Something Familiar

The dark and stormy nature of the night was accentuated, by the Witch Tower’s great height. It was so tall that at night, in the rain, you could not see the rest of the school, or it’s grounds. One had the sense of being trapped in a bottle of lightning. As such, Kiwi kept her blinds shut, better to not see the effect at all than to get drawn into the enchanting illusion, especially when there was homework to be done. Alchemy was a demanding mistress and wouldn’t be put on hold even for a storm like this.

“Kiwi!” Into the cluttered room came Dante, familiar par excellence. The white and brown collie jumped into Kiwi’s bed, and burrowed his way under the covers. “Thunder! Take shelter!” He poked his head out of the sheets, and beckoned Kiwi with no greater gesturing than the shimmering of his eyes.

As tempting as warm blankets, and puppy dog eyes were, passing Alchemy was more tempting still. “It’ll be alright, boy.” She went back to filling in the equations on her sheet.

“You’re not scared?” The shaking dog, inched closer, emerging from the sheets like a hermit crab. “Consider me dubious.”

Kiwi nervously looked at her blinds, which were lighting up like there was an alien abduction on the other side. “I wouldn’t go that far.” Even as the nearby thunder rattled the foundation of the tower, she kept a brave face, or at least a bored one. She didn’t want to freak her dog out any more than he already was. “But it’s just thunder, we’ll be alright.” She chose to ignore the nervous sweat, her childhood phobia generated.

The collie jumped from the bed to her feet. “You’re so cool, Kiwi!” He praised, and licked her boots with all the love in the world. Then another roll of thunder, sent him into hiding beneath her desk.

“Geez, it’s right on top of us, huh?” Kiwi giggled to try to hide her own low-grade terror. Of all the nights she decided to be brave, it had to be this one? “It’s okay, Dante.” She searched out his head with her hand and pet him gently. “I’ll keep you safe.” She could feel his scalp relax and droop at her touch. “Good boy, good boy.”

---

Kiwi could actually feel her eyeballs drying up as she maintained eye contact with Dante. He was a tough opponent. Unblinking, unflinching, with eyes as wet as a salamander’s back. Only a fool would challenge him to a staring contest but loves makes us all do crazy things.

“If this is how you’re spending your time, I’m definitely not giving you enough homework.” Madam Crabapple, the Herbology teacher appeared at Kiwi’s side.

The young witch, jumped, and broke contact with Dante, netting him yet another victory. “Madam!” She chirped with a short bow. “You may be the first person to accuse your class of not having enough homework.”

The teacher chuckled out an agreement. “Oh, very well. What sort of experiment are you running on this handsome young man then?” She reached out and scratched Dante behind the ears, which meant she’d earned a friend for life.

Kiwi slouched at her stone table. The bright blue sky above, made her stormy mood feel ridiculous. “He hasn’t spoken since the storm. I think something’s wrong with him… or me.”

Crabapple nodded grimly. “May I have a seat?” When Kiwi nodded that she could, the older woman bunched up her skirt and sat beside Dante on his stone seat. She continued to pet him fondly. “Is he still holding your magic for you?”

“Yes ma’am. I’ve had no problem using him as a familiar, he just won’t talk.”

“I see.” Crabapple adjusted her large feathered hat, and smiled sadly at her student. “You know, when I was a child, I could hear every animal speak, whether they said something or not.”

“What do you mean? Can you hear him?”

“No.” She took a look at the collie again. “No. It’s just that Familiars are complicated things. In a way, they are us. They share our dreams, our desires, our magic, but they’re also still the animals we made them out of.”

“I don’t understand.”

Crabapple straightened herself up a bit. “Dante has given you advice before, yes?”

“All the time.”

“And when did your dog become so wise? Where did he go to school? Who did he study under?”

“When we did the familiar ritual. It gave him powers.”

“And wisdom?”

“I guess.”

“When we make our familiars, we give a piece of ourselves over to them. They become what we need them to be. For many young witches, this is a mentor, or a voice of reason.”

Kiwi couldn’t ignore the sad tint to Madam Crabapple’s explanation any longer. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Crabapple laughed, still sadly. “You just happen to have a very good familiar. He’s served you so well that… you just don’t need him anymore.”

“What?” Kiwi had to stop herself from exploding on her elder. “That’s ridiculous, he’s my best friend.”

“Well of course he is, but you simply don’t need his advice anymore. You’ve grown. You’re not losing him, he’ll still be with you. It’s just that the mentoring part of your relationship is over.”

Kiwi got up, she was shaking. “With all due respect, this is stupid. I know witches, who can still talk to their familiars.”

“It’s different for everyone. Maybe they still need advice, or maybe what they needed most from their familiar was a friend.”

“I need a friend!” Kiwi sobbed, and dropped to her knees. She buried her fingers into her dog’s fur. “Please Dante, I still need you, don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t blame Dante.” Crabapple said softly. “It’s not his fault.”

“Then it’s mine?” Kiwi’s eyes were full of pain.

“It’s no one’s fault, my dear. Sometimes things like this, fade away.”

This was wholly unacceptable to the witch. She’d learned so much, and gained so much power and she didn’t get to keep the small pleasure of talking to her dog? In what world could that be true? “I want to go back then. I want to restore the bond, unlearn whatever he taught me. Whatever it takes.”

Crabapple sighed, she knew that there would be no clean away to exit this conversation. “My dear, there are no refunds in the exchange of knowledge.”

---

There is nothing lost, that magic cannot find anew. Whatever that whimsical spark was that ignited Dante with wit and wisdom Kiwi would find it again. There were too many games, too much fun lost in the newfound silence of her bedroom. Dante was still clearly very smart, and fully magical, but his unspoken words haunted her. How he must be suffering, unable to critique her homework or compliment her outfits.

She tried not to take it all too personally. She knew witches walked down the dark paths, nurturing the kind of petty emotions she felt now. When she saw the younger students frolicking with their animals out into the fields, she wanted to run out and tell them all the truth. She wanted to warn them of the great betrayal of their relationship. But what good would that have done? If she’d known then what she knew now, every moment she spent with Dante would have been plagued with worry for the day it would all end.

So, she kept silent. Confident that there was something sacred happening in those fields. Something that should only be spoiled by time, and not the ill temperament of an older witch.

Instead, she turned to her studies, and found her solution there. It was such an easy fix; it was honestly embarrassing to have felt any loss at all.

A Potion of Animal Speaking, easy to whip up, and cheap as chips. She was able to cook one of those up in the school lab in about fifteen minutes. She washed the beat, and beef-flavored potion down with a burp, and by the time it hit her stomach she was fluent in Animalia.

Kiwi bent down beneath her lab counter and started to harass her dog with a barrage of pets. “Hey boy, hey! Speak!”

“Kiwi!” The dog sang, and rolled onto his back. “Love, love, love Kiwi! Belly rubs, belly rubs, belly rubs!”

A sick feeling washed over the witch, like her stomach and heart ached all at once. Though the dog spoke, it was not Dante. Not the Dante she wanted, at least. Her wise playful friend, was a bit more articulate than the playful pup at her fingertips. Madam Crabapple was right, something had been lost between them. Whatever magic animated their conversations previously, was gone.

“Kiwi sad?” The dog looked up at her, tongue hanging out of his mouth like a goof.

“Yeah.” She nodded, and let the tears come.

At that the dog jumped into action, rolling onto his feet, he stuck his nose into her face, and started to lick. “Don’t be sad. There there.”

How could such a simple, heartfelt request not drive her into further tears?

---

If there were small miracles to be thankful for, it’s that the potion eventually wore off. Not before Kiwi got into a very heated discussion with the birds about global warming. It’s not that they didn’t believe in it, it’s that they supported it that really threw Kiwi for a loop.

Whatever the opinions of bird brains might be, school stopped for no witch. She was forced to make the unenviable decision to lay in her bed depressed or drown herself in work. She figured that at least drowning would raise her GPA, so went with that option.

Yet not long after she entered her tower, a flash of light illuminated her blinds. Then that low, slow, tumble rolled across the land. Like breaking tree trunks the sound of thunder reached the foundation, and made Kiwi’s window shake terribly.

“Mmm.” She groaned miserably and pressed her hand against the window to keep it from vibrating. There was something awful about knowing, that she’d have to endure this storm alone this time. Why did she have to act so brave in front of Dante? Hadn’t he known that she was lying? Only pretending to be brave. If it weren’t for her homework, she would have been whimpering under the covers with him.

Now she had more work to do. Maybe that was the secret of being an adult. You just keep yourself so busy, there’s not time to be afraid. Maybe, but at the moment Kiwi was feeling busy and afraid. Overwhelmingly both, actually.

At her bed, there was a whimpering. Kiwi paused long enough to spot Dante buried in blankets, snout poking out.

“What are you doing under there?” She said in a sweet voice, out of habit she waited for a response. None came, just a feeling of foolishness and despair. Kiwi huffed. “Still scared? You weren’t just doing that all for me?” She paused, and turned to face Dante. “That whole time, you were really scared?”

She turned back to her work, considering the dog for another moment. When we give these things personality, meaning… how much of that is us, and how much of it belongs to the subject?

“I’m scared too.” With a flash of her hand, the blinds flew to the ceiling, and Kiwi found herself stranded in that bottle of lightning. All across the landscape, the light danced, and arched. Illuminating nothing but silhouettes, signaling only thunder. She stood up, pushing her chair away. With another wave of her hand, the massive window yawned open, and let in the maelstrom. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” She screamed at the storm, from the top of her lungs, until her throat hurt, and the clouds warbled.

The storm roared back, shaking the shutters. As it traveled about the mountains, it echoed and sounded like laughter. The quilt of grey was amused by her tiny protest.

The forces of nature at times can be a disheartening foe, and for a moment Kiwi felt ridiculous and wet. Then at her side, a great barking erupted. Dante, familiar par excellence was at her side, as always. She smiled at the pup, she hadn’t heard him bark since her first year at the school. It was a good solid ‘woof!’ Strong enough that every sheep in the state snapped to attention and awaited orders.

“You found your voice!” Kiwi cheered, over the thunder and the barking. The raindrops splashed against her face, and she realized she was letting Dante fight on his own. So she did the only thing she could do. Kiwi grabbed two metal pots and started banging them together. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” She screamed again, and again. With her squire by her side, she ran circles around the room, banging pots, and shouting whenever there was breath in her lungs. Dante panted just beside her, barking away lightning before it even had a chance to strike.

Or so it felt, in their hearts. In truth, the storm was an apathetic thing, and wasn’t concerned, interested, or bothered by the faint screaming and barking of a single room. It had a whole countryside to soak and terrify. A heavy gust of wind erupted from this formless giant and rushed into Kiwi’s room. It scattered her papers across the room and sent rain in horizontally.

Kiwi laughed, and jumped to her bed, Dante joined her. With a feat of mundane magic, she pulled the covers off her bed and threw them over herself and Dante. “We’ll be safe under here.” She panted and laughed, and under the dark of the covers could feel his hot breath smacking her face in exhausted huffs.

The rain wailed against their fortress, assaulting it with rain, and bluster. Kiwi snuggled close to Dante, basking in his usual warmth. She supposed that things like love, or even just caring could be expressed in ways beyond words. She also figured if Dante did what he came to do, she should not begrudge him a job well done. Though at the moment she didn’t feel very mature, she was sure Dante knew what he was doing. It would be a strange world, without his voice to guide her. Eventually, the pounding rain would soak their blankets through, and make a very cold, very wet mess out of the unusual pair. Until then she was determined to enjoy this moment with something familiar.