Caldera

____& Buddy

“You’re new too?” Cal’s heart lifted in hope. As much as she needed to learn the ropes of Shaman, it would be nice to have a friend who was as clueless as she was. There was solidary in familiarity, or a mutual lack thereof.

After offering the bag to Whimsy, Cal pulled out a piece of chocolate-flavoured fudge and popped it in her mouth, taking a moment to appreciate the unusual taste. Chocolate didn’t exist on Xara, as far as she knew. There was always a chance that it was produced in one of the other kingdoms, but that seemed unlikely – her own kingdom, the Volcano, was the largest raw food producer. The Rock kingdom produced barely any food of their own; the Swamp hunted; and the Desert made bread and ale. Only the Volcano had a large, stable farming community.

“Isn’t it?” She agreed cheerfully, pulling out another piece and offering it to Buddy. The aja sniffed at it suspiciously, before grasping it from her hand with his soft, ticklish lips, and crunched it up. His facial expression indicated he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Cal laughed. “It is a strange food,” she admitted. “I don’t know how they grow it in so many flavours.” She held the bag out again for Whimsy with a little smile. “Academy, like, school? What are you learning?”

Whimsy seemed a little old for school, but Cal had already discovered far stranger things about Shaman than adults who went to school. In the Volcano, ker stopped going to school when they came of age at fifteen. After the coming of age ceremony they would leave to quest for an aja, and then when they returned – if they returned – they underwent initiation for a career. Initiation involved performing a number of tests over the course of several weeks, during which an employer assessed all the new recruits to see which ones would make the cut. Those who did were then trained for the role, and the rest were left to try initiation elsewhere.

Cal didn’t mind the temporary lull in conversation – she was too busy trying to find an untried flavour of fudge in her bag. Her mouth was full of honey-flavoured fudge when Whimsy spoke again, and she had to chew quickly and swallow with some difficulty. The fudge got caught in her throat and she started coughing before she could get an answer out. Buddy rolled his eyes and punched her firmly in the bag with his muzzle, which helped get it down.

“Uhh, ya,” she gasped, rubbing her back where Buddy had hit it and shooting him an evil look. “What about your aj – err, familiar? Is he or she nearby?”