Fantasy Unfamiliar w/Purity [CLOSED]

[Fable]

Sasaki Mitsuki

Today was the day. Graduation. Well, almost! There was one last task all graduating students of Eitoku Academy for the Gifted had to complete successfully; summoning their first familiar. Everyone was eager to see what familiar they would summon. It was a bit like a magical popularity contest since only the more powerful would get the more impressive familiars. Students were already trying to guess what type of familiar they would summon and bind. Some of the students - at least to Mitsuki - were a bit too hopeful.

Mitsuki was realistic about what she expected to summon. She was never the top of the class nor was the lowest. She was just your average witch and did not ever expect or even dream of surpassing that. Being at the top was nothing but trouble! It attracted way too much attention too! High expectations to never fail!

No. That was too much pressure for her. Mitsuko was content being considered as just 'average.'

What did the average witch or wizard summon as a familiar? On the better end of this spectrum were larger animals like a serval and on the lower end your average housecat. Mitsuki was hoping for something like a sable or ferret, and on the larger end a wolf would be interesting. She wasn't too keen on reptiles so as long as she avoided that things would be fine.

The bells chimed and the graduating students were directed to the large outdoor theatre which had a heavy resemblance to a Roman theatre in structure. There were only so many ways stone could be carved into a theatre. It was the only place large and open enough for the summoning rituals to be completed. This ceremony had been going on for days since it took time for a summoning ritual to be cast and there were only so many hours in the day available to host such an event.

Today was the last day and Mitsuki was finally going to summon her very own familiar! It was hard not to be excited! The area was just buzzing with energy!

The names of students were called down to do their summoning ritual. Many had common familiars appear; birds, dogs, cats, reptiles, and so forth. There were some powerful familiars and some weak ones. One male student only managed to summon a slug! At least it wasn't a leech. Ugh! A female student, the one right before Mitsuki's turn summoned a beautiful red-crowned crane.

Now it was Mitsuki's turn. She took a deep breath before she calmly walked down the stairs to the open stone floor of the open air theatre. All eyes were on her as the attending faculty washed off the chalk marks of the last student's summoning ritual. After they made sure everything was clean and ready she was given a large piece of white chalk secured a long stick for ease and directed to complete the ceremony.

She set to work, using the chalk to draw out a specific summoning circle she had selected. There weren't many different types of summoning circles, but the more complex ones offered a greater chance of a better familiar. Mitsuki had paled when she saw that diagram and decided to go with one a little less intimidating. It took a good twenty minutes to get the large circle completed and double checked to make sure there weren't any mistakes.

After a nod to herself that everything was good to go she stepped out of the circle to the northern-most edge and began the ritual chant to summon her familiar. Her eyes were closed and her face was relaxed. She had no say in what familiar would answer her summoning and so she did her best not to stress about it. As the chant progressed the drawn lines began to glow and charge with energy before opening a void in space and time to allow a familiar to cross over into the mortal world.

The energy of the spell released a pulse as a familiar appeared and Mitsuki quickly followed through with the closing chant and in the next moment the void was gone and all that was left was a smoking magical ring with a summoned familiar in the middle. Mitsuki hesitated for a split second before she opened her eyes - much like one with the mentality to just jump into a cold swimming pool or ripping off a bandaid - and stared at her familiar.

Everyone was struck silent and some jaws dropped. What the hell had she just summoned?!

( Purity And here it is! )

 

[Purity]

The spirit world where most familiars resided, even before they were called as such, was a rather odd place. For the most part a mirror of the physical plane that it coexisted with, depending on which part you were walking along certain colors could become too bright, leaping off the surface of your surroundings as if they were alive. Other parts were completely washed out and melancholy in a muted monotony, faded colors bordering on the side of gray. The sky never seemed to perfectly match up with the day and night either, doing whatever it felt like even as time tried to push it along. But if a human were to visit the place, which was obviously not commonplace, the eeriest thing they’d find was how similar it was to the world they called their home.

A lone boy was sitting on top of a hill in a park, cross-legged and looking up at the sky which was several vibrant shades of a navy blue with hints of orange threatening to creep in on the sides from the setting sun concealed by the clouds. This particular part of the spirit world seemed to be perfectly normal, save for the fact that there wasn’t a single other living thing in sight despite the park being situated amidst the towering skyscrapers of Japan.

He breathed heavily and looked at his hand. A circular seal was drawn there on his palm, glowing a soft yellow that left twinkling particles in the air whenever he moved his hand like fairy dust. A punishment for failing to be a faithful familiar. He’d been summoned twice before, a witch and then a wizard, each of them deemed “worthy” by fate or whatever else this system worked with to assign familiars. Each time he hadn’t bothered going through the portal. He didn’t really have a burning desire to visit the physical world for a long, long time, but the next time he was summoned he wouldn’t have a choice.

“Shika, please don’t try to resist this time. It took a lot of convincing on my part to keep the council from letting you off this lightly.”

Shika sighed and turned to his right, where an older girl with black hair had appeared out of nowhere and was now sitting. At least, it looked as if it were supposed to be black hair until a light breeze picked up strands of it. Light refracted through the flow of her hair like a prism, scattering the spectrum and casting a myriad of colors around them.

Nijime had been a familiar longer than he’d been, considering that she was a natural familiar. Much longer, in fact, enough to have a certain amount of influence amongst other familiars. Due to her experience and age, she didn’t often get summoned to the mortal world save for when she was being summoned for specific spells or rituals. To summon her as a familiar was an impressive feat in and of itself.

A hint towards her spirit form, a slender black cat’s tail waved in the wind behind her, though it was curling and moving from side to side as Shika knew it often did when she was anxious.

She’d been his guide when entering the spirit world, and she’d done her best to act almost as an older sibling for him. For the longest time, he’d done his best to shut her out, shut everything else out, but over time he’d relented to the care she was trying to give him. Not that he always listened to what she had to say, of course.

He actually didn’t even know why he was a powerful familiar, save for what Nijime and others had told him and what he’d pretended to understand. Perhaps he’d let it get to his head slightly, but at least it had made for an excellent excuse on why he hadn’t responded to certain calls from potential masters.

“Look, Nijime, I know that you’re worried about me, but…”

Shika faltered as the seal on his hand glowed brighter, causing him to squint a bit as he looked down again. Well, it seemed like this time, he really didn’t have the choice. He could already feel the world turning, his vision blurring at the edges.

Nijime gave him a soft smile.

“Just try to go along with it, you know? Make a friend. Don’t think of them as your master.”

Shika rolled his eyes and was about to mention he’d only heard that about a thousand times from her when suddenly the seal sputtered, and rapidly spun as it expanded off his hand to rotate around him. He’d never seen this particular seal before, but he was pretty certain this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“What the-“

Nijime reached out worriedly and called his name, but that was the last thing he heard before everything was engulfed in a smokey cloud.

-------

The temperature dropped several degrees in the stadium as a very large white deer stepped forward, bathed in a pale frosty-blue aura and a light snowfall swirling around it. Wind swirled in tendrils off of where its hooves made contact with the ground, ice snaking across the ground in intricate snowflake patterns as it continued to walk forward. And yet, despite its rather impressive entrance and stature, the deer’s glowing blue eyes seemed hesitant, of all things.

Its gaze slowly swept across the room, taking into account the gathered witches and wizards alongside all of their recently summoned familiars. As Nijime had explained to him once, Shika recognized this as a graduation ceremony for a special school which catered towards the witches and wizards of society.

Finally, his eyes found the girl, older than him and almost matching Nijime’s age appearance-wise, looking up at him with surprise evident on her face.

Wait…

The reason his attention hadn't turned to hers first was because he'd been looking for someone with a strong magical presence. But the girl (which he noticed was holding summoning chalk in her hand) had almost no magical presence, and frankly appeared to be rather... ordinary.

It was a really good thing that he couldn’t speak out loud in this form, because he had some very choice profanities for this situation.

How in the hell did she summon me?!

 

[Fable]

Sasaki Mitsuki

The silence soon ended and loud chatting from everyone in the area burst forth like a soundwave. To Mitsuki it was all just a blur or noise as her focus wasn't on what was being said around her, but rather the entity she had summoned. Her mind was a typhoon of thoughts. Has she messed up the summoning? No. Something had been summoned. And this something did not look happy.

This was bad?

It was a question because like hell Mitsuki knew if this was good or bad right now! She'd expected something small and cute! Not a powerful deer familiar! Had someone tampered with her ritual?! T-That had to be the answer, right? But, cheating during a summoning ritual was nearly impossible. It was something Mitsuki would never be able to pull off; ever. What if someone was trying to get her into trouble? She didn't think she had pissed anyone off so much they'd pull a stunt like this.

While she was absorbed in her whirlwind of thoughts the faculty had finished whispering to each other and enacted their plan. One of the teachers approached Mitsuki and placed a hand on her shoulder, pulling her focus back to the reality of the moment. "We need to progress so the other students can do their summoning ritual." All Mitsuki could do was nod dumbly and be led away and her magic circle would soon be erased, but not before one of the other teachers pulled out their phone and snapped a few pictures to document it.

That probably wasn't a good sign.

A different teacher cautiously approached the newly summoned familiar and cautiously cleared his throat before asking it to follow Mitsuki. Only after the familiar was clear of the circle did the cleansing process being so the next student could go. It was enough to pull most of the attention away from Mitsuki. They weren't really led far away from the area, just to a more private spot away from curious glances and perked ears.

"Well, this is... a shock," the teacher began, a worried glance looking over Mitsuki. "Very unexpected."

"No shit," Mitsuki muttered out before slapping a hand over her mouth and cringing as her teacher gave her a stern look.

"We have to wait for the headmaster to arrive to investigate this matter. Make sure nothing was tampered with to cause such a result."

( Purity Sorry it's short ;-; )

 

[Purity]

Shika had… ah… a couple options here. But for some reason, he couldn’t think of anything not involving freezing someone in a solid block of ice. And for some reason, he imagined that Nijime wouldn’t like that.

So he didn’t really have a choice but do as the adult that approached him asked him to do and follow the girl out of the summoning area. Just from that request alone, he knew that he wasn’t mistaken. As far as he could tell, pale-haired student that seemed just as confused and nervous as everyone else around him was, in fact, the person who’d summoned him.

After telling Mitsuki something, and a bit of waiting, one of the teachers looked at his watch and motioned them further away from the theatre, out through the vomitorium.

He noticed a teacher waiting in the back wings as they exited the theatre, who stared at him with a comically open-mouth dumbfounded expression as they passed by, carrying several papers. Assuming this was one of the standard witch schools that he’d been educated about in the spirit realm, after summoning the student would pass through here and accept their formal papers designating them as a witch, alongside something to officialize their contract with their new familiar. So, those papers would have a name for his new master, among other things.

He veered off the path they were going on and careened his large head over to read them, scaring the teacher holding them into nearly dropping them. Higher scores in some areas, lower scores in some classes, middling scores across the board… he wasn’t wrong in his earlier assessment. “Mitsuki”, as it had her name, wasn’t anything spectacular, at least as far as achievements went in school.

Shika was so engrossed in reading through the details on Mitsuki’s papers that he didn’t realize that the teacher, a woman who was perhaps in her mid to late twenties, had gotten over her apprehension of him and was stroking the soft fur on the area above his nose. He snorted in annoyance, causing a light frost to settle over her hand, and went back to following wherever they were taking him and his… master.

They finally ended up at another room. They motioned for Mitsuki to sit down on one of the plush chairs in the room and told her to wait while they discussed something, and after a bit of puzzled deliberation cleared some chairs to make space for Shika to lay down or something. At least they were treating him with some respect, bowing and using higher honorifics, though it felt a bit awkward to be receiving it. Then they left the room.

Instead of laying down, he looked around the room. In stark contrast to the Romanesque architecture of the theatre, this resembled more like the waiting room of a modern office, something you might see at a dentist’s or doctor’s. There weren’t any pictures, but the place was aptly furnished with a coffee table and some shelves with odd-looking plants on them. There was even a water cooler in one corner.

It was just as well. He was feeling slightly thirsty. Shika padded his way over to it, knocking over a couple chairs in the process, and attempted to pick up one of the paper cups with his teeth. It turned out to be a lot trickier than he imagined, since he kept going through the flimsy rim on the cups and only ended up with paper in his mouth, not a cup. Eventually he gave up and tried to just press the water cooler button with his nose, fully intent on drinking from the stream, before realizing that he’d stood near it for too long and the plastic gallon of water had completely frozen over. He stared at it for a second, then kicked the side of the machine with a foreleg in frustration. The fragile plastic crumpled inwards.