The Banished Hybrid book 1: Hybrid's Revenge (14+) (Draft 1)

Chapter 2 part 1

When we reached the main festival, which ended up being in the center of the village, the moon was high in the sky and was almost full. It was still not enough to make us shift. Which was a good thing because I didn't want another accident. And blame myself, I thought unhappily.

We walked around the festival. It was crowded with both humans and magical creatures alike. I tensed when I saw humans dressed foolishly like magical beings. They weren't even good anyways!

Jasmine squeezed my hand. "Humans stupid," she told me.

"Humans stupid," I said back, remembering the words I taught her. I relaxed a moment later. I smiled at Jasmine. "Thanks Jasmine," I told her. She smiled and we continued our walk through the village.

Jasmine and I stopped at a booth showing off different colored scarfs. The person sitting at the booth was a friendly looking young woman who looked to be around Jasmine's age. The dark orange booth lights on the roof being the only light so we could hardly see each other.

"Pretty," Jasmine said as she picked up a green scarf and wrapped it around her neck.

The woman laughed, a happy and appreciative laugh. "Well, I'm glad someone likes my work," she said, smiling. "It's yours. I don't get much business here anyway. And while you're at it, pick as many as you like!"

Jasmine's eyes widened with happiness. She started picking through the scarfs, choosing different colors and wrapping them around her and putting some around me so I had some. Now Mommy would definitely know we went out.

"Your friend is quite the observer," the lady told me.

"Yeah, she is," I said back as we watched Jasmine twirl around with all her new scarfs.

With our scarfs wrapped around us, I thanked the nice lady for giving them to us. Jasmine took my hand after that and we hurried off, looking at all the different things people had.

We were standing in one of the lines when something tapped my arm. Thinking it was Jasmine, I turned to look at her but she was looking around.

"Roar!" A high pitched girl's voice sounded from behind me.

Startled, I turned around to see a little girl in what was supposed to be a wolf costume. "Roar!" She said again, holding out her little hands like claws. She giggled, trying to be amusing.

"Wolf," she added, pointing to herself when I didn't do anything. "Roar!"

"Wolves don't sound like that," I told her. She gave me a hurt look so I added, "They sound more like this," I tilted my head back and howled like I did in wolf form.

Jasmine heard me and joined in a few moments later with the little girl enjoying our show. My wolf wanted to come out, wanting to be free but I held her back. I didn't want to scare off the little girl. So I just allowed my wolf to come through my howl, sounding like a real wolf. People gave us strange looks as they walked past but for once we didn't care. Then giggling, the little girl turned and ran off, trying to howl at the same time. Maybe humans weren't bad after all, I realized. But I still didn't trust them.

I burst out laughing. Howling sure made me feel light and happy inside. Why didn't I do it more often? Didn't have a reason to, I told myself. 

"What's next?" I asked Jasmine. 

Smiling, Jasmine took my hand and we ran over to a booth with a man selling jelly tarts. I've never had one before and we didn't have any money. But I did have a plan. I jumped up onto the roof in a single motion and made dough and cooking equipment move so the man was distracted while Jasmine stuffed jelly tarts in her shirt.