She could feel the effects of her Calming Draught wearing off little by little with each drum of her heart as she gazed upon the little boy but she was trying to refocus her thoughts elsewhere rather than risk her temper taking over. Whether or not his tremble was from trauma, the cold, or a combination of the two did not matter as she reached down with one of her hands to pluck a rather sizeable leaf from the ground. “Vestis Vellus,” she said while tracing a curly q over it to transfigure the leaf into a warm wool blanket for the boy. “I am Valerie. What is your name?” she asked him while wrapping it around his shoulders snuggly and tying it there like a warm cape. It reminded her a bit of the way she used to swaddle her baby brother to soothe and help him sleep better. Mostly right now she had transfigured a blanket for him to keep him warm.

There was little guilt in her heart as she looked into his glazed over eyes (a result of her daydream charm, of course). It was no different than being told that the Tooth Fairy was the one leaving that penny under her pillow each night as far as she was concerned. It was helping him relax further, less terrified, and more compliant. All of which resulted in a more efficient exit from this forest.

Casting a Quietening Charm on his feet as well, the Wampus stood up and took a brief moment to brush the dirt off her knees. Valerie took one of the boy’s hands in her own and nearly forgot herself for a moment and moved to intertwine her fingers together with his like she did with Ryan, but refrained. Her owl eyes searched around on the ground for traces of her coming footprints so she could retrace them. It seemed the quickest way out of here and quickest way to get this boy proper aid for who knew how far the forest would stretch onward.

As she gave his hand a gentle tug to walk with her, Valerie tried to quell the growing agitation in her stomach and unrest in her chest. It did little for the twitch in the corner of her left eye nor for the ever tightening grip around her wand. “Did you become separated from your parents?” she inquired as they began walking. Were there more people she was meant to search for? More innocents (although she was still holding out hope this all was an inappropriate facade enabled by polyjuice potion or an illusion charm) being exploited for the sake of competition?

And then even the adrenaline in her veins went cold and it was as though the dementor had swooped back down upon them. No-Maj. This boy...was a No-Maj. It was literally as though these people had gone to her home in Tacoma, Washington and plucked her cousin right from his bed and then tossed him in the middle of a forest. Only her cousin at least knew what a wand was because he had seen hers as well as the occasional visiting Ilvermorny professor’s. But not this boy. Not recognizing a wand came with the implication that not even his parents were wielders. No Maj. How dare they?

Her grip around her wand (but not his hand) tightened suddenly and began to shake. She felt as though she could snap the cherry wood in half as she stared down at him. Jaw clenched and back teeth grinding slowly over one another, the overwhelming impulse and desire to destroy something was suffocating and she nearly thrust her wand out to the side to send a Bombarda Maxima at the nearest tree. The only, ONLY, thing that steadied her hand was knowing it may draw unwanted attention.

It was slowly consuming her, her rage, the more she looked at the No-Maj boy. She wanted to break them (the people who had organized and approved this task). To take them into mental state of anguish and torture. To have them torn down spiritually and emotionally drained of any kind of fight left in them. She wanted to see them cry, hopeless and begging for her to stop. She wanted them to be completely at her disposal and completely reliant on her ability to either finish them or let them save some scrap of dignity. She wanted to have complete control over their faculties, and destroy or remind them of how close to their own destruction they just came so that they live in fear of what she could do so they would never repeat this again.

She needed to calm herself down. A difficult task without the spare Calming Draught on hand and she briefly considered performing a Cheering Charm on herself. She feared the results would be more of a barred teeth grin rather than a slightly more level head. The urge to perform Periculum and effectively end the task now was also strong. Closing her eyes briefly, she attempted to count down backwards from some obscenely large number in her head in French. It was something her and Kyle had worked out years ago and produced varying degrees of success when her blood had boiled over and made a worse mess than spilled Draught of Living Death.

...quatre-vingt-douze...quatre-vingt-onze...quatre-vingt-dix…

It was somewhat working. She was at least to a place now where she did not want to burn down half the forest.

Then logic began to seep in through the cracks fury and on another exhale the reminder of The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was there. While she had not paid particular attention to that lecture, she did recall the details and while she could not speak for the Ministry of Magic she was certain MACUSA would never approve of the exploitation of No Maj for sport and scholarship.

Exploitation. That was all this was no matter what was ultimately revealed to be true. Exploitation of No Maj as a people and how was that a pure representation of international magical cooperation?

Doubt began seeping in, cooling her rage further and bringing her blood to a high simmer. But how then did one explain this boy? “Because I am a fairy,” she explained as she recalled comments she had heard the neighbor’s children refer to her as. “A fairy needs her want to perform magic. I am here to guide you out of your nightmare. Stay by my side and all will be right.” She began walking again and, despite her enhanced owl eyes, found the path back difficult to read thanks to her upset now being mixed with suspicion. That and she still had the urge to blow up a tree. “Do you recall how you came to find yourself in this forest?” she asked him as gently as she could through her clenched jaw.