If there was one thing Louise had not expected about her summoning, it was that she would end up with someone so overtly magical in nature that Colbert flat-out warned her to be respectful in dealing with it lest she anger it. Though for all the caution and warnings, her summon doesn't exactly display much in the way of an active interest in decorum and seems downright casual about the whole thing. He's even gone so far as to tell her that there's no reason for him to get annoyed, since he can leave at any time. As a result, the pinkette finds herself under a new form of stress: Trying not to step on the toes of someone whose mannerism and culture she is completely unfamiliar with.
However, she notes that this new stress comes packaged with the stress relief of making every single one of her detractors shut right up, as well as cementing her status as a proper mage. At least, as far as that one spell and having a familiar goes. Her knack for causing every spell she casts to blow up in her face hasn't exactly vanished, but her summon helpfully pointed out that the elements he uses are just ones he can use, not necessarily elements that define his very nature. Thus if the summon is supposed to reflect the mage, then there is simply something she hasn't tried yet that will work.
So far, the young man has been so low-maintenance that if one were to ignore the perpetual smell of a sunny spring day that seems to hang around him wherever he goes, the youngest Valliere might have forgotten that he is even there half the time. Louise raises her head from the letter she's writing to check to see that her summon hadn't disappeared on her, and notes that the silver-haired man is busy lounging in the sunbeams cascading in through the window. A pair of brilliant blue eyes greet hers once he picks up on her looking at him, and he offers a simple wave and a small smile in greeting.
Louise waves back simply to be polite, and goes back to what she's doing. At least until the realization that her summon has decided to just appear right next to her. That causes her to jump out of her seat slightly. "Don't do that!" She snaps on reflex as her summon backsteps slightly with a sheepish look on his face. "Could you at least make some kind of sound when you're approaching me, A... ah..." Though one thing does annoy the pinkette. Namely how her summon's name is so simple, but somehow difficult to pronounce correctly. "Owie?" She prays to the founder mentally that she at least got a little closer to pronouncing it properly this time.
"Aoi. And sorry, I forgot that most people around here aren't used to me moving like that." Aoi, to his credit, takes the whole thing in stride and says his own name and accentuates the pronunciation. He figures if his name gets used enough, people will get used to pronouncing it and he'll be able to move past sounding like a bruise soon. "What're you doing?" He looks to the letter. He can read some of it well enough to tell that she's writing to someone she respects, at least.
"Writing to my big sister Cattleya. She doesn't get to see much of the outside world, so I like to write her at least once every couple of weeks or when something particularly interesting has happened." Louise explains in a matter-of-fact tone. "Plus it's a good way for me to keep my family up to date on what's going on, and that I am doing well."
Aoi simply listens as the pinkette talks, and doesn't respond beyond giving a faint hum of interest.
"..." Louise finishes off the letter by signing her name, and proceeds to fold it and put it into an envelope. A quick address addition later, and she deems it ready to go. "There, that will do. Do you mind accompanying me while I get this sent out?"
The young man simply shrugs in response. "I don't mind. I kinda want to see more of this place anyway."
"Thank you. Now, if you could follow me..." The two then depart from the room.
"That's a lot of critters running around. I guess they're all owned by mages?" The human looks around as he floats alongside Louise with his hands in his pockets, taking up a position to the left and slightly behind her. Nearly every familiar spares him at least a glance in turn, and many appear to be at least somewhat nervous about him. A certain mole owned by a certain ineffectual smooth-talker is staring, however.
"Yes. The Springtime summoning ritual is a rite of passage that aspiring young mages undertake to determine their elemental affinity, which lets the school determine what courses to put them in to better aid their development." Louise recites the basic reasoning for the ritual with a practiced ease. Aoi doesn't find it suspicious, but anyone who managed to catch wind of her words at any point earlier that day would have been surprised at how different she sounds than normal. The usual short-tempered stressed out tone is simply absent.
"...Huh. I wonder what summoning me says about you, then." Aoi spins slowly as he thinks, taking in the sights with a casual air about him. "Nothing bad, I mean." He speaks to Louise only when he can make eye contact with her. "It's just that out of all the people... You could have picked up... You got me." He stops after the third rotation and looks Louise in the eyes. "I'm not one to brag, but Iam pretty powerful. Just not exactly the first guy you'd turn to for finesse. Or even the third guy."
Louise's eye twitches. His downright casual use of power is both a constant reminder to others that she isn't a failure, yet at the same time irks her because she can't even hope to do the same. Yet. She shakes her head slightly to dismiss the thought. She summoned him, surely things have to start improving. "Come to think of it, why do you float and fly everywhere?" She shifts to a related yet new topic for her own sake.
Aoi places his feet on solid ground and starts walking normally. "It's practice!" He responds with a smile, and gestures with a hand to emphasize. "Someone I admire gave me some advice on making better use of what I've got. That person told me to use my powers as much as possible, even if the uses are hilariously mundane. The more you use it, the more comfortable you get with it. Then things like finesse come naturally because you know exactly what and how much to use in any given situation."
The pinkette could only really stare at her summon in response. There's nothing malicious about his proclamation, just a level of honest enthusiasm that she hasn't seen in ages. There's no drive to show off either, or at least if there is, it's a side-perk and not the primary focus. "Don't you ever get tired using your willpower non-stop like that?"
The summon simply shrugs. "Nah. I generate a lot, so using some over the course of the day is no big deal."
Your definition of 'some' is starting to get ridiculous. Louise thought to herself as she kept walking. The two are close to the tower of wind, where the school's messenger pigeons are kept, when the pinkette hears someone calling out to their familiar. That sounds like... She turns to look at the person in question. Guiche. Wonderful. A brief gust of wind, a sound thump, and a yelp of surprise alert her to the mole of unusual size that appears to have taken a liking to her own summon. "Guiche! Get your filthy mole off my summon!"
"Belldandy is not filthy, Zero!" The mage in question snipes back with a voice filled with pomp and narcissism. "She is a rare jewel in a sea of unwashed familiars! Though I will profess that... Wait, be careful with her!" Guiche whips around so to face Aoi so quickly that one think the earth mage would have fallen over.
To his credit, the summon had somehow picked up the mole around its waist and is holding it away from him as it flails its arms at him and tries to sniff his face. Somehow, his very presence exudes a sense of bemusement.
"My apologies, normally Belldandy does not simply rush people like that. She is an avid treasure hunter and never passes up an opportunity to seek out precious stones and metals, but she will refrain if I tell her not to." Guiche first apologizes to Louise's summon, then reaches around his mole and scratches her under the chin, which gradually lets it calm down. "Now, I know that your intuition is never wrong, my dear Belldandy, but you simply cannot just tackle someone like that!"
Aoi then promptly drops the mole and shifts back a few paces in the span of a second to put some distance between himself and the mole, and proceeds to eye it warily.
"Considering he is my summon, I would think that decorum would dictate that you apologize to me as well." Louise looks at the earth mage with a cross expression.
"This poor man may be your summon, Louise, but he is not your familiar!" Guiche scoffs at the pinkette, which only serves to sour her mood further. "Unless, of course, you have somehow convinced him to allow you to complete the ritual, and given his apprehension at being bound to such a thorny rose bush initially I doubt you have had much more success in the following hours!"
Aoi simply rolls his eyes and sweeps Louise up into a bridal carry before turning on the spot and kicking off the ground just hard enough to make a fairly impressive leap into the air and up the tower's side, terminating the conversation before the pinkette could even get a retort in. Each time he starts to lose altitude, he kicks off something to gain yet more height until he reaches the open window that allows the pigeons to fly out. "W-wh-what is the meaning of this?!" Louise manages to regain her composure well enough to stammer out a question in response to the sudden move. "You can't even get in through here!"
"No good was going to come of that conversation." Replies her summon simply. "Plus his face looks kinda punchable. At the rate he was going I probably would have shut him up myself." He looks down and waits until the blond earth mage has moved off before somehow procuring a crystal in his hand and firing it in through the window. A gale-like portal opens up where it lands, and another one opens up directly behind him. It only remains open for a moment, but once it closes the two are inside the tower proper.
Louise simply stares at her summon in shock. She has no words for this.
"Practice." Aoi replies simply. "Don't forget you've got that letter to send too."
"Honestly… I cannot fathom why that man insists on defending her when not even a brilliant radiance like myself can convince her to bloom fully." Guiche simply shakes his head in response to Aoi's course of action, and leads his mole away. "Come, Belldandy, let us depart." Belldandy simply looks up one last time and spots a faint sparkle, then follows her master in a forlorn way.
Tabitha couldn't help but feel that something's off, and makes a decidedly rare move to look up from her book and in the direction of said disturbance, and promptly spots the portal just as it closes. It's enough to make her raise her eyebrows, though Sylphid promptly nudges her and breaks her train of thought. The wind mage lightly smacks her wind dragon with her staff, who in turn shakes her head and resumes looking at the mage with hopeful eyes. "Maybe." Is all she says. She then goes back to her book and turns the page, enjoying the surreal story of hopes and dreams contained within.
Late that day...
"Is that what you meant when you said you could leave at any time?" Louise asks as she sits down at her desk with a surprisingly swift response letter. From her mother. She opens up said letter and begins to read.
"Pretty much. I can pretty much go wherever if I know where I'm going." Aoi leans back against the wall, completely unconcerned by any of this. "And I can take people with me if I'm so inclined."
Louise pursed her lips in thought as she finished reading the letter. It's more like a note, however, as it simply states that her mother will come to visit tomorrow, as she is curious about her familiar. "...Odd. Why would mother want to come all the way out here herself just for that?" A deluge of emotions surge about inside the pinkette. Joy, apprehension, fear, questioning. These and many more plague her thoughts as she ponders why her mother is acting so directly.
"I am pretty bizarre. Maybe she just wants to see what I am so she can sleep easy with me around you?" Aoi shrugs as he offers his opinion.
"Yes, you are bizarre, but you're perfectly safe! You haven't hurt me, or anyone else!" Louise starts to get excited for multiple reasons, but it's hard to tell precisely what she's feeling at that exact moment.
"Yeah, but a mother's instinct is pretty strong, I think. She probably won't buy it until she's interrogated me or something." Louise's summon rolls his eyes and stands back up. "Anyway, that aside, do you want me to stick around while you sleep? I don't need to sleep myself, and I'm not sure how comfortable you'd be with me watching you all night."
The pinkette had to stop and think for a moment. While she wouldn't necessarily mind having him stay, he raised an interesting point. "If you must wander, stay nearby, and be sure to wake me at sunrise." Though even she couldn't miss that her summon had grown more tense for some reason. Maybe it's in apprehension of tomorrow? Her mother may be cold at times, but not needlessly cruel. Things will go well enough, she feels. He's worrying needlessly.
