ren was once a powerful witch who’s been cursed to be a wolf and can only become human on full moons and he’ll never have a familiar and witch bond with martyn but what they have is close in parrot coven au btw. if you even care.
[This post contains a semi-brief and comprehensive breakdown of the Witch & Familiar AU I've been brainstorming, mostly centered around Traffic Life but also incorporating references and nods to Hermitcraft, Empires, and Evo. It all spawned from something Martyn said in Double Life about "not being versed in black magic, only white magic". Hence this AU. Not everything is set in stone but I really love what I've come up with so far! Feel free to put forward other ideas or even write your own one shots with this universe in mind, just be sure to credit me if you do!]
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Martyn is a witch, though he predominately uses white magic. Ren is a wolf familiar, and he's been unbound for a long time, though he does run a shop for enchanting and witchcraft necessities, and he helps Doc with things once in a while. (Doc isn't a witch himself, but familiars have limited magical abilities of their own.) Martyn found Ren a few years ago by sheer chance. When they first met Ren was in his wolf form and heavily injured, near death thanks to the actions of a dark witch who attempted to sacrifice him for the sake of a spell. Martyn coming across the altar was insane luck, and the fact that his magic and Ren's matched almost perfectly was even luckier. Martyn saved his life and it wasn't that long afterward that they bound their magic together. (At some point Martyn started up the Southlands Coven for a while to get some help on an experimental project, alongside a witch named Impulse and a scientist named Mumbo. Mumbo seems human, but Martyn's fairly sure he isn't. Ren was gone for a while during this time so Martyn reached out to a few old Familiar friends, Grian and Jimmy, to help them out on the magic front. The result was a magic-based healing crystal, though when Mumbo accidentally discovered that they were also extremely volatile and blew up half the coven base, the project was abandoned and the Southlands disbanded.)
[Witch/Familiar bonds are powerful and very difficult to reverse. If a witch and a familiar choose to bond it's a bit like a marriage, though not every pairing ends up being romantic. It can be more familial or something akin to platonic soulmates; it's up to the pair in question how they choose to shape their relationship.
Magic bonds are kind of like the Double Life soulbonds, but (1) they're by choice, and (2) when one gets injured, the other only feels the pain but doesn't sustain an actual injury. They share magic more freely than unbound pairs and the resulting spells are far more powerful. Unbound pairs CAN share magic, it just takes more effort and isn't as reliable. I could go into more detail about how magic works in this AU but I'll save that for another day.]
Grian and Scar have a complicated history. Grian's a parrot familiar, and he figured out fairly quickly that he and Scar had near-perfect magical compatibility not long after they met. They were sharing magic by accident without even being bound, something that only happens when a witch and familiar are incredibly compatible, but Scar was a bit oblivious about it for days before Grian finally shoved it right in his face. They aren't bound yet. They almost were, in the past, but after an accident in which Grian, desperate to save Scar's life, drained them both of almost all their magic, Grian panicked a bit over how important Scar had become to him. He ended up taking some time away and working with the Southlands Coven alongside his brother Jimmy, helping with the project they were working on until the coven dissolved later on. Grian and Scar are working together again now, but Grian is endlessly wary about working any powerful spells and even warier to forge a bond with the thought of possibly losing Scar looming over his shoulder. (Scar also calls himself a Wizard, something which both amuses and exasperates Grian to no end.)
Etho and Bdubs were bound, at one point. They actually had a strong magical bond, stronger than most, and they were fiercely protective of each other. (Bdubs might be a phantom or bat familiar? Not sure...still working on this. Ideas welcome.) They used to hunt down dangerous creatures for bounties and for rare potion ingredients, part of a team alongside Tango and Skizz, neither of whom were witches themselves. (Tango is a nether/blaze hybrid and he has fire magic, but hybrids like him aren't exactly capable of having witch abilities so he's never even bothered to try other spellcasting. Skizz has tried but he's completely magicless.) Like I said, Etho and Bdubs were bound...but Etho is a powerful witch and tends to be a bit reckless and experimental with his magic. He's sampled dark spells before. Combined with the insanely strong bond he had with Bdubs, it spelled trouble. A few spells went wrong, one of them backfiring and making Bdubs go dark and attack Tango, and another summoning a demonic creature called a Wither in the middle of their home. The backlash from defeating the Wither broke their bond, and while they did entertain the idea of reforging it, they both decided maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to try and find other bounds for now. They're still close friends and quite loyal to each other.
Etho ended up finding and befriending a dog(?) familiar named Joel, who he found out was already married to another familiar named Lizzie. (Lizzie is either some kind of mer-familiar, which is rare, or something feline. Up for debate on this one.) Etho and Joel are contemplating forging a bond at the moment, though they haven't quite decided yet. They're both prone to chaos and magical experimentation, though because they bond is slightly weaker than what Etho had with Bdubs, Etho's not quite as worried about what might happen if they were bound.
Bdubs knew Impulse long before he and Etho were even bound, though at the time Impulse (a witch) hadn't been interested in bonding with a familiar. He would often bounce between familiars for help, paying them to help with a few spells now and again, but none ended in lasting partnerships of any kind. (It was during this time that he joined the Southlands Coven to assist Martyn with his healing experiment.) When Bdubs' bond with Etho broke, Impulse reached out to Bdubs to ask for help with something, and they found that their magic aligned really well. They were highly compatible, and while Bdubs was hesitant to bond with someone else so soon after Etho, he and Etho talked it out and Etho expressed that he didn't mind. (Not entirely true, he missed the old bond, but he knew someone else would be better for Bdubs to bond with, and he knew that Impulse was a quality guy. Impulse wouldn't abuse the bond the way some less friendly witches might.) Bdubs and Impulse are only recently bound, and they've got a proclivity for nature spells, something Etho never really cared about but which Bdubs has always had a natural affinity for.
Now, Scott and Cleo...and Jimmy. This one's an interesting story. Cleo is a snake familiar and Jimmy is a canary. (Jimmy and Grian are brothers, both from a family of avian familiars, and Grian tends to be a bit protective of his younger brother...though we'll touch on that later.) Cleo was Scott's first bound familiar. Scott's family tends to walk the line between light and dark magic, meaning he's got a proclivity for both...but instead of staying gray, his twin brother Xornoth went fully dark. He was corrupted by the dark magic that he was delving into. There was a massive conflict that arose between the twins, a fight, and Cleo was killed in the fallout. A broken bond between two living people is a little painful, but it can heal. A broken bond caused by the death of one half of the pair? That leaves a scar. That's intertwined magic torn apart abruptly and it leaves an ache, a void. So Scott, in his desperation to fill that void, turned to necromancy. It wasn't a far leap, seeing as his bloodline already dabbled in certain dark magics, but necromancy is the kind of thing that takes power. So Scott sought out a new temporary familiar to help with his endeavors...and found Jimmy. Jimmy, who was rooted so firmly in light magic that he could act as an anchor to keep Scott from getting corrupted like his brother. Now, Jimmy knew going in what he was signing up for...a temporary bond that would be broken later. (Grian warned him that it was a terrible idea, but Jimmy had seen the pain in Scott's eyes and couldn't turn him down when he asked for help. Jimmy had lost Grian before, even if it wasn't by death, and he couldn't imagine what losing a bound felt like.) No, Jimmy knew what he was getting himself into. What he hadn't anticipated was for him and Scott to gain romantic feelings for each other. To start a relationship. A magical bond is a commitment already, so teasingly calling each other "husband" came naturally. And even if they were both working toward reviving Scott's lost bound, it was nice to have each other in the meantime.
At some point, Scott hired another witch, Pearl, to help them both. Pearl's lineage was predisposed to darker magic, even if she didn't enjoy it, and she wanted to try and use her family's curse for good. So between the three of them they managed to bring Cleo back to life...mostly. She wasn't quite as alive as she had been before, but she was still living, and that was what mattered. Of course, with Cleo being back, that meant Scott and Jimmy had to break their bond, per the agreement...but Jimmy was reluctant to reverse it. He knew what he had promised, but...he had come to love his witch, even if Scott would never really be "his". They did end up breaking the bond, and Scott promised him they could still be together romantically because Scott and Cleo's bond was a familial one more than anything else. That didn't make it hurt less.
Jimmy and Scott ended up parting ways on melancholy terms later on, and Pearl was unintentionally shunned by the now-bonded Scott and Cleo not long after. It wasn't her fault that her family's magic was a bit corrupted, but it still affected the spellcasting of those near her, which made for not-so-great results when Scott attempted to do even basic magic. So Pearl left.
(It was later on that Martyn and Ren introduced Pearl to a dog familiar named Tilly who Pearl had remarkable compatibility with. Once bonded, Tilly was able to reign in the darkness in Pearl's magic, something nobody else had been capable of doing before. Grian had tried, once, as they had been childhood friends and were briefly bonded years ago, but they just hadn't been compatible enough for him to help.)
Bdubs and Cleo were close prior to her initial death. They studied magic together alongside Cleo's close friend, Joe. (A witch who dabbled in strange and archaic magics.) When Cleo died Bdubs wanted nothing more than to blame Scott for it all, but all it took was seeing how absolutely torn up and heartbroken and pained Scott was over the whole thing to change his mind. It was Scott's brother who was to blame, not Scott, and Scott had already defeated Xornoth by the time Bdubs had even heard of Cleo's death. It still hurt to see Scott for a long while after, but he didn't blame him...and when Scott managed to use necromancy to revive Cleo, Bdubs was torn between being grateful and overjoyed at having his friend back and being a bit horrified by what Scott had had to do to accomplish that feat.
Jimmy met Tango at some point after leaving Scott, and at some point after Team BEST had broken apart. (It was also during that time that Jimmy and Grian joined the Southlands Coven, with both brothers having left their respective witches for different reasons and needing a reprieve and some family time together.) When he first met Jimmy, Tango had been on a hunt, still making money as a hunter seeing as he specialized in wrangling strong magical creatures. Jimmy, in a foolish move, had gone into a nearby forest to hunt down some potion ingredients alone, and had gotten cornered by a Ravager. He had panicked, been attacked, had injured his wing, and he'd been sure he wouldn't make it out alive - but then Tango jumped in out of nowhere. He managed to calm the Ravager and send it away before turning to Jimmy in a panic, babbling apologies about letting his Ravager get loose when he wasn't paying attention. It didn't take much to figure out Jimmy was a familiar, and he was quick to bring Jimmy back to his temporary shelter to help him heal in any way he could. It was Jimmy who recognized how compatible their magic was, and Jimmy who commented on it, only for Tango to scoff and stare at him incredulously because - well he was a nether hybrid, wasn't he? He couldn't be a witch.
Except, of course, he was one, he had just never bothered to wonder if it was possible. Impulse was a witch, but their friend Zed wasn't, and Tango had always sat somewhere in between, with nether flames at his core and a proclivity for engineering keeping his hands busy. Perhaps it was Tango's nether origins that stopped Impulse from even realizing the magical potential his friend possessed. It wasn't until he met Jimmy that Tango even realized what he could do, and after that it was a bit of a crash course in magic that led to Jimmy helping Tango use his untapped power to heal Jimmy's wing. They forged a bond by complete accident, something that Jimmy apologized for profusely, but Tango was too thrilled by the entire situation to really mind. Besides, they got along like a house on fire. In his opinion it felt a bit like fate that they'd found each other.
(And then Tango figured out Jimmy was Grian's brother, and, oh, he was sure he'd be on the receiving end of a shovel talk at some point in the future.)
[And for a little more backstory]
Grian and Jimmy grew up in a place called Evolution, where they met and befriended Martyn and Pearl and Big B. (Big B isn't a witch or a familiar, just a very good friend.) At one point Martyn and Jimmy had thought they might end up bound to each other with how well they got on, but it just never ended up happening. And when they were older they both met people who had even greater compatibility with their magic, so it wasn't like either of them complained. Grian and Pearl though - well. Pearl was as good as a sister to Grian growing up, though most folks in town warned off getting too close to her. Her lineage held stories of dark magic, cursed magic, of magic gained by demon deals and sacrifices. None of it was Pearl's fault, of course, probably someone two or three generations back in her ancestry - but it didn't make her any less "cursed". Grian didn't care. They were bound when they were young, just for a little while, but Grian never managed to help her tame the dark magic in her veins.
When they were in their teens, a dark coven known as the Watchers descended upon their town in search of powerful magic users, powerful witches of course, but more importantly powerful familiars. A smaller coven known as the Listeners came in to discreetly evacuate any magical in the vicinity, but they didn't manage to get there before Grian was taken by the Watchers. Grian, of course, wasn't one to just submit to the whims of assholes like the Watchers, so he made every second of his captivity as difficult for his captors as possible. It took him almost a year to escape, and when he did the only reason they didn't manage to track him down again was thanks to a nonmagical person who came across him, injured and exhausted in the woods...Mumbo. Mumbo was part of a mostly-magical community who called themselves Hermits, a mix of hybrids and witches and familiars and ordinary humans who had come together, in the beginning, out of a need for safety. Now they're more like a family. Their founder, Xisuma, was a powerful but unknown white witch who tended to take in anyone who needed help. It wasn't a coven, he insisted, just a shelter...and it offered Grian the safety and protection he needed to get back on his feet and find Jimmy and Pearl and Martyn again.
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[I'm not entirely sure on the familiar forms for Joel and Lizzie and Bdubs. I picked canine for Joel because of the army of dogs in Third Life, but that can be changed if someone has a better idea! Lizzie' is up for debate, as is Bdubs. I don't think I want him to be a glare, hence phantom or bat, but I'm open to other options too. I thought about an owl briefly. All I know is I want it to be smaller because of the height gag lol.]
Martyn saying he’s “not versed in black magic, only white magic” leads me to the conclusion that he is versed in magic, period. He and Ren do a whole magic chant around a fire to summon Pearl, they’re both going on about demons - they talk about “curses upon the server”. And of course my writer brain took hold.
So, for Trafficblr’s approval, I present to you:
Witch!Martyn and WolfFamiliar!Ren
And if you think I haven’t also brainstormed how everyone else in Traffic Life would fit into this in a witches-and-familiars AU, you’d be dead wrong. If y’all are interested I might just dump a little bit of AU lore for folks to nibble on…
