I do not own Familiar of Zero
It was early morning in the beautiful kingdom of Tristain. The birds were singing, the morning wind rustled the trees, and the sun shone over the land giving it surreal glow.
But unfortunately, it also meant that the sun was shining straight towards a certain magical academy, right through a window to a room lighting the face of its occupant.
A young girl who barely looked fourteen grumbled as she felt the sun rays tickle her closed eyes. She just wanted to sleep for a few minutes more, but her mind had already decided to start waking up causing her to finally open her eyes. Pink irises examined the surroundings as the mage in training finally noticed where she was.
"What, why am I?" she tiredly asked herself accompanied by some yawing. Instead of waking up in her comfortable bed she was by her desk.
After getting some of the sleepiness away from her eyes she tried remembering what she was doing last night. Her memory wasn't great nor even good when it came to mornings but at least she had some clues lying on her desk. There was a heavy book lying on the desk and judging from the wet spots of drool she had used it as a pillow.
She moved some of her long pink locks off it and tried to get a sense of what she was reading about. The page told something about what to do with cats and other household pets. She just gave up after going through some pages ahead and closed the book to examine its cover. As soon as she saw it her heart jumped to her throat and the tiredness in her vanished immediately.
The title of the book was Familiar Bestiary.
Today was the springtime familiar summoning ritual! And if she remembered right it should have started this very morning!
She rose from her seat almost knocking it over as she began getting herself ready. Luckily she had fallen asleep in her school uniform, which consisted of a white button-up shirt, black skirt, thigh-high black socks, black shoes, and since she was in the second year she also had a black cape attached to her shirt by a pin with the school's emblem.
After finding her wand on the table she started brushing her locks and straightening her clothing. Soon she was in a somewhat presentable and now she was heading to the door leading to one of the long hallways of the academy.
She took a final glance towards a mirror. Her hair was still a mess but there was no way she had enough time to get it straight. Although her hair was one of the two things alongside her name that she could be prideful for, she simply didn't have time to linger in her room to fix it. So with an angry grunt, she threw open the door and readied herself for a fast sprint towards the summoning grounds.
Her rush lasted for two great steps before all of her movement was halted by a figure standing nearby her door.
"Oh, Louise what a pleasant surprise!" the figure said with a sultry voice that made the young mage grit her teeth. "And here I thought my charm wasn't working."
"Shut up Zerbst!" That was what Louise wanted to say but what came from her was just muffling as she was trapped in the blossom of her enemy. With a few well-placed punches to the ribs of her tormentor that only seemed to tickle her, she managed to free herself of the embrace.
"What the hell!" She immediately yelled once she had regained some air to her lungs. The cursed Zerbst woman just chuckled at her antics.
Kirche von Anhalt-Zerbst. The woman that Brimir himself seemed to have created to torment Louise was everything that Louise was not. While Louise had fair skin she had tanned and had a body that would turn eyes everywhere she went. She had long bright red hair that covered one of her amber eyes. Although she had the same uniform as Louise she had left a few of the buttons on her shirt open exposing her cleavage.
"Why are you standing at my door!" she demanded an answer from her rival blocking her path.
Kirche just gave a mocking sigh before addressing the petit mage. "Has little Louise already forgotten that I live right across the hallway?" she asked with a fake worry in her voice. "Besides I was about to make sure that you were awake! We wouldn't want to miss out on seeing you summon a magnificent creature now would we?"
Louise tried her best to hide her scowl she really did. But the damn Zerbst always managed to get under her skin and ruin her attempt to keep her stoic mask on. But what she said brought Louise back to her present problem and she tried to get around her tormentor.
"I hope you kill whatever you summon with those lumps of fat of yours!" Louise yelled while running around Kirche and finally getting past her.
"Don't worry! I can be gentle!" She heard Kirche yell as she rushed among the hallways. There was no way she would ruin her reputation even more by getting late from one of the most important rituals of her life.
After what felt like hours she had finally made it out of the academy and now she was heading towards a crowd of students that were gathered around a spot dedicated to summoning circles. She let out a sigh of relief as she managed to slip into the mass of students.
"Good morning students!" A balding man in his forties named Colbert yelled from the middle of the crowd. He had round glasses, dark robes, and magic staff that he was using to amplify his voice. "As you know today is the sacred Springtime Familiar Summoning ceremony! This is a once in a lifetime experience, so please, do not bother your classmates when they are doing the ritual."
There were a lot of excited murmurs going around everybody discussing what kind of familiars they would summon. The murmurs were cut off as professor Colbert cleared his throat to catch his students' attention. "I'm sure you all are very excited about this, but please calm down so we can proceed. Now that's out of the way, who wants to go first?"
There were plenty of hands raised and Colbert chose the one closest to him. Soon people began drawing their own magical circles on the ground and proceeded to summon creatures from all over the world with their magic.
At first, the students summoned mundane creatures such as cats, owls, and birds. But every now and then they summoned some creatures that made Louise worry about the ordeal. There was a gigantic snake, exotic-looking lion, a floating eyeball, and the biggest mole she had ever seen. Louise was already hoping to blend within the crowd and maybe disappear while nobody was looking.
It was then that her tormentor arrived in what she called "fashionably late". God, she hoped that the Zerbst would cause her familiar to die with her summoning circle. But for some reason despite that Kirche drew a simple-looking circle and gave a lazy incantation, she managed to summon a large fire salamander. She had read somewhere that those were extra rare and the stupid grin on her tormentor's face made her want to just get out of there. Then one of the girls had to go and summon a dragon!
If Louise felt scared at the beginning of the ritual she was absolutely terrified now. There was no way she could top any of this! She was starting to regret her claim yesterday about how she would summon the greatest creature ever to be seen.
"And there we have it!" Colbert exclaimed while admiring all of the familiars. "It seems that all have summoned a familiar." Louise's hopes rose when she heard the professor say that. Maybe she would be able to postpone the summoning. She was sure that if given more time she would be able to summon her familiar after her graduation!
"Colbert! Zero hasn't summoned anything yet!" Louise cursed as she heard her tormentor call her out with her mocking nickname.
"Ah, my bad!" Colbert said as he turned towards her, as did all the other students causing her to feel even more nervous. "Come here miss Vallière and make your preparations."
Louise gulped as she took a step forward. She could already hear the murmurs among her fellow classmates. It was hard to keep her stoic mask on as she heard the name "Zero" go around her.
They were betting on whether she would succeed on the summoning, would she fail entirely, or would she succeed to summon a creature just for her to blow it up to pieces. She wanted to turn to them and curse them for even suggesting that she would fail, but the jeers did have a point. Every time she tried to cast a spell it would blow up! No matter if it was a simple levitation spell or even alchemy, she would fail and cause whatever she was focusing on to explode.
So she just bit her tongue and took a tighter hold of her wand causing her knuckles to become white. She would show them what it meant to be Vallère! She would summon a creature that would put all the others in shame!
"Miss Vallière." A gentle voice pulled Louise out of her abit harsh fantasy. Colbert was giving her a calm smile as he gestured towards the summoning spot. "Would you start your summoning?"
Louise felt her anger and fear go away slightly with Colbert's smile. Right from the beginning when she came to the academy he was always there asking about how she was doing and offering some help. Of course, she denied all the help that the teachers offered her. She was a member of the Vallière family, she didn't need help.
How foolish she had been. She could easily remember how she treated every other noble like the lower noble class that they were. Her mother had taught her that it wouldn't be wise to cling on anybody in hopes that somebody else would fix her issue. So she just denied all the help from teachers and students alike and kept her chin high. She would have shown them what a true noble could do once she got rid of her small problem.
Unfortunately for her, her problem never went away. Soon the teachers stopped offering her help and the students started targeting her. Only Colbert kept offering help and he seemed to genuinely think that her explosions weren't failures. Sometimes he could offer the same kind of kindness that she thought only one of her sisters could give.
She heard the teacher cough and returned from her memories. "Sorry about that," she muttered to Colbert and returned to the task at hand.
After drawing her magical circle she pointed her wand towards it and began her incantation. "My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, in the name of the great Five Pentagon Powers, following my fate, summon a familiar." She finished and felt her willpower flow through her. The circle started glowing and the wind around them started to speed up.
So far nothing exploded!
Was this it? Was this Louise's first-ever successful spell? She couldn't help but giggle slightly at the excitement. She could already see her classmates' faces frozen in awe as they stared at whatever she would summon.
As her happiness reached its peak, the very air around suddenly split causing her to lose her concentration. The second she lost her focus her circle stopped glowing before erupting in a gigantic explosion. It raised a cloud of dust and threw Louise a good few feets back. She landed painfully on her face and felt the ringing in her ears trying to split her head open.
With a grunt, she flipped herself on her back and tried to get a sense of the situation. Colbert accompanied by several other students were already at her side asking how she was feeling. Despite the ringing in her ears she could easily hear the people around herself and move.
Colbert let out a sigh of relief once he saw Louise get up all by herself. Then he redirected his gaze towards the dust cloud where Louise was staring as well.
"I-I failed?" she asked with a quivering voice. There was no way she could fail this! It was her last chance to finally be recognized as a proper mage. Failing the ritual would mean that she wasn't allowed to continue studying at the academy.
Colbert looked towards the smoke and the students who were trying to tame their panicking familiars. If this was going to happen every time she tried summoning, he couldn't let her do it nearby others to prevent any possible injuries. He sighed and turned towards Louise who was at the brink of crying. "Maybe we should stop for now. But don't worry I'm sure-"
Whatever he was about to suggest was cut off as he heard a string of profanities in Germanian coming from the cloud. Even Louise's face morphed from sad to shocked and outright horrified. He turned towards a nearby blue-haired girl and was about to ask her if she could use her magic to blow out the dust cloud. But before he could even ask a whirlwind formed in the middle of the cloud, pushing it away.
There in the middle of what used to be her summoning circle stood an angry young man who seemed to around his twenties. He was quite tall yet lean. He had tanned skin and pitch-black hair comped towards the back of his head.
If Louise would have to have guessed who he was. She would have immediately said commoner because only they would use such profanities. But his clothing spoke of a different tale.
He had black dress shoes, pants, and a white dress shirt worn under a dark blue vest. His clothing seemed to be made of the finest silks confirming him as somebody with wealth. If Louise had any doubts left those were cleared away once she saw the ornament silvery blade on his hip. A small feeling of fear rooted itself in her as she began thinking about the worst scenarios about who he might be.
Colbert seeing the situation unfold and hearing the murmurs going around them, decided to step forward and greet the young man. "Umm… hello there mister. I am professor Colbert, who might you be?"
The young man gave Colbert a confused look but didn't say anything. He just looked around himself in deep thought. His eyes landed on Louise and his eyes widened slightly. Meanwhile, Louise was mentally praying to Brimir she hadn't just summoned another person as a familiar. But despite her dilemma, she couldn't take her eyes off his for some reason.
"Greetings." He finally said something. What happened next made Louise want to crawl under a rock and just die.
He raised his hand which was glowing in dim white light and made a small movement with it. Suddenly there was a gentle breeze blowing across the grounds and blew away the dust that had settled on to his clothing. Immediately as he did that the student body burst into a roar murmurs as he just confirmed Louise's worst fears.
'Magic! I summoned a noble!' she screamed in her head. She didn't even question where he kept his wand as she thought about what just happened. Out of all of her failures, it had to be her success that would doom her! There was no telling what happens to her once the word gets out that she has summoned a noble. Her family will surely disown her after this and she will be punished by the man's own family.
While Louise was panicking the young man took a few steps towards her. He then leaned slightly forward to bring himself to the same eye level with her.
He cleared his throat to get her attention. "Does your name happen to be Louise?" he asked with a toneless voice that just made Louise's fear rise to a whole new level.
He knew her! If he knew her it means that his family knows her family. Her fate was officially sealed, she was sure of that, but she managed to collect some of the remnants of her "rule of steel" and answer, "Y-yes!"
That was all she got out.
There was a silent pause as they kept looking at each other and other students were just following the situation. "William," the young man introduced himself, breaking the silence and held his hand out for her to shake. She took a hold of it and while they were locked in an awkward handshake he spoke up, "I'm sorry I just got to make sure. What is your full name?"
"Louis F-françoise Le de La Vallière." She tried answering and failed to say her own name properly.
But it didn't seem to bother him. Instead, there was a faint grin on his face and he seemed to be struggling not to laugh at the moment. It wasn't long before he was letting out some chuckles.
"Damn mom! You're so tiny!" he exclaimed, making Louise's eyes fully open as she kept staring into his pink colored eyes.