What are you….
Distracted by the pain in her chest, Seph felt like her heart was about to explode; she overlooked the roots and vines growing over her hands and arms. Her heart was racing, and it was getting harder to breathe. She was starting to feel a little sick. The elders were looking at each other with concern evident in their eyes. The rest of the coven was mumbling, though Seph didn’t actually notice any of this. She let out a scream as she pulled her arms back; it felt like her chest was being split open from the inside with a sledgehammer being wielded by an armour-bashing, weapon-making goblin. Tears were streaming down her face.
Seph figured she must have passed out for a moment or two. She opened her eyes; there was a medium-sized dragon on her chest, though strangely enough, it didn’t actually weigh that much, chattering incoherently at her, and she was lying on her back in the mud. She was wet and muddy and cold. The dragon felt warm, though. She shook her head, hoping to shift the hallucination. But when she turned her head to the side, many coven members stared back at her in shock. Maybe the dragon wasn’t a hallucination? She reached out tentatively with one hand to touch the dragon, and she could swear it giggled… Seph somehow knew she was tickling it… that was the weirdest sensation she had ever encountered. She sat up quickly, forcing the creature onto her lap.
“What’s her name, child?” Peter asked, somewhat more firmly than was strictly necessary, Seph thought. She didn’t even know how to get the creature to speak coherently, let alone tell her the needed information. And what the hell was it, to begin with? It was a lizard now somehow; it must have changed while she looked at Peter. Seph certainly didn’t see it happen. “Um… Peter wants to know your name… urm… little lizard dragon thing?” As she expected, Seph got no answer. The lizard did seem to respond to Seph’s voice; it was nuzzling into her and trying to push under her hand. The heat was pleasant against her body, she had to admit. Seph hesitantly lifted her hand a little, letting the lizard get where it wanted to be; it might look slightly wispy and insignificant, but once you touch it, it was corporeal. Seph couldn’t get her head around how this little creature could live inside her chest if that was what was happening. Persephone Adams with a familiar though? Who would actually believe that? She was bad enough with her own magic; how the absolute fuck was this going to work?
Once she was in skin-to-skin contact with it, the strange chattering, chirruping, and huffing noises suddenly made sense. “I am your familiar… you may call me Dextra… I will be here when you need me or when you don’t. I can be almost whatever you need me to be, Seph.” Dextra told Seph. “It’s called Dextra”, Seph called out to Peter. “Not it, child, she, your familiar will be a she. We can close the circle now. You must be exhausted,” Peter replied, his tone slightly softer now. Seph didn’t even pay attention to how they closed the circle. Unable to gather the energy to move, she just sat in the mud and hoped for the best
Seph felt her dad, or maybe one of the other men from the coven, pick her up. The lizard creature, Dextra still on her lap. Once she was by the car, her mum helped her rinse her hair off as much as possible with the water her father could summon and the water bottles in the car, and then change into her pants and hoodie. “I don’t think I can do the party later, Mum; sorry, can I just go home and sleep?” Seph asked, tucking the lizard into her hood. “I’m sure that will be fine, darling. Everyone will understand,” Jane, Seph’s mum, replied quickly.
Her parents dropped her and her familiar at home. Seph dived straight into the shower, and Dextra sat on the towel rack. It felt uncomfortable to have her too far away, Seph had tried to leave her in the bedroom, but she was in tears in a heap on the floor when Dextra finally found her. “We can’t be that far apart right now,” Dextra told Seph kindly while squirming into her pocket. It was getting easier to understand her now. After the shower, Seph and Dextra went to bed. They didn’t even eat. Seph slept for nearly 3 days. That was pretty unusual; most people were tired after the ritual but didn’t sleep this much. She needed near enough 2 weeks off school to recover and start to get used to Dextra, convincing her to slot herself back into Seph’s chest. It wasn’t an easy process, and Dextra didn’t want to be there, but she seemed to have a habit of setting things on fire randomly. The grass, the sofa, the kitchen table, Seph’s bed, curtains even. She did teach Seph how to make a controlled fire that wouldn’t burn things. They put it in a box or fireplace for Dextra to lay in. That made her happy. Seph was delighted when Dextra was happy and vice versa, their emotions feeding off each other.
It was nearly the end of her time off when Seph dared to ask her parents about what had happened at the ritual as she couldn’t remember much of it. “Well, darling, it appears that you have all the elemental powers. This could be why you are not so good with traditional spells,” her mother explained while her dad, Mark, took the seat next to her and wrapped an arm around her body. “It’s ok sweet pea, now we know we can teach you things differently, and you’ll do much better, you’ll see”, her father added with a proud smile. “My daughter, the most powerful witch in the coven. Who’d have known? You will go far if we can find a way for you to master your powers. You could even be in charge of the elders in a few years, my girl. Peter will have to start taking proper notice of you now.” Mark seemed to be full of pride at Seph’s powers, boastful almost.