“Hold that thought!” Ollie blurted. “Let me go get my notebook!”
“Wait!” she cried out, as he started to run.
He hesitated midstep, eyeing her. “Yes?”
“I’ve been meaning to mention this. You don’t really need a notebook, due to the fact that everything you learn should automatically appear in your grimoire.”
Ollie blinked, staring for a moment before pointing out, “Yes, but unlike my notebook, it’s big, heavy, and inconvenient to carry around with me.”
She smiled. “It can actually change size to whatever you want it to be.”
“I did notice it likes to shove itself onto shelves it shouldn’t fit on. But more importantly, I like using a notebook, it’s reliable and doesn’t argue back. Not to mention, what if I happen to not be able to find my grimoire when I need the information, or rather, it refuses to show said information?”
Red snorted as Annabel winced and relented. “Fair enough. I can’t deny your particular grimoire is rather temperamental.”
“Be right back!” Ollie took off. Rushing out of the secret library, he hurried to the kitchen, snagging his notebook and pencil off the table before running back.
“Okay, go!” he said as he returned, pencil in hand and notebook open to a new page, as he scribbled down the word ‘Familiar’.
What he needed was a larger sectioned-off loose-leaf binder so he could keep things organized, but what he had would do for now. Ollie likely would be able to find what he needed to make one in one of the storage rooms below, but that was something he’d do later.
“So, first, while not all witches have familiars, it is believed their existence came about at the very beginning of when the arcana started forming the connections that brought forth the creation of witches.”
He pursed his lips. “How long ago exactly? And are you saying the arcana created the first witch, or that witches already existed, but it took one of the arcana creating that first connection for real witches to emerge?”
Annabel hummed. “Many thousands, possibly even tens or hundreds of thousands, of years. The exact timeline is a bit vague, as, well…too much of our history has been destroyed.
“As for which came first? We don’t really know. We know that for the arcana to create a connection with someone, that person must already have magic inside them. At the same time, without the connection, sometimes that magic is useless.
“Now, back to familiars. There are two circumstances under which familiars are created—by accident or on purpose.”
“Is there a difference between accidental familiars and the others?”
“No, there’s usually no difference, aside from perhaps having a bit more influence over what the familiar’s true form is when created on purpose.
“Accidental familiars usually come about after a witch has performed what would best be described as heavy magic. They are spells that use up a lot of energy and require a deep magicalpool to perform, thus leaving behind thick arcane residue in the aftermath. It’s from that residue that accidental familiars are created.
“For purposely created familiars, there are two ways of doing it. Either the familiar is born from two familiars, or the familiar is created through a specific spell. In all cases, while familiars have a humanoid form, their true form is the animal they are born as, or rather, come into existence as.”
“Does their humanoid form serve a particular purpose?”
“Breeding is one of the main uses, but it can also be used for fighting, and serves other safety purposes,” Red said, far too smoothly.
“Breeding… You really had to word it that way?” Ollie wrinkled his nose. “Do you have any…?”
“Just you,” Red replied quickly, smiling up at him.
Face heating a bit, as a warm, happy feeling spread through him, he smiled back. Ollie probably should find it weird that Red saw him as his own child, but considering no one else who was still alive did, he couldn’t help but feel a bit happy about it. Like, maybe no one else wanted him, but at least his cat did!
Yeah, Ollie wasn’t going to look too closely at that feeling or notion.
“Okay, so that’s how they are made, but how do they choose a witch, or, I guess in Red’s case, a witch family to follow? I’m assuming those created by accident, and by a spell, would be bonded to whoever’s magic made them? But what about a born familiar? Also, what exactly is a familiar’s purpose, as we haven’t gotten to that part yet?”
“So, you are correct. For those first two, that is usually who the familiar is bonded to, but even that is sometimes uncertain. As for the born familiars, sometimes it’s someone in the same family, and other times it’s someone outside it, who could even be many hundreds of miles away or on another continent.
“The reality is, who a familiar connects to is determined by their inner magical bond. A bond that is a mystery in itself, created from the merging of magics that sparks to life at their creation.
“To be clear, witches can have more than one familiar, and witch families can each have their own as well. And often, familiars who outlive their witch form a new connection with another, often within the same family, as Red did with you. Of course, if none of the family have survived, it can be someone from outside as well.”
