underFlorence

Hi! This is a new story in the Familiar Tale Cinematic Universe (name pending). Cat and Mouse isn’t over or anything, I just got inspired to write this to bring another more intricate take on how magic works. Cat and Mouse isn’t required reading for this or anything, this story stands on its own.

Breathe in. Breathe out. That was what Cody had been telling himself to do this whole evening. Here he was, sitting in a stuffy suit that somehow felt both too tight and too loose at the same time while also fitting perfectly, complete with a gaudy tie that made him feel choked. If nothing else, playing with it provided some distraction to the endless congratulations and previous alumni speaking on stage.

All around him, his soon-to-be former classmates sat on cheap chairs. He was surrounded by the other boys, all wearing similarly boring suits with their ties being the only specks of color in a sea of black, white and grey. The girls were seated in a different section, wearing a wider variety of dresses. Some of them even wore suits, too, he noticed, and he was astonished at how different they looked when worn by a woman. He shook his head, red locks of hair falling into his face. Your heterosexuality is showing, he thought to himself.

Cody looked up at the stage. An alumnus just walked off and his principal, Mr. Wellson, headed back to the podium. “What an inspiring speech! I’m sure you’re gonna be using some of that wisdom in the following years.” He cleared his throat. “Well, next up, the moment you all…” He let his gaze wander over the front rows where all the students were seated. ”…have been waiting for! Don’t worry, you’ll be free soon.” Canned laughter. Cody would have joined in if it wouldn’t have sounded so agonizingly fake, coming from his throat.

And so all of them were asked to line up on the stage, one group after another. Thankfully, his turn was pretty early. His row was called upon the stage, and soon Cody stood surrounded by classmates that he wished he’d gotten to know better.

The principal walked from one end of the stage to the other, handing each student a note of graduation and a single rose. He couldn’t help but feel sad at all those beautiful flowers going to waste. Very few students would keep them around for more than a day, and they’d soon end up in the trash. As the principal got closer to him, taking care of student after student, he got anxious. He knew that he’d basically graduated already and this was just a formality. And yet he couldn’t help but imagine some incident happening that’d make him unable to graduate.

“Ah, Cody Garrett. Congratulations!” Mr. Wellson smiled at him and shook Cody’s hand a little too firmly. Cody just forced a smile back at his principal. Mr. Wellson snapped his fingers, and in an instant the note and rose appeared out of thin air.

Well, not “out of thin air,” exactly. He knew better than that. The objects were likely located somewhere behind the curtains at the end of the stage, and he merely summoned them here. His principal had likely channeled mana from an artifact on his person. Potentially that sapphire ring he was wearing on his left hand.

Considering the type of spell, it was likely blue mana. White mana could also teleport objects, but that would’ve left behind more obvious visual traces, such as them slowly fading in. And all red could do was mirages or illusions, but these objects were obviously real. It’d be very weird if all the notes of graduation just flickered out of existence once everyone went home. As for black and green, he didn’t know of any spells using those colors that could achieve this effect. Lastly, Mr. Wellson likely had another artifact that shortcutted his eye-catching snapping gesture into the actual incantation required for the teleportation spell.

“…and so, having seen the results of both your theoretical and practical exams, I am sure you won’t have any trouble in the future, Mr. Garrett.” Cody realized he was still firmly shaking his principal’s hand. And he had zoned out everything he was saying.

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Wellson!” He let go of the man’s hand and received his graduation note and useless rose. Poor flower. He wished he could find some use for it. The crowd politely applauded him. Well, there was some more action coming from one section of the audience. He squinted, and could see his parents and his friend Will having the time of their lives. He was glad Will had been able to find the time to come to this event, even if he was still in the middle of studying for his own high school exams.

Exams at “Fuchsschweif Academy for the Magically Skilled,” or, as he preferred to call it, “his high school,” had ended a few months earlier than those at most high schools. That was likely because for young magic users, there was still something important they’d have to do before going to university.

Finding a familiar.

The way back was uneventful. The sun had long since set, so the fields on the way back were dark and barely visible. Cody’s parents were driving, and Will sat next to him, silently looking out of the window. He’d been doing that a lot in recent months, just looking out of the window and stuff like that, contemplating… something. On the one hand, it felt like he was distancing himself, but on the other hand, he’d also been coming over a lot more recently, so Will seemingly didn’t completely hate Cody, if nothing else.

Cody took out the specifically-issued wand and played with it a little. It was pretty small, and he’d been told that it only had enough energy in it to cast the Turn Familiar spell. At its tip was a small jewel, giving off a faint blue glow. It made sense that such a spell would need blue mana; it was basically some kind of transmutation magic, after all.

It was such a simple spell. Hadzan ruya hazeban belan. He repeated the incantation in his head a few times. Even with his pretty decent knowledge of magic, he didn’t recognize any of the flow in the spell in the slightest. He also knew that such a complicated spell couldn’t work with such a short incantation. They must be using some way to compress it or something like that. It was a big break from the spells he usually handled, which were hard to pronounce but easy to comprehend once you had some basic knowledge.

He groaned, thinking of all the paperwork he’d be needing to. He’d have to find a nearby hospital, inquire about any terminally ill patients, and wait for all that to go through until he could finally meet with them and hopefully convince them to become his familiar and become healthy again. All while under video surveillance, of course, since the patient’s consent had to be recorded for legal purposes.

Only then could he apply for university, and the whole process could easily take months if you weren’t lucky. There was a swarm of young magic users now and only so many patients, after all, so he also had to be quick with his inquiry. Plus, rules dictated that magic users should be in the same age range as their familiars, only further limiting the available pool. He really hoped he wouldn’t be needing to fly anywhere or drive forever to get to an applicable hospital.

“Cody, wake up, we’re home!” He bolted upright in his seat in surprise. It took him a while to ground himself, and after a few seconds, he looked at his mom. She opened the car door and was waiting for him to get out of their car. “Lost in thought again, weren’t you?” she teased while smirking mischievously. He gave an affirmative grumble before getting out of the car.

Immediately, his head was attacked by hair ruffles from his mom. He’d never admit it, but he’d always enjoyed those. It gave him a taste of some of that childlike innocence, and he was glad that graduating didn’t mean giving that up.

He wasn’t all that tall himself, only being around 5’6”, which was surprising considering both his parents were at least 6’. In fact, from what he’d heard of his ancestors, they’d all been pretty large, so he was the odd one out in that way, not that he minded.

He noticed that he was still on the receiving end of his mom’s hair ruffles, so he had to play his part. “Moooom!” he exclaimed in fake annoyance. Immediately, she stopped, and he wished there’d been some more back-and-forth first. Like her saying “Awww, but you’re my cute little child!” or something like that.

After some more congratulations by his parents, Cody and Will went up the stairs to his room. Will’s eyes were firmly planted to his feet, strands of his brown hair covering his face. It’d gotten a lot longer in the past months, Cody noticed.

As soon as he got into his room, he threw his graduation note and rose onto his desk. Even that note didn’t really have any use. He’d be mailed the actual documents in the coming days; the overly decorated piece of paper was just commemorative.

He threw himself onto the mattress they’d put next to his bed for the occasion. Will would get the actual bed since he was a guest. Cody didn’t really mind that; he’d never really slept well no matter the circumstances.

Instead of heading straight for the bed, Will made himself comfortable in Cody’s office chair, spinning around absentmindedly.

“So, got an idea for which hospital to ask around at?” his friend asked him in the meek voice he’d been using recently. The inconsistent volume from the rotation of the chair didn’t help with that.

Cody sighed. “I dunno. I don’t just wanna force myself on someone vulnerable like that, y’know? It’s just a pretty big power imbalance, and what if they only accept because it’s literally their one shot at life, and then they see me just rambling or zoning out as I tend to do and they just… leave me and then I’m on my own. And, like, they’ll feel like I forced this big change on them and maybe they don’t like it and blame me and–”

“Shh. It’s okay,” Will interrupted him, now looking straight into his eyes.

Cody threw his hands up in the air. “It’s just, all I do is annoy people and be an inconvenience.”

Will started spinning around again, looking at the ceiling. “I dunno about that, it’s not like you annoy me. I feel like I’m learning more from being around you than from school, and I don’t even have any previous magical education.”

“But that’s – you’re different. We’ve known each other since forever.” Cody took the wand in his hand and investigated it again, fascinated by the soft blue glow.

Will kept spinning around, leaning down on the chair so he was almost lying down, eyes pointed at the ceiling. “Well, why don’t you just get to know them first, then?”

Cody vehemently shook his head. “That’s not how things go. For starters, more appointments would delay the whole process, and in the service of saving lives we can’t just deny someone the right to be a familiar once we approached them. Saying ‘no’ would be akin to murder. So the people behind this don’t see the point in delaying the process. If someone dies while I’m getting to know them, I’d probably be blamed.”

Will stopped again, this time facing away from Cody. “That’s some heavy stuff. And it’s gotta be a stranger?”

Cody racked his brain for a second, remembering the many ethics lectures he’d had to sit through. “I think it’s encouraged to go through that process, but as long as my familiar-to-be consents anyone should be fine.”

Will kicked back against the wall and let his chair ride until he was right next to the mattress, then he turned around and grinned at his friend. “Why can’t I just be your familiar?”

That came as a surprise to Cody. “Listen, I – that can’t work because – because –” He tried to think of any possible rule this could be breaking. Consent was definitely there, and he hadn’t started the bureaucratic process yet, so it wasn’t like he was directly taking this away from any patient. It would likely be frowned upon, but that’d be it. “Huh, well, actually, technically it would be fine.” Then Cody came to his senses and crossed his arms. “Wait, no! I can’t just… do this to you! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!”

His friend sighed. “C’mon, it’s not like you’re gonna kill me. From what I heard I’m just gonna be the catalyst for your magic, right? Just by being around?”

Cody tried to think of any other retorts. He wasn’t being irrational, right? He felt there should be some reason for him to be opposed to this. It was just… too convenient. Then it hit him. “W-we don’t have an animal! The procedure requires an animal to be used as a sacrifice to grant your body the ability to produce mana, and usually those are supplied as part of the process! Like, old cats or dogs from shelters.”

Sighing, Will rolled his eyes. “Are you serious?” He pointed at the window from which they could see the currently empty field outside the house. Cody’s parents owned a somewhat sizable flock of sheep, and were it a few hours earlier they could’ve been seen grazing on the grass right outside the window. “You must have, like, an old sheep or something that’s on death’s door already, right?”

Cody grumbled. Will had been spot-on; old Betsy had gotten a lot weaker and seemed to always be in pain, and his parents had arranged for her to be put to rest next week. “Yeah, that’s true,” he begrudgingly agreed. “Why are you so eager for this anyway?”

Adjusting the chair, Will sat up straight again. “Because I have no idea what to do with my life!” he said a little louder than appropriate. “I feel I don’t fit in with any of my classes, and don’t even get me started on choosing a university after all that. I’m at a standstill! The only thing that even remotely motivates me is all the magic stuff you keep talking about. It’s so intriguing, and I wanna know more.”

“Nothing’s stopping you from just enrolling at something like Fuchs – my high school, y’know?” Cody sternly looked at his friend. “There’s no, like, magical energy innately flowing through me. We’re not some secret society.”

Will looked away from his friend. “Well, but then I couldn’t learn stuff with you. Erm, ’cause you’re really good at explaining all the magic stuff,” he quickly added. Suddenly, it looked as if a lightbulb went off inside his head. “Oh, also, we already know that I’ll give off a blue-red aura, which is just the type of mana that you like to work with. With a different familiar you might have to convert that mana first!” Will smiled proudly at his friend. Cody, meanwhile, was surprised Will remembered such a minute detail. Maybe this was a better idea than he would’ve thought.