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Narise was minding her business, slithering across the ground in search of food when a dreadful bird swooped down trying to scoop the snake up. Its talons were centimetres from her body when the owl was distracted by a man’s call.
“Ares, no!” he cried, running up to protect the snake. “I told you that I’d feed you when we got home.”
The owl hooted irritably but flew back up and hovered above the man.
The man squatted beside Narise and she reared back, ready to strike if he proved a threat, too. “Sorry about that,” he hissed, surprising her. She’d never encountered a man who could speak her tongue before. “He gets a little tetchy when he’s hungry.”
The owl hooted irritably again, like he could understand he was being insulted, even in snake language.
“Well, you are,” the man directed back to the bird. The owl screeched and flew off, with the man calling after him, “I guess I’ll see you at home, then!”
The man turned back at Narise. “Are you okay? He didn’t nick you, did he?”
She looked at him curiously. “No. But how do you control such a devil?”
The man did that loud laugh humans do. It nearly shook the ground under Narise. “I’d say that I don’t control him and nor does my husband. He rather thinks he’s the in one charge.”
Narise bobbed her head in a nod. “Yes. All birds do.”
“Are you hungry?” the man asked. “I think Ares owes you one of his mice after trying to make a meal of you.”
Intrigued by food she didn’t have to catch herself, Narise consented to being picked up and carried home with the man. She wrapped herself around his arm to secure herself and admired the world from such a height
“I’m Harry, by the way,” he said.
“Narise,” she responded.
When they got to Harry’s den, another man approached them. “What did you do to Ares?” he asked. “He came home in a right state.”
“I stopped him from trying to eat Narise here,” Harry answered, holding out the snake wrapped around his arm.
The other man looked at her curiously and his mouth opened to show his teeth. “Hello there,” he said.
Narise hissed back a greeting, but the human just continued his teeth-showing. She looked back at Harry.
“He doesn’t speak snake language,” Harry told her, confirming Narise’s belief that Harry stood out as a snake whisperer.
“I’ve promised her one of Ares’ mice since he tried to eat her,” Harry told the man.
“Oh, he’s not going to like that,” the man noted, his teeth-showing getting wider like the thought amused him. “I’ll go get it.”
“Who is that?” Narise asked Harry.
“That’s Draco, my husband,” Harry said, his own mouth opening to show his teeth.
These humans were strange.