My Human, the Witch

Ralph didn’t really know how he got into this situation.

Okay, he knew, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. He was in the forest, walking and waving through the bushes as his piercing yellow eyes were trained on a giant concrete building in front of him.

Being a cat made the trek here all the harder. His smaller-than-normal legs were aching, and his tiny, black, furry body was the smallest of his litter, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to the long adventures, but becoming familiar made him soft.

That was why he was here now.

He watched the guards at the front, their faces covered with black masks. Their familiars were the same, sitting at their feet and covered in black.

He glared at them.

This was the place they had taken his witch to, he just knew it. He wanted for his moment, and when the guards were about to switch off, he moved.

He crept forward as the guards and pets had their back turned to him, and was able to slip by when they opened the door.

His heart skyrocketed when he heard one of the other pets bark.

He crouched under some boxes as the guard petted his beloved animal. “Hush, boy! We don’t need the supervisor again!” Ralph watched the dog carefully. The only thing he could see were two icy blue eyes. An ice familiar– That’s who that dog was.

Familiars were who the witches got their powers, meaning that he’s going to have to be careful of some ice spikes being thrown his way. He waited as the two walked off.

Lucky bastards. They don’t know the struggle of getting a ‘weak’ familiar or being a ‘weak’ familiar.

If they did, they would know better than to hold his witch for ransom, and they would know damn well that no one would come to save her.

Black cats were the most common familiars for witches– They have been overused throughout the years, and the magic in them is now gone, meaning that the witch who gets the pet, is considered powerless.

Not worth saving.

Being a runt meant that he had even less to give, but even though he couldn’t provide magic to his witch, he did have one thing magic about him: Luck.

He pushed his bitterness to the side when he saw the new guards leave the building and take the others' posts. He rubbed his collar against the table and made his way out of his place of hiding and through the halls.

They were stark white, and weapons and dusty storage containers filled the room. On the walls were their logo, an eagle with its wings spread out, and shadows of other familiars running from it.

It was how he was able to find this place. One of the men that took his witch dropped their gun, he saw the logo, and then he saw another person with the same logo and followed them.

He froze when he heard people coming, he looked around for a place to hide– Yet there wasn’t any.

He paced for a moment before noticing the broken vent that had boxes leading up to it.

He jumped on top of the boxes and pushed into the vent, breaking through its already fragile cover. He crawled quickly and tried to ignore how the two people heard him going into it.

Dust collected on his fur, webs clung to him, and he was trying his best not to sneeze. Was it seriously too much to ask these people to clean their vents? Was that not a thing?

Finally, he saw the end.

He crawled up to the other end of the vent and looked in front of him. A voice rang through from the dark room he peered into from a lit-up stage. Someone was talking about it.

‘Preaching’ was a term that he had heard his witch use more than once– And he’d be willing to bet with the no money he had (he’s a cat, he doesn’t have a job) that this was what she meant by it.

“Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today, to talk about the next stage of our release plan.” He had to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

The room was dark, and everyone was paying attention to the preacher man. Ralph pushed against the vent. “Now, we all know that our idea of true freedom is controversial–” It really wasn’t.

They were a part of the idea that familiars should serve humans and fully give over the magic they have. An idea that is, unfortunately, widely accepted and considered in most towns. Meanwhile, magic is a life force, and if a familiar gives up too much of its magic, then it will die.

Not that they know anything about that, it was why he couldn’t give him any magic, he didn’t have enough to give.

“But I can assure you that in a world where humans can take the reins with magic– That no one, not even the black caters of the world, will have to suffer under the–”

The vent came off and crashed into the ground, causing people to look.

Ralph backed up a bit and closed his eyes while ducking into himself. He was so lucky to be able to blend in with shadows.

After a few moments of silence, he heard the talking start back up. He jumped to the ground and stayed along the back of the seats so that he wasn’t easily seen as he made his way over to the slightly cracked door.

Went through the crack and ran through the halls, he wasn’t even too sure where he was going, only trusting that he would see some sort of sign that he was going in the right direction.

That was when he saw it.

An iron door with the label ‘Ceils’ on it. He wanted to celebrate but knew that this was far from over, he needed to be able to open the door.

He looked around, and in a nearby office, he saw a man, asleep, with a ring of keys and a card hanging out of his pocket.

Like Ralph said– he was a lucky cat. Ralph crept over to where the man was sleeping, careful not to wake up, and grabbed the keys from the pocket.

He paused until the jungle stopped before he turned around and kept moving. Leaving the room, he was quick to rush back to the door, grabbing the card with his teeth, he jumped up onto some boxes and leaned over to scan it, allowing the door to open.

With a smug feeling, he jumped down from the box and started to walk into the area.

That was when a force hit him in the side.

He was flung to the other side of the room, the keys sliding across the ground. The pain came soon after. He whimpered as he lifted his head. In Front of him, a giant bird of brown and white looked down on him, thunder in his eyes.

He growled. An eagle.

“What are you doing here, cat?” The gruff voice of the bird came through, even though he had yet to move his beak. Familiars could communicate telepathically.

“Taking a walk through a park, you?” He snapped back as he stood. The eagle ruffled his feathers.

“You dare to show attitude to the one who has your life in their talons?”

“You dare to be a bitch?”

A screech ripped through the bird's throat and it lunged toward it.

Ralph waited till the last moment to jump out of the way, causing the eagle to slam its beak into the ground.

He grabbed the keys with his mouth and rushed through the halls.

Glancing at the prison cells he passed, trying to find the familiar face of his witch.

A screech came from behind him, and he looked back right in time to see a bolt of lightning come from the bird’s beak.

He leaped out of the way and zig-zagged through the hall. He made a left turn and paused.

In front of him were three other familiars– One dog, a raven, and a Maine coon cat.

Fuck.

They all charged at him, and he had to back up to go back down the straight hallway.

He jumped and hissed when the maine coon slid out from the shadows, her claws outstretched.

He dodged the dog’s icy breath and avoided the raven’s shard feathers that were thrown his way. He was running out of breath, though, and he knew he would need to stop sooner or later.

That was when he got an idea.

He burst ahead of the back, over to where there was a three-way cross in the hallway.

The group of pets behind him watched as he went to the right and were quick to follow suit.

They rushed down the hall they saw him go through.

Meanwhile, the sly cat popped his head out of the prison bars he had slid through and smirked as he watched the group of families run away from him. He wandered down the opposite way from where they were heading.

The halls were long and winding, and he didn’t have a clue as to where he should go. People glanced at him through the bars of their cage, confused as to what a powerless black cat was doing there.

He mewed slightly, trying to see if his owner would hear his call. Just when he was starting to feel hopeless, he walked by a cage with a familiar-looking woman inside.

He quickly doubled back and peered in, and his tail puffed with happiness that he couldn’t contain in his small body.

Sniffling in the corner, was a lady with black robes, black, curly hair, and olive skin. He meowed at her, and she looked up at him, confused. “Ralph?” She asked. Her confusion then turned to pure joy.

“Ralph! Oh, that’s you, baby boy!” She rushed to the gate and rubbed her fingers together, a sign that she normally did whenever she wanted a cat to come closer.

Ralph did as he was told and dropped the keys at his witch’s feet.

She gasped in shock. “Ralphie– Where did you– How did you– Oh, you clever kitty!” She bent down and grabbed the keys and fiddled with them as she unlocked the door.

With a click the prison swung open and she stepped out. Raph meowed at her and rubbed himself against the corner of the stone wall.

His human petted him down his back. “Alright, now let’s–” She paused suddenly and looked around. “There’s so many people here…” She murmured.

Ralph looked at her, confused. Why wasn’t she going? They didn’t have much time here. “I can’t leave them– Let’s go.” She stated, much to Ralph’s dismay.

He meowed at her as she turned to her right and started to go further into the hallway, unlocking the doors that had people inside.

There weren’t many doors left, so when she got to the end of the hallway, she doubled back and started to open the doors of the other prisoners.

Ralph purred and rubbed against her legs, trying to trip her up, trying to get her to stop.

He cared not for the rest of these humans, the only one that mattered was the one that he cared for.

But as he bit her pants, and clawed at her to move, she ignored his attempts to get her out of here.

“Alright, let’s get you out– No, Ralph! Stop!” She snapped as she tried to get someone out of their cage while also trying to stop the cat from biting at her leg. She opened the door for the human and gave her cat a stern look.

“Bad, kitty! Bad–”

“I agree with that statement.”

The air in the room was sucked out, and Ralph’s riding went up as he hissed.

Four men in security guard outfits walked into the hallway, a mean look on their faces.

“Little bastard slipped right by us, and now look at the mess we have to clean up.”

Ralph looked at his human to gauge her reaction.

He could see the fear in her eyes, but she still chose to stand tall.

Behind her, all of the people she let out started to shiver and shake.

“You can’t beat all of us!” She warned. “I’ve let out plenty of people– We outnumber you!”

The guard gruffed at that statement, he held his hand to her.

“You bunch are soft. Letting your pets push you around while they take all of the power for themselves–” In the palm of his hand, a fire was set ablaze. It swirled and burned, “The world will be better off without you weaklings.”

The people behind her gasped and whispered, tears forming in their eyes as they were backed into a corner.

The flame grew bigger.

Ralph’s witch looked down at him. “Hey, boy,” she said with a soft smile, “If ya have any more luck in ya… Ya might wanna save yourself.”

He responded with a chirp and chose to go up to his witch and rub against her.

The guard reeled his hand back and prepared to throw the fire at them when a voice came through.

“I don’t think so.” Ralph watched as the man was tackled to the ground, chatter erupted as relief flooded through the people of the hall.

His witch looked shocked, her mouth was opened, and her eyes were wide. She looked down at him. “Did you– How–”

That was when her eyes went to his collar, where the button, which was used to send a signal and location to a remote the guards currently had, was blinking due to being pressed.

She blinked for a moment before smiling.

“You clever kitty.”

A few days later, Ralph was snoozing in his bed.

The town had heard the news– A common black cat saved the day. It was the talk now.

He could still hear his witch talking to some of the press outside now. He got up with a huff due to the noise and watched as the door opened.

His witch looked over at him and smiled. “Hey, baby,” she cooed as she scratched the side of his head right where it felt good.

“You’ve made some waves, there,” she commented. He yawned, uninterested in her comments.

“Who would think that?” She asked. “A little cat making big moves, huh?”

He didn’t care much for what she said, the rest of the humans around them could go die for all he cared. As long as he had his witch, he was content.

I would like to hear back from you, but please take your time, and don’t feel any sort of pressure. Your art is amazing, and I’m just looking for permission to use some of it as setting inspiration.