"Coco! Hold still! You have to wear your harness to go outside", I tried to help my friend wrestle her kitten into his leash, no easy task when said leash is wrapped in ribbon and said kitten is bound and determined to eat it.
"Hey, Windy! We're gonna be late if you don't hurry up", I rolled my eyes at my twin sisters need to point out the obvious.
"Then we'll be late. It's not like Azrin won't understand." Then I got distracted by trying to figure out how many negatives I'd just used and then obsessing over whether or not it had made sense anyway.
"I'm really sorry guys. Coco normally lets me put his harness on no problem. Do you want to go on ahead?"
"Well we would except for that whole thing where you wouldn't have a ride to the party." Zara shook her head and came over to help so that she and I were holding the stupid cat while Ariana put his harness on. He somehow managed to twist around and lodge a claw in the skin between my thumb and forefinger but we got his leash on, so I'd call it a win.
"Zephyr? Are you okay?" This was probably spurred by the fact that I was clutching my hand mouthing obscenities.
"The little fart tried to take my thumb off!" I examined my hand and was relieved to find out that I did still have a thumb. "Whatever. Now that he's got his leash on lets go", Ary looked at me nervously since I was still glaring at her cat in a way that suggested I was seriously considering "accidently" stepping on him in the near future. My friends are all very familiar with this look.
"Don't forget your Companion", Zara snickered as she referenced the white stuffed horse I had brought to complete my Herald costume. I clubbed her with it.
None of us were legal drivers yet so we'd enlisted Ariana's mom to drive us to Azrin's house which had been done up in grand Nightmare Before Christmas style. It was a small party, just the four of us and technically Azy's parents. We arrived before sundown so we all had some soda and chips until it got dark enough for trick-or-treating. Once we'd gotten outside the streets were crowded with mini-monsters and already some kids had started bawling. We had planned this for a while since there's apparently an unspoken age limit to Halloween and we made sure to arrive in a group of kids so that it looked like we'd been walking with them. This went on for a while until Azy nearly tripped over this one kid. He was right on the edge of the streetlights pool of illumination and he had obviously been crying.
"Hey, what's the matter kid?" I crouched down next to him. He looked at me sadly and shook his head.
"'m not supos'd to talk to strangers." He kept crying silently and I noticed that the streetlight made his tears look almost golden.
"Are you allowed to talk to the police?" I was thinking fast. He nodded so I continued, "Well, I'm a Herald and we're a special kind of police, so you can talk to me right?" He looked dubious.
"I guess so…"
"Good", I smiled in relief. "So what's the matter?"
"I can't find my mommy. We were walking along and I wasn't holding her hand 'cuz I'm too old for that and this big crowd comes by and I have to stop but mommy kept walking and I can't find her!" He spoke quickly, his voice going higher towards the end.
"Don't worry we'll help you find her", Zara stepped forward and the kid shrank back.
"This is my sister, she's a Swordsworn which means that she has to protect people so you can talk to her too." I decided to just go ahead and introduce all my friends, so pointing at Ariana I continued "And she's a priestess so she's super trustworthy. And she" I pointed at Azy "is a Bard, so she's silly but nice." The kid had stopped crying and was now smiling. "So, what we're gonna do is go look for your mom, but she's probably looking for you too so you need to tell us what she looks like so we can find her, and Ariana'll wait here with you. Okay?" The kid nodded and described your everymom. This required a new plan, "Alright, can you tell me your name?"
"Kantis", he smiled and for a minute I swear his teeth glowed. "Thank you for helping me." Then the world turned inside out and started somersaulting. I ended up on the ground head-first.
"Oooooowwwwww. My brain doesn't like the ground!" I sat up quickly and fell back down. I had landed pretty hard and provided a cushion for the rest of my friends.
"Did that kid say Kantis?" Zara had landed the best out of all of us.
"I'm gonna worry about that after I worry about what just happened. Did I just pass out or something?"
"Yes, Zephyr you passed out and we all decided to stomp on you until you woke up. 'Cause that's the kind of friends we are!" Azy's very sarcastic.
"See that's what I thought, but it fails to explain that one teensy little detail of where we are. I seem to recall your neighborhood not having cobbled streets." I was looking around in earnest now, and getting even more excited about what I saw. "This place looks medieval!"
"But, where are we?" That Ariana. Always the buzz kill.
"I dunno. Why don't we ask the nice man with the sword." And my sister, the crazy one. Actually it would have been a good plan except that the nice man didn't speak English or Japanese or French. Or as far as we could tell anything else we'd ever heard before.
"I'm sorry. We don't understand!" I was trying to calm him down by repeating that over and over but it wasn't working he kept talking and pointing at my costume, repeating the same sentence.
"We don't-" I was interrupted by the arrival of a scarred man in a similar outfit to mine, except that his was dark grey. "Who the hell?"
He glared at me and rattled off the same sentence. I assumed that it meant "Who are you, why are you here?" I could not however answer.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Um、すみません、わたしは わかりません. Zara, tell them we don't understand! In French." To my surprise however the man in grey spoke in something similar to Japanese. I still couldn't understand him but at least now we had something to go on!
"すみません、でも、すこしを わかります。やさし、はなさないでください。" I really should have payed more attention in Japanese class. I had told him I understood little and asked for easy talk please. At least, that's what I'd tried to say. I heard Coco sneeze behind me, and the sound of him struggling free of Ary's arms.
I believe that what my humans friend is trying to say is that she doesn't understand your question. If she could actually manage to form a coherent sentence I believe she would-
That was when things clicked. "Coco? You're a firecat?" Everyone else was staring at the heavenly being with awe.
He rolled his eyes as Ary desperately tried to get someone to explain what I was talking about. Of course. You really are startling ignorant sometimes.
"I prefer to think of it as having a solid grasp on reality. You see, in my experience no matter how hard you try to will yourself into the realm of a book, it just doesn't happen. However, here we are. "
Ariana had picked Coco up again, and with a remarkable display of adaptation demanded that he explain himself. The guard, and the man I assumed to be Albritch had moved on from staring at the cat, to staring at our odd little group.
"Ummmm…Ary? While I respect your desire for an explanation and wouldn't deny you one we do kind of need Coco to tell us what the nice people are saying."
I ignored Azy's comment in favor of tensing at the chiming I'd heard from behind me. Things clicked a little bit more as I realized two very important facts. 1) we were apparently in Valdemar and 2) Valdemar has Companions. The one behind me was probably Kantor but I caught my breath in the fantastic hope that, maybe, just maybe, the fact that I was important enough for dimensional transport meant that I was important enough for a companion too.
"Umm…Windy, you might want to remember to breath…"
I gasped and took deep breaths for a while. As I caught my breath I was struck by a paralyzing thought. What if one of us was going to get chosen, but it wasn't me?
"Windy, someone wants to talk with you." Zara had a grin in her voice. She was well aware of the fact that I'd do any number of morally questionable things to have a Companion of my own. I spun, and met a perfectly blue eyes. I can't even describe the sensation of being chosen. You may have known unconditional love in your life, may even have given some, but I guarantee that no matter how loved you've been, you have never experienced anything like the Companion bond.
:Hello Chosen. My name is Aden, and I choose you:
I, very coherently, responded "Ah bah, duh, SQUEEEEEE!!!!" I then wrapped my arms around his neck in a strangle hold and continued making vague sounds of happiness into his mane. It was fuzzy. I could hear the others talking and getting a rough idea of what had happened but I lost myself to the joy of having something I had never thought I'd get. Eventually Zara tugged my arm, signaling that we were moving and I followed the group, still not releasing my grip.