(The pic is from Chapter 18, i'm not the best with backgrounds and i probably won't finish it but yeah....if you have wishes what i could draw next u can write them in the comments too and i will post and tag it in my toh artbook (i have probably corona again (i had it only a month ago meh) so I have a lot of time))

When Darius thought back, when did he meet Golden Guard for the very first time...? It must have been 2 years ago...

When he thought that the boy was only 16 now, he couldn't imagine how long the boy had already been in the coven before these two years. Just because he had never seen him before doesn't mean he wasn't there too. Maybe before he was walking around in some ordinary Coven Scout disguise, unknown to everyone else that he would one day become Belos right hand.

But Golden Guard had only become really active a few weeks ago, before that he was always in the background, Darius couldn't explain why, but it must have been because of Belos. Perhaps the ruler of this island had known all along that this boy was still a child and only now trusted him to go on more missions...

But the Abomination leader would probably never get an answer to this question. He didn't know where the boy had come from either. He could still remember exactly the moment when Belos introduced him to them....

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"This is my right hand man, Golden Guard," he said at the time. The Coven Heads had all looked at him in surprise and then also at the new figure next to him, even Kikimora seemed more surprised than knowing, maybe she had already been jealous back then, Darius now thought afterwards.

"He will also take part in some missions from now on." At the time, Lilith Clawthorne, who had been changing sides for a while now, had raised her eyebrows in astonishment.

She and Kikimora had probably hoped at the time that one of them would stand in the boy's place. Maybe that was the reason why both of them hated him until today. Perhaps their hatred of him had spread to the Coven Heads as well. Because of course Darius had always found him annoying and sometimes he still did now, but he didn't have a precise, serious reason why he hadn't liked the boy at the time.

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Now that he thought about it, he also noticed that Golden Guard had already tried to be more responsive to him and the other Coven Heads before, but every single one of them had ignored him or thrown comments or looks at him.

The boy never seemed to care, instead he stopped trying and kept saying more and more comments on his own. The comments that Darius had always hated...didn't he and the others perhaps conjure them up themselves...?

It surprised Darius that he only now noticed it, but since the mission with the boy a lot had changed anyway. It was probably more on his mind now than it was then.

There was still a lot about the boy that was hidden, but Darius didn't want to know everything either, just a few things to understand him better, Golden Guard could say the rest when he was ready himself, after all the coven leaders revealed nothing about themselves either.

However, Darius had to admit that he already knew more about the boy than he would have previously thought. Yes, he was a 16-year-old boy who just appeared out of nowhere and became Belos right-hand man. A boy who was more emotional than it seemed at first. A plague that had always provoked, but now maybe wasn't that much of a plague anymore...

He was a powerless witch who often walked around nervously and seemed to have too much pressure on his shoulders. Despite that, he didn't let himself be taken to annoy Darius from time to time or tease him with jokes. Golden Guard was a 16-year-old boy...a 16-year-old kid who already had quite a few scars and Darius didn't even want to know how many there might be hidden under his clothes. A 16-year-old child who undoubtedly got far too little sleep... the dark circles under his eyes didn't allow for any arguments.

Yes, instead of the provocative, cheeky, snooty, annoying boy, Darius was seeing the sometimes nervous child who often seemed to be done with his world, wondering about some of the gestures of others as if he had never received or seen them for himself... a kid who until recently didn't even know what flapjacks or pancakes were and seemed like he never got the attention he needed. He had way too many questions kids in his age wouldn't normally have.

Darius didn't want to worry about it that much, after all he and Golden Guard weren't that close and he himself was too distant for that too, but he caught himself more and more worrying about the boy and how he always wanted to intervene when Golden Guard did needed his help. What had prompted these changes? Was it really just the mission...? Was it just because he had given this boy a real chance...?

A sigh escaped the leader of the Abomination Coven. The boy had also asked him what wild magic was, but wild magic was taboo here, so why did he want to find out more about it...? Well, he would find an answer for that.

He didn't know if he could answer the boys questions, after all, they had to be careful what they said when it came to this topic.

His path led him to the room of the coven heads which he was still mentally entering, but that changed when he spotted some other coven heads in the room, at least he didn't want to be too conspicuous about the boy either.

With his typical facial expression, he then sat down in his place, Golden Guard was not here, which meant that he was probably on his way in the name of Belos. Darius thought, yeah true, the Coven Parade was in a few days, the golden one was probably already preparing a lot for it.