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Igni sat quietly on the windowsill of the girl's room, ears swerving around to listen to the beasts of the night that stayed close to the village. She was not scared to take the journal and leave一she was scared of what the girl already knew and would soon begin to know. But it was already too late for her, besides... Fenharrow had set that in stone the moment he gave her his cherished possessions.
She could see the likeness of his daughter in her, that was for certain. It could have been easy to mistake them as sisters if they shared the same brown eyes and height. Careful observations proved that the girl had green eyes, not brown, and was much taller than Fenharrow's daughter, despite all appearances. Igni could understand that Fenharrow was delusional in his last moments, and for all she knew, could have thought the girl一Lidya, was her name一was Adelina in the flesh. Or, she could be wrong, and he had known exactly what he was doing.
And she hated being wrong.
With a flick of her tail, she phased through the window, coming to a soft stop on a table set up just beside it. The wooden surface was littered with balled up bits of paper lined with her handwriting, stray smears of ink, pressed flowers, and sketches that did no justice to the subject, whoever it may have been.
The rest of the room was just as plain as Igni would expect of a commoner, though it did seem that Lidya had taken great pains to make it somewhat comfy. She spotted a piece of paper tacked to the wall with a nail and, carefully checking to see if the girl was still asleep, examined it.
Even in the dark, she could tell it was Fenharrow, with his matted hair and unkempt beard. It was not an extreme likeness, but the features were there, and she had also scribbled his name into a corner, along with a date.
"Interesting." Igni moved on to her closet, cringing at the wards that had been etched into the floor with the blood of the Vile Church priestesses. Lidya probably didn't even know they were there, let alone how potent they were to beasts and godlings alike. She could smell a scent on them, familiar, almost like... death.
Almost immediately, her ears went back and the hair on her spine began to rise. Whoever had made the wards had a very deep knowledge of the dark arts一the blood arts一and could very well be a threat to her if she was caught. There was no way of telling who had made them, however; blood magic was finicky and rarely showed what you wanted to see, especially for familiars, who were not good at it.
After a brief moment of thought, Igni backed away. It wouldn't do her any good to try and work her way through the barrier spell. All she needed was the journal and nothing more.
But despite her careful searching, she could not find it. She looked under the bed, between the mattress that she could phase through, even in the walls and floorboards. The only place she hadn't checked was the pillow under the girl's head, and that would surely wake her if she tried to move it. Phasing even more so, because it disturbed the human aura enough to cause a surge in anxiety.
She just couldn't win, could she?
"At this rate, I may as well go back to the Void and finish off the rest of my meal," she grumbled to herself. Igni stretched her legs out one at a time, curling her tail up when she got a nice pop out of her hind leg. "Much better."
The journal could wait, the she-cat decided. It wasn't like any of the other godlings knew Fenharrow kept a journal, except for Verona, and she knew when to keep her mouth shut when it was a serious situation. Lidya, the human girl, seemed trustworthy enough; she had hidden it pretty cleverly, and it was considered rude to touch a woman's things in her room without her express permission to do so. Did that extend to her mother and father, though? Igni wasn't sure.
When she returned to the Void, it was always like returning home from a long day at a particularly laborous job. She was no longer confined to the smaller, weaker husk that kept her energy sealed in the mortal world. In the Void, where all familiars were stronger, she was one of the elite, just below the Fallen一gods who had been torn from their titles and given the new one of indentured servant.
Igni was just as tall as a human building, if not more, and her fur was more vibrant, pockmarked with blues and reds and purples that indicated she was an Ascended Elite, a familiar who had rose from their original ranks to become a more powerful demon.
"Igni!" Bounding up to her with excited eyes was Vashte, one of her kin, her swirling, star vortex fur shining in the Void's absence of light. "You're back! Hurry, one of the little ones found a newly manifested familiar!"
The older she-cat's mouth pulled into an awkward frown. Her animal form wasn't made to work like humans, but it got her point across to Vashte, who seemed less excited and more worried, as she should be.
"What is its power level?" She inquired.
A newly manifested familiar was a vulnerable familiar. If anyone got close enough, they could devour the poor thing's soul and take their power, however small. It didn't help that Igni had been one of them, once upon a time, and she didn't like it when familiars were killed so violently.
No one knew how familiars manifested, but you could only guess at how they got there. Some suggested they were in the afterlife and repenting for their sins. Others were convinced that they were from another world, sent to this one through the Void to help right the balance.
Whichever one was the truth, familiars needed protection, and Igni was going to offer it.
"I'm not sure," Vashte admitted. Her ears flicked back to listen to something she couldn't see. "It's all muddled and tangled, like someone deliberately mutilated its pure ties to magic and replaced them with something... lesser?"
"So it's a potential Elite, then, with its power sabotaged?" Igni replied. If so, that was a very bad problem for the familiar. "We should hurry."
Vashte nodded her agreement and led the other familiar down a dark, cragged path. Between each crack grew the Void Flowers, a black flower with white centers that fueled their energy. They seemed to sway, greeting them as they passed by.
Igni concluded that they were close when Pashen, the only good hearted Fallen she had ever seen, greeted them solemnly. Pashen retained a mostly human form, but with the wicked horns caging her face like a mask, it was ruined. The red bone never seemed to stop growing, so she routinely hacked them off with a sword just to keep them from gouging her eyes out.
"Igni," Pashen sighed in relief. She brushed her long black hair back, struggling to weave it out from the horns. "I feel so bad for the little thing. It can't even speak, let alone manage anything coherent."
"Ah." Igni butted her head against Pashen's forearm in comfort. "Don't worry. We'll keep it safe."
"There it is," Vashte cooed suddenly. From behind a large black rock, a pale head peeked out, followed by very large, ink black eyes that looked like they were filled with stars and galaxies. "Come here, little one, it's safe here with us."
Igni flicked her tail. Even a blind bat could tell that the poor thing was scared, perhaps shy as well. It was also tiny, barely the size of a newborn human infant, and had arms longer than it did legs. In human terms, it was cute, in an ugly sort of way.
"I don't think it wants to, Vashte," Pashen hummed. "It's a little scared right now."
The more time that passed, the bolder the little thing got, and the more Igni could see its features. It had skeletal cheeks and a gaping hole for a mouth, but no teeth. She could see it moving its mouth thoughtfully, opening and closing it, but its eyes remained fixated on them.
"It reminds me of a human baby," Vashte piped up. "Kind of skittish, naive, and a little bit shy."
"I have to agree." Igni had seen plenty of human babies in her long life, and they acted just like this familiar did, or at least similairly. "I don't believe anyone will take it as a familiar, though."
"I don't, either," Pashen sighed. The little thing inched a little more out into the open, exposing a skeletal chest and ribcage. "But we can't just leave it here to rot. Look at it. It's too cute to leave all alone."
All three familiars watched in silence as the skeletal being eventually gathered enough courage to come out from behind the rock. But when it did, it was as fast as lightning, darting behind Igni's large paw and glancing around with its huge eyes.
"Well," Pashen blinked. "That was certainly... different."
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