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Story: [A Beloved Dog]
Summary: Saito doesn't return from Albion, Louise gives up. And wakes up in a courtyard next to a boy. Time-travel
Fandom: (Zero no Tsukaima)
Genre: Drama
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Dying was nowhere near as peaceful as falling asleep, but that was alright, because she would be going to where Saito was now.
She'd finally be able to talk to him again, to yell at him again, to hold him again, to kiss him again.
She knew she shouldn't have done what she'd done. Saito had died in order to let her live, so she should've lived on for as long as possible in honor of that sacrifice. But there wasn't really any point in living anymore, since Saito wasn't there with her.
Her sisters didn't really understand. Perhaps they couldn't, perhaps they didn't want to. Didn't want to acknowledge that their youngest sister had fallen in love with a commoner.
But that didn't matter anymore, because even if it was painful, she'd finally get to see him again.
That stupid, noble dog of hers.
XXX
The sound was deafening, and her knees were buckling, and she might've cut her hand on a particularly unpleasant strand of grass as she fell on her rump.
There was smoke in the air, and people were shouting.
For a moment, Louise thought that there'd been an attack, but then the jeers started.
"Of course the Zero would make even a summoning spell explode!"
It was strange, because nobody had called her that for a long time. Not since Saito had died for her. Not since she'd broken someone's nose because they'd dared called her familiar a 'mere commoner'.
Then the smoke cleared, and the courtyard was revealed. But it was strange too, because Louise wouldn't go to this place ever again. She remembered too vividly that this was the first place that they'd met.
But he was there, splayed out in the grass in that ridiculous way of his.
Saito was there. On the grass.
Louise scrambled to get her legs underneath her, but they were shaking too badly. They wouldn't let her walk to him, so she started to crawl.
She wasn't sure what was going on, because he was dead and she was dead, and was this something like a final dream before death, or was this what death was like?
Louise felt her lips twitch into a teary smile, because wouldn't it be ironic for them to meet just like this, even in the afterlife? A failed spell that succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
Her fingers brushed against the fabric of his jacket, that ridiculously blue one that he always wore everywhere and that would've made it easy to spot him even from a mile away.
His eyes opened, groggy and confused, and perhaps in a little bit of pain.
And that was the moment Louise's smile slipped from her face.
His eyes were the same color as always, the expressions on his face the same as she remembered, but there was something missing there. Something heavy behind his eyes that had always been there for as long as she could remember, something warm and unmistakable that had always made her stomach flip a little bit whenever he looked at her.
These were not the eyes of her Saito.
This was not the boy who'd died for her on Albion, facing an army he could never defeat.
This was Saito Hiraga, a boy who'd just been summoned into Halkeginia by the failed spell of Louise Francois la Blanc de la Valliere.
His eyes met hers without even the smallest spark of recognition. So she cried, and she hugged him tight anyway, because he was the closest thing to her noble dog that she'd ever reach.
And, just for a moment, she really wished she could pretend that he was holding her in his arms again.
XXX
Kirche didn't understand Valliere at all.
One moment she'd been defiantly bragging about what a great familiar she'd summon, the next she was clinging to that weird commoner with all the desperation of a drowning woman. It wasn't so much that Kirche was surprised that Louise would be extremely possessive of the only thing that could classify as 'proof' of her magical ability, but that wasn't what it looked like.
The boy had been confused, eyes darting around as he tried to figure out what was happening, and clearly bewildered over why he suddenly had an armful of sobbing noble nearly crawled into his lap.
If Kirche were to put words to it, she would've said that Louise was in mourning, and that she was trying to find comfort in this person's arms. It was much the same expression that Kirche could imagine being on some of the heroines whose brother-in-laws had just informed her of her husband's death on the battlefield. The expression of a woman who clings to a source of comfort, even as her husband's brother remains far too similar to the man she misses that even the act of comfort itself is painful.
The absurd dissonance of the little spitfire that once defended herself with a truly cutting tongue, now being so blatantly uncaring over the manner of which her classmates watched her, was just icing on the cake.
There had to be something going on there. Something deeper, something that explained why the girl was clinging to the boy with such bitter sadness.
Except no explanation was given, and once it became obvious that Louise wasn't planning on stopping whatever-it-was-that-she-was-doing for long enough to properly bind what was apparently her familiar, Professor Colbert started to shoo the rest of his disbelieving students off.
Kirche didn't get an answer then, and her confusion certainly wasn't helped any when she saw them again.
Thankfully though, Louise had at least stopped crying, so that was at least something. It didn't change the commoner's – Saito Hiraga, weird name – rather obvious confusion, or the eery way in which Louise still seemed to be walking around in a daze.
Not in the depressive daze of failure that they'd all grown so accustomed to, either. No, this was the heart-aching daze of a person in mourning. A person in mourning who was surrounded by people who reminded them of whoever it was that they were mourning.
In fact, if Kirche wanted to really work with that simile, the person who reminded Louise the most of whoever she was missing was Saito. There was a certain bittersweet fondness in the girl's face whenever she looked at her familiar – and he really was a familiar now, with the runes over his heart and everything.
It was bizarre, and it was slightly on the side of creepy, and Kirche had been keeping her distance from the duo until the incident.
Kirche was used to gossip being spread, and hadn't exactly been surprised of the rumors cropping up about Louise paying some commoner to pretend to be her familiar. Louise didn't seem to let it bother her either, when once she would've spat and bristled at the mere insinuation that she would even consider doing something so dishonorable.
That had all changed when one of the gossipers had gone on from there and said something derisive about her 'summoning a measly commoner'.
Saito had needed three other people to help him drag his master off of the poor girl, and she'd been confined to her room, because apparently she'd managed to break a nose, crack a jaw, bruise a throat, and put some fractures into the gossiper's skull. In other words, she was confined to her room, because the other girl had been sent off into the care of a water-mage, and nobody wanted to see if little Louise wouldn't try to hunt the girl down to 'finish the job'.
It'd been a sight to see, because whilst Louise had always had a temper, it'd been carefully restrained to a sharp tongue. Except lately she hadn't reacted much to anything with anything beyond sobs and tired worn-out smiles, so seeing her bodily launch herself at her victim with all the vicious violence of a rabid wolverine had been more than a bit shocking.
Insult Louise, and she'd brush it off, barely even noticing it in her dazed state. Insult Saito, and she'd knock the perpetrator's teeth out.
From what she could see, Kirche didn't think that Louise was in love with the boy. He reminded her of someone, someone that she cared deeply about, but she didn't love him. But in contrast, from Saito's confused expressions, he had no idea what was going on at all.
Things had been quiet for nearly a week, when Saito befriended a maid, and Louise started laughing to the point where she'd actually nearly toppled to the floor.
Very much intrigued as she was, Kirche had obviously looked in on the maid in question, only to find out nothing of interest at all. Certainly nothing to warrant breaking down in laughter.
Even if it'd been strangely relieving to see Louise's face completely free from the sadness that she'd been carrying around since the day of the summoning ritual.
Kirche watched as Louise greeted the maid politely, almost respectfully, and finally decided to herself that Louise really should laugh more often.
It sounded kind of beautiful.
XXX
Siesta had always been a constant.
The maid had wanted a large family, a comfortable home, a safe life, and a kind husband.
Louise never should've been able to compete with her. Noble or no noble. All she could offer that stupid dog was a death for the sake of honor. Honor that never should've touched his life.
Saito was supposed to live. He was supposed to laugh in the face of honor, recklessly ignore politics, and treat a commoner with the same politeness as he treated the Princess.
They really made a much better couple than Saito and herself. She was too jealous, too prone to notice an insult to her name, too dishonest, too-... it was a long list. And even if Siesta was a single name among many who'd tried to capture her familiar's heart, Louise knew that she'd at least try to keep him from doing anything too reckless.
It wasn't much, but that was enough for Louise to decide on her course of action.
The best way to keep the maid out of trouble was to take preventive measures, so she bought her contract before that disgusting man tried to force her familiar's friend away from the academy.
Still, it was kind of funny, the way that even in this second chance, out of all of the maids, he struck up conversation with the single one born of a descendant from his own world.
Really, life worked in bizarre ways.
Thankfully, it appeared that her willingness to defend her familiar's good name with excessive physical violence had made the academy's staff willing to bend the rules and allow her to purchase that contract directly from the headmaster. Students were otherwise very much dissuaded from bringing servants to the academy, however it seemed as if the opportunity to give her good reason to remain confined within her room to the fullest extent possible was enough of a temptation for the headmaster to allow it.
Even so, Louise was admittedly dreading her mother's opinion once her reckless actions towards one of her peers finally reached the woman's ears. It didn't actually make her regret what she'd done, but hopefully she wouldn't lose her temper again. Ever. Her mother was scary.
She couldn't remember most of it, actually. The girl's voice had dared to insult Saito's name – dared to insult the name of the man who'd died for her in Albion, dared to insult the name of the man she loved with all of her heart. And then everything had been kind of drowned out by a dull roar and the absolute desire to keep hurting that stupid worm who dared to insult Saito.
And she remembered screaming, and crying, and staring at her bloodied knuckles afterwards and absently realizing that she must've broken them across the girl's jaw.
Yes, it would definitely be for the best for her not to lose her temper again.
Apparently, it made her too stupid to reach for her wand and simply splatter the damned noble across the wall with the power of the Void.
Really, it was dreadfully inefficient.
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She'd arranged for an extra mattress to be placed in her room that first night.
She wasn't sure when it'd become a habit to cry herself to sleep, but the sight of him spread out in his sleep, snoring, and looking so very much like the man whom she'd shared her bed with, wasn't making it easier to contain the tears.
She missed him. She missed him so badly. And it was her fault that he'd died. Her foolishness that had ended with him dead.
But she wanted this Saito to be happy, to live a long life, to laugh and smile and fall in love with someone who wouldn't kill him. Someone who wasn't her.
No, watching his face as he slept was painful. And yet it was a weight lifted from her constricted chest to see the boy who looked just like him now be so peacefully content.
She wasn't sure what the change in her familiar's runes meant. Across his chest instead of his left hand. But it didn't really change anything.
She would protect him, she would make him live a long and happy life. Even if it killed her.
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XXX (Dreams) XXX
She wasn't quite sure when she'd become used to this place.
The smell of iron, burnt hair, and cooking flesh. The moans of pain, the whispered pleas for mercy, the sobs for loved ones. The light of fire and the moon, hiding away even the stars not blotted out by the tar-like smoke.
She brushed past it at all, stepping surefooted around the bodies still managing to writhe, ignoring the burnt-blackened fingers reaching to grasp after her. Moved carefully around the fires and the smoke burning even those not touched by their flames from the inside out through the smoke.
This was probably the closest thing to hell, that she'd ever known. But she was used to it, and the surroundings weren't why she was there. She was there for the young man in the middle of the field, surrounded by broken bodies, covered in numerous wounds and slowly bleeding out.
He was still breathing, just like he always was.
"L-Louise..." A heavy rasp of a voice, dragging its way past ruined lungs.
She knelt down next to him, smiling at him.
She always smiled at him. Even now, even in this hellish landscape, she would smile for the man who'd saved her, because that was the only thing she could do to help.
"D-Don't cry..." He winced, his breath stuttering as he tried to lift his hand towards her.
She caught the hand in her own, lifting it to her face, helping him wipe the tears running freely from her eyes. "It's lonely."
He smiled at her, wryly. "Y-You... still have 'me', right?"
She choked back a sob, her smile barely wavering. "You and 'you' are different."
His grin turned into a hacking cough as he failed to laugh. "O-Oh? Not a... d-dog in heat, then?"
Reaching out to brush the hair out of his eyes, ignoring the blood, she shook her head. "He's quite the gentleman, Siesta says."
He sighed, though it came out more like a wheeze. "Not... going t-to even try, huh?"
Louise continued to smile, even as she clenched her eyes shut in pain. "I love one man... O-Only one."
"Did he... a-at least make you smile?"
Louise wasn't sure which person they were talking about at this point, but that was mostly irrelevant. Regardless of which one it was, the answer was the same. "Yes. Even if... it h-hurts."
"G-Good..." He took a careful breath. "You're much-..." He started to cough.
Louise gripped his hands until her knuckles went white. This was the end. This was always the end. This was the last fragments of this reoccurring hell.
"-much more beautiful-...!" He choked, his breath rattling as the sky lit up with a thousand fires.
Her smile wavered, staring at the face of the only man she would ever love.
"-w-when you smile..." He gasped, and then the world was consumed by fire.
Louise opened her eyes to the ceiling of her bedroom.
Saito was snoring away in the bed in his corner, and the sun hadn't quite managed to climb the horizon.
Sitting up, she brushed away the lingering traces of tears from her face, and turned to get dressed.
It was the start of another day. A day just like all of the others. Empty and hollow, without the dying man consumed in fire.
Perhaps one day, she'd stop dreaming of him. Perhaps one day, their brief conversations would change tracks. Perhaps one day she'd tell him of children that weren't his own. But she couldn't even begin to imagine it.
She had sentenced him to that hell because of her foolish pride. Even if he'd done it all on his own in order to save her, how could she ever forgive herself for leading the only man she'd ever loved to his doom?
So she dreamt, and she awoke. And she watched a 'him' that wasn't him laugh and fall in love.
Perhaps, one day, she'd even be able to smile about it.
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A/n: This was written in 2017 so... Yeah, I don't think it's going to go anywhere.