Elisaria had went back inside her little cottage beside the blue water stream with loud bang of the door that closed behind the dragon keeper in which had made Ciel flinch.

The orange haired keeper had forgotten about the shadowy figure he saw earlier in the woods and lifted his head up. His hand fetched to his head to block away the beaming rays of the sun that shone down upon him.

He had fixed the ceiling at the last minute except for the one nail that wouldn't budge, but that didn't matter. The planks of wood were already nailed down and secured enough to hold up for the next 20 to 30 years or so, depending on whether mother nature decides to be a dick for a day or two.

It was the sound of dry patter that instantly brought attention to the dragon keeper. The sense of something big and dangerous made Ciel's skin crawl and the hair in the back of his neck rise. He slowly turned his head to the direction of the dry patter when his body froze.

Ciel was face to face with a giant wolf.

The wolf was massive, far bigger than an average wolf he had seen in the woods. His whole head was bigger than half of he was.

Green fur came down like a V and finished at the tip of his black nose and grey colour fur mixed with the mixture of white looked like as if he would camouflage itself as a stone covered in layers of thick moss.

Those shiny coated green eyes like the forest in the springtime that held his reflection in them, stared back with intensity but just like dragons, those eyes Ciel could see held not but a vicious man-eating carnivore but a delicate and intelligent creature.

The wolf was close that Ciel could smell the aroma of the wolf, fresh grass after the rain.

Ciel felt his heart leap to his throat blocking the ability to breath. The dragon keeper couldn't believe his eyes. A wolf that had been said to gone extinct was standing in front of him, face an inch away from his and the wolf's green forest gazing at him.

He heard stories of the greatest wolf kin, the Toprakline wolf. Who knew one was residing with the witch of Aureum.

The wolf let out a warm huff of air that blew every strand of hair out of Ciel's face. It's breath smelled like the after maths of a rainy day in a forest.

Such beauty Ciel had thought, looking into those mesmerising forest eyes that had him captivated. The keeper rose a hand wanting to touch the wolf and feel it's beautiful, coated fur that it surrounded itself with.

The forest wolf stepped closer, head leaning down as a consent for the keeper to have a touch.

The second Ciel's palm had touched his coat of green, his hand disappeared into the fur. The touch was warm, sending waves of emotions through his palm. The feeling was like touching a ball of warm light that only brings happiness.

The fur was like fine silk, soft and valuable to the touch.

"His name is Alaric"

It was the sudden voice that made Ciel jump in fright, startled by the old screechy voice of the witch that came out of nowhere. He felt his soul leave his body for a second before returning back to his psychically body, even the beat of his heart had changed.

"Can you not sneak up on me" Ciel murmured, trying to calm his racing heart that jump up to his throat from fright. He didn't hear the woman walk up behind him neither hear the door open. So how she came about was a total mystery to the terrified Ciel.

Elisaria hummed bluntly, smacking her dried lips again. "Ya done with my roof" her 'f' sounded rough when she asked impatiently.

"Yeah." Ciel breathed out, the shape of his soul escaping his mouth. "But I can't guarantee it will stand against hurricane or any harsh weathers"

Elisaria scanned Ciel's pale expression, her sharp owl-like eyes narrowed to a slit and her hands on her hips in a doubtful manner. With a smack of her lips and a quick wrinkle of her long nose, Elisaria said "Meh. Better than this old hag would do anyway"

Ciel side glanced at the witch with a dead panned expression. He didn't know if he should feel insulted or grateful enough for the 'Kind' compliment.

"Now stop lazing around and get ya ass up. Ya got some digging to do" she ordered him with a wag of her bony finger with a grey fainted nail so sharp that it might cut anything that it get's pointy tip on.

Ciel exhaled a deep exhausted sigh, shuffling the side of his head as he did. He was already plainly exhausted with the work on the roof, hot and sweaty from the beams of sun and now he has another chore to do to repay the old witch for her 'kind hospitality' which had brought to Ciel's attention that the witch only saved people in order for them to do stuff for her because she couldn't herself.

Taking advantage of people's stay in her home.

What a sly old witch.

"Here" the witch said, tossing something towards the man for him to catch it with one hand in mid-air. The keeper looked down at what he had caught. A plain metal dagger that would be seen in most hunters pockets in case of an emergency.

Nothing too fancy.

Just a plain old looking dagger in the palms of his hands.

Curiously, his ocean blue eyes gazed at it for an amount of time trying to figure out how he was supposed to dig out weeds with it. "For those dreadful toads ya might come by" Elisaria had said getting the orange haired keeper's attention. "Alaric will guide ya around"

Elisaria turned around, the hems of her long cloak dress draped the grassy ground and traling behind when she left to the wooden entry of her cottage. "Make sure ya don't get their gooey shits on ya clothes. It will be hard to get them off" Elisaria warned Ciel then to crackle like an actual witch with a wave of her bony hand as she opened the door and went in, disappearing from Ciel's view and having the door slammed with a shut.

Ciel stayed silent.

Exhausted.

Sleepy.

Physically aching.

And annoyed.

Annoyed at the fact that he has to do all this witch's dirty work when he already paid his debt by fixing her roof. Elisaria had made a slave out of him. He crossed his arm in irritation and a vein throb popped out from his temples and throbbed, non-existing fumes seeping out from his ears and he grumbled curse words under his breath.

It was a soft nudge on his arm that turned the irritated man around to gaze deep into the intelligent eyes of the creature.

A soft smile plastered his face when seeing how gentle the giant wolf was with him. Ciel reached a handout, resting it upon Alaric's snout and caressing it softly "Alaric huh." The keeper spoke softly to the wolf who seemed well comfortable in the presence of a mere human like him. Ciel hard masculine hand trailed up, behind Alaric's pointy triangular ears where his hand disappeared into the fur again. "At least the only good thing the witch has done beside healing me is giving you a nice home and a handsome name to live with"

It was those ancient forest eyes that gleamed a sense of warmth when Ciel looked into them, as if knowing what was going through the wolf's mind. Alaric lowered his head and licked the side of Ciel's cheek making the man chuckle a soothing laugh that could bring the goddess of love to her knees.

"We should get going before Elisaria turns us both into toads"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ciel strode alongside the mighty ancient wolf, Alaric, with the dagger in hand. Alaric's huge body overshadowed Ciel as they walked alongside each other. The keepers fixated ocean blues darting through the mesmerising of the running stream surrounded by the beauties of nature, searching for the ugly green clumper jacks that ruined such sight.

Piles of small round rocks lay in the sides of the banks, covered in layers of thick dark moss. From afar he had saw little fairies sitting on top of those stones and the moss were like a cushion bed for them to sit on. The sound of melodic bells bounced off the loud dashing of the stream, and the glittering sparkles that was left behind when they flew danced gracefully on the water creating a colourful light.

However, the moment his presence appeared the fairies flew off to a hiding place in fear, leaving that trail of pixie dust behind.

It was kind of sad to see them so frightened and fly off, though the orange haired keeper didn't blame them. Fairies have always been one of the top magical creatures on the list of creatures that humans hunted for their source of magic and delicacy. Using their life essence to live more years of their lives, forcing them to grant them their wishes then to Pluck their wings to create jewellery for rich noble ladies with their noses far up the sky to even care what creatures they had slaughtered to have something delicate around their necks or hair to make them beautiful.

Their magic hair that is turned into a mixture given to woman to make them have silky, long lasting healthy hair. Their magic core that creates more power in anyone's magic.

That's why fairies have hidden away from the sight of mankind.

It made Ciel sick to think that he was one of these humans that these beautiful creatures feared the most.

With a sullen sigh, Ciel continued on his search for the hideous toads, walking not so far from the stream banks. It was only 20 minutes later when he spotted a green blob sitting on a round pebble, his green body which was the size of a newly hatched baby dragon, faced the water like some cocky bastard who thought it owned everything on sight.

It's vocal sac would rise into a huge ball bigger than his own head creating a deep grumbling croak that ruined the lovely melody of the forest as if it was that one broken instrument in an orchestra. Those ogre-like ears stuck out from the side of its half skeleton shaped head with its thick and giant frown lips and those ears wagged whenever the sac sucked back into its original shape.

Ciel's eyebrows came down to form a frown on his face. He doesn't like toads nor frogs; he finds them disgusting and slimy and the fact that these clumper jacks were like ogre versions of normal toads made it even worse.

Furthermore, the keeper questioned himself curiously. Why was a swamp creature doing here? In the forest. Was what the keeper wondered.

Alaric stopped when he too saw the Clumper jack residing on a moss-covered rock. The intelligent warmth in his ancient forest eyes disappeared the moment it laid its eyes on the green blob. Those dark pupils diluting instantly forming the eyes into a fierce angry wolf that's about to attack a deadly bite.

His lips parted ways to reveal his sharp white canine teeth that could break bones with just a bite. Alaric bared his teeth at the toad letting a low angrily grumble at it.

Ciel gulped back seeing the sudden change of reaction of the calm wolf from before turn into a viscous looking beast beside. He was thankful that he wasn't the one that Alaric was angry at while mentally noting to himself to not get on Alaric's bad side.

He didn't want to be ancient wolf food.

Seeing how the Toprakline wolf has great loath against the Clumper jack it brought a little devilish smirk to cross the corner of Ciel's face. "I guess it's you and me both".

Alaric side glanced down at Ciel as if the wolf agreed to what he had said.

With a graceful twirl of the dagger around his hand, Ciel began to approach it with malicious glint in his eyes "Let's kill that ugly shit hole"