Though the frigid air held all the signs of a Scottish winter, the dreariness of snow and slush was sometimes absent in patches of the Forbidden Forest. The canopy was so thick that the snow only accumulated in some areas, wind and creature activity leaving the other sections of forest bare.

It was here, at the base of a great oak where the Champions awoke after the timed effects of the sleeping potion consumed at the start of the Task. Around them the trees were oddly uniform, placed apart like the columns of the castle's architecture. However visibility was still low. Shrubbery of various kinds grew up in irregular patches amongst the tall trunked sentinels.

Grouped together on the frozen muddy ground where the champions of three different schools: Kayla Austin, Leonardo Duarte, and Lyov Molchenoff, not a hair out of place from their time at the grandstand in front of the forest as the last of the potion's grogginess left them.

There were no other people around, save the ambience of nocturnal activity in the forest. A very loud ambience. Frightfully loud. If the sleeping potion had not been timed for only a few minutes, the loud thrashings and crashings, the echoing thwomps of great weights hitting the ground and cracklings of trees being hit with splintering force, could have easily awoken the champions from their magically induced slumber.

The din was uncomfortably close, several yards behind the champions. They way the wavering needle on Lyov's compass was pointing.

Lyov blinked lazily as a hand slipped up to hide a yawn. It felt as if he’d just fallen asleep. An arm stretched outwards as his legs flexed. Wait... A noise (akin to what Lyov imagined two giants playing fetch would sound like) sent a shock through him. With the sudden start, he sat up, all too quickly remembering where they had been. Now he was somewhere else, with no recollection of how he got from A to B. Add to the fact that the snow was nearly blinding as he tried to focus, and Lyov made a face as he attempted to shield the sun and white with one hand while the other pulled his wand out swiftly.

As he groped mentally for an explanation, he recalled the vial. A curse almost rose to his lips before he pursed them tightly (partly to keep from chattering from lying on the cool ground). Seconds had passed since he had woken up. Lyov quickly but quietly rolled over on to his knees, pushing himself up slowly as he examined his teammates.

His surprise was evident as his eyes widened, as if he’d bitten into a vomit flavored Bertie Bott’s (which was not his most favorite memory). Eyes narrowed as he took in the friendly face of one of the Salemites. Ausmen? Something like that... His gaze lingered a moment as he considered the implications. Was this a hide-and-seek for his school teammates? He briefly took in the Beauxbatons male, frowning before running a hand over his pockets, feeling around for the compass.

Relief washed through him when he felt it, and he quickly pulled it out. The needle bounced expectedly in a direction. He spared one last glance towards the two before he started for the trees.

Lyov, it appeared, was not going to stick around.

Unfortunately the compass appeared to be leading to greater peril, straight towards the sound of monstrous commotion. There was a great splintering crack and a tree collapsed in front of Lyov's path. It surely would have crushed him had he been faster.

In the darkness of the wood the 'what' that had managed to collapse a tree couldn't be made out, but it was massive.

Had that last crash been enough to awake the other champions prone just a few yards away?

It was only a little blip before she opened her eyes, no time at all, but things had changed a great deal between Kayla accepting the vial and waking up. She didn't move for a moment, wide eyes tracking the canopy above her and the brush to her side. Then another great crash like the one that must have woken her sent her flying to her feet. Kayla pressed her back against the tree she'd woken besides, eyes darting about as she drew her wand.

At her feet was the body of another Champion, a Beauxbatons boy whose name she didn't remember. His chest rose and fell steadily, still asleep. And just at the edge of the clearing was a Durmstrang delegate, his wand out too, a massive tree newly fallen creaking and groaning as it settled in front of him. The edges of its jagged break were viciously pale.

And there was something... just beyond the tree...

Panicking a bit Kayla's foot shot out to prod Beauxbatons champion awake. Even though he was a competitor, it was impossible to let him lie there helpless with danger approaching. "Wake up," she hissed, and then without waiting for him darted along the treeline towards Lyov and whatever it was that had felled the tree. She didn't cast any spells but nor did she ever step very far from the trees, scurrying from one to another like they held a safety the open spaces didn't. Her eyes were very wide and her hands trembled when she stroked the bark of each, but even frightened Kayla was filled with a growing, white-hot excitement as well. Her mouth twitched in an uncertain but inexorable smile. It was exciting, wasn't it? She didn't think the professors would have put together anything they didn't really think their students could face, and surrounded by forest she felt confident in her ability to disappear amongst the trees if needed.

Leo stirred, sitting up slowly and rubbing his eyes in an attempt to get the last of the grogginess away. He wasn’t sure what exactly woke him up, but the way he felt indicated that it wasn’t a natural one—an external force had awoken him. Then he realized what it was—there was an absolutely beautiful woman prodding him with her foot and hissing, “Wake up!” He gave her a large grin and got to his feet. “Well, if only I woke up to you more often.” His accent was something that was difficult to place, typical of people who have lived in many different settings in a lifetime.

He followed her gaze, and saw that the Durmstrang delegate was by a tree that had just felled. He followed the Salem student, pulling his wand out quickly.  “Well well, it’s already began.” He whispered, his voice barely loud enough for her to hear.  He looked up at the trees—climbing into them wouldn’t be the best of ideas, if there was a creature out there that could topple trees. Imagine all the potential crushed spines if a tree fell on them, or fell while they were in it. No, it would be better, he thought, to use the other two students as human shields.

Along with the tree toppling before Lyov the was a black mass, scarcely defined by a pair of glowing golden eyes that looked extremely displeased.

Had there been better light the champions might discern the form of a nightmarish mare, like a land dwelling kelpie. Not that Beverly considered herself akin to kelpies all that much. She took more of a 'cannonball!' approach to jumping into a lake as opposed to the frequent kelpie method of 'drag victims under, eat them to pieces.'

Her snort upon standing blew up dust in a several foot radius. Perhaps she should have followed her gut reaction on there being something off about the forest tonight. Because honestly, Beverly had been minding her own business when suddenly a great big bloody snake attacked her. And between the two of them enough trees had been broken to please an enterprising lumberjack.

"Trail of unbroken poo!" came a guttural growl that seemed to echo through the trees. The nasty pipecrawler probably smelled like poo. And...people?

The glowing eyes turned, senses telling Beverly that there were bigjob wizards out tonight. Young bigjob wizards. Just great.

The snap of massive jaws swallowed the last of the demon mare's growl. Nagendra -- the 'great big bloody snake' in question -- snapped the fifty-foot length of his tail through the champion's line of sight, its bulk little more than a mass of shadow and force in the gloom. A sapling that stood between him and the mare -- foul fae, wicked soul! -- snapped clean in two, its top half spiraling end-over-end and crashing into the larger trunk three feet to Molchenoff's right. The pooka was missed by mere inches.

Nagendra drew his body back and rose from the ground, horned head rising six, seven, eight feet into the air. His body curled behind him, nearly fifty feet long and wider than most of the forest's trees. He hissed, which rumbled low like the memory of an earthquake. He had been hunting, as he always did since the lake ice gave way, when he'd caught scent of the foul fairy fiend that dared to infect his territory. The creature could not be tolerated and yet...

Another scent upon the tongue. Not forest. Humans. Student-humans. Two strangers. One he knew.

He saw the pooka's golden eyes turn towards the champions, towards Mother's friend, his friend. Old World Fae were vicious, it would hurt the humans, hurt her, hurt his friend!

He lunged, jaws snapping with intent to pierce the horse's throat. His tail snapped after him like a massive whip, shattering half a tree and passing so close to the champions that the wind it created threatened to knock them to the ground.

Lyov was determined to win, and he realized that meant finding his school mates. Just because he realized it didn’t make it right, of course. The commotion paused his footing only a moment before he continued forward. Well, until the tree fell right where he was going to go, forcing him to backpedal with eyes wide and breath caught in his throat. He stumbled and nearly fell butt first into the snow, eyes continuing to widen as he noticed how... large whatever-it-was was.

The soft voice behind him made him stiffen, but the hair on the back of his neck was all ready at full attention as he attempted to focus on whatever was moving out beyond the tree line. Lyov realized he was taking small, cautious steps back away from the unknown and forced himself to stop. How childish! His jaw clenched before he dug his feet in, wand clenched in hand.

He glanced only momentarily to the noise of the Salem student stomping through the snow. He narrowed his eyes at her and put a finger to his lips, still gripping the compass tightly in his fist. The commotion focused his attention once more, however, and he barely had time to notice a movement in the shadows before another tree was maimed. He covered his eyes with his arm, back tracking another couple of steps. Fine! He was stuck with these two. The compass was placed back in his pocket before he motioned farther away from the commotion to Kayla.

Maybe they could get around whatever was out there. Lyov continued to glance over his shoulder, eyes darting around as he tried to acknowledge the direction of noise. He hardly noticed how his hand trembled slightly while holding his wand.

Despite the toppling trees there wasn't much to be seen. But something out there waited. She could tell by the little things, though she wasn't close enough to see the glowing yellow eyes in the dark - she could tell by the sliding crunches, the dark stir beyond, the almost-audible growl of something like... words?

She tried to think of sentient beasts big enough to do this and smart enough to talk, but her first thought - troll? - she knew was wrong before she devoted half a second's energy to pursuing it. And before she could think much more - snap! another tree broke in half with the uncurling whip of some dark and monstrous thing. Even though the broken wood landed closer to Lyov than Kayla she still jumped, her eyes straining to see through the murky shadows. Shaking her head in irritation she raised her wand to her temple. "Accumensis!" A short pop of yellow light expanded from her wand towards her eyes, and suddenly the dark forest was a perfectly visible landscape of faded grays and greens.

No sooner had she cast then the great snake struck. Kayla's jaw dropped. "Naggie?" Her shout was mostly swallowed by the wind created by the snake's whipping tail; Kayla planted her feet firmly and didn't fall, but now her mind was racing.

It was disloyal to Taryn, but her first thought was that the snake hadn't been able to be tamed after all. She hadn't seen Nagendra in ages and had considered darkly that the horned serpent must be getting large, too large to be hidden. But hidden Nagendra had been, and very well. Taryn must've brought him out to the Forest months ago....

But Nagendra was clearly not after them, and a moment later Kayla felt some little chill of abashed relief. So if he wasn't after them... was he even supposed to be in the Task? Was he protecting them? Why was he here? Or maybe the better question was, what would a snake that size consider a threat? There were no clear glimpses of anything else - even with her improved vision, Beverly's form was still masked by the trees.

She went to turn to the Beauxbatons student - fortunately now the Durmstrang one was near too. "There's a serpent," she told them, not really looking at either one but still keeping her eyes on the thrashing, fighting Nagendra. "But he won't hurt us, so don't hurt him. He's after something else that's here." Lyov had been given the compass, hadn't he? They were meant to move. "Let's go while he's covering us."

“THERE IS A SNAKE!” Leo exclaimed, “A giant---“ He sputtered, “Joder!” he cursed, pulling out his wand and pointing it at the snake.

“There’s only one way to do this.”  He said sternly, looking from Kayla. “I don’t think we need to be covered by it. We need to defeat it!” He had no idea about Nagendra. All he knew, was there was a giant freakin’ snake in the middle of the challenge. It wasn’t attacking them yet, but it might be attacking them soon. Maybe it was so large that it didn’t notice them? He wasn’t sure. 

“We have to kill this thing.” Leo said darkly. “It’s us, or it.”  This had to have been part of the challenge, right? “Or, maybe not kill it but…” Then it registered what Kayla said. The serpent was after something else… Was it being here pure coincidence? Leo cleared his throat and tried to refocus himself. This was too weird. Way, way too weird.

“How do you know he won’t hurt us?!” Leonardo hissed, “Are you two friends?!” Yes, like a creepy, giant snake would be friends with humans. His wand was still pointed at Nagendra, though he wasn't so quick to attack him yet.

As he quickly (and as quietly as possible) made his way back towards the other two students, Lyov pursed his lips as he considered options. They either could go left... or right. Straight through was not an option, what with the sound of trees toppling over. Unless, of course, it didn’t catch him. At which point, as they say, all is fair...

Eyes narrowed as he listened to Kayla, glancing over his shoulder once again; he attempted to see through the shadows. A giant serpent was hunting something as equally as dangerous mere meters from them. “We should-”

The shouting startled Lyov for a moment, forcing him to stand up straight as if he’d been hit on his ass with a rod. How did Beauxbatons even qualify for the Tournament?! Eyes widened as he stood stock still, considering options. The fury took over his face, turning it a light shade of red. His first was to silence him and bind him and drag him behind them. Perhaps, however, it would be easier to just leave him after doing that.

Lyov made a disgusted face at Duarte. “You need to keep your voice down.” His was an octave lower than usual, but stern and clipped. It threatened without words. His wand was also pointed in the boy’s direction, though not quite with intent behind it. Just a casual ‘my wand points to you’ sort of way.

“Are you two friends?!”

Blinking as he glanced towards Austin briefly, he took a slow breath, attempting to calm himself. He wanted to knot the boy’s tongue and leave him to it. A wonderfully simple hex... it could definitely be a pinch painful...  Whether or not she made friends with a snake that could eat them all for a snack was the least of their concern. Taking a step towards Duarte, his wand came up, an extension of his arm, as he shook it at him. “Our goal is the snidget.” His voice stayed calm and loud enough to stay above the sound of breaking trees.

Finally he felt his jaw loosen up just a little, his whole body still tight and ready to jump like a coiled up spring. His gaze snapped to Kayla. “We have to go that direction.” His other hand, the one not still pointing towards Duarte, waved absentmindedly towards the craziness in the trees. “Let’s go around.” He pointed to their left, Duarte’s right, finally looking back at the Beauxbatons student. “Unless you’d like to stay and battle these creatures yourself. I want to win.”

The French student was sort of excitable, wasn't he? Kayla's gaze flashed to him, startled - of course she had no way of explaining how she knew the snake, and perhaps she would have stammered a bit if Leonardo hadn't pointed his wand with the dark little, "we have to kill the snake."

"No, no," she said in an explosive low murmur, indignant, panicked, "It's not after us, don't you dare!" Her hand pushed at his holding the wand insistently; usually so good-natured, she wasn't afraid to glare.

Lyov, though terse, took her words seriously. She had taken offense at Leonardo's intent; he did so at the other boy's volume. His point, she supposed, was also fair and she quieted herself though she hadn't been any louder than Leonardo. He was commanding and it made her want to stand straighter, find a way to be helpful; she also wanted to win, though she had forgotten. "I can see in this," she said, looking to Lyov. "Kind of like a cat - limited color, but it's better than our normal sight. The spell for it's 'accumensis,' tap your forehead when you cast." And quickly she demonstrated the right snap of the wrist to go with the movement for nighttime sight. They were a team, after all. She couldn't be the only one to benefit. "You have the compass, right? Lead on."

“Fine, fine!” He hissed as she pushed at his hand, “I’m not going to hurt it.” Though Leo didn’t understand what that giant snake was doing here in the first place. He assumed that the other teams weren’t having to deal with snakes. Now that he had a few seconds more to rethink this decision, he could see how the snake could be an asset—if only he was a parselmouth!

Leo scowled at Lyov and let out some sort of grunt of resignation. The Durmstrang student was right—he was being too loud, and it was reckless. It would only hinder them rather than help. Still, he wasn’t going to admit that. After all, who was he without his pride?  Still, he wanted to win. He felt a bit chagrined that it took another person to remind him. Ugh.

He listened to Kayla and nodded stiffly. Leo tapped his forehead. “Accumensis.”

She was right—his vision was better, things looked much crisper, clearer. He didn’t notice too much of a difference in colour—but he supposed it had something to do with his colourblindness before the spell.

“Gracias.” He thanked Kayla, giving her another stiff nod. He glanced in the direction that Lyov suggested before looking at him. “You have the compass, yes? You lead.”  Leo was thankful that he didn't have the compass-- not being in the lead meant that he had more time to react to dangerous obstacles.

It turned out that the champions were smart to not get wrapped up in the tangle of the titan creatures. The fangs sinking towards the neck of the horse-like apparition caused it to ignore the champions, though another tree was felled as the beasts bucked and feuded.

Or rather, for Kayla and Leonardo under the effects of the low light vision spell, the glowing golden eyes from the spectral horse became too harsh and bright, nearly blinding.

The compass led safely away deeper into the forest. After a few minutes it quivered, wavering back and forth very fast as the champions approached some ruined rocks. There were tall poles peaking up into the darkness with baskets on the end. In the dark of one structure, what appeared to be cauldrons, bats, and brooms.

It was eerily silent until the screeching started. The screeching of seven ape sized monkeys with wings, all hooting and hollering in the air fighting over their prize.

Their prize? One of them had acquired a small cage, the sole occupant a tiny Golden Snidget...right where the compass was pointing as it was tossed about.

Lyov considered Austin’s spell, weighing it in his mind. When Duarte was quick to jump on it, Lyov decided to wait. He spoke the spell in his mind a few times, thinking it over and over again, in case he needed to use it. Worst case, he could attempt legilimency on either student; then he could get an idea of what they were seeing. It wasn’t easy, and the more talented a student, the less likely he was to succeed. But if they didn’t know occlumency...

Plus, he’d been practicing on Magdalena. She was steps above this lot. If he could get through her attempts at occlumency, then he could surprise them with it too. Lyov nearly rolled his eyes at both students encouraging him to lead on, even after he had motioned them the direction to go. Still, he rolled his shoulders a moment before giving them both a smirk. It had a hint of something unfriendly in it, but he merely nodded, stepping off to his left. His feet were cold in his boots, and his ears were frozen. If they moved, he could hopefully stop his fingers from adhering to his wand and compass. It was refreshing, in a way, to feel cold to the bone. A reminder of home.

Once they passed the thundering sounds of battle, and trees falling everywhere, Lyov pulled out the compass, squinting at it as he watched the needle bounce. His other hand absentmindedly patted his pockets, wand lightly held with the compass hand. He felt something in another pocket, and as he frowned to himself, his steps faltered slightly as he outlined it. Eyebrows rose before he smirked, glancing briefly to the other two. Did they all have something?

Though he was curious, Lyov left it where it was. His voice was soft (though it felt like it was shattering the silence into a million pieces around them). “We’re close.” There was no point in saying that he only thought they were. It was that, or the compass was going crazy.

The sudden screeching noise made him startle a step back. The compass was quickly slipped back into a pocket before his hand held the wand up. He frowned in the near pitch black, attempting to see what he needed to. Finally, he gave into Austin’s spell, somewhat irritated as he put his wand to his forehead. “Accumensis.” Blinking with sudden clarity (or more than he had had without the spell), Lyov’s mouth opened barely as he saw the sight before them. His voice whispered into the air around them as he quickly counted. Three students, seven flying apes.

Many spells came to mind, but finally he settled on one that seemed the easiest. As simplistic as it seemed... it would also halt the snidget. “Immobulus!” It would buy them time to do something else, quickly.