Short Stories

Apprehension

It was dinner time and Luna was eating her zesty lemon pie as dessert after a regular boring day at the Flefrorths, School Of The Arcane. After finishing her last bite of her pie she checked her phone for the time, 7:30 PM Sunday, March 20th 2011. She sighed as she realized tomorrow is her 13th birthday, and she would be spending another year alone. She also wasn't looking forward to summoning her familiar, simply because she was afraid of being bullied just like the rest of her family for having a 'weak' or 'useless' familiar. After cleaning up her dessert and washing up she planned on going to bed alone and afraid of the ridicule to come, but on the way she saw a bright light in the dark hallway but passed it off as the light of a torch and went to bed.

It was the next day at free time and she was playing the piano in the music room when she heard some young students talking about what familiars they hope to have, one older student, even summoned his familiar. An Owl-griffin, with snowy white feathers with a tannish brown on top like someone, sprinkled cinnamon on it, tiny paws the size of a large pendant watch, a fluffy tail around 6 inches long, overall only being around 1½ feet long and 1 foot high. Quite small even for a baby. The older student, Terry told the young students " It represents a kind heart, protectiveness, the need of adventure, and the need to be diverse," he finished with a proud smile and looked at the young students who were staring at him with awe. It was at that moment Luna decided she was going to try and summon her familiar.

Once classes were finished for the day she went to Prof. Carrie Black, the professor of summoning spells, to ask for the instructions on how to summon her familiar. Prof. Black gave her the instructions and even showed Luna how to do it by summoning her own familiar. A white llama with dark splotches all over its body and fur that looked like it was in dreadlocks, it was remarkably tall, taller than all of the llamas Luna had seen before at the petting zoo she went to when she was a child, around 2-2.5 meters tall and hooves the size of a tennis ball. Luna was dazed seeing another bright light in the corner of the room, Luna quickly thanked the professor and left.

Wednesday the 23 of March it had been 3 days since she asked the professor for help and 3 days since she had the idea to summon her familiar. today was the day she was going to summon her familiar, classes were canceled due to a very powerful and dangerous storm overhead and student were advised to stay inside the building. She planned on going to the new place she found while looking around, on the way she found another bright light but this time she saw what it was. A dark purple flame burning very brightly, but it seemed like none of the other people around her could see it or if they could they didn't pay attention to it.

Being very curious Luna tried to touch the flame. Surprisingly the flame surrounded Luna's hand scaring her. She tried to put the flame out that was on her hand and eventually did. She was going to turn back to her dorm being scared of what just happened, but she had already procrastinated 3 days on the idea to summon her familiar so she kept going on her way to the clock tower. Finally ready to summon her familiar, Luna said the words "Nota meum et vocavi te!". There was a very bright light coming from outside. Luna looked outside the window beside her there she saw a dark purple haze emitting from the clouds. In the eye of the storm, she saw an enchanting purple phoenix with feathers as long as a house, the wingspan of a gymnasium, and talons large enough to carry a honda civic, descending from the sky heading straight towards her. Being completely terrified of this very large bird she ran as far away from the window as fast as she could.

She stopped after around 10-15 minutes later and put her hands on her knees while she caught her breath and looked outside and noticed the clouds were gone and the sky was clear. She looked at her hand feeling an odd warmth and noticed her hands were on fire again and with the same dark purple flames. She quickly noticed she wasn't in pain and yet the flames were still on her hands. She inspected her hands and noticed a light purple glow on the floor, Luna looked up and saw the phoenix from earlier, she jumped back in surprise and fear. Immediately noticing the phoenix wasn't attacking her and was much smaller. Luna look left and right making sure there was no students or teachers around. Then acting like the phoenix could talk she asked "you aren't going to hurt me right?", the phoenix only looked at her quizzically.

"Please don't hurt me" she whispered to herself as she tried to touch the birds head with a scrunched up face. She stopped a few centimeters from the birds head, remembering from Magizoology, "the creature will continue if wanting to be touched". The bird extinguished its flame on its head then nuzzled Luna's hand. Luna then relaxed her face smoothing out the feathers on the bird's head.

Luna then noticed a 'collar' around the birds neck with a symbol, the same symbol as branded on Luna's collarbone, a tree or as every one in her family started calling it "the Tree of Life" but that was only because after she got that mark she rarely got hurt or if she did she would heal very quickly. She then knew this was her Familiar from a question she asked Pref. Black before she left.

"Oh hey, Prof.Black!" Luna exclaimed poking her head in the doorway. "Yes Luna?" the professor asked, "How will I know my Familiar is mine? How do I know it's not someone else's familiar that was just wandering the halls?" Luna said walking in the room slowly while rubbing her arm. The professor seemed a little stunned, she quickly fixed herself saying "There is a clear sign the Familiar is yours" Black said as she brushed her llama, "there is usually a similarity between your Familiar and yourself" Black showed her freckles on the face and arms. "See? There will be a connection between you two."

"I guess you're my familiar" Luna said caressing the phoenix's head. "All that's left is to give you a name," Luna realized "how 'bout..." she paused thinking of a name,"...Loki?" The bird shook its head side to side giving its response. "How 'bout Matt?" the girl asked again. The bird shook its head again. "Sunny?" the girl asked unsurely. The bird once again shook its head. "Fine, how about Tolopea?" the bird halted its head half way from shaking it and paused, The bird then shook its head up and down signaling they liked it. Luna smiled at the bird and brushed it feathers down more, and that's how their relationship started.

Later that week Luna got curious what a phoenix meant as a familiar, she went to the library with her phoenix and started to look through the familiar books for the Page on Phoenix. When Luna found it she quickly read it and was surprised. "The Phoenix is a very rare bird that symbolizes rebirth from the ashes of the past, and will rise over any problem and will shine bright doing it." Somehow Luna completely understood and related with the words on the page.

Written on: October 29th 2018