On our way back, the streets were still buzzing with people. I spotted some people covered in green gowns. These guys are members of the order of life and I also saw some guards who walked right past us, but they didn’t give me any weird looks.

'Vel, do you think the guards would recognize us if we walked into the ones who chased us?'

'That is possible, however most within the guarding force of our town Urca are very limited in their brain capacity, sadly'

'Damn, that's so mean. You know they do protect us.'

She leaned in a bit, giving me the face that conveyed a river float of reasons why it was the truth, then she also opened her mouth. 'And when do you suppose they actually protect us, there is no real danger here. At this moment they are just sitting on their asses wasting tax money. But they do try to catch witches and servants, doing one spell.'

I rose one of my brows, ‘You're just cold, we would be a lot worse off if we didn't have them and real danger was lurking. So be careful what you wish for. Your father did go because of something serious.’

Her frustration ebbed away 'Maybe you’re right. But I'm just a little pissed at them because they made it so risky last night.’

I gave her a nod of understanding and swung my arm around her. She looked down a bit.

'What do you do that for?'

She said in a soft voice, a little embarrassed.

'I thought you needed an embrace, at least it seemed so.' My heart was just beating a little bit faster now.

'I don't need an embrace'

'Ow, sorry' and I tried to retract my arm but she grabbed it. 'But I do maybe like it a little bit.'

She looked at me and smiled. This made my body cluster with a warm feeling, she was actually very pretty today. We walked like this until we got home. Being so close to each other made our height difference very noticeable. It was about 10 centimetres (a small cup). This made her look just over my head. At the gates of our home, Vel looked to the sky once and walked on. Just before entering the door, we smelled Malanda's delicious cooking, and when we opened the door we were bombarded by must stronger tempting scents. From the kitchen, a voice sounded.

'Perfect timing children, I'm almost done just come and sit down at the table, please.'