Chapter 12:
Revelations
The Elder Scrolls Series is property of Bethesda. Familiar of Zero is (currently) property of Media Factory (I believe)
"Talking"
"Thoughts"
"Powerful (Dragon/Daedra/etc.) speech"
"DOVAHZUL"
Line Break
"You cad! You vile, cruel, villain! I demand recompense!"
"Oh, and how exactly are you going to get said recompense, you fat oaf?!"
"How dare you! I—"
"What the hell is going on?!" Matilda yelled, unable to stand the noise anymore. She'd been tearing her hair out trying to figure out—both with others and by herself—how Nightingale was able to infiltrate the Academy. Twice. As well as how they could possibly have known that the Founder's Spellbook was kept in the library; she refused to entertain the ludicrous thought that they'd stolen and kept the book unknowing of its value. No, there had to be something that'd she'd overlooked—the tiniest, most insignificant of rumors even—that could have led Nightingale to conclude that the book was kept in the Academy's library.
But she couldn't so much as hear her own thoughts when a bunch of brats decided that the best place to have an argument was in front of the headmaster's office.
"Ah, Mademoiselle Longueville!" Oh, just her luck, Guiche de Garmont, "How lovely to see you again." He tilted his head up, sighing dramatically and placing his hand on his chest, "Oh, how woeful that our first meeting of the day is marred by this lout's impotent whining!"
"Impote—you listen here Garmont!" A small turn of the head, and Matilda frowned at the sight of an irate Malicorne de Grandpré. The two were normally thick-as-thieves—although, given her experience with fellow thieves, the current situation was very apt. "…not for your incompetence," Oh right, they were having an argument, "my wand wouldn't have broken!"
"And I told you," Guiche retorted, "that I couldn't have been more careful if I tried." He sniffed turning his nose up at his 'friend', "Not my fault your too portly to hop to the side quickly enough."
Before Malicorne could shout something back, Matilda interrupted with a frown, "Wait, a broken wand?" as the two students turned to her, she continued, "That's what all this noise is about?"
Malicorne looked scandalized, before scowling, "I don't know why I expected a mere Commoner to understand the importance of a wand."
Matilda's eye twitched, but she refrained from saying anything. Instead she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "In case you two haven't noticed, the staff at the Academy—and the military personnel currently staying here—have much more important things to worry about than childish squabbles!" She took a small bit of glee as the two brats paled, Guiche especially, "So just…resolve this. Now."
The two were still for several moments, until Guiche turned to his peer. "Malicorne, I am sorry that your wand broke during our drills. There can be no excuse for my lack of awareness," he finished his apology with a short bow. He then added, "But I am not paying for a new wand."
Before the argument could begin anew, Matilda said, "Wait, pay for a wand? What happened to your spares? I know that returning students get three for free, not counting any gifted by your families or bought by yourself." She arched a brow at Malicorne, who fidgeted slightly, "Unless you mean to tell me that you've already gone through them all."
Malicorne blushed but stayed silent. Guiche scoffed, "He goes through wands like horse goes through carrots."
"I did have a spare!" Malicorne protested loudly. He then drew inward, "But I seem to have…misplaced it, recently." At Guiche's laugh, he scowled, "Oh, come off your high horse! I know you've gone through a few wands as well, Mister 'I-keep-impeccable-care-of-my-equipment'!"
"I've misplaced one wand in the last month! In my entire tenure at this Academy!" Guiche snarled, "You've gone through four in less than a year!"
"Wait," Matilda interrupted, "You've both lost wands recently?"
Guiche sighed dramatically, gesturing dramatically, "Yes, I noticed it a week ago, after giving Father a quick tour of the grounds. He didn't thankfully," Guiche added beneath his breath.
Matilda furrowed her brow; Malicorne was a known klutz, but Guiche was notoriously tidy. The odds of them both misplacing something as important as their wands were…low.
"Your idiocy has to be infectious!" Guiche added heatedly, "Reynald told me that he lost track of his spare as well. And Gimli almost burst into tears when he realized that he'd lost the wand his so-called 'secret admirer'—who I still believe to be his grandmother, no matter what he says otherwise! —gifted him. To say nothing of my dear Montmorency; and it was such a beautiful thing, studded with rubies and emeralds!"
Matilda froze. Five students with missing wands? She gulped, a terrible pit forming in her stomach. She quickly left the two students, despite their pleas for her to come back and mediate.
As her mind whirled at Guiche and Malicorne's word, she found herself picking up speed as she traveled through the Academy, until she was sprinting towards the cafeteria.
She slammed the doors open with a mighty CRASH, causing all eyes to turn on her. She sucked in a breath in an effort to calm herself. "Show of hands," she yelled, "Who here has lost a wand in the last month?!" No one made a move—save for a few of the adults scattered about that started to quietly laugh at her—but they didn't need to. The embarrassed looks on at least a dozen students faces told her all she needed to know.
She stumbled away from the door, sliding her back down against the wall. She let out a small, hysterical giggle. Whoever this Nightingale was, she owed them a drink (before crushing their skull, at any rate). They really were skilled. A veritable genius.
LINE BREAK
Johan quickly back-pedaled from the cloud of smoke, coughing madly. "That," he said amid gasps, "could have gone better."
Louise, having scrambled away from the rancid smoke-cloud herself, rolled her eyes, "Gee, you think?!"
"Uh, guys, its drifting this way!" Derflinger shouted from the other end of the table, futilely fidgeting in place.
Louise shot her arm out, and after a few seconds, her palm glowed orange, and Derflinger zoomed towards her. Too fast, unfortunately, given the way he slammed into her abdomen. She wheezed, cancelling the spell and dropping to her knees to clutch her stomach.
"You know," the blade said, "I'd apologize, but that was, actually, entirely your own fault."
Louise glared down at the living weapon, "Watch your words. I can easily toss you back into—sweet Founder, it's heading this way!" Thankfully, her master had pulled out a wand, and a quick wind spell dispersed the cloud into the air.
"So," he said after a moment, voice painfully cheery, "what have we learned?"
"That the little lady doesn't know what a pinch means?" Louise stomped at Derflinger's handle, "Ow! Causing me pain won't make it any less true!"
"While that was quite a bit more than a pinch," her master said, "I think the fault lies in the fact that you added a partially dead Luwenna's Tear to the—what was it called? Ah yes!—Germania Wort extract."
She sidled him a glance, "How did you know it was dead?"
He shrugged, "Felt dead."
"And why didn't you tell me that before I added it in?"
Another shrug, "I wanted to see if you'd notice—terribly disappointing that you didn't," he added with a wry smirk, "and, well, I wanted to see what would happen."
Louise sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Honestly, you can be such a child!"
"I've been told it makes me lovable."
"More like obnoxious."
"Is everyone okay?! I heard screaming!"
Her master chuckled, "We're fine Sies…woah."
Louise turned towards Siesta as well, only to pause, turn away, rub her eyes, and look again. "…That's a lot of wood."
Siesta blinked, turning to look at the wood stacked atop the cart she was pulling, "Is it? I would have gotten more, but the axe started to chip."
"It's as tall as you are!" Louise shouted.
"You chipped the axe?" Johan frowned.
Siesta bowed at Johan, "I'm sorry, but I did."
"May I see it? Oh, and Louise? Clean up your mess."
Louise sniffed as Siesta brought the axe to Johan. After she handed it to him, she caught sight of the messy Alchemy lab, frowning. "What happened here?" she asked.
Louise crossed her arms with a huff, "An easily avoidable mistake, were it not for my mentor's cheekiness."
"Mah lahzey," Johan chuckled without taking his eyes off the axe, "that sounds an awful lot like sass, when I should be hearing the sound of cleaning." Louise stuck her tongue out at him, but moved over to the table nonetheless. Siesta following close behind. "And Siesta," he added, "stop helping Louise. She's never going to learn otherwise."
The young woman blushed, stammering out some sort of denial as Louise started the slow process of cleaning the Alchemy equipment. At least, she would have, were it not for a thought that flashed in her mind. "Master," she called out, turning towards him, "Where is the neutralizing agent?" He didn't say anything, merely smirking lightly and waving his hand. A portal opened to her left, and a purple vial labelled 'Neutralizer' gently fell to the table. She thanked him and set about her task.
"Hmm," Siesta suddenly came up from behind Louise, breath tickling her ear, "that's not like any Alchemy set I've ever seen."
"Gah!" Louise shrieked, jumping back as her face flushed, "Don't do that."
Siesta, as startled as Louise was flustered, blinked. "What did I do?" she asked innocently
Louise's frowned lightly, blush intensifying, "You were far to close; you breathed into my ear."
A small blush crept onto Siesta's face. "O-oh, I see," she said, "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Louise told her, "It's not as if your breath is rancid. It was merely…surprising." Master Johan muttered something she couldn't hear, so she ignored it in favor of answering Siesta's original question. "It's from Master Johan's homeland."
"Is Alchemy different there compared to here?"
Louise nodded, "Yes. The differences between this lab and the ones you'd see at the Academy are actually quite fascinating."
"In what ways?"
"Well," Louise began, "Master Johan's type of Alchemy is actually more akin to potion-making but even then, the contrasts are stark. Disregarding the lack of a wand, you don't actually cast magic on the ingredients. The only times you use magic are for sterilizing the vials—you don't even need to cast a spell to light the fire, there's a type of enchanted flint that creates some sort of magical flame that helps draw out an ingredient's innate magical properties." She frowned, "Of course, while it is simpler to use than Halkeginian potion-making, it's not as versatile, as far I can tell. A mage can create a dozen different potions from the same four ingredients, and I've heard stories that a very skilled one can even change the potion in the middle of the process. Master Johan's style of Alchemy is far more rigid, and once you make a potion, you're committed to it. Trying to deviate from the formula will either weaken it, or cause it to fail. And that's another thing!" the young girl suddenly exclaimed, dropping the cleaning tools in favor of gesticulating, "the failures and successes are completely different! Fail a Halkeginian potion, and it's just mush, but if you succeed, it has a glow to it—what color depends on the type of potion you make. But these potions, they almost always turn out the same color—purple—and you have to operate by a set system of symbols and vial shapes and colors, or, if you only have generic vials, by smell. Which isn't as hard as you might think. Each type and sub-type—" she turned to Siesta, only to pause at the girl's glazed-over eyes. Louise frowned, "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
Siesta jolted, blushed, and coughed into her hand, "You lost me a couple sentences in," she sheepishly admitted. Louise started to grumble to herself, but stopped as Siesta said, "But it was nice, seeing you so excited." The young girl cast her gaze downward, "You were never like this at the Academy."
Louise sniffed, turning back to the Alchemy lab. "Well, I wasn't always so," she stopped, trying to think of how to describe her past self. "…angry," she finally decided.
"How do you mean?" At Louise's cocked brow, she elaborated, "I'd only been working at the Academy for six months, and I started in the summer, when all you students were gone."
Louise nodded absent-mindedly, "Well, first years, for the few months, don't actually cast any magic. At least, not officially," she added with a scowl, "there's always braggarts and blowhards wanting to show off their 'skills'." She shook her head clear of those thoughts, "Anyway, for the first few months, I was able to hide the fact that I couldn't cast a proper spell—I'd only practice alone in my room in the dead of night, and even then, only simple spells to keep the explosions from growing too big." She briefly wondered where she would be now if she'd tried practicing more advanced spells back then, only to cast aside such thoughts; her current lot in life was just fine. "Anyway, just before the Fall break, the staff lift the spell prohibition by having students cast a water-spell on a dying flower. I," Louise sighed, "don't have to tell you what happened then. After that, it didn't take long for everyone to realize that every spell I cast failed."
"Leading to your nickname," Siesta concluded.
Louise stiffened, clenching her fist as a fire wormed its way up her chest. Louise the Zero. She would never forgive that humiliation. Not from anyone. But, they'd all see how wrong they were. Just as soon as she'd learned all she could learn from Master Johan. Well, not all she could learn; she suspected that the depth of his knowledge could fill the Academy's library twice over. And as much as she'd come to like and respect the man, she did want to live her own life, eventually.
"I remember," Louise turned her attention back to Louise, "after one of the older staff informed me of your situation," Louise glowered at the fact that Commoner's gossiped about her, "that I felt…well, sorry for you."
Louise jerked back, "I beg your pardon?"
Siesta held up her hands, "I mean…you tried so hard, everyone could see that, but you were only ever mocked for it. Even when you looked on the verge of tears, your fellow nobles never once stopped their verbal abuse." She chuckled, "A few of the older women would say that they wished they could wrap you in a blanket and rock you on their knees until you were all better."
Louise blushed, unsure whether to be mortified or flattered.
"But," Siesta continued, "to your credit, you never gave in. Even when everyone, the students, the teachers—your own family," she added with a slight growl.
"Cattleya never mocked me," Louise quickly said.
Siesta huffed, smiling softly, "No, and she sounds lovely. I would like to meet her, one day."
Louise nodded lightly, inwardly vowing to never let that happen. For meeting Cattleya would mean meeting the rest of her family, and she could already her mother shouting at her for fraternizing, and getting drunk with, a Commoner. To say nothing of what she would say to Siesta herself…No, Siesta would never meet her family.
"It was…admirable, to witness you strive to prove yourself better than the jeers everyone threw your way." the young girl concluded with a smile.
Louise's blush returned with a fervor, "W-Well then, um…thank you."
Siesta bowed her head slightly, smile still on her face. She then lifted her eyes towards the sky, "Hmm…it's getting late, I think I'll go see Johan about our next meal."
Despite herself, Louise started to salivate; not to say that Master Johan's meals were bad, but Siesta just had a way with food. Odd, since they used the exact same ingredients, but Louise wasn't really up to questioning it.
Her eyes followed Siesta as she got up from her seat to speak with Johan, who'd done away with the axe and was reading some book. They started to converse, when, as Siesta was saying something Louise couldn't hear, her master suddenly shifted his gaze to her.
She jolted at the sudden scrutiny, only to see him flick his gaze to Siesta, and then back to her. Then, a soft smile spread across his face.
Louise stared at him for a moment, before huffing, returning to her work. So what if she was bonding with a Commoner? Wouldn't think that'd be a problem, the way he carried himself. Besides, it wasn't as if it was a chore to talk with Siesta; it helped that she had a sense of humor, and a compassion befitting her pale, pretty face and dark, doe-eyes.
Louise blinked, where had that come from?
Line Break
Johan hummed as he traced over their route. "Looks like we'll reach Tarbes in…forty hours, at our current pace."
"Is that including rest-stops?" Derflinger asked.
"Sixty, then," Johan amended.
"Gotta say, I'll miss Siesta. Her cooking is divine!"
Johan scoffed, "What are you complaining about, you don't eat?"
"But I can smell."
Johan sighed, "For reasons still unknown to me. It's not like you can to eat."
"How do you think I feel?" Derflinger groused. "I think whoever made me might have been a sadist."
"Actually," Johan ignored Derflinger's grumbling, "how are you functioning?"
"Come again?"
"I mean," Johan snapped his fingers, a dagger falling onto his open palm, "All the enchantments I know of, that you can apply to a weapon, have charges; they will, eventually, run out. Even armor enchantments have an upper-limit as to how much abuse they can go through before needing to replenish the enchantment. But you," he pointed at the blade, "Haven't needed a recharge at all, even though you've been aware—which, ostensibly, is the enchantment—since you're awakening."
Derflinger hummed, "Then…that has to mean that the magic that went into making me was a lot different than anything you're used to."
"Yes," Johan frowned, idly tossing his dagger in the air, "but in what way?"
"Hey…didn't you say that I have other enchantments?"
Johan hummed, "I've speculated as much, yes." He then shrugged, "But I can't think of any way to see what those are without…" he trailed off.
"Without what?"
"Destroying you."
Derflinger gasped softly, "Ah…let's call that plan: Never."
Johan laughed, returning to the map. The pair entered a comfortable silence.
…KRABOOM…
Johan jolted, whirling around towards the source of the explosion, priming some spells. It was only after a second and third explosion followed quickly after the first that he realized it was only Louise. He then frowned, "I don't recall giving her any spell books on explosions."
"Can't she make those herself?" Derflinger spoke up, "Maybe she's practicing?"
Johan grunted, grabbing Derflinger from the table, "Let's find out, shall we?"
They followed the sound of the explosions, which were steadily growing farther apart. Thankfully, they came upon the clearing where Louise—and Siesta, who was actually a fair bit away, near a cart—was practicing spells.
Johan leaned against a tree, observing his student.
She was panting lightly, so she'd been practicing her homeland's magic. "Okay," she called out, wiping her forehead, "a few more times and then we're done."
"Alright. Tell me when!" Siesta answered, reaching into the cart and pulling out…a block of wood?
Johan peered closer at the scene before him.
"Okay…launch!" Louise shouted.
Siesta nodded, spinning in place a few times, holding the block of wood low. Then, with a quick grunt, Siesta launched the block of wood into the air. High into the air.
Johan craned his head up, eyes wide as the block of wood cleared the tree line.
"Ardent Lance!" Louise exclaimed. Then, a small spear of fire shot up at the wood, burning it to ashes.
Derflinger whistled, "That's…something."
"Indeed," Johan hummed, returning his attention to Siesta, who was preparing to throw another piece of wood up into the air. Five more times, Siesta heaved a log of wood into the air for Louise to target. It was only on the fifth run that Louise's spell failed in its usual manner, blowing the wood to splinters in an explosion.
Louise loosed a loud ragged sigh, falling on her back, panting heavily. Siesta quickly ran over, bending down to give Louise a water skin. The young mage smiled gratefully and accepted the drink. The two then started to converse, during which Johan decided to slip away.
Derflinger was the first one to break the silence on the way back to camp. "You saw what I saw, right?"
"Yes."
"She must've tossed those logs at least fifty feet into the air."
"Yes."
"That is not normal."
At that, Johan paused, staring quizzically at Derflinger. "You're a talking blade, by what right can you dictate what is normal?"
Derflinger snickered, "Fair enough. Still though," he said as Johan began walking once more, "between this, and all that wood she chopped earlier…there's a lot of strength packed in that little body."
Johan hummed, stroking his beard. "Indeed."
A/N: I'm just making up Alchemical ingredients. Be sure to leave a review. Later.
