Caldera

____& Buddy

“You don’t have a spitter?” Cal blinked twice. “It’s a weapon. Shoots tiny pieces of rock really fast when you squeeze that section there. Kind of like a miniature catapult.”

Did they have catapults here? Catapults predated spitters on Xara, so possibly. It struck Cal that if fairies didn’t know what a spitter was, then a large part of her use for the weapon was redundant. The main point of the spitter was a deterrent – she rarely shot it unless she had to, and usually then only to fire warning shots. There was no point to a deterrent if the bad guy didn’t know how dangerous it was.

The fairy guy seemed totally baffled by everything she said. Cal reached up and touched her earpiece, wondering whether it was working properly. As well as providing a means to communicate long-distance the earpiece could also translate between languages if it was tuned correctly. How, Cal had no idea. Those Rock ker were genii. Tech was prone to malfunctioning, though, so perhaps not everything she was saying was being translated properly. The fairy seemed to be repeating it back to her fine, though. Maybe he was just an idiot?

Before she had a chance to respond, Buddy chose that moment to chime in. She wasn’t sure how much he’d heard, but evidently it had been enough to catch the sound of another voice.

“Oooh, have you made a guy friend?” His playful, masculine voice carried through the communicator – not loudly, but loudly enough for both of them to be able to hear. Buddy always was crap at keeping his voice down over this thing. “Is he cute?”

Cal brushed the earpiece to activate it, flicking her eyes up and down the fairy man’s body. “He’s cuter than you. We’re all good up here, I’ll call you if I need you.”

“Just keep your tail out of trouble,” Buddy warned. “Otherwise I’ll have to stage a daring rescue mission.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled slightly. The smile slipped at the sound of approaching claws, and dropped away completely in horror when the… the creature smashed the door open. Cal reacted instinctively. She grabbed the spitter with her tail, flicked it into her hand and pointed it at the predator, while at the same time moving towards the fairy man. She didn’t touch him, but she managed to get between him and it before it had a chance to say a word.

“Wolf!” She cried, thrusting her hand backwards to stop the captain from advancing as the animal bounded into the room. “Stand back – ”

She broke off when it – the wolf – the animal, started shouting. Cal’s spitter and jaw lowered in surprise, and she was too stunned to react as the wolf barged past her and over to the fairy captain. It – he? It sounded male – didn’t seem remotely aggressive, not like the wolves on Xara. After a moment’s hesitation, in which Flynn introduced himself properly, she lowered the weapon fully but kept a tight hold of it. Flynn didn’t seem bothered by the wolf, but, well… it was a wolf.

“Wolf,” Cal repeated dumbly, feeling very much like the idiot now. Realisation began to dawn on her face. “Is that… is that your familiar? You have a wolf familiar?” She made it sound like the greatest achievement in the world, and stared at Flynn as though he was a deity who had just dropped out of the sky. “That is… wow. That’s a quest story in Paradise. Maybe you could tell me over a drink some time.” After another moment’s hesitation, and after casting a slightly wary eye over the wolf, she slipped the spitter back into her holster.

Flynn didn’t seem empowered by his wolf familiar, but Cal didn’t really notice – she was too busy being awed by it. His question finally registered, and brought her back to earth. Or Shaman. Or wherever she was.

“Like I said, I’m from Xara,” she sighed. “Allianah thought that a ker might be able to help you to defeat your ancient monster, so they sent me here. But… but when I got here, I got turned into a fairy.” Her vibrant red eyes, which seemed duller now than they had been a moment before, lowered to the ground. Tentatively, Cal held her hand out her palm for the wolf to sniff. “I can’t go back to Xara until I’m a ker again, and Allianah can’t turn me into a ker until magic is restored here, so I’m stuck. She said she didn’t need any more officers at the pantheon, and said I should see if the royal palace needed any.” She withdrew her hand slowly, reached for her belt and unclipped the scroll which the goddess had given her. Biting her lower lip gently, she held it out for Flynn to take. “My reference.”