Mom stood before me, looking over me with judgement in her eyes, taking in the way I looked in the princess dress that Lyris had given me. “I had hoped you’d been born a daughter, but this? You’re just someone’s pet now. A disappointment again,” she spat.
I looked down at myself, and I was a cat. I tried to speak, to defend myself, to yell at her, but all that came out were meows.
From behind me, Sable stepped out to my left. “Don’t talk to my cat like that. You had your chance. She’s ours now.”
From behind me, Lyris stepped out to my right. “She is adorable, and she is ours. Begone.”
The two of them fired their slingshots at Mom.
Mom’s face contorted with rage, and she roared like a beast before exploding.
I woke with a start. Fucking weird anxiety dreams. A fairly direct one, I suppose. But yes, Mom said she’d be here today to take me back. Would it go like that? Hopefully not the exploding part, at least. I had some resentment, but she was still my mom. She’d gotten me interested in computers. Sat with me and taught me to program.
Maybe she didn’t tell me about my heritage, about magic. Maybe she had spent more time with Sabrina, probably teaching her about those things I wished I’d been able to be a part of.
But she’d still shared something of hers with me, a part of her life I could engage with. Programming. My own kind of magic, I guess. Spells and incantations typed into a computer, instead of drawn with mana.
Well, either way, now I could do both. I was part of the magical world now, a witch who could also code, like her. But if she couldn’t accept me like this…
Let’s not dwell on that. I got up early and went for a jog around the main property, stopping by the barrier gate to check on the manticore. It was sitting on a rocky outcrop lazily grooming itself within easy view of the gate. Each time I’d come by, it had given me a creepy smile as I went past. If I was a cat, it was a lion, and it knew I was prey. I didn’t enter.
Returning inside to help with breakfast prep, I found Sable making bacon and eggs. Lyris was sitting at the breakfast table, typing away at what I presumed was a work of fiction, the words flowing more easily than when I left her last night.
I wanted to know just what she was writing, but I didn’t want to interrupt her. Also I figured it was probably LovCov fanfic and kind of didn’t want to know.
“So Sable, mom never replied back when I asked her not to come, so I have to assume she’s coming. Do you want to try to get the manticore thing done before she gets here?”
“No, I don’t want to deal with a duel after a big fight like that, and if the duel gets rough it’s a lot easier to reschedule with the manticore.”
Right. Not like that thing cared when we came to meet our doom.
I got a little more sparring in with Lyris while Sable watched and gave spellcasting tips, when Lyris spotted something coming in from the sky. I knew my mom was a witch, but seeing her casually flying in on an industrial metal-handled push broom still wasn’t something I was mentally prepared for. We stopped practicing and waited for her to land. Her expression was unreadable.
“Uh, hi mom.”
“Morgan,” she said, clearly trying to control her temper.
She looked me over from head to toe, evaluating my fairly practical clothing choices. The selfie I’d sent her in a fit of anger had me all dolled up in girly makeup and a pretty dress, so I wondered what she thought of my “normal” catgirl appearance with only the green nail polish as a lasting reminder of that night.
She looked over Lyris and Sable as well, seeming a little surprised to see an elf (thanks for not spilling the beans, Sabrina). She addressed Sable.
“Where do you get off turning my son into a familiar, Ward?”
Sable shrugged, her expression conciliatory. “I used a temporary contract, she can get out of it. I needed the help and I wasn’t about to let her talent go to waste.”
“You didn’t ask his consent for this, did you?”
“No, it didn’t seem like you’d filled her in on magic yet, so I figured a demonstration would be more appropriate. She’s being paid and she can quit if she doesn’t like it.”
Mom scrunched her nose up in apparent confusion. “That’s insane. Reversible or not, you don’t just make a human your familiar without informed consent. The Ward family really is as perverse as I’d heard. I’m taking him back.”
It felt kind of weird to have each one of them use a different set of pronouns for me, but I guess I hadn’t really thought about what pronouns I wanted in this form. But now was not the time.
She kind of had a point about the informed consent thing, but I wasn’t interested in being “taken back”, at least not at this juncture. “No mom, I don’t want to go. I’ve got a job and a girlfriend and-”
“Young man, you will listen to your mother. Whether you knew or not before, I am the head of the Owens witch line and you will respect my authority.”
Sable broken in. “Oh, so that’s what the duel’s about? You want to duel me to get me to break the familiar contract?”
Mom squared up across the grassy yard from Sable, calling out a few sigils into the air around her. “Yes. I’ll be taking Morgan home after. Shall we begin?”
“Impatient eh? But that suits me just fine, we’ve got things to do after this. Morgan, you’re up. You’ll be my champion for this fight.”
Mom and I looked at Sable like she was insane.
“What?” she asked, as though her request had been obvious. “It’s not done often but it’s permissible to use your own familiar in a duel. And it’s not like I’m making you fight two on one, Ms. Owens.”
While briefly surprised, I understood. Sable wanted to give me a chance to show my mom what I could do now. Either that or the option to throw the fight if I wanted.
“That’s not the point, how is my son supposed to-”
I stepped in between them and called out my own sigils.
“How did you…”
“I’m a witch now, mom. Being a familiar isn’t exactly ideal, but it gives me access to our family heritage.”
“But… that’s not-”
“Enough, let’s do this,” I said, wanting to take advantage of her surprise while I could. All of my sigils were only first tier, while I had checked and learned that the sigil for making a broomstick fly was third tier. Mom was no slouch, so if I wanted to win I needed to use any advantage I could. I drew my sigils back inside me.
* * * * *
“Enough, let’s do this,” said the catgirl that was my son, as he put away his sigils. I stared at him in confusion, wondering why he’d put away his sigils if he intended to duel.
Most likely, he just didn’t know any battle spells worth casting yet, and was going to try to rely on his enhanced familiar body. Well, momma was going to teach him a lesson.
“Hey mom, what’s our family gift?” Morgan called out. I ignored the obvious taunt. Our gift didn’t really have any battle application, or at least not one that would matter to Morgan at this point, and even if it was relevant I wouldn’t want to announce it for others to hear.
Let’s see, I’d come here prepared to duel the Ward girl. Everyone knew they specialized in barriers, so I’d brought a wand inscribed with Lightning Bolt. A wizard spell would be a surprise, no doubt, and she was still a student so I could probably break her barrier.
But no, I was dueling my son. I doubted he knew any defensive magic, so the wand was right out. I certainly didn’t want to hurt him, just teach him a lesson. I’d just have to use non-damaging spells, but that wasn’t an issue, really.
He seemed hesitant to move, having stayed in place even as I plotted my attack, but no matter. Keeping a familiar at a distance was to my advantage. I cast Bogboil ahead of me, reducing the firm, arid soil in a wide area around him into a roiling morass with the consistence of quicksand.
I managed to catch the Ward girl and the elf familiar in the area, but the elf could fly and pulled the witch free, setting her down outside of the practice yard.
However, Morgan strangely hadn’t budged. Or fallen into the quicksand. What?
I blinked, and when my eyes opened again, Morgan wasn’t there anymore.
What!?
I had no idea what had happened. Had he fallen into the quicksand and I’d missed it? Or was this some sort of illusion? Maybe he was invisible? Either way, I had no idea where he was, and losing eyes on an opponent with the enhanced physical abilities of a cat familiar seemed like a bad idea.
Nothing for it. I’d kept my Howl sigil inside of me, since it didn’t need to be aimed… that’s probably what happened, actually. Morgan’s spells probably just targeted himself. Of course the Wards would have spells for their familiars to use in physical combat. I’d been careless, but I didn’t need to know where Morgan was for this to hit.
I leaned my head back and activated my Howl sigil within my diaphragm, letting an unearthly sound reverberate out of me, pouring over the area at high volume. The quicksand-like bog moved in waves away from me, and everyone in the area felt a primal dread activate deep in the ancient parts of their brains.
Or so I intended, anyway. I got the elf girl, and could see the panic set in, turning to flee. A shield of some kind sprang up around the Ward girl, though I did get a satisfying look of surprise out of her. I still didn’t see Morgan though, so I spun around.
There he was, apparently unfazed, right behind me.
He’d always been a clever boy with a quick mind. Come to think of it, he’d always been good at fighting games. We used to play those together when he was younger. I’d introduced him to the genre with my old copy of Street Fighter II Turbo, and he quickly outpaced me, the little showoff. Things were simpler back then, before Sabrina’s gift came in.
I felt a pang of pride as he shoved me backwards into the quicksand bog.
* * * * *
Mom fell into the bog and sank down to her neck almost immediately. I reached in quickly and grabbed her to keep her from sinking further. She held her startled reaction for a few seconds, but switched to annoyed acceptance.
“Alright Morgan, fine. You win. That was pretty good. How the hell did you do that?”
I snickered and hauled her out of the bog before it re-hardened into normal ground. “Ward family familiar spells. Blink drops an illusion of me and makes me invisible to everyone around, but only until they blink next. Bolster enhances my natural abilities, so I used it to run stealthily around behind you before you got that quicksand thing off.”
“Okay, fine, but how’d you resist my Howl?”
“Dunno. It was kinda freaky but it didn’t seem to do anything.”
Once it became clear to the onlookers that I’d won, Sable applauded and Lyris meekly looked out from behind the tree she’d hidden behind.
Somehow, I’d won a witch duel with my mom. Now it was time to have an actual talk like adults.