It had been a longer time than she liked without learning something new, and the cat daemon most certainly had something on her mind.  Ever since she had been tamed as a familiar, she had found her capacity for magic expanded.  That being said, when her old home had collapsed, Sylvi had run through the void for her very life.  Even if she had been killed there, there was no guarantee that she would even return.  So it was better that she just not die. 

But ever since she had arrived in these lands, the daemon had found her abilities beginning to be… diminished.  To conserve energy, she had kept to her feline form more and more, given that a human shape required her attention to maintain.  More complicated spells had started to slip from her mind, and it was then that Sylvi decided to take a little trip.  There were rumors of a magickal academy of some kind, perhaps that would be of help to her.  And if not… well, there was likely a promising young sorcerer willing to take on a familiar.  But that was only a last ditch effort to survive.

Once she arrived at the grand academy, Sylvi listened carefully as she wandered around, and learned a few very interesting things.  The library was the first to gain her attention, and it was her first stop.  No one paid attention to the black cat as she crossed the threshold, and Sylvi's eyes widened.  There had to be some kind of an answer here.  Walking and listening, the cat daemon figured that it was best to try and find this Goddess.  It was only polite after all. 

There was a gift she had in mind, an offering to this Blue Witch that just might solve Sylvi's problems as well.  But on her way to the shimmering archway, a book caught her gaze.  It had been left on the floor, and the cat daemon's eyes caught the title.  It was a tome on the binding of familiars.  The cat daemon pawed at the book, flipping through pages until she stopped at the rituals for what might work.  Settling in to read the passage, Sylvi stopped paying attention to the world around her.  Surely the Goddess wouldn't mind too much…

”Matters of the soul are inherently compromised by the power of will, one which can only be measured qualitatively. The most overt indicator of this power can be seen in race and heritage, but willpower is just as easily influenced by life circumstance, confidence level, and sense of discipline. It can also be improved intentionally, both directly through meditation and indirectly through magickal aptitude, as is discussed in chapter 6. It is for this reason that animal souls are sometimes considered best for the practice of binding and enchantment, for they possess none of these qualities. This text argues that this philosophy, while traditionally ethical, is a narrow-minded alternative to the potential of sentient and primordial souls.”

Physical Mysticism: A Guide for the Practical Shaman (2nd Ed.)
By Alphonse T. Emberdrag
Chapter Four, Soul-Binding

The new presence was like the ephemeral shadow of a thin cloud: Chae felt it thoroughly before it faded again into the bright sky of her awareness. She looked up from her work when it happened, enduring something of a double-take before deciding that it was worth the distraction. One moment she had been hiding away in a lesser summoning workshop, surrounded by thoughts and notes and crystals, and the next she was emerging from the bookshelves at the edge of the atrium. She walked quietly toward the newcomer, though perhaps her feline senses could still perceive her, and knelt beside her.

“Curious,” was all she said at first, referring as much to the reading cat as the contents of the page it was reading. A part of her knew that this animal was more than it seemed, for it had made no effort to disguise the demonic nature of its aura, but for now she was glad to entertain the more amusing alternative. Her cold, thin body took directly to the floor and nestled beside the warmth of her fellow witch, half her size even without considering the tail.

Propping herself up on an elbow, Chae offered a hand for sniffing before reaching back to scratch the cat behind the ears. After a good long moment, she turned back to the book and flipped the page. “Binding rituals,” she mused aloud. “Collars and chains and hearts and hands. Will you be bound or binder, Miss Kitty?”

The sound of footsteps hit her senses first, making Sylvi's ears twitch and swivel.  But there was nothing threatening in the motions of the halfling woman that approaching her.  There was something odd about her, something cold and dead maybe.  But Sylvi was almost used to the strange things happening around her, and only let out a sort of chirping purr in response to the single word.  That was a word that she got quite a bit especially once people figured out just what she was.  And the woman was cold, leading Sylvi to stay close to her.  She had a feeling who this might be, but other things came first.

The caress to her head was unexpected, but even Sylvi appreciated the attention.  Given that her nature was a mix and feline and daemonic, she appreciated things from both worlds.  "Sometimes collars and chains are unwanted, but necessary.  And we all do things we don't want to so that we can survive," she finally said after a moment.  She could speak quite well in this form, which made communication much easier.  Given that the halfling had come close to her first, Sylvi felt no compulsion to leave or move away.  She did occasionally, like any cat, enjoy close company.

"I was once already bound as a familiar.  Taught a few spells, so I could fend for myself.  She was killed, and I fled.  That was a long time ago," she said, her voice taking a mournful note.  The witch who had first bound her had been kind, and Sylvi still remembered her fondly.  "Then my old home started cracking, started dying.  I fell through to here.  But I've been… diminished.  I lose spells that came easily as breathing.  I don't know what happened," she said, sounding forlorn.  If things progressed too far, then she would have to wait until someone bound her again.  And Sylvi would rather have a choice in her bonding while she could still choose.

Her hand paused on the cat’s soft back when it began speaking. She had never seen such a thing before, but she loved discovering something new. Her dead eyes widened at it, a grin squinting on her fed cheeks. Chae was enraptured by the story, thoughts of powers and portals filling the space between her eyes and her memories. Her divine awareness wrapped itself around Sylvi’s aura in ways her arms could not quite reach, not-so-secretly investigating the abilities she had spoken of.

“Many worlds have been squished in the dimensional folds,” the goddess admitted, eyes wandering as her attention flitted over recollections of old books and recent experiments. “They say the souls that seek refuge in this world are chosen at random, but I believe you escaped that place for a reason. You will find what you seek, and I will help you.”

It did occur to her that the easiest solution would be to bind this creature to her own wretched soul, however divine or terrible it was. Chae did enjoy pets, or at least she liked the idea of keeping great power in her custody. But while she was not a particularly malicious person, neither did she possess the kindness Sylvi had admired in her first bond. In any case, Chae knew as much about this daemon’s motives as it knew hers, and ultimately she would favor caution. She flipped further through the book the cat had chosen, searching specifically for the inclusion of an emancipation ritual.

“You think another bond will make you strong again,” she guessed, her hands distracted from the soft fur by the text that loomed before them both. “What did you do, before? What were you capable of?”

The cat's green eyes brightened when the woman she could now tell was Goddess said she would help, and Sylvi bowed her head in thanks.  In other times, she might have argued, are tried to bargain.  But now was not one of those times.  "I have a true name, and a name I go by to everyone.  The second one is Sylvi.  The first is a secret, and one you have probably already seen in my mind," she said, the cat seeming to smile for a moment.  It was something that could be used against her, but Sylvi was hopeful that it would not happen in this case.  Time would tell.

Nodding at the comment, she gathered her thoughts to answer the questions.  "It did before, and it helped my abilities become stronger.  Before my mistress, I was a simple cat-daemon.  I could cast a few spells, but nothing special," she explained.  Casting her mind back to those days, remembering the lessons.  "I was taught to shift into a human form, how to move things with my mind.  I could always make fire because of my nature, but I could also control it when I had a bond.  I was learning to use… psionics when my old home started to break," she said.  There was a hitch in her words, another sign that she was slowly reverting to her simpler nature. 

But Sylvi knew, or at least she thought she did, how to fix the slow decay.  And if it meant binding herself to someone, she would do it.  "I need an… an anchorpoint to this world.  It is difficult to explain if you know little about extraplanar beings.  But I am not a native to this world.  So I am pulled elsewhere.  Even though I don't really want to be," Sylvi explained with something of a shrug.  Glancing at the book again, she wanted to grumble.  Having her hands again would make the research she wanted to do so much easier.

Chae prided herself in her amorality, in her ability to learn and experiment outside of the confines of empathy or arbitrary ethical standards. But if there was one rule she did abide by, one rule she truly followed, it was an ultimate reverence of the mind. She respected its boundaries and its potential, and she did not make a habit of stealing from its sanctity. In any case, information can be misleading before it is written it down, while it tumbles unfinished in the turbulence of a thoughtful mind. Better to let a person form the words themselves.

It was for that reason that she did not steal Sylvi’s true name from the secret depths of her sentience; Chae would learn it when it was ready to be shared, and it would be all the more valuable for waiting. It was for the same reason that the scientist frowned openly at Sylvi’s practice of psionic magic. It was an abhorrence, used too wrongly too often for any single practitioner to be redeemed. Still, Chae could not withhold genuine pity for long. Almost angrily, she mumbled, “What a cruel curse, to drain a creature’s intellect when they are not shackled to another.” Her expression lifted thoughtfully as she grunted to her feet, though still her eyes were not that much higher than the cat’s. “Well then, I'm sure we both know what the answer must be.”

As soon as Sylvi turned her head, she would find them both transported through seamless magic to a different room within the library. The ceiling was lower, the walls closer and imbedded with crystals that poked even nearer, but it was nonetheless large. There was a large summoning circle drawn with a thin array of varied and redundant glyphs, a portal from—and perhaps to—other planes. Chae was already walking toward the bookshelf at the front of the room, searching through the well-used journals for a source on infernal realms.

“Tell me the name of the world you came from. Why would it be better than this one?” She paused to jump toward a little book that was just out of her reach. “Why should I help you find an anchor?” She added, and truly she asked why that anchor should be the blue witch herself.

The cat only shook her head at the mention of a curse.  It was unfortunately simply her nature.  "While I am rightly called a daemon, I'm not evil.  Though I have the weakness of not being tied to any material plane.  Away from that home, I lose things.  But my home plane… it is not a place for one like me.  I have no interest in the politicking and the torture.  The cancer gardens and crystal prisons mean little to my kind.  We like to explore, to see new things, to learn," she explained.  And sometimes that learning came with a heavy price.  Not all her kin were willing to pay it, but Sylvi had tasted the freedom of other worlds.  And she rather liked what she had seen of this one.

She blinked vivid green eyes when the scenery changed, though it was something she should have expected given where she was.  "My home before was a place called Daeluin.  It was nice there.  A lot of things happened.  Ice giants and dragons and gods fighting.  It was all very exciting.  But more things kept going wrong.  There were rips in its fabric.  I could see them, being what I am.  And they kept appearing.  I knew it wasn't long before things unraveled.  So I took a chance and jumped through one of those rips.  And here I landed," Sylvi explained as she followed the halfling.  This place, especially the library, was somewhere she wanted to see with human eyes, and touch with human hands. 

"I would owe you a great favor, my lady.  It's the contract of my kind.  We trade favors for favors, and one of existence is one of the best," Sylvi added.  There was an underlying question, and one that took the daemon just a moment to answer.  But it was the right answer in her mind.  "If you would help me make a bond, then I will owe you greatly.  I only have a single request… someone who will not abuse me.  I've seen that happen too many times," the cat said with a sigh.  Too many times her kind had been twisted into hurtful creatures and mere skeletons of themselves.  It was the only risk Sylvi did not want to take.