Long Road Ahead // Sebastian Sallow x Reader

25

"Sebastian, watch out!" He moved out of the way just in time as my Graphorn dropped a bunch of posts on the ground.

"Thanks for trying to kill me buddy." He pat the graphorn on the nose before it walked back over to me. "Can we please give him a name?"

"You call him buddy, so how about that."

"No, that's to plain. More of a nickname." 

"What did you name yours?"

"Merlin."

"Did you really?"

"I thought it was good. You've got two adult Graphorns walking around without names, so you can't judge."

"I'll think about it later. Come on, we need to finish the expansion for them, then move on to repairing the Hippogriff gate." 

We laid out the last ten posts to finish the graphorn expansion and set them into the holes. I waved my wand and and the wooden boards lifted from the ground and Sebastian drove the nails into the posts.

"There. I think we should not get anymore graphorns for awhile. Or we are going to have to have to start expanding into some of the empty pens, maybe even the forest. That would put them outside the barrier."

"Well, with the graphorns, they would be safe from the poachers. I do still want to get a female at some point."

"You are going to be the death of me."

"You're the one sticking around." He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me.

"That's because I love you." I broke free from his hold and picked up the tool bag. We then walked over to the hippogriff fence and met Marcus who was already inspecting the gate.

"That youngin really didn't like this gate did he?"

"He was trying to follow me out when I closed it on him. I think he thought I still had some ferrets." 

"Luckily it's an easy fix. He busted up one of the hinges, so it just needs to be replace. And this board just needs to be nailed back in. We also might want to raise the gate. It's lower than all the other ones and if the snow gets compacted, you won't be able to open it."

"Do we have a replacement hinge?"

"I should have a few in my shed. Why don't you go find it while Sebastian and I get the gate off." I set off to the shed behind Marcus' house. The whole shed was littered with tools and gardening equipment. I saw on his workbench a few hinges and grabbed one, hurrying back to the both of them. They had already taken the gate off and repaired the broken board. I handed the hinge to Marcus and Sebastian and I propped the gate up while he got to work. He finished rather quickly and we released the fence. Marcus made sure that it opened easily and aligned with the locking mechanism.

"Perfect, the hippogriffs should be secure this winter now. thank you Marcus."

"Winter isn't to far out now. There has been a major shift in temperature this week."

There was a huge commotion amongst the thestrals suddenly. I turned around to them all kicking at something and running around. Sebastian and I ran over to them to try and see what they were reacting to. I whistled to try and distract them, which caused the three adults to come to me, but the two twins were still running around something. I hopped the fence and jogged over to the twins.

"Whoa boys, calm down." I placed my hands on Bastian's head and He immediately calmed, which cause his brother to calm down. Sebastian came up behind me and knelt to the ground.

"What is that?" I finally looked down and saw what had spooked the thestrals.

"Merlin's beard! It's a Moke! He's badly injured though. One of the thestrals must have stepped on him."