When I awaken, I'm not in a yurt. I'm in a soft bed with a blanket around me. A soft pillow props my head up so I can take in my new surroundings.
Pink.
That's my impression. Pink and gold. It definitely is a girly room, and I'm not saying that to be rude or critical. There is nothing wrong with girly. Especially when the girl is as tough as Kaline. This has got to be her room, or Vedette's.
Kaline squats in front of me, stroking my fur. "You're awake." She sounds pleased. "You just had a tummyache. Vedette read the potion recipe wrong. Father and Mother are making her repeat her potions lessons, and she has to do something nice for you."
How about never making me another potion again? That'd be a start. And the mom and dad don't get any points for their A+ parenting. I've done some dumb teenage things too. Trying to give the dog a Mohawk when I dressed her up as a punk rocker for Halloween, for one. You don't want to know. But poisoning the dog? No way.
Kaline holds a blue-and-silver potion in front of me. It smells almost like peppermint. "Healing potion. It'll make your tummy feel all better."
Not only does it smell like candy canes, it tastes like them too, with a hint of hot cocoa. Yum! I finish the whole thing in one sitting.
Pleased, Kaline disposes of the potion vial and lies down with me, curling around me. "You've had a big day."
You have no idea.
She strokes my fur, and I curl into her. This feels amazing. Warm and cozy and sweet, like a Hallmark card or hot cocoa with marshmallows.
"You're going to be alright," she says in a sweet voice. "Father says that you're unusually strong. Ex-cep-tional. That's the word. He says I'm a pro...pro...producer."
Prodigy. That's the word.
"No, that's not it," she corrects herself. "Prodigy. That's it! The word just popped into my head."
What???
Is she reading my mind now?
I think a single thought, repeatedly, with deep focus. "Warm. Warm. Warm. Warm."
She cuddles closer. "I feel so warm."
Fascinating, to quote Mr. Spock. Maybe bonding with Kaline is like a Vulcan mind meld?
I let out a "mrrrrp" in response. I can't talk, after all. I thought--
In my mind's eye, I try to see the game when I was playing it this last weekend. It plays out as if it happened to someone else. Which, in a strange way, it did.
* * * * *
LAST WEEKEND
Josh pumped his fist, sitting in front of the big game screen with the video game system spread out, looking like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. The video game interface showed his character, a teenage girl named "Vedette," doing beast taming. "Vedette" had high stats in the game. Her XP had increased by ten points in the last few minutes.
Beside him, his younger brother Damon worked his controller. Onscreen, a little girl named Kaline wandered this way and that. A dialog box onscreen said, "Big Sister, please help me. I want to become a beast tamer like you."
Damon cheered. "We're playing siblings in the game. Funny that we both picked girls."
"They had the best character profiles," Josh noted. "And upgrades with abilities."
"Such as?"
Damon laughed. "You're such a noob."
"Oh yeah? Then why is my character leveling up faster than yours?" Josh shot back.
They had camped out in Josh's apartment in W City for a video game session. A break from studying. And Josh's fiancee had decided to give them space to have their guy time and brotherly bonding time.
"My character has more abilities than you think," Damon declared, working the controller so that another dialog box popped up.
[Animal Communication Ability Unlocked. Telepathic communication between beast tamers and beasts is now possible.]
"Telepathy?" Josh was blown away. "At your level?"
A tiger cub danced across the screen, letting out a little "Mrrrp" in dialogue.
Damon beamed. "When you bond with the right beast, you unlock more abilities. It's all about being smart with your choices in the game, and in life, too."
"Wow. Is that a message from the game or a message from Mom and Dad?"
Damon snorted and sipped his cola. "It's just a bit of brotherly advice. And gamers' advice. Nothing more."
Josh didn't entirely buy the explanation. "How do I unlock this telepathic communication?"
"Well, you have to treat your tiger cub right., Look, it's just running all over the screen aimlessly while you figure out what to do," Damon pointed out.
Josh looked. The tiger cub roamed around the screen while his young beast tamer avatar just stood there waiting for him to give a command.
"What do I do?"
"You could try one of the minigames like the arena," Damon pointed out, indicating an area on the lower right side of the screen.
"Think I'll find my flex there?" Josh asked.
"Only one way to find out."
* * * * *
In the present, in the game world of Tanglewood, Kaline strokes my fur. "Are you sleeping?"
I let our a little "mrrrp" in the negative.
"I didn't think so." She curls around me. "Are you hungry? They've got more boar and deer meat in the kitchen. Lots of it."
Not the same as a cheeseburger, but it'll do. I let out a growl of approval. My stomach feels emptier than when I first isekaied into this world. I need food now. I need to eat.
Kaline presses a button on a pink-and-gold bedside table. A chime goes off, then the tinkling of a bell somewhere. Probably one of those old-fashioned call buttons or bells like in period dramas. I've toured some castles and manor houses and seen the way that lords, ladies, and royals summoned servants. Fascinating. I am living in an historical fantasy. And all I desire right now is food and sleep, in that order.
Kaline yawns. "Spirits, I'm hungry and sleepy. I'll have my dinner in here and we can have a sleepover." She puts a finger to her lips. "Which no serious beast tamer would ever do. But I think it's okay just this once."
It's more than okay. Because I'm going to unlock Animal Communication and Telepathy, no matter what! And if it takes a sleepover to do it, it's worth the sacrifice.