Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Darlin’, you would make it so much easier on yourself if you would just give in.”

Marianne grit her teeth as she looked at the three bodies of her familiars scattered around her, tiny chests heaving for breath while she pushed herself up onto an elbow, fixing her glare on the booted feet standing in front of her before following them up to the smiling face she had once considered charming. Sniffing, she ignored the hand he offered her and carefully rolled over and pulled her legs in until she was no long sprawled in the dirt of the training ring and sitting upright now, her clothes still shred where Chipper’s claws had caught her before she could move out of the way. The open air stung the shallow scratches and she clutched what she could of her shirt close for the sake of her own modesty. Just because Roland bragged he had seen it before, didn’t mean she was going to let him see it again.

“I told you before,” she ground through her clenched jaw, “I will never give in to you.”

Roland sighed, running a hand through his hair before turning to Chipper and clucking his tongue, summoning the creature to him where he pat the creature’s misshapen squirrel head. And here she had thought squirrels were cute until this afternoon. This creature Roland had summoned as his familiar was anything but cute. Still, most of the school was impressed that he had conjured such a high class companion when they were still in high school. Most people don’t summon familiars until after they had the proper training at Aura’s University after all.

Marianne turned her attention back to the Handmaids, the trio of spritely creatures she had summoned at the beginning of the year after a few failed practices. Roland encouraged her to summon creatures as pretty as she was and she did it. Pretty things suited her at the time and while pretty things were aesthetically appealing in their society, it was common knowledge that they were not the most powerful choices. Still, through the first two years at the school she continued to practice with the familiar rituals, bringing beautiful fairies, nymphs, and even a little brownie from the world of the summoned but she favored the Handmaids. She kept them almost like pets, never expecting them to ever fight until now.

Scooping Rosa up into her hands, she grimace down at the little battered body, using her thumb to carefully nudge her cheek and resisting a sob when black eyes cracked open, peering weakly up at her. Fauna cooed and tried to drift off of the ground but couldn’t even raise her torso up, Marianne laying Rosa in her lap before extending her hand to the tiny creature, who crawled into her palm dragging her pale green skirts from the dirt before falling slack against Marianne’s slightly curled fingers. With her remaining hands, she retrieved Ametha, holding them all close to Rosa in her lap. The first tears burned more than her chest and she hunched in on herself, shuddering when she sobbed over her beloved sprites, feeling tiny hands trying to comfort her, touching at her skin or stroking over her skirt.

Biting her lower lip, she shook her head and forced herself to stop crying, though the tears still blurred her vision when she forced her voice past the pain and the emotion that accompanied it. She revoked the summoning; watching the little bodies begin to glow with the magic of the summoning chant before they faded away and she felt the weight disappear from her hands. Without their presences, she clasped her hands together and even though returning them to the world of the summoned would help them heal quickly, she still fretted over their well being and offered up a silent prayer to anyone who might have been listening.

“They’re just familiars, Marianne.” Roland stated, “You can always summon new ones.”

His words cut through the sorrow like a sword through a curtain and Marianne sobered up rather suddenly. She stared blankly at the dirt in front of her, slowly bringing herself to stand up and her hand returned to her blouse, holding it shut again while the other wiped the tears away. She huffed out the remains of her sorrow, letting anger replace it with determination in its stead. Even though it hurt, she rolled her shoulders back and turned to face Roland again, head up in defiance even though her eyes were probably still glossed by tears.

“If you would just forget that ever happened,” Roland’s hand reached out to her, the other still on Chipper’s head. “You remember how it was between us, darlin’. Pure magic, buttercup, absolute magic. We can be that way again.”

She looked at the hand before her, the golden tan of his skin inviting and she remembered how soft his skin was when she last held it against her own palm in the past. She remembered everywhere those hands had been and it made her skin crawl. Raising her hand, she slapped his away and clenched it into a fist, her gaze hard while she remained upright and resolute. Roland shook his hand as if she had hurt him and she arched an eyebrow at the pout he made while shaking it out until he looked back at her, having the nerve to be surprised.

“Roland, the only magic you will ever have with me again, will be from my summoning of something to tear that squirrel apart. And when that happens, I will make sure I am ready to take you down with it myself.”

————

The scratches still pulled a bit but the nurse had worked wonders on the gashes since she had staggered in there after her confrontation with Roland. It had been three weeks since she issued her challenge and Roland made sure she felt every day of it. Every day she summoned something from her skill range to help confront the Squorrel but Chipper was always the victor and Marianne was left sending them back to the realm of the summoned with no progress and plenty of new cuts and bruises for her trouble. That was the problem with using familiars, while they could be injured without affecting their masters, there was always a breaking point when the summoner’s magic would eventually be reached in the creature and every injury would turn into one of their own. Roland always told Chipper to stay away from their faces for the sake of sparing her own. He remarked that he was going easy on her because he still loved her. Marianne was positive it was more because he wanted to keep her pretty for the day he believed he would win her back.

His means of winning a woman back were twisted as hell.

Marianne glowered at the casting books she had borrowed from the library, six stacked to the side with three more open on different pages in front of her while she poured over them. Three weeks of harassment from Roland and she was no closer to wiping that smug expression off his face. At least he was no closer to crumbling her resolve and getting her back. Perhaps that was a win in its own. She had that going for her at least but it didn’t lift her spirits any when she flipped another page and scanned along the writing as well as the intricate summoning circles and formulas scrawled on the pages of the two other books.

So far she understood that her typical selection of summoned creatures were not going to cut it. She needed something else for her familiar, something stronger than a fairy and decidedly less attractive. Pretty creatures clearly didn’t work, they weren’t powerful enough and she felt stupid for relying on them as much as she had before. Roland’s friends didn’t even take her seriously at this point because of her reputation for attractive familiars. They laughed on the sidelines of her matches with Roland and always cheered him when he eventually walked away after she refused his hand at the end of each match. She even tried to physically attack him outside of the training ring but he easily disarmed her of the stick she had been carrying and chortled over her as she tried to collect the rest of her dignity and walk away. He laughingly promised he wouldn’t tell the teachers about her physical attack before she was out of ear range and Marianne was left seething when she realized that the teachers were against actual fights on campus.

“Marianne,” the soft word was filled with concern and Marianne stiffened at its gentleness after weeks of tension. It wanted to soothe her and she could feel it already working but she steeled to it, narrowing her eyes at the books again. “Marianne.”

Marianne sighed, thumping her elbows upon the table and burying her face in her hands. “Dawn,” she mumbled into her palms.

“You need to eat something,” Dawn urged, the usual lightness of her voice subdued with worry and Marianne knew she had been the cause of it. “Just a little, okay?”

Marianne lifted her head in time to see Sunny, her little sister’s elf familiar approach and set a plate bearing a sandwich and strawberries on top of one of the books as well as a bottle of cream soda for good measure. It had been a while since she had cream soda and the warm color of it beckoned to her parched throat after hours without any sustenance. She tried to swallow when her mouth started to water but nearly choked on it, her fingers massaging her throat thoughtfully. Dawn slowly sat down across the table from her and tried to push one of the books aside, Sunny plopping down silently beside her.

Dawn was a new student but she had summoned Sunny after a month of training. Elves were not magically inclined, more like free labor more than anything but Dawn never treated sunny like a slave. She treated him as her best friend and he clearly loved her for her kindness. Unfortunately, whenever Dawn wasn’t contrite like this, worried about her, she tended to be a bit of a flirt and pretty scatterbrained. Sunny was in charge of keeping her together but he was often led into helping Dawn meet guys, much to his silent pain. Unfortunately, Dawn had made a mistake during her summoning and the little elf was left silent as a side effect of the improper calling. Even though she poured over how to fix it at first, he seemed content with his silence.

Marianne snatched up the sandwich and took a bite while Sunny opened the cream soda for her and she took it eagerly, drinking it to chase down the dry bite. He smiled at her, his mouth wide and warm but Marianne couldn’t find it in her to smile back at the elf. She lowered her eyes to the pages again and tried to take another bite in the middle of reading the passage.

Dawn’s fingers rested over Marianne’s wrist. She looked up at the warm touch and swallowed hard, blue eyes soft and concerned. Marianne set the bottle down and focused on her next bite with more care, chewing it slowly. Dawn didn’t move her hand. Even though she was eager to keep looking up how to beat Roland at his own game it seemed like the books were determined to keep their secrets tucked far away from her. Dawn didn’t understand her drive to best him and she didn’t expect her to. What did she know of heartache anyway?

“Can’t you let it go, Marianne?” Dawn asked. “I mean, you can ignore Roland. You wouldn’t have to have your familiars hurt anymore and you would still not be giving in and going back to him.”

“That’s not the point, Dawn.” Marianne bit out between the last bite and the next. She ignored the food in her mouth when she continued speaking. “I want to beat Roland. I need to show him that I am strong enough to take care of not just myself but the familiar I have by my side as well. I want to be stronger.”

“You familiar is there to protect you,” Dawn leaned across the table, both hands trying to hold onto Marianne’s wrist now. “Can’t you just…summon a really strong one? One that can really take a hit?”

“I’m not skilled enough to use one of those summoning spells!” she snapped, slapping at one of the books and knocking it off the table in her anger, sending the bottle toppling over and Sunny fumbled to grab it before more cream soda spilled on the surface. “Even if I did, what the hell would I summon? What’s powerful enough for something the size of Chipper without going into dragons, which are impossible!”

Sunny corrected the bottle before glancing at Dawn. She nodded and he reached over to the stack of books, removing one after another until he reached the fourth one in the stack. He proceeded to set it over the open one in front of Marianne, Dawn pulling the plate of strawberries away while Marianne munched on the last bites of her sandwich. Sunny opened the book and turned the pages until he found what he was looking for and Marianne leaned over the passage, arching an eyebrow.

“Goblins?” she asked, glancing up at Sunny.

He nodded.

“Goblins are pretty bad,” Dawn looked wary when she eyed the page and Marianne looked at the depiction of a snarling creature that wasn’t reptilian or even mammal, it was something entirely foreign in design but they were apparently upright on two legs with sharp teeth and pointed ears attached to ugly faces. There were a few different sketches of the creatures on the pages but none of them struck Marianne as particularly menacing. Still, they were quite ugly looking compared to the pretty ones she was used to. A goblin would certainly knock the smirks off Roland and his friends’ faces if she managed to summon one. “They are considered evil by most of the teachers, which is why they aren’t summoned a lot. It’s hard to control something evil.”

Marianne turned the page and the next page labeled “King” and she grimaced at the complicated magical circle required to summon him, not to mention the summoning charm that looked like a real mouthful. Still, she was intrigued by the title even though there was no sketch of what this creature might have looked like. It was classified as goblin but there were notes of “flight” and “armored” scrawled under the title, something that wasn’t included in the other listed creatures. “Armored” was particularly interesting since defense would really come in handy against Chipper’s teeth and claws.

“Marianne, you’re not seriously going to—“

“I have to go,” Marianne stood up from the table, shutting the book and tucking it under her arm and taking the plate of strawberries with her. “Thanks for the food, Dawn, Sunny. I’m feeling better now.”

“Marianne—” Dawn jumped up but Marianne ignored her, nearly running out of the room to find somewhere where she could be alone.

She had work to do.

————

Marianne cursed as she threw yet another piece of broken chalk across the room, hearing it clack against the far wall but ignored the landing when she looked down at the unfinished magical circle she had been kneeling over for the last several hours. She did the hard part already of trying to memorize the actual spell but now that it came to the magic circle, her scavenged chalk kept breaking against the stone. She had gone to the training arena to finish her work, grateful that it was finally empty when she needed it to be and Roland wasn’t waiting in the shadows for her. She sagged back until she was sitting down on the floor, fingers digging through her pocket for the last piece of chalk and frowning at the pink color of it left over from her first year.

Pink had become one of her least favorite colors since Roland broke her heart and proceeded to ruin her life ever since. It was the color of happiness, of love and ignorance, she hated it and she wanted to throw it across the room to join the other piece. Marianne craned her hand back but her throw faltered and she held onto the chalk. Eventually, she lowered her hand and started to work on the circle again with careful strokes. This time she tried to take care in not pressing too hard and the symbols took bright shape against the dark stone.

When she finished the circle, it was a collection of white, yellow, and pink thanks to the different chalks used to make it. Marianne pocketed the stub of pink and stood up from the floor. She clapped her hands free of dust and surveyed her work, double checking the layout to that of the one on the pages before she was satisfied. With that finished and the chant practically engraved in her memory, she was left with one thing left to do. Only she found herself hesitating the longer she stood before the colorful circle.

Goblins were hard to control. Dawn even knew that and Marianne never even thought about looking up Goblins before. She had no idea what she could be getting into if she tried to summon one, especially one known only as “King” in the books. There was no depiction, no real description, just a name and a few traits that didn’t help with any kind of image. She could have been summoning something truly terrible and then wouldn’t be able to control it when it came out from the world of the summoned. If she couldn’t control it…
Ignoring her doubts, Marianne clenched her hands into fists and strode to the base of the circle and planted her feet firmly apart before holding her arm out over the circle. She opened her hand, fingers spread apart and parallel to the floor while she stared at her hand-drawn symbols. Taking a deep breath, she started to recite the spell, keeping her words clear to not confuse them and risk muddling up the summoning. Unfortunately, the usual glow of the magic circle she expected upon a first-time summoning did not happen. The training room remained dark and silent with only her words reverberating off of the empty walls.

Cursing under her breath, she dropped into a crouch and dragged the book over. She had been so sure! The circle was accurate down to the last rune and the spell was correct, word for word. So what was it? Marianne picked up the book and squinted at the pages, reading and re-reading the lines over and over again even though she had them nearly memorized at this point. She grew even more frustrated when she didn’t see anything indicating what she had done wrong and nearly threw the book in her anger.

She wasn’t strong enough! She was never going to be strong enough!

Swiping at the pages, she brushed it to the next page and saw the gibberish warning about the use of goblins as familiars. It was all babble that she didn’t pay attention to the first few times she had read about the “King.” Marianne sought out the strawberries Sunny had put on her sandwich plate and snagged one, biting the ripe berry and chewing at it while scanning over the page. She noticed that there was a reddish brown stain on the paper. For a moment she worried she had gotten strawberry juice on it but the residue on her fingers was bright red, not the dull almost brown color on the paper before her. Staring down at it, Marianne shoved the rest of the berry into her mouth while pinpointing a line in the passage she had only skimmed through before. It described the difficulty of controlling goblins without something of the master’s being used as incentive. Something had to be given or taken in order to earn a summoned goblin’s loyalty.

The reddish brown stain suddenly made more sense and Marianne’s hand went to her pocket, fishing inside until she found the small knife her grandfather had given her as a birthday present. At the time, Marianne was only eight and had no use for such tools but she wanted to spare him his feelings and promised to carry it always. She never really used it before. Didn’t really know what she did need it for. Now, however, she clicked it open without hesitation as she stood back up. Touching the tip to her palm, she quickly sliced through her own skin with a quick cut. After weeks of being battered indirectly by Chipper, the sting of the cut was only minor compared to the scratches and bruises she was still recovering from even at that very moment.

Closing her knife and putting it back in her pocket, Marianne resumed her stance, this time she held her palm over the circle and watched blood eventually collect into gravity’s pull then drip upon the markings. She started her chant again the moment it splattered on the stones, determined to see it through this time with every drop of blood that fell to the circle. As she spoke, the lines started to glow, dim but growing in strength the more she spoke until they were brilliant with an eerie green light. She finished the incantation and Marianne uttered a cry when a harsh wind smelling of damp earth suddenly swirled up from the magic circle and quickly filled the room, nearly knocking her over. The short strands of her hair whipped about, stinging at the corners of her eyes or against the skin of her face as she leaned away from the force of the gale. This was nothing like the summoning she had performed before. There was light and warmth before her creature would be before her, this was entirely different. It begged to question just what in the hell she had called to her aid…

There was a rattling sound that barely rose over the roar of the wind but she didn’t miss the large form that suddenly zipped past her, signaling the goblin’s arrival at last. Marianne slashed her hand to cut off the portal the seal had opened and the wind abruptly ceased, leaving her in still silence again. Brushing her bangs from her eyes, Marianne looked down upon the circle, finding the runes and symbols faded and smudged, proving that something had come through and did not make it back inside.

She did it! She summoned a goblin!

“YES!” she shouted to the ceiling, hands up in the air before she looked around for whatever it was that she had called forth. Squaring her shoulders, she confronted the wide open room before her and projected her voice to the back wall where she felt it might have been hiding. “Come forward, King!”

Backing up a step, she tried to pinpoint where whatever it was could have gone but her search was cut short when something charged at her from the shadows and she gasped just as a hand clasped around her throat. Marianne’s body knocked back from her spot and sent her flying until she was slammed into a wall, the fist gripping her neck holding her fast to it as she gasped for air, trying to breathe around the tight fingers. Through the struggle for air, she tried to see what it was that she had called through. Her eyes were tearing up in the effort to breathe but she managed to tilt her head just enough to blink through the haze and make out the shadowy figure holding her captive. It leaned forward, a pointed nose leading to fierce blue eyes that practically pinned her to the wall more than the physical hand on her neck did.

“Send me back!” the creature hissed, pushing her further into the wall. The stone made her shoulder blades scream for relief but she was only able to manage a strangled whimper.

Marianne gagged but grit her teeth, glowering at the bone-thin ugly creature before her as she struggled to pry its fingers from her throat with her own blunt nails. Her feet dangled uselessly a few inches off of the ground, the goblin managed to hold her completely free from the floor! She kicked them for a moment, trying to build momentum when she finally managed to bring them up and used all her might to strike out into his chest. The soles of her shoes beat against a tough carapace and the creature barely budged but it startled him enough to loosen his grip. She gasped for breath, the initial intake burning her lungs after the long struggle as her heels struck the wall, dangling useless once again.

“I know you summoned me, girl.” He leaned in again, “and I know you can send me back.”

Marianne coughed in his face and he wrinkled his nose, leaning away again but didn’t release her. “I—I’ll send you—ba-back—when I’m—finished with you!” she heaved, glaring into his pointed face.

He growled and tightened his fingers before he noticed her hand and the blood smearing on his skin where she was trying to fight against his arm. Sneering at the coppery smelling substance, he lowered her down to the floor but even when he let go of her neck, he snatched up the hand bearing the cut and stared at the bleeding wound. Marianne tried to pull her wrist back but the creature snarled a warming at her and she stopped even though she stuck her chin out defiantly at him.

While he inspected the cut, Marianne took the time to see what exactly it was that she had summoned. It was human in shape but only to a certain extent. He was easily taller than her, Roland, maybe even Chipper if she was being generous. The goblin was all sharp angles, armored chest, shoulders, arms, and thighs but his legs looked rather vulnerable aside from the obvious muscles of his calves and the odd shapes of his large feet. They looked almost like gorilla feet but wider and clawed human-like toes that were shorter than the ones on his fingers. The “armored” note made sense now and the “fly” as well when she saw the wings hanging slack down his back. They twitched while he glanced back at the circle she had summoned him from before he finally looked into her face.

“You’re offering blood in exchange for blood,” he stated, meeting her gaze.

“Yes,” she huffed, standing straighter. “I want you to help me defeat another familiar. After that, I will return you to the realm of the summoned.”

He growled low in his throat, “Your kind don’t honor the words you speak.”

“I will honor mine,” she stepped towards him and he flinched, appearing unnerved by the sudden closeness she had enforced in his stead. With her free hand, she grabbed his chin and forced him to meet her gaze, her boldness startling even herself but his wide eyes meant he was too shocked to pull away just yet. At least she had his attention. “Help me become strong enough to use you against the opposing familiar and I promise I will send you back to your world. I promise.”

The goblin scowled but she could see he was thinking it over. She offered blood for blood and he would give it to her because that was what the contract required. Until he received what she offered to him, he would be stuck in this world as her servant, though nothing stated he had to be an obedient one. Obviously he wouldn’t willingly become her permanent familiar, Marianne wasn’t stupid. He clearly didn’t like her and she wasn’t overly fond of men who tried to kill her upon first meeting them either. Once this was over, she was positive she would send him back without a fuss.

“Fine,” he brushed her hand away from his chin. He held onto her other wrist now, Marianne frowning when he had her captive again but this time he didn’t force her into a wall. She swallowed, the gesture tender on her battered throat but she still maintained her steely gaze on the creature as he raised her cut hand higher and Marianne couldn’t help the sudden heat that flared in her cheeks the moment a softly pointed tongue slowly licked over the cut in a deliberate drag of wet flesh over injured skin. When he drew away, Marianne was shocked to find that the cut was gone. “I will have blood for blood.”

“G-Good.” She stepped back from him as he released her and she pointedly rubbed her hand on her pants, cringing at the lingering feeling of his tongue on her skin. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start planning on how to handle Roland.”

“Roland, is that the name of your opponent?” He asked, folding his arms.

“Yeah, he’s the target.” Marianne fisted one hand and struck it into the palm of the other. “After you finish with Chipper, I’m going to beat him within an inch of his life.”

The goblin looked at her hands then into her face with a skeptical arch to the unusual brow piece over his eyes. “And have ye any training for that?”

“Training?” Marianne glanced up at him, her eyebrow cocked now.

He hummed in his throat and Marianne rolled her eyes. This was the creature that had nearly choked her to death moments earlier? Smugly standing there with his arms crossed looking at her like she was some fired up child and not the woman out for vengeance that she was? She wanted to punch him just to prove her point but one glance at the claws of his fingers made her second guess the idea.

“This is going to take some time,” he sighed, massaging his forehead while his wings drooped significantly behind him.

“What are you getting at?”

“You have no training in how to handle a goblin, do you?” He indicated her and she folded her arms tightly across her chest, suddenly aware of how silly it was starting to sound but concealed her insecurity with a frown.

“What’s there to train me on? It can’t be much more different than how to handle other creatures we’ve summoned. I just need to sick you on Chipper like my guard dog and you can handle the rest, right?”

The smirk that crossed his features caught her off guard, “If that is what will wrap up my service then by all means, do it your way. However, if a master does not bother to build up control for their familiar, it is entirely possible I could turn on you if I so choose…my target could be anything after all.”

Marianne paled at the idea of the goblin attacking her again. She hated that feeling of vulnerability when she was only held by one hand and inwardly swore she would never fall prey to those claws again. She swallowed again, slowly unfolding her arms and looking up at the goblin, who stood still before her now, his gaze fixed on her while she thought it over. Perhaps she should count her blessings that he was keeping his hands to himself now.
Marianne rubbed her palm on her pant leg again.

“Show me how to control you,” she stated, tucking her hands into her pants pockets. “I’ll revoke the familiar bond the moment you defeat Chipper.”

“Very well,” he sighed, “I will teach you how to use a goblin in battle, that way, should you ever try to bring forth another in the future, you will know how to handle it. Consider it peace offering between the two of us until you send me back.”

“Alright,” Marianne held her hand out to him. “My name is Marianne, by the way. Will you accept me as your master until I release you?”

His face contorted in displeasure the moment she said ‘master’ but eventually he extended his hand out to her with another irritable growl that followed the stretch of his arm until he finally took her hand, long fingers wrapping securely around her own. Just the handshake alone felt binding when they gave a little jostle to confirm the deal.

“I accept,” he said with a sigh before he glanced at the book lying by the magic circle she had called him from. “And I’m not ‘King’ as that book claims, I am the Bog King.”

————
After she had summoned Bog King and established that he was not going to kill her, she worked to wipe away the magic circle. She was in the middle of scrubbing away the chalk when she noticed he was staring at the plate of strawberries still sitting there where she left them. Marianne wasn’t sure what exactly goblins ate but judging by the intrigue in his expression, berries may have been one of them and she eventually reached over and nudged the plate closer to him. He looked skeptical at first after she insisted, he ate one of them and the next time she glanced over her shoulder, Bog King had eaten all of the remaining strawberries off the plate.

That was the first sign that he was not quite as wicked as she originally thought him to be when he had her pinned to a wall gasping for air. Of course, he remedied that when they entered training. Marianne had to rely on cheat sheets to recall the right commands to keep Bog King in check whenever she needed him to do as she willed him to. Most of the time he watched her like she was insane while she tried to command him to attack a wooden pole, pointing an insistent finger at it but he remained standing where he was, arms folded and expression smug.

Marianne was guilty of throwing something at the infernal Bog King more than once while trying to train him. He managed to dodge them some of the time but other times she got a lucky strike in and always cracked up whenever he yelped and rubbed at his head on a particularly good shot. That “Ow!” of his was rather comedic compared to the rather intimidating appearance of her goblin familiar most of the time, it was endearing even, to the point of her apologizing and him awkwardly accepting it with grumbled words.

The second sign that he wasn’t what she expected him to be, came when Dawn and Sunny had come across them in the training area. Dawn came running over to Marianne in the middle of a command and Bog King was charging before Marianne tried to revoke the command. He stopped himself without her orders, freezing just short of ramming into Dawn and recoiling away from her when she screamed at the sight of sharp teeth and claws hovering so close to her face. Marianne gawked as Bog King floundered in front of her little sister, his hands hovering useless in the air while she bawled and his eyes darting back to her, seeking aid. Dawn wailed when he straightened up and that seemed to be the final straw before Bog King disappeared.

Marianne panicked the moment he vanished from sight, rushing over to Dawn to make her stop crying when she realized that her sister had accomplished it on her own. When she came closer, she saw something flying around Dawn’s head the size of a humming bird but lacked its color. Closer inspection revealed that the little thing was Bog King and the goblin had shrunk himself into something so small, Dawn couldn’t possibly find it in herself to be afraid of it. Marianne was further stunned when Dawn tried to catch him until he finally landed in her palms and Dawn suddenly started giggling at how small he was. Bog King appeared insulted by the cooing but he remained pocket size through the rest of Dawn’s time in the arena with them.

After the encounter with Dawn, Bog seemed to take on his small size whenever they left the training grounds and returned to the more public areas of the school. Marianne felt it was for the best, considering she wasn’t sure she wanted Roland to know just what he was up against yet but poor Bog King was continuously mistaken for another Handmaid creature Marianne had summoned. She was, after all, only known for summoning pretty creatures. No one bothered to take a closer look at her ugly little companion and that just made it feel like an even greater reveal later.

Bog slept in one of the old beds of her former Handmaids that she hadn’t attempted to summon back yet. He ripped the bedding out of it and replaced it with shredded paper as well as a few bits of lint and even leaves he had picked up in their walks between the campus buildings. Perhaps it was his way of making the bed feel a little more like home? She had no idea what kind of world lie in the realm of the summoned after all, or what kind of life the creatures in it lived before they were pulled out to become familiars for people like her and the other students in the school. None of her previous creatures had the ability to really speak so she couldn’t ask. Sunny couldn’t speak either so he was out of the question as well.

After they finished another round of training one night, Marianne decided to ask on the walk back to the dormitories. She was worn out and Bog maintained his true size while they walked, promising to switch once they were closer to the buildings. He walked silently beside her but when she glanced up at him; she noticed that he was watching the waning moon over their heads more than the path in front of them. This wasn’t the first time he had looked at it either. Marianne had seen him staring out the window at the moon many nights now. His tiny face was full of longing and even now it looked like he was pining for something while he stared at the looming pale face in the sky.

“What is it like?” Marianne asked, drawing his attention away from the moon. “The world we call you from…”

“It’s not much different from the world as you know it here.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Whatever abilities we have here are altered from what we have back home because we mainly don’t need them where we live. It’s like an endless forest where the creatures mainly try to survive rather than find themselves the weapons and shields of magically-inclined humans.”

“Is that what you did? Just tried to survive?” Marianne stopped walking, her hands joining behind her back.

Seeing that she had stopped, Bog King stopped as well and turned to face her but eventually looked up at the moon again. He smiled at it thoughtfully, the soft curve of his lips fond and reminiscent…such a soft expression on a face so full of hard angles. Marianne’s heart felt a little tighter than usual in her chest but she ignored the sensation, burying her hands in her pockets with a huff to cover up the oddity while Bog King averted his eyes from the moon and focused on her again.

“I am a king,” he stated, “It might not be seen the same way as it is here, but my name is my role. I watch over the goblins of the forest. In spite of how fierce and strong my race is, we’re not known for our intelligence, so it is up to me to keep them in order to an extent. However, one can’t always control basic instinct…”

“Basic instinct,” she murmured, watching him nod before he started walking again. She remembered his first response to being pulled from his own world very well. He was angry and threatened her without even using words; it was all a physical promise that he would harm her if she didn’t promise him he would go back. It was fight or flight, perfectly natural on a primal level to feel and Bog King had chosen to fight rather than hide from the creature that had summoned him. Could she even imagine the homesickness he may have been feeling now? Marianne followed but stopped him with a hand against his arm, the goblin pausing to look down at his master again. “I’m sorry I took you away from your goblins.”

“You didn’t know.”

————

Weeks passed and the training continued. Marianne was confident in her commands now and while Bog King still had moments where he could refuse to listen, he mostly obeyed without any trouble. Every time Marianne tried to command him, however, a part of her cringed at the idea of forcing him to do something. There were some actions in which he was forced to obey whether he wanted to or not and even though he insisted on her doing them for the sake of practice, Marianne hated the dead look in his eyes when he carried out the command. She preferred it when he had a say in what he did, when he could argue with her over why on earth she wanted to try that move when he thought another tactic would have been better. It was a partnership during those times and that was how she craved it to be. Equality.

Through her training sessions with Bog King, Roland still made his presence known even if it wasn’t through Marianne’s blind challenges anymore. He showed up at her dorm room with a flower pot full of love notes folded into buttercups, his favorite nickname for her at the time of their dating but after weeks of being battered and bruised by the familiar of the very man trying to gift her things, she pointedly slammed the door in his face. He persisted with trying to talk to her in the hallways after class or knocked on her door in the middle of the night but Marianne found it remarkably easy to ignore Roland’s presence when Bog King kept her occupied by making faces or distracting her with a book or something happening outside the window.

Bog King made things easier in many ways outside of the training ring. Marianne had noticed this in their weeks together. The animosity of their first meeting seemed completely dissolved and replaced by a camaraderie that they both seemed to find solace in. Marianne’s once conflicted nights of stressing over beating Roland at his own game had become evenings where she was tired from training but strangely happy by the time her head hit the pillow. Bog King didn’t mention his return home at all; he spoke of it with fondness but never finished with demands to be sent back. Marianne was growing fond of how he described the place, falling asleep imagining in her dreams and almost wishing she could see it for herself by the time she woke the next morning.

Things had certainly improved in their relationship and Marianne honestly couldn’t say she had been more in sync with a familiar than she was in her partnership with Bog King. Dawn adored him as well, though it was no surprise to her because Dawn rarely disliked anyone and even though Bog King scared her on their first meeting, she practically adopted him as a new friend since then. He was always relieved when Marianne finally took him away from her clingy sister, the blond now used to his larger form as well as the little one he originally assumed just for her. Still, it was sweet watching Dawn cling to his narrow waist, nestling her cheek into his armor while his hands hovered in the air, uncertain of what to do about the short human holding onto him. Marianne sometimes wondered if he would be just as disgusted with physical contact if she ever tried to hug him as well.

Of course, one thought like that was enough to raise other questions in Marianne’s mind. She was ashamed by how often she thought about Bog King and touch after something so innocent. Now it was taking a different turn in her mind, her nights where she tried to sleep turning into little peeks at the tiny bed where Bog King slept. He was so little, she never really considered the fact that there was a male in her room because of his size whenever he was in there but now she was fully aware of it even when he was smaller than her hand. He wasn’t always that small and when he assumed his full height during the training, Marianne was finding it harder to focus on actual training and more on the creature in front of her.

“You’ve been in a good mood recently,” Roland commented one afternoon, catching Marianne in the one moment she didn’t have Bog King around to help her avoid him. She wished she could have kept going, just ignored his winning smile and golden hair catching the sunlight streaming through the passage’s windows. If she looked into his face she was positive those perfect teeth would even sparkle but spared herself the visual by ducking her head down instead.

“You’re about to kill it,” she grumbled, brushing past him to keep walking down the hallway but he followed her, keeping pace with her stride.

“Buttercup, I only want to talk.” He implored with a little chuckle following his words. She hated that little laughing punctuation; it was a sound he made whenever he was playing to the crowd around him, making her out to be the unreasonable one when it was his relentless pursuit that was the true questionable behavior between them.

“Talking is a little late when you’ve taken out every one of my familiars and even caught me in the crossfire at this point.” Marianne snapped, rounding on him with her hand spread across her chest where the scabbing claw marks still lingered under her shirt. Hi eyes widened at the fierceness behind her words and she did see his gaze dart down to her chest before heading back for her face. She wanted to handle this with as little emotion as possible but one look at his face fueled her ire as well as reminded her of every creature she had seen fall at the hands of Roland’s familiar. All of them had been her fault and only because she had been so angry with the man standing right in front of her. It was her fault and she hated it. “I have to go, there’s a test next week. I’m sure you have something to study for yourself.”

“Hold on there, darlin’.” He hurried after her and extended his arm around her front to stop her again. Marianne pushed him away with a shove and glowered up at him before the limb could even brush her front. The effort to look up into Roland’s face felt a lot easier than the craning of her neck to look into Bog King’s face these days. Roland seemed so short in comparison and her sour mood lightened with the urge to snicker over the height difference. Funny how one comparison to Bog King and she was suddenly capable of feeling a lot better than before.

“What?” she groaned as she looked to the ceiling, pleading for divine intervention.

“I miss you,” he insisted, lingering nearer to her. “Don’t you miss me too?”
Marianne frowned at him, folding her arms tight across her chest. “I miss what you used to be, Roland. I’ll be honest and say that, but I don’t miss it enough to deceive myself into trying to give you another chance. I’d have to be crazy to do that again after what you put me through by now. Not only did you cheat on me but when you tried to “win me back” you let Chipper past your command and actually hurt me when you could have stopped him the moment I tried to save my familiars. You let him attack hard enough to injure me more than once. If that’s some kind of way of saying you love me then you have a pretty twisted concept of what love is.”

“You told me that you wanted me to give it my all when we fight. It was you who issued the first challenge even though you knew your Handmaids’ limits and now you’re trying to turn it around and say that it’s my fault?” Roland asked, shrugging his shoulders while holding his hands palms up towards the ceiling. “If you were more powerful, maybe you could summon something actually strong enough to protect you and we wouldn’t have to worry about your pretty little self getting disfigured.”

Marianne’s temper flared at his words, “Are you suggesting I’m weak?” she demanded, narrowing her gaze at him while jabbing a thumb at herself.

“Well, given your track record with your previous summonings…” Roland rotated his hands a little as he spoke and Marianne’s mouth fell open.

“That’s it,” she held up her hands, fed up with him and ready to throw down the gauntlet. Roland fell silent the moment he saw her move, cutting him off and he arched a golden eyebrow while she clenched her hands into fists and lowered them to her sides. Everything in her screamed to yell at Roland, to shout at the top of her lungs but she forced herself to be calm. She took a few deep breaths, feeling the tension start to seep and her shoulders slowly relax before she opened her eyes and braced her hands upon her lips with one more steadying breath.“Tomorrow, in the arena, I challenge you one last time. If I win, you will stop trying to win me back. If you win, I will stop challenging you.”

“Will you stop resisting?” Roland asked, suddenly serious.

“No. That I will never agree to.” She shook her head, keeping her stand secure and arms fully locked in place without a single twitch to give away any hint of nerves. “There’s no bargain that will make me agree to going out with you again.”

Roland sighed, his hands bracing on his hips now. “Then I’m afraid we have no fight. I can’t accept unless there is something to win after it is over.”

Marianne swallowed at the challenging stare he gave her after he had been dancing around putting his foot down this entire time. Now he actually seemed to be serious and it made Marianne’s resolve shake a little the longer they stared one another down in the emptying hallway. She slowly eased her hands off of her hips and let them hang at her sides, thinking over her options. Roland continued to watch her as if he had all the time in the world but he did eventually reach up and check his hair in the nearby window before twisting back around to look at her after a good stretch of time for her to think it over. Marianne’s stomach lurched at the thought of reneging her previous statement but at the same time she needed to be confident in herself, she needed to be confident in Bog.

“Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

————

“What did you offer him to make him agree to this?” Bog asked where he sat on the edge of his little box bed while Marianne lay on her bed, her arm over her eyes even though they were shut.

“It’s not important,” she avoided the truth to keep Bog from worrying.

Funny, she only recently started to think of Bog King as just Bog now and she almost preferred the shortened name. It felt a little more personal than trying to address him with the word “king” thrown in there. It made her almost smile at how much she had come to relax in the goblin’s presence now and it felt like he really was her familiar and not just a temporary solution to a long-standing problem. How would things have been if she genuinely wanted Bog to be her companion in life and not just until this fight was over?

Yeah, right.

“Marianne,” Bog’s voice called her from her thoughts and she lifted her arm and peered over at him. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, slowly pushing herself upright and resting her hands in her lap. “Roland can be a moron at times but he has a strong bond with Chipper. He summoned him back when he was in high school. I’ve only trained with you for—what—two weeks, three weeks? You might be a powerful goblin but what about me?”

Laughing humorlessly to herself, she cupped her hands over her elbows. Bog fidgeted a little on his box before he glanced out the window and then back to her. “Let’s go outside.”

“Outside?” she arched an eyebrow. “Do you need to stretch your wings?”

“Yeah,” he stood up and Marianne sighed, digging her hand into her hair before she stood up and pulled on a sweater over her shirt. She hadn’t taken off her shoes yet so she had no problem heading for the door, holding open the pocket of the hoodie for him and he flew over to her, slipping inside of it before she headed out into the hallway and made the quiet walk through the building to the exit.

When they were outside, it was well after dark and the moon was nearly gone but the sliver of the crescent was enough to give some silvery light to show the way off of the beaten path and towards the woods surrounding the university. Bog flew out of her pocket the moment she was past the first few trees and she barely broke stride when he assumed his full size, walking beside her further into the thicket until he finally found enough space to stretch his wings out and check the canopy over their heads to see if there was an opening.

Lots of students brought their familiars out here. Either to let them run, climb, run, jump, or fly, they brought them into the woods where the creatures seemed to be the most comfortable. Marianne could see the sense in it since Bog explained that their world was basically a giant forest after all. It felt the most like home. She zipped up her hoodie and looked for a good spot to sit and wait for him to get the flying jitters out of him but he lightly hooked his fingers around her arm before she could walk off.

“Come here,” he said softly, coaxing her closer and Marianne’s heart leapt into her throat when he brought her in toe to toe with him. “I normally don’t do this sort of thing but you’re nervous about tomorrow and you need to get your mind off things so I’m going to do it for you.”

“What’s that?” she arched an eyebrow.

“This,” he stated before his hands scooped underneath her armpits and she yelped as he picked her up off of the ground and his wings started moving. Bog walked forward a few steps with her hanging from his hands before he lifted off of the ground and Marianne’s hands immediately clutched at his arms the moment she saw the ground starting to shrink beneath them and the tree branches a lot closer.

“NOT COOL, BOG!” she cried when he chuckled, hoisting her up with him until they were over the tree tops and she immediately stopped herself from kicking in case he dropped her. “Oh—oh God—“

“Got your mind off of Roland yet?” he asked with a snicker.

“YES!” she gasped, still gawking at the trees under her feet. She could almost kick a branch if she wanted to but was too focused on the fact that only two hands kept her from plummeting back down to the ground below said branch.

“Good,” Bog brought her in closer and she made a strange squealing noise in her throat when he started to rotate her around so that she was starting to face away from him. Afraid he was going to try to drop her back into the trees she shook her head and clambered for him, startling the goblin when she found hand holds on his armor and eventually pulled herself into his chest, arms wrapped tight around him and pressing her face into the hard plating of his carapace. His hand rest against her back, “If you do that, you won’t see anything.”

“I’m fine right here.” She mumbled stubbornly against the rough surface. And she really was. Marianne was completely fine with clinging to him like a frightened child in that moment as long as she didn’t go plummeting back down to earth. Humans did not belong in the sky and she could definitely feel it where gravity was pulling on her legs and her weight was making her droop a bit farther down his chest. Her legs wanted to clamber around him to keep her in the air but wrapping her legs around Bog was absolutely out of the question! Her face burned at the idea of even thinking about it and gravity seemed to laugh at her hesitation because she slipped another increment. “I’m gonna fall!”

“You don’t know how to adjust to gravity,” he nudged her head with a knuckle. “Put your feet on top of my feet. If your weight is distributed to multiple parts, you should be fine.”

“Okay,” she peeked out from where she had been practically kissing his scales to look down, her foot inching over until she found the top of his and she was instantly reminded of little girls standing on Daddy’s feet so they could dance together. It felt childish, she felt childish, but she eventually stood on his feet and he held them stiff for her before she felt him start to drift away from the original spot where he had flown out of the trees.

Bog took is slow, hovering over the leaves and nearly skimming the branches more than once until she hid her face in his armor again, releasing a chain of swear words to herself until he finally carried her higher than any obstacles could reach. She could feel wind blowing past them but it was only a breeze and Marianne eventually looked out at the dark world below them. Her arms were starting to ache where his hard angles dug into her muscles as well as trying to hold herself upright and she risked easing her grip while peering in the direction of the university. It looked dark aside from a few windows illuminated in the dorms. A few lights dotted the campus but their glow couldn’t reach them where they were drifting lazily through the sky.

“How are your wings holding up?” she peered up at him and got an eyeful of his chin and the strange stubble that looked almost like thorns growing out of it.

“They’re fine,” he patted her back, “I think you should turn around though, I can’t fly any other way with you like this.”

Marianne groaned but his hands kept a good hold of her while she slowly shimmied herself into turning around. She had to switch feet, putting her heels on top of his feet while his hands held her arm and one went to her waist when she wobbled, nearly pitching forward but he had her. Bog had her back. She laughed nervously the moment she was standing on his feet with her back to his front, his hands holding her secure while she saw the endless night stretched out before them. The lights of the distant city twinkled almost like stars on the horizon and the wind blew her hair from her eyes rather than into them.

Bog wrapped his arm around her front, the soft flesh of his unguarded inner limb touching against her clothing. It was the closest she had ever been to him and even though there were layers of clothing between her and him, Marianne’s nerves were on high alert to his presence. She could attribute it to the heights but her racing heart combined with the warmth flushing through her body felt like a tossup between two scenarios. Whatever it was, she was feeling both elated and terrified at the same time.

“I’m going to lean forward,” he warned her and she jolted, bracing herself as he pitched forward and darted back down towards the ground before evening out in a horizontal flight that held her parallel to the earth. Marianne gasped at the sight of grass rushing past them before he raised her higher and she cautiously reached out, Bog accommodating so that she could run her fingertips over the blades, watching them ripple from the practically vibrating wings carrying them along. She couldn’t help the grin that burst across her face when he started to corkscrew away from the ground, creating tight arcs that grew wider and wider the higher they went until they were soaring over the rooftops of the university. Bog’s knees suddenly struck the backs of her legs and she screamed when her legs dropped and his hands caught her wrists before he lowered her down to the point where she was nearly running along the shingles of the roof.

“BOOOOG!” She yelled before he hoisted her back up with a cackling laugh that echoed off of the walls of the school and up into the night when he pulled her in and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kicking his shin for good measure before she clenched her legs around his waist and focused on clinging to the stupid familiar, his hands gently supporting her weight through the rest of the flight until he finally brought her back to earth, carefully landing in the grass just on the fringe of the woods.

“You can let go,” he soothed, “We’ve landed.”

Marianne picked her head up and saw that she was face to face with him, the amusement dying in his eyes when she met his gaze and her anger at his toying with her vaporizing the moment he nervously licked at his lips. She copied him, her tongue flicking along her lower lip while she tried to will her racing heart to calm down after the rush of the flight but there was no talking it down. She rest her hands against his shoulders, nearly touching the strange growths capping them that grew from beneath the chest plate-like carapace.

“Did you plan this?” she asked, looking him dead in the eye.

“Only the flight,” he breathed, “I wanted to get your mind off of the fight. It was making you doubt yourself.”

Marianne nodded, “I…I appreciate that.”

“I didn’t think about…what would happen afterward.”

“Yeah?” she leaned in closer.

“Yeah,”

Marianne met him halfway, her lips slipping against his, holding her breath before she could pant in his face and ruin the moment. He was warm, soft and dry; all things that spoke human even though he was a goblin and the comparison only seemed to make it ache all the more when she tilted her head to better slant over the welcoming mouth.

————

Dawn and Sunny were standing on the sidelines when Marianne walked into the arena the next morning. She wore the traditional summoning garb that was more of a formality than a necessity but she was willing to face this as a professional and not just some jilted girlfriend anymore. She donned black slacks and a white dress shirt as was tradition as well as a jacket that fastened like a vest in the front but hung to her ankles in the back. She made sure to wear her make up like war paint instead of going at it bare-faced into the challenge but even though she walked into the arena with confidence, she felt her nerves climbing into her throat the closer it came to time to summon Bog.

She had dispelled him last night at his request, they had planned it for weeks that it would be a much more dramatic entrance and reveal if she waited until the fight was to begin before calling him forth. Dispelling Bog wasn’t the same as sending him back to the realm of the summoned. It was more like a temporary limbo where familiars lay in wait until they are needed in case their masters can’t have them constantly at their sides. After the events of last night, Marianne was relieved to have her room to herself without constant awareness of Bog’s presence. She would never have slept if he had been there, not with that kiss hovering over both of their heads like it did.

Roland’s arrival was marked by his trio of friends announcing him entering the arena. There was a crowd of people that followed after him, an audience to inflate his ego while he walked towards the ring and Marianne glowered at his smiling face the closer he came. Chipper walked with his head held high beside him, the Squorrel walking on all fours even though it was capable of being bipedal and swaying its tail from side to side with a victory walk it hadn’t even earned yet. Big black eyes blinked at her past the green headdress Roland made him wear like a helmet and she almost felt sorry for the creature. It had no idea what its master had gotten it into…

The crowd filtered into the on looking stands and Marianne felt her heart leap in her throat when she saw the head of the academy, Seraphina Plum standing among them with her familiar sitting at her feet, tilting its head at the ruckus of the several spectators taking up spots around them. Plum appeared disinterested in the idle chatter but she did look right at Marianne with an intrigued tilt of her eyebrow, a smile curving her lips when she saw that Marianne was looking right at her as well. She gave a little wave before brushing a bit of colorfully streaked hair over her shoulder. Only Plum was bold enough to sport hair color that was blended between hundreds of different shades of blues and purples like that without concern on the fact she was in her mid forties and it earned some odd looks even from the students in the school.

Marianne turned her attention back to Roland as he came to stand on one side of the ring, hands confidently folding across his chest while he glanced at Chipper with a smirk then back to her. He was wearing the traditional garb as well but his selected robe looked more like a tailcoat for that extra gentlemanly flare he liked so much. Marianne rolled her eyes at the cut of it before she approached the center of the ring, Roland mirroring her and making his way forward as well. He curled a bit of hair around his finger and let it lay across his forehead before he stopped directly across from her in the center.

“May the best familiar win, my little buttercup.” He held his hand out to her.

“He will,” Marianne smirked, taking his hand and shaking it before turning her back on him and wiping it off on her robe, the gesture inspiring a few snickers from the crowd before she reached her end again and spun on her heel in the dirt to face her opponent.

“Where is your little familiar, anyway?” Roland called over.

Marianne held up a finger to make him wait, her eyes trailing to the hand that she had sliced in order to summon Bog and a thoughtful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She warmed in anticipation of seeing him again even though they had parted on awkward terms last night. Bog wouldn’t let her down because of a kiss. He was a king, and a king’s pride was greater than a little kiss beneath the moonlight.

Extending her fingers and tilting her palm down to be level to the earth, she whispered the chant to herself, summoning Bog from his limbo and bringing him forward. The portal tore open the earth at her feet and the crowd erupted in gasps and startled screams at the size of the opening when Marianne’s familiars always just popped into existence thanks to their small size. This portal made way for something much bigger and Marianne saw that Roland’s clear complexion had turned a little gray and his lips twitched, signaling the faltering of his smile.

Bog tore out of the opening and landed heavily on his feet in the dirt just as the portal closed, his wings rattling behind him as he snarled in Roland’s direction. More uneasy noises rose in the crowd, whispers and frantic words exchanged all around the ring as Bog relaxed from his pose and let his wings fall slack. Marianne stood beside him and reached up until she found his shoulder.

“Roland, meet my familiar, the Bog King.” She introduced, feeling the scales of his shoulder shift a little under her touch before he stood a little straighter.

“B-Bog King?” Roland’s face paled at the sight of Bog now and Chipper’s ears went back. “How—how did you summon that?”

“The way a master summons any goblin. I offered him something in exchange for another.” Marianne explained, letting her hand trail down his arm. A chill ran through her at the slide of her fingers over his long limb but she maintained her composure even when Bog looked down at her, obviously feeling the effect he had on her through their contact. “Blood for blood.”

Gasps filled the stands all over again and Roland recoiled from her with a disgusted expression before he cleared his throat, trying to compose himself again. He rest a hand upon his hip and patted Chipper’s body with the other. The Squorrel shrank a little closer to the ground under Bog’s glare but held its ground. An animal knew when a predator was near and Marianne couldn’t deny the satisfaction she felt when the creature balked in the presence of her familiar.

“Well done,” Roland conceded. “Though it’s not as attractive as your usual choice in companions, is it?”

Marianne felt Bog stiffen and her other hand came over, touching at his arm as if to hold him back if he got the urge to charge. Bog’s teeth clenched and his wings flared but he held his ground and eventually relaxed his stance but his grimace remained even with her trying to soothe him with her touch.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” Roland made a show of yawning, covering his mouth with a hand. “I’ve got plenty of things in mind for what we’re going to do when all of this is over and done with.”

Bog glanced at Marianne but she kept her face schooled. “The challenged takes first move.”

Marianne squeezed at his arm but forced herself to step away from Bog, keeping her spot on her side while Bog braced himself. Roland beckoned Chipper over and whispered into the familiar’s ear before he patted his side and the Squorrel tore forward, kicking up dirt in his wake, signaling he was beginning the fight. Bog dug his feet into the loose dirt and held out his hands, bracing himself for impact when Chipper slammed into him. His body slid back a few inches, leaving tracks in the dirt but Bog hoisted the massive creature up and heaved him away from himself with a snarl tore through his body and curled his lips back until his jagged but sharp teeth were exposed.

The crowd deafened Marianne with cheers when Chipper recovered from Bog’s throw and in a flash of brown fur it was darting towards him again, large bucked teeth flashing and snapping when it tried to latch onto his arm. Bog kicked the Squorrel away, using his hands and feet to walk himself low on all his limbs in a quick circle around the recovering animal before he sprang forward and landed on his back, latching his claws through the fur and finding purchase in the flesh buried deep beneath the hairs. Chipper squealed in startled pain before he bucked and kicked like an angry bull to throw Bog from his back.

Roland shouted a command while Marianne fumbled through her own options to try and help Bog out rather than just leaving him to act on his instincts alone. He told her before that he did not typically fight with teeth and claws back in his world, he had a weapon that was left behind when she summoned him but weapons were not permitted in the ring if the familiar did not already have it on their person! Marianne cringed when Chipper finally spun in tight circles then threw himself into a barrel roll, knocking Bog free when he crushed him into the dirt during the roll over. Roland cheered for him while Marianne paled when she saw Bog momentarily sprawled in the dust. He rolled onto his hands and knees, shaking his head and her breath hitched in her chest when he looked right at her.

“Command me!” he snapped, snatching up a handful of dirt and throwing it into Chipper’s face just as he tried to charge him again.

“F-Fly!” She screamed back, Bog angrily snarling before he spread his wings and zipped right into the air with barely a beat missed in between the ground and the sky. Chipper scratched at his eyes, trying to clear away the stinging dust and Bog landed again near to Marianne, his back to her and body tense.

“What was all that training for if you’re not going to use it?” he spat. “You’re a master, aren’t you? Strategize!”

Bog took to the air and made a dive straight for Chipper, slamming into the Squorrel and forcing him into the dirt. Chipper screamed, the sound high-pitched and painful when Bog’s claws latched into him again but he kicked Bog away with his clawed back legs, rolling back onto his feet while Bog distanced himself again. Marianne watched them go at it over and over again, Bog drawing first blood, the evidence clear in his matting fur but Bog looked winded the further the fight went on.

Even though Chipper was wounded, he still had plenty of fire to keep moving and attacking so long as Roland was directing him and Marianne could see that Bog, while keeping up just fine, was going to need something to tilt the odds in his favor soon. Claws and teeth could only get him so far after all. She managed to command him in the end, shouting them over the din and Bog obeyed without question but at the same time he added his own flare to the tasks until he eventually struck Chipper’s throat and more blood spilled into the dirt, much to Roland’s dismay but then he turned it around and ordered the Squorrel to bite. Chipper’s teeth latched onto Bog’s arm before he could move away in time and Marianne gasped. Even if it was armored, the pressure of those teeth had to hurt and it looked like a strong enough bite that Bog couldn’t simply pull his arm out of it.

Chipper slammed Bog to the ground, bits of sand flying up and splaying across the rest of the grains. With the angle he was in, Bog had access to one of Chipper’s legs. If he could just immobilize him somehow, it would handicap the other familiar! Marianne sorted through the options before the idea finally struck her. She just needed to get it out before Roland could open his big mouth again!

“BOG!” she shouted over the crowd and the commotion of the fight. “SEVER!”

Bog jerked his head up from the dirt, looking at her as she slashed her arm and Marianne saw the biggest smile cross his face before he obliged her. Holding his fingers together to line up his claws, he slashed them against Chipper’s back leg. The familiar screeched in agony when his claws cut deep enough to damage the tendons of his back leg and his mouth opened wide. Bog rolled beneath his body and took care of the other leg before the animal collapsed to the ground, squirming in pain. He stood up and looked down at his bloodied claws, turning around and looking directly at Roland as he held them up and licked one of them.

“Blood for blood,” he stated, flicking the rest off of them with a sniff before he turned back to the cringing animal.

“Well, I do believe that’s a match!” a chipper voice shouted and Bog immediately spun around, Marianne noticing how he faced Plum when she came down from the stands and stood outside of the ring. “Hello, Bog King.”

“You,” he hissed, stalking toward her but she backed away a step.

“No, no, no, no!” she shook her fingers. “Can’t hurt me up here, remember?”

Bog scowled, Marianne jogging over to stand beside him and looking between the two, puzzled. “What’s going on?”

“Ah, Miss Marianne!” Plum beamed, “Congratulations on summoning one of the most stubborn blockheads of the goblin kingdom. The Bog King himself! You should be proud; he hasn’t let anyone call him out in years!”

“And for good reason,” Bog muttered. “You kept sicking humans on me since you first came up to this world; I never had a moment’s peace until you finally promised to erase me from your textbooks.”

“Well, maybe not all of them.” Plum chimed in with a little smile, “I did take out some of the details to deter the casual onlooker but it seems Marianne really was desperate to summon something strong enough to meet her needs.”

Marianne offered a fake smile when the woman clapped her on the shoulder. She had no idea what they were talking about but apparently she wasn’t the first to try and summon Bog in the past. Plum giggled, touching her fingertips together near her lips as she glanced between Bog and herself. It looked like she was enjoying some private joke that she would not reveal to them but Bog didn’t seem interested past the constant glare he kept aiming her way. Maybe it was best to save the questions for another time?

A flash of light distracted Marianne from the two and she peered back towards Chipper but found only Roland standing there. Obviously he had sent Chipper away to heal after the fight, his expression hard when he looked up at Marianne and she simply stared back at him, daring him to try and argue against the victory or try and renege on the deal but he turned his back on her and stalked off, his trio of friends swarming him with comforting pats on his back and eager words in an attempt to cheer him up while walking him out of the arena.

She felt eyes on her and glanced up at Bog, who smiled down at her before he held his hand out to her. She took it and they shook before Marianne’s expression turned thoughtful. Looking down at the bloody claws wrapped around her fingers, she saw that his contract had been fulfilled. Bog was no longer obligated to obey her and therefore she had to send him back to the realm of the summoned. Amidst the clamber and chatter of the vacating crowd, she lowered her head and closed her eyes. She took a careful breath and before she risked enduring long goodbyes that would wreck her heart, she started to speak the chant to herself to return him to his home. Halfway through the words, however, fingertips touched her lips and she fell silent. Marianne opened her eyes and looked up at Bog still standing over her, his hand clasping hers but the other one silencing her. He shook his head, pulling her towards him and slipping his arm behind her back before leaning down so his mouth was near her ear.

“I’m not ready to go.” He whispered as Marianne wrapped her free arm around him tightly. “I have a master to take care of.”

Somehow the word “master” sounded like it was about to have a lot more meaning to her than it ever did before…