original - fic: Mik and Cat, G.
I wrote this for a writing contest on Gaia that I wound up never submitting to. It's pretty nonsensical. Also, it's probably the most innocent bit of fiction you will ever read on this journal, so... yes. Also, it's sitting on my hard drive giving me the evil eye so I'm putting it up. :(
LOL nobody reads original fic on LJ. >>
Mik and Cat
G
gen, 1319 words.
In which a bumbling magician is adopted by a cat.
-
The cat lazing on his piled notes from the past three years of magical failure strikes him as normal for all of six minutes. Then again, Mik has always been terribly unobservant for a magician, which helped earn him low marks in the local magic academy. (The other part was how low his spell success rate was-the instructors joked how when he was inept he was very inept, but when he finally got something right it was very good. “Like the naughty girl from that story,” they said, and he never quite figured out which story they meant.)
Mik gropes for his staff, nervous, because cats aren’t supposed to appear out of nowhere and sit on all of the notes from his prior failures. When he doesn’t find it (where had he left it? It had been leaning against that wall yesterday!) he fishes in his pocket for his emergency wand and tries the first spell that comes to mind. It is not until after he finishes the incantation that he realizes the spell to remove the cat from the premises has backfired on him. The world blurs and whirrs to a stop; he is fifty meters from his workshop and steaming mad. He finds his pocket scrying glass, uses it to peer into his workshop, and sees the cat lazily move from its perch on his notes to the windowsill. It yawns, stretches, and begins to wash the ink from its cream-colored fur.
It takes Mik ten minutes to calm himself down (a record, he thinks sullenly-it must be the shortest time he’s ever taken to empty his mind and refocus) and he manages not to stomp back to his workshop door in a rage. It takes another ten minutes at the door for Mik to remind himself that it is his own workshop, and blowing the door off its hinges means he will have to fix it himself later. The cat sees him from the window and continues washing like his discontent is nothing. Mik counts to fifty in marketplace pidgin and opens the door, striding in-
-Only to rematerialize fifty meters away in the exact same spot he’d been standing in the first time he’d accidentally kicked himself out of his workshop. “Of all the days for that spell to actually work,” he grumbles, and fishes out his emergency wand again. (This time he makes sure to check that he’s not holding it backwards.) The cat yawns again, curls up in the windowsill’s sunniest patch, and goes to sleep. Mik successfully stifles the urge to swear and tries warping back into the workshop.
The workshop expels him with a loud bang, a shower of purple sparks, and a belch of aquamarine smoke. The expletive Mik managed not to say earlier explodes in his ears mere moments after he lands, and this time he swears. Loudly. The cat, fifty meters away and perched comfortably on his windowsill, looks reproachfully at him and rearranges itself to sleep facing away from the window. Mik walks another meter away from his workshop to find a tree suitable to sit under and sulk.
An hour later, Mik stands up, stretches his stiff legs, and walks back to his workshop. He reaches out to open the door, then thinks better of it. After all, he’d already been thrown out of his own workshop three times that morning, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. Since he is hungry again, he decides to walk into his living space and raid the pantry for something breakfast-like to eat.
The cat wakes up and drops down from the windowsill. It saunters to the workshop door, which swings open for it like Mik had failed to enchant it to do for him, and strolls outside.
“Mik,” the magician hears a voice calling from outside. “Mik! Hey, are you in?” It sounds like one of the neighbors, so Mik stuffs the rest of his bread and cheese in his mouth (miraculously not choking on it) and leaves his house.
“Oh, Branston. Good morning,” he says, or tries to say. It comes out as “Oh, Branfton, guffrmrrngh.” The man-the town bard-cum-blacksmith, self-professed jack-of-all-trades-grins and tries to hold back laughter. Oddly, even after the first twenty greetings of this ilk, it is still funny to him.
“A tip for you, son-chew, swallow, try again.” Branston laughs anyway and pats Mik on the shoulder. “Nice cat, by the way. I see you finally have a familiar, eh?”
Mik nearly chokes. “What? That cat’s not my familiar!”
“Well, he waltzed out of your workshop like he owns the place, so either he’s your familiar or you’re his new pet.”
“That cat’s the reason why I can’t get in my workshop today!”
Branston snorts. “Why not just ask him nicely to help you get back in, then?”
“How is that supposed to-“
“You miscast a spell intended to magically kick him out of the workshop, am I wrong?”
“N-no, I did it right but I was holding the wand backwards,” Mik mumbles, face red and fists clenched. Branston waves his hands soothingly.
“Hey, listen, I’m sure the cat will help you out. Regular cats don’t usually wander their way into a magician’s workshop, at least not without a reason.”
Branston’s words resonate oddly in Mik’s head, something he was repeatedly punished for not paying attention to in the academy, so later he takes a minute to put out a saucer of milk and some chopped up sausage. The cat lazily regards him from its spot right outside his workshop door and pads over to eat.
Mik tries to say hello, pet its cream-colored coat, something-but all he receives for his trouble is a wickedly sharp claw poked into the tender pad of his thumb. He yelps and retreats thirty paces. The cat glowers at him briefly before returning to its meal. He makes several more attempts to greet the cat when the cat seems to be on the verge of leaving the dishes, but the cat yowls sharply at him and he retreats each time, until the sausage is gone and the milk saucer drained.
The cat looks at him expectantly.
“I… I don’t know if you’ll understand me, and I kind of feel stupid for asking a cat-n-not that I meant any offense by it,” Mik backtracks hastily, as the cat unsheathes its claws. “I… I just… can you help me stop getting thrown out of my own workshop?”
The cat starts to wash, pauses, and gives him another look. Mik has the distinct, uncomfortable impression the cat is saying, “Well, you could have just asked in the first place, couldn’t you?” Then the cat flicks a forepaw at the workshop and a burst of lurid cyan smoke billows out the window. Mik blinks and nearly runs to his workshop door, which swings open for him without a squeak of protest (strange, when he’d enchanted it the door opened properly for him half the time, and the other time hit him in the nose-and it always screeched like a banshee). He steps in and squeezes his eyes shut.
Ten minutes pass.
The cat rubs against his legs as it strolls into his magical workspace, and then Mik finally makes himself stop squeezing his eyelids closed. He is not looking at the oak tree fifty-one meters from his workshop door. Mik gropes for his staff and finds it, checks his scrying mirror and finds it is actually not cloudy (and playing elevator music) for once, and resists the urge to let out a whoop of joy. He reaches down, grasps the cat’s forepaws, and tries to teach the cat to dance.
The cat gives him a stern look, failing to see what was so amusing about this, and promptly scratches him for his trouble.
This is how Mik was adopted by a cat.
LOL nobody reads original fic on LJ. >>
Mik and Cat
G
gen, 1319 words.
In which a bumbling magician is adopted by a cat.
-
The cat lazing on his piled notes from the past three years of magical failure strikes him as normal for all of six minutes. Then again, Mik has always been terribly unobservant for a magician, which helped earn him low marks in the local magic academy. (The other part was how low his spell success rate was-the instructors joked how when he was inept he was very inept, but when he finally got something right it was very good. “Like the naughty girl from that story,” they said, and he never quite figured out which story they meant.)
Mik gropes for his staff, nervous, because cats aren’t supposed to appear out of nowhere and sit on all of the notes from his prior failures. When he doesn’t find it (where had he left it? It had been leaning against that wall yesterday!) he fishes in his pocket for his emergency wand and tries the first spell that comes to mind. It is not until after he finishes the incantation that he realizes the spell to remove the cat from the premises has backfired on him. The world blurs and whirrs to a stop; he is fifty meters from his workshop and steaming mad. He finds his pocket scrying glass, uses it to peer into his workshop, and sees the cat lazily move from its perch on his notes to the windowsill. It yawns, stretches, and begins to wash the ink from its cream-colored fur.
It takes Mik ten minutes to calm himself down (a record, he thinks sullenly-it must be the shortest time he’s ever taken to empty his mind and refocus) and he manages not to stomp back to his workshop door in a rage. It takes another ten minutes at the door for Mik to remind himself that it is his own workshop, and blowing the door off its hinges means he will have to fix it himself later. The cat sees him from the window and continues washing like his discontent is nothing. Mik counts to fifty in marketplace pidgin and opens the door, striding in-
-Only to rematerialize fifty meters away in the exact same spot he’d been standing in the first time he’d accidentally kicked himself out of his workshop. “Of all the days for that spell to actually work,” he grumbles, and fishes out his emergency wand again. (This time he makes sure to check that he’s not holding it backwards.) The cat yawns again, curls up in the windowsill’s sunniest patch, and goes to sleep. Mik successfully stifles the urge to swear and tries warping back into the workshop.
The workshop expels him with a loud bang, a shower of purple sparks, and a belch of aquamarine smoke. The expletive Mik managed not to say earlier explodes in his ears mere moments after he lands, and this time he swears. Loudly. The cat, fifty meters away and perched comfortably on his windowsill, looks reproachfully at him and rearranges itself to sleep facing away from the window. Mik walks another meter away from his workshop to find a tree suitable to sit under and sulk.
An hour later, Mik stands up, stretches his stiff legs, and walks back to his workshop. He reaches out to open the door, then thinks better of it. After all, he’d already been thrown out of his own workshop three times that morning, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. Since he is hungry again, he decides to walk into his living space and raid the pantry for something breakfast-like to eat.
The cat wakes up and drops down from the windowsill. It saunters to the workshop door, which swings open for it like Mik had failed to enchant it to do for him, and strolls outside.
“Mik,” the magician hears a voice calling from outside. “Mik! Hey, are you in?” It sounds like one of the neighbors, so Mik stuffs the rest of his bread and cheese in his mouth (miraculously not choking on it) and leaves his house.
“Oh, Branston. Good morning,” he says, or tries to say. It comes out as “Oh, Branfton, guffrmrrngh.” The man-the town bard-cum-blacksmith, self-professed jack-of-all-trades-grins and tries to hold back laughter. Oddly, even after the first twenty greetings of this ilk, it is still funny to him.
“A tip for you, son-chew, swallow, try again.” Branston laughs anyway and pats Mik on the shoulder. “Nice cat, by the way. I see you finally have a familiar, eh?”
Mik nearly chokes. “What? That cat’s not my familiar!”
“Well, he waltzed out of your workshop like he owns the place, so either he’s your familiar or you’re his new pet.”
“That cat’s the reason why I can’t get in my workshop today!”
Branston snorts. “Why not just ask him nicely to help you get back in, then?”
“How is that supposed to-“
“You miscast a spell intended to magically kick him out of the workshop, am I wrong?”
“N-no, I did it right but I was holding the wand backwards,” Mik mumbles, face red and fists clenched. Branston waves his hands soothingly.
“Hey, listen, I’m sure the cat will help you out. Regular cats don’t usually wander their way into a magician’s workshop, at least not without a reason.”
Branston’s words resonate oddly in Mik’s head, something he was repeatedly punished for not paying attention to in the academy, so later he takes a minute to put out a saucer of milk and some chopped up sausage. The cat lazily regards him from its spot right outside his workshop door and pads over to eat.
Mik tries to say hello, pet its cream-colored coat, something-but all he receives for his trouble is a wickedly sharp claw poked into the tender pad of his thumb. He yelps and retreats thirty paces. The cat glowers at him briefly before returning to its meal. He makes several more attempts to greet the cat when the cat seems to be on the verge of leaving the dishes, but the cat yowls sharply at him and he retreats each time, until the sausage is gone and the milk saucer drained.
The cat looks at him expectantly.
“I… I don’t know if you’ll understand me, and I kind of feel stupid for asking a cat-n-not that I meant any offense by it,” Mik backtracks hastily, as the cat unsheathes its claws. “I… I just… can you help me stop getting thrown out of my own workshop?”
The cat starts to wash, pauses, and gives him another look. Mik has the distinct, uncomfortable impression the cat is saying, “Well, you could have just asked in the first place, couldn’t you?” Then the cat flicks a forepaw at the workshop and a burst of lurid cyan smoke billows out the window. Mik blinks and nearly runs to his workshop door, which swings open for him without a squeak of protest (strange, when he’d enchanted it the door opened properly for him half the time, and the other time hit him in the nose-and it always screeched like a banshee). He steps in and squeezes his eyes shut.
Ten minutes pass.
The cat rubs against his legs as it strolls into his magical workspace, and then Mik finally makes himself stop squeezing his eyelids closed. He is not looking at the oak tree fifty-one meters from his workshop door. Mik gropes for his staff and finds it, checks his scrying mirror and finds it is actually not cloudy (and playing elevator music) for once, and resists the urge to let out a whoop of joy. He reaches down, grasps the cat’s forepaws, and tries to teach the cat to dance.
The cat gives him a stern look, failing to see what was so amusing about this, and promptly scratches him for his trouble.
This is how Mik was adopted by a cat.