Work Text:
Ardyn dragged his chalk across the rough wood floor, enjoying the rhythmic arm motions of drawing a spell circle, precise from years of practice. He hummed quietly to himself as he completed it, and when it was done he sat back, clapping his hands together.
"Okay." The floor creaked beneath his feet as he stood, fetching a tiny wooden dog from where it was buried beside a pile of slowly collapsing books atop his desk. It was a wonder he managed to find it at all in the clutter of pens, ink, parchment, spell components in jars and satchels, stamps and talismans and half-brewed potions. But this item was important, and he set it carefully in the circle's center.
"Now, let me see." He hummed again, fetched a book, opened it, realized it wasn't the right one and grabbed another. There. Those were the words he needed to speak, bookmarked with a tattered piece of cloth and underlined in red.
His first few familiar summonings hadn't exactly gone... well.
A paper bird had burst up in flame and nearly lit the nearest stack of books and thus, his entire study room and inevitably his entire small secluded house on fire, potentially spreading to a wildfire of the forest surrounding it.
A crystal rabbit had exploded in his face, giving him horrible scratches that had taken three rounds of very specific herbal potions to heal.
Then there was his first attempt at a wooden dog, which had similarly exploded into wood chips and splinters, but that time he'd been wearing a bucket over his head and had avoided the worst of the injuries.
This time, he was prepared. He wore several layers of cotton and wool, stood several feet back from the circle, and placed a table on its side between himself and the attempted summoning.
This time... this time he was determined that it would work.
Taking a deep breath, he started to read. The circle in the center of the room glowed an ominous red. But there was no explosion. The little wooden dog floated up into the air, cracks forming on its surface, letting out light, and Ardyn ducked behind the table.
It didn't explode. It grew.
It grew and grew, and eventually, many sizes bigger than when it began, settled back down onto the floor.
Ardyn peered over the table's edge as the magic crackling in the air settled around him. His hair had lifted up around his head but that relaxed now, too, brushing his shoulders.
In the circle... was a dog.
A real dog.
He couldn't say for sure what kind of dog it was. It had pointy, poofy ears, a long snout, and a fluffy, curly tail. Its eyes were bright blue—like the sky on a crystal clear day—and when it looked at him, its jaws parted, a soft tongue lolling out as it began to pant in contentment.
"Oh." Ardyn stood up. He'd... he'd wanted it to work so badly but he hadn't actually expected it to work.
Slowly, he made his way over to the dog, as though afraid it would vanish. But it did not. So Ardyn knelt beside it and held out one hand. The dog licked his fingers, and Ardyn laughed at the way its tongue tickled his skin.
"What a good boy you are," he breathed, for he was somehow certain this dog was a boy. The dog barked happily, stood up, and pressed its entire body into his arms, nearly bowling him over. He laughed, threw his arms around its neck, and ruffled the fur on its head.
The dog smelled like magic. It would be able to understand him and could do plenty of other tricks, too. It was a familiar, after all.
"Well," Ardyn said to the dog. "We're going to be great friends, you and I." He hummed quietly as he contemplated a name. Then he said at last, "I think I'll call you... Cor."
The dog barked and licked his cheek. Ardyn curled his fingers into Cor's warm fur coat, pressed his face into the side of the dog's neck, and breathed. It had been so very long since he'd had a friend.
"It's lovely to meet you too, Cor," he muttered. And as Cor tucked himself closer, he knew without a doubt his familiar understood.
--
As the weeks passed, Ardyn found that he was... content. Studying in his cottage, picking up food from the town nearby once a week, spending his days with Cor. The dog was utterly loyal, always by his side day and night, and adored him endlessly. But he couldn't help wishing for more. He couldn't help wishing that the creature he'd summoned as a dog... was human.
So, he dove back into his books, often with Cor curled up at his feet or around the legs of his chair.
It was possible. Possible to turn a familiar human. But dare he risk it? After so many failed attempts at summoning Cor in the first place, what made him think he could bring him back a second time as a human?
He practiced on a smaller scale first, practicing his transmutation of inanimate objects, before moving on to summoning tiny magical creatures and transforming them into larger ones. While he practiced, he considered—was it worth the risk?
Ardyn scratched his dog's soft head, right between his ears, watching the way Cor looked at him—with eyes far too intelligent to be contained by a dog's form. He wasn't a real dog, after all. He was something else—something otherworldly, though no research had ever proven where, exactly familiars came from.
He deserved better. And if it failed... well, if it failed, he would deal with the fallout. Whatever that entailed.
This time, Ardyn did not whistle as he drew the circle. His hands trembled, and he had to pause every so often and take deep breaths to steady them.
When he was done, he called to Cor, who had settled down a few feet away, and asked the dog to sit in the circle's center. When he moved away and Cor stood as if to follow, Ardyn ordered him to stay.
He wasn't sure if Cor knew what was about to happen, but Ardyn returned to him one last time, kissed his nose, looked into those bright, honest eyes, and told him it would be all right, even if he wasn't entirely sure of it himself.
Then, he sunk behind the table he'd propped up in case of disaster, and began to read the words.
He couldn't bring himself to watch the circle as he read. All he saw was a great, bright light—a light that increased until it engulfed the room, and he had to shield his eyes, raising his voice to be heard above the high-pitched piercing sound that accompanied it.
When the light grew dim again, he peered over the table.
There was a man in the circle. A man, with short brown hair and honest blue eyes, completely naked but for a dog's black collar snug around his neck.
"Oh, Gods," Ardyn breathed. "It worked."
Cor turned to look at him, then, and recognition flashed in his bright blue eyes. "Ardyn?" he asked quietly.
He... he could talk.
Of course he could talk. He was human now.
Ardyn stood up hastily, not entirely sure what to do with himself. "Let me get you some clothes," he said at last, and went stumbling around the room in a hurry, leaving Cor sitting there, looking stunned and unsure as he inspected his hands and feet, running his fingers along the collar.
Ardyn returned a moment later with one of his own housecoats and threw it over Cor's shoulders. "Thanks," Cor said, and tugged it tight around himself, then got to his feet.
"Now what do we do?" Ardyn muttered, more to himself than to Cor, but Cor just looked at him and shrugged.
"Whatever you desire."
--
Those words rang in Ardyn's head for quite some time. As one day passed, then two, he began to realize just how woefully unprepared he'd been to house a man instead of a dog. He needed clothes, for one—clothes that weren't Ardyn's. He ate like a soldier and slept like one, always on edge. Ardyn was lucky that he had a big bed, though now half his usual mattress space was sacrificed to a familiar who used to be a third of the size he was now.
But. Cor was warm to sleep against and handsome and kind. Ardyn liked him very much. It just all felt a little bit... wrong. Like he was forcing Cor to be there against his will. Which, admittedly, he was. He'd summoned him from somewhere, after all. Cor couldn't comment on it as a dog, but as a human...
The next morning, at breakfast, Ardyn finally got up the courage to ask. He'd asked Cor a few things—what he wanted to eat, how he wanted to dress, what he liked to do—and got simple, straightforward answers. Otherwise, Cor mulled about the house, utterly silent while Ardyn studied, or sometimes sat near him just as he'd done when he'd been a dog.
"Do you remember," Ardyn asked carefully, "anything from before you were with me?"
"Of course," Cor said, and he seemed surprised that Ardyn had bothered to ask.
"Well?" he prompted.
"I'm not sure," Cor said slowly, "if it's the sort of thing I should tell a witch."
Ardyn frowned at that. "I'm not a witch, I'm a scholar."
Cor raised an eyebrow and gave him a skeptical smile. It was the first time he'd looked at Ardyn with anything that wasn't blank acceptance. "You live in a hut in the middle of the woods, use magic, and summoned a familiar. Where I come from, you're called a witch."
"And where, exactly, do you come from?" Ardyn purred, leaning across the breakfast table.
Cor forked some bacon into his mouth. "I told you," he said after he'd chewed. "I'm not sure I should tell you that."
"And who am I going to tell, Cor? I despise the Academy. I don't relate with any other—witches, as you call them. I don't have friends." He paused. "Aside from you."
Cor considered this a long moment. If he remembered being a dog, well.... he would know all of that to be true. He would remember the day Ardyn got a letter demanding he return and report his findings to the Academy. A letter he'd promptly burned in the fire after complaining profusely to his familiar—who he thought, at the time, would never be able to respond.
Cor leaned his chin on one hand, smiling thoughtfully as he considered it and then said, "I'm fae."
"Oh." Ardyn blinked. Let that settle in. Oh. He was...
He gasped. "You're fae? What... how..."
"Fae," Cor said carefully, eyeing him, perhaps to judge his reaction, "Yes. Some fae agree to take on contracts as familiars. We travel here when summoned. We serve our witches for a time. And when they die—as they are mortal and we live significantly longer lives—we return to our kingdom."
"A contract?" Ardyn frowned. "It's not a punishment, is it?"
Cor sighed. "I've already said too much." He half-turned away, working on his breakfast.
Ardyn suddenly didn't want to eat anymore. He shoved his plate away, got up and looked out the window, then paced around the kitchen. It was sunny that morning, light streaming in through the big south-facing window, filtered by the leaves of oak trees.
"I hope—" he said at last. "I hope you don't consider this a punishment."
Cor said nothing.
--
In fact, Cor said little more for the next few days. When Ardyn asked something of him, he did it. He was still a familiar, after all. But it had been easier when he was a dog—an animal. A creature Ardyn could think of as a pet and a friend, trained to do as he said but at the same time, he liked to think that Cor, as a dog, had obeyed him because he wanted to. Now, it felt more like he'd acquired a reluctant servant, and he wasn't sure he liked the idea.
The next day, he put a pouch of gold into Cor's hand. "If you're to serve me, I'll at least pay you," he told him simply. "And if you won't take pay for your services, consider it a gift. As a thank you."
Cor took the pouch but said not a word. Until that night, when they lay in bed beside each other, and Cor turned to look at Ardyn over his shoulder.
"You know," he said. "You're not forcing me into this. I'm doing this because I asked to take a contract. The fact that you summoned me, without knowing the details... that isn't your fault."
Ardyn lay there, on his back, hands folded on his chest. "I don't want you to serve me," he whispered, "all I wanted was a friend."
"I am your friend," Cor said softly. He rolled closer, rested his head on Ardyn's shoulder, and closed his eyes.
--
After that night, Ardyn stopped asking things of Cor. No more asking him to fetch books or tell him the time or check the mail. He did those things himself, as he had when he'd lived alone. He told Cor, too, that he wouldn't ask him those things anymore. That he would treat Cor as a roommate, not as a servant. Cor seemed to have little opinion, only shrugged and said that it didn't matter to him either way. But he moved about the house a little happier than he had before. Ardyn thought so, anyway. He caught Cor whistling to himself on more than one occasion. He caught him leaving without a word, and he'd come back an hour later, his boots thick with mud from walking the trails soon after a rainfall.
One night, as they laid in bed side by side, staring up at the ceiling, Ardyn asked him. "What were you like, in the fae kingdom?"
Cor snorted at him. They'd grown more familiar with each other over the past week. Comfortable enough that Cor was beginning to express himself more fully, and to speak his mind now that he was more sure of where they stood with each other—sure that Ardyn wouldn't treat him worse because he was human and not a dog. "What do you mean, what was I like? I was the same as I am now."
Ardyn sighed. "No, Cor. I mean what did you look like? Surely you didn't look human. I don't know very much about the fae kingdom, but I do know that it's absolutely full of pixies, brownies, elves, goblins, and the sort. So?"
Cor let out a long-suffering sigh, but Ardyn knew for a fact he didn't really mind answering Ardyn's occasional questions. Cor trusted him, and Ardyn would never betray that trust. "I was a creature that... I don't know the name for, in your tongue. But I suppose, you would say... similar to a lion."
Ardyn tried to picture it. Cor, as a lion, with a rippling mane of magic. Majestic and handsome. He sighed again. "Surely your name wasn't Cor."
"No," Cor mused. "But I think I'll keep that to myself. You couldn't pronounce it anyway. Besides." He turned to Ardyn. Their gazes met—Ardyn's warm brown and Cor's piercing blue. Both of them smiled. Then Cor said softly, "I like the name Cor. It fits me well. And..." he hesitated, then said, "I like it even more because you gave it to me."
Ardyn sucked in a quiet breath. His cheeks flushed, and there was a warmth all through him. It surged as Cor leaned just a little bit closer. Their knees pressed together. He could feel Cor's breath tickling his nose.
He bit his lip and turned to stare at the ceiling again. "Cor," he said softly. "Don't look at me like that." But Cor slid closer, ran one hand up across his stomach.
"Like what?" he whispered, leaning up on one elbow.
"Like you want to—" Ardyn broke off, skin flushed so red it practically matched his hair, and Cor laughed under his breath.
"I thought you weren't giving me orders anymore."
"I'm not—" Ardyn protested, and as Cor leaned down, Ardyn muttered, "Oh, hell," tangled his fingers up into Cor's hair, and pulled him down to kiss him.
--
The next day, Ardyn had made up his mind. He was deep in the books by the time Cor got out of bed, making them breakfast, which he insisted he wanted to do, especially with Ardyn so distracted.
As they ate, not speaking of the night before in the least, Ardyn announced his intentions. "I'm going to unsummon you," he said.
Cor raised his eyebrows like he thought Ardyn was joking. "I don't think you can do that," he said.
"I can," Ardyn said. "I turned you human, didn't I? It's certainly possible. I summoned you and I can unsummon you if I please."
Before he could go on some tirade about his research, Cor reached across the table and snatched Ardyn's hand in his. "That's not what I meant," he said. "What I meant was... I don't want you to. And by that I mean," he sounded a little breathless, "please don't."
Ardyn, flushing like some school girl and desperately trying to shake it off, jerked his hand away. "Cor," he confessed, "I cannot stand this any longer. I can't have you in my servitude, it feels wrong and. And... I want you to be free again."
Cor let out a slow, even breath, staring at him across the breakfast table. "It isn't so simple," he said. "If you send me back—" He paled. "I... okay." He pushed his plate away. Drank his coffee, and sat back. "I need to tell you something, Ardyn. I.... I'm a fugitive."
Ardyn's eyebrows raised all the way up to his hairline. "Oh."
"I... was young and stupid, and there was a very powerful fae who harassed my family for hundreds of years for reasons I won't get into. The simple fact of the matter is.... I was brash and strong, and I... I killed him." He swallowed. "I stood trial. I was supposed to be executed, but I escaped. I disguised myself, desperate to get out of the kingdom. And the easiest way to get out is... to take a contract."
"Oh," Ardyn said again.
"I should have told you sooner."
"No. No..." Ardyn shook his head, he just... didn't know what to say.
"Ardyn," Cor continued, and he stared at him with the same soft puppy-dog eyes he'd had when he really was a dog. "When I felt you reaching in and calling I.... I went to you, because I liked the way your energy felt. It felt... safe. It felt like home. I... like it here. I... really like you. I want to stay." His lip wobbled. "Please let me stay."
"Cor..." Ardyn reached for his hand again, squeezed it.
"Please don't send me back," Cor blubbered, and Ardyn squeezed his hand again.
"I won't," he promised. "I won't. The thing is Cor, I... I'm finding more and more that I want... I want very badly to be open to your... affection. But when I think of you as my servant, when I remember that it was me who summoned you, that you are at the end of the day a familiar whether I want you to be or not, it's..."
"Then I'm not your servant," Cor said. "You having summoned me doesn't mean I'm beholden to you in any way. Some familiars are, but... it's different, with you. It's about the intention. And you never intended to be my master. You always intended to be my friend. So that's what you are. My friend."
Ardyn let out a slow breath through his nose. Felt a little like he might be the one to start crying. "I'm a disaster, Cor," he confessed.
"Oh, I know." Cor smiled.
"I don't have my life together. I'm running out of funding because I refuse to answer to the Academy and no one will hire me. My house is a mess."
"Less, since I moved in." Cor smiled even more affectionately at him. More affectionately than Ardyn deserved. "If you can't get a job, perhaps I can. I pass as a human. I could work in the town nearby, at the docks. They're always looking for strong men. We could..."
He trailed off, and Ardyn looked at him with more hope than he knew he ought to.
"We could just... live together," Cor finished. "How I got here... it doesn't matter. I'm here now. I like you, and I want to stay."
Ardyn breathed. Just breathed. And then he said, "I want you to stay, too."
It was hard to say which of them moved first. They both stood. And then their mouths were pressed together and Cor was holding him and kissing him deeper and deeper. Ardyn moaned, leaned against his strong chest and—
Well.
Perhaps it would be easier than he thought, to stop thinking of Cor as a familiar, and to start thinking of him as... his partner.
Perhaps this would all work out, after all.
Yes. He was fairly confident it would.