I sit down on the cold ground, favoring the relative comfort of the position compared to the crouch I had previously adopted. A small smile slips onto my lips. I continue to scratch behind her ears, giving the female feline my full focus. She continues to purr like a heavy thunderstorm, clearly enjoying the attention.

  “Cats make everything better.”

  “Of course we do! We are Father Gaio’s favored children, after all. Now stop getting distracted, human! Rub my belly!”

  She flops onto her side, rolling over until her stomach is displayed, her little back legs stretched as far as they can be, and her front paws curled below her chin. She looks so adorable that an unbidden “aww” escapes my mouth, before I realize the implications of what she just said.

  “You can read my mind?!”

  I’m filled with surprise at the revelation, but continue to do as I’m told. As soon as I touch the proffered petting place, however, pain lances through my hand as her teeth and front claws latch onto it, with her back paws kicking furiously.

  “Ow! Fuck! What was that for?!” I struggle to free my hand, and when I finally manage to, I see pinpricks of blood and raised ridges of red covering my hand and wrist.

  “DO NOT TOUCH MY BELLY!”

  She summarily ignores my last question as she bellows with rage at some perceived slight. “And no,” her voice, now calm, has hints of amusement. “I can’t read your mind. Unless you project your thoughts. Well, I can, but I won’t. You will learn to control your intent eventually. The familiar bond lasts forever after all!”

  “Don’t…? But… you… never mind. That’s not important, but you’re lucky you’re cute.”

  Despite the minor pain I feel, my initial reaction was more from shock than actual agony, so a silly smile still sits on my lips. I soon broach the crux of a new issue.

  “What’s a familiar bond? I don’t think I have one of those.” Clearly catching my confusion, I feel a distinct drop of derision project through whatever connection I have with this animal, though it quickly disappears.

  Despite the scorn, she’s still a cutie patooty!

  “Of course you have one! You accepted it. I told you that you are mine and you acknowledged it when you petted me.” Some smugness leaks through our bond before she continues.

  “Just check your Heart Scroll. You’ll see. Oh, by the way, you may want to stop speaking to me aloud. If you do that in front of others, they may think you’ve gone crazy.” She giggles mirthfully, her amusement making her seem even cuter to me.

  Temporarily ignoring her final comment, I just now notice that there is indeed a vibration coming from beneath my sternum.

  I hadn’t even noticed that there was a notifier happening. I was just so caught up in the moment while petting her. That thought crosses my mind, there and gone again in the blink of an eye, as I pull out the Scroll and look at the information on the first page.

  Name: Luck Vidadura

  Age: 18

  Race: Aldkin

  Skill: Box - Summon a box to store things in.

  Affinity: Spacial, ???

  Skill Aether: 99%

  Skill Credits: 0

  Credit Level: Level 0 (1 SC allocated)

  [Skill Tree]

  [Permissions]

  [Inventory]

  [Quests]

  [Bonded Creatures]!

  OH! My Skill Aether is already at 99%! I bet that after I make this delivery, I’ll get a free Skill Credit! I focus my attention on the new selection, ‘Familiar,’ bringing up yet another page I’m unfamiliar with, no pun intended.

  Familiar Bond detected!

  Unnamed cat accepted as a familiar!

  Name: N/A

  Age: Unknown

  Skills: Wound Reversal, Telepathy, Mind Spike

  Affinities: Time, Mind

  Level: 9

  Aether: 27%

  Disposition: Neutral

  Confusion sets in as I scan the contents of the new page, but one thing stands out to me first and foremost. “I have a ton of questions, but let’s start with the most important. You don’t have a name?”

  Belatedly realizing I should be speaking through the familiar bond, my next question is projected internally.

  “What should I call you?”

  She yawns lazily, only now standing up from where she was lying on the ground. She stretches her paws in front of her, back arched, ass pointed straight up in the way that only a cat can shamelessly pull off. She eventually settles into a seated position, paws together in front of her. Her tail curls around her, the end idly twitching.

  “Call me whatever you feel like, Human. I really don’t care.”

  “You keep calling me that… You know I’m not a human, right?”

  “Does it matter, Human? I thought we were discussing what you’re calling me, not the other way around. Try to stay focused.” The cat punctuates this with a mental eye roll. Following that, she starts batting at a fly that’s buzzing around her.

  “Whatever.” I sigh in defeat, acknowledging the futility of arguing with the creature.

  “I’m thinking ‘Daisy.’”

  “No.”

  “Goldi?”

  “Nope.”

  “Princess Bagel?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  “I’ve got it! Snowball! Because of the white fur!”

  I smile with satisfaction at my clever play on words.

  She hisses emphatically. “I will kill you while you sleep, human.”

  “Okaaay. How about Delilah?”

  At this point, I’m about ready to give up and just call her ‘Cat.’

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Barely acceptable.”

  Finally! “Delilah it is!” I glance back down at my Heart Scroll to see that the name on the ‘Familiar’ page has been updated automatically.

  “Next question. You have two affinities? And three skills?! Wait… mind affinity? You haven’t been fucking with my mind in order to make me like you more, have you?” My eyebrow twitches, and I feel a small frown forming on my face.

  “Yes. Yes. And not on purpose.” Her straightforward, simple answers shock me, but I latch onto the last line.

  “What do you mean, not on purpose?! So you have been fucking with my mind?!” Anger seeps into my mental tone.

  I can’t help it, this shit’s scary!

  “Not on purpose!” Her pleading tone is soon replaced by another wave of smugness.

  “Just think of me as the most lovable cat Gaio has graced the world with! Besides, it doesn’t work on people who aren’t predisposed to loving my glorious grandeur! So even without my mind aura, you’d still love me. I’m just that cute.”

  “Alright, whatever. I’ll finish asking my questions another time. I have a task I need to attend to. Will you be coming with me?” I wait for her to respond, but instead she begins licking her paw and rubbing it over her ear. This continues for a few minutes, until I try again. “Well?”

  “Well what, Human?” She stares me straight in my eyes, blinking slowly. I stare back, incredulity written in my expression.

  “Will you be coming with me or not? And my name isn’t ‘Human.’ It’s Luck. I’m not even a human…” My last words come out in a low grumble, spoken more to myself than anyone else.

  A mental sigh drifts through the edges of our bond. “If you insist, Human. Go on, lead the way.”

  A very audible sigh is released from my own mouth. Man, this cat’s a real piece of work. Or is that all cats? I chuckle wryly as I stand, turning to begin walking north. I look down to see Delilah following beside me, trotting in the most adorable way.

  “What is funny, Human? Am I missing out on a joke?” Curiosity floods the bond as she asks this, showing that she is indeed a cat. As if that wasn’t already evident.

  “No… I’ve just had a…” I clear my suddenly constricted throat. “a rough few days. Well, a hard life… all things considered. I don’t really want to talk about it.” I try to block out the worst of the memories, with little to no success.

  Brick… I’m sorry. I led you into a death trap… all for personal gain...

  My chest tightens, the emotional burden almost too much for me to handle. Almost.

  I will avenge you.

  My resolve hardens, as it does every time I think of him.

  “Tell me anyway. Unless you have something better to do while we walk?” Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Delilah demands that I disclose my deeper deliberation.

  She has a point, I guess. So, I do exactly what she… asked me to do.

  I relive my entire life story in anecdotal form as we walk through the near empty streets.

  “My early childhood was full of joy and love. I had parents, a nice house, a life without having to worry about when I could find my next meal or where I got to sleep on a given night.” I pause momentarily, caught in the trap known as ‘happy memories.’

  “My parents… they died when I was eight.” As I reach this point in my retelling, a scowl slides onto my moving mouth. “Some noble was jealous of my father. He wanted my mother, as she was renowned for her exotic beauty.”

  My scowl deepens as I release my anger as I recount the horrible tragedy caused by that ‘noble’ asshole.

  Nothing noble about him…

  “Fucking prick killed them both when my mother resisted. You know… I can’t even remember my parents’ names. I hadn’t learned them yet. I was too young to even partially understand what was going on.”

  “That bastard didn’t stop there. He couldn’t be satisfied with stealing my life from me. No, he had to steal everything my parents had, leaving me with nothing! My extended ‘family’ cared not for my plight.”

  I spit the word ‘family’ with enough venom to kill a dragon.

  “A despicable group of lowlifes, more like. They wanted nothing to do with a half-blood. Simply because my father fell in love with my alden mother. Simply because I have pointed ears! They threw me into an orphanage, putting me completely out of their minds.”

  “I was eight! They abandoned a child! For what? A light complexion and purple eyes? Those ingrates are not my family. They never were. They had already ostracized my father for his ‘unforgivable transgression,’ sullying their family name by marrying the ‘enemy.’”

  My tone reaches a crescendo caused by my disgust.

  “Never mind that my mother was a refugee! They didn’t care that she wasn’t a soldier. They ignored the fact that she was fleeing the war, like many others, spread across all of the races!”

  “At the orphanage, things only got worse. I was a small child, and the bullies took advantage of their relative strength. Sometimes they dumped full chamber pots over my head. They often forced me to drink piss! As if that wasn’t enough for them, they beat me black and blue daily, sometimes leaving me as a barely living, broken mess.

  “Do you think the matron cared? Of course she didn’t! She was there to make money off the king’s funding that was supposed to be used for the orphanage! The other ‘caretakers?’ They joined in on the beatings. So I hid. I wept silently in dark closets, not daring to make a sound. But the bullies always found me.”

  “During the ninth year of my life, if you can call it that, Brick arrived. He hated bullies, and even at seven years old, he was built like a wall. With his brawn, he merely had to stand behind my back, glaring at the offenders, for them to go away. From then on we were closer than two peepos in a pod.”

  A faint flicker of a smile finds its way to my face.

  “He would stay by my side throughout the day, bunking below me during the night. I still remember how he forced the kid that had claimed the straw-lined bed beneath my own. All he had to do was cross his arms and glare witheringly. He was good at that.”

  I chuckle mirthlessly at the retelling, the memory very fresh despite it happening many years ago.

  “We lived like that for seven years. After I turned sixteen, however, the orphanage kicked me out. They do that for every child that reaches that age. Probably so the matron could filch more funds from the kingdom. Either way, I had not only been abandoned by my repulsive relatives.

  “The place I hadn’t called home for eight long years threw me to the wolves as well. I was abandoned twice. At first, I blamed my parents for how my life had turned out. That was short-lived, though. They were great parents. As loving and kind as they had been, I couldn’t fault them for dying.”

  “After that, I blamed the orphanage. While it made a bit of sense, as I aged I came to the conclusion that it was all the noble’s doing. I don’t know his name, but I know his face. I will search every noble house in the kingdom until I find him. ‘Might makes right,’ as they say. Some day, I hope to be strong enough to kill him.”

  “Over the last two years, I’ve struggled to find places to sleep. I’ve eaten from the garbage, I’ve drank from the gutter. A few times, I felt bold enough to steal a loaf of bread, an appa or two, and a couple of other things that were necessary for my survival. Two days ago, I turned eighteen. Sometime before that, Brick turned sixteen and had summarily been booted from that hell hole.”

  “After I awakened my skill tree, Brick was the one that motivated me to explore my skill further. After a bit of experimentation, I found out there was much more to my skill than I had originally thought. There were several pages that I’d not heard of, one of them being personalized quests.

  “Finding that damned boot is how I received my first quest. Both Brick and I were dumbfounded, to be quickly replaced by elation. A quest! Just for me! I hadn’t heard of the like, although I will admit that I’m not an expert on skills.”

  “Before we reached the destination, I had noticed the sign of the Society of Scoundrels. I chose to ignore it, feeling on top of the world. I felt invincible. I had a skill! Of course, things never quite work out in my favor. Luck may be my name, but it doesn’t fit my life experience.

  “After we completed the quest, we found a place to sleep within scoundrel territory. That was my third mistake. One that I will regret for the rest of my life. I was awoken in the middle of the night. At first, I didn’t notice that something was amiss. But three of the scoundrels had found us. Most likely, they were well aware where we were from the start.”

  “They pulled the still sleeping Brick from our refuge. I tried to follow. Maybe I could do something. Anything! But when I had barely managed to get my head out of the hole we’d hidden within, I saw something that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  I hesitate before continuing.

  “They… they killed him. Slit his throat as if he was nothing but a hoglin being led to the slaughter…” Another pause ensues as I take deep, calming breaths.

  “As if that wasn’t bad enough,” I continue, “they put a bag over my head. I could do nothing as they led me deeper into scoundrel territory. Then they bound me, hand and foot, and left me lying on the stone floor, uncaring if I died from the concussion I’d received in the process.”

  “The next day, the big boss showed up. That was this morning, though it feels far longer than that.” I sneer as I think about the smug, conniving criminal.

  “He practically forced me into a barely balanced contract, where I’m required to complete tasks. I’ve added one more person, no, the whole of the Society of Scoundrels, to my vengeance list. I will grow stronger, one quest at a time.” My lip curls as I snarl. “One day, I swear I’ll kill them. All of them.”

  When I reach the end of my monologue, a single tear tries to escape my hardened eyes. I refuse to let it. Although, the whole process was surprisingly cathartic, as I feel a huge, nearly physical pressure lift from my shoulders.

  “That sucks.”

  Her simple summation of my entire life, rounded into two little words, catches me off guard, causing me to stop walking and stare down at her. She takes a few more steps before turning her head back to face me.

  “What?” My voice holds hints of incredulity and confusion, with a tiny twinge of anger.

  “What what?”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I said ‘that sucks.’”

  She sends a mental shrug through our bond.

  Her innocent naivete triggers something deep within me. I begin to chuckle, then that chuckle gets a bit louder. It turns into a laugh. Then I let loose everything I had been bottling up for nearly my entire life and the laugh gains such a bellowing intensity that the few passersby move as far away from me as possible, quickly clearing the area. I don’t notice. Nor would I care if I had. Hands held against my stomach, I double over, completely caught in pure, unadulterated hysterics. After a few minutes of letting my laughter run free, it begins to peter out. I manage to get it down to a few chuckles every now and then. My face and stomach hurt, but I feel freer than I have in a long time, despite my situation.

  “Thank you, Delilah. I really mean it. Thank you.”

  A strong sense of confusion washes through our connection. “What’s so funny? And why are you thanking me?”

  “You just made everything feel a lot better. The pain isn’t gone, it never will be. But now, it isn’t so hard to deal with. So, thank you.”

  “Oh… okay. You’re welcome! You already said once that cats make everything better, so I still don’t see how that’s funny, but whatever. Don’t you have a quest to complete?”

  I smile at her. It may be the only genuine smile I’ve expressed since I was eight years old.

  “Yeah. You just wait here, I’ll go and drop the package at the destination.”

  Without needing to speak any further on the matter, she unceremoniously flops on the cold ground and starts cleaning herself.