Brazil Omake: Transitions
Monday, June 22nd
Zoolingualism. The ability to communicate with all members of the animal kingdom. Some mages could cast spells to achieve this effect; others had it as an inherent ability. A few had even made it the cornerstone of their whole magical careers. One of the most famous examples was Antonio Madrigal, who was known for being surrounded by a crowd of animals. Jaguars, capybaras, toucans, coatis, and more other species than anyone could keep track of. He could bring them all together in one harmonious cuddle pile, or unleash them as a terrible wave of nature against those who would threaten his family.
…Lorena was starting to suspect that either Antonio had some empath powers as well, or that all the stories tended to skip over the learning curve.
"Alright, one more time," Lorena said, a bit exasperated. "If any of you see a two-legger with black hair, black eye-covers, and a black cat, heading to this apartment, within three street corners of here, then you come to this balcony and tell me. Understood?"
All the eyes of the flock of pigeons were on Lorena. Granted, the direction their beaks were facing shifted every four seconds or so, so it was a little difficult to determine if they were truly paying attention.
"And then we get food?" one of the pigeons asked.
"Yes, you get food when you report seeing him, and once in the morning every three days," Lorena said. "We'll keep this arrangement for one month, er, one moon, then see if we want to keep working together."
"…Food now?" another pigeon asked.
Lorena sighed. "Yes, that includes food now. Deal?"
The flock replied with an intermittent chorus of "Deal." Lorena grabbed a handful of birdseed from her bag, scattered it across the balcony, then stepped back as the pigeons ravenously descended on it. "And no pooping on the balcony!" she said as she closed the sliding glass door behind her. She was glad that she lived in a "magic-friendly" neighborhood. Negotiations with pigeons might raise a few eyebrows elsewhere.
Lorena sighed as she sat down at her desk and started on her homework. After the ritual at Mama Sandra's farm, Lorena had been excited to discover that she could understand and be understood by the farm animals. That little perk of creating a ritual through the Den of Beasts was unexpected, but not unwelcome. However, after some experimentation showed that the ability could be "selectively muted". Mama Sandra had taken Lorena aside and explained that any hopes of suddenly becoming a "Disney princess" would not be so simple. Animals had different perspectives, priorities, and values from humans, and generally lacked the capacity or desire to try to see things from a human's point of view, so any communications would have to be brought down to the animal's level. There were also other factors to consider, like whether she wanted to hear the thoughts of insects or pests, the intent behind most bird calls being ruined forever, and reexamining her relationship with the food chain. In short, this ability could prove a blessing, but fully incorporating it into her lifestyle would take careful consideration regarding her investment and intentionality.
"If you wish to practice with deal-making, don't start with dogs," Mama Sandra had said. "They will spoil your expectations. Eager to please, happy to work, and quick to forget grudges. Cats, on the other hand, are too hard. Entitled little beasts, who must be praised like kings or tricked into thinking that a task was their own idea, and even then may simply forget about any deals if sufficiently distracted. Pigeons are good for beginners. No innate affection or dislike in either direction, making a blank slate to start negotiations from. They're good with directions and time, they can count up to nine, and they respect consistency. Start with something simple; mistakes will happen and you can both learn what to expect from each other. Don't deal with parrots or caracaras until you're ready to get serious. They're smarter, but they're more exacting in their terms and can carry grudges for a LONG time."
Luckily, given how much work it was taking to get used to, the zoolingualism was merely an unexpected side benefit. Coco was the real prize, and Lorena was more than happy with her. The familiar was about as curious and energetic as a seven-year-old. She had a LOT to learn, having only been born a week ago, but she absorbed information like a sponge. And, thankfully, Coco was able to maintain her discipline on outings with Lorena, while transformed as a white sunhat. Lorena had tried checking out books on childcare, rabbit care, and familiars from the Universidade library, and had spent a considerable amount of time trying to cross-reference them into some cohesive understanding of how to make sure that Coco would develop properly.
The book on familiars provided some degree of comfort, explaining that the key element that familiars needed at this early stage of development was simply continued engagement with their master. Familiars were tied to their master's very souls, and over time they would naturally develop a sense of synchronicity with their master's mentality and health. As long as the familiar shared time and attention with their master, and wasn't actively abused or neglected, then everything would eventually settle into equilibrium.
…Of course, there were a few things that the familiar-raising book didn't have right about Coco. Lorena had considered that maybe it was an outdated copy, and that familiar-crafting may have been refined a bit more since it was originally published. Maybe it was intended to present a generalist approach, to accommodate the full range of familiars that could be crafted, formed, and summoned by different rituals. Otherwise, the only remaining conclusion was that Coco's capacities as a familiar were… a bit of an outlier.
The book said that a familiar would have a small mana pool of its own that it could use to cast spells, and that the master mage could draw upon this in case of emergencies. The book warned that this should be done with great care, especially in the early period, because it could easily exhaust the familiar. Coco had her own pool, sure enough… but it refilled itself very quickly indeed. Lorena found herself drawing a trickle from her almost by accident at times, and this seemed to have no ill effect on Coco at all.
The book said that a new, professionally-crafted familiar could maintain their connection to their master at a range of up to four kilometers. After leaving Coco with Ruan and Café for a play-date, Lorena discovered that her link to Coco held itself together well past seven kilometers- probably eight. Either the book had left a few things out, or her craftsmanship was rather more than merely professional.
The book went into great detail about the hallmark capability of a familiar: spell transference. In addition to telepathy at a distance, a mage could eventually learn to see through the familiar's eyes, listen through its ears, and even send spells through their connection to their familiar as if they were casting from their own hands. The book cautioned the reader that mages who had just gotten familiars may have to put themselves into a meditative trance to use those capabilities until they'd gotten considerable practice, and mentioned the lower "fidelity" of sensory data and potency of spells carried by the link to the familiar at the limits of their range.
Lorena and Coco had, so far, run into very few of these problems. The little performance they'd prepared for her family (with Coco wearing the *cutest* little witch hat) had seen Lorena cast spells "through" Coco with ease and fluidity. Even during the range experiment, her telepathy only started developing "static" in the last 30 meters or so. 'Static' wasn't quite the word, and the experience had been... odd... but compared to what the book warned Lorena to expect, the quality and fidelity of the connection was outstanding.
Even if Coco somehow wasn't a record-setter, her abilities were more than enough to recommend the idea of using the Companions of Legend ritual to give similarly gifted familiars to all her family… if it weren't for the "gatekeeper." Ruan had originally recommended the ritual in the belief that the Den of Beasts was empty, and would passively permit the ritual's completion. It muddied the waters a bit to know that there was some Japanese god involved who, if nothing else, clearly had opinions about who deserved to be granted a familiar. So next term, Lorena would take a class in Japanese at the Universidade, and then work with Ruan to reach out to the Den of Beasts again to learn the god's expectations for future petitioners. Until then, spreading the ritual around would have to wait. It would be bad if she tried sharing the ritual with her family, only for them all to be rejected- or, conceivably, worse- because the god didn't "find them worthy."
Lorena suddenly heard Coco's voice in her mind. "Lorena, come here! My new picture is done!"
She smiled. Coco had taken a shine to her drawings, and had eagerly tackled making drawings of her own with the crayon set Lorena had bought for her. "Alright, let's take a peek!"
Following the thread of her exchanged thoughts, Lorena reached out to Coco to see… two little paws covering her eyes?
"No, no peeking through my eyes! I want to see your face when you see it!"
"…Very well, I'm on my way." Lorena stood up and headed to the living room, where she had set up Coco's enclosure.
"I'm here, now show me what you got."
"Yay! Here we… oops, lost the page." Coco reached over to a notepad almost as big as she was and started flipping through it. Lorena glimpsed the earlier crayon "masterpieces" that Coco had worked on: the Oliveira family, Coco and Café together, the view from the apartment window, a white castle (Coco called it a 'Moon Palace' and Lorena still didn't know where she'd gotten the idea for that one), and finally…
"Ta-da!" Coco flipped the notebook to display a picture of four girls in frilly dresses. Lorena quickly recognized the colors and styles of the red, yellow, and blue Curas Bonitas, but they seemed to be joined by a fourth Cura who wore a white dress and… had a hat with bunny ears sticking out the top.
"Very nice, Coco! It looks like the Curas Bonitas and… is that supposed to be you and me?"
Coco nodded. "Mmm-hmm! I thought it would be cool to have a team-up with the Curas Bonitas and Lorena, the Witch Bunny and her adorable assistant, Coco! What do you think?"
Lorena gave some thought about how to respond to that. "Well, it's a wonderful drawing, and I'm glad to see you excited about magic. But… you know that I'm not strong enough to fight those Phantom Empire cryptids, right? I don't have the spells or training to do that."
Coco sighed. "I know. But the pretty girls need help, right? When are the Peacekeepers going to team up with them?"
"There's been some difficulties with that," Lorena admitted. "The Peacekeepers have been helping the police behind the scenes, but the Curas haven't exactly been leaving ways to contact them, and the Peacekeepers are… hesitant to try and catch them in broad daylight. Remember when we talked about the Masquerade?"
Coco nodded. "I remember, but… Lorena, you said that knowledge of magic and cryptids can end up scaring regular people, and regular people can end up doing dumb and hurtful things when they get scared, so it's best for everyone for magic and cryptids to stay hidden."
"Yes, that's mostly right."
"But the Phantom Empire isn't hiding."
Lorena paused. "…Yes, that's true."
"And the Dark Liberators you talked about aren't hiding. And the towers of brass and silver are, uh, whatever the exact opposite of hiding is. So all the bad mages and cryptids are out there making people scared, but the good mages and cryptids care more about hiding than stopping them?" Coco tilted her head. "…Lorena, this whole Masquerade thing sounds kind of dumb."
"Coco, it's not… It's a lot more complicated than that," Lorena tried to explain. "The mages and cryptids have been maintaining the Masquerade for hundreds of years, even when weren't on good terms with each other. I know that it's frustrating, but you have to trust that the Peacekeepers know what they're doing."
Coco turned her head away, frustrated. "Hmph. Still think it's dumb."
Lorena sympathized with Coco's frustration. The limitations of the Masquerade in the face of the recent invaders were making things... difficult. Coco wasn't the only one starting to feel that way. And Coco didn't even have a frame of reference of what is was supposed to be like. All she had ever known were these berserk super-cryptids and magical girls running around.
…Perhaps it would be good to show Coco what some "secret helping" would look like.
"Well, I do my part to help the neighborhood from time to time. Would you like to join me on my next patrol?" Lorena asked with a sly grin.
"…Am I going to be stuck as a quiet hat the whole time?" Coco asked suspiciously.
"Nope, you can be a loud and proud bunny the whole time. In fact, my special patrols allow me to use magic as freely as I want!"
Coco's expression shifted to excitement. "Really? Why didn't you tell me sooner? Let's go!"
"Easy there, Coco. You just need to make sure that you go to sleep early tonight. Can you do that for me?"
"Early bedtime, got it! Will we be waking up super early?"
"…Something like that."
