Familiar

Pt. 1 - Sons and Daughters of Reckless Bastards

Content Warning - Descriptions of violence, blood; sex.

Tracing Occult Pasts: Language and Our Understanding of
Pre-Christian Pagan Practices

Dr. Michelle Rubinov Spotleva, PhD

First Published October, 2019

Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies — Harvard Press

ABSTRACT:

Through recent restoration and translation methodology, Linguists and Philologists have begun to uncover more social context on long-obscured pagan and occult practices in Eastern and Mainland Europe.

1. INTRODUCTION

The beauty of language is that it's a living thing.

All things that live must by necessity, change. The written language fools us into thinking that words and meaning are permanent, but without the proper context and history, sometimes those very meanings are lost to us.

One such vanishing word exists in the English language.
It is the world 'Familiar.'

Only naturalized into human tongue in the 12th Century, by the 16th Century, English-speaking Christian converts rejected the root of the Pagan-Germanic compound "Blood Companion." Thought to connote pagan ritual sacrifice, speakers of English kept only the "companion" suffix.

It is easy to see the grave error made here by witch hunters during 17th century Witch Hysteria — many had taken to believing The Blessed communed spiritually with animal 'companions' to complete rituals.

This understanding is incorrect. While spiritually sensitive and grounding, they do not possess enough gates in the body to channel an appropriate amount of energy for The Blessed to commune.
Simply put: Witch hunters in the 17th century had looked for cats and toads, when they should have looked for people.

The "blood" in "Blood Companion" did not refer only to the blood itself — but any vital fluid that could be given as payment to catalyze a spiritually binding contract. By ritual, a familiar presented themselves to the blessed. Most familiars are acquired by explicit contract.

Others, entirely by accident.

2. SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF RECKLESS BASTARDS

My name is Konstantine, but my mother calls me Kostya for short.

I've always liked that, because it sounds like the Russian word for bone. It's a name that's especially meaningful now, since on my bones — embedded into every inch, down to my phalanges — is a tiny Cyrillic character. They tell the story of the night I lost my freedom.

I am what you would call a 'companion.' I carry an enscripted contract to serve my master, a Koldunya. That's what you would call a witch here in America, I suppose. The translation doesn't quite fit. But I guess they rarely do, so much lost.

My Master's name is Michelle Rubinov Spotleva. She goes by 'Doctor' now, writing peer-reviewed articles and schmoozing with investors, but I still remember her in braces and glasses, afraid of the world.

Back then, Michelle had been the first person to be my friend. With all the kids she could have picked on our block in suburban West Jersey, she picked me, a kid from a town in Russia that no one had ever heard of, so poor that it was all my mother could do to keep me clothed, since I grew so fast.

None of my torn clothes, bad manners and angry outbursts seemed to phase Michelle and her quietly relentless drive. And that was just it: Michelle had an incredible talent for persuasion. She knew how to finesse difficult people. Which was expected, with a lawyer and a professor for parents. Before long she was making them uncomfortably proud — politicking her way out of detentions, shoplifting, and eventually even speeding tickets.