It had been a few hours after the children had finished cleaning our cages, and I was just about to doze off, when the door opened again. Lifting my weary head from my pretty paws, I stared blearily at the adults guiding the children back in from outside. “What are they up to now? Were the adults not happy with how the children did their chores?” I wondered as the last child – Teival – entered and closed the door behind him. I mean, I assume it was Teival since he was still wearing that weird cloth all over his body.

My intuition was incorrect this time, when the adult with white hair growing from his chin cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. The loud sound startled some of my cage neighbours, but the human didn’t seem to notice…well, it was either that or he just didn’t care. In a way, my instincts told me it was the latter reason, over the former one – although he didn’t seem to notice the fly buzzing around his head either…

Tuning back to the speech the human was giving, it appeared that he had gathered the children so they could choose which beast they were going to form a contract with. I vaguely recall the adults mentioning something about this back at the ranch, however it was my recent dreams that better dispersed my fog of confusion. As the adult was blabbering on, I caught on to him explaining that due to Teival’s earlier transgressions that he would have to pick his beast last. With my eyes roaming around the people, I couldn’t help catching sight of Dinara’s expression. If I had to use one word to sum up her smile, then it would be: malicious, although I wasn’t sure why since she’d be picking me as her beast. “We’re a match made in Neveah, after all!”

The process of this mini-ceremony, so to speak, was exceptionally boring. I mean, everyone already knew what everyone was going to pick, since they’d mentioned it only a few hours ago in this very place! Saying that, I suppose there must be formalities practised to ensure the process maintains its special status. As such, I watched with disinterest as the adult called the name of a child who would then walk up to the cages – where myself and my neighbours were still residing – before moving close to their chosen beast and pointing at it. The white-haired adult would then ask for the reason for their choice, to which they’d give a half-hearted explanation.

Examples of such tepid responses ranged from: “Cos I like how cute it looks,” to, “I like its horn,” to, “It’s colour looks interesting,” to, “It’s the one I wanted to play with the most.” As is hopefully apparent, the children’s choices were mostly superficial with no thought really placed into why they chose them. I swear, I could hear the adult sighing – which conveniently blew the fly that was buzzing around away from him… “Was he actually aware of it…?”

Returning to the invigorating event, Dinara’s turn came up which made me super excited. I stretched up and barked happily at her while wagging my tail – eager for her to tell the adult her choice was obviously me. However, I had the unfortunate sensation of cold water being thrown in my face as she completely ignored me and moved instead towards the Umbral Spider sling. “What?! What about us?! Didn’t you say we were suited for each other?!” The not-so-pretty girl then opened her trap to explain her reasoning…

“I did a little research in the family library, earlier today, and found out that the Umbral Spider has a range of abilities that I thought would be quite useful for me. For one, it can create a silk web that can entangle foes, as well as be used as rope or even clothing. When it becomes an adult, it is large enough to allow a man, or woman, to ride on its abdomen – resulting in fast travel along difficult terrain. There were a lot more abilities I read about, but I don’t want to bore everyone with an entry from the crystal beast encyclopaedia.” The traitor then smiled demurely before returning to the group of children who were applauding her.

“Hang on, wasn’t that the beast that Teival kept checking on in the vehicle?” Quickly turning to observe the boy’s reaction, all I saw was him lowering his head despondently. “I feel your pain. If it makes you feel better, I got rejected for an ugly bug! I mean, look at those legs! Urgh.” Bringing my attention back to the ‘ceremony’, I suddenly noticed the girl who often consoled Dinara approaching my cage. “Oh? You’re going to choose me? I have to say, your decision is good! Who else is better than I?” My hopes were dashed once again when the girl pointed at sibling No.1 instead of me.

“Although the other one is very cute, I want a beast that can protect me. If I remember right, this one is male so will likely grow much stronger than the female. I also think a male aardwolf would be more protective of me.”

…She then folded her body in half before erecting herself again to return to the group…I’d describe what the rest of the children chose, however all sense of enthusiasm depleted as every child continued to ignore me. Eventually, I was the only beast that hadn’t been chosen…meaning Teival could only choose me. I watched him slowly sidle up to my cage and stare at me. I stared back while maintaining as much of my trampled dignity as I could – all while having stupid sibling No.1 constantly licking my face. “Will you stop that?! I’m having a serious moment here!” I nipped his ear and kicked him before looking back at the boy.

“…”

He stood there for a full minute before the adult cleared his throat and called his name to move things along. My ears twitched at the sniggers escaping the other children’s mouths, which hurt my pride even more. “Why’d I have to end up with you?! You’re a weirdo who nobody likes! Give me someone who will appreciate my beauty and pamper me forever!” Teival then barely lifted his hand to point at me before offhandedly saying: “Since this is the only one left, I don’t need to say why I picked it.” He then went back to his dark corner in the group without waiting for the adult to accept his reason.

As I was internally weeping at my misfortune, the white-haired adult clapped his hands again before explaining that the beasts would be allocated to the appropriate homes. The tiny crowd dispersed outside before the adults started hauling the cages out of the large den. This was when I was taken out of the cage and placed in a separate one – much to the chagrin of my sibling since I had just been nuzzling under his chin in a bid to get him to console me with a nibble on my- I mean to show my love for him.

Sniffing at my new cage, it reached my standards of cleanliness and so promptly curled up into a ball and went to sleep, wondering when the humans would give me some food. I don’t know what those humans were doing whilst I maintained my beauty sleep but when I woke up, I seemed to have been placed in an even more dilapidated environment than the previous one. “Say…am I a joke to these humans…? Have I done something to make them hate me…?” As I was pondering over my sense of existence in the eyes of the humans, my ears twitched at the sound of the door being opened.

Turning to see who had entered, it was none other than Teival. “Oh, it’s you…” Disappointed with it being the boy and not an adult with food, I positioned my body to show my back to him before initiating my grooming routine.

“…It seems even you don’t like me, huh? Oh well, I guess I’ll have to throw this food away, then.”

“Did you say food?” I immediately sprang up and jumped towards the boy – only to have completely forgotten I was in a cage, resulting in my beautiful face flattening on the bars. Shaking my head, I stared at the food in the boy’s hand and began wagging my tail in eagerness. Seeing my reaction, the boy casually threw the dry block towards me before leaning against the door.

“Only interested if you can take something from me…you really were a perfect match for her…” He muttered, but I couldn’t be bothered listening since I was absolutely more invested in demolishing this tough block of food. “Mmnh, this is so much nicer tasting than whatever slop the adults were giving me! Ah, still doesn’t compare to the ranch’s food but at least it has some flavour!” The boy picked up something and placed it on his knees before opening it to reveal lots of symbols in a dense format.

After reducing the block of food to mere particles, I licked the floor of my cage – desperate to have as much of it as possible before realising there was no more left. “B-b-but…I’m still hungry…” Staring at the boy, I chose to adopt the tactic I had learned from previous observations and attempted a fake-cry! Whimpering at him, I hung my head and fluffy tail low while looking at my empty cage every now and then. Teival looked up from what he was doing but remained silent. “Can’t you see that I’ve eaten the food? Give me some more! I’m still hungry!”

“…You can’t seriously still be hungry…right?”

“He understands!” I yapped in affirmation while wagging my fluffy tail before intensifying my previous whimpering to emphasise just how famished I had been. The boy put the object down and sighed before standing up again.

“Maybe I should call you Portia when forming our contract….”

“Portia? That’s a pretty name! I agree! A pretty name for a pretty girl like me!” I wagged my tail in happiness over being praised for my beauty before Teival uttered his next sentence… “Yeah…Portia, since you’re such a glutton, a name meaning pig suits you perfectly. I’ll keep that in mind when doing the bonding crystal ritual.” He then left to hopefully get more food for me. “Hang on…How dare you call me a pig?! I am a slim, beautiful aardwolf pup! Come back here! I said come back! Don’t you dare call me Portia! It’s an ugly and disgusting name!” Alas, my voice fell on non-existent ears…