“Sit,” John used his commanding tone – to no avail.

Only tilting her head, Velka looked up to his empty hands and then cawed. The Magryph had doubled her size in the past week, but that only meant she was now bigger than both of John’s hands put together. In total, she was about two weeks old now. Her wings started to change, the feathers becoming sleeker, but she was still far away from being able to fly.

Another caw and John sighed. “Sit!” he repeated. Velka put her butt down, making it appear as if she obeyed. There was no window to confirm that he had beaten the Class Challenge. The second he did as much as move his hand, the magpie-cat chimera jumped to her feet and warbled excitedly. A very basic sign that she was expecting something shiny. Instead, John wagged his finger at her. “Sit!” he said for the third time.

Velka decided that the Gamer wasn’t interesting anymore and turned around. Instead, her attention turned to the robe-wearing girl inside the kitchen. Eliza turned around just in time to see the pet tap up to her. “Come here, cutie.” The pretty little psycho sounded so stereotypical motherly, John almost felt like he was in a bad script.

Sprinting the rest of the way, the Magryph jumped into Eliza’s arms. With a sound that was half meow, half caw, she let herself be picked up. Kissing the beak of the small thing, the blood mage got a loving nibble to her nose in return. Then Velka continued to put her front legs on Eliza’s shoulders, propped herself up and rubbed her fluffy head against the white-blue haired woman’s cheek.

“Awawa,” Eliza let out a Gnome-ish sound as she gently squeezed the Magryph. “John, I need another fifteen of her! There’s so much fu- freaking love! I want to drown in Velkas!”

“That undisciplined bird only treats you so nicely because she knows you will pamper her in return,” the Gamer snapped back in an unnecessarily aggressive fashion. It was irking his pride more than a little bit that Eliza seemed to replace him with some Magryph hugs. ‘This is exactly why I can’t let another guy anywhere close to touching my girls outside of socially acceptable boundaries,’ John thought, desperately trying to calm down. ‘I would probably break his hand before the count of five.’

“She’s SO ADORABLE THOUGH!” Eliza screamed and somewhat startled Velka, who wound in her embrace. “Sorry, sorry,” she hastily said and raised Velka up. “Didn’t mean to scream in your ear, Velka. I am just such a fuck- fudging bimb- scatter brained slu- idiot.” As if to distract Velka from her barely suppressed slurs, the sickly-pale girl threw the Magryph into the air.

Not too high, just enough that Velka could excitedly cry out before Eliza caught her. They repeated this three times, then the chimera chick suddenly flew in John’s direction instead. It was a high-pass over a short distance, very easy to catch. Once he had her firmly in his grasp, John turned Velka towards him. If a beak could contort, he was certain the Magryph would have given him the biggest, shit-eating grin. The swaying tail signalled the same emotions instead.

“I love you so much!” Eliza said and collided with his side in a massive hug. “I am so happy! John, John, you smell so good and you’re so hunky and you make me feel protected and there is all this love flying around and and - Urgh, hard to say all of that sweetness without cursing like a sailor in a house that sells lady favours,” Eliza said, only to then let out a long series of insane giggles and rub against him like a purring cat. With her entire body. It went a long way in curing John’s thoughtless aggression. “I want a baby!”

“Of course you do,” John laughed in a warm fashion. He wouldn’t have dared to mock that, not in such a genuine moment. He kissed his masochistic lover’s head and then placed Velka on top of a padded counter. “But not yet, I am not ready. Let’s continue working with the relatively easy baby we have here. Go get me her food.” After that request, Eliza quickly returned to the kitchen to get both the syringe and the bowl with more dissolved cat food.

Velka was still eating primarily liquid things, although they mixed it up with ground beef and banana pulp sometimes. While she preferred meat, she was an omnivore, so they could give her just about anything. Especially once she had grown up some more and developed eating habits closer to crows or magpies.

Excited for food, the Magryph prowled back and forth in front of John. “Sit,” he said, not getting any response. All Velka was watching for was Eliza coming back from the kitchen. When he was holding the meal, John repeated, “Sit.” At which point Velka’s behind obediently plopped down on the surface of the counter. With a sigh, John added, “Lay down.” Velka pulled in her front legs as well, leaving her lying on her stomach. “Roll.” She even followed that command, doing a quick turn on her back. Her eyes didn’t leave the syringe at any moment. “Spoiled brat,” John grumbled and got two laughing warbles in response.

It was always the same. Velka knew perfectly well what he wanted. As far as he was aware, she had the equivalent intellect of a four-year-old at the moment. That allowed her to, at the very least, learn about key words – as long as she had a demonstration going along with the word. She knew what he was saying, she just refused to do it without something being in it for her.

Which John decided he would no longer tolerate.

“Stand,” he said and was obliged. He put the food away and Velka cawed in protest. “Sit,” he demanded and crossed his arms. All he got was a caw. “You can caw all you want, young lady,” John berated her and pushed her beak back with his finger. “As long as you live in my home, you will follow my rules. Now sit.”

She decided to scratch his hand instead. Something that John didn’t take too kindly to. Firmly, he put a hand on top of her back and just held her in place. He didn’t hurt her or squeeze her in an uncomfortable way. All he did was remind her that he was the bigger, stronger animal and the ‘alpha’ around here. After a few seconds, he released her.

“You’re super lucky that Nia isn’t around,” Eliza said, fidgeting at his side. While she clearly wasn’t enthused about Velka’s treatment herself, the blood mage knew that intervening wouldn’t do any good.

“She would be punching me right now,” John agreed and looked down at Velka again. “Sit,” he demanded, and with some protesting whimper, the Magryph obeyed. “Good Velka,” the Gamer said in a much more pleasant tone and retrieved the syringe from his inventory. He fed her about a quarter of it. Then he pulled it back under yet more rebellious chirps. Velka got on her feet and walked after the syringe. John pushed her back with his other hand. “Sit.”

Learning quickly, the chick obeyed, and John fed her a bit more of the syringe. When he pulled back the next time, she obediently kept sitting. Satisfied, he gave her the rest, then the second syringe she needed to fill her growing stomach. Just to make sure she wasn’t too insulted, John then pet her for five minutes straight.

Afterwards, he tried the command again. “Sit.” The Magryph looked at him with consideration for a solid five seconds, then slowly obeyed.

“Finally!” John exclaimed, reaching into his inventory and retrieving a penny from it. He threw it to Velka, who snapped it out of the air and immediately ran off with it. The feeding counter was connected to the network of paths that filled the room through a wooden plank that ran along the wall. Following it delivered her towards a small cat tree she had to climb, on top of which was a cushioned bed. There were several of those resting spots throughout the room, but Velka had picked that one as the place to keep her shiny stuff. John only picked up the sound of metal hitting a small mountain of other metal objects and a pleased warbling. His eyes were focused on the Tamer window. He put the level in and was promptly greeted by two windows.

‘That’s pretty neat, all things considered,’ John thought.

‘I guess that makes sense,’ John thought and turned to Velka. Her chosen ‘nest’ was at the height of his chest, so it was pretty easy to just walk up to her and quickly scratch her head. Putting the Beast Binding into place was strangely similar to Lover’s Will, albeit immensely less intimate. Magic flowed from him to Velka and back again. It happened without any body marks forming, however. There was just some connection now. Nothing through which he could sense thoughts or anything. Just a nebulous link between them.

Velka tilted her head, nibbled on his finger for a bit, then went back to tending to her hoard. What had happened didn’t seem to bother her in any capacity. John looked at the Perks window again.

‘I wonder if I would get a Perk choice per Beast Binding, if I had multiple?’ John thought. It was a question he would likely never find an answer to since he didn’t see himself adopting another pet anytime soon. Between the Messenger Variant and the Genetic Optimization, the latter sounded a lot more appealing. He had no need for a letter bird and a fully grown and healthy Magryph to potentially breed could be a good money source down the line.

To stay away from the analytical side of things, having a large gryphon of any variety was more impressive than having a small gryphon. As someone who liked to show off, Genetic Optimization was the path to go. Picking it didn’t show any immediate changes. Velka didn’t even give off any reaction.

‘Now that I have her under contract, she may have gotten a proper character screen though,’ John theorized and tried Observe.

It was pretty similar to the elemental windows. The Stat Buffs as they currently were could mostly be traced back to Tamer. Except for the +10 in Charisma. John took a wild guess that it was something like a ‘baby bonus’. All around, she was incredibly weak. Didn’t make her claws any less sharp, however.

Happy to have finally gotten that done, John gave Velka some more pats in the next few minutes.