wild things | wy. lykensen ✓

1.01 | we are the mighty shrimp

ARE YOU AN IDIOT?

THEN

Parenting a hyperactive five-year-old was hard. Parenting a five-year-old that just found out she had hard to control witch powers was even harder — especially when said parents, who used to have various supernatural abilities, could no longer rely on them. Meaning that when Carson Lupin vanished from the dinner table in a puff of shimmering, red smoke after refusing to eat the carrots on her plate, her parents had quite literally no idea where to start looking for her.

It wasn't Carson's fault anyway, the young girl knew. She told her parents she didn't like cooked carrots but would've had no problem eating them raw and cold. But that preference was ignored by her mother, and so she was justified in leaving the vegetable behind.

Granted, it was definitely Carson's fault for leaving the backyard and running into the Forbidden Forest. Her parents weren't one to hover, and they often would step back and let Carson explore the world at her own pace, but the Forest was an exception. Weston never let Carson step foot into the Forbidden Forest. So, naturally, that was the first place the child went while truly unsupervised for the first time in her life.

Carson didn't know what the word 'grounded' meant, but she'd find out soon enough once she was safe at home.

Though it was dark and there were no streetlights to guide her, Carson didn't have trouble seeing. The light from the moon and stars — and her light-up sneakers — were enough for her to observe the terrain before her. Carson moved quickly, taking in the new sights, sounds, and scents. She thought she'd feel fear in a place like this. It had to have been scary with a name like the Forbidden Forest. But Carson felt just as comfortable as if she was at home. As she climbed on a huge boulder, it felt like climbing the tree in her backyard. And the moon looked just the same as when she looked at it from her bedroom window.

It was nearly ten minutes that the five-year-old remained uninterrupted while staring up at the night sky. But eventually, she was interrupted by a rustling sound coming from the trees to her right. Carson didn't know curse words yet, but if she had, she would've let one slip out in annoyance over her alone time being interrupted. And she sat up instantly, assuming her parents had finally tracked her down somehow, getting prepared for the scolding her mother would deliver.

But it wasn't Weston and Julia Lupin who moved past the foliage. No, it was a boy near Carson's age that rushed through the trees and into the small, rocky clearing. Carson sat up on her elbows and narrowed her eyes at the boy, taking in his odd hair with a white stripe in it and clothes covered in what looked like fur. She looked down at her own clothes, which consisted of a pair of princess pajama pants and one of her father's insanely large sweaters that fell down to her shins. Technically, neither was dressed particularly sensible.

Meanwhile, the boy, whose name was Wyatt, was panting as he caught his breath, eying the figure on the boulder. He didn't exactly have permission to leave the den without his sister or one of his parents after an accident that ended with him breaking some equipment at the nearby cheer camp that they were meant to stay away from. But Wyatt wasn't a rule follower, and shortly after sneaking away, he caught an unfamiliar scent a few miles from the den.