The night, well the night turned into hell. The boy seemed to have nightmares all through the night, and seemed to be prone to talking in his sleep. I did learn that his name was Peter, though I found this odd due to the fact that he had referred to a Peter Pan before, but maybe speaking in third person was normal for him.
When dawn finally came and the light began to chase away the fog I couldn't have been happier. With less then three hours of sleep fueling my brain I paced around the campsite aimlessly waiting for the boy to either wake up or to start speaking again.
He began to mumble something in a tone that sounded like he was giving a death sentence, and so I decided that he had slept long enough. I trotted over slightly and began to bark loudly. The most damage it would do was chase away prey and so I wasn't worried about attracting attention. We were in the middle of the woods after all.
Peter woke with a start and I wagged my tail when I saw in his eyes that he seemed to be all there today and not somewhere else. He seemed rather ungrateful for being woken up in the middle of his dream, but I didn't really care at the moment. I was starting to be weirded out by the situation and preferred to have a conscious person around to unconscious.
Realizing that all of the food supply was gone by this point outside of a few possibly poisonous mushrooms, and with Peter being in such a state that I would have to go and hunt something down. Again. I seriously needed to steal this kid a fishing pole so he could start getting his own food.
Reluctantly I left, even though I felt nervous leaving him alone. Heading out deeper in to the forest it took me longer then I liked to locate any food. It seemed I was paying the prize for barking already. Sniffing the air I located the scent of a rabbit.
Finding and offing the creature I decided that he would just have to learn to share this one. Getting past the taste of it in my mouth I decided to just run the entire way back to the campsite, which left my limited energy supply practically nonexistent.
Letting the stiffening body fall from my mouth I found myself to be panting shamelessly and dragged myself down to the river for a drink, hardly glancing at the boy who was drawing something in the dirt.
The water was cold and relatively clean tasting, and I lingered for a moment, submerging my muzzle under its flow. Leaving the river, my maw was dripping wet and I didn't really care. I was expected to have the manners of a wolf not a girl after all.
Peter at least seemed to have calmed down some. I drew as close as I felt comfortable to look at his sketch. It was rudimentary, not that I was expecting a masterpiece when it's made of dirt, but still. It was either a star map or just a bunch of random dots scattered across the ground.
"Neverland is calling me back Shadow." he spoke cryptically at one point, drawing-stick lingering on a medium sized dot that was to the right of another, larger, star-dot.
I panted but had no way to translate my confusion. If I could I would ask who or what the hell was Neverland, why is it calling to you, and when was he going to cook the rabbit. Food called to me and so I went and retrieved the rabbit and dropped it to the side of his drawing. It was messy, but I tore off a chunk and took it to my regular spot on the far side of the fire.
He cooked and ate the rabbit, though his mind seemed elsewhere. I watched intently when he was eating some mushrooms due to the fact that I didn't entirely trust his knowledge of what was poisonous or not. Rambling about having a kid when he himself was a kid wasn't exactly instilling a feeling of trust in his mental health.
Finishing my own meal I closed my eyes for a moment. I seemed to have drifted off because when I awoke it was to the hissing of the fire as he extinguished it . I glanced over in confusion and even through my bleary-eyes I could see that his makeshift bed was rolled up, and the cloak was folded up. Like he was planning on leaving.
Yes leaving when you just collapsed the day before is a stellar plan Peter, I wanted to say with all of the sarcasm I could muster, but instead all I could do was make a high pitched whining noise in confusion. He slung the cloak over his shoulder and picked up the blanket. Walking near to me he crouched down and looked into my eyes.
"I have to go Shadow, and I don't know if you're going to follow me or not." he spoke and I couldn't tell by his tone if he wanted me to come or stay, and so I stayed put. He sighed, but seem to pick himself up mentally and began to walk away.
He glanced back once, and I decided in that split second that I was going to go. I couldn't let a possibly crazy invalid go wandering off on his own now could I? Okay I probably could but the guilt would be too much to deal with if anything happened.
And so I got up and trotted over slightly, which he responded too by smirking as if he knew that was going to be my response. I didn't really mind, simply due to the fact that yes it was predictable and I felt a little silly honestly following a boy around like a pet. I just had to remind myself that he didn't know I was a human and so therefore it should be less awkward, but I knew and couldn't get past that.
I followed him loosely, never really darting off, but not sticking to his every move either. He seemed to just know where he was going and so I decided to trust his instinct. We walked for a long time, and I was just glad that we hadn't run into any other people. One person was all I could handle really.
Dusk was setting when we stopped and he began to set up camp, or just scrape together a fire and roll out his blanket. I heard a creek or river trickling nearby, and so I decided to go get a quick drink before settling in for the night.
The river was large and smooth, I could barely tell that it was moving and not perfectly still. Lapping at the water I realized that I was a lot more dehydrated then I had first thought. Everything was perfectly still and even the bugs seemed to be quiet.
I looked up with water droplets hanging on my muzzle looking to see if Peter had followed, when I heard a sharp twang and yelped in pain as something buried into my left shoulder. I turned to see an arrow buried into it, and decided that I had to move because holy hell there was a hunter somewhere.
I didn't move quickly, and I could hear another arrow shot, though it missed and buried into the leaves. Forcing myself to run with a yelp of pain I lost the hunter at least for a moment, and reached Peter. Panting and yelping in turns I limped towards him on three paws, my left shoulder in too much pain to put pressure on.
Grey was stinging my vision and static was beginning to rise in my ears and I had the startling realization that bloody hell I'm literally fucking dying. The amount of pain was making me woozy feeling while also terrified of everything, and Peter seemed to feed off of that by being calm and talking in a calm voice while moving closer.
He was talking about a place called Neverland, a place with magic and mermaids where there were no grown-ups and he was king. He talked about the lost boys and flying and how he wanted to go home, and needed to go home.
He said more but I didn't catch it all, I just remember him picking my up and laying me down on his blanket. He tried to heal the wound after removing the arrow , but it seemed to not work. He tried several times more and between sheets of grey I could see him getting frustrated.
When he grabbed his knife I began to whine in panic, terrified that he was going to just put me out of my misery, but he drew the blade across his own hand. I saw out of the corner of my eye that he let a few drops of his blood fall into the wound. I was wondering where the hunter was, or if I had completely lost them, when a sense of calm spread across my mind and I blacked out.
Grey mist coiled out from the cauldron and I felt myself cowering away from it in terror. A shape began to rise maliciously from the center of it, and the feeling of dread only spread when all of the lights in the stone room blew out in one fluid motion.
"Well you just ruined my beauty sleep, congratulations human. Now there better be a good reason for summoning me." the voice was feminine but full of power, and with the limited light coming from the cauldron I thought I saw tentacles spilling out from it.
"I'm sorry it was an accident! I was supposed to be making a protection spell!" I cried out desperately.
"You accidentally summoned me? You dare to accidentally summon me?!" the creature cried out in fury, and I could see the a magical glow beginning to grow from what I could only guess was her hands.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sor-" I began to sob, but was cut off by a powerful wave of golden magic smoke rippling over me. When it cleared the tentacle lady was gone, and so was my human form, replaced by a wolf.
Padding over to the shoved aside spellbook I read only a few words until one stuck out to me: Ursula. I seemed to have accidentally summoned a damn sea goddess. A noise outside made me perk my head up, and I realized that I need to leave before anyone saw me.
When I awoke I felt startled for a moment, and then remembered everything that had happened. Closing my eyes again I tried to think of what spell he could have performed and then I remembered an odd but fitting one that had involved blood-on-blood contact. If I was correct the little numskull had made me his fucking familiar to try and save my life. I didn't know if I was angry or not, just that something in my head felt off.
I would say that I had a headache but it didn't hurt, I just felt like there was a pressure off in my head, like something was just there. Thinking about it I tried to probe the feeling and was surprised when I could almost sense some sort of emotions coming from the feeling. It's hard to explain, having emotions in your head that aren't yours, but that was definitely it.
Opening my eyes I heard voices in the distance, and realized that I had a bubble of Pans emotions in my head. At least it wasn't a complete telepathic link, that would have been awkward. Yes hello I'm Delany the girl stuck in wolf's fur who you just made your familiar which is something I'm pretty sure hasn't been done by anyone before. Congratulations for having the first human familiar now please cook me some meat. I shuddered thinking of how that would have gone, and decided to go see if my gut was correct in thinking that the hunter had found Peter.
When I found Peter it looked like he was fiddling with a homemade pan pipe, and sitting across from him was who I assumed was my hunter. The man had brown hair and a brown beard and was rather nondescript beside the fact that he had eyes that reminded me of fishes.
Stalking around to stand next to the tree Peter was leaning against I listened to their conversation which seemed to be irregular.
"The ah um arrow was silver, yah silver I belive." mr. fisheyes was saying.
"Logical,when hunting wolves. But these Merry Men you say your a part of, their thieves." Peter said.
"Well, um in a way yes and no. We only ah take from the rich and um the wolf is beside you." the man began to respond, but seemed disturbed by my presence. I shot him a snarl which made him jump, but stopped when Peter let his hand settle on my head. I shook his hand off which seemed to startle him, or at least that's what I felt because he didn't show anything.
I wasn't normally aggressive but I had a scar on my shoulder and a person in my head that was setting off some aggression alarm bells in my head and I dearly wanted to take it out on mr. fisheye since he was the one who had gotten me shoehorned into the really awkward situation of being a familiar. And so with a growl I lunged at mr. fisheyes.
•••Authors Note•••
Well this chapter took a few twists, but I really wanted to play with the familiar side of magic, since I'm guessing that the spell exists somewhere in the realm of the enchanted forest, and if anybody knew it I would guess that it would be the boy who has lived for a couple of hundred years.