A Quiet Stroll

Raye padded across the field on four legs, enjoying the slight breeze that mussed her grey fur.

She had things on her mind. Quite a few things actually.

The first would be the stranger that had compelled her to dance. She hadn't slow danced in years. She hadn't even danced in months. And then this stranger came along had got her to do both of those things. She couldn't understand how he had got her to dance so easily. She really wanted to know that masked man's identity...

She sat down and then dropped to lie down, resting her head on her paws, her turquoise eyes sliding shut.

Second would be her new friendship with Leon. Though they had ended the Ball with a slightly sour note, they had formed a friendship. Considering their last meeting, Raye thought Leon hadn't liked her at all. He even got her name wrong on their second meeting. Roe... She chuckled quietly.

And lastly was the conversation she had with Deneli and Lunie. They seemed so upset with the talk of death. She rolled over, paws sticking in the air and tail swaying with the breeze. They wouldn't have made good Jinn...

Her jaws opened wide with a yawn as her mind pondered over each of the different subjects.

Leon tried not to remember the events at the Halloween Ball. He just knew last night he went out like a candle, and this morning he ate enough food to satisfy a small bear. His scars had already stopped hurting since the red-headed boy jabbed a fork into the one on his wing. For whatever reason the gold-scars seemed interconnected and always flared up with pain whenever just one of them was hurt.

Leon would have preferred not to meet anyone who'd been at the ball the other day. After eating until he was full, he left the castle and took to the air. The morning chill made him glad that he'd chosen to wear his windbreaker. It's lack of conveniently placed pockets, however, was unfortunate.

Leon thought he might spend the day flying, maybe practice some magic. Last night he'd managed to perform the guardian spell successfully for the first time, and he was curious to know if that had simply been because of Saren's influence. In his hands he carried a backpack which had his spellbook and Latin dictionary inside. If it was him that had done that guardian spell, then he planned on learning a new one.

He reached the field, flying directly over Raye and casting a shadow over her before lowering to the ground and dropping the backpack.

Raye had been just about to drop off and probably spend the rest of the day sleeping when a shadow passed over her.

Usually if she was this tired, she would have ignored it, rolled over and gone back to sleep. But she heard a dull thud a few metres off. Something had landed.

A quiet whine escaped her throat as her turquoise eyes cracked open. They closed almost immediately after when the sun attacked them but blinked open again, bringing her paw up to rest on her muzzle as if to shield her eyes from the sun.

"Think of the devil and he shall appear," she muttered to herself. She rolled over and pushed herself to her paws, stretching with her torso low to the ground. With another yawn and a loud whine, she straightened out and shook her coat of roughly - the act more like a dog than a wolf.

"Hi, Leon." She was thankful people could understand her when she was a wolf. She was too lazy at the moment to shift back to a more humanoid form.

Leon turned to face Raye, and stretched his wings straight back. They hurt where they connected to his back. He assumed this was because of the burns from Saren's energy that still hadn't healed. Those same burns still covered his arms and now he really wished he had conveniently placed pockets to hide his hands in.

He smirked at Raye as she approached. "It's a little weird to call you Roe when you're a wolf." In his own mind Leon didn't actually even refer to her as Roe. He knew her name was Raye, and he was used to calling her Raye. But for some reason he still chose to call her Roe. Maybe it was just out of a need to be consistent.

Raye glanced at his burnt hands but didn't comment. She knew better than most that wounds and such could be a sore subject. Yes, she had seen the fight that caused those burns but she knew nothing of the fight. She was just a clueless spectator.

Her furry shoulders heaved up and down in a shrug. "It's not like I hunt Roe Deer. I'm too small to take on a herd by myself. I used to hunt them back when I was with my original pack, though." She lifted her left forepaw and waved it, bringing attention to the two brands burned into the skin. No fur grew around the areas. Just dark, damaged, raised skin. As the paw returned to the ground a thought struck her. "You probably don't know what they mean, ne? Us Wolf Jinn are branded when we join a pack. Like the mark of ownership the humans give cattle."

"You here for some quiet time?" she asked, sitting back on her haunches, cocking her head to the side curiously. The action made her seem less like a wild animal than she really was. She had been around other people too long - she was beginning to act like a common pet.

Listening to Raye talk about hunting deer made an image pop into Leon's mind. He stood a the tip of a tree, wings outstretched, and wielding a crossbow. He'd never been hunting, but he thought it could have been entertaining. He always knew he was better flying through trees than his sister was.

Leon glanced at the branding on Raye's paw only for a brief second. He didn't particularly care what it was for or what it meant. All he heard in Raye's sentence was the word "ownership" and he already didn't approve. He laughed silently as Raye cocked her head. Having never seen an animal such as a wolf do something like that, Leon saw it more as a sign of intelligence, even though he knew Raye also had a human form.

"Something like that." He answered. "I was thinking I'd try to learn some knew spells since I seem to have gotten the hang of the last one I learned." He clenched his hands together and held them out in front of him. "Custos spiritus." As he uttered the words the same, violet-tinted, semi-circle appeared around his hands, soothing the burns just a bit. It was still small. In order to use it effectively he'd need to be quick and accurate with it. The energy dissipated and he pulled his hands apart, holding them out by his sides. He repeated the spell and the same, semi-transparent energy appeared at each hand. As he moved his hands again, the energy moved with them, and when he brought them together again, the two sheets of energy merged. He opened his hands again, and the energy dissipated with a flourish. He was satisfied that he'd mastered the guardian spell now.

"...I should really practise my magic," the Jinn admitted reluctantly after he answered her. She was truly horrific at her magic. She had next to no magical talent whatsoever. And with her impending death she became more and more reluctant to attempt to improve. What was the point in trying if she knew she wouldn't get any better in a couple of years?

She watched in awe as he performed magic. She could watch people perform magic every day and never tire of it. It was just so... magical, for lack of a better word.

"...I'm so jealous," she muttered, ears drooping as she looked up at him. She really wanted to better her magic. But she knew it was just a distant dream. Something she could think about and hope for but never actually achieve.

Leon held a hand up in front of his face and simply looked at it as he thought the spell name. When nothing happened he just shrugged. He wasn't that used to it yet apparently.

"It's tough to get the hang of it. It's worth it though, to be able to do things you wouldn't be able to otherwise." He put his hand back down. What he was going to have to do was the spell many at times at random until he got used to the energy flowed. Then he'd eventually be able to do it without saying the spell aloud.

Leon sat cross-legged on the grass and opened his back pack. The bag was probably the most colorful thing he owned at a very dark red. He wasn't proud of it. He took out his spellbook and turned it to the page that the guardian spell was on. On the page next to it there was a drawing of an eye with no iris. Around the pupil where the iris should have been there were the thin lines of a lattice. He skimmed the Latin words beside the picture, recognizing only a few, as he pulled his Latin dictionary and a notebook from his back pack.

"You're right," she agreed. "It's nice to know how to do things others cant. I think that's one reason why I chose to take up Kendo." Her ears drooped again. "But I should be able to do this particular form of magic."

She watched as he skimmed through a book, shuffling forward a little. She was curious. But she wasn't close enough to read it. She didn't much like to invade personal space. If Leo felt like sharing, she'd jump at the chance. If he didn't she'd probably just sit and watch him until she fell asleep.

"Jinn are born with the magical ability to phase into an object ad stay there indefinitely." Her tail curled around her and her shoulders slumped. She looked the picture of pathetic with her drooped ears. "I can't do that. I can phase into an object sometimes but I can't stay in that object more than ten minutes."