run, doe eyes

When she finally made it to the baker’s stall, her nose scrunched. Where she was a quiet and shy sort, she’d never been afraid to haggle prices. Mooncakes were normally a copper for two. Yet today, it was one per piece. “Well, that doesn’t seem very fair,” She muttered to herself, then looked up at the baker with a furrow of her brows, and turned sharply away. “One copper. That might as well be thievery.”

Drills that morning were…….. well, they were not going great. Everyone was drowsy and befuddled, plenty of recruits and guards alike had not shown up at all, and even Roan was struggling. Why, he couldn’t say. It wasn’t as though he’d been overworking himself over the last few days. Okay, well, he had, but he’d forced himself to slow down a bit so he shouldn’t be finding it this difficult to get his stance right. Even in his current state of sluggishness, he was doing better than most of the guard under his watch today. All around him, wolves were staring off into space, dropping their practice swords and shields, forgetting such basic things as how to walk in a straight line without falling over. It was ridiculous. What, had they all gone out on a bender the night before?

“A’right, that’s it!” Roan barked, frustration cutting through his own fatigue and causing the guards around him to jump in surprise. “I dunno what the hell is wrong with you all, but yer no good to anyone in this state. Yer all on armory duty today—and tomorrow if you keep cryin’ about it!” he added as more than one wolf raised their voice in protest. “Go, shoo, get yer heads on straight. Maybe the polish fumes’ll help wake you up. GET!” The guards scurried away, unused to their Captain snarling at them in such a manner. Roan felt a flush of guilt creep through him, but he merely shook his head to rid himself of it. It was his job to keep the Royal Guard running smoothly, and sometimes that meant spooking the wolves under him into trying a little harder.

He chucked his sword to the ground in a huff and was about to stomp off to the water pitchers when a panicked voice reached him from the fence. “Saria?” Roan turned and saw the handmaiden rushing around to the gate, terror in her eyes as she called for him. Worry surged through him, and he changed course to meet her. She skidded to a halt inches from him, and he just about thought she was going to say something had happened to the princess. Oh god, what could have happened to Arielle? But… no, she was tugging down her collar, revealing a pearlescent bite mark on her otherwise unblemished skin. Roan didn’t say anything for a moment, just blinked at the marks and at Saria. “Saria… no, no. Hold on a moment.” The poor girl was panicking in a way he hadn’t seen since the first time they met. He needed her to calm down. “Saria love, breathe fer me, a’right? Deep breaths now, that’s it.” He put both hands on her shoulders, avoiding touching the marking, and started leading her back through the gate and towards the barracks. At least there, they could talk in private, away from the curious wolves around them. “Come on, darlin’, let’s go talk away from these nosy nitwits, ey?”

“No -- wait, Roan -- w-why would we go talk in private w-when... w-when we need to tell them -- !” Her mind was working faster than she could comprehend it. The only vampire she really knew was Joel, with his sweet smile and the way he sometimes smelled of dusty books. She hadn’t ever dealt with a dangerous kind -- he would never hurt her, yet she’d always been told his kind didn’t like her’s. They were natural enemies, pitted against each other since the beginning of time. And if they were sneaking in and out of the castle and changing memories -- and after the wedding travesty -- they needed to go straight to the rest of the guard.

She looked frantically over her shoulder one last time at the milling werewolves. Had any of them woken up with a similar bite on their shoulder, not knowing where they’d been? Saria wanted nothing more to turn around and keep trying to tell Roan to tell them straight away, but something in his tone felt strange. Why wasn’t he has panicked as she was? 

Reluctantly she let her mentor steer her away from the crowd and into the shade of the building. The collar of her dress still hung low, and every now and then, it throbbed dully. It wasn’t painful. It was more... like a different feeling all together, yet she couldn’t find the words to describe it. 

“What did... what did you mean by n-no? What else could it be?” Her heart was still beating hummingbird fast. “Oh... what if someone else is hurt? We need to go help, and tell, o-or look!” She thought he’d know what to do. Roan always had thee answers. He was kind, and smart. Responsible and willing to take care of other people -- and so she looked up at him, praying he might know what the mark was, and maybe... maybe even tell her she was going to be alright. 

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“Oh, the Crescent Isle. The wolves don’t really use it much anymore. It’s a safe place to go on the full moon -- I like to shift alone, and I don’t have to worry about running across anybody or being embarrassed about how clumsy I am. It’s really calm, and quiet. I can think. It’s like my own little safe place.” 

“...I’m his little sister’s handmaiden. I-I don’t think he feels anything for me. I mean, Arielle is my best friend, so it’s likely he doesn’t see me as anything more.”

“Do you know how much a sword weights? What about an axe or a shield?” He didn’t pause to allow her time to answer. “A weapon choice should be taken seriously and you don’t look strong enough for any of those. A dagger or short sword would suit you better, but that requires close combat skills. Are you willing to let your opponent get that close? Are you willing to stab them in the chest and watch the light disappear from their eyes? Are you prepared for that?”

“Y-you make it sound like I’m going to be fighting someone to the death,” Saria looked down at her feet, suddenly feeling foolish for walking into the smith shop in the first place. “I’m o-only trying to defend myself, and -- “ The conversation felt like it was going from bad to worse. Of course she didn’t know how to hold a sword, or stab someone, or ready to watch someone die. The thought horrified her -- a killer was possibly the worst thing someone could become. 

But with how things were going, it seemed as if everybody was headed in that direction.

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before she looked back at him, squaring her shoulders in attempt to make herself look as confident as possible. “Are you going to sell me a d-dagger or not?” 

Saria had frozen in front of the mirror, her crystal blue eyes going wide. Her nightgown was a size too big. It had slipped over her shoulder, revealing the freckled span of skin and... and what? She reached over with her fingers, brushing across the silver-pink scars that had formed at the base of her neck. When she did so, a spark of electricity seemed to jolt through her body. They were in an arc, and upon further inspection, she realized with a start that it was a bite mark. Given the fact that she didn’t have a scarred bite mark the evening before, a wave of confusion slammed into her chest and took the air right out of her lungs. Werewolves rarely got scars -- they had advanced healing, and she couldn’t for the life of her remember where she might have... how could she not remember being bitten?

Peeling out of her room, Saria hitched her nightgown so that she wouldn’t slip. Bare feet slapped against the marble floors until she was throwing her body against the fence of the training grounds, looking frantically for Roan. He would know -- he always had the answers. 

“R-roan!” She yelled, her voice cracking and her skin flushed in the cool morning air. She lifted her arm high to wave him down. She pushed away from the fence, circling around to the entrance and quickly rushing up to him and yanking down the collar of her nightgown once more. “I-I woke up with this, and I d-don’t know what happened -- I can’t remember -- Roan, what if I was bitten by a v-vampire?! Can’t they make your memories go away? If they’re sneaking inside the castle, we have to -- w-we have to warn people.”

TASK #3: Mischief Managed

HOUSE: HUFFLEPUFF -- HALFBLOOD

Hufflepuffs value hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play. The house has produced its share of great wizards. Hufflepuffs are known to be dedicated, hardworking, fair, patient, kind, modest, and loyal. Students in Hufflepuff are known to value everyone and treat them as equal.

WAND: PINE WOOD WITH A DRAGON HEARTSTRING CORE, 10 ¼ AND SOLID FLEXIBILITY

PINE: The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and perhaps mysterious. Pine wands enjoy being used creatively, and unlike some others, will adapt unprotestingly to new methods and spells. The pine wand is one of those that is most sensitive to non-verbal magic.

DRAGON HEARTSTRING CORE: As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.

10 ¼, SOLID FLEXIBILITY: The wands described as hard, rigid, solid, stiff, unbending, and unyielding, are regarded as “rigid wands”. Most wizards and witches who use magic in a more traditional way and are rigorous when taking decisions are chosen by these wands. Hard wands are usually the most difficult to adapt to the user, and the wizards and witches who succeed with these wands are of enviable determination. Rigid and solid wands perform intensely any form of magic they do, and pair well with those who like to do things in their own way. Most wands will be in the range of between nine and fourteen inches. 

PATRONUS: DOE

a playlist dedicated to an orphaned werewolf who longs for love and dreams of happily ever after.

Saria was right, it was dangerous for them. Neither of them knew how to control their new powers, and a tryst between the two of them, who lived in such vastly different worlds, could spell nothing but trouble if the gentry ever knew about it. But as her fingers tangled themselves in her hair and she leaned into him, Viktor’s thoughts came to a standstill. “I don’t care.“ He growled, hands slipping beneath her shirt as his nails dug into the cool, exposed skin of her back. His advisors and the nobility could all go to hell for all he cared. Viktor felt the urgent need to mark her, to brand her before anyone else could think to take her away from him. Of all the irrational decisions he had made that day, this was the only one that seemed to make any sense.

It was dangerous, yes, but it was right.

His blood heated as she murmured to him in that soft, breathy tone, stirring up a wave of pent-up desire for the woman in his arms. Viktor shuddered, his teeth sharpening as his predatory instinct surged. God, he couldn’t tell if he wanted to kiss her completely senseless or devour her when she spoke like that. As her fingers brushed against his throat, his expression darkened, eyes boring into her intensely. It burned, she had said, and she had moved faster than him despite having lost the undertone of wolf. Viktor’s grip on her tightened. “…You haven’t fed, have you?”

His Saria, his mate, was hungry. She had been alone in this room, fighting off the kind of thirst that would have driven a fledgling vampire mad. What kind of a man was he if he didn’t provide for her? There was no question about it, when she needed him like this. Viktor brought a hand up to the collar of his shirt, tearing through it with his claws. Buttons clattered against the floor and out of sight, forgotten as he raised his chin, exposing his throat to her. “Drink.” It was an order, one he wouldn’t have disobeyed.

Her reaction was quick, and viper-like. So many things had changed about her -- as frightened as she was, she felt stronger. More powerful. Yet, somewhere in the recesses of her soul, the omega part of her still pulled at her heart strings. He was a wolf, now. She wondered... she wondered if somehow, she hadn’t only been in love woth Viktor. If something she didn’t understand -- like so many things when she was a werewolf -- had been lying under the surface, just waiting to burst though. Roan had talked about mates, but...

His order to drink had her thoughts vanishing into thin air before they could truly even form. She wasn’t a wolf, now. Instead, she was a true creature of the night. One who needed to strike, to drink, to quench her thirst. Without so much of a pause to see if he was sure, Saria was rising higher on her toes and the finger’s in his hair closed into a fist, drawing him down closer to her in what was almost too sharp of a tug. The feeling of his fingers on her back was electric, like lighting shooting and tingling across her skin. Saria couldn’t resist. Not anymore, when he was telling her to drink. Cautionary thoughts melted away, and she no longer felt afraid of the hunger.

She felt desperate for it. For him.

In that snake like way, Saria’s lips closed around the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Her tongue slipped past, and she couldn’t help the almost animalistic moan that fanned onto his skin as she could feel his heart beat against it. She pulled sharply at his hair again -- needing him closer, closer, closer -- and her lips parted. Talon-sharp teeth scrapped against his neck, until she couldn’t help it anymore. He was overwhelming. He was... 

She opened her mouth, and sunk her teeth into the soft skin of his throat, clutching him to her like he was the only thing that mattered in the entire world. Blood exploded across her pallet and a moan sounded as she clawed at him, the taste of him sweet, thick, and hot across her tongue as some of it slipped past her lips and dripped onto his shirt.

An incredulous laugh left him as he heard Saria squeak from what seemed to be a closet. Though the room was dark, he could easily see the way she shrank back from him. Was this what she thought of him? That he was something to be afraid of? How could Viktor possibly put into words how desperate he felt around her? When she wouldn’t so much as glance his way without running in the opposite direction? Even now, he could feel his throat tightening, overwhelmed as he was with the proximity of her scent. One of flowers and the forest, of sweets and of something so distinctly Saria that he could think of no other way to describe it.

And then she had darted towards him, staring up at him with an intensity that he had never once seen this close. Viktor locked eyes with her and felt something click into place.

“Saria, I…” He couldn’t help himself, not when she was this close. Viktor leaned into her, his breath ghosting the delicate curve of her throat as he took in her scent. It was dizzying, intoxicating, and it was tearing away all the defences he had been working the entire day to build up in order to keep the wolf in him at bay. His hands flew to her slim waist, drawing her closer as his human mind wrestled with his new impulses. But it was a losing war, and deep down he knew it. “Please.” Because as much as he knew that she didn’t feel for him as he did for her, Viktor couldn’t let her go. She was his, and always had been. He had been too much of a coward to admit it. “Stop running from me.” 

She could hear it -- the leap of his pulse. Her hearing had become so much greater since she’d woken. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear extraordinarily well when she’d been a wolf -- oh, would she ever be again? She’d never realized how much she’d loved it until now -- but something about being... well, a vampire had certain sounds standing out more than others. Instead of birds in the distance, or the scutter of rabbits in the underbrush, she could hear the blood as it moved through his body. It was like a symphony drifting in her ears. Saria knew, as if it was part of her very makeup, that his blood would taste like nothing she’d ever tasted before. Even if blood wasn’t something she knew she’d needed until now. But more importantly, she needed it from him. 

Her eyelids fluttered as his face tucked into the nape of her neck. None of this felt real -- him, a werewolf and... and her, something new and frightening and different. But with his fingers on her waste and her chest flush against his felt like coming home. She’d spent so many years watching him through heavy eyelashes, dreaming of him and his smile and his laugh. Oh, that laugh was the best thing about him. All she ever wanted to do was sit and listen to it. 

His smell engulfed her once more, the pitter patter of his heart like thunder in her ears. She shivered as his warm breath fanned across her skin. “Viktor -- t-this is dangerous,” She whispered desperately, yet made no move to step away. Instead, her small hand found purchase on his shoulder, the other curling into his feather-soft and crow black hair. She rose on her tiptoes, and found herself breathing her in. “You smell... incredible, you...” She tugged him closer, shaking her head. She should run. No, he should run -- away from her, from the fangs she could feel biting into her lip and the unmistakable urge to nip at his throat. “I-I won’t run. N-no running, but I...” She trailed off, her breath hitching as her fingers moved from his shoulder to carefully touch where it met the curve of his throat. “I’m... Viktor, it burns.”