#familiar pairings

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Emma’s familiar is a Fallen Streak named Katrin.  She initially chose it because it bothered Josep and having it tended to get her out of apprentice work.  Katrin, like most birds, is a very messy pet to have around, and on top of that, Katrin does really get along with Josep’s nekomata.  So if she wanted a day off, she would just bring the Fallen Streak to work with her. But that ended the day the aforementioned nekomata got hold of Katrin and managed to yank a few flight feathers before the bird could get away.  Emma immediately leapt to her pet’s rescue and managed to scoop Katrin up before any further damage was done.  She took the streak straight to Tilney for fixing up and just about spoiled Katrin while she recovered from her thankfully minor injuries.  Emma hadn’t realized she had grown so attached to the bird, but it became abundantly clear at this point.  Since then, she refuses to let Katrin anywhere near the workshop and keeps a close watch on her whenever there are any cats nearby.  At times, she can even be a bit overbearing, although nobody really blames her.  Katrin, for her part, takes care to stay out of reach of any cats and tries very hard to stay out of any trouble at all, usually preferring to perch on Emma’s horns or nestle between her shoulder blades when they are out and about.  And frankly, even if Emma had let her back in the workshop, she wouldn’t go.  She’d much prefer staying home in Emma’s rooms with some treats and wait for Emma to be done with work.

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Asa keeps a Wildwood Owl she calls Ingrid.  Her reasoning is really very simple.  She loves owls.  A lot.  She used to stay up late as a child just so she could go owl watching after dark.  It got her in a fair amount of trouble as a child, but she always thought it was worth it.  And having a Wildwood owl as a familiar, aside from making her utterly giddy over it, is useful for her line of work.  Asa spends a good amount of her time studying the lines and curves of the owl, the way its form mimics the trees it usually lives in.  She carefully sketches how everything flows and then works to reproduce that in her pieces.  Her style is little by little developing into something that similarly mimics the look and feel of the natural world.  Her pieces don’t seem to exist within a space, but rather grow out of it.  The Nature and Wind dragons in the clan particularly enjoy this element, as living underwater in a cave system does tend to take its toll when one is used to the outdoors.  Ingrid, for her part, seems rather oblivious to much of this, but she is a gentle enough creature as long as she is well-supplied with treats and head scritches.  Otherwise, as long as she can sleep and doesn’t get too terribly wet, she’s fine.

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 Josep’s familiar is an Anomalous Nekomata he calls Gautr.  His choice was pretty straightforward, as familiar selections go.  He loves cats, but he is unfortunately also allergic to them.  So while he enjoyed playing with the various cats his clan mates keep as familiars, he could never really have one around for very long.  When the clan managed to acquire their first nekomata, Josep immediately snapped him up.  Gautr didn’t even make it to the stables at all and went straight to Josep’s rooms.  If Josep is honest, he does sometimes find the single eye thing a little off-putting, but it’s only rarely, and he finds it a small price to pay.

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Vanessa’s familiar is an Duskthicket Bonepicker named Chrysalis.  Much like Hizaki, Vanessa chose her familiar for its looks and how well it coordinated with her own colors.  But unlike Hizaki, whose familiar took awhile to warm up to her, Vanessa seems to have earned Chrysalis’ affections pretty quickly, though nobody can seem to figure out how.  Chrysalis is a fiercely independent creature and doesn’t like very many dragons in the lair.  Tilney figures that Vanessa was simply inclined to let Chrysalis have her space and didn’t push the relationship too hard.  That and a careful application of treats and time spent outdoors is his best guess for what worked.  And he’s probably right in that opinion, though only Vanessa and Chrysalis know for sure.  And Vanessa likes the little bit of mystery this turn of events gives her character, so it’s unlikely she will be talking any time soon.

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It is difficult to say whether Benedick chose his Brilliant Psywurm, Claudio, on his own, or whether Tilney made the match for him.  Perhaps the truth is a bit of both.  Benedick wanted a useful familiar, but wasn’t entirely sure what would best suit him.  Tilney knew Benedick to be exceedingly clever and thought perhaps Benedick might be able to handle the Psywurm, which is no easy task.  Claudio, like all of his kind, has a photographic memory, and it can cause problems for caretakers.  Playtime has to change frequently because Claudio gets bored of the same routine, which he of course recalls in exacting detail.  And any tricks one might employ to administer medicine or coerce the Psywurm to a doctor pretty much only work once.  Games based on trickery also tend to fail after the first instance.  So Claudio’s owners must be prepared to be constantly devising new routines and patterns for him.  It’s no easy task. On the other hand, training Claudio is a breeze, as he learns and recalls commands very well.  And he is generally eager to please his caretakers.  Benedick has trained him to alert to dangerous situations.  If, for instance, they were being followed by a particular dragon or another aircraft, Claudio’s impeccable memory would usually mean he would notice it more readily than the dragon members of the crew.  He has been trained to alert Benedick of such details, so that Benedick can keep an eye on the situation.  Often, Claudio’s alerts turn out to be harmless.  Occasionally, they are not.  Claudio has saved the crew more than once in this way.  He keeps Benedick on his toes caring for him, but he rather earns his keep in the process, which is just what Benedick was hoping for.

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Eugloss has a Chalcedony Snipper named Orchid as his familiar.  He isn’t particularly interested in having a familiar at all, being much to occupied with his work and family to devote much thought to a pet.  But Kannon was worried that Eugloss would work himself to death if he didn’t take more time to relax, and conspired with Tilney to more or less force the Fae to adopt a familiar of some kind or other.  They basically hounded and harassed him about it until he relented, although he didn’t fail to point out that this was causing him more stress, not less. In the end, Eugloss looked for a pet that was clean, that didn’t shed, and that didn’t have much in the way of energy requirements, special diets, or attention from him.  A Chalcedony Snipper seemed to answer those requirements nicely, and thus came Orchid. To be honest, Eugloss is not a particularly good pet parent, even with Orchid needing very little special attention.  Eugloss could do more than he does to see to Orchid’s needs.  He is dismissive of the crayfish and restrictive of her movements, lest she disrupt his system or get in the way of his duties.  Orchid isn’t all that amazingly happy and would probably prefer going back to the stables and Tilney’s attentiveness.  But Eugloss does just enough in public that Tilney doesn’t see or suspect that.  And with Orchid unable to speak up for herself, she isn’t likely to rat Eugloss out any time soon.  Eugloss would send her back if he thought Tilney and Kannon would just foist another hapless creature on him, and so he keeps her largely out of a sense of self-preservation. Needless to say, having a pet isn’t helping him relax or destress, not that he felt he needed either to begin with.

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Beatrice’s familiar is a Cinder Mith she calls Hero.  Their relationship goes back to before Beatrice left the Ashfall Waste, and is mostly due to mutual interest.  Like many Cinder Miths, Hero is fascinated by metalworking and tools, and it is this interest which drew her to Beatrice.  Beatrice learned how to read maps and use navigation instruments mostly the hard way, by having a friend or family member drop her off in the middle of an unfamiliar place with some supplies, a map of the area, and some navigational tools like a compass and a sextant.  She would then have to find her way home using what she had before her supplies ran out.  It was a tough way to learn, but it worked well for her. On one of these outings, Beatrice dropped her sextant and damaged it slightly, not enough for it to be beyond hope, but enough for it to be nonfunctional at the time.  She wasn’t particularly skilled at fixing the thing, and thought she was in trouble.  She was sitting by herself thinking on what to do when Hero happened across her path.  The Mith saw the damaged sextant lying on the ground and was immediately intrigued.  She grabbed the instrument and began to fiddle with it.  Beatrice’s first instinct was to take the sextant away from the mith, afraid she would damage it further.  But she soon saw that the Mith was actually fixing it quite adeptly.  In no time at all, the sextant was fully functional again and Beatrice could be on her way again.  She thanked the mith and turned to leave, only to find the mith following her.  Beatrice tried a few times to shake her, but to no avail.  Hero was hers now, and they have been together ever since. Hero has taken it upon herself since that fateful meeting to become Beatrice’s own personal mechanical assistant.  She performs maintenance and repairs on Beatrice’s navigational tools and equipment and studiously guards them from anyone other than Beatrice that might try to use them.  They are Hero’s precious babies, and Beatrice alone is allowed access to them, despite them being Beatrice’s in the first place.  It’s charming, if annoying and occasionally disruptive to the successful functioning of the ship.

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Suou’s familiar is a Marshland Poodle Mith she calls Nioi.  Realistically, calling it her familiar might be just a bit generous.  Nioi just happened to be brought into the clan while Suou was performing, and was drawn to the light.  Instead of being led to the stables, she tried to find the source of the weird glow.  Tilney saw that he wouldn’t be able to drag the mith where she didn’t want to go, so he took her to see Suou dance.  The mith took an instant shine not only to the light or the performance but also to Suou herself, and refused to leave her side.  Suou didn’t seem to mind very much, though she didn’t seem to be particularly excited by it, either.  She just let the mith do as she pleased.  Tilney tried once to separate them, since he didn’t think Suou would take the best care of the mith, but it ended about as well as one might expect.  The mith didn’t do well without her beloved dragon friend, and she tried to escape whenever possible.  Tilney finally just decided to let her live with Suou and check up on her as much as possible.  Suou does care for the mith well enough, and Nioi doesn’t really require much in the way of specialized care, so Suou’s vague nature isn’t a terrible detriment to the mith.  They seem happy enough together, all things considered, and Tilney rather supposes that’s good enough.  As long as Nioi is cared for, he’s happy.