"You can talk now?" Murphy scoffed in surprise.

"I've been talking to you for years" Uundah replied. His voice was mature and pretentious, and he spoke clearly with no trouble.

"Not like this. Things would have been a lot easier if I knew you could do that."

Uundah snickered. He bounced into the burrow, and placed the hare next to the burning fire that Murphy was just realising was there. "This is your doing". He pulled a crude bowl made of bark from its home in a mound of snow, then hopped to his Warlock.

Murphy studied the O'jin curiously while the creature tended to his makeshift medical work. He wondered what he'd done that could have caused the critter to speak. Uundah lifted the leaves, and began to smear something sweet smelling and syrupy on the stitched wound. "How though?" he relented after coming up empty.

The O'jin pulled more leaves from nearby, and began to make a new bandage. "Do you remember the day we met?" He asked, without looking away from his chore.

"I do. It's hard to forget" he responded with a hint of sadness. "I remember her cat could talk though, and you couldn't."

Uundah snickered. "Dayah hates being called a cat" he said, drifting off in amusement for a moment. "My point is, the old bag mentioned how Dayah had grown accustomed to her power."

Murphy’s face lit up as what Uundah was telling him became clear. "You ate my magic" he said with excitement. "You ate my magic and now you can talk."

"Something like that." The O'jin replied. "I hadn't grown accustomed to your power, but what you did two days ago forced the issue."

"Two days?" Murphy scoffed.

"Closer to three now."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

Uundah shot him a serious look. "If only I had thought of that." He said sarcastically. "Can you get a sip of water when the cup is empty? Or do you have to wait for it to fill again?"

"So you speak in riddles then?"

Uundah groaned, and slid a hand down his snout. "It had to be him" he muttered to nobody in particular. "Your magic is tied to your soul, how you haven't figured that one out is beyond me. You gave me all of the power you had, and your soul grew tired, which made your body tired. Are you following?"

"No need to be so nasty" Murphy pouted. "Why didn't you just give some back then?"

"I tried my thick friend, I really did. It seems somebody filled you with Melt though, and I couldn't bare to waste your gift."

"Oh…". He knew all to well where the Melt had come from, and suspected his friend knew also. It was a relief to not be ridiculed for wild magic for once.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"With nowhere else to go, it became one with my own."

"Can I have some back then?" He asked confidently. "I still feel horrible."

"I would, but I'm afraid that's impossible."

"That doesn’t make any sense. I gave it to you, didn't I?"

"A few reasons, chief among them being biology." Uundah replied in a matter of fact kind of tone.

"You spend too much time with the old man" Murphy complained.

"If you ever listened to the old man, you might find he has some useful knowledge for you."

Murphy groaned. "Go on then" he sighed. "Tell me your knowledge."

"Your body needs your soul to function, since that's the source of your power. It converts the Daions in your environment into something you can use, but you still store the converted Daions in your own mass. I cannot touch your soul, not many can, but if I were to empower your flesh with my own Daions, your Daions would oppose me, and dissipate the energy into the atmosphere."

Murphy took the lesson in as best he could manage, but some things bothered him still. "You said you tried to give my power back."

"I did, when it was still yours" Uundah replied. He pressed the new bandage around the wound, then caked it with the syrup. Murphy winced, then nodded, fixated on their conversation.

"So I can't have it back, because my body won't let me?" He asked.

"Close enough" Uundah said, tilting his hand side to side. "The only reason I can accustom myself to your Daions, is because I'm an O'jin."

"And I'll go crazy if I have too many Daions" Murphy said, following along.

"Exactly, and a Warlock will always end up with too many, or too much."

"How do you know all of this?" Murphy asked, suspicious.

"I'm an O'jin" Uundah answered simply.

"That's not a real answer."

"Sure it is."

They continued bickering while Uundah finished his work. Then they sat by the fire for some cooked hare. Uundah revealed the truth of himself, and Murphy struggled to wrap his head around it. He told him that the rodent body he existed in, was the first creature he had seen. Uundah had been lucid since the first day of his life. He was a crystal that sat for long enough to grow sentient, and he used his power to make a body around himself. Murphy didn’t believe him at first, but he was proved wrong when Uundah took the form of an opalescent stone in a white hot and blinding light.

"How in the name of Eseyrakir did you do that?" Murphy shouted, still blinking away the white spots in his vision.

"This is why O'jin seek Warlocks" Uundah spoke in his mind. As he did, the crystal pulsed with a faint light. "The power I get from you, allows me to do incredible things". With another eruption of searing light, he retook his rodent form.

"So you’re using me" Murphy joked.

"Without me, you would die from your own choices" Uundah responded with a smile.

"Dark… But fair I suppose" he laughed.

They talked with each other into the night, as if it was something they had always done. Still, he felt closer with his familiar after that night.

When he woke the next morning, he felt well enough to stand. Uundah’s time with Lady Sahta had given him some surprising skills in medicine. The critter had removed the bullet, and stitched him with an expert hand. Uundah was tending to him for the past few days, so there wasn’t much prepared in the way of travel supplies. So they spent the day gathering rations. One thing they did have the whole time was a thick rectangular chunk of wood, with an intricate painting of a feather on one side. He would have been confused by it, if not for the aspectral colours. They were the exact same colours as whatever the package his master gave him was, in the same runic patterns. He never saw the thing outside of its paper wrapping, and he was disappointed to see it was so boring. He wondered why the old man would have him travel so far to deliver a piece of wood, but the fact that it stayed behind and it glowed with magic was enough for even him to accept there was probably more to it.

They planned to leave at midday, Uundah insisting he could keep them safe. Murphy was hesitant, since he still had to sit every so often to catch his breath. He was also reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire, since he was still shirtless and it was snowing all the time. He decided on that day that he hates snow. Regardless of his reservations, he knew they had to get moving. The chance of something finding them for dinner got higher every night they were there, and his body was recovering well from its trauma thanks to Uundah, so he had no excuse to stay. According to his torturer, the next town was only three days walk from Hammond. He knew by now that Taymon couldn't be trusted, but context clues in the last town had him confident it was true. Their plan was to follow the river until they saw signs of civilization.

They set off into the woods, Uundah took the form of a staff to help him walk, and kept the air warmer around them. Murphy didn’t mind one bit. He wasn't looking forward to having Uundah’s claws in his bare skin, and this new arrangement made him look like a proper wizard. If a proper wizard wandered shirtless through the snow in bloody and torn trousers, talking to his stick. One thing in particular repeated in his mind as he trudged along the riverbank listening to Uundah sing pub songs. He missed his cloak, and his pouch. He wanted to read, and he wanted something comfortable to sleep on. More than anything, he wanted revenge.

He stopped, and looked sternly ahead. "I'm coming for you Taymon of Hammond. And I'm going to piss in your wounds."

…

"Gross…" Uundah mumbled.