If A Sorcerer Falls In a Forest || Hatfish
Mr. Bae apparently had not been kidding when he said that the squirrel, Karen, liked Hatter.
He had been seeing him more often. On his trips through the park, mostly. Hatter didn’t think it was any different than how his relationships with the other regulars of the shoppe worked. They came around often enough that seeing them outside of the usual environment was weird the first time, but after that it was fine. He’d wave, sometimes get to give Karen a pat on the head or a scratch under the chin, and be on his way again.
Today he had left the shoppe early in the morning and passed through the park on his way to the forest to collect reagents. Now that autumn was officially the season there were some things he needed restocked until next year.
Karen had decided to join him.
Things had been going fine for the first hour or so. Hatter couldn’t understand what Karen was jabbering at him about without Mr. Bae, but that didn’t seem to discourage the squirrel. It did prove to be a proper distraction though because as he was walking along, looking up to watch Karen as he chirped as he had always been taught that it was polite to look at the person who was speaking, he tripped.
A good proper trip that sent him face first into a fallen log. It was still hard enough to split the skin on his forehead where he struck it, send his hat off into the dirt, his fresh bag of reagents clattering from where it rested on his hip, and caused his vision to blur.
It took him minute after he sat up and blink the brightness back into submission in his vision to realize that he was alone. Or, well, not alone-alone as no one ever truly was in these woods, but that Karen was no longer there.
