Saffron was far from what you'd call a 'normal' canopy elf. She blamed it on her father who had never been one to play it safe. She, like her father thrived on seeking out new adventures and enjoyed teasing the gorselings found around the Elevere Forest. Her father however was no longer with them, not because of his adventurous nature and habit of getting himself into tricky situations, but because of their people. He had been taken four years ago by the elven army to fight in a land continents away. She and her mother alike had assumed he'd been lost in battle since he had never returned with the other war hero's fifteen months previous.

This story begins one summer's night in a small tree top house in the centre of Little Ivern in the east of Elevere Forest. Saffron was fast asleep in bed but even with her cheeky adventurous nature, nothing could prpare her for this.

Saffron was resting her sleepy head on the soft scarlet coloured duck feather pillow in her cosy little bedroom when she was awoken by a loud ground shaking crash. She jumped to her feet quickly as the force had knocked her out of her bed onto the hard floor.

"Quick!" Shouted her mother from far above, throwing down a crudely made vine, "Grab this!"

Saffron caught it and started to climb. The door, which her and her mother barricaded each night for safety, wouldn't hold much longer and she needed to hurry. She glanced up at her mother above her, high in the tree canopy. Her mother's large hazel eyes wide with fear, her frizzy purple hair stuck out in every direction imaginable. Saffron climbed and climbed, the banging on the door getting louder and louder. The baton that they had fixed across the door before heading to bed was getting looser, the locks were beginning to brake and shatter with the force.

Suddenly, she heard an almighty crash beneath her as the gigantic mutant grub threw itself at the now flimsy door and smashed its way through into what was Saffron's and her mothers leafy tree home. Saffron climbed even faster if that was possible. The stench of the big fat grub was unbelievable and Saffron knew she needed to get up to her mother, her life depended upon it. With renewed strength, Saffron heaved herself up the rope, slipping slightly as she went. The grub below roared with anger as it spat fire, flames leaping from its slimy yellow jaws and ricocheting off the walls setting them alight like pieces of bone dry paper. Saffron reached out her hand at the top of the rope grasping for anything to help her up and another hand, which she assumed would be her mothers, clasped around it tightly, pulling her up over the branch, onto the leafy canopy.

When Saffron clambered to her feet however, she came face to face with a tall slim elf, his shining emerald eyes, extremely like her own big green ones were looking back at her. He had spiky emerald shoulder length hair however, not like Saffron's silky pink locks. She recognised him in an instant. But how could it be? She had just come to terms with the idea that he was dead.

"Dad?" Saffron gasped, not being able to believe her eyes. Maybe she hadn't made it up the rope, maybe she had perished to that grub after all and this was the life after she wondered to herself. But the elf smiled resting his large hand on her tiny shoulder and she was sure then that neither of them belonged to the dead just yet.

"Yes little Saffy." Came his reply, "It's me. It's a long story but basically, I was held as a hostage and when the war was over our people didn't find me until the last boat headed back this way had already dispatched. I've been travelling back slowly ever since and now I'm here, and it looks as if I arrived just in time. I would have been here sooner but it's been so long since I've been in this area and I didn't remember the way. I couldn't get a decent answer from any of those dodgy merchants in this godforsaken place when I asked them where Little Ivern was. I've been wondering around the Shoal and Four Farms for days." He rolled his eyes then laughed.

"Yeah, you'll find them very helpful if you'd offered them Meteorites for the information though Dad." Saffron joked, winking. They all laughed this time.

"Well, come on then." Saffron's father said promptly after much hugging and welcoming from the newly reunited family, "We don't want that smelly old grub catching up to us now do we? What is that thing anyway?" Saffron and her mother looked at each other and each took a deep breath. They took a long time explaining how one day the community in the neighbouring village woke up to this terrible munching noise and looked out of the windows only to find the colony of overgrown monsters munching on their houses. It was only a matter of time before they ate their way to their own elven village.

"And that's why this place will now be called The Munching Grounds, like every other town that is overrun by those disgusting things." Saffron's mother started. "But never mind that now. We need to get down." She said looking around for a way to escape the tree top with no luck.

"How?" Saffron asked looking puzzled and stating the obvious, peering over the rim of the canopy only to see the grub now devouring the contents of their living room, currently using a chair leg as a toothpick. "Unless you want to face that, I wouldn't suggest going anywhere."

And with that, her father reached behind a section of particularly think leaves and produced a hover board.

Saffron's grin spread from ear to ear.

Good old Dad.