The sun set leisurely as Guffin puttered around; starting a fire under their largest pot, raiding all the bags for assorted ingredients, snuffling under moss and logs for early-autumn mushrooms and berries. Harriet seethed; propped upright, but still gagged and tied hand and foot. The forest elves kept out of the way, not wishing to be trod on by a goblin trying to work, but many gathered on the periphery or at their doorsteps as delicious smells began to rise through the thickening evening.
"Dinner," Guffin called, but only at a normal speaking volume. It wouldn't do to hurt the ears of the little folk.
Spread on their patchwork bedroll, spread like a picnic blanket, was a generous pot of mushroom and vegetable soup, half a dozen baked potatoes with fresh herbs, a fragrant kettle of tea, and a blackberry cobbler steaming in a lidded pot that had been buried in coals. Split into thirds, it would easily feed the two travellers, and the whole town of forest elves. Even Harriet was impressed enough to keep her silence as the gag was removed and her hands freed.
Guffin loaded three heaping plates, passing one to their companion, and setting another on the ground in front of a waiting line of elves with acorn-cap plates at the ready, before settling in with their own plate.
"How did you know to do all this?" Harriet asked between bites. "Have you been here before? This is a long way from Pumpkintown."
"Only about a day's trip if you go the short way," Guffin shrugged. "But, yeah. Why do you think I got so many tiny things? These guys will use anything they can fit, but they love stuff that's actually made to size."
"The short way?"
"Yeah. Down the creek."
"We're only a day's walk away from Pumpkintown?"
"A day's canoe paddle. Maybe two days if you're walking alongside."
"But we've been walking for over a week!"
"Yeah. On the road. The road has to go around hills and stuff. Also, we keep stopping at towns, and the whole thing with the Opry."
Harriet, rather flustered at that point, made a quite undignified sound that might have been frustration, or might have been too large a bite of cobbler. Guffin just grinned, setting aside their empty plate and producing a piece of string and a twig, holding a swing aloft from their hand for several even smaller than normal elf girls, who squealed with delight.
"Why haven't we been taking the creek?!" the tall elf demanded finally, the noise having been brought on by the cobbler.
"Creek doesn't go to Green Laurel," Guffin explained. "This is still the North Tyger. South Tyger goes into the city, and that's next up, in Tigertown."