We were out the door a bit earlier than usual. “Bad news, Hilde,” Mistress had said, but her tone was breezy. “You might actually have to do something in this class. Or maybe have things done to you. I’m not sure…”

There were finally enough third year magi to begin the first wave of magus-level courses.

“I’ll do what I must,” I said, heaving a slightly exaggerated sigh.

“I know, I know, it’s so hard to be you,” Mistress giggled.

“You fidget in your sleep, just saying. Wakes me up.” Mistress just ‘hmm’d to herself at my words. “And if you’re going to say I have no need to sleep, I’ll kindly remind you of, hmm, what was it? Ah yes. Your own preferences.”

“I’ll sew that mouth of yours shut if you’re not careful,” Mistress said, chuckling. We crossed unusually busy grounds, filled with students and staff alike taking advantage of unseasonably mild weather. I had to keep a bit closer to my lovely magus than usual, not like that was a problem. Resting my chin against Mistress’ shoulder, I could feel the vibrations as she started to speak again. “Hey, have you thought about a more compact form you’d have a preference for?”

“What?”

“I bring it up because I’ve heard that’s one of the first things they make sure we know,” Mistress explained. “There are times when it’s important, or just convenient.”

“What, tired of your talkative cape?”

“Not at all,” she replied a bit hurriedly. “I’m just going to be expected to have something to show in class, y’know?”

“We’ve been over the whole ‘my opinion doesn’t matter’ thing,” I said with a slight shrug. “But if you want it anyway…hmmm. Would you believe it if I said I haven’t put a lot of thought into it?”

“Well, I know when you’re lying, so…sure, I believe you. Any ideas spring to mind?” We came into a luxuriously furnished lobby of a building I’d never been in before.

“I guess I’ve never had any strong inclination towards any sort of animal,” I admitted.

“That still leaves any sort of mineral or vegetable.”

“What, make me a plant? And just…carry me around?”

I still loved the sound of Mistress’ giggling. “I can just see it. ‘Hi! I’m Lisette the magus, and this cactus is Hilde.’” 

“I like how you immediately went to cactus,” I said, snickering myself.

“I guess there are other things that can be soft and mushy on the inside.”

“You’re too kind, Mistress.”

Lisette ‘hmm’d to herself again as we reached the door to the lecture hall, not yet open. “What about mineral? Crystals are kind of my thing.” She waved me off her back to get a better look at me. “And this base form of yours already does have some crystalline properties…kind of.”

“Huh. It does?”

“Yeah! In fact…I had this idea a couple of days ago, I *think* it should work based on how I remade you.” She raised an index finger, directing a little beam of light off the tip. Pointing it at me, the beam hit an exposed bit of skin just above my sternum.

“Uh. What now?”

“Turn your head just a little and open your mouth,” she instructed, keeping the light focused on me. 

I did as she asked, and a rainbow came out. “Thih ih weer,” I sounded, distorting the colors slightly as I did so.

“Tada! Pretty cool, right?”

I nodded, sending the rainbow bouncing along. We’d shortly caught the eye of just about everyone else in the hall.

“We’ve got an audience, hmmm? Let’s give them a show. Turn your head…let’s say, that way! And keep your mouth open.” I did that as well, quickly discovering what she had planned. She changed her own beam in a couple of different ways, sending the colors into a sort of frenzied dance. “Let’s put a little more magic into the mix!” Mistress declared. Soon, the colors escaping my mouth resembled the northern lights, which drew some genuine exclamations of awe.

“That’s very impressive, magus.” An older man in voluminous robes parted the sea of people around him as he strode to the door to the lecture hall. “With inventiveness like that, maybe we’ll be able to teach you more practical uses for your familiar.”

“Ah…hello, professor.” Mistress severed the beam, and the aurora dissipated. “You can close your mouth now, Hilde.” I did so.

This lecture hall held rows upon rows of desks in concentric rings. Once everyone was seated around the professor in the center, the outer rings rose to allow those in the back a proper view. Equally circular benches stretched the whole length of every ring, and there was luckily enough room for me to lay down next to Mistress, setting my head upon her lap. Her non-dominant hand settled upon me, and I squirmed just a bit from the attention, purring happily.

“He’s going over familiar transfiguration,” Lissy whispered to me. I poked my head over the desk, just high enough to see the man’s own familiar take the form of a substantially sized dragon that curled around him. It barked a short gout of fire upwards, a wave of heat quickly passing over the faces of the audience. The professor, dwarfed by his familiar, held his arms out as if trying to draw attention to what was already self-evident.

A moment later his familiar had shrunk down to what I assumed was their base form — a steely-faced man who looked to be in his mid twenties, maybe a few years older than Mistress. Of course, the pair could be well over a century old, for all I knew. The once-dragon still held some draconic features in the form of wicked looking horns, and leathery wings folded into a makeshift cloak. The veteran magus gave his thrall a quick peck on the cheek, before the latter shifted again, not stopping until he was just a diminutive lizard resting on the professor’s shoulder.

“What about that, Hilde? Would you want to be a dragon?”

“I’d be happy with any form you gave me, Mistress. But why stop at something as mundane as a dragon?” I twisted my head to give her a knowing smile.

“Maintaining you as a behemoth hellbeast or riftwyrm might be a bit taxing, if I’m honest.” An affectionate hand ruffled my hair. 

I peered around other parts of the room, surveying our classmates, for the most part. Emmaline sat in humanoid form next to her magus, stretching a protective wing around her. Ha! So even she wouldn’t disguise all affection.

Alexia was somewhere above and behind us, with only Danica’s upper half fully formed — the rest of the familiar was an ambulant puddle around her owner’s feet. Whether upon seeing me look up at her or for some other reason, the water nymph flowed upwards to the bench and curled around her owner.

“Gonna try something real quick,” Mistress whispered, turning my attention back to the Most Important thing in my life. Her gaze was divided between the professor and I. The dragon was back, and flying overhead — the ceiling of the lecture hall was…much more distant than I remembered it being. “He’s giving us a few minutes for independent testing.”

Mistress had me rise to her level, and took my arm to place on the desk. With a look of focus scrunching her face, I could feel my arm changing…and then see it, too. It was morphing into a polygonal interpretation of what it had been, crystalline facets and surfaces gradually taking shape. I could properly see the desk below my arm, now, though distorted by myriad angles. Each face caught the light in a splendid way, and refracted it into countless, if dim, projections onto the polished wood.

“Try moving it around a bit?” She suggested. I found I could move my crystal arm just as easily as normal, lifting it up, closing my hand into a fist and then opening it, and again just getting lost in the lights dancing across and through my hard flesh.

“Y’know I will be harder to cuddle like this,” I chuckled. “Literally.”

“Oh my lovely Hilde. If I can do this, I can easily go the other direction, until you’re a you-shaped pillow that moans at the slightest touch.” The image vividly crossed my mind, making me shiver in excitement. “Alright, don’t panic, I’m going to try another thing.” Mistress took my hardened hand, and with one quick motion, snapped it off. I gasped and braced for pain that didn’t come. “Ah, sorry,” she stuttered. I quickly shook my head.

“You can remove my hands if you want,” I said with a shrug. 

“I just wanna make sure I can do…this!” She pressed the hand against the jagged surface of my wrist-stump, and feeling spread into it once more. I could move it like it had never come off.

“Incredible, Mistress.”

“We can hope it won’t be necessary! But it never hurts to be prepared.”

I gave her a wicked grin. “Are you sure you’d never want amputee Hilde as a piece of furniture in your dorm? Me only able to look pretty and complain? Or maybe I’d be making other noises…”

“Hildieeee, we’re in class!” Mistress giggled at the depraved image I provided. The professor glanced our way.

“And what have you been working on, Magus Lisette?”

“Oh! Well, that’s easy, professor. Hilde and I are studying how to…um…heal serious injury?”

“Very well,” the professor said. “Why not show us.”

Mistress stood up, so I did too. “Well, first I made Hilde’s arm more crystal-like, right?” I held my altered limb up, flexing it in the light to make it glimmer. “And then my thought was, if something bad happened, I should be able to heal it, right?” She whispered into my ear, “sorry Hildie, I’m going to do it again.” I smiled and nodded as she pulled off my hand a second time, lifting it up for everyone. The other students gave a mixed reaction — some wincing, a fair amount of laughter. “Now watch!” Mistress commanded. As I continued to hold my wrist high, she pressed the hand against it once more, but it slipped.

“Oh no,” she said in a hushed voice. “I can reattach it, as simple as this!” She pushed my hand onto the stump again, with a little more force. But it clearly wasn’t reattaching.

“It’s okay, Mistress,” I tried to reassure. But I could see the rising panic in her expression, and so could everyone else, maybe.

“I was able to do it before, I…” The panic was audible now, too. And everyone kept on watching.

“Mistress, you haven’t done anything wrong,” I said. But people were shaking their heads and turning attention elsewhere. The professor’s gaze was piercing.

“I don’t know why I can’t do it now,” she said to me, head hanging low.

“You can, Mistress. And even if you can’t, it’s not a big deal.” I forced a smile. “Now show everyone what you can do and I’ll kiss—mmmf!”

My words had been interrupted with, fittingly enough, her kiss. And with our arms still held wide, she pressed the hand against me again, and this time I could feel it reconnect. I opened and closed it for everyone still watching to see, while the two of us still held our embrace. “Thanks, Hilde,” she whispered, eventually pulling away.

“I’d recommend practice, magus,” the professor said. I wanted to glare at him.

“Some number one…” Alexia was smirking down at us, and I did glare at her. The pyromancer quickly looked away once Mistress turned her head. Coward.

“Well that went terribly,” Mistress sighed, once we had exited the classroom. 

“My apologies, Mistress.”

“Hilde, stop apologizing for things you didn’t do!”

“My ap…um.”

Mistress gave me a serious look for a few moments before she cracked up instead. “Gods bless you, my dumb little familiar.” Her face turned again. “Sorry. You’re not dumb.”

“Am too.”

“You want to play this game with me?”

“Do you, Mistress?”

She cracked that wonderful grin of hers once again before giving me a playful clap on the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s get some lunch.”

The dining hall for magi was an extravagant affair. Mistress and I found a table all to ourselves, and we pondered a slate which activated to display the day’s options. Once Lissy made her choice by dragging her finger across it, and with an extra motion or two for additions and removals, it took only a few minutes for a winged servant to send the food over.

“So where does the food go after I eat it, Mistress?” I asked between bites.

“The short answer is into my mana reserves! The longer answer is…uhh…” Mistress scratched her chin. “The soulbond handles it, I know that much.”

“Not that much of a longer answer, is it?”

“Agh, fine. If you really want to know, it has to do with your body being—“

“Room at this table?” It was Alexia, wearing her wide-brimmed hat inside, for some reason. And she’d cut off Mistress, which made the colors under my skin angry. And I suppose it made me angry, too.

“Are you willing to be civil?”

The girl’s whole demeanor changed when it was Mistress addressing her. “Uh, yeah. Look, I guess I wanted to talk about that.”

“Then the table of ranks one and two welcomes you.” Mistress motioned for the pyromancer to sit down, and she did on the other side of her, opposite me.

“I thought Marcel was the rank two, now.”

“If you wanna go by the official rankings," Mistress said coolly, "I suppose that’s the case. Anyway, you wanted to say something?”

“Sure. Yeah. I was thinking about the whole thing about your familiar, right? In that, I realized that still being angry at her is pointless.”

A familiar nymph bubbled up behind me. I nodded at her. “Danica, right?”

Danica nodded, an action which made a sloshing noise.

“Not sure I get what you’re trying to say…" Mistress said to Alexia. "Hilde called you Lexi. Do you go by that? It’s a cute nickname.”

“Not really,” Lexi replied. “What I’m saying is that it would be petty of me to resent a familiar, so I’m, um, here to tell you that I hold no ill will will towards yours.”

“Sounds like you’re here to protect your own ego.”

Danica made some motions with her hands, and nodded her head a few times in my direction.

“You want to know what I am, exactly?” I repeated back to her. Mistress and Alexia were discussing something, but I figured the former would let me know if she wanted me in their talks. “I guess I’m basically a golem. Mistress has her crystal magic, and I’m kinda in line with that.”

Danica made an ‘o’ shape with her mouth and nodded several times. More sloshing.

“Not much for talking?” I asked.

My counterpart tilted her head slightly and gestured some more.

“Awaiting permission. I gotcha, I gotcha. Say, did we ever have any classes together?”

Danica put a finger to her chin — much like Mistress had — and then opened her mouth, holding the finger up. Reaching her arm out slightly, she made a circular motion around the column of water acting as her feet.

“No shit, you were in the spellshark classes too? Guess it ended similar for both of us, huh.”

Danica nodded with a wry, watery grin, and then held up fingers in sequence.

“And you were the rank eleven before Lexi challenged you? My oh my, the plot thickens.”

She smiled and couldn’t hold back a bubbly giggle, while pointing in certain directions.

“Yeah, I thought it was a cute nickname, too.”

Danica twirled a strand of ‘hair’ as she tilted her head again, not bothering to hide a dopey smirk.

“Well, yeah, I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have a crush on your owner! And you’re totally right about the way she’ll tug on her braid when she’s nervous.”

Alexia got up from the table right after I said that. “That’s all I wanted to say,” she declared. “And Lisette? Hope you’re ready for when this happens. Come along, Danica, and we’ll see each other, Rank One.”

With that, the fire and water pair left. Why did a pyromancer have a water nymph familiar, anyway?

“What were you two talking about, Mistress? If I’m not overstepping by asking. Uh, sorry if I am.”

Mistress shrugged. “Oh, that? She boldly declared that she’d dethrone me from the number one spot. Kinda surprised you didn’t notice.”

Did the rankings even matter, at this point?

“Forgive me, Mistress. Danica turned out to be quite a conversationalist.”

Mistress snorted. “Awww, my Hildie’s making friends! I’m glad.”

“Didja know that she was a higher rank than Lexi when she was challenged?”

“Now that is interesting,” Mistress mused. “Well, Hilde, it looks like we’re gonna have to put another rival in her place, huh?”

“I won’t fail you, Mistress.”

She patted me on the head. “Just another stepping stone on our quest to take over the world!” Taking my hand as she got up, she added, “how was your meal?”

“Very good, Mistress. Shall we get going?”

“We shall! And y’know, I think I’m liking you more as a scarf than a cape.” She traced a circular motion around her neck, and put a hand just below her collarbone. “It’s like a never ending hug!”

“Is that a request, Mistress? I can provide.”

“It is! Some people might be bothered by the p.d.a., but who the hells cares what they think?”

“I only care if you do, Mistress.” I draped my arms over her, like I had earlier, like she requested.

“If…if you say so.” She gave my hand a squeeze, and with that, we headed off to the next class.