☞ Speech
☞ Thoughts
☞ Narration

Current outfit:
☞ Black hoodie with fishnet leggings and black denim shorts on top
☞ Black army-type boots, with silver accents
☞ Silver pirate rings with the usual skull and crossbones decor.
☞ Several choker's, ranging from silver to black along with creepy earrings up and down my ears along with a thin silver nose piercing on my right flap.
☞ Black headphones with my magical radio in my pocket.

Current Hairstyle:
☞ Thick bun at the nape of my neck

I stared up at the large building. I didn't know why I was so nervous. I wasn't nearly half as nervous when I had gotten my wand.
Then again, there is a difference between getting a wand and getting a pet.
I didn't even know what kind of pet I wanted in the first place.
The bell above the shop door gave a tinny jingle as I stepped inside, though it sounded more like a warning than a welcome.
The Magical Menagerie pulsed with the kind of chaos only true magic could birth—flapping wings, snapping jaws, coils of fur and fang and shimmer all crammed into cages that breathed like lungs. The smell was a mixture of ash, damp stone, droppings, and something faintly metallic. I liked it. It smelled like truth.

No one noticed me enter. I prefer it that way. I walked slowly, soundlessly, as I always do—my boots barely tapping against the ancient stone floor. Shadows moved even when nothing did. Eyes watched from cracks in wood, from underneath hay-strewn enclosures, from small cages whose locks hummed softly with enchantments older than the store itself.
I didn’t speak. I rarely do.
A clerk passed me—a stout wizard in a robe stained with feathers and time—but he didn’t acknowledge me. Or perhaps he couldn’t see me properly in the low light. That happens sometimes. I seem to slip between notice when I want to.

I paused beside a glass tank where a frog sat behind it, croaking. It stopped when I passed. Respectful, but not mine.
I moved on.
A rush of noise erupted into a puff of feathers somewhere behind me, startling a pair of chattering second-years. I didn’t turn. The noise of others is like static to me—meaningless, constant, easily filtered out.
The deeper I went into the shop, the stranger things became.
Shelves turned to crooked archways. The walls grew damp. Cobwebs shimmered. A cage rattled with no visible creature inside. I passed it without slowing.
I was on a mission, and I wasn't going to be deterred from it.

I knew I was close. I could feel it in my wand hand, pulsing in rhythm with a presence I hadn’t yet met. Something was drawing me forward. Not with urgency. With certainty.
Then I saw it.
A small cat, hiding behind an open cage.
It had grey fur with dark grey to black stripes on it. It looked sad yet hopeful.
It came up to me and purred, curling itself around my leg.
I knew right then and there. This was my cat. The shopkeeper stared at me, shocked and amazed, when I said that I wanted this cat.
"Are you sure? That cat hasn't wanted to go with anyone since she came."
I told her that I was sure. She smiled and I paid the price.
I came in without a pet and came out with what was sure to become my best friend.

WC: 529 words.

What animal do you wish to purchase? Egyptian Mau
What do you want to name it? Sekhmet
Is this a boy or a girl? Girl
What is your pet's date of birth? 20th November 2013

Congrats on your new pet. Take good care of her.

lear