Following the man proved confusing. While it was not uncommon for someone to wander in because they were lost, it was a first for him to see one that simply walked in circles. After a few rounds, Amser stopped following him and took up a post on a tree branch. Sure enough, the human wandered past him. His expression was vague and perplexed. Did he even realize that he had been this way over a dozen times?

And there he was again.

All of this was so puzzling to Amser that he felt compelled to observe rather then to act. He listened to his gut because it usually led him in the right direction.

And again. This time he stumbled having forgotten about the large root he'd been stepping over all morning.

Amser pulled on the fine chain of one of the many golden watches that hung from the belt at his waist. He never had to look for the one he wanted. Each chain came to him when it was needed. Drawing up the watch into the palm of his hand, he flipped the cover open with his thumb. The face was white with black hands but there were no numbers. Breathing onto the watch face, the hands began to spin.

And the man made another pass.

"Show me," Amser whispered.

Slowly, at first, the man began to walk backwards. But soon it was a blur of movement, bringing the man back through his wandering circles in reverse. He pulled back the morning and part of the night. Then Amser let the man move forward again.

Twice the man deviated from his course and took a left turn rather then a right. He slipped out between the trees and left the wood. But only a few minutes later he was back and had returned to the same circuit he'd previously been running. Amser had seen the second return. He had been watching the man since. There was nothing else that this direction could reveal to him, so he again pulled the man backwards through time he had already traveled.

When the man reached the point that he had first entered the wood, Amser got up so that he could follow him. Tracing the man's path backward should reveal who he was and why he had come here. It might even reveal why he was stuck. That was the only way that Amser could see it. Perhaps he'd been lost at first, but now the man was stuck.

Out into the forest that Enaid currently snuggled within, onto a path and then out onto a human road. A thin dirt line that led them back into a small town. This is when Amser felt the time line chug, indicating that he was no longer following this man in chronological order. This was a familiar experience. He was never allowed to follow the time threads in a single line back. At first this had been frustrating. But then he had come to realize that the threads did not lie in straight lines. They wove and knotted with the threads of others. Twisting, twining, fraying, folding and breaking as they moved back through history.

But the town Amser now followed the man through was the same one he had been in prior to coming to the Wandering Wood. He went into a tavern. Perhaps this was the beginning place. Amser released time again and watched it move forward. He stayed in the Ether because he was forbidden to meddle with what had already come to past. The Trinity of Time had only this one rule and Amser feared the consequences of breaking it.