***

*Old Note*

March 11, 2005

I reached home safely and didn't tell my parents anything, as promised! But they were awfully annoyed by the mess I left in the bathroom, yuck.

I hope you're well and that your mom wasn't too angry. She's scary!

Your Friend

***

*Present Day*

Fire surrounded him, tall flames twice his size licking greedily at the shabby wooden walls that could no longer protect him. The young child held out his hand, trying to summon his water element, but his powers were too weak and any water he could manage to conjure simply evaporated with a hiss.

Tears flooded his brilliant blue eyes and dripped down his small face. "Alair…" he whispered, his voice a choked sob.

"Don't you dare give up, you stupid human! I will scratch you to death if you die!" A young, but distinctly feline voice roared in his consciousness.

Regret flooded the boy's heart. He really shouldn't have run away without his familiar…would Alair be able to find another suitable human if he died here…?

He really shouldn't have followed the unknown woman, too. But she had seemed so nice…and she'd said he could be friends with her son. Ilari, who was raised in a big house with an even bigger garden but with only his family to accompany him, felt ecstatic at the prospect. His body still seemed to remember the joyful bounce in his steps and the smile playing at his lips as he let the woman lead him by hand. Her palm was a little cold.

When she had brought him to a wooden shack at the back of one of the villa's gardens and tied him up, he no longer smiled, a paralyzing fear curling in his stomach. She drew strange symbols on his face with her own blood – which smelled even more disgusting than other people's blood. He didn't know where this knowledge came from. Had he ever smelled blood before?

The woman's voice was sweet, still. Ilari shuddered as he remembered her telling him that he was the key to her son's success and then a grinning shadow came towards him, ready to devour…Ilari didn't know what happened next, all he remembered was something gushing painfully out of him…and then the shadow was screaming and there was fire all around him and the woman had disappeared…and now he was going to die here uselessly…and his family wouldn't even know.

A crash caught his attention, pulling him from his gloomy thoughts. The next moment, a dark figure appeared in front of him and he was engulfed in a warm hug. Ilari could only catch a glimpse of gleaming black eyes, long, dark hair done up in a ponytail and a face painted with blood just like his before his eyes closed on their own. He vaguely heard Alair's panicked meowing as he lost consciousness.

Then the scene changed and the shadow appeared again, grinning hideously. The humanoid misty figure didn't even have a proper body…just a dark fog floating in the air, with slits for eyes and a grinning mouth.

Ilari trembled in fear.

"You think we're done, little boy…?" the shadow asked, his voice a terrible combination of a whisper and screeching nails. It made one want to block that sound out involuntarily.

"That stupid child saved you last time, but this time…this time…you'll be mine…" the shadow sang and leaped forward, ready to devour him.

---

"Ilari! Ilari, you stupid human! Wake up!"

Ilari, now a young man of twenty, groaned and woke up to the feeling of his face being slapped repeatedly by a soft paw. Only when his eyes zeroed in on a silver-haired cat sitting on his chest, the paw finally stopped.

It took him a moment to realise that he was in his bedroom, safe and sound. The traumatic experience of his five-year-old self was far, far away. He sighed and rubbed his fine, long, silver hair that matched his cat's fur, with a trembling hand. His animal companion leaped to the side of the bed, letting him sit up.

"Same nightmare?" Alair asked, jumping back into his human's lap the very moment Ilari's posture stabilized. Bracing his front paws on the man's shoulder, he licked his face with his rough cat-tongue.

Ilari nodded; after all, this nightmare had plagued him regularly for fifteen years now. "Alair…what if…what if the shadow came back?" he whispered.

The cat froze and fixed his brilliant sapphire eyes on his human, whose irises were the exact same shade of blue.

"What did you see?" Alair asked sharply. "Was there anything new?"

Ilari shook his head. "Not really new…but the shadow…it seemed a lot closer. I could feel its dark aura much more than before." He paused for a moment and then held up his palm. A small globe of water floated above his hand. "And…my elemental magic is getting weaker. I'm sure of it, Alair."

The silver cat watched the globe of water with unconcealed disgust. Ilari giggled, slightly hysterical, and withdrew his water magic. Then he scooped up the fluffy cat and buried his face in the soft fur. Alair let his human behave this way with a long-suffering expression.

"Won't you consider discussing your weakening water attribute with your family?" Alair asked quietly after some time.

"I don't want to worry them…" Ilari mumbled. "Ilma and Ivor never had these issues."

"The twins are older than you and their magic is different. It is possibly related to your other thing," Alair pointed out.

Ilari groaned and buried his face in his cat's fur again. "We've only had pure elementals in our family forever…how useless am I to have a second attribute…and we don't even know what it is…! And…and…am I not too old to show a second attribute now?!"

"I told you it's not a second attribute," the cat snapped.

"What else could it be?" Ilari wailed. "I'm going to be the weakest, most useless person in my family and they won't let me be a detective ever…"

Alair hit his human smack in the face with his tail. "You are not a detective yet – and even I agree with your family that you are more suited to be a scholar than a warrior."

Ilari gave him a wounded look. "It was because you wouldn't support me that I had to study both scriptures and warcraft! And even though I graduated on top of the warrior class, you all still doubt me!"

"You graduated on top of your warrior class because you worked yourself to the bone. You ranked on top of your scholar class effortlessly. That's your natural aptitude."

Ilari groaned but couldn't refute the cat's reasoning.

"Detective work is a mix of both…" he said in a small voice.

"The only reason you want to be a detective is because of *that guy*," Alair huffed.