Chapter 637 - 637 A ‘Little’ Familiar

Last Lily chapter for a while

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A large yawn for Lily's small frame escaped her mouth. It wasn't too late in the afternoon but her small body, barely out of kitten years decided she needed sleep. Kat instantly made note of it but Lily argued back. There was a little more arguing over if she should rest or not but when that same argument was interrupted by two further yawns Kat knew she had one. So Lily curled up and let herself drift to sleep.

While she was asleep, Kat focused on training her demonic fire. Something she'd meant to do in the past multiple times but had always put off. After seeing the huge leaps she'd made with her fans though… Kat decided it was time to do a bit more training. The last time she'd even attempted anything like this was back when she'd messed around in Thyme's training room during the final stage of the tournament.

It was clear, both now and from previous practice, that control of her fire drastically fell the further away from her body it was. Sure she could throw it from hand to hand without too much issue, but she lost control part way through the transition if she wasn't paying very close attention to it. On the other hand, she could create a fingernail sized flame and run it all over her arm, drawing complex patterns with hardly an ounce of effort.

With Lily on her chest, Kat had no desire to get up to find a better testing ground. As such she focused on pushing her flames away from her hands and then moving them around as accurately as she could. Using both hands let her also get practice trying to split her focus. It was… rather difficult. Moving two flames in the same pattern wasn't difficult, but moving those same flames in opposite directions or taking it further and trying contradicting patterns, was a nightmare.

Kat also found out that if she really concentrated it she could pack quite a bit of power into small flames. It was harder of course, but not as hard as she felt it should be. Compressing flame took about twice the effort of forming a small flame and then pumping power into it… but the trade off was that it was slower. She could compress a flame in about half a second while feeding it power required about two seconds of concentration to prevent it from ballooning in size.

Eventually, Lily's nap was interrupted by a call from Callisto that it was time to eat. Kat was pleasantly surprised to see Lily's twitch and catch the sound, awakening her without interference from Kat at all. Waking an adorable sleeping cat Lily was not on Kat's to do list. Lily was always adorable now and disturbing her sleep felt close to sacrilegious in Kat's mind. Still, Lily was awoken and Kat took no part in it.

They headed downstairs for dinner, a roast, something else for Lily to try really. Once again, she found it wasn't all that different though she noted the texture felt very wrong to her in Memphis form. It was too tender for the cat part of her brain. Even though it tasted fine, other parts of the experience were telling her the meat shouldn't be safe to eat despite the taste. She ignored it and finished the meal, but not all that happily. It was more out of stubbornness and the knowledge that she had liked Callisto's roast back she was human. Kat refrained from eating anything despite the weak glares from Callisto and Vivian.

There was no talk about if Lily was staying or not. The older two assumed Kat had already asked, Sylvie knew it was a foregone conclusion and the pair in question hadn't even considered the idea they could have been separated for a bit. Perhaps a side effect of the bond existence… or silent subconscious communication. Who knew? At this point in time, nobody, as the pair in question hadn't even realised they were doing anything strange.

So, when they headed back upstairs there wasn't even a question. Kat just picked Lily up and headed upstairs. Kat did however pause at the bathroom doors. She had been intending to shower. Lily, seeing this jumped away and scampered off to Kat's room to hide under a pillow. She did not want Kat catching on to the ideas it provoked nor did she want Kat being 'helpful' and bathing them both. Plus, she was a cat now. Surely that meant she could skip bathing for at least a little bit. Lily knew normal cats didn't need to be bathed for over a month, and many people bathed them less frequently. She'd think on it… just… not when a naked Kat featured quite so heavily in her mind. The best solution would be to be humanoid again before the month was up.

Kat didn't send any teasing images to Lily while she was bathing. Perhaps she would have if she thought of it, but she didn't even notice anything strange about Lily's departure, simply assuming it was a cat thing, as cats didn't like water. For Kat that's all a shower was, a place to get clean. Her state of dress hardly factored into it.

When Kat finished her rather quick shower, which to be fair she didn't even really need, she hopped onto the bed and was about to throw herself onto her pillows when she noticed Lily's tail sticking out. [Woops. That could have been bad…]

*What?*

[I was about to jump on my bed like normal but that would mean I fell onto my pillows. Pillows you are currently heading under.]

*Oh. Oh yes… um… woops?* Lily shimmied herself out from under the pillow not abusing the relatively large strength of her small form to just throw the pillow off. Kat of course said nothing. It was adorable seeing her try to be careful with the pillow despite really not needing to be. Kat pondered if it was because Lily didn't realise her current strength or if she just didn't want to throw Kat's stuff around. She suspected it was the first option.

[Lily… do you know how strong you are?] Kat mentally asked as he picked up Lily's small form to put on her lap. Kat had moved the pillows back and was sitting up straight instead of lying down like earlier in the day.

*No?*

Kat sighed. "Ok, here's what I'm going to do…" said Kat carefully as she moved Lily to the side. "I'm going to try and carefully push your hand up. I want you to push down on it as hard as you can, and I'll tell you roughly how much force that is,"

Lily looked sceptically at Kat, well, as much as a cat could look sceptical about anything. It was mostly the feeling from the bond that led Kat to that conclusion, but she got started anyway. She felt Lily start trying as soon as Kat place her hand under Lily's paw. Kat carefully pushed up and it didn't take long before she overwhelmed Lily's strength and the paw started to rise. It was at this point, as Kat was using more force to lift Lily's hand then she would to lift a Lily's whole body, that she wondered how that made any sense at all.

[On the one hand… you are stronger like I thought… on the other I have no idea how it works. I mean I don't know how my own super strength works but… where did you get the leverage for that?]

*What do you mean?*

[Lily I used about the same amount of strength to move your ONE paw up as I'd use to lift a person… or around that anyone. I want you to think about that… especially considering how tiny you are.] 

*Oh… I wait… what? That doesn't make any sense.*

[And my strength does?]

*Yeah but you have demonic energy! I might have it but it's not like I can use it…*

[You have mana as well though.]

*But… but I don't feel myself using it at all? How did that pack all that power into muscles the size of thick straw?*

[You… why are you comparing your leg to a straw?]

*I… I dunno what else is the size of a not quite kitten sized cat's arms? It's not like this is a frequent thing to need comparison.* 

[Why not just say like… electrical cabling? That seems about right…]

*Lily looked at her arm then glanced at the electrical socket in the corner of the room. Huh… that probably would have been better… still that's not the point. It just… it's just weird now it's me I guess. It was fine when it was you… you're Kat and I just… I guess I find it easier to believe you can casually break the laws of physics than I can.* 

[Lily… with a bit of training you can become a magical witch cat. Arguments could be made that I'M YOUR familiar.. I don't think this was ever going to make a lot of sense.]