The group of brave, yet cautious lost walked miles through the hedge, miles if such measurements could to accurately applied in a realm such as this. For, the difference in topography from one bend in the trail to the next was radical, with surprise switchbacks, steep hills, and sudden declines in the land revealing a soreness in muscles that even the most experienced hikers among them didn't often feel.
Regardless, the path eventually evened out again, and the changelings found the hedge thinning as they came upon another trail, this one almost three times as wide and made of well packed clay rather than the shallow creak of ash and embers that had lead them onward. It was a trod, a minor one, but a trod nonetheless. Twisted trunks rose alonside the clay path, and great boughs wove together in intermittent tangles that let pools of sunlight spill conveniently through so that the travelers would alternate between the refreshing touch of shadow and that of light.
And, further northward (or what felt like it might be north) came the sounds of sorrow...
Ten minutes of walking later and the Lost found the trees thinning to reveal a cross roads, and in the middle of the cross roads, was a group of figures bent in grief. Eight figures, some small and squat, other tall and twisted, and even a few resembled something like centaurs, though each leg belonged to a different animal. All were bedecked in what should have been gay attire, colorful and tasseled, with bits of glass and metal sparkling in the sun. Yet it was not joy that caused tears to pour from beneath the masks that each of these creatures wore. It was the lynched figure hanging above them, it's battered body and twisted features, with tongue bulging from between broken teeth, and eyes turned red from popped blood vessels...
From the attire, it was clear that the hanged man had once been a companion of these tragic figures, though unlike all the others, it bore no mask, and no mask was in sight.
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