7. Milo
CHAPTER SEVEN
milo
Turns out, bringing a new family member home wasn’t easy.
Well, more specifically…
Bringing a new family member who just so happened to be a baby Glaceryn with the flu was not easy.
But nobody took the transition as hard as—
“Pip, will you come down? She’s sleeping now.”
The bundle of spider silk in the high ceiling corner did not stir. Ever since they brought the Glaceryn home, Pip had barely spoken, only occasionally mumbling things like,
“Replacing me.”
“Dragon better familiar.”
“Don’t need Pip anymore.”
Each muttered comment tore at Milo’s heart.
Though part of that was because Pip wasn’t entirely wrong.
This Glaceryn, a powerful MythBeast with innate magical abilities, could become a familiar if they bonded.
If the little ice dragon warmed up to him (pun intended), they could theoretically combine their magics to perform incredibly powerful spells.
Pip was just… a very large, very moody jumping spider that Milo had selectively bred for a past experiment.
“Pip...” Milo groaned. This silent treatment had gone on for three days now, and he was over it.
“The Glaceryn is very rowdy,” Grievance said, more to himself, as he inspected one of Milo’s MythBeast encyclopedias, something he enjoyed doing often.
“Exactly! She is very wild. Nothing like you, Pip,” Milo tried.
“No, I mean she will need training,” Grievance said, looking up at Milo. “Familiar training.”
Grievance glanced quickly from Milo to the ceiling and back, eyebrows raised.
What do you—OH!
“You’re right, Grievance,” Milo said stiffly. “She will. She’s way too rambunctious to be a proper familiar. If only we knew someone with experience who could teach her.”
Grievance rolled his eyes and returned to his encyclopedia.
“She will need to learn the basics first. How to be still during spells. Offer helpful suggestions when I’m about to mess up a potion. Definitely how to protect the apothecary; that is a must. Grievance, do you know anyone like that?”
His mate ignored him, but the bundle of silk in the corner wiggled for the first time in days.
“How can she suggest potion when she not talk?” Pip muttered.
“Exactly! I need someone who can. Like you.”
A bright blue, four-eyed head poked from the nest. Pip rubbed his fuzzy pedipalps together, like he did when he was anxious.
“Don’t need me. Have powerful ice baby now.”
“That’s not true.” Milo stepped closer, tilting his head almost directly upward. “Pip, even if the Glaceryn stays, that doesn’t mean I’m replacing you. You’re still my familiar, and I need you now more than ever.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Milo said, exasperated. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for days. I need you. The apothecary needs you. You’re a part of our lives, Pip; nothing will change that. I promise.”
The little spider seemed to consider him for a moment.
“Baby ice dragon too noisy.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Stomps like troll. Needs to be more stealthy.”
“And who do you think is going to teach her? She doesn’t have a mom to teach her those things. And I certainly can’t do it. What do you say, Pip?”
The spider’s pedipalps rubbed back and forth a few more times before he emerged completely from his silken cocoon.
“Fine. Pip will take Glaceryn as apprentice.”
Milo’s shoulders fell in relief.
“Thank you, Pip. I knew I could count on you.”
“Pip still head familiar.”
“Absolutely. You’re in charge.”
And right on cue, Milo heard the telltale sound of little claws scratching at the bedroom door, followed by a few disgruntled chirps.
“Uuugh,” he groaned, running his hands through his hair. “And I just got her down for a nap.”
“Open door. Pip will discipline,” the spider said.
Milo wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to know what that meant, but cautiously, he cracked open the door.
The Glaceryn burst through the opening, squeaking and crashing into Milo’s furniture, sending frames toppling and Grievance’s jewelry collection scattering across the floor.
“Oh hells,” Milo said, scrambling after the living hurricane they’d invited into their home. “Come here!”
She chirped, dodging him easily, leaping onto the dresser, where she proceeded to knock down all of Milo’s freshly folded laundry.
“Bad Glaceryn!” Milo called, but she only seemed to laugh at him as she dodged his grip again, chirping all the while.
After only three days of treatment, she was obviously feeling much better. Milo treated her for the flu much like he treated Regina’s cat for a URI.
The Glaceryn had responded well, her patchy fur already growing back and her ribs much less visible.
And boy, did she have energy to spare. Milo and Grievance had hardly slept for three days.
“Down! I said down!” Milo commanded, pointing a finger uselessly to the floor. The little monster sat perched on a ceiling beam, waving her tail back and forth as though to say,
“You can’t catch me!”
But before he could climb after the little devil, something blue flashed across his vision. The next second, Pip was on the dragon’s head and gave her nose a hard BAP!
She flinched, blinking and nearly losing her balance. Again, a flash of blue, and she was once again bapped on the nose.
“Your witch gave you order!” Pip’s voice hissed. “Down!”
The Glaceryn looked at Pip, blinking in surprise, as though unsure how to respond to a talking spider.
Milo couldn’t blame her. Especially not when Pip was being so authoritative. He was taking this apprenticeship seriously.
The Glaceryn eyed Pip a moment longer before dutifully climbing down from the rafters, slinking over to Milo, and sitting on her haunches, looking thoroughly told off.
Pip jumped down right at her feet, waving his two front legs at her.
“This is your witch. Your master. You listen, or Pip will attack again.”
Crystal-blue eyes blinked; Andl…was there a hint of comprehension?
“Your naptime is not over. Go back to bed, as Nestmaker said, and wait for dinner. Go.” Pip waved his legs in the direction of the door.
And to Milo’s shock, she obeyed, her tail drooping sadly toward the floor as she made her way back to the makeshift bed they set up for her in the study.
Milo whistled. “Wow. I’m impressed. But don’t you think that was a little harsh?”
“I said I would take apprentice. Did not say I would coddle.”
A deep laugh sounded from the corner of the room.
“Oh, thanks for your help, by the way!” Milo said, rounding on his mate.
“You looked like you had it handled.”
“By handled, do you mean running around like a chicken with its head cut off?”
“Yeah. That.”
Milo tried to glare at his mate but couldn’t muster it through the grin tugging at his lips.
“And I think Pip is right. It’s better to be harsh early on. She will be a very big, very strong MythBeast someday. She needs to learn boundaries now. Also, we should give her a name.”
“I name man-monster. I name baby-ice-monster too,” Pip declared.
It was true; Pip had been the one to give Grievance his name, without Milo’s permission or supervision, of course. But it had stuck, and now Milo couldn’t imagine his mate being called anything else.
“What do you have in mind?”
“She is spoiled ice princess. She is Elsa.”
“Hmmm.” Milo tapped his chin. “A little on the nose, don’t you think?”
“I like Esmerelda,” Grievance said quietly from the corner, as though hoping nobody would hear.
Milo’s head shot up.
“That’s perfect! I love it.”
His mate shrugged. “It’s pretty. Better than Ralph,” he said, his face turning sour.
“Oh, so Nestmaker like that name but not Pip’s?”
“Hey, it’s fair,” Milo said. “You named Grievance. I named you, and now Grievance can name the Glaceryn. We’ve all named someone.”
And Milo swore that if a spider could roll its eyes, Pip just did.
“Fine.”
“Perfect. Now let me get our poor Esmerelda out of purgatory and feed her dinner.”
“No! Nestmaker bad at discipline!” Pip hissed as Milo walked out the door with a laugh.
“Then you’d better come supervise me.”
Pip made an irritated little noise, but Milo heard the rapid tap-tap-tap of eight legs following him down the hall anyway.
They found Esmerelda where Pip had sent her, curled in the nest of blankets they’d arranged beside the hearth in the study. Only her nose and the tip of one icy-blue ear poked out. At the sight of Milo, her tail immediately began thumping beneath the blankets.
“No,” Pip warned.
The thumping stopped.
Milo pressed his lips together.
Pip is going to be absolutely insufferable about this.
He crouched beside the little dragon and set down her bowl of diced rabbit meat. Esmerelda lifted her head, sniffing eagerly. But before she could bury her face in dinner, she sneezed.
A tiny burst of frost shot across the floor. Ice crystallized over Milo’s toes, and he hissed, rubbing at them quickly to take off the frost and coax some feeling back into his already poorly circulating feet.
From the doorway came Grievance’s deep laugh.
“Not funny,” Milo said without turning around.
“A little funny.”
Pip crawled onto Esmerelda’s head and bapped her once between the ears.
“No freezing Nestmaker.”
Esmerelda gave a pitiful little chirp. Then, apparently deciding her punishment was over, she attacked her dinner.
Milo sat back on his heels and watched her eat. Pip remained perched between her ears like a tiny blue crown, already muttering instructions she almost certainly didn’t understand. Grievance leaned against the doorway behind them, the emerald in his ear catching the firelight whenever he moved.
Three days ago, Milo had been worried Pip would never forgive him for bringing the little dragon home.
Now Pip had an apprentice.
Grievance had named her.
And Milo apparently had another creature in his house who thought listening to him was optional.
He smiled. His family had grown again.
It was louder now. Messy. Colder, that was for certain. And judging by the overturned furniture in the other room, significantly more expensive.
But as Esmerelda finished her dinner and promptly curled around Pip—trapping the spider against her fuzzy chest despite his furious protests—Milo felt something warm settle just behind his solar plexus.
Pumpkin Hollow had given him many things he’d never expected.
A home.
A mate.
A talking spider who had appointed himself familiar. And now, apparently, a baby ice dragon named Esmerelda. Milo reached down and scratched gently behind her ears. She rumbled sleepily and leaned into his hand.
Yeah. I could get used to this.