The stoat looked as though it had just woken up from an all-night Kappa Phi kegger. It had been vomiting intermittently for the last fifteen minutes, and I was rapidly becoming concerned about its well-being. The System said that the stoat was evolving, but it also said that this evolution wasn’t supposed to happen. Or maybe it meant that evolutions themselves weren’t supposed to be a thing. I’m honestly not sure which it meant because, as always, it was being vague about the important stuff. Usually, that just meant that I would have to try to figure things out for myself. Deduce the next steps, devise a plan. But in this case, I felt completely helpless. There was no planning my way around what was happening to the stoat; no next steps for me to take other than to stand by and witness its misery.
The stoat stiffened and began shaking violently. I recognized it as a seizure but had no idea what to do for a person who was seizing, let alone a weasel. It was so small, I couldn’t even put my hands on it to try to offer what little comfort I had to give. That turned out to be fine, though, since the stoat’s fur began to fall off moments later. It slid off the stoat’s body like every follicle it possessed had joined a union and was on strike for better working conditions. In under a minute, the stoat’s seizing had calmed and it lay there completely naked. I’m going to be real honest, here: the fur was doing a lot of very heavy lifting in the stoat’s cuteness level. With its coat, the stoat was a fierce but adorable little fire demon. Without it, it was a frail-looking, gaunt oddity that should have been in one of those touring curiosity expos back on Earth.
A shudder went through the stoat’s body again. The shudder became a spasm, which became a full body writhing as the unconscious weasel began yet another transformation. Its body stretched. Small nubs started to grow from the middle of its torso. The nubs grew in length and form until it became clear what they were always going to be. Legs. The little shit had grown an extra set of legs. By the time the stoat’s body relaxed again, it had doubled in length and had a full set of six legs.
It was fast before, I thought. I lost control of my brain for a moment as it was completely taken over by the theme song from Sonic the Hedgehog. I jarred it loose with a stiff shake of my head.
Then, its fur started to regrow. Soft, white fur began sprouting all over its body. Where it had once had a white belly with reddish fur everywhere else, it now had a pure white coat that covered it from snout to tail. By the way, if you ever get the chance to see a stoat’s tail without fur? Don’t. Some things you just can’t unsee. Thankfully, that was one of the first body parts that fully fluffed out with the new white coat. The stoat looked very regal, now that it wasn’t laying there like a naked, malnourished mole rat. Its fur was shiny and elegant, it looked lithe rather than underfed, and it seemed to be sleeping rather than on the verge of death. That had to be good. I ran a threat assessment on the stoat, and tried not to pass out as I read its stats:
Just as I’d figured, its Agility was going to be a massive problem. Hopefully for its enemies more so than me. The only question left was ‘what happens, now?’. I didn’t have the answer for that. So, I started a small fire and made a small nest-like bed out of my duster. I nestled the unconscious stoat into the middle of it and nudged it closer to the fire to keep it warm. Then, I set about to cooking a little of that crab meat. I hadn’t had any seafood in quite a while and was more than moderately excited to see if it was any good. I wished this world had lemons, but so far I’d seen no evidence of them.
At least there’s butter, I thought. Just as I was about to put the chopped meat onto my pan, a new notification appeared. I looked at the meat in my hands, back to the notification, then back to the meat again and sighed. The meat went back into my inventory and I pulled the pan off the fire.
Huh. The stoat wanted to be pals for life. That was both adorable and flattering, so I didn’t hesitate whatsoever when I clicked “Accept.” A new notification arose, asking me to name the stoat. I honestly didn’t like the responsibility being pushed on me. The stoat should have a say in deciding its own name, but apparently it was entirely up to me. That…sucked. I hated naming things. I was always one of those nerds who named his pets whatever they happened to be. My fish was named Fishy. My bird was named Birdy. I’d lucked out with Boots because she was already named when I adopted her. I was determined not to do that to the stoat. It deserved better.
I thought back to my time on Earth. There were a few weasels in popular culture but they suffered from being portrayed as a generic villain, most of the time. There were a few characters that stood out like the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit…villains, again, but at least they had names. The problem was that they used the same naming convention as Disney had with the Seven Dwarves. Thinking of Disney struck a vague memory for me, however. Cruella De Vil had a pet weasel in the Dalmatians animated series. What the hell was its name, though? I struggled for a few minutes until, had this been an actual Disney cartoon, a light bulb would have formed over my head.
“Scorch!” I said, aloud. I wasn’t trying to actually make that the name, mind you – I was just excited that I had remembered the character’s name. The System didn’t care about all that. It asked a question and took what I had said as its answer. I was beginning to notice a trend in that direction with The System and decided then and there to watch my mouth when interacting with it from then on. The stoat stirred in my duster. I leaned in and gave it a little scratch on the back. It stretched and its eyes fluttered open.
“Well, that took a bit longer than I would have preferred,” a small voice said.
“You’re telling me,” I replied. “I was worried that –wait. Stoat? Is that you?”
“Scorch, now, I think. But, yes. Who else would it be, you giant goof?”
The voice, I realized, was entirely in my mind. Scorch had not verbalized a single word of it. That was both disturbing and incredibly cool at the same time.
So, what…you can read my mind, now? I thought, testing the theory.
“Only if you send me the thought directly, I think. That’s probably for the best, anyway. I’ve seen what you and Jasmine do when you think no one’s around. There’s probably all sort of unspeakable nonsense floating around in that head of yours.”
“Hey!” I said, mildly offended at the implication. The offense didn’t last long though, as it was replaced by relief a moment later.
“That’s rich, coming from someone who cleans their butt the way you do,” I said, returning her teasing.
“I will have you know that my butt is cleaner than any part of your body has ever been.”
“It would have to be, with the amount of time you spend back there.”
We continued going back and forth joking with each other about our various perceived faults for a while until my stomach rumbled and I got back to cooking the crab meat. As it turns out, Crab Grass tastes exactly like lobster tail if you cook it right. Scorch devoured her portion and I had to make her a second serving. I couldn’t blame her for being hungry, after what she’d just been through over the last couple of hours. It had been an eventful day.
“Thanks for putting me close to the fire, by the way,” she said softly. “I needed to absorb some heat in that moment to recharge. I…appreciate you taking care of me while I was indisposed.”
Indisposed was certainly a polite way of putting it, but there was no need for me to press her on that. She’d been through enough, already. After dinner, Scorch insisted that we get back to collecting resources for Moira. So, I put out the fire, put my duster back on and we headed out. Rather than taking her normal spot on my shoulder or in a pocket, Scorch walked alongside me. She wanted to get used to her new body and I didn’t blame her one bit. If I had sprouted a new set of arms overnight, I’d probably spend a day or two trying to figure out how to use them, too.
Environmental Mapping was really coming in clutch for us, to the point where I wasn’t sure how anyone survived this world without it. Maybe that was just my Earthly sensibilities talking, though. Either way, it made forest foraging much more efficient. Scorch specifically was making astounding use of the ability. After a while all I had to do was send her a mental image of the map and she darted off to grab whatever resource I’d shown her. We had collected enough to stock an entire CVS pharmacy when something new popped up on the mapping interface.
“What is it?” Scorch asked, when I showed her the unfamiliar icon. “Do you want me to run ahead and look?”
“No,” I replied. “I’ve never seen this symbol before. We should go together – there’s no telling how dangerous it’s going to be. The place could be filled with high level bosses, for all we know.”
“True,” she said. “Plus, I’m still not entirely used to using six legs at once. It’s thrown off my whole stride while running.”
She spiraled up my body and settled into her favorite spot in my duster – the inner pocket on my left side. She hadn’t said it out loud yet, but I suspected it was partially because she could listen to my heartbeat. For the time being, however, she stood inside the pocket with her forepaws and upper one-third of her body poking up out of the jacket. I was glad to have her back in there. Not just because the heat from the little stoat kept me feeling much warmer in these cold climes, either. It just felt more natural having her there.
“Alright, husband. Let’s get moving.”
I did, in fact, not get moving.
“Whaaaaat did you just call me?”
“Husband. What else would I call you?”
“My name,” I said. “Why on earth would you call me husband?”
“We’re married. I don’t see the big deal.”
“When did that happen??”
“When you accepted my proposal,” she said, twisting her body around to look me in the face. “What did you think a ‘contract of binding’ was? Was the term ‘lifetime familiar’ too vague for you?”
“Yes!” I said, starting to panic.
“Do you not want me as your familiar?” she asked, sounding more vulnerable than I was comfortable with.
“Obviously, I do…I accepted the request. I just didn’t know tha—”
“Great! It’s settled, then. Onward, husband!” she said cheerfully and snuggled back down into her original lookout position in the front of my jacket.
I was, not for the first time in this world, completely and utterly lost for what this situation required of me. It was a ridiculous notion, being married to a stoat. She was barely the length of my forearm now that she’d doubled in size. The word ‘familiar’ had no special marital connotations that I was aware of. If it turned out to be true, however, that I had managed to get myself accidentally married again, what I did know was that Jasmine was going to murder me.