“Don't trust my driving abilities?” His eyes shone at her.
“I just want fresh air,” Violette simply uttered and he reached his hand to her. She wanted the coachman to rest and at the same time, to avoid an awkward silence that could settle between them.
She put her hand in his when her attention got stolen by his shoulder. There was nothing except a ripped cut on his shirt.
“I thought I saw blood.” Her forehead puckered.
“I'm not sure what you are talking about,” he said easily and joined her on the seat.
The carriage wheels started spinning, the horses let out a neigh and their hooves began to bounce off the ground in a precise rhythm again.
Chapter 7
GUESSES AND ASSUMPTIONS
Violette's face was pointed upward as she watched the stars for a quite long time. The night was beautiful and not as cold as she’d expected it to be, however she was still wondering – where was the magic of fairytales she'd heard so much about? Sometimes she'd looked around in search of signs of it but there was only a dark forest around, nothing else.
“Still worrying about robbers?” Dante's voice entered the air as he noticed her restlessness.
“No.” She took her eyes off the snowy trees. “I actually –” she paused,“Well, I expected something more from this place. I mean…It looks pretty ordinary.”
“This is the thing they don't tell you, right?” A magnetic smile lit up his face. “Theselands hide magic well, it doesn't scream for itself. That's the whole point – you never know if the well is enchanted or the owl,” he pointed his chin upward at the bird on the branch over them, “is an evil sorcerer. Some places are more whimsical than others, but the truth is you'll always meet the magic when you least expect it. It's always around – you just don't really notice.”
She thought about his words for a bit and then voiced something that really was disquieting to her, “That man was mad at me that I was…a witch.”
He drew a sigh. “Yes, some people don't like…some of the magical beings. You see, you don't look like an enchantress from legends who came to make a wish come true.”
“You mean that one in a sparkly dress with wings, radiating light around her?” She let out a soft laugh.
“Exactly. If you don't look like this – they assume you are an evil witch.” He glanced at her before his gaze shot back to the road. “Most of the people are wary of them or afraid. But not all, some just are not used to wizards. They are not as common here. Most of them are leaving for your lands because people are still very prejudiced about them. Even after years they can't forget what some of your species did in the past.”
He most likely was referring to the old tales where witches and sorcerers were casting terrible curses on kingdoms and their people, however, it was a long time ago and wizards and wizardlings had nothing to do with it.
“It's so unusual,” Violette breathed. “In the Magic Lands nobody would suspect me of something bad just because I don't look like a cupcake. I mean, it's the usual fashion where I came from. We are not cute little fairies. Though, I met a few unusual wizardlings and wizards who look more like royalty,” she continued. “Our society doesn't have such preconceptions. Human and magicborn live in harmony and we accept everyone, even descendants of evil species. I mean, some still don't trust them but we don't judge or discriminate against them.”
Dante had seemed to attentively listen to her as he immediately responded, “We might have more wizards and other magical beings here but don't even know it. Some of them don't talk about it. There was a time when these places had a lot of reincarnates but now it's a mystery how many of them are still living among us.”
Violette cocked her head, still watching Dante. Reincarnates or as others called them ‘shapeshifters’ were an interesting happening – people who could shift to a predestined animal form, depending on who their ancestors were. It's been known their heritage came from the Valley of Enchanted stories, however they were quickly populating the Magic Lands, it seemed it was connected to this bizarre behavior towards magical beings here.
“Look,” Dante suddenly broke the silence with a soft tone and waved his head to the side, “Laevitins.”
Violette turned her head in the direction he showed – under the tree there was a little fluffy lump of light reminding her of a little rabbit, illuminated by a bright cold light around him, as if he was the light itself.
Violette's lips parted as she gasped. “Never saw them before.”
It wasn't surprising, as a lot of the mystical animals could appear only under the cloud of night and usually they lived in the forests, but for such a city girl as Violette it was absolutely new. Most of the creatures living in this world she'd never even imagined seeing, as they lived in the wild or were incredibly rare. And meanwhile Laevitins weren't the rarest species walking this world, it brought the butterflies to life inside her stomach.
“They leave their holes after midnight,” Dante said.
The little animal cleaned out its fur and in a flash of a second disappeared between the trees, leaving a strip of light in the air which slowly ebbed away.
“Consider this the first magical creature you saw here,” the young man said as Violette kept peering with her starry eyes in the depths of the forest where the magical animal vanished. “Though that owl we saw could still be an evil sorcerer in disguise,” he kidded.
She drew her gaze back to Dante as he was already looking at the road, the corners of her mouth grew into a smile.
After one more hour of the trip the carriage finally stopped. They drove up to a town,quite larger than the one they stopped by earlier. Arriving in the middle of the night they found the town entirely loaded in sleep. The silence reigned on the streets hand in hand with darkness.
An old black lantern brightened the paved street, dimly illuminating cottages on both sides – closed shops, cafes, bakeries and houses. The dark windows reflected street lights, not a soul detected around.
