Over Familiar

While collecting her scant(y) belongings from the Rampant Unicorn, Sereena feels something soft, brush against her bare ankle.

Looking down she spies the dusk coloured Cogitari; the cat spirit familiar of the Half-elf Nitendae.

He’d been hit hard by the Drow poison, so Sereena was surprised to see the socerer-thief up and around.

… But he wasn’t around.

He must be downstairs. A familiar never willingly strays far from its master.

“Hey pussy-cat. Where’s your elf?”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sereena’s own white ferret familiar pounces onto the cat, its razor-sharp teeth, piercing fur and flesh.

Within seconds, all can be seen is a whirling blur of light and dark.

Instinctively, the sorceress reaches in to prise them apart.

It’s a mistake.

Claws and teeth rip into her bare flesh.

She tries to scream but her voice is lost in a swirling confusion of images.

Demon cats and monstrous ferrets battling for supremacy.

Battling for her blood and soul.

…

Hours later, Sereena is roused by one of the other dancers. She’s lying on the floor beside her old bed, covered in blood, bites and scratches.

Her ferret is nowhere to be seen.

Only the cat Cogitari remains, who sits, looking up with a guilty but victorious expression.

“You’re mine and I am yours.”

Understanding finally dawns on Sereena, as she clambers to her feet.

Either Nitendae has died or his magical link to his cat has been permanently severed.

Either way, the cat Cogitari choose her over death.

Sereena feels a brief moment of sorrow for her lost pet but somehow knows that this new link, this new familiar is far stronger.

Strong enough to last a lifetime.