He finds himself in an expanse of gently rolling open plains, with no sign of other people unless he thinks to count the few specks of unusual color scudding across the sky. There's a loose copse of trees perhaps half a mile off, another more distant one in another direction, and a few distant herds of shaggy cowlike animals, but aside from that the grass is unbroken clear to the horizon all around him.

Nearer to hand, a brown animal similar to a squirrel but a bit larger is watching him from a hole in the ground. When it sees him spot it, it disappears back inside.

Whoa. This isn't the woods at all. 

He picks himself up and looks around. There's no sign of the strange snake monster that ate him, which is good. More worryingly, he can't see the castle anywhere, even though there aren't any trees in the way—and he knows he was in the middle of the woods a moment ago. 

...okay, so maybe he's lost. Iorath was right after all. He doesn't see how Iorath could possibly have known there would be a snake monster in the woods, but that sort of thing is why Iorath is the Voice and Aeron isn't. 

Nobody knows he's missing, and there aren't any grownups around to ask for help even if he could, so he'll just have to find his way back home by himself. In the meantime, he can have an adventure, like the heroes in storybooks! 

An animal! There are hardly any animals in the castle, but he loves watching them from the window, and occasionally meeting them in the woods. He knows how to be quiet and still and not scare them! He creeps closer to the hole, trying not to move too fast and scare it away. Maybe it'll come back out?

The hole leads to a narrow tunnel that slopes away into the dark; the animal isn't visible inside.

After a few seconds, though, he gets the oddest sense that it's hiding in the shadows a ways into the hole, and that it thinks he should go away.

That's strange. He can't usually tell what animals want unless he can see or hear them, and even then it's hardly ever that clear. 

Are there any other holes like this one in the immediate area? Maybe there are some less timid animals around here that he can watch instead. 

If he looks around, yep, this area must have a lot of the creatures. None of the other holes he checks are inhabited, but another of the creatures pokes its head out to watch him from a little ways away after a couple minutes.

A creature! 

He stays very still and pretends not to look at it. 

It'll stay there watching him as long as he doesn't make eye contact or try to get too close.

What a good creature. 

He manages about a minute of stillness, sneaking little glances at it from the corner of his eye, before creeping a little closer to get a better look. And a little closer...yeah, it won't take him long to spook it. He's unusually good at "still and quiet" for a 10-year-old boy but he is in fact a 10-year-old boy. 

Yep, the creature ducks back underground as soon as it becomes obvious that he's heading toward it.

By the time he's done that, two more creatures are watching from other holes, widely spaced from the first. Before he can get too distracted by them, though, another creature pokes its head up much closer by, and he gets the impression that this one wants him to tell it why he's here.