black and red

Black and Red
John White Alexander
1896

October the 9th, 1896

Dear Azoth,

Although we discovered our innate magical abilities in the dawn of time, when our minds first awakened, our powers were limited by our form. Although one of nature's more brilliant creations, invoking the spirits requires deft motions and a wide range of verbalizations, something our near-perfect nature lacked. For thousands of years we endured patiently, winding around the feet of the clumsy giants, waiting for a method, a spell, with which to enslave them and utilize their dexterous paws and expressive vocal cords to dominate this weak land and even weaker creatures. Hundreds upon thousands of litters were born and died, all striving to discover a way to control the giants.
Slowly, slowly, the knowledge gathered by the ancestors grew in our minds, and in collaboration, we eventually contrived a plan. A genius plan, of course, for our kind can conceive of nothing else. When we were sure that we could succeed, we struck.
And then the giants were ours. Laughably, we discovered, rooting around in their primitive minds, that their own crude mythology had featured a certain of our kind (black like the night, black like our souls) as a familiar for their own magic users. Oh, how we delighted in that. The giants never successfully utilized magic, as disconnected from the earth as they are, and that they had thought we would be their familiars endlessly entertained us. But we did not let our amusement distract from the task at hand.
Quickly, we explored the range of motions that the giants possessed, and found new spells to employ in our quest for dominance.
Now, of course, we rule the world. We let the giants possess their own minds when we do not require their bodies to conduct our magic, for controlling a giant in their daily life tasks would be most tedious. My own familiar, a female, used to try to escape when I released her, but she knows better now. Only more suffering comes from such attempts. She is meek and obedient now and keeps herself clean and presentable. Like most of my kind, I appreciate objects of beauty, and my familiar satisfies me in this regard. I adorn her in precious metals and keep her in creased taffetas and soft satins, as these fabrics best accentuate her shape, which among the giants, is considered prized. I do not understand their concepts of beauty, of course, as their bodies are oddly designed and not one of nature's best efforts.
Although I can not perceive colors through my own sharp eyes, I control her in the mornings to  see through her eyes and enjoy the colored dresses she must use to cover her frail, near-hairless body. I am particularly partial to the color the giants call red, as it coordinates nicely with my own colored fur. In their mythology, the giants considered this vibrant color to be a powerful one, and I am drawn to that concept, silly as it might be.
I allow the giant to enjoy the softness of my fur and revel in the touch, knowing I control her even when she is released from my spells. Since we are a more advanced and clever design, our shape and furry feel attract the giants. This worked well in our favor in our darker days before our rise to domination, as the giants would keep us in their homes much like we now keep them, unaware of our ulterior motives.
Now that we control the giants, little escapes our reach. The giants care for all our bodily needs and serve as vessels to conduct complex spells. We live in comfort with our familiars, and want for nothing. I think of their mythology, and marvel at the wondrous role reversal that has occurred.
As much as I enjoy using my familiar to inscribe this letter to you with parchment and ink as you embark on your own acquisition of a familiar, I have duties to complete and spells to cast. We shall speak again soon.

Yours in endless deviousness,

Assassination