The bell over the shop door gave a tired little jingle as Eli pushed his way inside. The place smelled like feed, fur, hay, oilcloth, and old cedar shelving. It was warmer than the street, though not by much. Enough to take the edge off the coast wind still clinging to his cloak.
Shelves lined the walls from one end of the narrow store to the other, packed with sacks of grain feed, dried fruit mash, salt licks, grooming combs, harness clips, polished bowls, chew roots, and things Eli only vaguely recognized as animal-related and too expensive.
Cages and pens took up the back half of the room. A pair of sleepy marsh hens blinked from a wicker run. Something small and scaled rustled under a heat lamp. A limping dock hound with one cloudy eye dozed near the counter. None of the animals looked miserable. That alone made the shop feel better than half the inns Eli had stayed in.
He adjusted the strap of his bag as something inside it shoved outward again, “Quiet,” Eli muttered under his breath as the push answered with a soft little huff.
From behind the counter, the shopkeep looked up from a ledger.
He was a broad late middle-aged man, thick through the shoulders and middle, with weathered brown skin, a square beard of grey, and heavy-lidded eyes. His hair was tied back in a short knot and a faded green apron hung over a rolled-sleeve shirt that had definitely seen feed dust, claws, and a bad season or two. He had the look of a man who dealt with animals, customers, and nonsense daily.
“Well now,” he said in a voice worn smooth by his years, “Either you’ve got a restless cat in there or a very determined problem.”
Eli drifted a little closer to the counter after taking a quick look over the shelves, “I was hoping for advice before it became a larger problem.”
“That depends on the problem.”
Eli lifted the bag carefully and opened the top. Two large round eyes looked up from inside. The shopkeeper went still. Then, he leaned forward slowly, both hands flattening on the counter as he stared down into the bag. Eli reached in and lifted the creature out with both hands, setting it gently on the wooden counter top.
The little thing crouched low at first, wrapped in the travel blanket Eli had carried it in, all soft russet-brown fur, huge ears, cream markings, and ring-banded tail. Its little antler buds were still velveted, barely branched. The creature was compact and fluffy.
The shopkeep stared at first. Then leaned in, looking a little harder, “Well,” he said at last, “That certainly is not a cat.”
“I figured not.”
“No, that,” he pointed with one thick finger, “is a Vellumyr cub.”
Eli blinked, “A Vel-what?”
“A Vellumyr,” The man said as he leaned back slowly, eyes never leaving the creature, “A juvenile forest titan. Gentle if you catch them in the right mood. Enormous when fully grown, hard to miss in person. Yet, rare enough that most people will go their whole lives only hearing the name secondhand and still manage to pronounce it wrong.”
The cub looked up at Eli with wide wet eyes and a little quiver in its whiskers.
Eli looked back at the shopkeep, then at the cub, then back again, “This thing is rare? And wait….a forest titan? This small?”
“Oh,” the man said dryly, “I can assure you it gets much bigger.”
The cub lifted one paw and placed it on Eli’s sleeve as the shopkeep’s gaze dropped to the paw's contact. His expression shifted then, not into surprise exactly, but into recognition, “Huh.”
“What?” Eli asked.
He came around the counter with the easy gait of a man used to not startling creatures already on edge. Up close, Eli noticed a long pale scar across the man’s forearm disappearing under the rolled sleeve. Old bite mark, probably something larger than this. The shopkeep crouched by the counter and studied the cub without touching it.
“On one hand, it’s too wild an animal for me to take even if I wanted to,” he said.
Eli frowned, “Well, I’m not trying to sell it if that's what you’re getting at.”
“That’s good. Because I couldn’t buy it due to the other hand.”
“What do you mean?”
The man looked up at him now, “Because it’s already bound. To you I'd reckon.”
Eli stared at him, “I’m sorry,” he said after a second, “It’s what?”
“Bound,” the shopkeep said as he rose back to his feet, “Familiar bond. Beast contract. Take your pick of terms depending on how fond you are of old books. Point is, that cub is tied to you.”
Eli looked at the creature in immediate disbelief. The cub stared back with the sort of unearned trust only very small animals and young children could manage.
“That,” Eli said carefully, “…was not intentional.”
“I figured.”
He went back behind the counter and folded his arms, “Name’s Garren, by the way. Garren Voss. Since you’ve brought a forest titan into my shop, that seems worth saying.”
Eli nodded once, still looking down at the cub, “Eli.”
Garren pointed at the Vellumyr with his chin, “You don’t know much about beastmasters, do you?”
“No.”
“Never met one?”
“Not knowingly.”
That made sense, apparently. Garren scratched at his beard and gave the cub another measured look, “Some folk can form contracts through ritual. Some through blood. Some through long training and deliberate imprinting. But a few creatures, especially the clever ones, will bind themselves in a moment of dependency if the conditions are right. Fear. Rescue. First imprint. That sort of thing.”
Eli looked down again, a slow memory clicking into place. The blanket. The crying. Picking the cub up. The little glow.
He had thought nothing of it at the time because there had been too many other things to think about, like not dying in a forest and whether he was making a mistake by dragging home some random beast baby.
“So I did that,” Eli said flatly.
“Yes.”
“By accident.”
“Best way to form most lifelong obligations. Ah you're young. He'll outlive you tenfold, naturally, anyways.”
Eli gave him a dry look, “Comforting.”
Garren leaned on the counter again, curiosity sharpening now, “Question is, where in the world did you even find a vellumyr cub?”
Eli reached into his bag and pulled out the other reason it had been so annoyingly heavy. A piece of horn, thick and jagged and longer than his forearm, pale stone-brown with dense veining through it. He set it on the counter with a heavy clunk, “It was all I could carry back.”
Garren stared at the horn too. Then his brows climbed, “That,” he said slowly, “is a graul horn,” he said as he looked from the horn, to the cub, to Eli, “What did you stumble into boy?”
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Just a day ago. No, less than that really. Eli accepted one of the guild’s smaller collection tasks to get mushrooms in a woodland basin. Easy money, but boring work. It was the kind of work Eli had been taking because boring was safer and safer kept the ten-year plan intact.
He had been out past the better-trod edges of the southern woods, gathering the last of the broad silver-cap mushrooms off a deadfall log, when he heard a rumbling close by.
It was definitely the sounds of battle, but not of men fighting. The hits were too heavy and the ground thumps were too violent. The trees shook as Eli went toward the noise because curiosity had started growing on his new self.
He moved quickly through the undergrowth, then climbed a leaning tree when the sound drew near enough to become dangerous. From there he saw it. The Thorneback Graul came first. It was massive, moss-hung, and singular horned.
The creature's back was layered in bark-like stone plates and hanging roots. Its front horn was thick as a battering ram and wet with fresh blood. It stood over a vellumyr adult, the horn through it, pinning it to the ground. It twitched weakly beneath the graul. Then the graul ripped its horn free from the vellumyr’s chest. The larger forest titan went still.
Even from up in the tree, Eli felt his stomach drop. He should have stayed there, watched the victor leave, and gathered his mushrooms, minding his business like a sensible adventurer. But then he heard it.
It was a small constant crying sound from the roots below the dead Vellumyr’s body. The Graul heard it too as its head turned back. And Eli, with the speed he had honed in his training with Sera, moved.
He dropped from the tree, blue blade already in hand. Eli hit the ground in a sprint, jumped and slashed across the great beast’s face, stealing its attention as he landed. The Graul bellowed and followed in his direction as Eli ran.
He was faster now than he used to be, lighter on his feet, and more used to moving through roots and brush at speed. He drew the monster after him in tight angles between trees, darting across the beast's front, Eli circled, cutting across the graul's flesh where he could. The beast tried to stomp him flat twice and nearly managed it both times. Each miss split the ground and sent damp earth spraying up around him.
Eli changed direction again and again until the graul’s turns became slower, sloppier, forced by its own size. Then he clipped the first hind tendon. Then the second. Then one in front. Then the last. The cuts weren't deep enough to sever the legs entirely, but enough to steal its balance.
The graul’s next lunge failed as it collapsed under its own weight. It hit the earth hard. Eli did not give it time to recover. He ran up the sloped side of a root mound, pushed off, and drove the blue blade down through the seam where bark-plate met softer flesh beneath. Magic flared. Blue fire raced the edge.
Eli cleaved the beast in two with one forceful downward strike. Eli stood there staring at the carcass, surprising even himself as this was the biggest creature he's ever fought. He looked back towards the wrecked forest path the graul had made to the dead vellumyr adult, and the little shivering shape half-hidden in roots and leaf litter.
The cub was still crying as Eli approached. It had not been hurt. Only terrified. The larger one had been protecting it. Its parent, gone before them.
Eli remembered crouching then, taking out the old travel blanket from his bag because the little thing was shaking too hard to approach bare-handed. He wrapped it carefully, murmuring nonsense more than comfort, and when he lifted it his hand brushed the critter's paw.
A small glow happened at that moment. Eli had noticed it, but had simply failed to understand it.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Garren was still staring at Eli over the counter, “Well?” the shopkeep questioned.
Eli looked down at the horn piece, then at the cub, “A graul, huh? It was going to attack the cub after slaying its parent.”
Garren was quiet for a moment, “You're saying you killed a thorneback graul?”
“It had already fought the adult, maybe slowed it down.”
“That does not make it any less a graul,” Garren said as his brows rose, still in shock. But after seeing what's on the counter with his own eyes, that was the detail he chose not to challenge first. He looked at the cub again, “Well. You formed a bond with this one. It's not fully sealed though.”
Eli was confused now, “Well, what does that mean?”
Garren pointed toward the vellumyr, “Right now, the bond’s there. Thin, but there. Enough that he recognizes you as his person. Enough that he’ll keep following you whether you mean him to or not.”
“That sounds… inconvenient.”
“For you? Probably. For him? It’s life or death.”
Eli’s eyes dropped to the cub, then Garren’s voice lost some of its dry edge, becoming more matter-of-fact than blunt, “If you take him back out there unsealed and leave him, chances are he dies. Too young. Too alone. And now he’s already imprinted to you.”
The cub, as if knowing exactly when pity would be most effective, slowly lifted his head and gave Eli the saddest expression any creature had ever weaponized. Huge wet eyes. Ears slightly lowered. Tiny little nose. The sort of look that had probably ended wars.
Eli stared at him, “I will not be manipulated,” he said quietly as the cub blinked. Eli looked back at Garren, scratched at his hair, and let out a sigh, “How… do I seal it?”
Garren nodded once, as if he had expected the question from the second Eli set the animal down, “Simple. In theory. You infuse your mana into the existing bond. Feed the seal. Stabilize it.”
“That’s the explanation old men give when they want to sound useful but not specific.”
Garren grunted, unimpressed, then reached carefully and lifted one of the cub’s front paws. There, faint and almost invisible beneath the fur, sat the start of a mark. Not fully formed. More like a pattern trying to become one.
“Touch here,” Garren said.
Eli reached forward. The moment his fingers made contact, the mark flared blue. Magic pulled out of him in a sharp clean rush, not enough to hurt, but enough to make his knees feel weak for a second like someone had reached into his chest and stolen magic right from the source. Heat flashed across his right wrist.
Eli winced and jerked his hand back.
On the inside of his wrist, a black sigil had appeared like fresh ink under skin. Sharp lines. Dragon-like curves. A shape that looked almost like a crest or brand until the faint blue glow ran through it once and settled back into darkness.
The same symbol, smaller, now sat on the cub’s little paw. The vellumyr looked down at it, sneezed once, then licked his foot.
Garren leaned in close, studying the mark on Eli’s wrist with clear interest, “Well now. That is unique.”
Eli turned his hand over, staring at it, “That's interesting.”
“Indeed. That’s why I’m looking at it,” said the sshopkeepas he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Seen stranger sigils, honestly. Some children get attached to stories. Stars. monsters. dragons. Gods know what else.”
That word almost pulled a reaction out of Eli, but he held it down. Then he heard a voice. A young boy’s voice. Soft, confused, and very close.
“What was that? What did you do?”
Eli’s head snapped up. The cub stared back at him from the counter. Eli stared, “You… can talk?”
Garren’s eyes lit with immediate satisfaction, “Ah. There it is.”
Eli looked at him sharply, “You heard him too?”
“No.” Garren shook his head, “But you did. Which means you’re not only someone who can make a familiar. You’re a true Beastmaster. Plenty of folk can force or form contracts. Not many can hear the creature once it settles.”
Eli looked back down at the cub. The cub looked up at him and tilted his head.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Eli said automatically.
Garren folded his arms on the counter and gave him a long, considering look, “You are some unique kid.”
Eli noticed that that was becoming a recurring opinion. He adjusted the strap of his bag, already half thinking he should leave before anything else magical attached itself to him by accident.
Then Garren cleared his throat, “You’re going to want to feed him.”
Eli paused.
“And probably name him.”
Eli sighed as the cub’s tail gave one hopeful little wag against the counter.
Eli stared at the shelves of fruit mash, dried root bits, and feed bundles, at the cub, and then back at Garren, “Which of these won’t kill him?”
“Hey, it's all quality goods here, but this basket will do,” Garren reached under the counter and produced a small bundle of soft fruits, root slices, and sweet bark strips tied together with twine, “Mild things. Easy on the stomach.”
Eli took it, grumbling under his breath as he parted with a few coins. Still, after all the help Garren had given him, keeping the creature alive seemed like the least Eli could do.
The cub sniffed the basket at once with obvious approval. Eli looked down at him, then thought for only a second, “Umyr,” he said as the cub looked up, “You look like an Umyr.”
The cub’s ears perked, “Umyr?”
“Yes. That’s your name now,” Eli stated as the little vellumyr's tail swished harder.
Garren smiled faintly from behind the counter, “Could’ve done worse.”
“I’m sure I still will.”
Eli tucked the basket under one arm, adjusted his bag with the other, putting the horn back as Umyr climbed his shoulder, and looked toward the door. There were still mushrooms to deliver, a job to finish, and coin to earn. Only now, he had picked up a familiar along the way.
Eli looked back at Garren, “Thanks.”
Garren gave a lazy wave, “Try not to bring anything bigger than that next time.”
Eli glanced at Umyr, then back at the shopkeep, “I’ll make no promises.”
With that, Eli and his new strange little companion headed back out into the bright southern street together as the door closed behind them.
12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKI6dSOesqe
and then Add to home screen.