Tales for Hire [M For F]

[Kirinis]

Here's the basic skeletons for a few tales I have.  If they catch your fancy, PM me and we can flesh them out further.

1. College is a time for exploration and experimentation.  A time to discover and to burn with the unbridled enthusiasm of invincible youth.  That was the story between the girl and the guy.  On again, off again.  Their relationship was notorious for being one of the loudest things on campus.  One moment he was serenading her in the campus square about his love for her, the next the very public falling out at the student center as she confronted him about one of his infidelous swings, and about thirty minutes late a tearful and very public reconciliation.  Two very free and outspoken spirits finding their way through college.

But that was then, it has been ten years since graduation, both had gone their separate ways finding their own paths to happiness.  Ways that eventually guide them to another city...another company where they're both working for.  It has been a while, but has the fire of youth been tempered into something tamer?  Or have the low embers been waiting for an excuse to burn once again with infernal rapacity?  Both remember what happened last time, that last seemingly irreconcilable night that had split them apart for the last time.  Has time softened the hard edges?  Is that old flame still there?


2. Magecraft is a rare and powerful art, not everyone has the fortune to be born with it.  Even then, not everyone is equal.  The distinguishing mark between a hedge-wizard and a puissant magus is what familiar they choose.  Familiars come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes mundane...sometimes not.  All familiars offer some basic mundane utilities, perhaps the sharp eye of a raven or the senses of a black cat.  However, another feature of the familiar is how they can help offset the cost of spell workings for their partner.  The more mundane the familiar, the less they can assist.  The more exotic, the more they can support their magus.

However, the truly powerful and exotic familiars are far harder to compel and are more resistant at serving.  Ambition can blind one to the fact that the familiar they've called is too powerful for them to harness without backlash.  However, playing it too safe cripples one's magic for life as well.  This mage though has set his eyes on a big fish.  An mighty demoness from the Deep.  She has centuries of experience and her own ability at crafting workings of her own is not inconsiderable.  To have her as a familiar would be a boon beyond comparison.

Does she suffer this fool willingly?  How many times has she been called to this realm before?  One fool after another drawn to her flame before being burned to ashes.  This is a game between two wills, both seeking to subvert each other for their own purposes.  Or is there something more...can there be?