Turnabout

Disclaimer: I do not own either Stargate or Familiar of Zero.

A Divine, Beautiful, Powerful and Wise Familiar

Louise was having a very bad day.

Turning to glare at her familiar, as she stomped into her room, Louise fought the urge to pout. No. She had to show her familiar who was in charge. As her familiar did not seem to speak any Tristanian, displaying body language befitting a noble would be an important aspect of winning her familiar's respect, even if she did wish Professor Colbert had let her summon something else instead.

Summoning a commoner had been humiliating enough. At first, she had thought the woman might be something special, considering her opulent dress, but Professor Colbert's detect magic spell had confirmed that the woman did not have a drop of magic within her. She was as common as could be, and, considering her manner of dress – a multi-coloured, sequined gown the likes of which Louise had never seen before, set off by a golden necklace studded with precious gemstones – that meant that she had probably been some noble's mistress.

To think that she – a Vallière – might have summoned a woman of such loose morals, and then she had been forced to kiss her in order to complete the contract with her familiar. That dratted Zerbst had even wolf-whistled while she performed the ceremony, as if it had been anything other than a sacred, holy rite passed down by the Founder. Then, worst of all, the ceremony had not even worked.

In the end, Professor Colbert had forced her to kiss her libertine familiar five times, while the rest of her year mates mocked her and cat-called, to no effect whatsoever. Then, after five consecutive failures, even he had apparently given up on her, suggesting that she might try again tomorrow, after a good night's rest.

As her familiar stepped into Louise's room, closing the door behind her, Louise drew herself up to her full height. This height was still almost a head shorter than her familiar, but that just meant that her bearing would have to be all the more imposing in order to compensate for her familiar's excessive size. Gazing upon the woman imperiously, she noted that, while unfortunate in many other respects, her familiar at least knew her place. The woman's head was angled downwards in a submissive pose, as if awaiting orders. Now, if only her familiar spoke any known language, then she might even be useful.

As things stood, however, her familiar's capabilities were quite limited. Well, she would hopefully at least be able to carry out simple instructions.

Stripping off her uniform, Louise began handing over the garments to her familiar, who accepted them wordlessly. Then, once she had put on her nightgown – a dainty pink gown which Cattleya had complimented when Louise had last visited home – she turned to regard her familiar once more.

"Now, even if you can't understand me, at least this much should be clear," the young mage declared, pointing at her clothes and then making what she hoped would come across as a washing motion.

Her familiar simply nodded. In truth, even then, Louise could not tell whether her familiar had understood her instructions, but she supposed that she would know by morning. She was really too tired and unhappy to spend even a moment more on her familiar that night.

"Fine then," Louise said. "I'll expect that uniform to be washed by tomorrow morning. When, you're finished, you may sleep there." She pointed to the pile of hay she had laid out for her familiar last night. "Goodnight."

With that, Louise climbed into her bed, trying to put her familiar and all the humiliation the foreigner had caused out of her mind. Unfortunately, this proved no easy feat, as the jeers and taunts of her peers seemed to echo in her ears, their leering faces at the forefront of her mind whenever she closed her eyes. Nearly half an hour had passed by the time Louise settled into an uneasy slumber, certain that her day could not possibly get any worse.

Some time later, Louise awoke in the night, feeling the odd sensation of something cool and slimy crawling up her back. Still only half awake, the young noble rolled over a few times, halfheartedly trying to dislodge whatever had disturbed her slumber. Feeling the sensation of movement on her back disappear, Louise's sleepy mind optimistically concluded that the problem was solved. It was time to go back to sleep.

Then, without warning, sharp fangs tore into the base of her neck, as something tore through the opening the fangs had created, digging deep beneath her skin. Louise shot awake, her mind awash in agonizing pain. Tiny tendrils of something, some creature, were burrowing through the flesh around her spine, spreading the agony even further.

Louise screamed, but her mouth did not make a single sound. Against her will, despite the searing pain suffusing every inch of her being, Louise's face instead settled into a neutral expression. Her arms, which had been flailing around, returned to her sides.

An alien presence bore down upon her mind with crushing force, rifling through her memories one by one. Her leering classmates, mother's face of stern disapproval and Cattleya's warms hugs: each was casually seized and then discarded. Faster and faster, her own memories whipped before her eyes. Her desperate desire to succeed carrying her through a night of frantic studying, her quiet happiness when she realized that she had made her first friend, her fury at that damned Zerbst beating her once again, her bitter disappointment as yet another spell exploded in her face: for a moment, the violation came to an abrupt halt.

Then the memories began to whirl even faster, but they were different this time. Dozens of images of her classmates conjuring water, wind, air and fire flashed through Louise's mind. A hundred half-remembered lectures on magical theory seemed to pass by in an instant. She felt her own willpower gather in her wand and then explode over and over again

Once again moving without Louise's direction, her body climbed out of her bed and picked up her wand from where it had lain upon her bedside table. Then, pointing the wand at her hardwood desk, her mouth opened.

"Fireball," it spoke, and her desk exploded in a rain of splinters.

A few of the splinters cut into her through her clothes, but she ignored them. Compared to the pain in her neck and upper back, they were less than nothing, and, more importantly, Louise was angry.

Something – some monster – had burrowed into her body and taken control of it. It had rifled through her most precious memories as if they were nothing, and casually made use of her own magic – failure though the spell had been – as if it belonged to the monster. It was unforgivable.

She was trying to scream, but she could not make a sound. She was trying to run, but her legs would not move an inch. She was trying to seize control of her wand hand, so that she could cast some spell – any spell – and her hand refused to so much as twitch. Her body was a puppet, and someone else was pulling the strings now, while she could do nothing more than watch.

Worst of all, she could feel its evil. Whatever puppeted her body was a being of sheer, unmitigated malevolence. Hers was not the first body it had worn, nor even one of the first dozen, and each body it had dominated utterly, tormernting its host with one atrocity after another until the host was left a jibbering wreck at the back of her mind.

Fighting would be fruitless. Struggling against the inevitable was pointless. Her defeat, like all those whose bodies it had taken before hers, was certain. So, Louise did the same thing she always did when her failure seemed to be assured.

I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, third daughter of the Duke de La Vallière, and this body belongs to me!

Gathering every ounce of her strength, fury and obstinacy, Louise strained against her captor. If she couldn't move her arm, then she would move her hand. If that failed, then one finger would be enough for a start. If not even that could be accomplished, then at least a blink should be possible.

She wouldn't give up! She would never give up! She would not stain the name of Vallière by surrendering to this monster, no matter what! Concentrating every scrap of will and determination she could muster on just one simple task, Louise desperately tried to close and then open her left eye.

However, no matter how hard she struggled to budge her eyelid, it would not move. Her mightiest efforts proved fruitless, but she would not allow that to stop her. She would just have to keep trying until she succeeded. Again and again, Louise tried, making one effort after another, until eventually, after an interminable struggle, her efforts proved irksome enough to attract the full attention of the creature possessing her body.

Then, abruptly, she was elsewhere.

Louise was seated upon a luxurious, golden throne, overlooking a newly conquered world. Her defeated enemies screamed and groaned before her eyes, the crucifixes to which they had been affixed by the tens of thousands extending off far into the distance. The sight of the sun just beginning to peak over the horizon brought a vindictive smile to her painted lips.

On this planet, the humans who dared defy their Goddess had lived far underground by day, as the heat and humidity of their atmosphere was enough to kill any human foolish enough to spend more than a few minutes in the sunlight. One of her children had suggested the humans might even catch fire if left outside for too long, and Louise had thought that a fitting punishment for their crime. Thus, she had her Jaffa set up this small amusement once the rest of the planet's populace had been exterminated.

She, of course, along with the attendants gently fanning her, was shielded from the lethal heat and sunlight, along with the one member of this blasphemous people who she might yet spare. The crown prince of this dead world sat beside her throne like the broken dog he was. Stripped of all his clothing, save for a silver collar around his neck, chaining him to her throne, the former prince did not flinch away from her hand, as she ran it through his rich brown curls. He was handsome, well-built, and might one day make a fine lo'taur, if his submission was genuine. However, despite the assurances of his Jaffa trainers, she still found herself doubting her pet's loyalty at times. If nothing else, this little show might help her confirm his devotion, one way or another.

The prince's remaining family – a father, mother, a brother, two sisters and a handful of cousins – were bound to the first row of crosses, less than ten metres away from her throne. The last to be touched by the sun, they would likely be the last to die as well, hearing the screams of their countrymen all around them before they were cooked alive.

Her lips brushed against prince's ears in an intimate caress, as she whispered her will.

"Did you know that your father's men killed one of my children? He was a dear boy, always so eager to please his mother, and yet he was murdered all the same."

"That is why all your people are dying," she whispered into his hair. "That is why your family will burn the way I am told he burned, as his death glider caught fire in the upper atmosphere. And that is why you are going to help me make a new family here and now. As your mother and father burn, you and I will lay together before their very eyes, giving life to the children who will replace the one your treacherous father stole."

Rising to her feet, she cradled her pet's head in her hands and turned it to face her. His eyes were focused on the ground before her feet, but she could see his feelings in the tense lines of his body. Tilting his unresisting face upwards until she could look into his eyes, she saw it: defiance, anger, fury, hatred. This pet had not been trained nearly so well as she had been promised. The former prince's Jaffa handlers would need to suffer for that.

In this state, he would be of no use to her as a lo'taur, and she would likely lose interest in the young man by the time he could be retrained. Oh well. Louise would just have to dispose of him after she finished with him. She did need a genetic sample, after all, for her next brood of children, he was rather pleasing to the eye, and the torment in the eyes of his parents as she took him would be positively delicious.

Letting her snow white gown fall to the floor, Louise watched as her pet gazed upon her creamy bronzed skin in mingled lust and hatred. From afar, she could hear the tortured screams of the dying, as the harsh sun began to scorch those furthest away from her. And in the eyes of this accursed planet's king and queen, there lay utter despair. It was all so exquisite that she simply could not bring herself to wait even a moment longer.

Languorously, Louise leaned down to capture the lips of her pet with her own mouth, the nish'ta on her breath entrancing her captive, so that he would not give even the slightest hint to his parents that he was anything other than wholly willing. She would enjoy this.

One after another, the horrors came, and Louise could do nothing to halt their progression. An unending parade of atrocities danced before her eyes, from which she could not distance herself in any way.

Louise felt a sense of triumph, as she trod upon a city of dead slaves, scenting the charred flesh of their burnt out corpses. She laughed as a whole world burned before her very eyes, a green planet turning black as charcoal. She closed her eyes and smiled, as she listened to desperate cries for mercy snuffed out one by one by her loyal Jaffa. And she luxuriated in the shy touches of her beloved children, each one born or stolen from a hated foe before she lovingly twisted her new toy into a more pleasing form.

Louise wanted to cry, but she was too busy torturing a slave who had displeased her. She wanted to throw up, but she was occupied pulling the fingers off a traitor one by one. She had been trying to do something – she was sure of it – but of course she was trying to do something: those lizard men were hardly going to exterminate themselves.

Louise tried to remember, and found herself recalling just how long a man could last when you bled him out one drop of blood at a time. She tried to fight, and found herself slaughtering men by the score with a magical, golden gauntlet. She just wanted it all to stop. She couldn't take anymore, and so Louise retreated into a tiny corner of her own mind, and tried not to think.

As her host finally quieted, Amanuet smiled, taking in her new appearance in front of a floor length mirror. A step behind her and to her left, her Jaffa serving woman, Yametha, passed the Goa'uld queen a clean academy uniform, dipping her head in an appropriate show of respect for her Goddess.

She had been surprised that her host had fought for so long. There had never been any danger the Goa'uld would lose control, of course. The worst the girl had managed was to give Amanuet an uncomfortable headache for a few seconds. Even so, despite being submerged beneath thousands of years of Amanuet's memories, the girl had continued struggling for hours before she gave in completely. The girl's futile struggle had actually persisted all the way through until the morning.

Nonetheless, the battle was over now. Even her most stubborn hosts had retreated within themselves for weeks after the first time she crushed each one of them, giving Amanuet more than enough time to solidify and perfect her control over her new body. In a few weeks time, considering her host's difficulties with her preternatural abilities, it was unlikely that Amanuet would even still be wearing this body. After all, she had an entire continent of hok'taur to choose from, did she not? A Goddess deserved only the best.

As Yametha brushed the knots out of her strawberry blonde hair, Amanuet laughed at the irony of her situation. For months, her love, Apophis, had searched the galaxy for a host worthy of her magnificence to no avail, only for a school child from some unknown world to hand her an entire world filled with splendid hosts on a silver platter.

Idly, she wondered if she should reward the girl for serving her so well, even if it was unknowing. Then again, serving as the vessel of a Goddess, even briefly, was already a reward many of her slaves had begged for in the past. In time, if she was not ungrateful, her host might even thank Amanuet for bestowing such an honour upon her.

For the moment, however, Amanuet's priority was keeping the various hok'taur at this academy from noticing any suspicious changes in her host's behaviour. While none of these so-called mages could possibly match a Goddess' power, her host's memories had contained many examples of impressive and dangerous abilities. While she practically salivated at the thought of taking such powers for her own in time, until then, she would need to remain wary of them. In sufficient numbers, even ants might slay a giant, after all, and she was the only Goa'uld in this world, at least for now.