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Another fun writing prompt for the r/writingprompts subreddit:
"It is tradition that on your 18th birthday you are joined by a small magical creature, much like a familiar, to aid you in the rest of your life. When you wake on your 18th birthday and find yours sitting by you on the bed, you are.... disappointed, to say the least."
- u/tennalee
Here's what I got out of that! Enjoy.
Familiar
“It’s actually a cute story, Alex” his father began. Oh, boy, had he heard this one before. Approximately once a month for the past 17 years. He would have interrupted, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Once dad got going on a story, there was no stopping him. “Well, your mother’s fox, see, her familiar, felt the need to act like her non-magical counterpart would from time to time. She felt like this helped her really ‘fulfill her role’”
“Oh, yes” his mother chimed in, just as rehearsed, “Penelope likes to keep a sharp eye. That’s what makes me such a good real estate agent.” She reached over and grabbed her husband’s hand. “Sorry, sweetie, go on.”
“She also makes you quite foxy” he said, bringing her hand up to his lips to kiss it, and giving her ‘the eyebrows’. Alex rolled his eyes. Part of him hoped that he would grow up to love someone as much as these two loved each other. After all, they had been married for 25 years, and they still carried on like this at every opportunity.
“So, your mother is following Penelope, who seems dead set that she smells something, something that would be wonderful!”
“We were right down town, so I thought she might have just smelled really good seafood, from that one restaurant!”
“Well, apparently Penelope didn’t want seafood, and instead wanted to catch her own. I’m sitting with my law partners at the little burger joint there, and Eustace starts freaking out! ‘get me out of here’ he said ‘somethings coming for me’, so naturally I start to panic. I gather up my stuff and go to run out the door, and bam! Right into your mother!”
“Oh, he swept me off my feet, literally!” his mother broke into laughter that, had Alex not known any better, would have assumed was fake. This is just how his mother was. She was easily amused by the cuteness surrounding how she and her husband had gotten together, and apparently, her imagination was vivid enough that she could remember everything about it. On top of that, she had never laughed like a normal person, and always seemed to be coming apart at the seams whenever she laughed.
Alex’s father had been a straight-laced, high-powered lawyer. He was one of the good guys, but had very little sense of humor until he met Sarah. “Naturally,” Alex’s father continued, “I was mortified!”
“He really was” his mother was still laughing.
“I somehow knocked down this beautiful, resplendent, amazing Amazonian.” He looked at his wife, eyes swimming in memory and other mushy things. “I tried to help her up, but look at me” he gestured jokingly to his arms “I can’t help myself up, much less this warrior woman!”
“Oh, stop” his mother said lovingly. “Anyway, I helped your father gather his things and asked what his rush was. He couldn’t even talk straight for a few minutes after I had stood up.”
“Well, sweetie” his father said with a mouth full of steak “do you remember what you were wearing?”
“Oh!” she playfully slapped his hand. “It was this red little--”
“I think I’m going to bed” Alex blurted. Sometimes, his parents would get so wrapped up in this story that they seemed to forget that he was even there. Come to think of it, most of the people in his life seemed to forget he was present. They seemed to forget quite often.
His parents snapped out of their reverie, but just barely. “Oh, sweetie, I hope you sleep well tonight!” his mother stood and kissed him on his cheek. “You must be so excited”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact” Alex had many reasons to be excited about the next day, his Familiar Day notwithstanding. He had art block with Kristen, first thing in the morning, and they had been teamed up by the teacher. She was always at least decent to him, never treated him quite as poorly as anyone else. Then again, she wasn’t very attractive. Her braces were still on and she slurred her words slightly. She had hair that was unruly to a point of absolute rebellion. She was shy, but she was at least passively nice to him, and he appreciated her for that.
“Well, I’ll let you know tomorrow night how it goes.”
His parents began to tease him. “Ooh, I wonder, what will your familiar be?”
“Oh, could it be a caterpillar?” his father asked him, referencing an obsession with bugs he had held as a young child.
“Maybe” said his mother “but it should probably be a butterfly, since our little boy is finally going to be an adult!”
Alex groaned at these suggestions, and the roughly 50 others they gave in the short time it took him to walk up the steps to his bedroom. He looked at his alarm clock and read the time. It was only 9:45pm, but he had to get up early tomorrow. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about what his magical creature could be. It could be a real thing, or it could be fantasy. His older sister, who was away at college had gotten a dragon. Strange as it would sound to anyone else, Alex was really hoping for a fairy.
Alex liked to play games. Lately, he had been playing a browser game that was intended for a slightly… older audience. It was a puzzle game in which, if the puzzle were solved, you got to see naked women, performing… various things. Now, most people would be content with just looking up pictures on the internet, but Alex liked earning his pleasure. There was a fairy in the game that served as a guide to getting his avatar laid. He liked the idea of that in real life, too.
Alex was a shy, scrawny, gawky little guy, with awkward and patchy facial hair, hands that were too large for his arms and a neck that seemed ill-fitting to support his proportionally giant head. He often thought that he looked rather like a cartoon character from a Disney movie. Consequently, he had only kissed one girl, and that was on a dare. He never had the confidence to get anywhere on his own, and so he had stopped even trying.
Besides his looks, Alex didn’t feel that he had a lot else to offer either. He wasn’t exceptionally smart, was only passingly decent at soccer, lacked musical talent, and couldn’t make anything in wood shop to save his life. His hobbies were mostly video games and reading. He would write occasionally, but he never seemed to get it quite like he had it in his head. Oh, but his parents had just thought his writing was so wonderful.
It was his imagination, his parents often tried to remind him, that made him special.
Well, the kids at school didn’t think so. There was a little something for everybody, to hate, in Alex. They ostracized him for a lot of reasons. His parents were rich, so the lower-class kids didn’t like him. He enjoyed video games so the jocks didn’t like him. He wasn’t attractive, well, “conventionally attractive”, his mother would always remind him, so the girls didn’t like him. He often spent just as much time with his nose buried in books as he did gaming, so the hardcore gamer kids didn’t like him either.
It didn’t help that he was a klutz, either; he had spilled enough of enough different things enough different times that the janitor made him clean up after himself. The last time he put the mop back after cleaning a particularly spectacular launching of koolaid across the cafeteria floor, he saw a dartboard with his picture affixed where the bulls-eye should be.
The only thing Alex enjoyed besides video games was writing. His writing was always a little far-fetched, though, and even the other kids who were interested in writing didn’t understand him. Neither the poets, who were decidedly emotional and glum, choosing to wallow in self-pity and marinate in morose ruminations, nor the story writers, who based their work in reality, and tried to have happier endings overall felt a kinship with Alex and his style of writing.
Alex’s stories happened in fantasy worlds, with monsters and swords and adventurers. Great and terrible things happened in those worlds, and his stories were wildly unpredictable and steeped in a deep mythos that he had been working and developing since he was a young child.
It was no small wonder, to Alex, why others had found him strange.
But all of this, all the loneliness and frustration, that could all change; only if he could get laid. He began to think pleasant thoughts about a sexy little fairy as his Familiar, and began daydreaming about that one cheerleader that looked at him that one time. He tried to concentrate his will, all of his energy, everything he had into focusing on a fairy, hoping that somehow, that would ensure that was what his familiar was.
He got nestled all snug in his bed, while visions of cheerleaders danced in his head.
He awoke, and upon realizing that was awake, sat upright in his bed, hoping to see his Familiar. He scanned the room, but it did not seem that his familiar was there.
“Ahem” he heard a deep cough from somewhere in the room. “Excuse me, over here, buddy”.
His eyes were trying to move faster than his head as he turned to look at his bedside table. No. This couldn’t be right.
“I know, I know, not what you were expecting” said the tiny little man. He was dressed in a brown turtleneck sweater, over which laid suspenders attached to plain black slacks. He wore plain black loafers, well-worn, and on his head sat a fisherman’s cap. He has a large gray beard and thick glasses, and was smoking a pipe. He was seated in what looked to be a very comfortable, very old wooden chair.
“Not even a little bit!” Alex blurted out, clearly flustered.
“Yeah, well” the little man stood up and with a wave of his hand, the chair vanished with a small puff of smoke and tiny ‘foof’ noise. “We’re not partnered with you to give you what you expect, but to give you what you need.” He lit a match and put it to the chamber of his pipe.
“But my mom always said she loved foxes, and her Familiar ended up being a fox!” He watched as the little man began to puff smoke, slowly and patiently out of his moth, stoking the pipe and getting it well-lit. “And my sister always loved dragons!”
The little man waved his match out of existence “Your point being?”
“They got what they like!”
The little man chuckled deeply and it sent ripples through his large belly. “Oh, you’re saying you don’t like fat old men?” the chuckle grew to a mocking laugh. “You don’t say.”
“I don’t find it funny” said Alex, trying to sound authoritative.
“It’s not supposed to be funny” the laughter faded from the old man’s face. “it’s not about what you like, what your current hopes are, none of that.”
Alex threw himself backwards on his bed and put his hands over his face in frustration. “Then what IS it about? How do you explain my mom and sister both getting creatures they liked for Familiars?”
“In the interest of creating a bond with you in a reasonable amount of time, I’m about to break some rules. You really want to know how your family ended up with their familiars, I’ll tell you.” Alex looked over at him impatiently. “Your mother loves animals. Always has, she did her best to rescue little animals that were injured or stray all through her childhood. Well, when she was about thirteen, they had just released a little fox that she had taken care of back into the wild. Unfortunately, they were a little too close to the road. She watched the thing get splattered by a pickup truck.” He shook his head “didn’t even slow down. Your mother went to a pretty dark place after that. It was like her entire world had been shattered, and she lost enjoyment in helping rehabilitate animals. That’s when she decided she wouldn’t actually pursue her dream of becoming a veterinarian, but would work on something that could just make her a lot of money, which she would in turn donate to help animals.”
“So why a fox, wouldn’t that just be painful for her?” Alex asked, now more confused than he had been.
“At first it was” shrugged the little man “but it only took about five seconds for her to remember her love of animals. Penelope gave your mom a sense of peace about that little fox she had tried to help, told her that it didn’t suffer, and was in the animal version of heaven.” He scoffed a little after he said it.
“Is that true?” Alex asked.
“Who the hell knows. Anyway, your sister? Long story short, her coach in middle school was a downright bastard. Did some things I don’t think you wanna know about. You’re too young to remember, but she withdrew something fierce, and began reading books. There was one series in particular that focused on dragons, and how powerful they were. The abuse she suffered at the hands of her coach kept haunting her, and she never told your parents about it. That is, until she got Fafner.”
Alex was becoming more and more deeply unsettled. He wasn’t supposed to know this, and now he did. How had he never known? “Dude, why are you telling me this? I don’t want to hear this!” he plugged his ears.
“You asked for this you little shit” Alex whipped his head around. He had heard the little man’s voice perfectly clearly in his head. He stared at his familiar and realized that his lips weren’t moving, but he continued to speak directly into Alex’s mind. “And your father! Well, he liked to explore. He grew up down in Florida you know. Big snakes down there. Little ones, too. He decided one day to go and explore, and ended up falling into a bit of a gully. There were snakes waiting for him. Somehow, even with multiple bites, your father found his way to a road. He was terrified of snakes, of course, afterwards, and became a bit of a recluse. After, of course, the months of healing. Even after your dad got Eustace, he continued being shy, but at least he wasn’t a complete shut-in. Eustace helped him face what he needed to, so he could move on and become a successful adult.”
Alex was angry and confused, and thought back to his Familiar, “That’s all well and good, but why the fuck do I have you?” Alex felt a warm sensation as the little man gently pulled to get his fingers out of his ears. He wasn’t threatening, and in fact, seemed like he could be warm and friendly, if given the chance. “I don’t fear fat old men either.”
The little man let out a raucous laugh. “And I don’t believe you should. Your struggles aren’t the same as the rest of your family’s; certainly not as violent of violating.”
“Yeah,” Alex said thoughtfully “I guess I have kinda had it easy.”
The little man shook his head, his beard swaying gently as he did so “Not my point, not my point” he smacked his lips “it’s just that you’re different. Your talents are different, your outlook is different, your hobbies are different, so you get a different kind of Familiar.”
“What are you gonna help me do?” Alex sat back up to look at his new friend.
“Oh, you’re going to love this. It’s amazing, the things we’re gonna do, it’s gonna change your life! Mark my words, your life will never be the same, after this first year. We’re gonna change the world.” Alex was beginning to be excited. He listened with eager anticipation, leaning closer as if to hear better. “You, my friend” the little man said, breaking into a bit of a smile “are going to be a writer.” He looked up at Alex excitedly, waiting for a joyous response. Alex blinked slowly back at him, his face devoid of expression.”
There was an uncomfortably long silence.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re gonna help me do? Not get laid, not get buff or in shape, not develop a hobby or skill that people will appreciate, not gonna help me become a millionaire, you’re gonna help me write, which I’ve been doing since I was five?” Alex scoffed. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Listen” the voice was loud and clear in his head again, and he groaned in protest “the good things you gotta work for. They let me read some of your stuff before I came down here, and I gotta tell you, you’ve got some real pearls in there, kiddo. This is something you can actually do.”
Alex rolled his head lazily around to look at the little man.
“Look, man, -- what’s your name?”
“George”
“Yeah, George, no part of this helps me now! I’ve got to adjust to what is, no offense, George, a huge disappointment. Leave me alone.” He rolled over and drew his covers closer to him.
“Yeah, no.” George told him “Get up, you have to go see the only person in the entire school who can stand you, eh, eh?” George said suggestively.
Alex’s eyes widened. He had been looking forward to going to school, and to seeing Kristen, but she was not what he had in mind for a girlfriend. Or a lay. “Are you out of your mind? I don’t… no. No thank you!” Alex threw his covers off and started to get ready.
“Take it from me” George gestured at his own body “beauty is found within.”
Alex was barely on time to the art block, and was breathing heavily when he heard her come in. He did a double take when she came in. Something looked very different. Without meaning to, he stared. “What the hell happened to you?”
She blushed a violent shade of red. Alex could practically feel the heat coming off of her face, from a respectable three foot distance away. “I was up late last night” she adjusted her glasses and wiped her eyes.
“Oh, d’ya have a hot date or something?”
George scoffed from his shoulder Nice. Real smooth”
Kristen snorted. “No, I was… well, don’t laugh, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I was drawing this.” She handed him a piece of paper, on which she had drawn an extremely detailed portrait. He fought back a sudden wave of emotion, and felt like he might actually shed a tear. “For your birthday! I hope it looks like you had him in your head! I found one of your stories online, and…” she trailed off a little.
She had drawn H’rothgar the Odious. The main character of many of his stories.
He was perfect.