Raven Eyes – Part 1

In some obscure book from my mother's collection, I had once read the phrase: “True happiness is found at the end of a leash.” Like most people, I may have found it funny, but never really thought of it again. That was until one specific day. The day I was going to visit the Royal Academy of Witchcraft for the first time. My goal as with so many others like me was to learn the control over my budding magic and become a powerful and independent witch! Well... I certainly would find my future, just not in the way I had expected. For it was also on that day that I found my very own leash, at the hands of the person who would change my life and I hers in turn...

“Beep! Beep! Beep!”

“Ugh, just five more minutes...” Without opening my eyes I turned back around to get some more sleep. It was way too early to get up, I was sure of it! Sadly it seemed as if my clock had other ideas about my schedule.

“BeepBeepBeep!”

“Shut it... stupid piece of scrap... Meh.” Not even bothering to look up I smashed my hand on the snooze button and fell back into the soft embrace of sleep.

“BEEP BEEP BEEP!”

“AAH!” Startled by the sudden intrusion on my nap-time I jerked up and instinctively raised my hands in defense, only for me to hear – not even a split second later – a loud crash. Still confused I blinked a few times before finally looking up. When I did though, my sight fell on yet another broken alarm clock and several splinters of plastic sticking out of the thick padded walls of my room.

“Uhaah... Mom is going to kill me. Better make any evidence disappear!”

Stumbling out of my pile of blankets and pillows with as much of my rather lacking grace as I could, I hopped over to the impact site. Weary of any sharp fragments on the ground I inspected the remnants of my overly dutiful clock. And remnants truly were all that remained; looking closer I let out an appreciative whistle at the destruction my wrath had caused this time. While the last few alarm clocks hadn't lived much longer than number twenty-two, they had at least stayed in one piece. This one though I had straight-up shredded. Most of the clock wasn't actually on the ground but stuck in the wall like shrapnel.

“Well, I should see it positive, I actually found a new Spell! Dismantling-Magic!” I mentally filed it based on its possible power right between “Crushing-Magic” and “Oh, Gods! Why is everything on fire!?-Magic”. The least one courtesy of my aunt on my fourteenth birthday; since then I hadn't seen open flames around me ever again. I always wondered why... Making the best of a questionable situation I began carefully pulling out all of the shards and dropped them in my slightly damaged garbage bin.

A few minutes later I was finally done but I knew I didn’t really have time to mend the rips so I just hoped that my mother wasn’t going to follow me to the academy to rip off my head for this latest case of vandalism. With a light if somewhat panicked chuckle, I made my way over towards my adjacent bathroom. Or at least I had planned so, but instead, when I stepped forward I heard a crunch and a moment later felt a sharp pain shooting up my leg.

Some amount of screaming, cursing and silent weeping later I actually managed to make it to my bath. The bloody footprints on the ground I simply masterfully ignored. Instead, I focussed on the important part of this morning namely making myself look presentable. Looking up from my hastily bandaged foot and into the – as with so many of my possessions – cracked mirror I was confronted with a view that hadn’t really changed all that much in the last few years.

Before me in the reflection stood a 1.75-meter tall girl, with midnight black hair, equally dark eyes, and a seemingly permanently grim expression. While my face could generously be defined as pretty, my skinny body and sickly pale skin had earned me the nickname of “Wraith” during high-school. Much to my chagrin, even several years now after puberty not all that much had changed. I was still very skinny – but at least now with greater muscle definition – and my B-Cup breasts were small enough to almost vanish under anything but the tightest of clothing. The only thing that had truly grown was my butt; for some arbitrary reason it together with my hips had decided to take over all the growth the rest of my body was so sadly lacking. If there was one thing going for it, than that I never needed a seat cushion, because I always carried mine around with me.

I shook my long black tresses with a low sigh and went back to freshen myself up. A bit of moisturizer and light make-up later all that was left was styling my hair. But as if the day hadn’t begun shitty enough already, my mood went entirely down the drain when I noticed several large black feathers stuck in my curls. Of course – because how else could it be – my body had to decide on one of the most important days of my life that now was the time to molt.

Ah, yes molting... people shouldn’t have to deal with that right? Fortunately or unfortunatly, while I may have been a truly shitty witch, I had another talent: I was an animagus. More specificly a greater animagus, which meant that I could transform into an animal at will. In my case, it was a bird, a terrifyingly large raven with a wingspan of over three meters. And while normal animagi only assumed the perceived shape of an animal and their forms were more incorporeal than real, when I transformed I did so with my flesh, blood, and bone. Meaning I had to deal with all the downsides that came with being part carrion feasting bird. I was drawn to high places, hated the heat, liked my meat more raw than rare and of course in regular intervals my bird body molted, getting rid of old feathers and replacing them with new ones. So fun... not!

Now the actual problem with this was the fact that when transforming – which, because it was part of who I was, I did rather often – my clothing didn’t transform with me. This had left me with a rather open view towards public nudity. I mean when you regularly find yourself naked on top of some crowded building because you have the unfortunate habit of “Sleep-flying”, you really start to not give a shit anymore about who sees your fun bits. Thankfully I had actually managed to find a way to work around that particular problem. The solution being, almost two months of trying to figure out spatial magic only for me to end up with an arcane-storage the impressive total volume of... a small watermelon.

This, in turn, had influenced my clothing habit rather drastically. Finding out that I could change to and fro without exposing my naked bubble butt to the entire world, had changed some of my views on what was acceptable clothing in public. Or to say it in other words, my clothing in the last few years had become ever shorter and tighter. This was partially because I had the bad habit of trashing my storage space with snacks, but more likely was the fact that something in me was just drawn to such outfits. Tube-tops tight and see through enough for my nipples to greet the world, I mean why not? Micro-skirts one would expect more on some dumb bimbo than a respectable witch? At least I had the butt for it! And so my wardrobe had slowly changed from angsty teenage hoodies to something my mother lovingly revered to as “total slutwear”. Now I was going to argue against that point but my recent adventures into latex and tight leather, made me quickly shut up any protests in fear of her just throwing away all of my clothing.

“Well, at least she won’t be able to nag me about my choice of dress once I’m at the academy. Then again we are supposed to wear our uniforms there... Hmm, I might have to clear out my storage after all, or I’ll just cut down the uniform to fit my requirements. Questions over questions and no answers in sight...”

Still thinking about what would be the best – and most comfortable way to go – I went downstairs to greet my mother but was rather surprised when I didn’t meet her. Instead, all that I saw was a note on the tiny kitchen table. Fixing myself a quick breakfast of toast, an egg and several slices of raw bacon, my eyes wandered down to what was written on the note.

“Alice!

If you're reading this you probably overslept again!

Sadly I had to get up early because the twerps from the bank need to talk my ear off about the loan on our café, so I won’t be able to drive you. I put your luggage next to the door and there should be enough money on your bus-card to get you to the train station.

DON’T MISS THE BUS!!!

Love you little idiot, Mom.

“Huh... Probably should look up the time then.” Still somewhat tired I yawned and looked towards the kitchen clock. It was 7:30 am. Way too early, the train wasn’t leaving until 8:15 am, so I still had enough time. Maybe I should just take another nap? Yet before my body could carry out its glorious plan, my mind did a double-take. 7:30 am and the bus took almost half an hour to drive through the entire city. It would arrive at around 8:05 at the train station. My eyes blinked open in sudden realization of my predicament; I had less than ten minutes to reach the bus stop!

Not even bothering to clean the dishes I stormed back up to my room. Both my too-large shirt and lacy panties went flying off my body in record time. Spraying my body up and down with deodorant should mask any stray smell of sweat. One quick glance in the mirror told me that my hair was already a mess again, but right now I couldn’t care less. Ripping open my closet I tried finding all the parts of my new uniform.

“Panties~ panties~ ... a thong will do! Dark black tights... ah, nope not here, okay fishnets than!” At least I had been smart enough to put out the skirt, blazer, and overcoat the night before. Throwing them on and racing downstairs I had to waste more precious time trying to find the black flats that were supposed to go with the uniform. Before I could truly panic I remembered that I packed them in my luggage, just very deep down. This left me with picking one of the pairs I wasn’t going to take with me.

“High-heels... sneakers... Yeah none these are decent and I have to run, sneakers it is!”

A few seconds and a pair of red sneakers later I had grabbed my small suitcase, smashed the front door shut and was racing at breakneck speed down the sidewalk. It was as if reality was playing a cruel joke on me today. I hadn't even passed around the first corner when I almost collided with a small dark-skinned man.

“Holy!” I had just enough time to yank my trolley out of the way before it impacted with its target.

“Oh, my! That was certainly a close call young lady!” The man before me pushed a pair of thick glasses back on the bridge of his nose and eyed me sternly.

“I'm sorry, Mister Fenoru. I'm in quite a hurry!” I was now looking towards the closest traffic lights in the hopes of having a good reason to leave the old man.

“Hm? Do we know each other?” He looked at me even more closely and finally it seemed to click. “Ah! The young Miss Dutrar! I almost hadn't recognized you, dressed up all nice and proper! I have to say you already look far more like an aspiring Witch should. Definitely better than the curious pieces of fabric you usually wear around town!” Finally, as he nodded his head in what I guessed he saw as a wise manner the light turned from red to green.

“Sorry, Mister Fenoru can't stay to talk! I gotta dash!”

After crossing the street and artfully dodging at least two more old people and a man with a trio kids following him like a bunch of ducks I had almost made it. Looking to my immediate left I could see one of the automated city-busses driving by me. If I wasn't entirely stupid that was the bus I had to take! I could still make it! Not even bothering to watch for oncoming cars I vaulted over the chain-link fence separating the sidewalk from the street. I was almost half-way over the crossroads when a sudden bright light and honking to my right startled me out of my run. With big eyes, I stared into the headlights of at a black limousine rushing towards me!