Jake—Otrera; Kodiak bear
Ezekiel—Phaenna; Arctic fox
Cassandra—Leonidas; ring-tailed mongoose
Eve—Aegis; giant pangolin
Flynn—Elpis; American hedgehog
Jenkins—Calogrenant; albino wapiti
Phaenna is not impressed by Elpis, just as Ezekiel is not impressed by Carsen.
She sits next to his feet with her fluffy tail coiled around her paws, eying Elpis with mild distaste. The hedgehog glares down at her in return, her spines bristling, clearly remembering the last time they met. She's interested in what they're saying, but it doesn't mean she likes them.
The feeling is apparently mutual.
She doesn't let her nose twitch as Ezekiel cuts through the glass, but when the alarms start going, she has to pin her ears back. Bugger it with a fish pole, that's loud.
"Should we go?" Ezekiel asks in a murmur as they dart after Carsen; Elpis is still glowering at her over Carsen's shoulder.
"I'm not about to be made into a stole for some thug," she replies with a flick of her tail. "If it's not worth our time, we'll bail once the heat's off."
"Sounds like a plan," he agrees.
Phaenna lets Ezekiel worry about the magic and the ninjas and the enormous magic Library that apparently exists; she's too busy checking out the other dæmons in the room, the way she's learnt to always do. He'll worry about the people stuff, she'll figure out the dæmon stuff.
Leonidas rarely sets paw on the floor, or on any surface that is not Cassandra. He curls his long, slender body around the nape of her neck like a sleek fur collar, ringed tail wrapped beneath her chin, and doesn't move from there. His shiny dark eyes are intelligent and miss nothing, peering out beneath her curtain of hair. She's not quite sure what he is. He looks like a very large weasel, but his tail is too long and ringed like a raccoon, and his fur is a rusty hue just a shade or two darker than his person's. He doesn't talk much, a surprising counter to Cassandra's happy stream of continuous chatter; perhaps all his levity has been transferred into her.
Phaenna likes him. She's not sure why she likes him, exactly, but she does.
Aegis looks like an armadillo had a baby with a pinecone, which isn't all that scary or intimidating. But when he curls up into a ball, his scales will stand up, sharp edges standing out, a prickly armoured ball of don't even try it. He's…okay. Kind of. She already knows from her one direct interaction with him that Eve will not let Ezekiel get away with any of his shite, and she kind of likes that about him. She still doesn't like Elpis, though.
And then there's the she-bear.
"Bugger me, that's not a dæmon, that's a mountain. A mountain with legs," Phaenna sputters when she sees her for the first time.
Aegis is bigger than her, sure, but not by that much. The bear dæmon is colossal. The sow seems to take up the whole room, a mass of dark brown-black fur on legs as thick as tree trunks; her claws are as long as Phaenna's legs and nearly as thick, too. She seems far too large to be a normal bear, or maybe she just seems that way to Phaenna at the moment.
Ezekiel makes a sharp-tongued remark, like he invariably does when he's nervous around new people and doesn't know how to conduct himself, and the cowboy who belongs to the she-bear dæmon replies just as sharply. The two begin sniping back and forth, like a pair of fighters circling each other in the ring, looking for the space to throw the first punch.
Phaenna ignores Ezekiel being an idiot and tip-paws her way across the Annex towards the furry mountain of a dæmon.
Sitting back on her hindquarters, the sow's enormous head and shoulders tower high, almost as tall as a man; she peers down her short, blunt muzzle. "Hello." Her voice is deep and reverberating but unmistakably female. "My name is Otrera. What are you? Hate to be rude, but I can't see anything up close very well."
"I'm Phaenna. I'm an Arctic fox. You seem…very large for a bear. I mean, more than usual."
"Because I'm not a grizzly. I'm a Kodiak bear," Otrera replies. She turns her large head upwards, looking around the Annex. "This place certainly does seem interesting. Think you're staying?"
"Definitely." She doesn't care if she has to bite Ezekiel's ear off herself. They're staying.
Jenkins' dæmon is male. Otrera thinks this might be the least unusual thing about the pair. His name is Calogrenant, and he's a proud bull elk with antlers as tall as a small child crowning his head. He is quiet and sombre and very much like Jenkins himself; some people are not at all like their dæmons, like Leonidas and Cassandra.
She is not entirely like Jake herself. She is his calm, his temperate, his steadiness. She is also his forgiveness and compassion, betimes. When Cassandra lets the Serpent Brotherhood into the Library, Jake is furious, but he is far more hurt than he is angry, hurt that his rarely-given trust was so deeply wounded. Otrera finds it all very distasteful, but she is not angry. Dæmons are geared towards self-preservation; if it came down to choosing between Jake and a handful of barely-more-than-strangers, she would have chosen the same as Leonidas had.
But Jake is only human, so she does not point that out to him. He retreats and licks his wounds in private—in this way, they are very much alike. He'll come around eventually.
Otrera does not begrudge Leonidas his choice, though, even if Jake would rather she did.
"Does he get his knickers in a twist like that over everything?" Phaenna asks, and Otrera opens one eye to see the vixen sitting beside her head, flicking her bushy tail.
"No. He is...slow to trust. And to forgive," she replies honestly, then huffs in amusement. "Does Ezekiel always argue simply for the sake of inciting others?" she asks as the thief makes a purposeful off-hand comment about the art that Jake is busily studying at his desk, and she feels her human's already-sore temper prickle to life as he snipes right back, cold and sharp. Ezekiel continues to taunt, touching on obviously sore nerves to get a rise out of Jake.
Phaenna lifts her pointed little muzzle imperiously. "Only when they deserve it." She flicks an ear when Ezekiel lets out a loud yelp and startles away from Jake's desk like a surprised yearling rubbing at the fingers Jake had accidentally-on-purpose dropped a stack of very heavy hardbound books on.
"Did you deserve that, too?" Otrera can't help but to ask, huffing with amusement.
"Oh, shut up."
They're running. Again. For good guys, they sure do seem to do a whole lot of running away. But maybe that's because the bad guys cheat and use guns.
Either way, Phaenna is not enjoying the cardio session. "Bloody hell, slow down! My legs aren't as long as yours, you git," she swears as she darts after Ezekiel. They never had to do this much running before Flynn and his stupid little pincushion dæmon crashed the party.
A surprised sound escapes her when a large paw suddenly scoops her up off the floor, depositing her neatly onto a broad, furry back. "Is that better for you?" Otrera asks, never missing a step. Her long legs are able to keep up far better than Phaenna's much shorter ones.
"Yeah, thanks for that. How'd you do that? I thought bears couldn't see very well," Phaenna remarks as she settles herself in the thick fur around Otrera's massive shoulders, able to fit her body quite neatly behind the she-bear's shoulder blades.
"I can't see shapes that well. You're bright white and standing on black concrete. I can see you just fine," Otrera replies with a laugh. Her voice has a deep, rolling quality to it, like a rockslide, falling against itself.
"Oh." The vixen drops her muzzle to rest on the broad furry back. She's not sure what she had expected the she-bear to smell like, but what she does smell surprises her—red meat, deep earth, cool night air, fresh-broken spruce, and warm bread.
"Why can't I get a ride?" Leonidas remarks from Cassandra's shoulder, twitching his button nose at them in amusement. He's been talking more to them now, though it's taken a while for him to unthaw after the whole Serpent Brotherhood thing.
"Because you've already got one, Red," Phaenna replies loftily.
Otrera huffs another soft laugh. "We can't all be carryon-sized like you and Elpis."
Leonidas chortles and settles himself more comfortably around the curve of Cassandra's shoulder, like a warm, silken muffler. "True enough."
"What about you, old man?" Otrera asks, turning her small eyes down to Aegis.
"My legs still work, thank you very much," he replies with a shake of his head; if need be, he can hook his claws into the specially rigged harness Eve always wears and hang onto her like a backpack like they used to have to do in Basic Training.
"Suit yourself."
The vixen is limping. She's doing a good job of hiding it, but Otrera has a nose made to sniff out prey from a horizon away. She knows the scent of blood and Dust. "Do you want a ride?" she asks, looking downwards. Her eyesight is poor this close, but against the dark forest floor, Phaenna practically glows, a sleek white shape on a drab earthy backdrop.
"No," Phaenna replies, though there's a note of longing in her voice. "Ezekiel won't let me."
Otrera snorts. "It's my back. I'll let you."
Ahead of them, their humans are throwing sharp, barbed words back and forth as they trek back through miles of Bulgarian forest, separated from Cassandra and Eve. Both dæmons can feel their anger, a sharp, prickling sensation dragging through their bonds. Otrera ignores Jake's temper for the time being, drawing from the implacable calm that rests in the depth of her being, putting her focus on Phaenna instead.
"I'm fine," she insists, but there's a tiny whine that catches in her throat when she puts weight on her injured leg, inaudible to human ears.
But not to Otrera's. "No, you're not." She scoops up the blurry white shape with her forepaw, lifting Phaenna up so she can scramble up onto her shoulders. "Do not try to jump down. I will pick you up and carry you like a cub if I must," she says archly.
"I can walk," the vixen protests, only half-heartedly, but settles herself in the dip behind the she-bear's shoulders, carefully licking at her injured leg. "I'm not heavy, am I?" She sounds genuinely worried, like the extra three kilos she adds are going to make a noticeable difference to the 318 that Otrera already weighs.
Otrera laughs softly, shoving aside a fallen log like a kindling twig rather than climb over it like their humans had done. "Of course not."
Ezekiel is so full of hurt and anger and wounded pride that it makes Phaenna feel ill. Only their family can ever make him feel so horrid, and she wishes that she could talk him out of ever going to visit Mum when his sisters are around. It never ends well, for him or them.
She is so absorbed in trying to soothe the waves of misery washing through their bond that she does not notice the she-bear approaching until her enormous bulk blocks out the light. Startled, she tries to bolt, but she finds herself suddenly pinned down by a paw the size of a serving platter, pressing down just enough to keep her still but not enough to hurt her. "Oi! Lemme go!" she demands angrily, trying to squirm out from beneath Otrera's enormous paw.
"No. You're upset," she replies.
"I am not, now let go."
Otrera scoops her up with the other paw and holds her against her chest, keeping her pinned there with surprising gentleness, ignoring the other dæmon's indignant protest. After a few moments of futile wriggling and squirming, Phaenna gives up trying, realising she's not going anywhere. And then a long, wet tongue suddenly drags itself down the length of her back. "Bloody hell, what are you doing!" she yelps loudly.
"Isn't this how foxes comfort their kits? It is what we do for our cubs," Otrera replies.
"I'm not a kit!" The tongue makes another pass. "I am not a kit!"
Otrera only chortles her rockslide laugh. And licks her again. Apparently, what Phaenna has to say does not carry any weight with her.
The she-bear's enormous heart sounds thunderously loud to her sensitive ears, pressed against her chest the way she is, but Phaenna finds the enormous rhythm of it comforting.
"Okay, I'll admit, that was not our best work," Phaenna says uncomfortably.
Otrera shifts her weight experimentally and rumbles at the uncomfortable twinge that runs through her shoulder and down her left foreleg. The guard's Rottweiler dæmon couldn't bite through her thick layer of subcutaneous fat to do proper damage, but it still hurts. She feels a little woozy, too, but that's because Jake had dosed with a healthy helping of painkillers at the hospital when he had his broken arm set and bound in a cast.
Their mission had gone entirely wrong in a most spectacular fashion. Ezekiel's plan to get them out had not accounted for the possibility of a magically-enhanced security system—and seriously, who the fuck thinks up stuff like that?
"It's not possible," Ezekiel protests thickly, sitting on the other side of the table with one hand holding a wadded tissue to his nose.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Mr. Jones," Jenkins reminds him, handing him a towel-wrapped icepack to hold against the magnificent black eye he's now sporting. Not from any jackbooted thug, though—that and his bloody nose are courtesy of Jake's fist, payback for the broken arm. Eve is not amused by either of them.
Otrera feels a small nudge on her unhurt forepaw and glances back down to where Phaenna has crept closer, her small ears pinned back. "You're not hurt too badly, though, right? I mean, I'm sure I could nip Calogrenant into finding you something if it hurts."
She lowers her head to the floor, and now they are nearly eye-level with each other. "I'll be fine. Shouldn't you be more concerned about Jake breaking Ezekiel's nose?" Even if it heals well, the thief's profile will no longer be quite so perfect.
Phaenna flicks one ear dismissively. "I'm pretty enough for the both of us. You're sure you're alright? I mean it, I'll go nick you some of the old man's stash if you need it."
"Thank you, but I'll be alright," Otrera reiterates, amused, but that doesn't stop the vixen from fretting over her until Ezekiel physically picks her up and leaves the room.
Jake flexes his cast-free hand, rubbing furtively at the scrape on his knuckles. "I wish you wouldn't talk to her so much," he grumbles irately once they're alone again. "The punk-ass is annoying enough as it is without you egging his damn dæmon on, too. What the hell do you guys even talk about?"
Otrera only huffs a deep laugh and nudges at him affectionately until he relents and scratches behind her ears, unable to stay irate with her.
Curled up rightly on the cushion Ezekiel keeps on his desk for her, Phaenna worries. She's not sure what went on in the pit between Jake and Hokolonote (try saying that five times fast) but she knows that it's definitely a bit Not Good. She also knows that Jake's father is a real piece of work, him and that mastiff dæmon of his, which certainly couldn't have helped matters any.
Otrera hasn't spoken to any of them since they returned from Oklahoma. Once they got back into the Annex, she had lumbered away to the hollow that'd appeared next to Jake's desk, a large enclave in the wall that approximated a bear den, curled herself into a ball, and hasn't moved from it. Aegis and Leonidas haven't tried to speak to her, and even Calogrenant skirts around her, despite the fact that he can usually be relied on to call them on their shite, exactly as Jenkins does for the Librarians.
Phaenna gazes at the dark furry mass for a moment, then leaps down from Ezekiel's desk and darts over. She hears him hiss for her to come back, ducks the hand he tries to grab her with, and keeps going, even when the bond tugs, making him follow her.
"Get back here," he orders, eying Otrera anxiously but not wanting to get any closer, standing awkwardly on the far side of Jake's desk. He doesn't really think that she would hurt Phaenna, but it's hard not to be nervous around a dæmon whose paws are almost the size of her whole body, who could turn her into Dust with a single flick of her claws.
Phaenna leaps up onto Otrera's broad back and makes her way up to perch on the back of her massive neck; she feels the furry body under her rumble in low warning. She dips her head and begins washing the backs of Otrera's small, round ears with her tongue.
The warning growl falters, then slowly fades to a stop.
Otrera doesn't sleep very deeply; she doesn't hibernate like a true bear, obviously. She doesn't always sleep in Jake's room, either. When they lived at home, she would sleep out in the living room or in the kitchen. Now that they're living in the Annex, she'll sleep in the den-sized enclave that's appeared for her. She's not far enough from Jake to pull on their bond yet, so it's comfortable.
Tonight, she wakes from her dozing by the sound of claws scrabbling frantically over hardwood floors, lifting her head alertly. In the low light, everything around her is reduced to dark, obscure shapes in varying degrees of dimness, but the fast-moving streak of soft white is unmistakable.
Phaenna doesn't say anything, only scrambles over and begins pawing anxiously at her forelegs until Otrera shifts them apart; the vixen immediately wriggles and worms her small body in the gap, burrowing close until she is nearly tucked underneath Otrera entirely. She curls herself into the longer, shaggier fur on Otrera's chest where she would keep her cubs warm in winter were she a true bear, shivering all over.
Ezekiel staggers in after her, white as a sheet and smelling of fear and pain. He doesn't say anything, merely crawls over to sit on the floor and leans back against the side of Jake's desk. He's shivering, too, but he won't look at her, his face turned obstinately away.
"Stupid, stubborn, stubborn idiot," Phaenna is whispering.
Otrera doesn't need to ask to know what they're so afraid of or why they're not waking anyone up. Phaenna is a great many things, proud not being the least of all, and Ezekiel even more so. So she doesn't ask about it, or question the fact that they chose to lie and say they did not remember what happened when they so obviously did.
She moves her forelegs so she won't smother Phaenna and closes her eyes, rumbling deep in her chest until the vixen stops shivering. She doesn't tell Jake about it, either, not even when it happens again the next night and the night after. There are human matters, and there are dæmon matters. The two do not always overlap.
Phaenna's always known that Otrera is not a dæmon to be trifled with. Not just because of her form, but because of who she and her person are. Do no harm but take no shit, that's Otrera's personal creed.
Given that she's never been anything but gentle around the rest of them, it's kind of easy to forget that she isn't tame.
The Kodiak bear is the second-largest bear next to the polar bear, weighing in at anywhere from 300 to 680 kilos, standing four and a half feet tall at the shoulder on all fours and nearly ten feet when standing upright. In a full run, they can achieve up to thirty miles an hour, if only for a short time. They have a bite force great enough to crush bowling balls.
Phaenna remembers all the facts that Ezekiel had looked up about the species after meeting Jake because she can hear the sounds of Otrera ripping through the Serpent Brotherhood safe house like it's a house of cards, huddled down in a cage on the opposite side of the room from where Ezekiel is tied to a chair, bleeding and in pain and unable to be comforted by her.
The sounds are muffled through the door, but she can hear the screaming, the gunfire, the bellowing roars, and she whines faintly.
The door isn't opened, it's peeled off its hinges like the easy-open top on a can of sardines. Otrera shoves her way into the room, giving off rage like heat, ready to tear apart anything that tries to stand in her way. Her pickaxe claws are coated with shimmering golden Dust, and it clings to her fur in places, trickling out of wounds that do about as much to slow her down as a BB pellet does to an oncoming freight train.
Phaenna has never been happier to see another dæmon in her life. She can't find the words to speak, only lets out a relieved yelp, scrabbling at the bars with renewed energy.
The cage is made of a titanium-manganese alloy, the same kind of metal used in the silver knife needed to Sever someone, but it might as well be made of toothpicks and Silly Putty now.
"Head down," Otrera orders, and Phaenna immediately curls into the smallest ball she can, covering her eyes with the end of her tail; she hears metal squealing protest, and then she's being lifted out of the cage by the scruff of her neck, bone-crushing jaws clamped oh-so-gently around the loose skin. She doesn't protest being carried like a kit by Otrera, merely curls her limbs in and tucks her tail close to her belly.
Ezekiel limps along next to them, supported by Jake's arm around him, bruised and bloodied but alive. He leans into Jake gratefully, and Phaenna closes her eyes at the feeling of warmth and safety burgeoning within her.
"It's snowing," Phaenna murmurs softly, tipping her muzzle up to the sky, the soft flakes drifting down to cling to their fur. They disappear against her pelt, but on Otrera, they stand out, glittering flecks of frozen whiteness before they melt.
"I love snow. We never got snow where we grew up," Otrera replies, dragging one paw through the thick blanket in front of her, creating a deep drift and clearing a space to rest her head. "Are you cold?"
"I'm built for this weather. And I've got you."
She knows that Ezekiel is warm. He's inside the cabin, lying in the bed below the window that she and Otrera are sitting beneath outside. And even if there wasn't a fire going in the hearth, Jake is doing an excellent job of keeping him warm. A cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness isn't considered a romantic weekend getaway by most, but it works for them.
"Don't go too far. All this snow, you'd blend right in, and I won't find you again," Otrera remarks, lying her head on her paws.
"No worries there. I'm perfectly comfy right here, love." Phaenna stretches herself out languidly on the she-bear's back to prove her point.
They both shiver in unison, though not from cold; faint, mingled voices are heard through the window above their heads.
Otrera hums low in her throat, a low, pleased rumbling. Jake worries about Ezekiel all the time; she can feel his worry like a fizz in the back of her mind. He worries that he will do something wrong, scare Ezekiel away. But Phaenna has told her that there is no wrong that Jake can do to them. Besides, Jake always asks—may I touch you there? May I kiss you here? May I…? Ezekiel laughs at his propriety, but Phaenna practically purrs with delight, burrowing down deeper into thick, coarse fur.
"Look, Otrera, lights. The northern lights," the vixen murmurs.
Otrera lifts her shaggy head, muzzle pointed towards the sky. Her eyesight is poor; she cannot see the stars. She knows they are there because Jake tells her so, but she can see these lights. She can see the colours, dancing slowly and gently across the velvety darkness. She does not see them with the same sharp clarity that Phaenna does, but she can see them nonetheless. "It's beautiful," she agrees.
Phaenna rests her muzzle between the she-bear's ears, humming softly in her throat.
Ezekiel keeps a plush cushion on his desk for Phaenna to curl up on, but she rarely uses it anymore. Otrera is warmer and far more comfortable. It is not uncommon to see her curled up on the other dæmon's back, a splash of bright white on her dark fur. Otrera never shakes her off or protests being used as a fox-bed.
It isn't unusual for them to arrive together in the mornings now, either, the vixen riding on the sow's back as their humans walk side by side in front of them. They are both close enough to hear Jake's amused observation, "You know, when we met, I nearly beat the shit out of you on a daily basis, right?"
"And I stole your shite all the time," Ezekiel replies with a smirk, his arm snaking beneath Jake's leather jacket to wrap around his waist.
Phaenna and Otrera both snort loudly.
People don't always get along, foolish creatures of flesh, blood, and feeling. However, their dæmons, the halves with all the common sense, often will. It just takes a little time for the other half to catch up with the programme and recognise each other for who and what they are to each other.
They're only human, after all.