Calling the hound

Date: July 14th 2020
Time: kl. 03:43
Place: The third and upper floor of Filigree Cres. 13, a few streets from Oakheart's shopping square.
Weather: It's a warm night with a waning moon clear in the sky.
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With magic it would be possible to achieve anything but it was also one of the world’s most sensitive matters to wield. The slightest angle of a swirl as well as the missing of a muted syllable in a chant could change the outcome. The more advance the magic was the more important it became to have every part correctly applied. Some might say that’s how the darker magics formed and got discovered. Because while there would always be consequences, prices to pay, there really wasn’t a wrong spell. Just a spell that wasn’t intended.

It was probably too late at night for anyone who was expected to be up early the next morning to still be up but this wasn’t a new occurrence for the little witch. Too often did Saga find herself spending the nights awake and busied by curiosity. Words of books or trials of experiences. Work for a customer. Or simply thoughtless sleeplessness. Unaware meditation. The moon and the night calmed her rather than it scared her.
She had placed herself on the floor of her bedroom, which took up the whole third floor of the narrow building, her back leaned slightly against her bed. A circle drawn in blood stretched over a good part of the wooden floor in front of her and a bandage visible about her hand gave a good hint to whose blood was used. Though, she seemed oddly unaffected as she sat there, legs crossed and eyes looking down in the old book that rested in her lap. Her ebony hair was sloppily tied back into a short ponytail in the back, leaving more than one random lock of black strands freed from the hair tie to frame her pale face instead. Her attire was as it had been out through the way. It was the same pair of denim short and the same red and white stripped T-shirt. She had however kicked both the sock and shoes earlier.

Without really looking up from the book, she began to stand up, how balancing the book in one of her hands. Careful not to step on and smudge any of the circle, she tiptoed into the middle where a copper bowl was placed as a centrepiece. She finally looked up from the pages as she seemingly pulled a large seed from the air and placed it in the bowl, submerging it in the clear water.
The soft chanting began, as she slowly stepped out of the circle again. She could feel the thumbing in the wound in her palm immediately as the she activated the magical channelling as if there was still a bond between her and the blood, she had drawn the circle with.

A sudden loud and almost ear piercing caw pulled Saga out of the chanting with a major shock and her eyes shot to the white crow wilding basking it wings at the slanted window as if trying to scare something – or someone – away. She moved her glance to the window but she saw nothing but the night. “Circ-!”
A sharp pain struck through the wound in her palm and made her wince and pulled her attention away from the scolding of her familiar. Hadn’t she done that then she would probably not have seen the beginning of dark smoke coming from the bowl in the middle of the circle as if the seed inside started to corrode like metal. Not before it started flowing over the edges of the bowl and creep further out like a blanket of thick dark grey clouds. She took a small step backwards as if not wanting to get too close to the smoke, frowned a black brow in both confusion and... concern. This was not part of the spell. And whatever it was, she doubted it would be anything good.

Circe, the crow, was the first to notice the dark creature, which seemed not only to appear in it but rather take form from it. Beady and golden eyes catching a faint movement just before the hound took enough tangibility to stand out in the thick, grey haze and immediately it caws once again, this time a warning sound, a warning of a predator. Still in the air the crow then lost form itself, almost as if it dissolved into a swirl of pure white that got carried though the air towards the witch. It swirled controlled around her neck before yet again changing in but a moments time and, at white furred ferret sat both alert and pulled back on the shoulders of Saga.

Saga herself had just turned away from the spreading smoke as her familiars outcry had stolen her attention, as the loud bark claimed it back in less than a second. Her head whipped and her eyes followed, blue eyes meeting red in an instant. Clearly startled she stumbled a step back, though she did not cower. She had felt the roar quivering her bones and had she not had a proper grip on the book, she might as well have dropped in on right down on her feet. Not a favourable accident since it wasn’t the lightest of object.
Slowly she parted her lips to speak. Eyes still not looking away from the hound. “…My name is Saga Krauss. ” she answered. Not true. But not quite a lie either. She was somewhat aware of what this creature was. Her sensitivity had been quick to catch on to the emitting feel of it. The hellish factor. And she believed that giving a creature like that one’s name at first hand, wasn’t the smartest idea. But neither was lying. Demonic essences fed off of lies.
She dared take her eyes of the large canine to instead look down at the circle. A humble relief waved over her as she saw how the smoke curled upwards as it reached the edge and stopped like meeting a see-through wall. The blood seal was intact. But exactly how much would be able to hold trapped was unsure. The circle hadn’t been drawn to trap anyone, let alone a hell hound.

“Do you have a name yourself, hound? It would seem only fair to share it like I shared mine. Unless you’d want to be a name indebted to me.” Her gaze found the found again. Collected. Calm. She didn’t say anything about the mistake she had made. This wasn’t a game of Uno, where she could just throw out a Reverse card. Or at least not at that moment. She did not have the how-to’s yet.

Long lost and forgotten.
The hound would be right. Saga did neither understand nor had ever head a language like that. It tickled in her ears, like some vibrations that matched the way the throat growled. It was so distinctively different from how the snares and the snarls had been to listen to. She could, in a way, understand how it would be described as a spoken language, one of humanoid tongue, rather than animalic sounds. She could not hide how it astounded her. Her eyes had widened and her moon pale face had opened up ever so slightly. But it only lasted so long as the hound spoke simple, understandable English. Its voice sounding oddly …young when you got rid of all the more inhumane features of it.

She looked down once again. This time her intense eyes fell on the opened pages of the book in her hand. “I have no commands,” she stated calmly – and honestly – like she wasn’t really concerned about the consequences it might bring. Or like she hadn’t been affected by the yelling. The demanding of the frightening creature. The ferret wasn’t has …brave. By the aggressive tone of the found, it was quick to scurry further behind her neck. Only to peep through on the opposite shoulder.
Silently she ran her eyes over the page with the spell. It wasn’t a familiar spell to her. Tonight’s use of it had just been a trial. And the spell was supposed to be more or less harmless. But still, he had a hell found in her room. An aggressive one at that. As when the smoke had first appeared, she frowned and lifted at finger, stroked the middle of the book and felt the rough edges of a torn page. It had been torn deep in the binding of the book that she hadn’t noticed.
Saga then suddenly stepped closer to the circle, stopped, having maybe a centimetre of space between her toes and the blood drawn edge. “My career is loosely grounded in owning relics like these. That I have this summoning spell in my possession shouldn’t much of a surprise. But I did not summon you on purpose.” The little witch then turned the book around and held it up for the hound to see. The two pages, that with closer inspection, and knowing what to look for, didn’t seem to match entirely. “I was in the process of blooming a Mother’s Bane. But a page is missing. How it worked even with the wrong ritual is me a mystery though.”

She carefully turned the book around again, and then finally closed it with a heavy thunk.

”I’d prefer to not risk getting torn apart. So, for now, try to look at the seal as a safety shield for me. Rather than something keeping you trapped.” The creature was clearly capable of rational though so surely the hound understood where she stood and that she didn’t have any evil intentions by not just being cooperative and in a sense, giving him what he wanted. But, of course, her not falling to her knees, apologizing in the exact instant, could very possibly give the wrong impression.
Though she did not let him out – or speak out a command which apparently would grant the same result, she did fumble with the book to balance it correctly once more before opening it back up. At a random page before it began to flip through itself, seemingly on its own, had it not been for the smallest of movement the witch did with her fingers. It didn’t take long for her to get back to the pages. The one missing page created sort of an anchor. Then, without a word or much hesitation she grabbed the remaining of the summoning page and just... ripped it out. Surprisingly cleanly. Not as neat as whoever had ripped the other page out, but neat enough.
The paper was thicker then what books usually were printed on now adays. The colour was faintly yellowed either by age or the many impurities that was found in papermaking back then. But the ink flow was of much better quality than trying to write in it on printer paper. She liked this kind of paper. Especially the feel of it.z

Saga tossed the rest of the book on the bed not too far from where she stood, gently of course! She might not have blinked an eye at the tearing of such an old and valuble relic but she still had some morals. “Before I let you out I’ll have to be certain you won’t claw my throat. I’m aware I can make it my command but I won’t. I have already told you that I have none. Therefore…” She held up the torn page, the counterfeit summening spell – or part of it – turned to the hounds glowing red eyes. They were like a small dot of red paint in a white room; captivating. “I believe me destroying this will be of great enough payment for such an agreement then.”

For a moment she looked at him, awaiting his response with a slightly raised eyebrow. But she didn’t wait for him to actually agree before she turned her head towards the upheld piece of parcement and a second later it.. deteriorated into large flakes of ash, that then floated upwards with a gravity way soter than that on Earth, before disappearing comletely. No fire had been ignited, yet there was a pleasant scent of burned paper. "However, I'm confused. Is the only way for you out of the circle to be given a command?" It was how she had heard it after all.

Saga wasn’t blind to how the hound changed demeanour as soon as the destruction of the page was over and done with. It even surprised her as he first sat down and then laid all the way down. Quite a jump from the huffed and puffed wolf-like creature, oozing with countless of unspoken warnings and aggressive high alert energy. The summoning must have had a strong effect on the hound. A worse effect than she would have imagined. “That might be correct. But it’s not the circle they …hate to break. It’s the bonding magic. Anyone can draw a circle. Not everyone can feed it the magic needed to work,” she openly told the hound, as she chose to mimic its posture by sitting back down on the floor as she had done just moment before the summoning had begun. Bare legs flexibly crossed so the knees touched the soft-polished wooden boards.

She pushed herself as close to the circle, as she could without disturbing its edges. The white ferret on her shoulders had calmed down a great deal as well, though it still didn’t take its golden eyes from the hound. Watching it. Keeping an eye on it. It wasn’t as trusting as its witch.
“Any witch who possessive such a skill wouldn’t be happy to break the binding prematurely, that’s for sure. In some cases, it’ll may even be a painful affair.” She hadn’t looked back at the hound since she had sat down. Her eyes followed along the drawn edge of the circle instead. Studying it with a sense of tranquillity in her facial expression as she did. Her head tilting ever so slightly to the side. And then she reached out. The invisible wall that kept the hellish canine from escaping and running rampant didn’t even exist on her side of the circle and her hand past over the edge like there truly wasn’t anything there. She didn’t reach in that far, just far enough to be on the other side of the outer red line, so it could probably be that she would meet resistance, did she try and reach further in. She laid har hand flat on top of the outer line. She had felt the magic bond the whole time but it was a much stronger feeling now she had the direct contact. A gentle breath existed her lungs, before she dragged her hand back, smearing the still surprisingly wet and fresh blood as she went. Smudging the line enough to break the connection and there by the circle and its hold.

The exact time the circle broke, she very discreetly sucked in a sharp motion as the wound in her other hand stung once more and the thumbing, which she had almost gotten so used to, that she hardly had noticed it while dealing with this creature of smoke, stopped afterwards. Leaving only the mundane pain of having cut the skin deep enough for it to bleed.
All the smoke that had been trapped with the hound on the inside of the seal spread like ocean waves and she felt the warmth of it as it curled round her legs.

It was a big risk to simply break the seal before actually hearing verbal agreement from the hound. Promising her that she wouldn’t fall victim to his monstrous fangs and powerful jaw. It talked and it was intelligent on par with any other individual, if not more than the average, but it was clear that, if given the chance, it would do some damage to a soft body like hers. And an immortal lifespan didn’t ensure survival from much more than old age.
But the hound did not attack. It did not jump her the first chance it got. It stayed so… civil, giving her a whole new impression of the furred creature. She followed it with her eyes, as it began to wander around. Staying on the floor herself. It was only when it turned the focus towards the book, that she twisted her body to look at it as well. “I never got a name. It was sent to me years ago and the only indication of its origin was the exporting country. It came from somewhere in Spain.” She turned away again, closing her eyes for at moment as she leaned her head from one side to the other, stretching her neck out. She wasn’t tired, but she could feel the length she had been awake and up and about. “Of course, whoever I got it from, was the original owner. Or author. The use of Latin doesn’t match what was used there.”

The next few words that sounded from the demonic beast, now free roaming in her room caught her a bit of guard. And even though she had already started to get on her feet she stopped for a split second to look at the hound with a certain shade of confusion running over her face by doing nothing more than creating a shallow wrinkle between her brows. But instead of following the thread of confusion and speak up about it, her she resumed her rise. As she did, she turned her head around the room, searching.
Being one whole floor of the building, her bedroom was quite large and it was more of just her private space rather than where she slept like a bedroom might be. Her bed, queen sized with a wooden frame, was pushed into one of he corners, a bedside table to accompany it. At the time the floor was cleared but the rug, that usually was spread out in more or less the middle of the room, was pushed away to the side. A desk was placed near the big slanted window with a big flat-topped chest beside it. Clearly being used as both storage as well as a stepping stone for when she felt like climbing out of the window and unto the roof. Not that there was any type of balcony available. Different kinds of potted plants were to be found almost everywhere. The whole feel of the place was that of casual warmth. A feel of a witch’s magic. No modern white on white. “I have plenty human clothes. But you are of a different size than me,” she said, ending her sentence as if it flowed into thoughts instead of speech.
She walked in the direction of a beautiful, simple wardrobe in the other end, opposite to the bed, where the top of a thin, metal spiral of a staircase down to the floor under them, also was. With a lift of the hand the door to the wardrobe opened, being ready for her browsing as she reached it. The ferret took this opportunity to jump from her shoulder and crawled to the top of the wardrobe. Not before long, she pulled out a pair of her own mom-jeans and a loose, zipped sweater someone had borrowed her and she hadn’t given back, not really sure what exactly was needed and turned her front to the hound. “Would something like this do? Maybe a dress would be easier to pull over all that fur.”

Of course, she was curious! She had always been curious. About almost everything. And she wasn’t one to fear the act of being it so openly. She rarely got embarrassed by getting caught staring – or ‘looking’ as it usually felt like from her point of view.
So as the hound requested the clothes thrown into the corner, as strange as it would seem, she did so. And as it must have expected, probably having gotten somewhat of an idea of what kind of person she was some their short interactions, she kept looking in his directions, wanting to know what would happen, until it japed at her. In no more than a tenth of a second, one could think he hadn’t quite understood the term for wanting privacy but it smoothed out as quickly as it had appeared and she then abided with the wish of the great big canine. “Yes, of course.” She first looked down, humbly, and then quietly turned away, turning her back to the corner. But as her ears caught the small sounds, coming from the corner, she discreetly turned to look around her shoulder in secret. Not for long! She was fast to turn away again. She did, however, get a small glimpse of the retracting fur and morphing of the overall shape. She didn’t betray the trust by looking again after that. Not before she was granted permission.

Saga already expected what she would meet as she turned around, but the voice that spoke didn’t register in her as anyone she already knew. And neither did the tall figure. One could say, that she simply hadn’t expected the hound to take such a form. “You…” She didn’t stutter, she looked for the right words. She looked him up and down, being quite nonchalant about it, before having her eyes meet his at the end. “You can take human form as well. Interesting. For is it the other way around? Human to hound?” she asked, as her head once again tilted slightly to the side, crossing her arms over her torso in a relaxing pose.
A hint of a little smile peaked through in the corners of her mouth. “I would have thought you’d look… I don’t know. Different. Scruffier. Broader.” The little witch suddenly stepped closer, not imitated by his new height. She just had to bend her head a bit more back to keep eye contact. “Even your eyes are not of the same colour.” It reminded her of a glamour but she kept herself from testing the theory. He had already showed clear rejecting behaviour toward her potential touch.

Saga would have been lying, if she said the sly comment hadn’t come as a surprise to her. Especially after the personality traits the hound had shown her beforehand. But it wasn’t enough to hold her own tongue as she calmly sent the comment back at him like a game of tennis. “Your temper is indeed on the larger side of thing.” If her words had been a follow-up to his own joke, then it wasn’t clear. Neither was it clear if she had been completely serious. The spark in her eyes could easily be a play of the mind. And before it would be confirmed properly, he forced her to look away, as he, seemingly out of nowhere, grabbed her arm. “Wha-..?”

This time there was absolutely no doubt about how this caught her off guard. She expressions were not the most… expressive but they were still very much there. Her eyes widened and she didn’t have time to react, to pull out of his grip, before he guided her hand towards his face, making her have to stand up on her toes so be in a more comfortable position. A loud hiss came from the top of the wardrobe as a result to the hound’s actions, though the witch herself didn’t give of an impression that she minded. At least she didn’t immediately try to pull away. Or just straight up slapped him. She only settled with giving the tall, young-looking male a moderately dissatisfied glance. Use your witchery…
“So this is not anything like a glamour? A transformation,” she said questioningly as she took him up on his offer. As soon as he had let go of her, she lifted her other hand up to hold one side of his face while she other held the other. She gently turned his head, first to one side, and then to the other. Now looking more analysing at him, rather than directly. He felt very real. Warmth. She couldn’t quite place if it was a cosy warmth or more the lines of an alluring warmth.

Finally she let go of him and got down on flat feet again, looking more content now, the dissatisfaction completely gone from her face. “You must be old then. Old enough to start forgetting what’s not too important. Old enough to know a long-forgotten language. Unless, of course, it is still taught to the offsprings. As you might have guessed; I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting one of your kind before.”

”Evan,” she repeated to herself, tasting the name, feeling it on her tongue. It was such an extremely human name in contrast to how otherworldly his true name was. Evan. Short and mundane. “A name better suited than having to call you Beast, I’d say.” It was deliberate that she didn’t had ‘hound’ as well, yet it was more of a description, a word for what he was, as he himself had made it clear not long ago, rather than an actual name she’d feel like using now he had given her a much preferable option. But it would’ve been a lie to include it. Saga turned her head a few degrees, throwing an allusive glance towards the white furred animal on the wardrobe before presenting: “That’s Circe. They are, for the most parts, harmless.” Though not that fond of strangers.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed how he from time to time had his attention towards the ferret. If not because the ferret itself had made it difficult to ignore it. Hissing and running around. But her observational skills didn’t just catch on to a person’s wording, the small changed in expression told a story too.

The soft smile, that had been hinted in moments before, now found its way back unto her lips, a little more prominent this time around. The little witch then took a few steps backwards away from him, before she turned around, walking front forward in the direction of the bed, giving him space, if that was what he needed. On the floor, the blood the circle had been drawn in appeared much more dried out now. When the circle had been unbroken and active the blood at stayed fresh in a way but now it had darkened in colour and there was no risk of smudging or dragging it round as she stepped over it.
“You’ve been allowed to leave anytime to wanted. Interesting as you might be, I’m not one to keep you captive,” she cleared up for him, as she gather her hands in front of him and stretching her armed out in a circular swing up and back, stretching out her body, arching the back, as the arm moved over her head. A faint groan of exhaustion could be heard from her throat, following a breath of relief as she released. She was feeling the extent of the spell. The use of magic.

As Saga reached to bed and collected the book back up in the arms, sounds coming from the wardrobe indicated the suddenly scurrying of the small creature atop of it, as it jumped back down from it. But again, rather than it landing with a thunk on the floor, it lost its original form, swirling white again, and then morphing into flapping wings of a white crow. Hovering the rest of the way unto the ebony haired witch’s shoulder. She turned to Evan again, so used to having the familiar around that she barely noted the changing anymore. “Let me see you out. There’s always the option to go out through the window but perhaps the front door would be to prefer over the jump from the third floor.”
She didn’t even ask if he actually wanted to leave. The way he had asked had already given her an idea that he didn’t care much to stay longer than he had to. A shame.

The witch halted. Her eyes looking quite surprised at the arm, held up almost right in front of her eyes. She blinked at few times in astonishment, mostly over the overall action he had taken, before she turned her head to look up at him instead. She caught on to the desperation in an instant. Not only in his words or his voice, but also in his eyes. Even the way certain muscles in his face tensed up. Her lips were ever so slightly split apart in a relaxed manner before her tongue moved the sounds of her vocal cord into understandable words. “I won’t.” she said, calmly. Waiting just a moment before she spoke again to better explain her reply. “I won’t be telling anyone about you. Or what you are - monster or not. I can understand how you’d want it to be kept a secret. We all have secret after all.”

She held her gaze at his eyes for just a little while longer to try and convince him further that she didn’t just give him empty promises. Eye contact had never been a problem for her. She had never really felt that discomfort so many had told her about. She then sighed softly, only letting out a very faint sound, as she looked away from him again. Still standing a couple of inches from his upheld arm, not having backed away, she simple stepped forwards at the same time, as she lifted the arm op to let her under it and by that; onwards to the stairs. The crow glaring at the hound, as she pasted him. Impressively enough, it hadn’t reacted to the sudden blockage when it happened.
Just as she reached to top of the stairs, she stopped again, to turn her whole body to Evan. “Let me try and make up for this whole ordeal. Before you leave, would you mind having a cup of something with me? I sense that you might have some thought about me as well, and I would like to clear some of that up, if I can.” As she talked, she leaned her hip up again the railing of the stairs and once more, her eyes didn’t sway from looking directly at him. They didn’t look vaguely to the side or moved that much around.
She embraced the book tighter into her chest, made sure she had a proper grip around it to not accidently drop it on the floor - or worse: down the stairs.

His acceptance made her smile one of her poised smiles again. Even though she understood perfectly if he’d want to get out of there as fast as he possibly could, she had hoped her offer wouldn’t be denied. She had, after all, not asked him for nothing. That would just be silly. So she lead the way, as he requested.

The second floor was much like the third floor in the sense, that it was mostly one big room. The only exception was the presence of a door, leading to the bathroom, which also cut the living area a bit smaller than the bedroom. But, still, it didn’t seem crapped. In the side, that they landed after climbing down the stairs, were a soft couch placed up against the wall, decked with blankets and pillows for good comfort when slouching. A TV in front of it that at the same time worked was a room divider between the living room part of the floor and the kitchen and dining section.
The kitchen was as normal as it got. Following the broader wall with counterspace, sink and a gas stove with an oven under it. A sizeable fridge in the farthest end, pushed into perfect placement between the kitchen counter and a slight corner of the wall, were another stair – this one made more of less into the rather than spiralling like the other one. The kitchen had the necessary stuff, but it was clear that it wasn’t really a part of her home, that she used much. At least not for any advance cooking. But it was clean. Only a few washed dishes still hang around on the drying rack.
A fitting dining table with four chairs around it was found almost in the middle of the floor, in the kitchen area.

Saga was on her way towards the kitchen counter, when Evan’s wonderings filled in the silence, and she stopped to turn to him. “Late night?” just for a moment, before her eyes wanderes further around, looking for a clock and eventually looking out one of the windows. “Ah! It has gotten quite late, hasn’t it.” She looked back at the hound. “I’m not entirely sure. It happens. It depends on if whether or not I accept customers at his hour. But even then…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She left I hanging in the air, probably for him to think of an ending himself.
Before she resumed to the counter, she nodded to the table inviting him to sit. “I must have woken you up, summoning you this late. Or perhaps your kind don’t actually need such things as sleep?” He did seem awake and aware but that could easily just be from being alert on the danger, she could be to him. She had to stand up on tiptoe to reach a tin of coffee from one of the cupboard and then proceeded with spooning it in a coffee machine. And after the water had been added and the machine was started, not long after that the room filled with the delightful caffeinated scent. He had asked for ‘something stronger’. But she had no alcohol in the house so the strongest would be strong coffee. Either that or poison..

For some, it might be a strange visual seeing those two sitting across from each other. One so different and in a whole over part of the scale than the other. While she was so reserved, yet self-assured, he was expressive and seemingly open to the world around him. He felt the awkwardness that she didn’t.
With a slight of hand, another cupboard opened to reveal a small collection of cups. All different. Different designs, different colours, different sized. And again tiptoeing, she grabbed two of the ones in the front for the steaming coffee to be poured in. Then holding the cup at the top, where it was cool for her sensitive fingers to grab, one cup in each hand, she turned and joined Evan at the table. She huffed a laugh. “I rarely put much thought into things being awkward, so I believe you’re on your own on that one. But don’t worry, I’m not deliberately trying to make you feel awkward.”

Obviously being the most relaxed and comfortable one of the two, she sat leaned back in her chair. She even pulled up a leg up to her chest while sitting. Both her hands were wrapped around her down cup to feel the warmth of it in her palms. Two fingers in the lopped handled for support since her grip was so gentle. But when she took a sip – careful herself not to burn her tongue – she let go with one hand only for the cup to fall back into it afterwards.
“I’m not selling my body for the pleasures of others, if that thought crossed your mind,” she finally replied. That place was usually where minds wandered, when she talked about nightly work hours. “I make my living dealing magic. Different kinds of spells and hexes. Attachments. And occasionally I’d dabble in the trading of magical items. I have customers that don’t come out after dark, so it’s not uncommon for me to hold the shop open into the night. I don’t mind it. Like yourself; I enjoy the nights. Maybe a bit more than the daytime.” The finishing words got added with a discreet shrug on the shoulders, which the white crow must have taken as a clue to jump off and perch itself on the empty chair next to her. This way it could still keep a breaded eye on the canine.

Saga’s eyes dropped from the hounds intriguing face and eyes and down over the clothes. She would have been far greater at picking something out for him, had she had something to go out of. His figure was, after all, so far from the smoke-furred creature. “Is the outit making you feel awkward?”

How much his words baffled the little witch was suddenly not so subtle. Not only did it show in her eyes but her whole face revealed how it had taken her back. She even seemed to perk up. Her cup had been on its way up to her lips for another sip, but she had stopped the motion halfway. She wasn’t sure what she should have expected. This wasn’t the first time it had been pointed out to her, and looking back, sure, she could see the patterns. But still, she never thought much of it until someone spoke up. It was as normal a thing for her as walking or speaking – or flicking a wrist for a spell. It was such an integrated part of her, that she barely noticed, though she noticed so much else.
The astonishment calmed down and let her lower both her eyes and her coffee mug back on the table. She pressed her lips together before the corners of her mouth stretched to a smile followed by a chuckle. Not just a huff this time. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Weird even. Some say, it’s confidence in my own abilities and therefore I’m not afraid of a potential outcome. I mean, why should I be worried that you’d harm me? So far you haven’t. You even apologized for the threat.” Her finder glided over the mugs edges, gentle and light like feathers. Feeling the porcelain, still cool to the touch where the warm drink hadn’t warmed it up. She looked back up at him with a whip of the head to try and remove a lock of loose hair from her face.

“Tell me this; What do you know of witches?” Maybe his caution only stemmed from being summoned by her only. How she had held him in the circle, not thinking further as to why she had. But the possibility of it taking another set of roots was still there. Her kind didn’t carry the best of myths or rumours. But wouldn’t that make him a user of the same level of prejudge that he passively had accused her off? “Do you believe that I’m actually capable of hurting you? That I have reasons to? I can’t deny that I’m fascinated by you. That it hadn’t crossed my mind what properties your fur would have. You’re new to me.”

She realized that she probably didn’t make the situation that much better by explaining and took a deep breath. “With that said, I don’t own a head trimmer so you’ve got nothing to worry about,” she sigh as an attempt to defuse some of the tension that her honestly and logic easily could have caused.