If her upbringing had taught her anything it was to not fear the darkness. While the memories of her mother and father were fuzzy at best, she could still recall the calm and collected sound of her mother humming lightly into her ear. Humming while she held her in his lap and rocked her to sleep in the pitch black darkness of their mortgaged home. The sound of the wind was almost empowering, a reminder of the icy chill that crept through the cracks in the broken front window held together with duct tape as her mother coaxed her shivering body to sleep for tomorrow was always another day and the sun had no choice but to rise once more.

Where most saw despair and dead ends, Valerie Gray saw opportunity. This was no different.

The fog was not anything to bat her white eyelashes at either and she was accustomed to it rolling in suddenly over the Puget Sound. Though the combination of these two with the addition of the cooling temperature did add a little unrest, the adrenaline already pumping through the Wampus’ veins as she stood at the edge was a reminder that nothing but shame lay behind her if she did not proceed forward. What good would that Book of Merlin be if it had chosen someone who so easily surrendered just by staring into the unknown?

Muttering a few choice words to herself, Valerie stepped confidently forward and into the forest. A few paces in and the loud snap of a twig under her black combat boots nearly caused her to curse and berate herself aloud for being so careless right off the bat. Thankfully, the Calming Draught she had consumed earlier kept her wild temper at bay and she flourished her wand instead to cast a silent Quietening Charm on herself.

She would not be making that mistake again.

Testing the efficiency of her spellwork by treading on another nearby twig, grinning internally at the lack of sound this time, the proceeded forward and paused now and again to allow for her eyes to adjust to the progressively diminishing light. Soon, however, it became apparent that there was no adjusting to be done in the pitch blackness. Man fears the darkness and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire, she quoted to herself with a small smirk tugging at one corner of her lips. Rather than foolishly cast Lumos and give away her location further (further than the initial snapping of the twig had provided this forest’s inhabitants), the sixth year gave a reserved swish of her wand directed at her eyes. “Bestiar eyes,” she whispered on an exhale.

Eyes focused on the path shrouded in thick darkness ahead, Valerie’s thought of and only of the eyes of a barn owl. Soon she could feel the skin around her grey eyes both loosen and tighten at the same time to make way for her new significantly larger, rounder, and more tubular shaped ones. Perhaps efficiency would have begged her to play a different card, but she saw no need to utilize that talent immediately. Once her superior owl eyes had settled into place and she could see the ground upon which she tread, Valerie continued forward with her wand ready for whatever this maze of mangled branches and suffocating fog had to offer.