Coming home from his second year, a year with many ups and downs, Elias was ready for the comforts his humble home in Asheville provided. Summer in the mountains was his favorite thing, though he did enjoy all the traveling magical life had brought, especially after his summer in London was Elias ready for some chill time.

His parents, somehow, had discovered the incident in October and were rightfully worried for their son, who could hear not a thing so far as any doctor had been able to discover. Unbeknownst to the boy, this spurred a search for some sort of aid to ensure Elias would never be left behind should such a situation occur again. Much to their dismay, and to Elias', cochlears were not an option for the young Thunderbird.

It was lucky for all of them, then, that the professor who had been the catalyst for their magical journey had been hard at work for the past two years. Professor Fleischer- now Toussaint-Fleischer since his marriage- after being the one to bring the Travers family into the fold of the magical world talked with Brendan and Parker about the possibility of a service dog. Magical, of course. Because what wasn't.

And so began Project Lois (which only gained this name after the perfect crup was found). Right under Elias' nose. Professor Fleischer went to work researching and reaching out, trying to find a crup trainer and a breeder who had cruppies suitable for such work while Parker stayed up north to go check out these opportunities since Professor Fleischer was a very busy man at Ilvermorny. A litter of Labrador-crup mixes was located, and upon meeting the cruppies for the first time, Parker determined their temperament to be perfect for a service animal. Labrador retrievers were a common no-maj service dog for hearing breed, and paired with the crup's hyper-intelligent nature, Parker could see few if any downsides to the choice (and she was very good at seeing those).

One was selected: a playful girl crup, about six months old, with a sleek black coat and a thin white chest marking. Brendan and Parker chose her name, Lois, after Lois Lane in Superman, Elias' favorite hero and the comic books he loved best.

The training program lasted eighteen months, just in time for Elias' thirteenth birthday. And while the boy was excited to be home, he was curious to learn why they suddenly needed to travel to Albany.

Apparently, there was magical transportation close to home in the form of a floo hearth in a small cabin in the Pigsah Forest. They were spat out at a similar cabin, but the scenery was quite different. An enchanted car was waiting, driven by an older woman, and by the looks on his parents' faces, Elias assumed she had happiness itself in the truck.

He was close. It was Lois. Elias was ecstatic.

Over the summer, man and dog bonded. She was playful, much like him, adventurous and fully trusting wherever he lead so long as she saw no danger herself. She protected him with ferocity, even from Lance the first time she met him. Elias took tons of moving pictures of her with his other birthday gift, a wizard camera (and his dad's old mundane camera, which was equally as magical to Elias) and they explored everywhere they could. Her tails diverged just slightly enough that it could be explained as a mundane birth defect rather than a mark of her magical heritage.

When the time came to return to the mountain castle of Ilvermorny, though there was no Professor Fleischer (or even Professor Fleischer-Toussaint for that matter), and there was no Cyrus, there was Lois now. She would be a good friend, and maybe help him make more friends despite the communication barrier between him and the rest of the world.

wc : 644 words
mentions : @cyrus darsel
note : professor fleischer's role in elias' life approved by his writer (aka me)