This has been completly overhauled thanks to some marvolous critiques. The old version is floating around somewhere, but i like this one better.
The Witch’s Familiar
Being a witch in the twenty-first century was slightly ridiculous. The major problem was how witchcraft worked. Unlike wizards, who control magic at will, or enchanters, who had their own power to control, witches had to apply to the entity of magic directly.
It was basically making a request and hoping that something would happen.
Added to that, if magic did honour a witch’s request, something would have to be given by the person who benefited from the spell. These things came together to make physical magic largely impractical.
Now, it used to be that Witched could still be of use. They are very in tune with nature and their surroundings. They knew pretty much everything, but what good was that when you could find the same information on the internet?
Yes, the information age was hard on magic users.
Yvette Masters, an eighteen year old witch finishing her last year of high school, relied heavily on the spectral side of her power. To her, witch sight was very useful. Although using actual magic was not to be trusted, there were plenty of spirits and fairies and the like around that Yvette could enlist frequent help. Many small creatures were willing to do her bidding for a small reward.
Her parent’s had been shocked to learn, not only that there was such a thing as witches, but that their daughter was one. Yvette, then thirteen, had been unsurprised. She’d always known she was different. It was that same sense of inequality that plagued her now.
She sat in front of the vanity in her room. The mirror was currently housing some form of fey. The saucy fairy loved to replace Yvette’s reflection with augmented images. She usually ignored the extra appendages and warts, or shoed the thing away, but today the thing had decided to show her a prettier version of herself.
The real Yvette had matted yellow hair, a gaunt face with an almost hawk like nose, and usually a furrowed brow. The reflection sported bouncy blond ringlets; a heart shaped face, and was smiling gloriously. Also, its eye’s were more blue than grey.
The door opened behind her. There was only one member of the household that would enter her room so nonchalantly. He parents, quite understandably after several incidents, usually stayed away.
“What is that?” Sebastian scoffed.
Yvette shoed the apparition away and her own reflection scowled back at her. IT was irksome that he expressed contempt now, because she remembered him laughing at the vision of her with three eyes.
“It was me. A better looking version of me.”
Sebastian threw himself onto Yvette’s bed and sprawled there majestically. The bed and the vanity were the only articles of furniture in the room, other than a dresser. I typical witch fashion she had kept her private area rather spartan. She still had all the furnishings from when she was a little girl, so the flower printed coverlet was in direct contrast to the black curtain she’d put over the window for privacy.
She’d even pulled up the carpet so that she could draw a magic circle in chalk directly onto the floorboards.
“You’re attractive enough as you are,” Sebastian told her.
Yvette swiveled in her chair so she could look at him rather than his reflection.
“Not pretty enough, apparently. This is my last year before university, and it looks like I’ll be going to the dance alone, again.”
Yvette’s bad luck with boys and social experiences in general was probably n ot all because of her looks. No one wanted to date a girl who seemed to know everything about who before you told her, even your darkest secrets.
“If I were fully human, I would date you,” said Sebastian.
“That’s very nice of you, but you are, for all intents and purposes, a cat.”
He flicked an ear in dismissal and yawned, his pink tongue stretching over his pointy white teeth. Physically, Sebastian resembled a shorthair, gray and black tabby, with an undercoat of brown. In reality he was as intelligent and magically gifted as Yvette was.
He had come to her the morning of her thirteenth birthday, and announced that she was now a witch. He’d been her partner and sometimes teacher ever since. He was an invaluable source of both information and companionship. Although he’d developed some catlike characteristic that sometimes made him a pain to be around.
She crossed the room and sat on the bed beside him. Mischievously she began to pet him. Sebastian groaned.
“Oh, don’t do that. It’s degrading.”
Yvette just smiled and started scratching his ears. His closed his eye’s with pleasure involuntarily.
“It’s only degrading because you enjoy it.”
Sebastian could only purr in response. After a moment Yvette began musing.
“Where you serious?”
Sebastian opened one glowing green eye.
“About what? Taking you to the dance? Of course.”
He rolled oven onto his back so that Yvette could scratch his stomach. At first he always complained, but he always asked for more once she got going. She always obliged him.
“Why?” Yvette couldn’t fathom why a being like Sebastian would want to attend a high school prom.
“I like you. You’re nice to me.”
Yvette was a little crestfallen. She didn’t feel that her kindness towards him was particularly special. He was her familiar after all. Sebastian glared at her.
“It is worth a lot,” he told her. “Not everyone is. Nice to me, I mean.”
Yvette frowned and stopped petting him. “Has someone been cruel to you? Tell me who and I’ll curse them so badly…”
If Sebastian could have rolled his eyes, he would have. Instead, he looked at the ceiling.
“Nothing that drastic. Everyone’s mostly just ignored me. You care though.”
“They don’t know you’re not just a cat,” Yvette countered relaxing.
“You treat Roxie the same way, and you know she’s just a dog.”
She blushed. She didn’t think he’d noticed her affection for the family pet. She hid her embarrassment by leaning back on the bed, putting some space between them. She stared at the ceiling contemplating his revelations.
“It doesn’t change anything. You’re still a cat.”
“Then make me human.”
She sat up and stared at him. The request had come out of the blue. He had never expressed interest in being human before. In fact, he’d often shown contempt for the race.
“I’d do it myself,” he continued. “But magic won’t let me.”
“No wonder. It’s a little weird.”
“Why? Because I’m currently a cat?”
“Obviously. You’re also my familiar, so if you want to be human so we can date, then don’t bother.”
“We’re already so close though.”
“That’s half the reason I’m saying no.”
He fixed her with his jade coloured eyes. She could see he wasn’t kidding. He really wanted to change.
“Please?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Those eyes narrowed. The cat sniffed and leaped off the bed, stalking out of the room without another word. Yvette sighed. For the first time since she was thirteen, she had no clue what to do next.
***
It had been a very long week. The ornery fur ball Sebastian had hounded Yvette so much that she finally had to escape to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Even as she ran herself a bath, thought, and sunk down into the water, she couldn’t seem to turn her mind away from his request. As she soaked in the bubble, she continued to ponder her predicament.
The idea didn’t seem so bizarre to her anymore. Yet, she still didn’t think he’d actually enjoy the switch. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the lifestyle. She couldn’t for the life of her think why he was suddenly demanding she change his shape.
Suddenly the door swung open as Sebastian sauntered into the bathroom. Yvette swore at herself and him and ducked under the bubbles as much as she could manage. She should have known a locked door would not keep out a magical creature.
“Get out of here!” She hissed at him.
“Why? I’m just a curious kitty?”
“You’re not a cat!”
“Then make me human!”
Yvette splashed angrily in his direction, leaving him and most of the floor covered in water.
“I’d rather turn you into a toad. Now Scat!”
Wisely, the cat shot out of the room. Yvette climbed out of the tub seething. She donned her now damp clothes and went to teach her little beast a lesson once and for all.
She found him hiding under the bed in her room. He at least knew to hide after she’d yelled at him, but it was too late to repent now.
“Get in the circle,” she ordered.
He slunk to the centre of the chalk drawing and waited there nervously while Yvette lit her candles, nervous, because although Yvette was granting his wish, she was doing so without any preparation. She was lighting all of her candles because she didn’t know which properties she would need.
Yvette concentrated as much as she could. She had never done a spell with so little forethought, mostly because it was dangerous, but tonight anger made the up the difference groundwork left.
The magic instantly responded to her summoning, as if it had been waiting for the chance to act. She could feel the coursing energy. It was almost visibly palpitating around them, although magic was not something you could really see. She could only sense that it was there, and bend it to her will.
She banished the cat from her mind, and so chased the image of the cat away from reality. She tried to picture all the men she knew, to try and give the magic a template to work by. That wasn’t working. None of the humans she imagined seemed to be anything like Sebastian. So she switched tactics and just held on to what how she knew her companion to be, the traits and characteristics that made him her dearest friend.
That worked splendidly. She felt the magic catch, and she let it go to do whatever it thought appropriate. When she focused on the world once more, the only thing that seemed to have changes was the candles, which had guttered out. The cat was gone though.
In his place sat a wet, naked young man. He seemed to be about the same physical age as her, with pale skin and a shock of gray black hair that ran to brown at the roots. He stared up at her with luminous jade green eyes.
“Fantastic.” He said. “Help me up.”
Yvette rushed to his side, her previous anger diminished. She didn’t know how she could have done this. Witches were not supposed to get carried away like this. There was no telling what might have happened when she let magic lose like that. She could have lost him forever or worse.
Sebastian was a little unsteady on his feet, he’d only ever walked on four legs, but he made it to the vanity.
“You did a wonderful job Yvette,” he told her, examining his reflection with a prideful eye.
She had to admit that he was exceedingly handsome, in an exotic fashion. He still had a catlike look to his face, something about the point of his chin, or the crook of his nose, or the way his eyes slanted and furtively surveyed the room. He had a very nice, lean body as well but she was trying to ignore that. She couldn’t really take credit for the appearance magic had given him, though, and she didn’t want him to get even vainer.
“Be quite and get some cloths on.”
He just smiled and left her to find some garments for him, and maybe something dryer for herself.
***
Sebastian took surprisingly well to being human. Better than Yvette’s parent’s anyway, who knew she was a witch and really should have gotten used to things like this by now. She supposed he’d learned a lot over the years. They’d been together since she was thirteen, after all.
It was a shame that the price for the spell that transformed him had been his own magic. He wouldn’t tell here just how devastating the loss was, but for a spell as powerful as this, it must have been fairly important to him. He seemed pleased enough with the switch though, although he wasn’t much help magically anymore.
What really surprised Yvette was her reaction to him. This was her familiar, her closest companion and confident for all those years, and yet he was different. He was a young man. An attractive young man.
He turned those glistening green eyes on her and she felt herself losing sight of what he really was. He must have known she was hesitant, so he decided to make the first move.
He caught her in her room after breakfast. He’s finally acquired a wardrobe of his own, since her father’s old clothes just didn’t fit properly. Yvette though it was typical that he looked good in a black tee shirt, although the fact that jeans suited him was intriguing.
“So, may I take you to the dance?” he inquired.
She had been avoiding this subject for days. It wasn’t that she didn’t think of him as a man. He made it hard for her to think otherwise. Something else was bothering her.
“I can’t.” She told him “It’s not real. This body is just an illusion.”
“So was the cat.”
Yvette, probably for the first time since becoming a witch, had no idea what he was talking about. She started at him confused. Sebastian just sighed and forced her to sit n the bed so that he could explain full.
“You know s much about me, personally, but I’ve never made it clear what I actually am. You see, I’m not really anything. I don’t think I existed before you needed me. Back then, it was most suitable for me to appear as a cat. You’ve become a stronger person now though, better suited for forcing magic to your will.”
“If that’s true,” said Yvette slowly, trying to process it all. “If you can be any shape, why did we have to use magic to change you?”
“Because my form was so slid in our minds for so long, I might as well have been stuck. It’s hard to change shape once you think you know what you’re supposed to look like.”
Yvette was still torn. She wasn’t sure if this revelation made anything better. Certainly it could all go very wrong. Witches don’t date their familiars.
“You have lovely eyes.” He distracted her.
“What?”
“When you were changing your reflection, I forgot to tell you that you were already pretty, because you already have gorgeous eyes.”
She was useless to resist when he pulled hr into his arms.
“This is wrong,” she told him, still failing to find the nerve to break away.
“No it’s not. This is how it was meant to be.”
She giggled and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Oh, please don’t” he protested, listlessly when she began to scratch behind his ears.
“Oh I will. I’m still your master, and I can do with you what I choose.”
Then she kissed his nose.
“I’m forever your servant, my lady,” he said before kissing her on the mouth. “Your servant and your familiar.”
I liked how witches were represented in this one, an original view of magic. Although, as a female, I do think it's a bit unfair that Witches have such big restrictions when the Wizards and Enchanters don't.