"Hm, you really don't have a name? Every kid ought to have a name. Can't I name you?" Alwyn asked.
"Sure you can! It's only because no one's cared to do it before—it's not like I've been rejecting offers."
'Why do I feel attacked?' Linnie wondered.
"How about... ehhhh...? La... no, Li..." he trailed off, deep in thought.
Linnie furrowed his brow. 'I'm getting a strange sense of deja vu.'
"Li-Lin... wait, no," he trailed off, deep in thought.
'Wait—was he seriously about to give her my name!? He was!'
"Li...ora. Liora! Lira for cuteness? No, that sounds terrible. Just Liora. How's that?"
The girl, now Liora, was beaming.
'Liora? Is that my new name? After all this time... Li-Li-Li-Liora~! Wow, to think I'd get such a pretty name!' she thought to herself.
"I love it!" she shouted, giving Alwyn a tight hug. "Thanks—um, actually, what's your name?"
'She really just accepted a name from a complete stranger. Wow.' Linnie face-palmed, shaking his head.
"It's Alwyn, but you can call me teacher~"
He was smiling creepily, but it wasn't anything nefarious. I swear, he just wanted to be called 'teacher' by his students. Linnie had done it, like, once, before Alwyn accidentally made it weird.
He didn't like how his only apprentice called him by name, and hoped to have at least one that called him teacher.
"No... I don't think I will," she said, ruthlessly shooting that idea down.
'Ouch!' Alwyn winced.
"Alwyn's a cool name, though! And what's your name, pretty lady?"
"Oho, pretty lady? So you're talented and smart!" Aliza laughed smugly. "Well, you're not too shabby yourself, Liora. My name's Aliza. Nice to meet you."
Finally, Liora turned and knelt to the final member of the party—the cat.
Actually, when had the cat joined the party? The answer's never. It never did. Up until that moment, Alwyn and Aliza were still planning to shoo it away before night fell.
"What's your name, pretty kitty?" she asked, reaching to give it a pet.
It hissed, swiping at her hand. For some reason, the cat was extremely fearful. Perhaps it was because, by definition, this girl was in fact a monster, not a girl. Maybe it was the smartest one there—fearing the girl.
Or it was just a wimp.
"Actually, it's a boy. So he's handsome, not pretty," Linnie explained in an annoyingly arrogant voice.
"Oh, really? Well, boys can be pretty, too. Like you! But are you sure? He really looks like a girl."
Linnie opened his mouth, then closed it, scowling.
"Hey! That's rude. You'll offend him. He understands human-talk, you know. He's very smart—hey, what are you doing!? That's assault!"
"MEEEE-OOOOWW!!!!"
She, against the cat's intense will, lifted it off the ground. Ignoring the vicious bites and scratches appearing on her hands, she inspected its underside.
"No, she's definitely a girl," Liora said. "Look, she doesn't have a willy!"
She turned her around, showing everyone. The cat covered her face in shame, having given up on escaping the giant's grasp.
"Oh. Huh. I could've sworn her voice sounded like a boy's."
"What are you talking about, dummy? All cats sound the same!" she laughed.
'No really—they don't know, but I've definitely heard her voice before! She sounded like a young boy! Like a raspy, mischievous young boy! Like many I've met before! My whole world's been shaken... how is my familiar supposed to be a girl!?'
"Okay, okay! We get it! Now put my familiar down, you're embarrassing her!"
'Familiar?' Liora though, setting her down.
The cat ran away and jumped into Linnie's arms. He caught her, touched by the sudden vulnerability. Linnie had never felt affection for an animal before—not like this. Really, he'd never understood pets.
He had always thought they'd be better used as a meal. Was it because she was his 'familiar' that it felt different this time? She did also save his life twice, and met a supposed god with him. They bonded quite a bit in the single day they'd known each other.
"Aw, who's a good familiar? You are!"
"Meow," she meowed in an unamused—uh, voice?
"What's a familiar?"
"Absolutely nothing you have to concern yourself with," Alwyn interrupted. "Ahem, she does have a point, though. If you're gonna keep her, you've gotta name her. Just like I did with you two."
"I really have to?" Linnie asked, wary of this sudden responsibility. "I don't wanna. What if she doesn't like it? Then she'll have to live with a name she hates for the rest of her life."
"She's a cat; she probably doesn't even care," Aliza reassured.
"Is that true?" he asked, looking at the cat.
"Meow?"
"Oh, this is a whole lot of pressure," Linnie sighed, scratching his head. "Uh... how about... Cat? You like that? Cat? Or Kitty? Kitty Cat?"
". . . ."
'I didn't even know a cat could make a face like that!?' everyone thought.
"On second thought, maybe you shouldn't be the one to name her," Alwyn said, laughing awkwardly.
"Oh—oh! Let me try!" Liora suggested, raising her hand. "How about 'Lady'? Isn't it perfect for a cute little lady like her?"
Linnie was a little annoyed with the way she just butted in, but he didn't actually mind the suggestion.
"What do you think? You like it?"
"Meow," she approved.
It seemed that, despite her dislike for Liora, she liked it. Now, everyone in the party had a name.
"In one day, we've unexpectedly grown by two people. Or, err... members. Lady isn't quite a person. Actually, Liora isn't technically one, either," Aliza said.
"Why're you acting like you're a part of the team...?" Alwyn asked with a raised eyebrow.
She just rolled her eyes.
"Speaking of which, I've never heard of a Siaryn—or a Siarath, for that matter—ever becoming a wizard. You're definitely gonna have to report this to the tower. Or?"
"Absolutely not~! If I don't make her sign a contract, then they don't have to know!" he laughed. "No, they'd never allow it. Never!"
"What's so wrong with a—uh, a Siaryn becoming a wizard, anyway?" Linnie asked.
"Non-humans aren't allowed to become wizards. No, in the first place, monsters—which Liora technically is, no offense intended—aren't supposed to have mana cores. It's strange enough that she has one, even stranger that it's so powerful," Aliza explained.
Linnie nodded along with the explanation.
'She's always so knowledgeable. I wonder if there's anything she doesn't know?'
"It's probably because she's Siaryn. I've heard rumors of Siaryns wielding magic in the south, but I doubted it until now. They've probably been keeping it a tight secret," Alwyn added.
Siarath—and so Siaryn, too—are said to have originated from the much hotter and sunnier southern continent.
The Caelth legend goes that they were a southern clan cursed by the gods for their bloodthirst and warmongering—to literally thirst for human blood and perish in the sun—a real punishment in Qadithar, where there were only two main jungles.
It's said that, with the jungles already inhabited by other clans, the Siarath had nowhere to hide from the light. This forced a large group of them to travel north to the more temperate and darker, northern continent.
Of course, not everyone went. Some chose to stay in Qadithar.
Supposedly, they eventually found a way to bear offspring with humans, creating Siaryns—a 'half-breed' that could consume both human food and blood, and was also born without the sickly pale skin of the Siarath, gaining semi-resistance to the sun.
Though, this 'Siaryn' was believed by many to be a legend, with very few sightings of such a creature recorded in history. And now, it seemed that the possibility of possessing a mana core was also within the capabilities of the Siaryn.
"But how'd you end up as a slave?" Alwyn asked. "That's the only part I can't figure out. There's no way they'd let such a valuable asset be sold off into slavery."
"Oh, that? I think I was kidnapped as a baby or something," she said nonchalantly, picking her teeth. "Life as a slave is all I remember. And I've got good memory, too! I even remember getting potty trained by the older slave girls. Oh, I miss them!"
"How strange. Do you know the name of the duke you were being sold off to?"
"Nope—actually, yeah, I do! It was Duke Corvailles!"
Alwyn's face fell, and his eye twitched. "Really, now?"
He had trouble concealing his anger. For some reason unknown to the others, this had completely infuriated him.