The Fearful Void - Part 7
Dear Mother, Louise wrote, jotting down notes in runic shorthand in charcoal on the paper. With her other hand, she skewered a slice of apple on a fork, and bought it to her mouth. What was she going to say, what was she going to say?
Pleasantries, she noted. Talk about weather, mention how it has been a miserable spring, how all the rain has probably been good for the crops. Ask after E, C, father. Ask how the ball she was organising just after term started went.
Louise paused, and crossed out the last bit. That was clearly just her delaying, and Mother would know that. Another bit of apple was skewered and devoured.
In some difficulty. Yes, that worked. "Difficulty" was a nice and mild word. Accurate, yes, but it would not look like she was running off to her mother at the first sign of problems, or exaggerating things to get more attention. Her mother was strict and did not approve of weakness in her children. The sole exception she made was for the... issues that she, and especially Cattleya had, and it was there that they got a glimpse of a more sympathetic side.
Louise glanced to her right, at her "difficulty", and smiled. Alma was sitting on three cushions on the high backed chair, staring with wide eyes at the perfectly normal breakfast before her. She was apparently having problems deciding what to eat of the selection that Louise had put in front of her, overwhelmed by the choices. As if she was detecting the older girl's gaze upon her, Alma turned to stare at her, and tugged Louise's sleeve. She said something in her language, and pointed at each of the things in turn.
"Oh, right," Louise said. "That is honey. Honey."
"Ho-nigh."
"Cinnamon porridge." Louise paused. Adjectives were probably still too complicated. "Porridge," she said. "Porridge."
"Pooredge."
"Scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs, with," Louise added, poking the little black things in the egg, "truffles. Truffles."
"Skraambleggs. Treffuls."
The naming thing was almost becoming a game, a routine way of trying to get them to a level where they could talk. All the way to breakfast, Alma had been demanding the names of thing seen along the way. She seemed to have an exceptional memory for such things, and secretly Louise was rather glad of it, because the faster they could even have basic conversations, the less miming for things like "Are you hungry?" and "Do you need the toilet?" would be needed. The gestures for the latter were just embarrassing.
They worked their way through the various nouns in turn, and then Alma went back along the objects, naming them each in heavily accented Tristainian. Her lips twitched, and she patted Louise on the sleeve, before diving into the food as if she had not had a normal breakfast in a long time.
Louise could not help but smile. For all the girl was probably a mage of some kind, the state she had been in and the nightmares and sheer terror she had of her father - well, if they had not been sharing dreams, Louise would have been having nightmares in her own right. She knew just enough, she felt, for her imagination to fill in the gaps. Her oldest sister was a natural philosopher-mage at the University of Amstreldamme, and Louise had heard of some of the experimental things they did, like testing how the earth within various substances could be reshaped and changed, and what various fire mages could manage to do. She had been disgusted by Eleanore's casual mention of 'the effects of what water magic could do to living flesh - we used pigs', and had not eaten much at the dinner where that had been bought up. It had probably been for the best that Cattleya was having one of her episodes at the time, or she would have got angry to hear about animals being treated like that, and no one wanted that.
Now her mind was filling in what would happen if a bunch of natural philosopher-mages wanted to find out how magic worked. Testing potions and the like on people to see if it affected how they were able to cast. Putting them in very cold places to see if the elemental shift would inhibit fire magic. What they could do if... if they were trying to find out why Cattleya was so sick and why she had those fever-dreams and fits.
They were not pleasant thoughts. They made her angry. They made her scared.
A glass shattered somewhere behind her, and Louise bit down on her lip. Closing her eyes, she tried not to think of anything, and carried out her breathing exercise, trying not to think of anything. It might just have been someone dropping something, but if she was getting emotional, she would rather clamp down on it early. It might mean she could avoid ruining her day with a headache.
"Loo-ays," Alma said softly, tugging on her sleeve. "Pooredge. Ho-nigh. Meelk."
Louise turned to see the elaborately decorated and almost over-filled bowl in front of the girl. And... uh, its empty companion. "My, you are hungry," she said, slowly.
"Hun-gree," Alma agreed, spoon in hand, a moustache of milk on her upper lip.
The older girl shook her head with a fond smile, and went back to her draft for the letter. Summoned a little girl, she noted. Name of Alma, ~7, Prof. C says she's a mage. Have not bound her as a familiar after talking with Headmaster. Foreign, does not speak Tristainian, am looking after her while people think what to do.
Yes, that was good. She was clearly citing higher authority. No one could blame her when she was working from the Headmaster's advice.
Now came the harder bit.
Have seen magic from her, she wrote. She was in my dreams, could talk in there. Also she got headache like me and you and C get. She has nightmares of father, signs of mistreatment, underfed for a noble, bruises on shoulders and wrists - put your cutsbalm on them.
It sounded ridiculous, Louise knew. People didn't summon mages. All she could do was factually report everything which might be of use to her mother.
Academy is not going to try to kick me out for summoning - after all succeeded at summoning but they told me not to bind, has assigned maid to help me look after her so marks don't suffer, she added after a moment's thought. That would stop her mother being concerned about that.
Am thinking of seeing if she can cast magic; if mage, maybe we could
Louise paused, and scored out that line again and again. No, that would be presumptuous. Highly so.
Intend to see if she could use magic, she tried instead. Confirm if mage. Mother, I would appreciate your presence here. This is beyond my expertise, and I do not wish to embarrass the family or Tristain with a poor choice involving the treatment of a foreign mage who I accidentally summoned.
Your loving daughter etc etc
With a sigh, Louise raised the charcoal from the paper, tapping it against the surface until she realised she was making a mess of the sheet. Yes, if she wrote it up and sent this today by courier, it would... yes, if her mother left as soon as she got it... leave an extra day... she still wouldn't arrive before next Voidsday, if not later, but at least it was something to take into consideration and...
"Hey, what're you scribbling about, Zero?" called out a loud, braying voice from behind her. "And what's the girl you've got with you doing eating directly from the honey?"
"Nothing to do with you, de Bruxelles," Louise snapped back at the purple-haired girl behind her, red eyes locking with lilac. She was not going to look, she was not going to look, even though now that she listened the sounds coming from Alma sounded remarkably like the noise that someone who has just stuck a spoon in a jar of honey and is now sucking it all off sounded like. Not that she knew what that sounded like. Of course.
The other girl sniffed. "I rather think it does matter when your 'guest'," the sarcasm around the word was heavy, "is taking all the honey for the table."
Louise's lips twitched. Oh, she did not need this sort of thing right now, but she really should not go and provoke the other girl. She really, really should not provoke her. She didn't need an argument now. She didn't want to lose her temper. Even if she really really wanted to...
... Founder damn it.
"I think she's helping you with that weight-loss idea you were going on about yesterday," Louise said, sweetly. "You know, helping you not stuff your face with toast which is more honey and butter than bread."
The other girl reddened, which made an interesting contrast to her hair. "What are you even still doing here, Zero?" she retorted. "You didn't even manage to fail at summoning normally. You just succeeded at kidnapping."
"Mmmph?" asked Alma, spoon in her mouth, turning to stare between the raised voices.
"... and look, she's eating the honey just like that!"
"Make your mind up," Louise said, trying her best to act as if she didn't care and the words were not like fire against her soul. "Surely you don't mind a poor innocent child like that getting something sweet. If I did kidnap her, of course. Y-you'd only be getting angry if I summoned her fairly, because that would make her actions my fault." Louise paused for effect. "Fatty," she added.
Given that Marie de Bruxelles was now bordering on the incandescent, Louise was of the opinion she was probably winning this one. She felt Alma shrink up against her, and saw the little girl had her body positioned in that alarming half-raised shoulder, for fear of being hit.
"Just go away," Louise said. "You're frightening her. If you really want to stuff your face with honey, I'm sure another table will have some. Or do you like bullying little girls? Does it make you feel big? Not that you need it," she added, to unexpected sniggering from others around her. That was unusual. Normally she was the target of that sort of thing.
"You know all about being little, right, Zero?" the other girl hissed back, fingers tightening on her wand. "Little success, little height, and really little breasts. Like two flies on a window."
Louise took a deep breath. She was not going to let it get to her, she was not going to let it get to her, she was not going to let it get to her. She was going to ignore it, she was going to ignore it.
It was at that point that Marie de Bruxelles reeled, and fell, crumpling as if she was a doll with her strings cut. She hit one of the maids who had been walking behind her, and cutlery and juice went flying everywhere.
Louise blinked. She hadn't been that angry, had she? "Are... are you all right?" she asked, mostly out of a desire not to be blamed for something that she... didn't think was her fault. Was it? No, she hadn't even got the red vision halo, or the whispering. "Look what happens when you stand in the way of the help, when they're trying to bring us more juice," she added, loudly, to some agreement. "You only have yourself to blame for making such a fuss over some honey."
The other girl was shivering on the floor, trapped under the maid who was trying to get off her.
And thoughtfully, Louise turned her eyes in Alma, who was cold and shaking herself, the spoon in her mouth having fallen out entirely. She stared up at Louise blankly, teeth-chattering.
Yes, it would be a very good idea for Mother to come, Louise decided. A very, very good idea indeed.
