Familiar Plant, plant Familiar
Summary: A voice talks to Mathew. It would be against the rules to talk back or to care at all for it, but he also cannot leave it and the soul he knows is behind it alone. So, he goes against the rules, and they both have to go on the run as they are hunted down by the finest Kill Seekers.
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Unlike an animal specialized witch, Mathew is a plant specialized with, and his familiar is a plant. And, like all familiars, helps him control his magic and who helps train him in being a witch in his first few years after his magic is discovered. Like animal familiars, the seed is sentient and calls itself Ivan. He slowly starts to gain feelings for Mathew and neglects the duties instructed of him by the Council when they allowed him to become Mathew's Familiar. His job, they'd told him, was to control Matthew's power, and keep it from its maturity. However, controlling a witch's power, reducing it, causes them pain. Mathew also has feelings for the kind and yet sometimes sarcastic voice always talking to him when so many of his fellow witches are so ignoramously concerned with reaching the top of their hierarchical power structure that they either betray him or ignore him. So, they both go against witch rules and have to go on the run.
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If there was one secret that Mathew Williams- witch extraordinaire and son of the King of the Fae, Arthur Kirkland- would never tell anyone, it would be the secret that he would most likely be hanged by his fellow witches for harbouring-take out the h from that word and no pun intended.
In his world where every witch had a special affinity for one of the known elements-air, water, fire, or earth- he was a "plant mage." His power stemmed from the trees, herbs, flowers, grasses, mosses, shrubs, and lichens that burrowed into all soils of his world. There was nowhere that he did not feel a sweet tingling on his skin, that special pins and needles that always took his breath away.
However, despite being known for being more open-minded than the non-magical folk, witches did have some bans that Mathew thought almost as unfair as the non-magicals avoiding lepers. For one, while there were beings in his world that were made of and pretty much almost represented the elements in his world, no witch could marry anyone that wasn't a fellow witch. For some reason, people only seemed to argue that non-magicals should be able to be married, but Mathew wished he had the courage to add one more species to that list, the dryads. The tree people, descendants of those who were such powerful plant mages that when they died, their body dissolved into seeds, each one spawning a tree spirit. As each one was made of the remnants of magic, they weren't quite but were pretty much the children of the witch they came from. This theory, while popular, had its foundations in that if those seeds were planted they took on human form and became extremely powerful plant mages that while they looked nothing like their predecessor did inherit their talents, and even expanded exponentially in power.
But, perhaps fearing an infringement of their power, the High Council had forbade the planting of any of the 5 Legendary Witches who had gone to seed, and those who had been "borne" already were hunted down and murdered. Mathew had grown up with stories about them, rumours he was sure that had been made up solely to tear apart any tree people that might have tried to go into hiding. It was said that the tree people had spread the Plague that killed off two-thirds of his world's population. He grew up listening to vitriol in school from his teachers lamenting how people still relied on the power inherent in the seeds of the tree people when they believed they should all be burnt.
Mathew had always subtly held his seed to try and comfort it upon feeling the fury, sadness, and shame he could feel coming from him through their bond. Inside, he had hated his teachers for those opinions. Yet he couldn't act out then, even now that he had graduated from the Academy he couldn't. He was still a highly watched Ward of the State, after all. And while his brother had curated fame and prestige back even with their near title of orphans due to his talent at sports, Mathew had instead become more watched when it became clear that he was extremely gifted at magic. And with his own opinions that he couldn't share, like that the tree people should have the right to be planted.
But of course, he was biased. After all, he was in love with his familiar, a tree person's unplanted seed that he stored his extra magic within in case of emergencies and whose consciousness he consulted for the wisdom of its ancestor's memories. Like the phylactery of lichs. Or the storing of magic inside gems done by the fabled elves. Rather similar to that, if you understand my meaning.
But, of the tree person it could have become, he only knew one thing, that while it's ancestor had been female, his tree person was male, had a Russian accent, and rarely divulged much of his own self-his wants, needs, ideas- beyond that his name was Ivan. But, maybe that was because of Mathew's own loneliness from having so few other apprentices around, after all the population was only beginning to recover now fifty years after the Plague had swept through killing everyone left, right, and centre.
His own brother and other father had died in the grips of the Plague. Or it could also possibly be because he himself was a bit of an abomination and everyone spat at him, curled the evil finger in his direction, or refused him everything but his services as a witch and powerful healer. After all, he was the child of a Fae, and his father Francis Bonnefoi, the most powerful wind worker of his time, had gone against the Law when he wed the King of the Fairies. Not to mention that he went against even the law of the humans by marrying another man.
Mathew and his twin brother should never have been born.
And now, ever since, the Fae world had been sealed off in retribution for Francis' crimes, no matter the objections of the other wind workers who enlisted the Fae as familiars, much as plant mages such as himself used the seeds of the tree people. Despite attempts being felt from the Fae world to break down the barrier, and occasionally missives coming through despite the wards up meant to stop such interactions, it had not yet fallen. The witch and human world was still separate from the Fae, and Mathew had no relatives he could contact beside his brother. A brother who seemed to be fully under the spell of the leading power, and would even mock Mathew for his reliance on magic and the care he saw Mathew exhibit for the Seed he carried.
Perhaps he was crazy to fall in love with a voice. Especially one he knew so little about the personality behind. He only knew the little tidbits that Ivan let slip...but Mathew wasn't satisfied with that small tiddly amount. He could never be when every word from Ivan sent shivers through him in delight. He had gone past being his best friend, and Mathew wanted him to be real so badly it hurt. And when he accidentally let slip those thoughts through their bond he could feel the delight that Ivan felt at the idea of being real too.
Yet, it couldn't be.
There was a way to make him be real and assume the shape his consciousness had defined for itself, but...that wasn't allowed...
Then again, Mathew was tired of living by the rules.
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