The day after the summoning, the village square was alive again.
Every child practiced with their new companions. Magic sparks flew. Wings flapped. Roars echoed.
Lira's hawk screeched through the air, leaving trails of golden light. Joren's stone hound stomped and dug trenches with its claws, sending small clouds of dirt into the sky. Other children had wolves that breathed fire, foxes that could vanish in a blink, even tiny creatures that shot bolts of ice or electricity.
Aren watched quietly. His cat was sitting calmly on his shoulder, licking its paw, utterly unconcerned.
"Here we go," Aren muttered. He set the cat down. "Alright… try something."
The cat blinked, stretched, and… sat there.
A few sparks of light danced from the other children's pets as they executed dazzling moves. Streaks of fire, flashes of wind, bursts of energy. The crowd gasped. The cat simply yawned.
Lira's friend leaned over. "Haha… Aren, your cat doesn't even have a move."
Joren snorted. "Yeah. Good luck with that in a fight."
Aren felt a knot in his stomach. Everyone expected him to be the hero. Everyone expected a powerful beast. And here he was… with a cat.
But then something small happened.
A falling training dummy, knocked over by a child practicing too hard, came tumbling toward Aren. Before he could react, the cat leapt up, backflipping in the air. It landed perfectly in front of him—and the dummy stopped midair. It hovered for a brief second, then fell softly to the ground, barely touching him.
The villagers murmured. "Did… did that just happen?"
Aren blinked. The cat meowed softly, as if nothing had happened at all. It padded back to his side.
He didn't understand it himself. It wasn't flashy like the fire hawk or the stone hound. But it had done something impossible.
For now, everyone still laughed and whispered about him being weak. But Aren couldn't help noticing the faint glow in the cat's eyes, a calm confidence no one else's companion had.
He knelt and scratched it behind the ears. "Don't worry… we'll show them."
The cat purred, curling against him.
And in that quiet moment, Aren realized: his cat might be small. Ordinary-looking. Underestimated.
But maybe, just maybe… it wasn't ordinary at all.
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