She had come to the Fairtree Farm celebration this summer, but otherwise the season had mostly taken priority – but now, with that beginning to wind down, there were much fewer invitations to save her from spending her days with her father and his work at the Glen. She was roaming the Yarwood grounds alone – because the dragon reserve was entirely off limits, but she could do so freely here – with a sketchbook in hand and watercolours and a book in her bag, though she had very little motivation to use them. She would rather get her boots a little muddy today, if there was no one to potentially see her but the Yarwoods – Mrs. Yarwood would not care a whit, and Mattie did not much care what her sons thought. Her father would be less pleased if she went off adventuring, but she would present him with a pretty picturesque watercolour of the valleys to spare him thinking on it.

But here was someone coming up in the landscape, altogether closer to ‘home’ than Mattie had expected to find anyone, save perhaps a gardener. “Miss Enid! How nice to see you,” Mattie answered promptly, with a grin. She nodded. “Mm – my father and his research,” she explained, carelessly – and meanwhile, she had been left to her own devices until dinner. “And where are you off to?”

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