Kratch- Healed by blood

I awoke in the early hours. It was absolutely dark. I was finding it difficult to breathe.

There was a weight on my chest.

I felt a moment of terror, for the thing on my chest was moving.

Was this a nightmare? Was I still asleep? I wondered.

A moment later I was assured that I was wide awake by a voice whispering right inside my head.

"Help me. I am desperate. Give me some of your blood or I will die."

It was the boggart, Kratch! The voice sounded weak and wobbly.

Without hesitation I spoke into the darkness. “Where have you been?” I asked. “I thought that you’d been destroyed.”

"I fell away from this world toward the dark and lacked the strength to get back. I flickered like a candle in a storm on the edge of oblivion. I struggled long and hard; now I am finally here, but fear to fall again. It is as if I am on the edge of a cliff above a dark abyss. Help me or I will fall, never to rise again!"

I was afraid to offer more of my blood, afraid that I might die in the process, afraid of what the consequences might be. But if I wished to have the boggart as an ally—how could I refuse?

“You can have some of my blood. Take it!” I commanded.

There was the lightest of touches on the back of my left hand as the boggart’s claw scratched my skin. There was no pain. But then I felt the lapping of a very small, rough tongue.

B13 C23