Title: Fergus’ Story
Author: charisstoma
Word count: 1001
I blame Frogs for this one. Thank you Frogs.
This fits someplace with
Momma and Daddy Fainted and
The Inquisition‘It was cold without any fur or for that matter clothes,’ Fergus thought, or the shivering could be because of everything that had just happened. Having someone threaten to cut off those important male parts that he cherished would do that to anyone male. Didn’t help that with his changing the mother and father of his new family were out cold on the floor, the shelter’s volunteer was trying to pat his new male owner’s face and looked like he’d like to administer the kiss of life but that could be Fergus’ own private slant on things. The kids seemed to be the ones most pleased, guess they thought having a familiar in the family was a great improvement over a plain old cat, or maybe it was the honorary uncle standing next to them, who’d come along and was calm through the whole thing, with a small secretive smile on his face. Fergus looked a little closer at him.
‘Ah, the smell of magic,’ Fergus caught himself before saying an expletive in front of the children. Parents weren’t into magic or they were very skittish people and that didn’t bode well for any familiar in the family.
Mom came around before Dad and slapped the volunteer away from her husband first, woman had her priorities straight, and then she looked over at him. “I want him fixed right now. Familiars can’t change if they’re fixed, right? He’d be the same as every other normal cat.”
“Um. No ma’am. You can’t fix a familiar without their consent. I’m sorry. He’d have to have done something extremely bad, like use his magic to unrightfully kill someone. Which would mean that, if someone tried to seriously hurt or gave the impression of trying to seriously hurt the children for instance, the familiar could potentially kill to protect them and not be punished.”
“Oh. Well I still don’t want a familiar in the house. It’s all well and good for my husband’s half brother, Teo, to do those magic tricks of his but I won’t have my children in daily contact with someone like that.”
Fergus felt his eyebrows rise as he looked over at the wizard and blinked. She couldn’t be for real in this day and age. He looked at the children mournfully, ‘poor things.’
“Well if you don’t want him, I’ll have him then,” Teo looked over at Fergus, “if that’s alright with you?”
“Sir, this is most irregular,” the shelter attendant exclaimed. “He needs to be assessed for his magic levels and being on the streets as he’s been, well ….” He petered out. “Your own background needs to be looked into for possible instances of abuse of a familiar,” the volunteer bravely went on.
'No longer Mom' jumped right on that, “Do you know who my husband’s people are?! How dare you?!”
“Millie,” brought her up short and she corrected him that her name was Millicent, “Millie, hush. Mr. Aubergine is just doing his job and doing it well I might say.”
Directing his conversation towards the unfortunate Mr. Aubergine, “however, I believe that you’ll find that if the familiar and the wizard enter into a consensual association and both are of legal age, all those prerequisites could be bypassed. Even so I think that if you would do a search of your databases you’ll find that I have no abuse allegations against me. I am a professor at,” and he named one of the foremost wizard/familiar academies on the coast. “If you would share that information with,” he looked at Fergus, “Fergus? I would be much appreciative. He needs to know that wherever he ends up, whether with me, which I think would suit us both well, or another wizard of his choice at my school, that he will be well cared for and matched to his betterment.” He nodded at Aubergine and then at Fergus, “tomorrow, shall we say?”
Fergus hardly knew where to look as he stepped back into his cage, changing back into a cat. He was going to have a home, though not the one he’d thought. Settling down on the blanket to think, he dozed off and only awoke to one of the attendants coming down the hallway with a clipboard and stopping at a cage at the start of the line of cages to ask the inhabitant if they were a cat or a familiar. He snickered when the volunteer got a growl at Wisk’s cage. Grunt would definitely be worse.
“Mr. Fergus, I was told to give you this print out. Can you read sir?” The papers were shoved through the bars at him hurriedly. “Excuse me,” James broke off. “Anthony,” he called, “first day orientation said to not let a suspected familiar spray you. Now look at you.” Anthony was picked up and held carefully away so the substance that had changed Anthony to a cat wouldn’t get on James. “Come on, I’ll hose you off and then shampoo you. Maybe the effects won’t last too long if we get most of it off right away.” He tsked, “you do make a cute cat though.”
“Lot’s of luck with that,” was catcalled by Grunt, accompanied by laughter from most of the other cages.
James stopped and turned, “I understand but you should have some consideration of the others who ARE cats in the other cages,” he scolded. “You’re going to, if you haven’t already, frighten them.”
The noise level evened out to normal hurriedly and there were normal cat sounds from then on with occasional comforting trills and claw honing on the provided scratching posts. Fergus pulled the papers towards him and began to learn about Teo and, Aubergine had been thoughtful, the marvelous wizard/familiar school where Fergus might find a place with someone special.
“Teo seemed nice,” Fergus thought, “but best to keep an open mind. There were plenty of wizards in the sea to choose from.” Still it was Teo’s face that appeared the most often in Fergus’ dreams. They were nice dreams.
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