Chương 10: Name

"Now," Wes said, "there's something else I need to show you. As master and familiar we can both look at each other's status pages. I didn't do that the first day on the advice of Morty. He's a former construct familiar just like you and he recommended waiting until you give me permission to look at it. However, I just wanted you to know I am giving you permission to look at mine. Just focus on me like you focused inward on yourself and you should see the information."

A former construct familiar who respects boundaries who Wes clearly has a lot of respect for? I want to meet him. Mark followed Wes's advice and text appeared as it had before. MASTER STATUS Name: Wes Durum Species: Human Age: 21 Class: Apprentice Wizard & Apothecary Apprentice Level: 2 ATTRIBUTES: STR: 10 | DEX: 10 | CON: 11 | INT: 16 | WIS: 11 | CHA: 9 There was no additional commentary this time. Mark had an eighteen in intelligence and sixteen in wisdom.

The person who legally owned him was objectively, quantifiably less intelligent and wise than he was. It seemed that the universe had a deeply ironic sense of humor.

"You're smarter than me." Wes fidgeted with his wand, not looking at Mark.

"Which was intentional. I wanted a familiar who could think. Who could help me understand difficult magical problems." He set down the wand and picked up a white stone from the table.

"I'm an okay student, but I want to be great. Professor Venwick and Morty both agreed this was my best path to not flunk out of school. I know you think I wanted a pet, that's what you kept calling yourself when I created you, but I truly don't want that. I want us to learn together, tutor each other, and spur greatness in each other." Wes had started rubbing the stone, working it between his fingers.

"Just please don't mention our intelligence scores to Damien Blackwood. If he found out my familiar has higher intelligence than me…" He trailed off.

"I won't bring up the intelligence thing."

"Thank you. He's been going on about his golem construct recently. All wizards with new familiars have to take the introductory familiar class, so you'll meet him later today. He's told me some very concerning ideas that he has about familiars, so I wouldn't advise talking to him or his familiar if you have a choice. Given what Damien wanted, I doubt his golem can talk." Mark's tail fell to the floor. A person who designed speechlessness into another mind as a feature told him plenty about Damien.

As bad as his whole experience had been since he became a familiar there were clearly worse masters than Wes.

"Look," Wes said.

"I know how this sounds. I know you're probably thinking you shouldn't be owned by someone less intelligent than you, and you're right. You shouldn't, but there's no way we can change that." Mark respected the admission more than he wanted to, but Wes had misunderstood his objection. The problem was never that his master was less intelligent than him, but that he had a master at all.

"For what it's worth," Wes said, "I'm glad you're smart enough to hate this situation. I was worried that a construct might not have much personality, and, well, I'm glad you do. I just wish the memories weren't so hard for you. You have every right to resent me. I'm your master, and you're smarter than me. I'd resent me too if I was in your situation."

"I do resent you, but it's not because I'm smarter than you. You took me away from thirty-five years of a life I can't get back to, and you're asking me to accept that those thirty-five years didn't exist and then sent me to eat raw rats in a pocket dimension." Mark paused for a few seconds before continuing.

"I spent forty-five hours in that warren trying to hate you with every fiber of my being. Then you bought me clothes, changed the settings when I asked, and had the nerve to seem genuinely remorseful. So yes, I resent you, but you have made it very frustrating that I can't seem to fully hate you like I want to." Wes said nothing, and his fingers stopped rubbing the stone.

"In public, I won't accuse you of soul theft or deliberately say anything that could get either of us killed. Honestly I will probably still act stranger than a normal familiar. You can bet I will talk a lot more than a typical familiar and you'll get tired of my opinions, but my highest priority will be to keep us both alive. Privately, I'm still looking for answers." Wes nodded slowly. Mark decided to keep going.

"Now imagine you woke up tomorrow as a kobold. A wizard tells you that you belong to them, that you're a construct, and the life you remember never happened. Your master is perfectly pleasant about it and means well. He even bought you clothes." Mark held his gaze.

"Would you just accept it? Would you kneel and praise him?" It took several moments but Wes finally answered.

"No. I wouldn't."

"Then you understand why I can't either." Wes was quiet for several seconds. The stone froze in his hand.

"As long as you don't say anything in public that suggests soul theft, we can agree to disagree in private, but you need to understand something too." Wes's voice went flat.

"If you tell people while you're investigating that I transformed a human being into a construct, if they believed you they would execute me or bind me as a familiar as punishment. If I believe you are about to get me executed, I will dissolve you to protect myself. I don't want to. The thought makes me sick. But if the choice is my life or yours..." He met Mark's eyes.

"I will choose myself. Do you understand?" Hearing the threat, Mark gave him exactly what he thought Wes wanted.

"Yes, Master!" Mark said brightly.

"This one understand! This one very grateful to Master! Master very wise-wise! Master very powerful! This one blessed to serve! Much happy-happy! Very obedient! This one exists to please Master-Master!" Wes's face went pale. The stone clattered to the floor.

"Don't... Don't do that."

"This one just good-good familiar! Very good-good! Much loyal!" Mark kept his voice high and cheerful, mimicking the dimensional kobolds perfectly.

"Master give order, this one obey! Always obey-obey! Very happy-happy to obey!" This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Stop. Please, stop." Mark dropped the act.

"You threaten to dissolve me if I become inconvenient, and you're disturbed when I act like the obedient slave?" Mark hid how much the performance had disturbed him. He had never been a good actor, yet the mimicry of the warren kobolds had emerged effortlessly.

"Wes, I told you I'm not going to put either of us in danger. You are going to have to trust me. Nothing makes me angrier than when you remind me you can kill me if you need to. Trust me, I won't forget that." Wes had the appearance again of a teenager greatly in over his head.

"I wish I could fix this, and turn you into something you'd be happy to be. However, unless you developed shapeshifting you're stuck as a kobold. Some metallic dragons can manage it, but you aren't a dragon. Kobolds don't shapeshift.

"The last thing I wanted was to have you suffer due to your memories. Even knowing those memories aren't real, I still feel like a monster for what you're going through. I truly hope in a few weeks maybe you keep the memories since you value them but somehow they aren't bothering you." For the first time Wes had conceded that the memories were valuable to Mark and he wasn't expressing that he hoped they disappeared, but rather it seemed he had hoped Mark could grow to adapt to the situation.

Mark still had to note that Wes just had to throw in how he knew the memories weren't real.

"Then we need rules," Mark said.

"I promise not to claim soul theft in public and will try to help you in school if you won't dissolve me for being difficult or order me to do something I don't want to do. We both have to figure out how to survive this."

"Deal," Wes said immediately, exhaling in relief. Sure it was a promise made in a room where one person had the ability to choose to dissolve the other person, but Mark had no other option.

"One other thing," Mark added.

"If my memories don't fade the way Venwick's research says they should, then would you please help me investigate to see if anyone here knows about other worlds. Maybe someone out there has some crackpot conspiracy theory that isn't actually a conspiracy. Not talk about it but look in books maybe ask professors if they heard about anything of the sort." Wes wrinkled his face and thought for almost thirty seconds.

"If your memories stay for a few weeks, and as long as you're discreet, I'll help you investigate. I can't imagine we will find anything but I owe you at least that much." Watching Wes work the stone between his fingers had stirred an inconvenient amount of sympathy in Mark. Countertransference was not technically the right term because Wes was not his patient, but he identified the emotions that Wes created in him was very similar to that concept.

Wes came from a farming family and was probably the first person in it to attend a wizarding academy. He worked part-time to cover the costs his loans did not, earned mediocre grades despite obvious intelligence, and badly wanted to succeed. When he said he wanted to be great, he sounded like someone who did not yet believe he could be. Mark knew that feeling. In medical school, he had been the small-town, first-generation college graduate surrounded by students whose parents were already doctors.

They seemed to arrive knowing which faculty members to approach, what research would help with residency, and how the entire process worked. His grades had been excellent, but achievement had never completely silenced the suspicion that everyone else understood rules no one had explained to him. Years as an attending had quieted that feeling without making him forget it. Mark eventually spoke, "I want us to be allies. Just don't treat me like a slave or your pet and I suspect we'll manage.

I'll do my best to help you in whatever way someone who doesn't know the first thing about magic can help a wizard." Wes smiled and then went to a bookshelf and pulled out a thick book.

"You'll need a familiar name for registration. It's required. If I don't assign one before thirty days after I created you, the Familiar Registry Board will assign you a name and you will not like it unless you want to be Kobold 151 or something similar. Also, if you don't have a name, my classmates will wonder why I haven't given you one.

"I still have Bloodclaw as my top choice, but I know you weren't fond of it, so I'm willing to let you pick." Mark sighed.

"Haven't we already gone through this argument? My name is Mark. You've been calling me that since yesterday." Wes winced.

"That's too human. Registry officials will not allow it. The name requirements for each species are pretty set in stone and have to come from this book." He flipped through pages.

"From the recommended construct kobold section we have: Scritch, Digger, Shiny, Copper, Bronzy..."

"Those aren't names. Those are descriptions. Also I now have a very negative association with Digger as a name." Wes flipped through a few pages.

"Yeah these are all a bit generic. Oh! I was right, Bloodclaw is an approved name for kobolds, but I'll keep looking.

"Here's a good one. Mucosy! That doesn't sound generic!" The glare that Mark gave Wes could have turned Medusa herself to stone.

"Did you just suggest naming me after mucus?" Wes blinked at the page, then looked up slowly.

"Is that what... oh." His face fell.

"Oh no. That's respiratory secretions, isn't it?"

"Yes, Wes. It's phlegm. You are trying to name me after snot, and emphasizing to everyone that I'm slimy when I have dry scales. They must have put that name in the book as a test for familiar ownership to disqualify anyone who registers one with it."

"Right… Terrible idea... That may be why it is listed as a good option for swamp kobolds..." Swamp kobolds? So there are other types of kobolds who don't live underground in mining tunnels? If there was any place that sounded worse to live in than a mine, it was a swamp. Wes flipped pages quickly, his face slightly flushed.

"Moving on. What about Kip?" Better than Mucosy, though not a name I'd ever choose for myself. At least it sounded human, even if being named after Napoleon Dynamite's brother was hardly ideal.

"What else?" They continued through options until Mark noticed a section labeled "Approved Wild Kobold Names." Most were strange clusters of consonants with many just a single syllable that likely sounded like a grunt with a hiss if pronounced. He was able to recognize what almost all of them meant. These must all be written in the Draconic language. His eyes stopped on one entry that intrigued him due to the spelling and pronunciation even though it would force any kobold he met to hiss as they finished saying it.

"I like this one. Makriss, it means fire-keeper." Wes looked up, skeptical.

"That's a wild kobold name. That's great that you understand Draconic, that's useful… but."

"It sounds close to Mark, It's even closer to Marcus, which is my birth name. I read a book about how men with single-syllable names garnered more respect and so in college I decided to go fully by my nickname. If I can't go by Mark then Makriss is the best substitute." Wes grimaced.

"It's not a common name for a kobold familiar. Wild names are allowed, but they're highly irregular. Many people will think I bonded with a wild natural kobold."

"You can't honestly say you think Mucosy is a better name than Makriss. My Intelligence is eighteen. Why should my name reduce me to digging, the color of my scales, or my claws? If I have to take a new name, I want one I chose and one that means something to me." Wes considered this, then nodded slowly.

"Actually, that works with the narrative. You're so intelligent you developed wild-adjacent traits, including choosing a wild name and wearing clothes." He made a note, and there was approval in his voice.

"Having a natural non-citizen familiar is actually pretty prestigious, since it's so rare. I just hope people don't think you're acting like a natural kobold because I told you to."

"Considering I don't know kobold customs or speak like a kobold, I don't think anyone will confuse me with a natural kobold. Come on, Wes! You told me I get to pick my name and this is what I want."

"Fine, Makriss it is. I still prefer Bloodclaw, but I can live with it."

"Thank you!" Mark smiled at Wes.

"You know I really like you with that smile rather than always looking so serious."

"Do you want me to go full kobold again?"

"No, absolutely not. Honestly, we should go," Wes said, gathering his things.

"The class starts in an hour and a half, and I want to arrive at least forty-five minutes early."

"That seems excessive."

"Professor Thornwhistle is very particular about punctuality. Once gave a student detention for being in the process of sitting down when class began." The thought of detention in a wizarding academy almost made Mark laugh from sheer juvenile absurdity, but fortunately he stopped himself before the yipping began. Mark looked down at his cloak and at his clawed hands. In less than one full day, he'd gone from Dr. Mark Wright to Makriss, a lizard with hoarding issues owned by a third-year magical academy student.

Quite a strange thing to note on a CV in the future.

"Ready?" Wes asked, as he bent down and grabbed the stone that had previously fallen on the floor and shoved it into his robe pocket.

"Sure, I've always wanted to be registered as a familiar at a magical academy," Mark said.

"Completely normal Tuesday."

"What's a Tuesday?"