Inspired by a couple really good fics. Enjoy. Basic premise is this: A person's magic is most often a reflection of their personality, such as a hot-tempered person being fire aligned, someone with a sharp and cutting personality might be air, someone stoic and stubborn earth, etc etc. But, why can't the opposite also be true? Who's to say that a person's personality can't reflect their magic? In which case, how would Louise, who possesses the void, an element of opposition to everything have developed? Well, lets find out, shall we?
What is the Void?
Simply put, it is an absence.
An absence of heat,
an absence of light,
and absence of air,
an absence, of life.
The Void devours everything,
and what it can't,
it corrupts.
-Excerpt from Volume One of the outlawed True Nature of Emptiness-
To study the Void is to stare into the very Abyss itself.
I wonder sometimes, is it courage to do so? Or is it just insanity.
Is there anything to gain from observing nothing?
Or is the lack of any definable observation in itself a discovery?
I wonder if the Void is truly empty sometimes, I wonder if there aren't things lurking within.
For there are moments when I stare into the Abyss, that I feel as if the Abyss is staring back,
and it terrifies me.
-Helena Maxwell, author of the True Nature of Emptiness-
The Void is nothing, and thus exists Nowhere and Nowhen,
even Time dares not touch the Void.
For Death herself holds complete dominion over that realm.
-Excerpt from Volume Three of the outlawed True Nature of Emptiness-
The crowd of students had gathered for the ritual that marked the most important event in a young mage's life; the Summoning of their familiar. For most, all they would receive would be a magical variant of a mundane animal, from birds to cats, to foxes, even moles. Some, the truly lucky or gifted among them, would summon creatures of greater rarity or power, such as salamanders, nymphs, or, and rarest of all, dragons. Or you could summon a giant floating eye called a Bugbear, that was possible too.
But after the many, many years in which the ritual had taken place, never once had a mage failed to summon a familiar. Yet, that was the expectation being held for one young mage in particular, however unfavorable or distasteful the idea might have been for anyone else, among the gathered students. Oh, no-one spoke the words aloud, but even then, everyone knew exactlywhat was going to happen when poor little Louise got her turn in sun.
The more vicious among the students would have grinned like wolves at the use of that exact turn of phrase, as ever since Louise had first arrived at the Academy, she had been more than a little odd, even beyond her inability to accomplish the most basic of magic. A quiet little girl, save for when her lack of physical development was mentioned within earshot; she could easily vanish into the background without anyone noticing; her skin pale from staying indoors as much as possible, so as to avoid the crowds that so enjoyed ridiculing and persecuting her. The persecution itself was not due to her odd personality or appearance, but rather it was due to the strangeness that surrounded her.
When she passed by, students would often break into hushed whispers over the rumors that dogged her footsteps. Quiet words spoken under breath of how the girl could appear from even the smallest shadow without a whisper of notice; how she would find the darkest spot in any room and vanish within, even if it should not have been possible for her to fit in the space and be completely obscured from view. Or of how the shadows of objects and people around her would seem to stretch, to tenderly reach out towards her, as if she was beckoning to them with her mere presence. She had a disturbing knack for appearing out of nowhere, oftentimes right behind someone, and she also seemed to be able to vanish all too easily when being followed, more than once having lead someone down a dead end, only to be seen by someone else minutes later in the other end of the Academy.
The rumours had even reached the ears of the teachers, causing narrowed eyes and suspicious looks to be cast at the rather ghost-like young girl. Nothing reliable and substantial could be found about the girl, even when some of the more enthusiastic teachers took to following her about during their spare time, and the matter was eventually dropped. But that didn't stop the rumours from spreading, and the fact that the teachers felt the need to be involved only prompted more rumours, feeding the rather vicious cycle that only served to alienate the young girl further.
The Springtime Summoning ritual would be her last chance to prove herself, and Louise had devoted hours upon hours to poring over as many books as she could in the Academy's library. She had researched everything she could about summoning, from the common familiar rituals, to the more esoteric elemental spirit summonings, even the rituals used to summon spirits from the Aether to power various types of golems. Nothing in any of the books she had found on those subjects spoke to her however, and so she had delved deeper into the library in search of older, darker tomes.
It was in a shadowed section of the library, a place where light failed to reach and where people feared to tread, even the servants judging on the amount of dust that had gathered on the books and floor, that she found what she was looking for. She found tomes bound in leather made from human flesh on the subject of necromancy, the summoning of spirits from the after-life or from the darkness between worlds to animate unliving flesh, the precursor to the binding of elemental spirits to constructed bodies to form golems. The real treasure was the immense volume the size of her torso devoted entirely to the subject of summoning of beings from beyond Halkeginia; Demons; Devils; Daemons -soul eaters from the plains of Abbadon-; Rakshasa; Proteans; Oni; Divs -corrupted genies, genies themselves fickle beings even at the best of times, exiled to the depths of Gehenna for all eternity, only to be let loose by summoners to corrupt and despoil to their twisted heart's con tent-; Asura; and maddening things that have no right existing in any reality.
Not even the tome itself was the major find during her search of the library, though the borderline blasphemous and heretical work of old Germanian Witch-Queen Iggwilv was packed to near overflowing with an abundance of information; the real wonder she had discovered were a set of old hand-written notes jammed in between the pages of tome. A thick sheaf of parchment sheets, together they detailed a ritual that was without a doubt the most blasphemous thing Louise had ever even heard of, and they were perfect for her purposes.
The ritual appeared similar to the familiar summoning ritual, though only at first glance. If one studied the instructions and diagrams more closely, they would find that, in a radical break from all tradition and accepted knowledge, the ritual was designed to work for anyone; royal, noble, and even commoner. No matter how much she hated to admit her lack of capability in the mystical arts, the fact remained that successfully summoning a familiar using the same generic ritual with the other students was somewhere between her becoming a royal, and her mother giving her a warm hug while saying how much she loved her. Not that her mother didn't love her, but the Duchess de la Valliere wasn't one to openly display emotion.
The name of the original author had worn away until only the runic title of Kaleidoscope remained, and it was to this long forgotten mage that Louise sent her thanks as she stepped up in front of the crowd. A blanketing quiet swept over her audience in an almost visible wave as the students turned to watch her. She studied the summoning array on the ground in front of her for a moment before turning to the supervising teacher.
"Excuse me Professor Colbert," the balding teacher looked surprised at being addressed by the normally silent young girl. "But would it be possible for me to make a few adjustments to the array before I perform the ritual?"
The professor's eyes narrowed as the gathered students broke into hushed whispers. While altering the parameters of the ritual wasn't necessarily unheard of, it was normally only done during extenuating circumstances or in order to prevent external influences such as the environment from influencing the ritual. He spared the sheet of names in his hand a quick glance, and nodded thoughtfully when he found Louise at the bottom of the list.
"Very well," Professor Colbert smiled as Louise brightened up, while a stunned silence settled over the audience. "Since you are the last one to summon their familiar, I will allow it this once."
Even though his voice was light and his words positive, Professor Colbert kept a careful eye on Louise as she pulled out a piece of chalk and set of hand-written diagrams. Settin diagrams to the side of the array, Louise carefully added and altered various lines on the summoning focus used for the ritual. Those students that could see what she was doing were completely mystified, as none of the symbols or alterations she was making made any sense to them. Even Professor Colbert was surprised at the variety of runes and symbols being put in place, many of which he had never seen before. He made a mental note to ask the girl after the ritual where she had found the symbols she was using, as well as how she had devised a way to combine them with the summoning ritual without having asked for assistance from any of the teaching staff.
Louise calmly set down the piece of chalk as she picked up her sheets, checking them and the altered array carefully for any mistakes or missing sections before gesturing to the professor that she was ready to continue. She withdrew wand and began to quietly chant the words of the ritual she had found in the library, completely unaware of the way Professor Colbert's hands tightened on his staff as her voice dropped several octaves, becoming a low ghostly sound that seemed echo across the courtyard in a dead language; or the way the temperature suddenly plummeted, frost forming arcane patterns on her shoes and the edge of her cloak.
"In the name of the Thirteen Aeons and powers unknown. I call for my other, complete us." Louise continued to chant quietly as a c hill wind whipped through the courtyard. Her eyes were facing forwards as she poured all of her will and concentration into pronouncing the foreign words properly. The only one in her audience who had the barest inkling of what she was saying was Tabitha, as Louise was using an archaic dialect of old Gallian, but even then she could understand bits and pieces of what was being said. What truly worried the bluenette though, was the fact that Louise was calling on the Aeons, ancient and terrible beings, monstrous things with the powers of gods at their hands from the time before Brimir. Even the Founder himself had only been able to seal a minority of the Aeons, those which were bound to the earth or sea and could not escape his reach, while the others simply vanished from the sight of mortals.
"I call for you, servant, master, partner, complete us!" By now even the most oblivious student could tell that something clearly unexpected was occurring. The frost had begun to spread and radiated out from Louise in an irregular circle roughly a meter and a half across, and yet the pink-haired girl continued on unaffected.
"The other half of my soul, I summon thee from across time, from across space, complete us!" Professor Colbert flinched as the summoning circle vanished, only to be replaced by a yawning pit of absolute nothingness from which stretched a malignant presence that had the part of him he had long ago locked away coming to the front. Whatever was on the other side of that emptiness, that hole in the world, it was something so vast, so deeply evil that it could be felt even by the most ignorant of his students. The only one who didn't seem to notice was the one who had opened the portal in the first place, Louise still continuing her incantation even though she was less than a foot from the gaping abyss that had emerged in the courtyard.
"I stand before five doors, I knock twenty five times, five doors, five knocks. Each door shall open to me." Her hand rose and she wrapped it against the air, and each time there echoed a thunderous rapport, as if a giant was beating its fist against the gates of Asgard. The students gasped, as while they couldn't see the abyss as it lay directly at Louise's feet, and its own nature aided in hiding it, the five immense doors that appeared floating in midair weren't as easy to miss. Each door was different, save for the fact that they were all immense, many times larger than even the door to the great hall of the Academy.
"I bear the key of the end, and thus I open the Door of Beginning." Louise reached out with her hand, and twisted it, as if turning a key in a lock. The first door, the smallest of the five, and furthest to the left, made of stone ancient when the world itself was young, opened and from the opening that appeared in the air there came a wind. Borne by the wind was the scent of age, of something ancient opening its eyes and looking out onto a world greatly changed.
"I bear the key of weakness, and thus I open the Door of Power." Another twist of her wrist, and the next door, directly to the right of the previous, this one made of intimidating steel and festooned with brutal looking spikes and studs, opened with a roar, as energy burst from the other side. Magic, pure and uncontained, burned with a brilliant scintillating multi-colored light, the sight causing many students to turn away to protect their eyes.
"I bear the key of nothingness, and thus I open the Door of Life." It was the door opposite the first that opened this time, the door made of ivy covered wood, the vibrant greenness of the door seeming to crawl away instead of swinging open, and from beyond emerged another wind, this one carrying with it the feeling of vitality.
"I bear the key of the soul, and thus I open the Door of Death." Louise shivered as she opened the next door in order. At first glance it appeared almost as if were stone carved into a mass of bodies conjoined in the throes of agony, until one looked closer and saw that they were in fact moving. Many of the bodies were missing limbs or sections of their flesh, some of them devoid of anything save their bones, and as the door opened they screamed their torments for all to hear. From beyond the door their came something unknowable, something that moved through the people gathered in the courtyard, touching their very souls and chilling their being.
"I bear the key of time, and thus I open the Eternal Door." One last twist of her wrist and the final door, the door in the center and largest of the five, opened. Louise dared turn away and she stared into the immense impossibility of vision that lay beyond. All the others in the courtyard looked anywhere but at what the gate revealed, the sheer inconceivable nature of what lurked on the other side of eternity forcing them to divert their eyes. What the gate displayed was something beyond all bounds of reason, and Louise alone bore witness to it.
She noticed, vaguely, a small dot appear in the distance. The tiny speck of insignificance slowly grew larger, and Louise grinned. This was the clumination of weeks worth of time spent sure that every last piece of the ritual would succeed, and it worked better than her wildest dreams. She could see the spot growing larger, slowly resolving into a more recognizable shape, and she grinned.
As she stared, for a moment she was sure that their eyes met, and in that moment the name of the being she had summoned found its way to her mind, the last remaining piece she needed for finishing the ritual.
"I who know thy true name, I call for thee..."
And I'll just leave it off right there.
Okay, wow. Originally this was supposed to be Louise summoning Seras from a point in the distant future, but once I hit that summoning ritual, it just took on a whole life of its own. As it is now, I can't think of a summon that would to the ritual justice, but if you want to give it a shot, drop me a line. The only things I can think of would be massively overpowered, such as a being from one of the listed types in the tome, but one of the unique ones, such as the Demon Princes(ses), Devil Lords (Ladies), etc.
I have too much on my plate to work on this right now, but if anyone is interested, I do have a short-list of potential summons if you want to continue it. Just PM and I should respond within a day or two.
