_______________________caldera & buddy
____________________________nothing happens to you, it happens for you

Cal didn’t think she’d ever understand the fairy world. Just when she thought she had it down, a new curveball was thrown in her direction.

“You mean – you don’t have to wrestle wolves to get one?” She asked, hopelessly lost. How on earth did anyone bond with a wolf without defeating them in combat first?

Buddy was so bewildered that he forgot to strut. Since aja didn’t grow up with their ker, most didn’t become fully immersed in ker stories and mythology until their own ker had children – but everyone knew the wolf tales. They were so ingrained in ker culture that they rarely needed retelling, since they were referenced so often. Aja, of course, had their own understanding of wolves’ ferocity and savagery even before they were brought back to civilised Xara; the exceptional few who didn’t learned quickly.

The conversation only got stranger. How could Alethea not know about elements? Were they called something else here?

“Elements – you know – like, types of wolf.” Cal had no idea how to explain it. Nobody ever had to explain what they could see quite clearly. “Like Buddy,” she gestured to her steed, “is a Dark Lightning element. Your aja, I’m guessing, is some kind of dark earth?”

The elements in Shaman’s aja were so difficult to identify. So far, all the aja Cal had met looked like Alethea’s one, except they came in different colours – mostly earthy hues, but some greys and others as bright as sunshine. None of them stood out from a crowd quite so much as Buddy, but then, no aja ever had. He was exceptional on Xara, so Cal just assumed he was also exceptional here.

She scratched her head, which was suddenly feeling a bit achey.

“We’re from Xara,” Buddy took Leto’s question, bristling slightly at it. “Volcanic kingdom. And there are no fairies on Xara.”

The word ‘obviously’ had been lingering on his tongue – Cal could sense it – but he bit it back when she tugged subtly at his mane. Neither of them had any idea how Shaman worked; it would be arrogant to assume that Alethea and Leto knew the first thing about Xara.

“I’m – I was – a ker,” she explained, in a much kinder tone than Buddy had used. “Nobody has wolf familiars on Xara – at least not in real life. Only the heroes in myths and legends have ever succeeded in bonding with a wolf.”

The question, how did you do it?, was at the forefront of her mind – but she swallowed it down and tried to shift her focus instead onto the surrounding environment. She was, after all, supposed to be a guard now. Now that they’d passed beyond the wall separating the castle grounds from the outside world, they were traversing through a light thicket. Up ahead, the trees were already beginning to thin to reveal a sunny green meadow. Dappled sunlight formed moving patterns on the ground, and the gentle chirrup of the birds in the trees above became the dominant noise as conversation rested. It all reminded Cal strongly of the wilderness beyond the Volcano on Xara where the wild aja live.

Buddy did not seem quite so affected. He kept shooting Leto sideways glances with indeterminable expressions. When she noticed, Cal had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Poor, celebrated Dark Lightning, overshadowed by a wolf!

“I’ve noticed,” she added, a little hesitantly, “fairies can bond with… anything?”