Curing Lovesickness:
"Would you mind explaining?" I asked.
"I have nothing." Louise sighed. "I have no idea why he's like that."
"Could you tell us what happened?" Siesta said as we sat down with her.
"Well, I just got done with my fire practicality studies, so I went for a walk outside. When I saw Guiche and Montmorency talking, I assumed they were having a personal conversation so I just kept walking. But then Guiche called me his…his…" Louise was gripping her skirt tightly. "His honey bunch." She grumbled.
"Well that doesn't explain anything." I sighed.
"But that's not the worst part!" Louise shot back up. "After he called me that, he ran up to me and nearly kissed me!"
"What!" Siesta and I reacted.
"Siesta? What are you doing here?" I heard Chef call. "Aren't you supposed to… who are these two?" Chef had just come into the room and saw the three of us.
"Chef, this is Saito and Louise. You remember? Last week?" Siesta turned her attention to Chef. He seemed to recognize us, but Siesta went on before he could speak. "Well, Louise seems to be having a problem and I thought we could get her something to calm her down."
"Sure, sure, hold on for a minute." Chef said as he turned around.
"So what happened Louise?" I asked as Chef left.
"Well, he didn't actually kiss me. Montmorency hit Guiche, so he let me go and I ran here." Louise finished. "I figured this to be the only place that I knew that Guiche wouldn't look."
"Loooouuuuiiisse!" I heard Guiche call, closer this time.
"I think he's onto you though." I said as I looked for a solution, or the problem. "Hold on, I'll go see if I can throw him off. Stay here." I got up to leave the kitchen, but my stomach protested. Chef must have heard, because I saw a sandwich being shoved in my face not two second later.
"Here, have this for now." Chef said as I accepted the sandwich. "You better be explaining this later."
"Don't worry, I will Chef. Thanks for the food." I waved as I left, taking a bite.
I saw Chef sigh, but I was gone before any explanations could be given. I had to find Guiche. Not that it was hard; he was calling for Louise at the top of his lungs. If I were him, I would be dying of embarrassment right about now.
"Louise!" I saw Guiche calling from where I had just been. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
"Hey Guiche!" I waved him down. He looked at me, but promptly ignored me. "Why are you looking for Louise?"
That got his attention. "The question is not 'why', but 'why not'." Guiche said as he turned to me. "I don't know how I haven't noticed until now, but your familiar is the most beautiful goddess I have ever seen."
"Uh huh, and when did you come across this revelation?" I asked skeptically as I approached him. Guiche had his regular look of love-struckness, but this seemed a bit too distant to be his usual playboy self.
"It was while I was having tea with Montmorency." He sighed heavily in remembrance. Ok, maybe this defiantly his usual self at all, Guiche didn't faun. "When her frog knocked over her cup, I drank mine so that Robin wouldn't knock it over. And when I lowered my cup, there she was." Guiche sighed again.
"Montmorency?" I asked hopefully in spite of myself.
"No, Louise." He corrected me. "Her hair, oh her hair, was waving oh so softly in the air, I didn't know how I couldn't have seen it before. I had to let her know my feelings immediately."
"So what did you do?" I asked hesitantly.
"Why, I leapt from my seat and dashed straight to her. We embraced and nearly had a romantic kiss right there."
"Nearly?"
"Yes, nearly." Guiche sighed yet again, this time in disappointment. "Some unknown force knocked me down, and when I came back to my senses, Louise had been taken. I have been calling for her since." Then Guiche seemed to have an idea. "Saito, you're her master, surely you know where she is, right?"
"Um, no, not really." I lied. "Last I knew she had fire practicality studies. Maybe Professor Colbert will know where she had gone."
"That's perfect! Thank you Saito, I'll be off now." Guiche waved as he went on his wild goose chase.
I, in the meantime, had a certain blond to confront. I searched the grounds for a bit until I found Montmorency sitting at a table near the wall. As I walked over, I heard her talking to herself.
"Robin, you were supposed to knock the cup towards Guiche, not me. The tea was still hot, and now you've stained my skirt. …Oh don't give me that excuse, of course you can tell where you're jumping. … Don't blame me! The love potion should have worked perfectly; you just made me duck when he drank it. … What do you mean I should've had my back to the wall? Guiche offered me the seat, I couldn't just-"
"So it is a love potion." I said from behind her. Montmorency jumped and slowly turned towards me.
"What are you talking about Saito? You know love potions are against the law, I would never use one." She said hesitantly.
"Then would like to give another explanation as to why Guiche is currently infatuated with Louise?" I glared at her.
"Well, he is a skirt chaser." Montmorency huffed.
"Not to the point where he'll actually chase them. Trust me, I know." I said as I took the seat across from her. "Why did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Use a love potion."
"I told you, I didn't use a love potion!"
"So if I drink the rest of this cup, I'll be fine?" I said as I took up the cup in front of me.
"NO!" Montmorency screamed as she grabbed my arm. When she lowered my arm, she saw that the cup was empty.
"Got ya." I said as I placed the cup down. "Now tell me, why."
"I…I…I just didn't know what else to do!" She finally said. "We argued all last night over the point of his skirt chasing. He said he wouldn't give it up, something along the lines of 'the world of women needed him'." She waved in distaste. "So I thought if I couldn't convince him to give it up that I would make him only notice me."
"But you know love potions are illegal." I pointed out.
"But he left me no choice!" She said exasperated. "He notices any girl with a cute enough face. I had to do something to tip the balances."
"So you chose this time of day when no one was around so that Guiche would be imprinted on you?"
"Yes." Montmorency looked down. "Louise was just an accident."
"Why are you even that persistent to have Guiche anyways?" I asked, leaning back.
"Why?" Montmorency looked up.
"Yeah, why? I'm sure there are plenty of other guys around the school who you could date. Or even outside the school. So why are you so fixated on Guiche?"
"That's kind of a personal question." Montmorency blushed.
"Well, if you want my help to keep this quiet, that's the least I want to know."
"I never asked for your help." Montmorency shot.
"Are you sure you can cure Guiche and keep this all under wraps by yourself?"
"Well sure I…no." Montmorency admitted.
"And seeing as I already know, I can and will help. All I want to know is why you're so dead set on Guiche." I concluded.
"Fine." Montmorency sighed. "I like Guiche because he…"
"He what?"
"He…"
"Come on Montmorency, you have to speak up." I prompted.
"Because he said he loved me, okay!" Montmorency finally shouted, quickly covering her own mouth. I was shocked from both the confession and the volume. But then I went back to being sensible.
"That's it? Guiche says that to nearly every girl he talks to."
"No he doesn't!" Montmorency snapped at me. I shut up and let her talk. "It was a year or two before we came to the academy. Our fathers were meeting each other again and Guiche had come with his father for some basic strategy studies or something. We were able to spend some time together, and that's Guiche told me."
"Don't you think that might have just been him trying to woo you?" I asked hesitantly.
"Maybe, if it hadn't been for how long we've known each other. Not in the eight years had I known Guiche had he ever made that sort of advance. So, after a while, I realized I loved him too." Montmorency finished.
"But what about now? He's been chatting up every girl he sees."
"But that's just him pining for attention. He feels overshadowed by his two older brothers." Montmorency defended.
"Well, I feel overshadowed by my siblings and I don't do what Guiche is doing."
"Oh, right." Montmorency considered me for a minute. "But, it's what I said, he flirts, but he doesn't actually take it anywhere."
I just sighed. There was no point in trying to persuade her off of Guiche, so there was only to help her undo what she did. "All right, you paid what I asked, so now I'll help you fix this."
"Really?"
"Well, yeah. This is a bother for not only you, but I'm pretty sure Guiche will remember all of this. The less he has to feel embarrassed about, the better. Plus, Louise isn't liking the attention either."
"Well, when you put it that way." Montmorency muttered. "Ok then. I think I might know of a way to reverse the potion."
"That quick?"
"Well, I had thought of this as a backup plan, just in case I couldn't take Guiche fawning all over me."
"Very trusting of you." I smirked.
"You should always have a backup plan, Guiche taught me that."
"Guiche did?" I asked in amazement. I may have been bad in magic, but I felt Guiche was worse then me when it came to common sense.
"He did. Now, we just need to head for Lagdorian Lake." Montmorency said as she stood, her frog hopping into her hands. "I'll meet with you in an hour at the gate. Get Louise and be prepared for an overnight ride. It'll take about half a day or so to get there."
"Ok then, see you in an hour then." I waved as I headed back down to the kitchen. Something was nagging me about the lake Montmorency had mentioned, like it was important, but I just couldn't tell where it was important from.
When I got back to the kitchen, I found Louise, Siesta, and Chef all sitting around the table chatting. Chef noticed me first, which prompted the other two to look as well. I didn't say anything until I got down to the table.
"All right, the deal is that Guiche was hit with an infatuation charm gone wrong. Montmorency was looking to gain an edge over the other girls and she miscalculated." I said straight off.
"You know how unlikely that is?" Louise asked.
"Just that much, which is why it was such a shock to Montmorency."
"Uh, can you hold up for a second?" Chef stalled us. "Why are you two wearing student uniforms?"
Apparently, Siesta and Louise had been so busy trying to straighten out who Louise and I were that they didn't explain why. For the next ten minutes I filled Chef in on how I had summoned Louise and that we had been in commoner clothes for a special mission. Chef was surprisingly understanding about it all.
"So you did get rid of the noble, right?"
"Yes, yes we did." I confirmed.
"Well, that's all I needed to know!" He laughed as he slapped me on the back. "You didn't need to pull some elaborate scheme. Like I said, any friend of Siesta's is a friend of mine, noble or commoner."
"Well, that's nice to hear." I coughed from the sudden impact. "But right now, we have to get ready to go. Montmorency thinks she has a solution and we need to be gone in …fifty minutes now."
"Where are we going now?" Louise sighed as she stood up.
"She said we're going to Lagdorian Lake." I said as I walked by.
"Isn't that where the Princess asked us to go?" Louise asked as she picked up Derf.
"Argh, that's where I remember that name from! This is just perfect then, two birds, one stone." I smiled. "Well, see you later Chef, Siesta."
"Take care." Chef waved.
"I'll see you two around then." Siesta smiled.
As we left the kitchens, I made sure that Guiche wasn't around before we made a move for the dorm room. We didn't speak for the entire trip to and from the room. I didn't speak because I didn't want to spark an argument that would just lead Guiche right to us. Louise probably stayed quiet because she was still angry. If my sister ever taught me anything, girls remember, they remember everything.
As it came time to meet with Montmorency, Louis and I were waiting outside the main gate. To my surprise, Kirche wasn't charging us demanding to know where we were going. Thankfully we only had to wait a minute or two before Montmorency came up on her own horse.
"Well, it's nice to see you two here early." She sighed. "We might as well get on our way then before we come to any complications."
"Louise my dear, there you are!" Guiche shouted.
"I think you spoke to soon Montmorency." I groaned.
"Well don't just sit there, come on!" Montmorency shouted as she whipped her horse's reins and set off into a gallop. I did the same, but before we went far, Guiche's unique bronze Valkyries blocked the road.
"Where do you think you're going with my love Saito?" Guiche demanded as he marched down the road. The little display was starting to gain attention, and that was the last thing Montmorency needed.
"Montmorency, which way are we going?" I asked, starting to form a plan.
"West generally, why?"
"I ask again, where are you taking Louise?" Guiche demanded again, his Valkyries now pointing their spears at us.
"I'm taking her far away from a skirt chaser like you, that's what I'm doing!" I shouted back. The sudden declaration made Guiche stop his approach.
"I'm a what now?"
"You heard me you lecher!"
"Saito! What do you think you're doing?" Montmorency hissed at me.
"I am no such man! I only have the purist intentions!" Guiche shot at me.
"Oh yeah?" I questioned. "And what sort of 'pure' intentions do you have for my familiar?"
"Hey! I thought we agreed-"
"Not now Louise." I hissed. I turned my attention back to Guiche. "If you want my familiar that much, meet us at Lagdorian Lake by tomorrow night, or you will never see Louise again!"
"Not if I stop you here you won't!" Guiche shouted as he whipped out his rose and summoned a sword from the ground. He grabbed the hilt of the sword and charged the horses.
But just as he had pulled out his rose, I pulled out my wand and activated the largest teleportation spell I had tried thus far.