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When Essek is falling into the familiar rhythm of arcane research, eventually, the Zemnian timbre cut through. “Have you ever summoned a familiar?”
At the question, Essek glanced up from where Frumpkin purred on his lap, louder than a cart rumbling down the street in the Rosohna market. He kept one hand scratching the burnt orange cat on his head to keep Frumpkin from stepping all over his notes on the desk instead.
Caleb sat behind him in the Xhorhaus library, across a motley floor of shaggy but warmly colored rugs. Caleb leaned against one of the already leaning, wooden shelves that threatened to collapse at any time. Essek also questioned Nott’s alchemical corner that could set the whole thing alight. But the books themselves were obviously well dusted and well organized, spines straight and proud.
He bit his lips in thought, one fang escaping him. “If I have, it must have been eons ago, to, ah, simply prove that I could. Where does this curiosity of yours come from?”
“I was just thinking about it during our last dunamancy lesson,” Caleb shrugged.
“Then, I must not be doing my job very well.” Essek smirked before his lips fell into a coy expression. He turned further over his shoulder to look at Caleb, and Frumpkin mewled in disapproval at the movement. An apology came in patting his sleek, striped back. “You mostly employ him for scouting, no? I don’t adventure very often, myself.”
After huffing at Essek’s attempt at a joke, he said, “Ja, but he is also a friend.”
Flushing, Essek glanced back at Frumpkin purring even louder under his careful attention. Pushing the fur around, he was almost gripped by the wild abandon to bury his face in Frumpkin, but he did not fall to the impulse.
“That is well,” Essek murmured, more to Frumpkin than anyone else. “Friends are hard to find in Rosohna, and harder to keep.”
When Essek finds himself in the market next, he does fall to the impulse to buy incense and herbs.
When Caleb knocks on the central tower door and Essek runs to answer it himself, almost accidentally knocking over a servant on the way, Caleb’s blue eyes blinked in surprise, more than once. “Oh. Hallo.”
“H—hello.” Essek cleared his throat. “Good morning. I hope you are well.”
“It is closer to twelve o’clock at this point,” Caleb said without looking at anything. With a private grin, Essek waved him inside from the permanent night of Rosohna and shut the onyx doors behind them. “Herr Thelyss, I admit I am surprised we’re meeting again this quickly. I don’t think I have mastered the last spell yet.”
The drow took a shallow breath. “Oh, no, no. I panicked when Jester messaged me about when I would see you again. Which, just why is she curious, but—I did not mean to lie.” Essek folded his hands tightly under his robes and looked away to the vaulted ceiling. Caleb led the way to Essek’s library, could find it in the dark by now, and Essek followed, footfalls light on the stone. “I did not know if you would be interested. I was going to ask you later in the week.”
“Interested in…?” Caleb raised a brow.
“I, ah, might have bought the materials for finding a familiar.”
“Oh!” The other wizard immediately straightened, suddenly stopping on the spiral staircase. The jewelry on Essek’s mantle jingled as he ran into the middle of Caleb’s back. Essek was grateful that it covered his inopportune, choked gasp of surprise—and something more. “Why didn’t you just say so? I would be glad to help.”
Essek used a hand to put at least a finger’s length between them. It was also an inopportune place to stop in his home, as Essek almost considered floating so Caleb did not tower at least two heads above him with the help of the stairs. “I figured as much, but the Mighty Nein is quite popular these days, and as such, busy for such a silly request.”
“Nein. We have done sillier requests for even those we weren’t friends with yet.” After an exhausted sigh, which Essek surmised musthave been a memory of Jester, Caleb turned and took Essek’s outstretched hand. He hurried the rest of the way at a doubled pace, Essek jumping multiple stairs to keep up and wobbling the entire time.
“Although cats are the best animal, it doesn’t have to be one. It can be an owl, you might like best, all types of birds, an octopus… although that one might be a bit much,” Caleb rambled as they entered the library. He removed his light, but burning hold on Essek and scratched at his beard. “If you transcribed the spell, you would know these things already. Of course.”
“A cat is perfectly fine. Even if I was not thinking of one, I have the feeling it would sneak into my subconscious anyway, due to another wizard’s familiar,” Essek said over a smile. With their movement in the library, the amethyst sconces roared to life above. “Speaking of, is Frumpkin available?”
After nodding, Caleb snapped, and the fey cat appeared in its familiar spot, as a scarf about Caleb’s neck. “Ja. He has been around only people for too long.”
Frumpkin blinked slowly at Essek.
For the better part of an hour, he remained in his lofty perfect, eyes flashing in the purple light and demanding Essek’s attention. Caleb helped Essek set the materials in the brazier as he was used to. They drew the appropriate runes around it on the ornate diamond tile between his desks along the wall and his bookshelves. While chalking in the symbols, Essek eyed some of the mess he had unceremoniously shoved off of the table after he invited Caleb over by accident. Essek coughed weakly and kicked it further into a dark corner. His shelves, too, while elegant and sleek black, the books got more haphazardly stuffed in the places you could not see from the door.
“It is less than one might think,” Essek thought aloud when all of the materials were in place, kneeling on the floor.
“Maybe, but it is a privilege,” Caleb muttered into his scarf, standing on the opposite side of the brazier—his actual scarf, not his cat. “I remember when I first got enough gold to summon Frumpkin while traveling alone.”
“My, ah, my apologies,” Essek said immediately. “I did not mean it like that.”
Caleb only shrugged. “It was good to have my family cat back, at least somewhat. Since you said you have no previous pet… experience, I wonder what form you’ll create.”
“That makes two of us,” the drow huffed. “...A friend, perhaps.”
Flushing and angling his ears down, Essek plucked a stick of incense from the brazier. As he could only properly lift himself with one hand, and he still shook from the stairs, or at least he told himself, Essek almost pitched forward when he went to stand.
Caleb reached over the brazier to support his forearms. Essek jerkily nodded his thanks and straightened his spine.
Lifting their hands with the incense, Essek asked with a shaky grin, “Would you kindly?”
Caleb only nodded and snapped his fingers, a tiny spark traveling from his fingers to set the stick alight. Essek bent over, circled the herbs and charcoal, and touched the other incense until all of the materials went up in a small blaze. After shoving the first stick back in, Essek stepped to his side of the circle again. Caleb scratched at Frumpkin as he watched with a faraway expression.
The floor began to glow white first, and then the fire intensified, enveloping the library in a velvety warm light. Essek extended his arms and mumbled the necessary arcane words and rejected any outside influence as to what the cat would look like, counting on the fey realm to shuffle the cards correctly.
When he shut his eyes and opened them in a languid moment, as slow-billowing as the smoke, that smoke seemed to change. A darker cloud shot off behind him, and Essek turned just in time to see the cloud dance before his gothic window, and the dark sky showed the smoke’s sparkle that rivaled the stars.
As the cloud jumped back over his shoulder and into the circle, it darkened further at the top, but never changed color after that. Instead, the wispy edges gave way to equally as soft but tangled fur, sticking out every which way. From the ombre gray fur popped out shorter legs and a flatter face than Frumpkin. With a final swish of its billowy tail, the rest of the smoke dissipated, the fire put itself out, and in its place, two bright yellow eyes blinked to life.
Essek gasped and pressed his hands together in a tight fist. The familiar—his familiar—padded over to him and looked up at him almost expectantly, for a cat.
“Interesting. Very interesting,” Caleb spoke for the first time. Frumpkin stood on his shoulders and leaned forward. “Of course, there are ways to change its appearance when you re-summon it.”
“No need,” Essek said carefully, kneeling on the ground again. “She’s perfect.”
When Essek finds himself in the market next, he buys herbs again.
At one point, a merchant became annoyed at the cat poking around their stall, shooing her away with a broom. Essek took pleasure in snapping, having her reappear around his mantle, and the merchant cowering.
Instead, these herbs were stuffed into sewn toys. In turn, the toys became scattered all over his floors. Essek created floating cat towers for his familiar to jump all around the tower. She may have stepped in ink and produced paw prints on his notes, but those formulas were not working out, anyway.
Essek took her into the mostly hidden quarters on the top floor where he preferred to take his trances when the most stressed. It was little more than a mattress pressed against a smaller shelf with more personal books, such as the romance novels Jester loaned him. The shapeless, stone gray cat fit in well with the mess of blankets and obsidian candles.
Essek finally fell to pressing his face into her fur.
When Essek knocked once on the door of the Xhorhaus, Jester swung the door open violently before he could do so a second time. “She’s here!” the tiefling began screaming. “She’s here!”
“...And so am I,” Essek said dryly, even as his lips curled into a smile.
“Of course, Essek, you too! Come in, come in, come in!” Jester waved wildly. He nodded and floated inside, bottle of wine in hand and the familiar resting in a floating cat bed beside him. Jester wrenched his free hand from him and almost launched him down the main hall. Pulling him towards the dining hall, Jester continued yelling, “Everyone come see Essek’s new kitty!”
He gave his familiar a look, and she blinked slowly back.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone in the Mighty Nein began to appear, even a few of them coming down the stairs, Beau thundering so. Caleb stepped out from the library, Frumpkin trailing behind him, and even Caduceus peeked his head out from the kitchen.
“Doesn’t she have any legs?” Jester asked, her voice cracking in concern as she leaned closer to the cat bed in mid-air. “Like wizard, like familiar!”
“We have been over this before, Jester. I have legs,” Essek huffed. He stopped floating and kicked a foot out from under his heavy black robes. “Of course Mir’ply has legs. I merely think that she prefers to travel in style.”
“Mir’ply? That’s your name?” Leaning closer, Jester almost pressed her face to the cat’s vacant, vaguely hostile visage. Mir’ply swished her tail back and forth.
As this exchange happened, Caduceus had taken the wine, and Essek had removed his mantle. Caleb offered his hand with a nod, and he returned it to the coat-rack for Essek. “Of course. And with all of the respect it deserves.”
“Oh, man. You named your magic cat Fluffy?”
As soon as Beau’s voice cut him like a knife, Essek’s frame went taut and his ears spiked up. In the door of the dining room, Essek shot her an icy glare over his shoulder. “...Did you learn Undercommon to personally spite me?”
“Nope, but it’s a whole lotta fun.” Beau smirked. “You could’ve just said no.”
Then, a sigh melted out of Essek, as well as the tension out of his shoulders. Essek dragged a hand down his face. “I, ah, could not think of anything else, in the moment.”
“Now, no one will call her anything else,” Caleb said helpfully when he returned. Essek glared at him as well before breaking into a grin.
“She looks… stormy.” Yasha mumbled, although she was always quiet. She stood with her arms crossed at a careful distance from Mir’ply, although the interest was plain on her face.
Mir’ply gave a soft meow in her direction.
“Stormy is really a better name, Yasha.” Turning to him, Jester said confidently. “Or, maybe her name should be The Princess of Rosohna!”
Clearing his throat, Essek huffed, “Well, it is a good thing she answers to me and me alone.”
Even as he said that, Jester picked Mir’ply up from her floating bed. She yowled, and her already long, wild fur stood on end. Jester ignored all of that, even Mir’ply scrambling to get out of her arms, and instead admired her bejeweled collar.
“Mir’ply, do try not to bite her,” the drow sighed. “At least, not yet.”
“Sometimes, that’s just the way of things,” Caduceus rumbled from the door of the kitchen. Jester stuck her tongue out at the firbolg. “Now, stop teasing each other and help me set the table, would you?”
Somehow, Yasha ended up as the one awkwardly cradling Mir’ply as they all moved into the dining room. He left the bed in the corner, but she only let Mir’ply go when Essek sat at the table himself. An extra chair, chipped, tan wood decorated with a bright red pillow, had already been dragged into the room. Already purring from Yasha, she made biscuits before settling in Essek’s lap. When lying down, she became an amorphous blob. With fangs.
And Essek had an excess of light cat hair on all of his dark clothing now.
Caduceus plated the last of the food and poured their wine. Mir’ply was almost hidden under the table, and Fjord chose his regular seat beside Essek without thinking. As Essek opened his mouth to say something, Fjord sneezed. Twice.
“Somehow, ‘s so much worse than Frumpkin,” Fjord grumbled. He made tense eye contact with Mir’ply’s warm yellow saucers, warmer in the diffused candelight, before folding. Moving to the other side of the table, Caleb took Fjord’s seat. Then, they began to eat.
“My apologies. Mir’ply, please avoid the green one if you can,” Essek chuckled, scratching the top of her head. “Oh, the large one, not the small one.”
Nott pointed a fork at her from across the table.
“...Perhaps, ah, avoid both of them, then.”
Caleb leaned closer curiously. “You know you can give orders telepathically, ja?”
“Of course. I simply think that she likes talking with me.” To prove himself, Mir’ply mewled, and Essek sent her to lounge in Caleb’s lap instead. Then, he flushed. “At least, I would hope so. I find myself talking to her in my towers.”
Flattening his ears, Essek worked on pushing fur off of his pants.
As he kept his gaze down, almost in exchange, Frumpkin pawed at Essek’s silk shirt before jumping onto his shoulders. Essek immediately straightened back against the pillow and blinked. Frumpkin wrapped around his neck, and the sound of the Might Nein’s silverware was slowly replaced by purring. Essek flicked his ear, and Frumpkin flicked at one of his longer silver earrings.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Caleb whispered, turning to Essek. One of his hands was buried into the mysterious ball of gray on his lap, and Essek could hear Mir’ply’s purring, higher-pitched and more hard-earned, from here.
“Of course not.” Essek gave a soft smile, his cheeks still dusted a dark purple. It was harder to eat comfortably, but that hardly mattered. “The same for you.”
As the wizards looked at each other, so did their familiars. The cats went back and forth from tilting their heads to sniffing, their tails twitching. Then, they settled on a slow blink.
“Do you really think that they’re going to be friends?” Jester asked between Beau and Yasha.
Caleb reached behind Essek to pet Frumpkin’s back as well. He returned the smile. “Ja, I would like that very much.”