Sera meets trouble.

Serafina was in trouble. She had a feeling after the sly fox had revealed he was the cause of the morphing forest. To find the smallest acorn, a dead leaf of grass, and a red tulip? It became obvious as she started looking around. It was late spring, everything was alive and in bloom; Nary a red plant to be seen, occasional groups of tulips, but mostly white. She felt cold, empty. She was being held hostage by this kid, and his twisted humor.
After an hour of looking, she first happened upon a grove of berry bushes and tulips.. Food! Not much, but it would have to suffice. Big and juicy the juice dripped down around her. Staining her white blouse, crimson...red? What if it stained the tulips the same way? Picking one, she dripped the juice upon it. It stained evenly, almost convincingly, to her floral expertise. Could it be so easy? She kept the flower as she headed towards the group of oak trees in the distance.
The acorns weren't as plentiful as they would be later in August, but there were still hundreds if not thousands laying around, and in the trees. At first Sera collected the ones upon the ground into a pile. But it soon became tiresome and she took a moment to think. Looking up into the trees the blossoming of the acorns had begun, the minuscule flowering was beautiful in it's repetitive nature, or at least she had grown to appreciate all that nature had to offer. The large fist size seeds came from such small plants! Of course! She quickly snatched a blossom. Two down, one to go!
If the first two were so simple, perhaps the third was as well? She found grass along a nearby creek. It was all green and lively. She quickly plucked out a large strand, long enough to tie her hair behind her as she went in for a closer look. Maybe there was some dead underneath the bushel of greenery. She stopped. Sera had wasted hours on the first two tasks, only to have found the solution right in front of her. It dawned on her, and tied her flowers with another leaf.
"What say you, clever boy, did I pass?" She muttered walking back towards the grove.
His laugh was seared in her mind, and she almost jumped hearing it as she walked by. She threw a punch before she realized it. She missed, but not by much. The child didn't flinch, just a wily grin on his face.
"Very good, very good!" He hissed[I'll need to think of a better word]. "I'm impressed, with your cheat. Who'd have thought such berries stained so peculiarly red? That acorns start as tiny flowers, and grass dies when plucked?"
She frowned, it was all a game to him. He sensed her displeasure, a grin lit upon his face, his serrated teeth showing. That wasn't natural. She blinked, and instantly he became an it. The rounded snout, the sagittal ears, the bleak black eyes, didn't help the sardonic smile. Her stance returned to the defensive. An anthropomorphic fox? The magic was hard enough to swallow, but such creatures were stuff of legends! There had never been an credible sighting.
He sighed, "a deal is a deal. Follow me." He skipped along ahead of her. Sera followed, not sure what to make of this sudden shift to kindness. This time however she found herself back at where she entered the forest, the sun's position in the sky hadn't shifted more than ten to fifteen minutes from where it was when she went in. The fox bowed, eyes still upon her, "We'll meet again, my dear Serafina." Before slipping back into the forest unseen.