Alethea was baffled by Cal’s questions. So baffled, in fact, that she had trouble formulating an answer. How did a faerie acquire their familiar? She knew that some requested familiars from the Gods, but her own experience had been quite different...Leto had been a part of her for as long as she could remember. They had been pups together, as Leto told it, and the wolf could recall tugging on the child’s baby clothes, trying to help her walk.
“Well....no...” she finally attempted, knitting her brow. “familiars are more like...part of your soul? Your soul divides, and the part outside of your body becomes your familiar. I’ve had Leto since...forever, really.” The faerie and her familiar gazed at each other, and Thea felt a pang. The wolf’s memory of the early days was better than her own – she wouldn’t have struggled so much with an explanation of their bond if they could talk normally, mind-to-mind. “And I don’t think elements and types work the same, here. When I think about elements, I think of magic, but not every familiar or even every faerie has magic. Leto is a Gray Wolf – that is her type, her species – and my horse is a warmblood. His color is...incidental, really. It doesn’t tell you much about him other than the possible colors of his parents.” She turned in the saddle to look Cal squarely in the face. “Does that make sense? I’ve never had to explain this before. It sounds like Xara and Shaman are...very different. I’ve, um, I’ve never heard of Xara, to be honest. I was never very good at interstellar geography.”
Her smile was sheepish. Was that an offensive thing to say? Should she have pretended to know about Xara, to make Cal feel better? Alethea wasn’t sure about the polite course of action. And she was a terrible liar, so perhaps it was best that she told the truth. At any rate, she was glad for the change of subject, back to familiars more generally and a question she felt qualified to answer.
“Yes, familiars can take any form. If you think a wolf is impressive, you should meet Mordred. His familiar, Angmar, is a dragon.” Thea could not restrain the awe in her voice when she said it. The pair of them were very impressive to her, between Angmar’s general magnificence and Mordred’s power, poise, and astonishing good looks. If she were not so intimidated by him, and preoccupied with Tristan, she might have been hopelessly in love with him. Instead, she was mostly afraid of him.
That internal admission made her briefly grateful that Leto was not listening in to her thoughts.
There was a short silence as they traversed the thicket, and Cal presumably digested what she had been told. Thea glanced at her surreptitiously, trying not to draw attention as she searched her companion’s face for a reaction. If Cal was truly from a different planet – a dramatically different planet, by the sound of it – maybe it would have been better to save the dragon revelation for another time. Thea could not imagine what a shock it must be.
“I’m sorry. This must be very hard for you...being in this place, so far from home.”
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