The race had been going splendidly until somewhere in the forest - if this was the forest at all, for he had been sunk into pitch darkness and blinding light and at some point in between he had managed to lose all sense of where he was. The last thing he recalled was his teapot - which he had been riding in for a time, and had planned to later turn into a Viking-esque flying ship for the last leg over the lake - had, in the profusion and confusion of spellcasting, sprouted ostrich legs and sprinted off into the distance without him, and then Ewart had accidentally Vanished himself.

Or perhaps he had just hit his head, because when he regained consciousness or reappeared into Existence, he had somehow been thrown into the cradling branches of a tree, and was bleeding profusely from his forehead. The blood would be getting in his eyes but, fortunately, for the moment he was hanging upside down. And yet: no sign of the race.

And his head really was a jumble, from the vanishing. He had hoped to pull himself up to a more horizontal situation on the branch, but even if he had heard all the distant calling, he was not certain he would have recognised a familiar voice, nor indeed his own name. What he did hear, however, was - 

“Tea?” Ewart echoed, considering hauling himself up now and potentially even navigating a way down from the tree. His next exclamation was rather louder. “Did someone say tea?”

---