The Goth Villianess

The Winter Games (continued)

After we put on the coats I went to pick up the water proof cloth since we could use it to shield ourselves from the falling snow and prevent us from getting wet. I saw something has been stuck to the inside of the cloth. It was a bit of parchment. I carefully took the parchment and slowly pulled it off the cloth since it had been applied to the cloth with glue, there is no such thing as tape in this world. After taking the parchment carefully off the cloth without ripping it I read it allowed to the others.

A hare with a collar of leaves and berries is running amach in the forest,to progress to your next quest you must catch the hare with the collar of leaves and berries and figure out the riddle it has!

"So we have to find a hare with a wreath around its neck?" I said in a slight questioning tone. "Seems so!" Harvey replied as he took the paper from me and read it himself. We headed off towards the forest since that is where the parchment said to go to find the hare. The further we went in the darker our surroundings became. Harvey and I were the most comfortable in our dark surroundings, Tara was holding onto Harvey by the sleeve of his coat and I was guiding Sophia through the darkest by holding her hand and pulling her behind me as I navigated us through the forest. "How are we meant to find this bloody hare!" Tara growled furiously as she nearly tripped over another rock. "We just have to walk around until we bump into it!" Sophia said to Tara as I stopped her from walking face first into a tree. "It would make more sense for us to hunt it!" Harvey commented seriously "it would take too long for us to wander aimlessly in the hope of finding one creature!". I agreed with Harvey, we weren't making much progress as we were.

We decided to split up at this point, Tara and Sophia would go scouting to figure out how the other teams were doing while Harvey and I would go hunt for the hare since it seems that only him and I could see clearly enough in the dark to actually recognise things. We would meet back up at the river we started at once we finished.
Harvey and I went deeper into the forest while discussing in low voices about how we would catch the hare. Harvey suggested that if we found it we should throw a few rocks at it to kill it so we wouldn't have to run after it. I didn't quite like that plan, we could ruin the riddle that way and the paper said that the hare would give us a riddle so we could need to keep the hare alive to get the riddle. In the end we decided to send a few creatures of darkness to ensnare the hare when we caught sight of it.

We managed to make our way to a clearing and we stopped in our tracks. There sitting on a rock was a hare with a wreath around its neck. Harvey was about to summon some shadows when the hare ran off speedily. In an instant I raced after it while summoning my own creatures and sent them ahead of me. I maneuvered my way around the trees and bushes and jumped over fallen logs in my path. Harvey wasn't far behind me but the hare was still in the lead of our little race. I could see that the rabbit was heading for a dead end. We were coming close to the wall in the area. It seems that we were in one of the corners so all we had to do was block its path away from us. Luckily we didn't have to throw ourselves on the ground to grab the hare. It seems the hare wasn't as good at seeing in the dark as us since it ran head first into the corner and knocked itself out instantly. Honestly for a second I was worried it had killed itself since it hit itself on the head very hard. Luckily it was alive as we confirmed it was breathing. I scooped the hare into my arms and Harvey and I made our way out of the forest. Harvey sent the creatures of darkness away as we emerged from the forest. The sun was setting but at least Tara and Sophia were sitting by the river bank waiting for us.

Seek some grass,
For what you need is glass
Find the sphere,
Before those who you hold dear
Find the bone,
Before the old crone

We managed to bring the hare back to consciousness, I was correct, the hare would tell us the riddle so if we had killed it like Harvey wanted to we would have never been able to proceed in the games. However, we were a bit stuck on the actual riddle itself. The first line was easy, we would have to go to an area with a lot of grass and find something made from glass.
Tara had commented that she thought that the first four lines fit together and we would have to find a crystal ball. I listened to the fourth line again. "Before those you hold dear", did the turtle dove team have to find the same thing as us? Harvey had said earlier before the games that they would likely pit is against each other so that they wouldn't have to make a lot of different challenges and this was some of the teams wouldn't be able to complete their challenges so it would be easier to tell who the winners of the winter games were.
We were unsure if we had go take the hare with us but Sophia scooped the adorable hare into her arms and told us point blank that he was coming with us. None of us wanting to argue with her and knowing we may need the hare to recite the riddle again we let the hare join us while we went off in search of a large patch of grass.

I asked Tara if Sophia and her were successful in scouting out the other teams. She told me they were. I asked her how far the turtle doves were in their challenges. Tara informed me that they looked to be one challenge ahead of us and since there was four challenges we had to complete it would make sense that their last challenge would intertwine with our second last challenge. We would be what would hold them back from winning. "Do you think that the faculty step this up since they know that we care about our fiancées dearly and we would struggle with being the reason they wouldn't win?" I questioned softly. "They may have!" Tara responded while turning her head in different directions to make sure we weren't missing something made from glass in the grass.

Night had fallen and we were about to take a break since we had been walking for hours at this point when I wasn't watching my feet and tripped over something. What was the point at being able to see in the dark when I didn't watch where I was putting my feet. "Are you injured?" Harvey asked me while snickering. "I am no need to rush to help me up!" I said sarcastically while picking myself up while the others were trying hard not to laugh at my own foolishness. I looked down at what I had tripped on and found a ball made from glass beside my foot. "Found the glass and the sphere!" I announced as I grabbed the ball and held it out in front of me.
"Excellent, now all we need is a bone!" Harvey said while taking the ball from me and tucking it into one of the inside pockets of his fur coat. Like many clothing items the men's clothing had bigger and deeper pockets than the woman's.