Author's Notes: Not much here, just another snippet of life in Trolberg and Frida's descent into madness. I never liked the idea of Hilda as Frida's familiar since that role is normally reserved for animals, and it's something that I hope gets tossed out in Season 3. In the meantime, I wrote this little one-shot about the kids taking a trip to the pet store to get Frida a new familiar after Hilda quits. I have a feeling that any pet store in Trolberg would have a more... exotic selection that anything in real life. And I once went to a pet store where they had a baby alligator in a tank. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
It was early in the afternoon, and many in Trolberg were preparing to settle in for the evening. Children returned home from school, shedding their uniforms for casual attire and taking to the streets on their bikes, eager as they were to enjoy the freedom and fresh air after being stuck in the classroom all day. Parents and teachers likewise got off work. Some immediately went home and flopped down on their beds for a well-deserved nap, others ran errands, and a few unlucky souls- like poor Ms. Hallgrim- were stuck at their desks even as the sun began to set, grading papers.
Hilda, David, and Frida were free though, and determined to make this afternoon a productive one. Once home, they hopped on their bikes and made haste for the local pet store. Their mission: To get Frida a new familiar.
It'd been a few months since Hilda had quit being Frida's familiar. Frida might've been hurt if she hadn't understood Hilda's reasoning... learning the art of witchcraft was frustrating and tedious. Frida herself might've thrown in the towel if not for her.. extra-curricular work (which Hilda and David still didn't know about) and even then, she was still struggling with her powers.
The incident at Trolberg Air Patrol headquarters just ten days ago was still fresh in Frida's mind. Frustration mingled with guilt knowing that her recklessness had almost gotten Hilda and David killed, to which her friends remained blissfully unaware. Thankfully neither the Committee of Three nor Kaisa or Tildy had caught on either. Just as well; the incident had made Frida increasingly angry at her instructors for not teaching her more.
All of this could've been avoided if they would just stop playing guessing games with me, Frida thought bitterly as she rode down the street with Hilda and David.
Frida had gotten good at fooling her friends. Even as guilt, paranoia, and frustration tore at her from the inside, Frida was able to hide her feelings behind the mask of her usual confident can-do attitude. There were times when the mask slipped and her companions suspected something was amiss.
That's why they were going to the pet shop today. Hilda had misread Frida's frustration with her mentors as resentment towards her for not wanting to be her familiar anymore... and Hilda, ever the stalwart friend, was determined to make it up to Frida however she could. That meant getting her a new familiar; a companion that Frida could truly call her own. Hilda had her ever-loyal deerfox companion Twig, who now rode in the basket on the front of her bike. David had made a new friend as well; a few weeks ago, a juvenile woff had flown into David's open bedroom window and helped itself to a bag of spilt Jort's on his bed. David woke that morning to find the wayward woffling curled up next to him, and now it followed him everywhere.
The woff pup- whom David had taken to calling "Nigel"- kept pace with the trio's bikes, making sure to stay close to his new master as they cruised down the street. Frida saw that they were drawing a lot of curious glances from pedestrians, between the blue-haired girl and her deerfox companion and the little boy being followed by a baby woff. Wofflings were almost as rare as deerfoxes, seeing as nobody knew where woffs built their dens, and were almost never seen amid the migrations of the adult woffs.
Frida was doubtful she'd find a pet as exotic as a deerfox or woffling at an ordinary pet shop. But she played along for Hilda's sake if nothing else. And who knows? Maybe this little sojourn would surprise her.
Hilda, David, and Frida pulled up the pet shop on the corner of Goodman and Wexler, a store called Fallowstone & Sons Pet Stop.
"This is the place David's mum told me about," Hilda announced as she stepped off her bike and took off her helmet, replacing it with her signature beret. "How did your mum find this place again, David?"
"It's the only shop in Trolberg that sells woff chow," David answered as he secured his own bike to the rack. "Took her a while to find it, but they've got good stock. At least Nigel seems to like it."
The miniature woff, which was no larger than a soccer ball, serenaded David with a short bout of woff-song and nuzzled him affectionately, touching it's wet nose to David's orange turtleneck. David chuckled merrily and pet the little woff on the head. Twig hopped down from his basket and tugged at Hilda's skirt; it seemed he was eager to go inside.
"Alright, Twig! Just let me lock up..." Hilda chided as she secured her own bike to the rack. Hilda's first bike had been stolen not too long ago... Frida and David suspected Trevor, whose bullying of their group was starting to get out of control. Frida's parents were kind enough to buy her a new one, as Frida's mum claimed that she understood how difficult it must've been for a single parent to provide for her children.
Those words were spoken with the usual condescending boastfulness her mum was known for right in front of Johanna, who'd barely contained her fury. As if Frida's relationship with her friends wasn't strained enough, her mum's pompous demeanor threatened to make things worse...
Frida put such troubling thoughts from her mind and followed Hilda and David into the pet shop. The bell above the door tinkled as they entered. As to be expected, they were greeted by the usual chorus of barks, meows, growling, and chirping from dozens of animals, big and small, stowed away in tanks and cages.
The shopkeeper was busy with a long line of customers who'd come to buy food for their more exotic pets. To her horror, Frida spied one customer with an enormous black dog that looked like a juvenile barguest. There was also a woman with a large reptilian bird that looked as though it might've been a newly-hatched dragon. Not a lindworm or wyvern, or any species that Frida was familiar with. But with it's scaly black hide, piercing red eyes, and long saber-like claws, Frida was sure that Safety Patrol would be interested to know about it.
"You'd think that after what happened with the Black Hound, people would be more careful with the sorts of animals they take home," Frida suggested.
"Some people have no flippin' sense," David replied, shaking his head at the drake and the oversized black dog.
"David, you keep a woff as a pet," Hilda reminded him. "You do realize how big he's going to get in a few years time?"
"What? E's a woff!" David protested. "Woffs don't eat people, last I checked."
"A fair point," Frida agreed.
"Right," said Hilda. "Let's just focus on getting you a familiar. See anything you like?"
"Well... it may be a bit cliché, but... I suppose I could always just get a cat...?" Frida suggested, eyeing a tiny black kitten in a cage. The kitten meowed softly up at her and put it's paws up on the bars, and it seemed to like her.
"Too boring," Hilda insisted. "What about... an ocelot!"
Hilda pointed to a much larger cage in the middle of the store housing what looked like a miniature leopard.
"Hilda!" David objected with alarm. "That's a flippin' leopard! That'll kill ya' and eat ya'!"
"Don't be so dramatic, David," Hilda chided. "He looks perfectly tame to me-"
No sooner had Hilda uttered those word than did the ocelot throw out it's claws against the bars of it's cage, letting out an angry growl and startling the three children.
"Okay, nevermind..." said Hilda. "Maybe something a bit more benign..."
"What about a ferret?" David suggested, walking over to a tank housing a rather handsome-looking white ferret. The poor creature looked bored as it survey it's audience. Frida briefly considered it, before deciding that the ferret looked too depressing, and suggesting they try something else.
"Oh, look!" David called out a short time later. "Pygmy woffs!"
Hilda and Frida ran over to find David and Nigel in front of a much larger tank that was filled with the tiniest woffs Hilda had ever seen. Each one was smaller than a cricket ball, about four or five inches in diameter at the most. There were about a dozen of them of varying colors, gleefully flitting back and forth across the oversized tank and emitting short bursts of high-pitched woff song. This seemed to excite Nigel, who flew from one end to the tank to the other, matching his minute-sized brethren note for note.
"What do you think, Frida?" Hilda asked. "Pygmy woffs are quite rare. Bet you've never seen one before today!"
"Well... they are quite adorable," Frida admitted. "But aren't they a bit small?"
"I suppose..." said Hilda. "Do you have any idea what you'd want, Frida?"
"Ugh, I'm not sure!" Frida expressed with frustration.
Hilda, David, and Frida split up and searched up and down the store in hopes of finding the ideal familiar for Frida... but Frida shot down ever suggestion they came up with. Frida didn't want an owl, she turned her nose up at a giant tarantula (David became deathly pale at the suggestion) nor did she want a parrot.
"I'm training to be a witch, David," Frida scoffed. "Not a pirate."
"Who's to say you can't be both?" Hilda suggested, making Frida roll her eyes.
It seemed they were to leave the store empty-handed when at last Frida called out to her friends from across the shop, claiming she'd found something at last. Hilda and David rushed over with Twig and Nigel in tow, eager to see what Frida had picked out.
Both Hilda and David stopped dead in their tracks when they saw what had Frida so excited.
A large cage in the very back of the shop held what looked to be a wolf cub. Though clearly an adolescent, it was still larger than most dogs, with blood-red fur and glowing yellow eyes that looked all too familiar to Hilda... she was certain that it was the very same type of wolf she'd encountered in the wilderness while searching for Twig ages ago. The terror of that experience was still fresh in her mind, though; Hilda remembered the wolf looking hungrily at her with it's fiery yellow eyes, the animalistic fear as it chased her up the cliff and through the brush, feeling it's jaws clamp down on her boot as she barely evaded it only to find herself staring into it's gaping maw second later...
Hilda's thousand-yard stare had caught David's attention, who took her hand gingerly as she took a step back from the cage. Frida, on the other hand, seemed ignorant of her friend's plight.
"Look at him!" Frida urged. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Uh..." Hilda and David said in unison.
"Frida," said David. "That's a werewolf cub!"
"I know!" Said Frida. "He's perfect! Just look at him! He's so... majestic!"
"Not the word I'd use," said David.
"What do you think, Hilda?" Frida asked excitedly.
"Um..." Hilda pondered. "Uh- you know what? Maybe a cat wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. That one we saw earlier seemed rather taken with you..."
"Oh, come off it!" Frida insisted. "Whatever happened to 'too boring'?"
"It's not that! I'm just... thinking about how he might get along with our other pets!" Hilda asserted.
To her credit, Twig had his tail coiled around Hilda's leg and was shaking with terror at the sight of the wolf spirit, while Nigel had stuffed himself up the back of David's sweater in a panic.
"She has a point," David agreed. "I'm pretty sure werewolves eat woffs, Frida. I don't know that I'd feel safe you bringing that thing 'round my house."
"Also, it kind of looks, well... evil," David said bluntly.
"No need to judge a book by it's cover, David," Frida scolded.
"Oh? Then how about the price tag?" David asserted, pointing at the label on the side of the Fenrir's tank. "Not even your parents will spend ten-thousand dollars for that monster."
Frida turned her eyes to the label, and felt her heart sink. The price was indeed listed at $9,900 dollars. Now that she thought about it, it would probably be expensive to care for such an exotic animal. What was she supposed to feed it? Probably rats or something of that nature. Frida herself wouldn't mind, but her parents certainly would.
"Come on, Frida," said Hilda. "Let's go have a look at that cat again."
"I don't want a cat," Frida mumbled.
"Well, then I guess we'll have to come back some other day!" David insisted. "Can we please go now? That thing is making me nervous..."
Nigel, who was still hiding up the back of David's sweater, whined pitifully as it longed to be away from danger. David pulled the woffling out by his tail and carried him back towards the front of the shop, careful to screen him from the werewolf's hungry gaze.
"Come on, Frida," Hilda beckoned. "Let's go."
The trio left the store empty-handed. Frida looked crestfallen, but Hilda was secretly glad to have gotten her away from that... thing. Hilda was normally pretty open-minded when it came to exotic and dangerous creatures, having befriended trolls, talking ravens, and even a lindworm. But there was something about the wolf that put her off. The way it'd looked up at her with it's fierce eyes was deeply unsettling. It reminded her all too well of the wolf she'd crossed in the wild, the one that'd tried to eat her and Twig.
That her friend was enraptured by such an evil creature was even more concerning.
Later that night, long after Hilda and her friends had settled down for bed, the werewolf cub at the little pet shop on the corner was still wide awake in it's cage. The light of the full moon shown through the windows at the front of the shop, and it felt empowered. It recalled the scent of the dark-skinned girl who'd visited him in his cage amid the bustle of daylight. Even from here, it could sense her anguish, her longing for a companion to call her own... just as the wolf longed for a master.
It's purpose was clear.
The wolf reared up and let loose a low howl that echoed throughout the store, calling upon the power of the moon to free it from it's prison. The moon answered it's call, the latch fell away, and invisible hands opened the cage door.
The werewolf darted from the cage quietly as it could. As fortune would have it, the front door to the shop hadn't been closed properly, allowing the wolf to push it open and flee into the night. It followed the scent of the girl through the winding city streets, ducking into alleyways to avoid Safety Patrol as it neared it's destination. Stray cats scurried for cover as the wolf spirit passed them by, too focused on it's goal to be bothered with such would-be prey.
It's new mistresses parents had been as careless as the store owner, and failed to close the front door to their home all the way. The werewolf turned as it slipped in the door, eyeing the lock and tilting it's head as it called upon the power of the moon once more.
A gust of wind swept through the house and the door closed behind it, locking with a soft "click" seemingly on it's own accord. Now that it was here in it's mistress's house, the wolf spirit had a duty to keep her safe.
Satisfied, the wolf climbed the stares and entered the room at the far end of the hall, where it beheld it's mistress. Frida was sound asleep in her bed, completely unaware of the dangerous predator that'd followed her home.
Just as well that the creature meant her no harm. It leapt up onto the blankets and curled up beside it's new mistress. It would greet her properly in the morning when she awoke. Hopefully she wouldn't be frightened of it...
No sooner had the thought crossed it's mind did Frida subconsciously fling her arm over the wolf's midriff, pulling him close and stroking his crimson fur as though he were a stuffed animal. Her new friend let out a low growl of contentment, nuzzling her and licking the side of her face happily. Frida did not wake, but smiled in her sleep. She seemed to sense the wolf spirit's presence, and welcomed it.
Author's Notes: And now Frida has a pet of her own, for better or for worse. I'd planned to do a one-shot about how David found his pet woff, but I've been stuck on it for a while. In the meantime, consider this a teaser.