@ruthlesscanislupus
The moon was full and round like a silver coin, the sky frosted with stars, and the breeze gliding silently through the hills chilly. Two lights bobbed along the cobbled path out to the graveyard behind the church, one the soft glow of a partially shuttered lantern and the other a tiny red ember winking at the tip of a clove cigarette. A dark-haired young man, the owner of both, shrugged deeper into his long coat and tried to pull his head down deeper into the navy blue scarf looped around his neck, though the cigarette in his mouth prevented him from hunching too deep down. Abruptly, the ambient temperature in the air around him warmed a few degrees for no easily perceptible reason and he seemed to perk up some, green eyes that were reflective in the dark like an animal’s flickering about.
Elias had been hired by the village that the church belonged to investigate a recent string of animal deaths. He really didn’t think much of it--probably it was nothing more than a hungry stray dog in his opinion (and there had been a mention or two of seeing a strange black shadow around the graveyard)--but a job was a job and money was money, something that the mage had precious little of these days.
As he stepped through the opening in the low stone wall that marked the graveyard’s entrance, Elias lifted the lantern over his head and removed the cigarette from between his lips with the other, whistling as if to call the hypothetical dog over and then even going so far as to call out, “Here boy, c’mere, I won’t hurt you!” In his own world animals would never step into a mage’s circle of their own volition, and it wasn’t as if a stray dog would willingly approach a stranger either, so it was really only for his own amusement. A slight smirk certainly did twist at his lips as he stepped deeper into the graveyard, alert for any shadows or sudden movement.
