he had to say. So, he quietly, if not very stealthily, got close enough to hear what they had to say. "Welcome," he said in a very deep, quiet voice. "To the Wolves Tavern."

Hope you guys are enjoying this. I am trying to update twice a week, but forgive me if i don't.  Have a great week :)