Racing Shadows - A Mary Poppins Fanfiction

Introduction

To put it simply, Mary Poppins grew up in another dimension. It's name has been lost to time. For a very long time, it was a peaceful land. Some of the people in the land had magic. Magic runs in families, so there were often families full of magic people while other families were just as normal as you or I. But, as expected for such a peaceful land, trouble eventually came. It arose in the form of a single nameless, shapeless being. It was just barely a being. It was like shadow made nearly solid. Shadow with a mind of it's own, that is. No one knows how it came into existence. All that's known is that, in a short time, it began to multiply. At first, the Shadow Beings, as they were called at the time, seemed harmless. They just walked, or drifted, or whatever they did, around all the time. Then it happened. A little girl had been playing with her magic, experimenting as all young children do, and a Shadow Being approached her. Before anyone knew what happened, the girl lay dead on the ground and the Shadow Being grew larger. The people learned that the Shadow Beings feed off of human magic. Every time a Shadow Being took someone's magic, they grew larger and seemed to want more magic. When they fed off of a person, though, it killed them. The people grew fearful of the Shadow Beings and went into hiding. Soon, the magical population dwindled, and seeing as the magical population made up the majority of the people in the land, there weren't many people left. Soon, there was only one magical family left. The Poppins. They stayed very well hidden and managed to survive a long time. But, like all things, nothing lasts forever.