Hearth Cat and Winter Wren
Okay, so I randomly found a dragonlance novel in an old book store with a collection of short stories.
One of which describes a small adventure the original companions had before the war of the lance when they were still in Solace.
And ppl, it's adorable so i'm gonna do a summary and share the good bits here. (Spoilers. Obviously)
We're starting out with a squirrel having a conversation with a cat. The squirrel is distraught because it's caged, afraid of the cat, and hardly fed. It is having strange dreams, though. And squirrel are not supposed to have dreams.
Cut to the Flint. He is in his house, carving, surrounded by some of his young companions and trying hard not to show that he's worried for Tasslehoff. Because he's run off after a 'talking wren' some days ago.
Back to the squirrel and the cat. The cat reveals that it hasn't always been a cat and suspects the squirrel hasn't always been a squirrel either.
To everyone's surprise, a talking wren does indeed turn up in Solace. She tells Sturm and the others that she was turned by a mage, along with a man called Petyr who got turned into a cat. And a kender who became a squirrel. They decide to hurry to their rescue. Raistlin has a plan.
So, (never mind that he shouldn't hold such power yet. He hasn't even taken the test at this point.) Raistlin turns Flint into a shepherd dog, Sturm into a falcon, Caramon into a panther, and Tanis into a fox.
They infiltrate the mage's house, overpower him and force him to turn back bird, cat, and squirrel. Raistlin deals with the mage.
And afterwards, companions and the two rescued people gather in Flint's house again and he gives Wren his carving.
Adorable, right?
The story was written by Nancy Varian Berberick and published in this book:
