Chapter 1

Stolas was surprised to find himself pleased when the girl agreed to go find replacement snacks with him. He didn't know why, given that he was usually such a solitary creature himself, but maybe it was because he didn't like the idea of any sort of injustice, and a raven getting away with stealing a snack and causing the girl to embarrass herself seemed pretty unfair to the young lad. Well, it wasn't anything they couldn't fix with a few pieces of fried dough! When he asked about her posture, the girl frowned and seemed more put off by his question than the way she was carrying herself. She straightened herself out, and although she was a couple inches taller than he was, Stolas mostly chalked that up to the girl appearing to be a little older than he was. Surely he'd grow like her if given the time, right?

When the girl explained that everyone called her huge, Stolas couldn't resist a little puppyish giggle while he looked at her again. "Huge? That seems mean. You're just a bit taller than me, so does that mean I'm huge too?" He laughed again while they walked to the fried foods vendor, flashing a little smile at his new acquaintance. "Actually, now that I think about it, I am the biggest one of my siblings, so I guess yeah, I'm huge too." He rolled his shoulders in a shrug and met the girl's silvery eyes with his own graphite gray gaze. "We can both be huge together, and then you don't have to walk like that, and nobody can say anything about it to you. And if they do, we'll just have to beat them up!" Stolas snickered in obvious jest, but there was a small smidgen of truth to his words. His father had always told him not to take any sort of bullying lying down, and he applied that ideal to looking out for others as well.

As they got to the front of the line, Stolas ordered the two pups some fresh sugared doughnuts. The snow leopard paid with some gems Plague had given Stolas to spend around the carnival, and once the food had been made, he slid one of the sweet treats over to the girl. "Watch out for ravens," he teased while he snatched up his doughnut and began making his way back to the oak tree and away from the crowds so they could have some peace and solitude. "Oh, I'm Stolas, by the way," he introduced himself from around a mouthful of fried dough. "Stolas Abraxas-Destruction, from Ashen."

"Stolas Abraxas-Destruction"