2024 Story Collection

Witch & Familiar Mates VII

"Oh, darling, you really have no idea just how powerful you are, do you?" her grandmother said with a smirk. "You are a rare elemental witch, much like myself. Even more rare is the fact that your element is fire."

"So the reason I'm able to do that dumb bar trick is because I'm actually a rare bread of powerful witch?" Sofia asks, trying to make sense of the crazy situation.

"I was the first and only elemental fire witch until you," the older woman says with pride.

"Okay, but why tell us all this? Why does it matter?" Sofia asks, fidgeting with her long braid. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to meet you and everything, but I don't understand why I need to know all this. Couldn't you just tell me you're my grandmother and leave it at that?"

Faced with this new world filled with witches and familiars she realizes just how much she liked her boring old life. Maybe she didn't want all this, but could she ever look back? Did she even have a choice?

"All witches and familiars must attend the University of Magic and Magical Creatures." Sounds like it's a no to the whole having a choice thing.

"The what now?"

"UMMC." the woman says like that clarifies anything at all.

"Not helping?"

She feels Earl side back into the couch beside her, now in his human form. She looks at him. He has a slight blush on his cheeks and it makes her blush, too. Suddenly, all her thoughts and worries dissipate when he smiles at her and takes her hand. She smiles back, getting lost in his blue eyes.

"Is it mandatory?" he asks her grandmother. His words helped her to focus on the conversation at hand. She squeezes his hand. Thank you.

He turns to her and smiles wide. Anytime. he speaks through the mind link thing and winks. She giggles.

"Did either one of you hear what I just said?"

Their attention immediately shifts back to the woman, who is scowling.

Okay, maybe she wasn't paying as good of attention as she thought.

"Sorry." they apologize in unison.

"What I said was that if you are not taught to properly control your magic, you will end up in one of three ways."

"One." She holds up her pointer finger. "You could become a slave to the magic. Instead of controlling it and using it how you wish, it controls you and slowly you become nothing but a shell."

Well, that's terrifying.

"Two." She adds her middle finger, so she is now holding up two. "Your magic may become unstable and shoot out randomly with destructive power. You would become a living, breathing, ticking time bomb."

Dear god, how could it get any worse?

"Three." She adds her ring finger. "Your body will slowly rot away until there is nothing left but the magic. That is how enchanted items exist. Whatever the witch touches as they die, their magic gets imbued into the item."

It got worse-it got so much worse.

After a few minutes of Sofia contemplating her own existence, Earl breaks the silence by asking the one question she didn't know she didn't want the answer to, until that moment.

"What about familiars?"

"Without a witch by their side, they will lose themselves to the beast within them and slowly transform more and more into their familiar form. Eventuality, they'll lose the human part of themselves until nothing is left but the wild thing that lies within." The older woman sighs.

"They will continue to transform further away from their human and familiar form until they become an abomination. Chupacabra, Bigfoot, Kitsuné, etc. All once Familiars that either lost their witch or never had one in the first place. The more powerful the familiar, the more magic their beast will posses, and the more dangerous a creature they will become."

Oh, that's so incredibly much worse. That's horrifying. She looks to Earl. He's looking away, somewhere far away.

The room goes silent for a bit.

It was obvious that they had to go, that they had to learn to control their power, especially if what she told them was true about the consequences if they didn't. If they are even an ounce as powerful as she says they are, Sofia flinches at the thought of what they might become, might do.

She clears her throat. Breaking the long silence.

"I'm already going to college." she doesn't know where she's going with her words. All she knows is that she can't take another moment of this.

"You can transfer schools," her grandmother speaks, no edge in her voice. It almost sounds sweet.

"Okay, then." She says awkwardly, unsure of what else to say. She feels Earl squeeze her hand. 

She looks over at him expectantly.

"I guess I don't have much choice," he says. "How do we sign up?"

---

Sofia had tried to call her friends earlier but her phone had shotty service so she went to go find a signal.

So that left only Laverne and Earl in the small cottage. She made him nervous. Something about her felt older than time itself. Like what made her up was something otherworldly and old. She felt like a force, not like a human. Would Sofia turn out like this one day? Would he?

"Just ask," she snaps, but her voice holds a hint of kindness. He's grateful for it.

"What should I call you?" he asks.

"Call me Grandma," she says and smiles wide with her gold teeth.

"Okay, Grandma, if you're a witch, where is your familiar?"

"He died protecting our son."

"Why did you not get another?"

"Why do some women never remarry?"

"You loved him," he says in understanding.

"Yes." She says. "We may not have been soulmates, but we loved each other very much."

"What was he like?" Earl asks as he sits down on a stool next to her.

"He was serious and hardheaded and he is the only reason I didn't end up like my friends."

"Dead?" he offers, thinking of how all the fairytales usually end for the witches.

"Alone." He raises a brow. "The fairytales don't do the real stories justice."

"Oh?" he asks, interested. "What about your stories?"

"Many of them were lost to time, but you might remember the beginning of this one:

Lala and the serpent were a formidable foe,

Lala the flame master with her fiery bow,

and her serpent, who disguised himself as her pet crow

His eyes widen, "Your Lala, the Lala?" he asks, terror filling every inch of his body. "The Lala that would burn children alive that stole food?"

To be continued...

January 27, 2024