Top 5 fictional animal companions

Let’s begin with a dog. Sort of.

When we meet Shadow in Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, he’s Emily’s enormous, elderly dog and one of her closest companions. Emily may not be particularly interested in making friends with other humans, but Shadow is different. He travels with her, keeps her company and is firmly part of her very small inner circle.

Except Shadow isn’t actually a dog. He’s a Grim, glamoured to look like one.

So apparently my established non-cat classification system now needs to be expanded to include non-dogs.

Honestly, I should have seen this coming.

What I love most about Shadow isn’t the reveal that he’s something much more dangerous than he appears. It’s how completely devoted he is to Emily, and how completely normal their relationship feels to her. Shadow isn’t there because Emily needs an impressive magical creature following her around. He’s her friend.

Her enormous, magical, potentially terrifying friend.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly the sort of animal I would have pointed at in Singapore and told Husband was friend-shaped.

Speaking of non-cats…

Tandy adopts an illusive cat in Stay for a Spell, and I would like to nominate the entire species for immediate inclusion in my highly scientific non-cat taxonomy.

An illusive cat is cat-shaped. Mostly. It also has four tentacles growing out of its back. But that’s not even the most magical part.

Unless an illusive cat deeply loves and trusts you, its physical body doesn’t quite line up with the cat you can see. Its visual form might be sitting a few feet away from where the actual creature is, which means you can see a cat you can’t touch or feel a cat you can’t see. Because illusive cats are illusionally elusive.

This is magically wild. I love it.

I won’t tell you what Tandy eventually names hers because that’s connected to the story, but I loved watching the relationship between them develop. There’s something particularly lovely about a creature whose trust can eventually be demonstrated in such a tangible way.

All cats, including non-cats = friend-shaped. Yes, even tigers and cheetahs.

I had two dragons to choose from here.

Tairn is magnificent. He’s enormous, powerful, sarcastic, terrifying and would probably be offended that I’m discussing him in a post that contains the word “pet”.

But Andarna.

Tiny golden Andarna chooses Violet after Violet puts herself in danger trying to protect her during Threshing, and that choice tells us so much about both of them.

Violet sees someone smaller and more vulnerable being attacked and intervenes even though doing so could get her killed. And Andarna sees Violet.

Their relationship obviously changes as Andarna grows and the series progresses, but I love that it begins with that moment of recognition between two characters other people might underestimate.

Also, there is something deeply appealing about a tiny golden dragon who is surrounded by enormous killing machines and appears entirely unconcerned by this fact.

Friend-shaped. Would pat. Possibly inadvisable.

And then we have Abraxos.

Abraxos is a wyvern bred for war. He is scarred. He is supposed to be a weapon.

However, he’s considered inferior to the stronger wyverns around him. He also likes flowers.

I don’t know what else you want from me.

Manon’s relationship with Abraxos is one of my favourite parts of her story because both of them have been raised in worlds where strength is measured through brutality. Neither is supposed to be soft. Neither is supposed to choose tenderness.

And yet…

Watching their bond develop gives us another side of Manon long before she’s necessarily ready to acknowledge that side of herself. The way she treats Abraxos tells us things about her that Manon herself would probably rather we didn’t notice.

Meanwhile, Abraxos remains an enormous battle wyvern who could almost certainly tear me limb from limb. But he likes flowers. Your honour, friend-shaped.

And finally, we have the newest addition to this list.

Cronus is a cockatrice in The Winged Game, which actually puts him fairly low on the “Meeghan would like to pat this despite overwhelming evidence that she should not” scale. Mostly because their feathers can cut you and I do have SOME self-preservation awareness.

Also, Cronus is objectively the most terrifying Cockatrice in the whole book. The red eyes seal it. Also the part where he threatens to eat everyone and everything around him.

But what earns him a place here is his relationship with Taissa.

Unlike some of the companions on this list, Cronus and Taissa don’t begin with effortless trust and devotion. Their partnership has to develop. They have to learn each other, work together and figure out how to become a team. And I love that.

There’s something enormously satisfying about an animal-companion relationship where the bond itself is part of the character journey. Trust isn’t automatic simply because the plot has assigned a creature to someone. It has to be earned. Which makes the eventual partnership mean so much more.

Also, I only read The Winged Game recently, so Cronus has managed to bulldoze his way onto a list alongside characters I’ve loved for years.

Apparently the entry requirements are simply:

1. Be (mostly) friend-shaped.
2. Develop an emotionally compelling relationship with your human.
3. Ideally possess the ability to cause significant bodily harm.

Welcome to the family, Cronus.