Bloody Raven in the Shadow

Things are always changing

Harvey watched the fish swimming through the water. As a result of not having to watch where he put his feet as a mirror, he had much more time to observe all sorts of beings. The fish glittered with their silver backs in the sunlight. Every now and then one of them would jump out of the water into the air. Through the trees, on the other side of the river, the wind rustled and rustled and dense wafts of fog still hid what lay behind the trees in the distance.

Snow White had been walking for quite a while and was constantly talking to Mary and Rin.

"I'm really excited about the library," Snow White said enthusiastically. "We had one at home too, it was huge! Although my mother told me not to, I used to sneak in secretly as a child to read books. The best in my opinion was the book about Julian and Romea"

Mary started giggling "You were surprisingly a very disobedient child."

"And I thought she was a snooty little kid who only looks at clothes," Rin commented, amused.

"No, no. I prefer to read, clothes are tight," the princess sighs in a good mood.

"I actually read the book about Julian and Romea very often. It's such a beautiful love story!" then tells Mary with a smile.

"REALLY? My favorite part was when Julian wrote a song for her, I read that scene over and over again," Snow White enthuses

"Yes, that was really nice. One of the best love stories if you ask me, even if it ended very sadly"

"Wait a minute... Are you saying there are stories about love written in books?" asks Rin, stunned.

"Sure, didn't you know that?"

"NO! I thought books were for learning,"

"I thought so too, funnily enough books like this are very popular. If I were interested in love I'd just find someone instead of reading books," grumbles Harvey. He wasn't much interested in that sort of thing, he never really understood why Mary grabbed love stories from the library instead of textbooks. Her statement was always "It stimulates the imagination and makes you dream" but he loved to sniff through books about all sorts of beings. Preferably with his dog Scout, a magical creature that has accompanied him for centuries. Grief made his heart heavy when he realized that the dog was no longer walking next to him. The attack a few weeks ago had been very chaotic. He had to flee and the soldiers had followed him, but in all the commotion he lost the animal and it hadn't appeared since. The others hadn't found it and possibly it was killed by its brother. He would trust the older ones, only a few saw the magical beings as living individuals. Many just saw it as a means to an end. A way to long life. You put some of your magic into the being and it gathered and created new ones by eating food, drinking water, hunting, playing and just existing. Eventually, the animal would return the energy to its owner, either piecemeal or all at once, resulting in their death. Most wizards did not name or gender their magical creatures, through these techniques these beings lived an average of ten to fifty years. But what few knew, these animals could live as long as their owners and they had personalities. Even a very strong one, if you let it.

He'd known his friend Mary long enough to know that she, too, was saddened by Scout's disappearance. Medusa loved to play and cuddle with the dog. Rin was open to the creature, even if she didn't trust Harvey and as a result of their arguments she was often bitten, which of course never ended badly. Alice, on the other hand, thought the creature was cute but feared her, and Regina was mostly cold towards Scout, although he had sometimes caught her secretly petting, praising, or making a piece of meat disappear from the creature. None of the group spoke to the creature, they all knew that magical beings could vanish at any moment and there was no way to bring them back. They all had bigger concerns about that at the moment. Even if the mage had decided for himself that his brother had touched his scout, the older one would get an extra kick in the arrogant ass. Maybe three... Or four more. A soft bark sounded in the wizard's mind, and the big dog jumped up and down happily. Looked expectantly at her owner from her big eyes and was then distracted by a butterfly. Although this seemed menacing with its size and could inflict significant damage to opponents, Scout had a cute personality and had an even shorter attention span than Rin, who didn't like to sit still.