Chapter Text
It was tradition to offer a familiar to young sorcerers on their fifth birthday, right before they entered the Magic Academy — at that age, they were old enough to understand witchcraft, but still had a whole lifetime ahead to bond with their new charge.
When Junhong turned five, his parents gave him a skateboard.
He lived a peaceful childhood away from the city; not in the countryside as one would call it, but in an eventless little town where spring seemed to linger six months a year. His parents never hid the existence of wizardry or the nature of their beings to him, though their reluctance about teaching him was evident.
Junhong was curious, however — he wondered why he couldn’t use his magic, why he couldn’t have a familiar of his own and what his purpose was. His questions were never properly worded, and for the ones that were, they never met any answer, yet the child held tightly onto the hope that things would change. He yearned for the day he would finally be able to present himself as he really was, a wizard in its whole glory, or at least understand why he had such honour denied, but in the meantime, Junhong had to accept the destiny his parents had chosen for him: the human, magic-less life, with its usual comforting routine and meaningless twists.
At least once a year, they would disappear with both of their foxes, usually for a week but at times even a month. Left alone, Junhong would put his free time to benefit by doing researches in his parents’ abundantly-garnished attic, a huge room packed with magical utensils, books seeming to come from another time and herbs and spices that tinted every little artefact with their peppery smell.
In spite of his blatant difficulties to read and write, the kid grabbed snippets of random facts from the Magical Records here and there. Encyclopaedia and History Books were still tedious to read, though, and what the child enjoyed the most was going through The Official Manual To Familiars, as the book was mostly constituted of engravings’ reproductions and beautiful sketches. He would spend entire afternoons looking at the various creatures and trying to understand how claims and soul-sharing worked — to little avail, he had to confess.
What Junhong understood however, was that each wizard had their own familiar, regardless of their social rank or power. It was a constant, one that had never been disrupted; and if everyone could have their very own companion, Junhong, who wasn’t less of a wizard than other pure-blooded folks, could too. Truth be told, that thought alone cheered him up enough to pull through the loneliest days.
Once Junhong’s parents returned, they would sleep off their long trip for a week, while he would still have to take care of the house by himself, yet couldn’t access the attic anymore for fear of getting caught. Then, almost all of a sudden, everything would be normal once again, clicking back into place. Junhong wouldn’t ask questions, acting as though he could accept the circumstances as they were, with no explanation needed. As a matter of fact, as much as he enjoyed staying alone in the attic for weeks, he knew such situation was as far from being “human” as could be, and the child felt as though he was forbidden to seek the truth about it.
The summer preceding his eighth birthday, his parents, once again, left him home alone.
The trip was supposed to be only eight days long, yet they came back unexpectedly early, three days later, looking like they were returning from Hell after a tea party with Death. Min, his mother’s fox, was missing. His father had a dislocated shoulder and a broken nose, his mother limped heavily, but otherwise, they seemed fine.
Soon after, Junhong’s parents announced to him that his father had received an interesting job opportunity at the other side of the continent, that no, Junhong couldn’t follow them, and no, it had nothing to do with their last trip or Min’s death. He would join the boys’ school in the city and live with his classmates in a dormitory. Mom and dad would still come to see him sometimes, just, not often.
Junhong didn’t understand why they abruptly decided to leave him behind, abandoning him in a world that obviously wasn’t theirs, but still tried his best not to blame them. They had to have good reasons, they had to.
He didn’t see them again after he entered high school. They often sent him letters, pictures, postcards, but they never seemed too keen on the idea of coming back to see him or letting him come home for the holidays. They still paid his school fees every semester and he had a well garnished bank account under his name; which wasn’t quite filling the crushing emptiness in his chest. Junhong grew used to it though, he perfectly understood he had to accept what he couldn’t change nor fight for, and simply gave up on anything related to what used to be his family.
After successfully graduating, Junhong had no doubt about which university he wanted to join. The problem was, you couldn’t randomly enter the Magic Academy — you joined when you were five and stayed for twenty years. Some rare beings joined later, in their early teens, after their parents taught them the fundamentals themselves. But a eighteen year old, familiar-less wizard with no prior experience of magic or basic knowledge about creatures and history trying to pass a jury was absolutely unheard of. As far as he knew, his bloodline hadn’t bred any heroes, he had no high-ranked family friend to recommend him, no allies.
Reasonably, Junhong decided to wait before presenting himself to the Academy. He couldn’t change the fact that he had no familiar, but he was intent on catching up with all the training he hadn’t done, all the knowledge he hadn’t acquired. Finding a specialised library near his flat was surprisingly easy once he knew what the recognition symbol was (two straight lines of different lengths crossing, and four huge dots at each of their ends), and soon enough, he became a regular there. The librarian helped him a lot, recommending him the best books to learn the basics fast. He still found it quite insulting that he sometimes had to buy children tales, but he had to start from somewhere, and indeed, beginning an apprenticeship as an adult was pretty uncommon.
Junhong didn’t enjoy brewing potions — they needed a terrible amount of precision in the dosage, required ingredients he would have never heard of, along with perfectly timed and efficient moves during their preparation, and they had a very limited power. They were more useful for healing and little tweaks (he used the energising position at least three times a week), but for attack or protection, for everything that was more than simply life compliant, spells were undeniably the best. They were powerful, limitless. They could do anything.
However, to cast a spell properly, you had to pronounce each words perfectly and with conviction. You couldn’t hesitate or cut yourself off mid-sentence once you had gathered your magic, otherwise the damage would be immense. Spells could back fire if you used them without enough power or energy — potions were rendered pretty useful in such cases. They were way more dangerous, but also, exciting. Junhong tried to stay wise with in his learning though, and didn’t favour spell books more than History’s.
Magic Records turned out to be funnier to read than what he would have expected. He learned about the wars, the struggling unity, the pact of peace with humanity and the promise to blend in and stay discreet. He learned about the rebels, the scientists, the heroes and the leaders. He learned about various kind of creatures that all went extinct because they were considered threatening to mankind — their disappearance engendered the loss of thousands of potions (about two third) as they required their body parts, a bit of their blood, or sometimes even something as benign as a scale or fur. Some potions were rewritten, less forceful but still efficient, whereas some went forgotten, sounding as far from reality as legends could be.
Junhong learned how to control his own powers, the art of conjuring fire in his palm or wind around him, only by thought and will. The task was by far the most difficult one — something considered as simple as telekinesis wasn’t supposed to make him lose consciousness, he wasn’t supposed to feel so exhausted after materialising glowing stardust around him, and it was certainly surprising that he still had nosebleed every time he practiced telepathy.
But he had read that wizards without familiars were weakened, past the whole loneliness and fragile mental state; that their magic suffered as much as their solitary hearts. Sometimes, their magic would even drain out in their teenage years, and the witches would either die through terrible sufferings or remain stuck in a human body, with a human soul. It had scared Junhong, but since he was doing great on his own so far, he convinced himself he was apart of the seventy-height remaining percents of the familiar-less wizards — among the ones that did just fine with their weakened magic and fragile state of mind (tsk).
The librarian — Jongup, he had learned — also helped him with his training. He explained him more thoroughly to him points he didn’t get in the books, made him recite over and over again the same (harmless) spell until his diction was clear and confident, and made a point of honour to obtain the best herbs for Junhong’s potions.
Sometimes, he would spend the whole day at the athenaeum, experiencing different mixes of ingredients in the back room or simply reading next to Jongup’s desk.
Jongup had been suspicious at first, when Junhong had bursted through the entrance months ago and asked for “real magical books for total beginners”. He thought he had to deal with a bold, too adventurous human (who were more numerous than expected, and a real pain, according to the elder), and had earnestly grilled him about his bloodline, witchcraft’s history and his familiar. Junhong had answered honestly to all of the queries, and Jongup chose to believe him; he didn’t ask any more personal question to the younger afterward, which Junhong was endlessly thankful for.
Jongup’s familiar was a wolf with an extremely thick fur, that still did a poor job at hiding its muscular body. It was significantly bigger than its counterpart, its colossal form easily two feet taller than Junhong when it was standing on its back legs, and saying that its paws were massive would have been a complete understatement. Its pelage was all in shades of dark brown, if not for its cream mask and collar, which descended down to its belly. The wolf had a little tuft of black hair, above its — his, Jongup always corrected him — head, and his huge, sharp ears raised ridiculously high every time something special caught his attention or that Jongup called his name. Daehyun.
Junhong was struck by how incredibly human the canine’s eyes looked, or how he would sometimes let out little gasps and sneezes, which sounded strangely like laughter, or how he would moan high-pitched pleas and lower his gigantic head to the ground when Jongup scolded him. He couldn’t help but stare at him every time Daehyun graced them with his presence, stares that seemed to make him uncomfortable (what the hell?), as he shifted his weight from one paw to another and avoided his gaze by looking at the ceiling. One day, Jongup told him that something about Daehyun was really, really special, but that he had to keep it a secret for now (he promised he would tell Junhong later, soon), and somehow, deep down inside, the younger already knew.