I was surprised at the time when I eventually left The Bloodstone, Alphonse is…easy to talk to, he’s kind, he’s welcoming, he isn’t bothered by my endless questions about magic and the magical world…he just answered all of my questions with a soft smile and explaining everything he could to me, even if he had to repeat himself multiple times because my brain just could not process everything that’s new to me with this…strange, fantastical world.

            According to him, there’s some crazy college academy for magical people that started at eighteen and goes for five years, he told me that he woke up as he was when he was seventeen, so he was allowed to go to the school where he learned about all of his magic, what he can do and everything of that sort, but because I am twenty four, I am quite late for that and I’d have to do most of magic learning on my own, but according to Alphonse, pretty much any bookstore around Baton Vyolèt could easily get me the books I needed to learn magic and there are some places that offer some classes for people who are brought into magic at a later age or for various other reasons that resulted in them having no magic training or schooling. He told me that I didn’t need masses of books as he joked about how many books he had to get across the years of school, he said that he had to get six or more books a year of school, but there were more succinct books for people who needed to learn magic at an older age or something along those lines.

            It was too late for me to go to one of the bookstores though, it was quite late when I left his shop, maybe ten-eleven pm or so, I just folded my hands in my flannel as I walked, my boots quiet on the much, much more empty streets now that Mardi Gras was gone and done with by now. The most remnants of the previous partying being the odd scattered glitter caught in the street’s pavers, stray streamers or things caught on the buildings walls, rooflines or various other aspects about the city. It was quiet save for this distant sound of jazz floating out of some restaurant or bar that was open late, the low drone of a steamer boat’s foghorn or various other small slight sounds…the scent of alcohol, people and everything else that fills the air during Mardi Gras…the air was crisp, cool and adorned with the scent of various trees, flowers and other things filled the air around me as this slow, thin rolling layer of fog meandered across the paver streets. There were canals throughout the city, almost like Venice, you could get all the way to the coast from any area of the city.

            I looked up towards the night sky above me, resting my hands deeper in my overshirt’s pockets as I breathed the slowness of the city, the cool weight of the humid air lingering in my lungs as my own hair was softly picked up by the breeze. The sky as black as ink and streaked with thin, wisps of pale white/gray clouds and this large burning white/silver nearly full moon, but looking at the moon made my jaws hurt as I felt my teeth lengthen and sharpen due to the closeness of it’s fullness.

            I quietly hummed to myself, following along to the sounds of the distant idly lingering jazz music, it was comfortable and it felt…it felt nice being in an area like Baton Vyolèt, I wonder if there was a magic restaurant that was hiring…probably would offer me much better pay and various other work accoutrement that would make it a far better job for me to take. At least a magical restaurant would understand why I need days off around the full moon. I have only been at my current place for a month or so and the life of being a chef like I am leads to jumping around place to place when a better offer rears it’s head. It takes a lot for a restaurant to be able to keep a chef for long enough that the chef can make a name there…at least that’s how it’s been for me sense I came here to start my culinary career after I cut my teeth in Baton Rouge.

            I groaned lowly as I felt the muscles in my neck and back stiffen as if wanting to force me on all four due to the nature of my soon coming form, alligators are quadrupedal, so I could feel this weight pressing between my shoulders wanting to send me on my hands and feet so I could take on the animalistic form my blood was wanting to take on.

            “Not yet…not yet” I laughed to myself as I softly thumbed the bracelet around my wrist. “In time” I added as I looked at how the moonlight reflected off the full moon charm on the bracelet around me wrist.

            The shadows around sheered away and faded off, it’s been strange…how my body is still almost forgetting that I can see in the dark like this; the way that colors seemed to fade off into this mess of gray scale. The way that the most defined details faded off to give me the broader picture. The moonlight above soft, ivory silver as it painted this beautiful picture of the endless streets around me before I ducked down a smaller side-street and dipped back into the more dingy, dirty and louder tourist spot of New Orleans as I made my way back towards my apartment just a few blocks away, not looking forward to work tomorrow due to the fact that the full moon was only four days away. It was not going to be a pleasant next few days, I did ask for those days off, while I am written on the schedule to have those days off, I think that most likely my head chef will call me the morning of the 18^th asking me to come in due to a line cook or someone suddenly calling in sick. Don’t know how they’d react to me picking up the phone and only the sounds of an alligator responding to my head chef.