An American Geek in a Halkeginian Court

by Inner Legions

An American commits cultural appropriation against a hapless Japanese youth. Typical, just typical. WARNING: CONTAINS RAW, GRAPHIC KIPLING. May only be suitable for mature readers.

7. By Any Other Name II

By Any Other Name, Part II

---

"I have to admit," Jason said the next morning, at breakfast, "there was one nice thing about working overnight. I was pretty much by myself, so as long as I got everything done that I was supposed to, I didn't have to deal with staff politics."

"Was that a problem?" Siesta asked.

"From what little I saw? Oh, yeah. People constantly gossiping about whoever wasn't at the store, and always playing these petty power games against each other. I was happy I didn't have to get involved in any of it.

"And speaking of power games, what can you tell me about Louise and Kirche? I know they don't get along, but I don't know why. And I'd rather not upset my mistress by asking."

"I don't know, either," Siesta admitted. "But Miss Vallière and Miss Zerbst have been quarreling since they began classes. Miss Zerbst usually has the upper hand, of course. I hear she was a Line back then, and now she's a Triangle."

A what? We haven't heard the mages using geometry in their spells, so what – never mind. Ask Louise later. She'll know.

---

"Here's that clay you were asking for, dear," Madam Chevreuse told his little mistress just after class began, levitating over a small box filled with a brown clay. "Try to be careful when you start practicing."

"Now, everyone," she said, returning to her desk, "for every problem on the chalkboard, I want you to come up with three different solutions, each one using a different cantrip. Once you've finished, you can continue to practice your cantrips."

Louise's eyes gleamed as she looked at the box, and quickly got to work on the problems.

The sound of people getting up and moving around caught Jason's attention. Apparently, as he looked around, many of the students had the idea to work together to come up with ideas. Or possibly it was just an excuse to flirt, since the single largest group of collaborators were orbiting Kirche (and incidentally Tabitha, for all that the azuretop was ignoring them).

He shook his head, and couldn't help but chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Louise whispered.

"All those boys trying to 'work with' Kirche," he whispered back. "I wonder how long it'll be before they realize that they're all slowing each other down?"

She shot him a glance, and they shared a tiny smirk before she went back to her writing.

---

"Um, Louise? The dining hall's that way."

"I know. Remember how Madam Chevreuse chewed out half the class for wasting their time?"

"After you handed the assignment in first . . . Oh. Doesn't matter that Tabitha was second, you're expecting them to go after you."

She nodded. "And I'm not hungry, anyway. This," she held up the box of magic clay, "means I can have Empower in just a day or two!"

Right, that's the one for her lamp. "Alright. Although I am going to get you something to eat. I can afford to starve myself, you can't."

"Fine, fine."

Louise stopped short as she entered the room. Siesta, seeing her, likewise froze.

Jason smiled wryly. "Louise, this is Siesta. She's been assigned to handle my needs, what with me being such an exotic familiar and all."

His little mistress regarded the raven-haired maid narrowly, then turned a suspicious eye on her familiar. "And what 'needs' is she handling, precisely?"

Siesta blushed. "No, it's not-"

"Background on what it's like here," he interrupted. "I'm not used to magic, so some things can seem rather strange. She's been very helpful."

Louise mulled it over for a few moments. "Very well, then. I'll practice while you have lunch."

Siesta still seemed nervous, but after eating most of her meal she began talking. "About a year ago, one of the maids – her name was Nora – she became convinced that she had a talent for magic. So she started sneaking away from her duties to try to attend First Form classes, because if she could ever manage an elementari she'd be a mage."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "How'd she get away with not doing her job?"

"She had the kitchen thinking she was working in the laundry, and the laundry thought she was helping in the stables, and . . . it didn't last more than a couple of months, but she was so sure-"

"Do you mean that girl who left right before summer?" Louise interjected, over from where she was working on Empower. "I'd wondered if she'd gotten herself with child, the way she flirted."

"As bad as Kirche?" he asked.

"Not like Kirche, no." His little mistress shook her head. "Like she was desperate for any man. I suppose it makes sense, if she was only pretending." Then Louise scowled, and went back to practicing.

Jason winced. If this Nora had any reason to think herself magically talented, she might have shown more sign than a few puffs of smoke like our little mistress was limited to.

"It probably wasn't a baby," Siesta said, faintly. "Most girls who get in the family way work until they're too big and awkward, then come back as soon as their family can arrange for a wet-nurse."

Louise's presence was definitely making the maid nervous, so Jason didn't press her for any more information for the rest of lunch.

---

"Progress in Ignite has gone well," Mr. Colbert announced once the afternoon class commenced. "Well enough that I believe it would be profitable to go outside for a demonstration."

Louise had a distinctly unhappy look on her face as she followed the students outside.

"Progress for everyone except us, eh?" Jason commented quietly as he walked beside her.

"You don't need to tell me that."

"Little mistress." He put his hand on her shoulder, and she halted, spinning around to glare up and him.

"What?!"

"You got the lamp to ignite, more or less. So this isn't impossible, just another example of things being unreasonably hard."

She grimaced, but nodded.

"But you know, the most basic way to light a fire, for commoners, is to rub two pieces of wood together so fast that they catch fire. It works if you get as much friction as possible, in as small a spot on the pieces of wood as possible."

"Jason, what does commoner nonsense have to do with me?"

He raised an eyebrow, but let it pass. "The same approach might work with your explosion. Make it as tiny as possible, focused on the tip of the wick. Get that to work, and you can build from there."

She half-opened her mouth, then shut it and turned back to follow where the class had gone. "We need to catch up with them. Come on!"

It probably didn't take more than a minute or two to reach the courtyard where the group waited, but Mr. Colbert had a rather dry expression nonetheless when they showed up. "So good of you to join us, Miss Vallière."

This time, he didn't reprimand anyone for their titters, but simply waited for everyone to stop laughing. "Just as Ignite is considered one of the easiest Dots of Fire, Fireball is considered a foundational Line. Who can tell me why?"

Louise, still flushed from the teacher's mild chastising, didn't raise her hand. Kirche did, but Mr. Colbert picked another student, a boy that Jason couldn't recall the name for.

"Sir, it's because all you have to do is combine the Ignite and Firebolt figura, and Firebolt is hardly more than a modified Ignite to begin with."

"Close," Mr. Colbert acknowledged. "Miss Zerbst, if I recall correctly you are the only Triangle in this class. Please explain, in your own words, the difference between casting a Dot, a Line, and a Triangle."

"It's not just adding Dots together, sir," Kirche responded. "You have to line them up properly. You have to make a link from one Dot to another, and if you don't do it right the spell can miscast. Triangles are even harder. Each link from every Dot to the other Dots has to be balanced, and even for me, it isn't easy."

"And Squares are more difficult still, for every Dot must align on the same plane," the professor added. "Very good, Miss Zerbst. For all that, however, Fireball is one of the easiest Lines of Fire to cast. With a little care, even a miscast need not be overly dangerous. Before we begin today's lesson, I want to give you all the chance to attempt it. Even if you are merely a Dot of Fire, because of how similar Ignite and Firebolt are this is a Line that you may conceivably manage to cast."

He began calling out names, and students made their attempts one by one, shooting fire straight up into the air.

Frankly, Jason was disappointed, though he tried not to show it. The students who weren't quite up to handling – Lines? Seriously? That's the term they were using? - were mostly amusing, and Mr. Colbert had Extinguish ready for the miscasts that went seriously wrong. As for the students who could handle Lines(okay, okay, expecting them to refer to spell tiers as Level 1, Level 2, and so on was probably a bit unreasonable), none of them were able to manage a proper 20-foot-radius fireball.

Deeply disappointing.

Finally, everyone in the class had been called on, except for Kirche and Louise.

"Miss Zerbst," Mr. Colbert said, in a tone that was quite mild, "I imagine you would like to impress us."

Kirche grinned, raised her wand to point straight up, and began chanting. Unlike the other students, who released their Fireballs as soon as they managed to raise any kind of flame on the tip of their wands, she held it there, repeating the words of the spell over and over, letting the blazing sphere grow until it looked about the size of a beach ball. Then she let it go.

It shot up into the air until it was a good ways up the central tower of the Academy and detonated.

Oh hell yes, Jason thought as the wave of heat hit them all. That was a proper fireball. Gygax be praised!

The entire class seemed stunned by the display, staring up at where the enormous Fireball had gone off, then down to Kirche, standing there smirking. Finally, Mr. Colbert began clapping slowly, and soon almost everyone had joined in.

Jason thought about it for a moment, and started clapping himself. "Credit where it's due," he pointed out when Louise looked at him with a betrayed expression. "That was impressive."

Looking like she was sucking on a lemon, his little mistress started clapping too.

But when the clapping died down, Mr. Colbert gave her a pitying look. "Miss Vallière-"

"I'd be more than happy to help Miss Vallière again, sir," Kirche smugly interrupted.

The professor raised an eyebrow. "I fear that Miss Vallière is unlikely to find your instruction profitable."

"What a shame," the redhead promptly shot back. "I guess some people just can't be helped, even by the best."

Hearing this, Louise scowled, tightened her grip on her wand, and raised it to the sky.

Aw, hell, Jason thought, time to be prudent, and quickly turned away while clapping his hands to his ears.

Even muffled by his hands, the thunderclap of her explosion was deafening, and the shock of it dizzied him and sent him staggering. When he recovered and looked up, the only people left standing were himself, his little mistress, and Mr. Colbert, who was holding his staff in front of him. Guy must know a counter for the noise. Most of the students were flat on the ground, not even up to their hands and knees, and Kirche was snarling up at Louise, who looked quite pleased with herself.

"I don't think that counted," he pointed out to her. "But like I said, credit where it's due."

"What?" his little mistress shouted. "My ears are ringing so loud, I can't hear you!"

Jason started laughing, and ruffled her hair affectionately until she ducked away. Then he and Mr. Colbert went around the group, helping everyone stand up, so they could all return to the classroom and get on with the lesson for the afternoon.

---

"You realize that Kirche is going to take every opportunity she can to show you up from here on out, right?" he asked Louise over supper.

"She already does that," she grumbled.

"Well, now she'll be even more motivated." He sighed. "Oh well. Can't be helped, I suppose. Asking you to not show off was-"

"Not going to happen. I've never been able to show her up with a spell before."

"Right. Anyway, the lectures have been going over my head, for the most part, but – what's with the shapes?"

"The shapes?"

"Triangles and lines."

"Oh." Louise frowned. "You must be from very far away."

"Stranger in a strange land, yes, we covered that the night you summoned me. The shapes?"

Louise shrugged. "Spells are divided up into how many times you have to invoke an element to cast them. Ignite only requires one invocation of Fire, so it's a Dot. Fireball require two, both Fire, so it's a Line."

"So cantrips are Dots, then?"

"No, I meant elementari. Cantrips don't need a proper figura to invoke, remember? Even First Form students without an affinity are supposed to be able to learn them."

"Right, right." Cantrips are level 0. Eh, easy enough to keep in mind. "So Triangle, Square, Pentagon-"

"No, Pentagon spells don't exist. Square spells are the most powerful spells there are."

"Oh. Okay. Um, Mr. Colbert also called Kirche a Triangle. Does that mean she can cast spells up to Triangle strength?"

Louise nodded, scowling.

"Moving on, what about mixing elements? I mean, are there spells that are, for example, one 'Dot' of Fire and one of Air?"

She nodded again. "It means learning an element that isn't your affinity, though. It takes a lot more practice to develop a secondary element than it does to improve your affinity." She paused for a moment. "But it can be very useful. Wise mages never stop trying to learn new things, no matter how old they get."

"So, a powerful mage might be something like a Dodecahedren, then? Square in his affinity and working on the others?"

Louise rolled her eyes. "No, that'd just be a Square. It's not how many elements you know, it's how many elements you can combine in one spell. Some mages even learn different elements that way."

"Uh, what way?"

"Like Madam Chevreuse."

Jason blinked. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"Her affinity is Earth, but when she became a Triangle, she learned her first Dot of Fire, instead. So she can cast Lines that are Earth and Earth, or Earth and Fire, and she can cast Dots that are Earth or Fire, but if she wants to cast a Triangle, it has to be Earth, Earth, and Fire."

"Hang on. She looks like she's in her forties, or maybe late thirties. That's all she's ever got up to? No secondaries?"

Louise's face grew expressionless. "Not everyone has the same degree of talent."

This from the girl who managed to rival an overloaded Line spell before she's technically able to cast any Dots. "Perhaps she's better as a teacher. I mean, they've got her teaching general theory, right?"

Louise nodded, but didn't respond.

"Well today proved once again that you've no shortage of power. Now you just need to develop enough control."

She still didn't respond.

He sighed. "I'm gonna go down for the water buckets, now."

---

"Are you certain you want to keep doing this?" his little mistress asked, looking dubiously at him once the buckets had been brought up. "You've taken longer and looked worse each time these last three nights."

Jason nodded, still panting too heavily to speak. Finally, he managed to slow his breathing. "Haven't thrown up yet. Good exercise. Pain is weakness leaving the body."

She didn't look any less dubious. "Try not to hurt yourself."

---

Teeth cleaning was done with rags and toothpicks, and Jason was tired of that after just a few days. "Hey, Louise?"

"What?" she responded, not even looking up from the clay she was practicing Empower with.

"How's Arise coming? I mean, I know you haven't quite drilled out the explosions, but can you make some hot water in a half-empty bucket?"

"I suppose – what are you doing?" she asked as he started rummaging around in one of his dufflebags. "It's not time to change into your night clothes."

"Naw, this is what I was looking for," he said, holding up his toothbrush and his spare.

She looked at him with some disbelief, but got up and walked over to inspect them. "Why did you bring a pair of tiny brushes with you? Brushing out hair would take all day with those."

He chuckled. "These aren't for hair. They're for cleaning teeth. Which is what I need hot water for – cleaning the brushes."

"And you need two of them?"

"No, but I was traveling, so having a spare seemed like a good idea. I thought you might like to try it out."

She didn't say anything for a long moment, then walked over to one of the buckets and cast Arise. Some water splashed out in the initial explosion, but after a few minutes the remainder was steaming. Louise then looked at Jason. "Show me how you do it."

After his demonstration, she silently took the backup toothbrush and followed his example.

She looked down at the toothbrush in her hand once she was done. "Your people must put great store by clean mouths."

"Yeah. We can't regrow teeth if they rot away, and various sugars have become quite popular in the last hundred years, so we have to be careful."

"Oh." Louise was quiet for a moment. "Potions that regrow teeth are expensive. You can sometimes tell who indulges at too many feasts at Court, if they can't afford to have their teeth pulled out and regrown."

---

"So, Siesta," Jason asked the maid the next morning. "The bell that rings for lunch – does that always ring when the sun is highest in the sky?"

"The noon bell? I think so. Why?"

"Oh, just something I hope I can measure."

She nodded, albeit a bit doubtfully, and changed the subject. "When I was a little girl, an Academy Third Form came to town with a theory about how to improve crop yields with alchemy, so that a mage wouldn't have to go around and cast Fruitful Bounty on every field. The mixture involved earthstone, but what we didn't know was that she also added in firestone.

"The crops did well that year, but during winter, when the mice got into the grain . . ." she trailed off, then shrugged.

"The first fires, nobody knew what was causing them. Eventually we figured it out, that if you killed a mouse that had eaten grain from that field, all the fire would be released at once. It might be a little bit of fire, but it might be a lot, too. It was an exciting year." She giggled at Jason's expression, then sighed. "But a lot of the cats were ruined as mousers by the time all the enchanted mice were gotten rid of. I can't even remember what we called Black-Face Tom before that."

---

Louise and Jason arrived at Madam Chevreuse's classroom to see that the teacher was already there at her desk. Tabitha and Kirche were there as well, and the tiny azuretop was casting cantrip after cantrip at a contraption that looked decidedly Rube Goldberg-esque. Finally she cast the last one, causing a little ball to roll out of a tube into a dish.

"Well done, dearie!" Madam Chevreuse exclaimed. "That's the fastest I've ever seen a student finish learning all the First Form cantrips!"

Tabitha flushed faintly. "It . . . was nothing," she murmured.

"Right!" Kirche agreed cheerfully, as she started to lead her diminutive friend to their seats. "Only what you'd expect from one of the most powerful nobles of her year."

"So when's your turn?" Louise muttered, but pitched loud enough to carry to everyone's ears.

No, don't provoke-!

The redhead stopped and turned. "For someone as gloriously fiery as myself, there's no shame in needing a little more time with Water. But what about you, Vallière? Have you managed anything yet? Can you Levitate something without blowing it apart? Or is your success rate still nothing? Even with Fire, still . . . Zero."

Jason quickly put a hand on his little mistress's trembling shoulder, and at the reminder he felt her take a deep breath, deliberately calming herself.

An indecipherable look crossed Kirche's face for a moment. Then she smiled sweetly. "And maybe your familiar's power is humility. Perhaps that's what you need the most of."

He quickly steered Louise over to her usual seat before she could respond.

"You really ought to stop quarreling with her," he softly pointed out.

"Not when it's a Zerbst," she retorted.

He gritted his teeth, but let it pass. "You know, keep up all the practice you're doing, and you'll probably get those 16 cantrips before a lot of the other students do."

"I hope so," she replied. "But I haven't even started on Awaken, yet."

"Uh – does that wake someone up?"

She nodded. "But who would I practice on?" Then she gave him a sidelong look.

"Uh-huh. Okay, with this one you want to focus on drilling out the explosions first, because otherwise how do you tell if you're waking me up with those or with the spell?"

She smirked and raised her wand.

"Yes, dear?" Madam Chevreuse asked.

"I need a delicate repose, so I can practice Awaken."

"Ah-" the teacher looked from her to her familiar and back again. "Right away, dear."

A 'delicate repose', it turned out, was a lacy silk confection of a handkerchief. Jason eyed it dubiously. "So, do I hold it up to my nose and breathe in?"

"How'd you know?"

He chuckled. "Just intuition, I suppose." Somehow, it doesn't seem like this will be the most restful of mornings.

It wasn't.

---

"What happened to you?" Siesta asked, when Jason met her for lunch. Her eyes widened as she took in the slightly battered condition of his face.

"Louise needed to practice Awaken," he replied. "Don't worry, it's just minor bruising. Now, hang on-"

After about half a minute of silence, the noon bell began to toll, and he hit the button on his watch to start his timer.

"What is that?" she wanted to know, distracted for the moment from his face.

"It's called a watch. It tracks the passage of time." He glanced at her expression, then elaborated. "I'm trying to measure how long the day is around here, compared to how long it is back home."

"Why?"

"Because it doesn't seem much longer or shorter." And there ought to be some difference, if this is another world. "Just something I'd like to know, to satisfy my curiosity."

"Oh."

"Anyway, when I was younger, I got my first job. It was a place that served food to travelers."

"At the hospice?"

"Different town. I was still living with my parents. Anyway, I was young, and naive, and didn't realize what it meant that they were willing to hire me."

"What did it mean?"

"It meant they couldn't find someone older and more experienced who was willing to do it. And the reason for that? Every . . . holiday or festival, there were . . . swarms of pilgrims on the road. And we were not allowed any kind of gratuity. So it was a lot of work for little pay, always being yelled at, but no reward for being good or fast."

Jason shook his head. "I vowed that summer that I wasn't going to get stuck with that kind of work for the rest of my life."

"There weren't any rewards for the best workers?"

"Nope, and that's why they were willing to take someone as young and inexperienced as I was. No one with experience was interested in staying there."

---

Mr. Colbert had the chalkboard covered with writing by the time the class shuffled in.

"Consider these spells. What are they all?"

"Fire," responded half the class.

"And what would you guess is different about this list than a similar list of elementari from another element?"

After a moment, several hands went up. The teacher pointed at one. "De Gaume?"

"Mr. Colbert," the boy who'd been called on replied, "most of these are combat spells. The other elements aren't so focused on battle."

"Correct, as far as it goes. Now, considering only the spells of war, can someone tell me what is missing?"

There was silence as the students looked around at each other.

"No one?" The expression on his face was more grimace than smile. "Some of you have parents with military experience. What sort of spells do they have to go outside of Fire to find?"

There was more silence, then Jason heard Louise's soft exhalation as the answer hit her, and she raised her wand.

"Miss Vallière?"

"There aren't any spells listed there to capture or subdue, sir. Only to harm."

"Precisely. If you find yourself in a fight, casting an elementari of Fire always tells your foe, 'I am trying to kill you.'"

"But Mr. Colbert," Kirche broke in, "My father made good use of Dazzle to stun his opponents when he was younger."

"Indeed. But have you learned Dazzle yourself?"

"Not yet."

"Then watch." Mr. Colbert gestured with his staff, and a wave of sparks and cinders shot out from the tip. Jason noted that the professor was careful to aim at a bare wall, rather than the students, the chalkboard, or the entrance to the classroom. "That is Dazzle in its base form. Very effective, when sprayed into the eyes of a foe. They are blinded and horribly maimed, and their allies' morale will likely plummet." The grimacing not-smile was back. "Mastering Dazzle to the point where you can choose to have it merely stun and disorient requires a great deal of practice."

He gestured with his staff again, and the fiery serpent that he'd shown off their first day reappeared. "Who here would like to hold my serpent?"

Jason held back his snicker by sheer force of will. Not the right time for it, and for all he knew that particular double entendre might not even exist in Tristainian.

"No one?" Mr. Colbert continued. "And yet, while I will it, the snake will not burn.

"But instinct says otherwise. Therefore, even should you practice until whatever spell you favor does not burn, anyone you use it on will believe, in their heart and bones, that you mean to kill them. Even Fire elementari that do not attack directly, such as Ring of Fire, accomplish their purpose by threatening a horrible death."

He gave them all a stern look. "Dueling is strictly forbidden at the Academy, so naturally it happens away from the teachers. Do not tell me it does not, I remember being young. So risks are taken, and injuries are concealed, and everyone pretends not to notice unless they are forced to."

The horrible not-smile was back. "As long as your elementari are all Fire, you must not engage in this foolishness. Water, stone, and air can all batter and bruise, but fire will kill in hands as inexperienced as yours! Consider yesterday, if Vallière faced off against Zerbst, levying their spells against each other instead of casting them up into the air. Would their families thank the Academy, after receiving their broken and blackened bodies?"

By now, nearly every pair of eyes in the classroom was as wide as they could be.

"But some of you must compete, in the high spirits of youth. So be wise, for fire is the least forgiving of them all, when it comes to foolishness. Cast your spells against targets, and acknowledge the winner by his speed and power, rather than by the charred corpses in his wake.

"I pray to Brimir that you will take my admonishment to heart. You may begin this afternoon's practice, now."

---

Louise sat at her table after supper, looking back and forth at the candle and the enchanted clay in front of her.

"Not sure what to practice?" Jason asked.

She nodded. "I'm getting closer with Empower, but that's just a cantrip. Ignite is a Dot."

"Well, to paraphrase the words of quite a few Wise Venerable Mentors, it's usually best to master the basics."

"I need more than cantrips to be a mage. Some commoners manage to earn their keep with cantrips."

"But are those commoners able to cast all of the cantrips? And with how you practice so much harder than everyone else, you're going to get them, and pretty quickly."

"That's because I'm focusing on what I want the spell to do, instead of trying to get the words and motions right, so I'm not going over what I did wrong before I try again," she pointed out, then paused thoughtfully. "And I seem to have enough vis to be able to do that all day."

"'Wees'?"

"Yes, vis – you have to know what vis is!"

"Uh, nope. Sorry."

"Vis is, is – it's what we nobles use to do magic with! A noble without vis isn't even a mage, just a-" she shook her head, shuddering.

"Do you mean the wands?"

She shook her head again.

"Or, okay, you mean an energy field that surrounds every living thing, binding us all together in a grand mystic design?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, no, that sounds like elf-talk."

Jedi, actually. But he forbore to correct her.

"It's the magic we carry within us, in here," she said, tapping her chest.

"So, when you were talking about pushing through your heart, did you mean pushing your 'vis' through your heart?"

"Yes! Wasn't that obvious?"

Jason tried not to roll his eyes. "You know, I probably know half-a-dozen words that can mean, 'personal, internal mystic resource utilized by mages to cast spells.' My translation auxilum chose none of them, and picked 'vis' instead."

"Of course it did! Your words are probably from made-up legends, and vis is something real."

Now that-! Wait, do we realize how silly we're about to sound? Jason blinked, then chuckled. "All right, little mistress. I can hardly claim to be the expert here."

"Of course not," Louise agreed loftily. Then she glanced at his face. "Oh, I almost forgot. Sit up and hold still."

"Eh?" he responded, confused, but did as she commanded while she got up and made for her classroom supplies.

"I got these from the infirmary before lunch," she announced, holding up a pair of small bottles. "This one is a salve for bruises, so your face won't feel . . . this other one is a tonic for sore muscles."

"Oh." That was rather nice of her. "Thank you."

She flushed faintly as she came back over, and shrugged as she handed over the tonic. "I'm just being a good master. Anyway, it's the same tonic that Mother makes Father take when he overdoes it and tries to pretend he's young enough not to need to see our medica."

His eyes widened fractionally. Does she realize she just compared us to a presumably married couple? Then he drank the tonic and had to fight not to gag. "Yechk! I see why she has to make him take it. Tell me it works, at least."

Louise scooped out a dollop of the salve with her fingers. "If it didn't she'd march him to the medica, no matter what he pretended. Now stop talking."

He was silent while she dabbed the salve onto his sore spots. Her touch was not precisely pleasant – the bruises her practice with Awaken had inflicted were definitely sore – but it was comforting nonetheless. Homey, even.

Finally she drew back. "Did I get them all?"

"I think so. So . . . 'vis'. Does it deplete, or . . . ?"

"We tire out when we're using it, yes. Then we get it back when we're resting."

"You do? But it's seemed like you can practice all day without much trouble."

"That's cantrips." Louise frowned slightly. "I can tell I'm using more when I try to cast Ignite. I'm not sure I could drill Dots all day."

"Ah. So elementari expend more vis than cantrips?"

She nodded. "And Lines take about twice as much as Dots, and Triangles cost about twice as much as Lines, and so on."

"Got it." Jason worked his jaw experimentally. "You know, I think that salve is already working."

"Of course it is. Bruises are mostly on the surface, that's easy Water magic. I didn't even have to trade a reagent for it."

"Okay. So, um, different people have different amounts of vis?"

Louise nodded again. "Some of it's talent. And your vis capacity doubles when you advance, such as from Dot to Line, but . . ." her voice trailed off thoughtfully. "The first exercise they have you do as a First Form is to channel your magic through your wand. It's good for developing focus, but . . . pre-cantrip exercises were all I could do before I summoned you, along with studying. It must have expanded my capacity more than I realized."

"Well, that's an advantage. Although," he rubbed his chin, "If Kirche is a Triangle, she's doubled her vis twice already-"

"And since her affinity is Fire, her Fire elementari use half as much vis for each time she advanced." Louise scowled. "And that's if her strong affinity doesn't let her cast Fire elementari even more easily still."

"Wait." Jason thought about it for a moment. "So advancing one rank doesn't double your power, it quadruples it. And that's before you start learning spells suitable to your new rank."

"It quadruples it if you stick to your affinity, yes."

"Wow. Okay, I see why you want to establish yourself as a Dot. Still, the basics are useful, and isn't Empower one of the workhorse cantrips you need to learn as soon as possible?"

Louise pursed her lips, but as he got up to take the dishes downstairs and haul the buckets back up, she pushed the candle off to the side and pointed her wand at the clay.

---

Jason rolled off his mattress the next morning, preparing to get to his feet with a groan-

Except there was no soreness. He shook his head, smiling. "Wow! That was inspired, little mistress."

"Wha-?" came a sleepy mumble from the bed.

"Oh, sorry! Didn't intend to wake you this early." He checked out the window. "The sun is coming up, though."

"Urrgh," Louise groaned. "I suppose I can use the time to practice."

"That's the spirit!" He picked her up, swept her out of bed and into a bear-hug, then set her down next to the chair where her uniform was laid out.

"Jason?" Her eyes were rather wide all of a sudden.

"I feel great! Those potions were just what I needed. That was incredibly thoughtful of you."

She quickly bent down, mumbling something as she pulled up her culottes, then her hosiery, under her chemise. Then she raised her arms so he could pull the chemise off.

"I mean, I was going to tough it out," he continued as he belted her brassiere tight behind her back. "Sore muscles are the price for exercise."

The diaphanous under-gown went on next, then the long black skirt, the white button-up blouse, and finally the plain black mantle over it all once Louise finished buttoning her blouse up. "Didn't even occur to me to ask about local remedies," he admitted cheerfully as she turned around and he knelt down to help her into her shoes.

Her face seemed a little flushed, for some reason. "I know the recipe Mother uses. Once I learn Mix, I should be able to make it myself."

He smiled at her: While he was kneeling down they were very nearly at eye level. "Already planning what you can do with your new magic, just like Madam Chevreuse said to. Excellent!" He stood up and ruffled her hair. "Here, sit down and I'll brush your hair while you practice Empower."

She rolled her eyes, but sat down with the clay while he got out a brush.

---

"Probably the worst thing about that nighttime job at the travel store was the drunks," Jason said at breakfast.

"You had a lot of them?" Siesta asked.

"Fair bit, yeah. I mean, there were the beggars and the laborers, a lot of them seemed to think the bottle was their best friend. Then there was . . . people from the south, for some reason, tended to get drunk easier than people from the north. So there were a lot of habitual drunkards there, too. Hell, that's why I try not to drink very much."

"Because you're a drunkard?"

"No, but I get drunk easily. It's from my father's side of the family. It affects about half of us, and it means if I'm not careful, I'll become a drunkard. Anyway, those were all annoying, but honestly the worst were the students."

"The students?"

"Yeah. On their own for the first time, a lot of them. Young, high-spirited, and all but broke, that's who was most likely to slip something into their pockets, or grab what they could and run."

Siesta frowned. "My cousin Jessica, I think she'd say beggars are more of a problem."

Jason shrugged. "They can be, but once you know who they are, you can run off the ones who insist on being trouble." He sighed. "The really sad part was when someone would try to buy one of them food, and then they'd turn around and try to trade it in for beer. There's only so much you can do to help someone who wants to stay on the street."

"No one sponsors almshouses in your homeland?"

"Oh, they do. Shelters, kitchens, laundries – but those generally have rules, and some choose the vices of street life over the benefits of charity. Very, very sad."

---

Louise marched up to Madam Chevreuse's desk as soon as they arrived to class. "I think I have Empower," she announced to the teacher.

"That sounds wonderful, dear. Can you show me?"

She nodded and put the enchanted clay on the desk. There was no explosive burst when she cast Empower, and the clay immediately began writhing around, tiny little clay extrusions lifting and looping and falling.

"Very good. I imagine you'd like to try a lapideus, now?"

Louise nodded again, and Madam Chevreuse Levitated a plain-looking stone over to them. "Go ahead, dear."

Just as with the clay, there was no explosion, and the stone immediately began to glow faintly.

"Good! But, perhaps a little more power, dear."

Louise nodded yet again. "I didn't want to try too hard, just in case-" she grimaced and cast again. The glow increased considerably. She snapped her fingers, and the glow halted. Another snap and the stone was back to glowing at full strength.

"Perfect. I look forward to seeing you demonstrate the rest of them."

Jason frowned as he followed his little mistress to their seats and sat down. "As I recall, you were not quite there when we went down for breakfast."

"I skipped breakfast to practice," she responded. "I wanted to finish Empower, and I'm not that hung-" she broke off, flushing, as a loud gurgle erupted from her stomach.

"So you woke up early, practiced twice as long, and skipped breakfast to do more practice that you would have done in class anyway. Louise, I can skip a meal and tough it out, my belly can just eat itself. You need to eat, especially breakfast."

"I'll be fine!" she snapped. "Now stop bothering me about it!"

---

But she was clearly flagging about halfway through class, and when she tried to stand up at lunchtime, she paled, swayed, and abruptly sat back down.

"Louise?"

"Feel dizzy," she moaned. "I think I'm sick."

"No, you aren't sick, you've just got low blood sugar from skipping breakfast."

"Low what?"

Jason waited until the classroom finished emptying to spare her the social mortification, then picked his little mistress up, cradling her against his chest.

"Put me down!" she whined.

"If you can't stand without feeling dizzy, I don't want you walking around. Fortunately, this is pretty easy to fix."

"How?" she moaned.

"Make sure you eat a big meal."

She moaned again. "I think that would make me throw up."

"We'll see."

Despite her protests, by the time he was halfway across the courtyard she was slumped against him, eyes closed and head resting on his shoulder.

Once he enter his ad-hoc dining room, Siesta stared at the two of them with a bemused expression. "If Miss Vallière is sick, shouldn't she be taken to the infirmary?"

"Yes!"

"No," Jason disagreed, "she's like this because she skipped breakfast, and she's been practicing magic from the moment she woke up."

"Oh."

Louise opened her eyes long enough to look at his porridge already on the table, before burrowing her face back into his chest. "If you make me eat that I truly will be sick."

"No, that's probably not the best idea," he agreed. "Hmm. Okay, Siesta, here's what I need you to get: Something light, sweet, buttery, and nutty for Louise to nibble on. But no extra frosting or syrup dribbled over it. And then something hearty for the main meal. Bread, meat, fruit, veggies, nuts, whatever you can get without getting into trouble."

The maid nodded and left. Jason sat down, idly rubbing his little mistress's back until she returned with a well-laden tray.

"Chef Armstrong said he knew something his mammy used to make," Siesta said as she set a small plate down on the table. It held what looked a lot like a southern-style biscuit, dripping with butter, but with nuts sprinkled in. It also looked like it was fresh out of an oven, and smelled mouth-wateringly delicious. "I think. Sometimes it's hard to understand his accent."

"It's perfect," Jason declared as he deposited Louise into her own seat. "Start nibbling, little mistress, and let's see what else we've got."

"Well . . ." Siesta trailed off as the dizzy rosecrown eyed her biscuit dubiously. "I was hoping for some stew, but it had been served out already. This was mostly going to go into the next pot."

The tray turned out to hold three rolls(also fresh out of the oven), several chunks of meat, some lettuce, tomato, and spinach, an apple, and a light, fluffy confection that was smothered in honey, chocolate, and frosting, and looked very decadent withal.

"I know you said you wanted vegetables, but they didn't have any that were cooked yet-"

"That's fine, as long as these were washed. Got a knife?"

Siesta nodded and handed one over. "You're going to feed them to Miss Vallière raw?"

Louise looked up from her half-eaten biscuit. "What was that?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "Raw vegetables. As long as they've been washed, they should be fine to eat. Or does the kitchen give everyone indigestion regularly?"

She frowned. "No, but-"

"Little mistress, trust me. And eat the apple once you've finished that."

As she turned her attention back to the biscuit, and Siesta watched in faintly horrified disbelief, he sliced one of the loaves in half, then sliced up about a third of the meat and vegetables, stacking them into the nascent sandwich with the tomatoes on top. A small sprinkle of salt later and the sandwich was complete.

By then, the biscuit was nothing but crumbs, and Louise was devouring her way around the apple with considerable enthusiasm. She finished it, set the core down, and- "What is that?"

"It's called a sandwich. Trust me, it's good, especially on fresh bread."

She didn't look nearly as dizzy, but still eyed the results of his efforts dubiously.

"Again, trust me. Take a bite. Chew. Swallow."

Slowly, hesitantly, she obeyed. And then Louise had a very thoughtful look on her face after swallowing. "That's . . . better than I expected." Her next bite wasn't nearly as slow.

Jason barely had the second sandwich ready by the time she chomped her way through the first, and when he offered it to her she bit into it directly, quite close to one of his fingers, before taking it and settling in with gusto, while Siesta looked on with fascination.

The third sandwich was eaten more sedately, and his little mistress grimaced as she swallowed the last of it. Then she belched, thunderously, and the observing maid tried to hold in a stifled giggle.

Louise looked mortified. "That didn't happen!" she snapped.

Jason drank the last of his porridge and set down the bowl, suppressing his own belch. "Of course not," he agreed amiably. "Feeling better?"

She nodded. "But now I feel stuffed. If I try to eat that dessert I really will throw up." So saying, she pushed it towards him. "You can have it."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure you meant, 'you two can split it.' But while I would use this dessert for good, through me it would wield a power too great and terrible to be imagined against my diet."

Louise snorted, then after a long moment pushed it towards Siesta instead.

Who now looked utterly shocked. "You c-can't mean-"

"No one's here to complain," the rosecrown pointed out in a slightly irritated voice. "And you're obviously doing a fine job with my 'exotic familiar', so why shouldn't you get it?"

The first nibble was still hesitant, but when Louise forbore from changing her mind and punishing the maid, Siesta took a bigger bite. She chewed slowly, taking her time to savor the rare treat, and Jason soon had to look away to keep from blushing. Like Kaylee with a strawberry . . . oooh, do they have strawberries here? We could feed them to the girls- No, no, don't imagine it! Argh! Focus on something gross. Sailor Bubba! Sailor . . . okay, that worked. Whew.

It didn't help his composure that the raven-haired maid gave him a big hug right before they left. Nor his little mistress's, apparently, for Louise had a distinctly grumpy expression as they walked towards Mr. Colbert's classroom.

---

There was an air of anticipation among the students in class that afternoon, and when the teacher dismissed class early, many of the them raced out the door.

"What's that all about?" Jason asked his little mistress as they stood up and followed at a more sedate pace.

"The coach to Menenville leaves soon, for those who want to spend the night there."

"No classes tomorrow?"

"Of course not, it's the weekend." Louise gave him an uncertain look. "Is there anything you need me to purchase for you? I wasn't planning on going anywhere this weekend, but we could take the early coach tomorrow morning and be back by sundown."

"Nothing in particular that I can come up with," he shrugged. "But you know the Academy better than I do. Is there anything you can think of that I need?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Some clothes that aren't quite so outlandish would be nice, but the tailoring would be expensive."

"Especially if the haberdasher added the pockets that I'd want. But if I keep to my diet and continue to exercise, my shape should change enough that everything would have to be re-tailored, so it might be best to hold off on that."

Louise stopped, and when Jason turned, he found her looking him up and down with an appraising eye. "You'll certainly look more impressive, when you resemble a guard more than a merchant," she allowed with a slight quirk of her lips. "So I expect you to keep at it! But don't stop having good ideas, either. As my familiar, you must strive to be your very best in all things."

He chuckled. "I'll try to stay clever." They started walking again. "And I'll admit, I'm looking forward to discovering what kind of powers I've been endowed with. Magic of my own is an intriguing idea. And speaking of which, now that you've got Empower down, what's next? Levitate, I'd assume."

Louise nodded. "If I practice all through the weekend, I should just about have it, even though it's not Fire."

"Alright, but in that case I'm going to march you down to the dining hall and make sure you have breakfast."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll won't make that mistake again."

"No, you won't."

She growled in exasperation, to which he only grinned in response.

---

That night, Louise stood by the table in her chemise, using her wand to lock and unlock the door, back and forth, while Jason went through his exercise routine. When he finally finished (with the recent addition of trying to touch his toes, and actually succeeding was still a ways off), he stood up to discover that she had crept up behind him and was now standing next to him.

"Little mistress-?" he started to ask, only to cut off in surprise as she reached out and hugged him. After a moment, he shrugged and hugged her back.

"You weren't what I was expecting," she said quietly. "But no one was on my side the entire First Form, except when I went home to visit, and-"

She broke off and shook her head. "Thank you."

Jason was quiet for a long moment. Finally: "My pleasure, Louise," he murmured, and bent down to kiss the top of her head. She twitched, but relaxed a moment later, and neither of them needed to say anything else.

---

"You don't need to do this," she protested as Jason escorted her to the dining hall the next morning. "I truly did learn my lesson yesterday."

"Nonetheless," he replied, only to stop short at the entrance to the dining hall, as he spotted little figures, clearly artificial, dancing in the morning light. "The hell are those?"

"They're the Alviss." She glanced up at him. "You don't have anything similar, where you're from?"

"We have puppets, and some of them can even move on their own, a little – that's one of those things an artificial mind can be useful for – but these 'Alviss' are moving as smoothly as any living creature. Our craftsmanship isn't up to that."

"Well, Alviss have been around for hundreds of years. They were first made to try to replace servants, and were very popular among the highest nobility for a long time, but then it all went wrong."

Holy shit, did the AI uprising already happen here? And the locals were badass enough to win it? "What happened?"

"They were made so they could learn, which is why only the most powerful had them, it took so much earthstone to make each one, but . . . after a couple of generations they became bored with their chores, and ran off. They'd rather dance than work."

"And now they're here."

"This colony, yes. The Academy is on a node of telluric flows, they need that to repair themselves if they get hurt, so they clean the dining hall between meals and dance all night when they're done cleaning. Every day the dance is different."

"Telluric-?"

"Streams of earth magic!" she snapped. "Why can't your auxilum handle anything when we try to talk about magic?"

He sighed. "Because like you said, my people only have made-up legends, and your people have the real thing. Anyway, no rebellion then? They didn't kill anyone? Huh."

She shook her head. "I don't think so. They don't seem to get angry, but they don't like it when people get close to them. I think they're worried about getting broken."

"Huh." Alien minds, with much simpler emotional impetus. Could the dancing has something to do with math? If they always want to learn, that could keep them occupied quite literally forever. "So, do you need me to stick around after breakfast?"

"Probably not, I'll just be practicing. Why?"

"I'm going to walk around the perimeter, see how long I can keep going before my legs are ready to give up."

"Oh. More exercise."

"Yeah. For that matter, if my legs are up to it I should probably starting jogging a bit before breakfast each morning."

"You need to be able to run?" she sounded dubious.

"Gets the blood pumping, and it'll help my legs look more like whipcord than cottage cheese."

Louise snorted. "Good enough, then."

---

"You've been holding back on us!" Chef Marteau declaimed tragically as he shook a half-eaten sandwich in Jason's direction. "You never said you were a colleague!"

"Apprentice-level only, I promise!" he responded, holding up his hands and trying not to sound too nervous. "I can follow recipes, I can do some basic camp cooking, that's really about it."

"But this," the chef shook the sandwich again. "This is true genius in its ease and simplicity."

"Could be, but it's not my genius. The idea spread quickly once it was discovered. You can put in just about anything that's flat or can be sliced flat, any seasoning that's a powder or leaf, any paste or sauce thick enough not to spill when you pick the sandwich up, etc. That's a lot of culinary potential in one basic concept."

"So there is!" Chef Marteau clapped a hand on Jason's shoulder. "Young man, you shall find time to come to the kitchen for lessons. You'll be more than a mere apprentice by the time I'm done with you!"

---

Siesta had tried to be apologetic, between her giggles, for sharing the secret of the sandwich, but it had been a lost cause. Still, the promise of cooking lessons was something to look forward to, even with a man who liked to be as flamboyant and expressive as an Italian Hollywood stereotype.

But breakfast was soon over, and Jason headed out of the Academy into the cool spring morning. There proved to be paths just outside the walls, lined with trees that weren't more than about ten feet tall. Plus more of those thickets he'd spotted the first night.

Fruit trees, perhaps? We're in spring, so until they flower and fruit we won't know for sure.

To avoid people wondering what he was doing, after circling the walls of the Academy Jason headed out to edge of the fields surrounding it all, and started walking the perimeter. Aside from some grazing livestock and their minders, he was alone. Enough privacy to think without interruption.

So it's been, count the days . . . about six full days since we showed up? Assume a two-day weekend and we might have an eight-day week around here. Interesting bit of variance. Wonder if there's any kind of customary worship tomorrow?

Trivia aside. Wow. This was not how we expected our vacation to go. But we're now officially the most far-traveling tourist in history.

Let's take stock. Louise's initial speech may have been dismissive, but this isn't turning out to be anything like antebellum slavery. Maybe a bit like ancient Rome, where a 'slave' could end up one of the most trusted members of a household. Heh. Have to wonder what would have been different if she'd been able to make us do her laundry personally, like she first planned? Although maybe not that different. That first night we had no idea how badly she needed a friend.

Although maybe we were hasty in guessing this was going to be a storybook romance. One hug, yesterday, and that was pretty clearly a 'thanks for being my friend' hug. This bond might not be influencing our desires.

On the other hand, we do prefer Louise's company over fantasies about Kirche, and that's . . . weird? Do we still like breasts? Breasts are . . . oh, yeah, they're still proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

But maybe it's not that weird that we're not trying to kiss up to Kirche, given how bitchy she and our little mistress are to each other. Besides, if Siesta's correct, she's the merry-go-round for a substantial chunk of the nobles, most of whom are learning some sort of death-dealing magic. So she has her pick of boy-toys, it's not prudent to paint a giant target on ourself when we're effectively defenseless, and it doesn't seem like Louise would take it very well. Three reasons, each good and solid on their own, that's more than enough to go on.

And if STDs are a thing here . . . weren't the wigs and whatnot for men because of how quickly syphilis spread after Columbus's crew brought it back from the Americas? Maybe the nobles can afford the cure for whatever venereal diseases exist locally, but we'd have to ask Louise. No way in hell.

Besides, Kirche isn't the one putting on an au natural show for us every night. Is Louise even aware of how she looks when long, silky hair frames enormous eyes, cascading past creamy shoulders and high, perky-

No! Stop! They don't have cold showers on this world!

Dammit, Miami spring break is proving to be easy mode compared to this. That girl is either going to level up our composure or be the death of us. We should be really grateful that she doesn't seem to notice our, ahem, awareness of her when she's undressing for bed each night.

It's a good thing on more than one level, actually. He looked down and grabbed his belly. Yeah, this isn't something we want her looking at closely until we've had the time to fix it. We've only been exercising and dieting for about a week now, it's going to take a lot longer than that to get to where we need to be. Speaking of which, we need to request more rabbit food at meals.

So we get into shape over the next several months. But what do we do if it turns out that Louise isn't interested? We've only seen the edge of what magic is capable of, but it's impressive as hell. No big surprise that there's a caste distinction. Honestly, you have to wonder how come they haven't bred the mundanes out of existence? Although it could be that whatever codes for magic is more complicated than a single set of genes. Likely, even, with different affinities and whatnot. Maybe magical families produce mundanes as often as mages? Or maybe a mage is much less likely to be carried to term successfully? Dunno, and dunno how to find out, at least not right now. Work up a genealogy for all the mages, including miscarriages and stillbirths, and maybe there'd be a pattern to it all, but . . . good luck with that. Some families would try to blast you for prying into family business, others would give genealogies that claim to be descended from this or that famous person, and some would try to hide their mundanes.

But that doesn't have anything to do with Louise, and how we want to pick her up and snog her senseless. That wouldn't go over well, not yet. Maybe not ever.

Frankly, we're not in a position to dare anything. Watch and wait, and see how it plays out. She wouldn't be the first girl we've had to get over. Always other fish in the sea, no need to obsess over the ones that get away.

Of course, back home, we could always avoid girls after they turned us down. Won't be able to avoid our little mistress. If she spurns us, if she never warms up to us, we're going to have to tough it out until this crush withers.

. . .

Also need to look for chances to assess local technology. We're pretty sure this is a non-electric civilization, and Louise mentioned a coach, rather than a train or bus, so that suggests a pre-engine civilization as well. But magic's a wild card, and can apparently do things people on Earth need modern technology for, or even can't do yet. Definitely need to figure out a way to assess. No point in reinventing the Leyden Jar if Air or Fire can create lightning, for example. But we need to be prepared to pull a Martin Padway, if necessary. Hmm. Do they have distillation? Something else to find out.

And if we're going to try to do any uplift, we need to make sure we're not displacing large numbers of mundanes without having some idea of what they can move into. That pattern happened too often on Earth to think that it can't happen here.

. . .

Meh. We should let our subconscious mull it over for a while, see if we can't come up with anything clever. Time to pick up the exercise. Something with a beat to mark our paces.

Which was easy enough, really.

"He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright
He packed all his equipment and made sure his pack was tight
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar:
'You ain't gonna jump no more!'

Gory, gory what a helluva way to die!
Gory, gory what a helluva way to die! . . ."

---

". . . Forget about your worries and your strife.
I mean the
Bear necessities
Old Mother Nature's recipes-"

The noon bell tolled, Jason's eyes widened, and he grabbed his watch and stopped the timer. Did we really forget about that yesterday! Let's see, 47 hours and just barely over 58 minutes. We should keep doing this to get an average result, but it looks like the days here are about a minute shorter than back on Earth. That's enough variance to confirm that we're not on some weird parallel Earth – although we already sorta knew that, what with how different the constellations are – but it's close enough that we're not going to be particularly inconvenienced by the difference. Well, that's certainly convenient.

For that matter, hard to believe we've been out here so long. And, hell, our legs are pretty tired. Time to go have lunch.

---

The lack of classes should have made for a much lazier afternoon, but Siesta summoned Jason to the kitchen to act as Chef Marteau's gopher. Nonetheless, he had time to nap for a little while, before joining Louise for a light supper.

"So, I noticed that you haven't mentioned my idea to either Madam Chevreuse or Mr. Colbert, that maybe your affinity is something outside the classic elements."

She shook her head as she nibbled on her current morsel. "I already told you, Brimir doesn't grant alien elements."

"They say there's a first time for everything. But, hmm . . . could you ask Madam Chevreuse for a list of all the known cantrips?"

His little mistress frowned. "I could. Why?"

"Be interesting to see if small effects can be strung together." Which was pretty much what programming was all about. If Louise could learn enough effects at the most basic level, and they could work out a way to 'compile' them that suited her . . . well, it was worth looking into.

"Some of them can, yes." She frowned harder. "I should try to focus on Mark, Name, and Mix, I suppose."

He lifted an eyebrow. "They tend to be involved in that sort of thing?"

She nodded.

Huh. Might be simpler to pull off than we expected.

---

The next day was more of the same, although with students returned from nearby Menenville the staff were as busy as any weekday. Louise didn't drag Jason off to any kind of worship service, but chose to practice, practice, practice. And the day after that classes began again.

Things settled down into a routine. He jogged before breakfast, shared silly stories with Siesta during meals(and his little mistress when she joined them, once or twice a week, although she didn't contribute stories of her own), trained in the kitchen during the weekend, and hung out with Louise during classes and in the evening. Mostly, now that she was seeing some progress, helping her stay calm despite the frustration of having to work harder than anyone else to tame her magic and try to catch up with her peers.

As for his own development, no new powers seemed to surface, but they slowly increased their ability to 'push' at each other's minds, and his belly slowly started to shrink. For the time being, it would have to suffice.

Kirche was not helpful when it came to keeping Louise calm. The Germanian girl was undeniably gifted, studying Triangle spells alongside the Dots and Lines that Mr. Colbert considered vital for any Fire mage, and she used both that and her striking beauty to taunt her less-developed rival whenever adult attention seemed to be elsewhere.

It did not help that his little mistress gave as good as she got, whenever she spotted an admittedly uncommon opportunity. A couple of times Jason had to nearly drag her away from a mounting confrontation. Fortunately, a hand on her shoulder was usually enough to remind Louise to be calm, and on the rare occasion when he hugged her as a way to restrain her, she didn't seem to know how to react. As long as it got her to stop long enough to calm down and think, good enough.

Although a few times, when he aborted the girls' almost daily confrontations, an indecipherable look would pass over Kirche's face.

He ignored it when it happened, because keeping Louise grounded was his concern. Maybe interfering with the redhead's fun, getting between the two of them, was a little risky. But on the other hand, they'd been warned off of dueling, and no one in the class was dumb enough to cross Mr. Colbert. So she couldn't do anything to get him out of the way.

And if she was getting frustrated, she could go complain to one of her many friends. His little mistress only had himself.

---

Jason realized his mistake late one evening, after he'd dropped off the laundry and was heading back up to his little mistress's room to go to bed.

When he reached the hallway, he found Kirche's salamander, Flame, waiting. After a short staring contest, he tried stepping around the familiar, but she shifted to block him.

"Good evening, Kirche." It was a safe enough guess, and it wasn't like anyone would hear if he'd guessed wrong. Besides, from the way the salamander's head rocked slightly back, he seemed to have guessed correctly. Did she really think we wouldn't try to learn about auxilia? Especially when Louise used the idea of familiar scouting to solve that one problem?

Eh, whatever. "Ma'am, it's late and I'm tired, so unless there's an emergency, I'm going to bed."

But Flame refused to step aside, and when he tried to just shove his way past, her tail whipped around, threatening to burn him.

"Dammit, woman, what the hell are you playing at?" he finally snapped at the effectively-possessed salamander. In response she grabbed his arm in her mouth and started pulling him towards her master's room. The door opened and the salamander practically threw him inside, then nudged the door closed, leaving him in the dark.

Well, dark aside from the bit of moonlight coming through the window, and that was enough for Jason's night-vision. As his eyes adjusted, he could see where a Kirche-sized figure lounged on what had to be her bed, although there wasn't quite enough light to see details.

We have a bad feeling about this. He started nudging Louise's mind, the way they'd practiced. If he was lucky she'd still be awake, or close enough that his pinging would wake her back up. Wish we'd started up on the codes already, but hopefully it won't take her long to come out and investigate.

"Welcome to my bedroom." Kirche's purring voice was low, and throaty, and hinted at unimaginable delights.

That level of seductiveness takes practice. She's done this before. "You have got to be kidding me."

"What do you mean?" He voice was still confident and amused. He had to give her credit, she hadn't allowed his interjection to break her poise. She snapped her fingers, and lamps on the wall lit up.

The redhead's chemise looked like something right out of a seraglio painting: Gaps and seams intended to lead the eye towards the curving bounty of breast and hip on display. She'd posed herself gracefully, even artfully, on the bed, leaning forward just enough to emphasize her cleavage.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Very nicely arranged. You've obviously had a good deal of experience." Just like we've had practice keeping our composure recently, and thank goodness for that. "As I said earlier, however, I'm tired and I want to go to bed." He paused. "That is to say, I want to go to my bed, which is not in this room."

He turned to leave. The door, however, would not open. He turned back, saw the wand in her hand, and sighed. "Seriously?"

She shrugged, the gesture admittedly doing delightful things to her torso. "As a familiar, it's only to be expected that your bond would force you to try to escape. Don't worry, I'll be happy to help you move beyond that."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed at Louise's mind even harder. She pushed back this time, so at least she knew something was up. "How about no?" he replied loudly, in case his little mistress was already in the hallway. "Your presentation is spectacular, but I know about you, Kirche."

"Oh?" she replied with an enticing pout. "What lies has Vallière filled you with?"

"Not lies and not her. You were already a capable Line when you arrived from Germania. You have over a dozen boys rotating through your bed, although most of them try to conceal their trysts with you from the girls they're courting. You have a Gallian friend named Dame Tabitha, the azuretop girl with the dragon, and you two became friends last year when someone tried to trick you into feuding with each other. You're already a fairly powerful Triangle who will undoubtedly reach Square eventually.

"And from this lofty position of both social and magical prowess, you feel the need to constantly belittle my mistress, who struggles with even the simplest Fire spells, for all that she refuses to give up. The fact that you are at the top of the social mountain, even though a lot of the girls in Second Form can't stand you out of jealousy, means that you've made it acceptable to sneer at Louise no matter what she attempts or how hard she tries."

Kirche's pout deepened. "You must think I'm awful, then."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I think you have a grudge against Louise. You can't get over something she has or is . . . or did, but my source says you two started in on each other as soon as you met, so I don't think she had time to do anything to you. Maybe it's a family feud, I dunno. I won't say I like it, and one would think you'd ignore her like all the other girls you've shown up, but as long as she wants to keep fighting it's silly to expect you not to fight back.

"But she hasn't been dragged to your bedroom, like I have. So let's take a frank look at me. Not a mage. No noteworthy familiar powers, at least not yet although I'm hoping they turn out to be interesting. And though I hate to admit it, every boy jockeying for your attention is a lot more fit than I am. By comparison, that one kid – M-with-a-unicorn – Malicorne! That's his name. He doesn't have women flocking to his orbit like you have men, so the overly-fed look isn't fashionable around here. I haven't done anything noteworthy, either, and this is the first time you and I've exchanged more than a few words.

"There's no reason to do with me for your sudden interest. Ever since I arrived, all I've done is to try to help out Louise, which none of her peers have attempted. The obvious conclusion is that your motivation tonight is to strip me from her side.

"That I will not abide."

If the redhead flinched, it was tiny and he wasn't sure he'd actually seen it. Then she sighed throatily and sat up. "You don't understand at all. I'm Kirche the Ardent. My passion can strike for anyone, and I must obey it." She lifted her wand again, chanted a quick spell, and Jason found himself unable to move.

With that Kirche stood up and favored him with a half-lidded, sultry gaze. "I'm glad I made sure I would have all night with you," she murmured as she walked over, wrapped him in her arms, and then stood up on tip-toes to whisper into his ear. "Don't worry, we'll still have plenty of time after I've helped you forget the Zero."

The feel of the voluptuous beauty wrapped around him had his base instincts already rousing in anticipation. But instead of removing his clothes or hers, she quietly chanted a spell, and then pulled his head down so she could kiss him. She nudged his teeth open with her tongue, pinched his nose closed, and exhaled, sending warm air into his lungs and a shock all over his body.

It wasn't that he was swept away in a flood of anything. More that his libido rose up, rampant and unopposed for the first time in quite a long time, and Kirche's hands seemed to be everywhere and she was so warm and soft and close and as soon as he could move he could fill his own hands with her delightful-

The door blew off its hinges, the impact sending them both sprawling to the ground. Fortunately the first spell prevented Jason from tensing up, and he more-or-less landed on top of a pile of soft redhead, so he didn't hurt himself falling. The fact that he ended up face down across her chest was nice (aside from him being about half-an-inch from putting his left eye out), but the awareness of precisely who would be knocking down the door like that was a sudden shock. Then his libido called up all the recent memories of dressing his little mistress and watching her undress, and he couldn't help but grin with glee.

"ZERBST!" Louise howled in their general direction.

In response, Kirche flipped her hair gracefully and shifted Jason slightly, enough to give him a mouthful (aside from the fact that he couldn't take advantage of it, dammit!). "Can't you see that we're kind of busy here, Vallière?"

"GET YOUR BRIMIR-FORSAKEN HANDS OFF MY FAMILIAR!"

"Oh, you silly, stodgy Vallière," Kirche cooed in reply. "Your family knows that love and fire are the Zerbst family's destiny. It's our fate, one we've proven time and time again." Then she arched her back and groaned theatrically as she stroked Jason's hair. "It's no shame to be cast aside when you get between one of us and our passion. Your family knows that, too, and quite well."

"C-come h-h-here, J-Jason!"

The redhead chuckled throatily, "Really, Vallière? Even if he is your familiar, he clearly has his own will. You'll just have to accept the choice he's made."

Okay, a mouthful of Kirche-titty was pretty nice even if he couldn't move, but that just wasn't fair. Besides, he could do so much more if he was allowed to . . . he started pinging Louise again.

"Y-you think I can't tell when someone is under Hold Person? Let him go, Zerbst!"

He could practically hear Kirche's gleeful smile as she hummed in amused consideration. His little mistress, after all, had no way of knowing that his passions had been forcibly roused. So she canceled the paralyzing spell, and then pulled Jason's face up to give him a long, lingering kiss. He wasn't particularly inclined to end it early, either, but finally she pulled back long enough to murmur against his lips: "You don't really want to go back to that frigid little bitch and the pile of hay she makes you sleep on, do you?"

He grinned gleefully once more, reaching up to brush a hand across her cheek to push her hair back from one ear, which he promptly nibbled on. She'd just started a long sigh of pleasure when he whispered, "Louise can blow everything in this room to hell with just one spell, so I wouldn't be so quick to tell her she can't play."

Kirche let him go, flinching back. Was that alarm on her face?

Jason nearly fell over again, but he caught himself and looked up at his little mistress. "Come on! The entire night is ours to delight in!"

Louise's eyes widened. Then her face, already crimson, flushed even darker. "Y-you come b-back to my r-room right n-now!"

He looked back at the redhead, who still seemed stunned about something or other – with women, who could ever really tell? – then back to his little mistress, and shot to his feet. "You don't have to tell me twice!"

Her face was like a thundercloud, but the last thing he wanted was to give her time to pick yet another silly fight with her rival, so he scooped her up in a bridal carry and headed back to their bedroom.

Louise started struggling as soon as they were inside, trying to wiggle out of his arms as he set her down and closed the door. For some reason she still looked pissed as hell.

"I'd tell you to calm down, but you're so cute when you're angry!" He reached back over faster than she could react, picked her back up by her waist, and as her wand clattered to the ground er gave her a good long kiss. (Although oddly enough she wouldn't open her mouth, so he couldn't copy Kirche's earlier attempt to stick her tongue down his throat.) Anyway, at first his little mistress struggled, almost like she was trying to kick him for whatever reason, but off the floor and in her chemise she didn't have much leverage. Besides, after a few moments of that she stopped, and her hands tensed against his chest.

Finally he set her down and she broke away, panting for air, face flushed. She took on a pained expression, and her hands clenched into fists as she closed her eyes. "L-like some s-stray dog i-in heat."

Which didn't make sense. That stutter was something Louise only did when she was mad as hell, and he'd been happy enough to come back to their room with her. Besides, what was she talking about? Female dogs went into heat. Like humans, the males were always in season.

"I saw you as a p-person. Almost a noble. S-someone I was starting to r-respect. I was wrong all along, and then you went to w-wag your t-tail at that Zerbst w-witch . . ." Louise trailed off as she reached into one of her armoires, and pulled out a whip.

"Ooh. Kinky!" Jason grabbed the whip from her hands and tossed it out the window. "But sorry, I don't play those games." Then he tossed her onto the bed. "I'll be just a minute," he promised, pulling his shirt off and unbuttoning his pants.

"Stop that right now!"

He chuckled. "Don't be coy. If you really wanted to stop me you'd be giving me an ice-cold drenching."

Louise's mouth opened in apparent surprise, and she spun to the four buckets of water that he hauled up every night. Then she rolled off the bed and grabbed for her wand where it had fallen to the floor. Arise was swiftly followed by Levitate, and very soon after that the bucket she'd chosen emptied several gallons of freezing water over him.

He collapsed to hands and knees as the shivering became almost uncontrollable, but the shock of it was quickly clearing his mind.

"Well done, little mistress. I'm . . . back in control again." Or something like that, since his teeth were chattering too much for easy speech.

He went over to one of his duffle bags, pulled out his towel, and started drying off.

"You're 'back in control'?" Oh. Right. Pissed-off little mistress. Holy hell, did we-?!

"There was a second spell." He looked over to see her rubbing her side where he'd grabbed her. "Aw, shit, Louise, I'm sorry about that."

She just scowled at him. "What second spell?"

"I don't know what it's called, Mr. Colbert hasn't covered it. After Kirche paralyzed me – did you say Hold Person? – she chanted another spell and then . . . kissed me while I couldn't move. Suddenly I was on fire with lust and I didn't care about anything else."

His little mistress froze. "So you are a stray dog in heat."

Yeah, whatever, if that's how you want to put it. Except . . . "Was, thank you." He glanced down at his crotch. "Yeah. Was. There's a reason my people take cold showers when we're . . . struggling to control our passion." Then he got his nightclothes out and started putting them on.

"Jason!" Louise snapped impatiently. "What happened?"

"Right. Okay, I went down to drop your laundry off, and Flame was waiting for me when I got back up. She wouldn't let me by, and eventually grabbed me and pulled me into Kirche's room. That's when I starting pushing at your mind, to warn you that I was in trouble.

"She . . . made an offer. I turned her down. She said that she couldn't let me do that, and hit me with Hold Person. Then she did her . . . passion-breath spell, whatever it's called. Fortunately, she didn't really have time to lift the Hold Person before you blasted the door open.

"She dismissed that spell when you demanded it, but not the other. So there I was, still on fire with lust, and there you were, ready to blow the entire room to hell. Kirche backed off and I . . . focused on you."

His little mistress looked . . . confused. Maybe even conflicted. "So you're saying that you weren't yourself?"

He shook his head. "I wish I could, but . . . no, that was me." Her eyes widened in alarm, and he sighed. "Louise, a very few men just don't care about . . . that stuff. Most of us, however? We go crazy and become amoral sluts as soon as our voices start to deepen. We . . . it can take years to learn restraint and self-control, but a lot of us are so awkward and fumbling that we have years before any girl will say yes to us.

"In my case . . . I developed more self-control than most. I, uh, expected to court and marry once I had a good living, and I didn't want to anything to interfere with my goal of learning what I needed to achieve that. Courting takes time, and with my studies I didn't have any to spare. It's like I made a promise to myself, that the time would eventually come for all that.

"Kirche's spell . . . my base passions are still there, you see, even if I haven't been indulging them. But suddenly I didn't care if my goals had been met, all that mattered was . . . ." he trailed off, feeling intensely awkward.

His little mistress didn't look alarmed anymore, but she was back to seeming confused. "Then, why did you tell me to dump that bucket on you, if you thought . . ."

Jason shrugged. "You'd dragged me back to your room, and suddenly you were acting . . . coy. I was just pointing out how silly you were being." Then he grimaced. "Again, Louise, I'm sorry as hell for tonight. I don't rape women, but it was like it didn't matter . . ." he trailed off again, and his eyes widened as the realization struck him. "No, wait, it did matter. I just convinced myself that you were there for the same thing Kirche was. Oh, please God, if you'd kept saying 'no' please let me have listened-"

She mumbled something, then flushed and looked down.

"Sorry? I didn't . . . you don't have to say if you don't want to-"

She looked up, still flushed, and glared at him. "Why didn't you s-stay with t-that WITCH, then!"

Jason tilted his head, considering . . . then walked over, sat on the bed next to her, and put his arm around her, drawing her against his side.

She stiffened for a moment, then slumped against him. "It's because you're my familiar, isn't it? You're forced to be loyal to me."

"No." His other hand rose to brush a bit of hair off her cheek. "Kirche is pretty, but so are you. I just like you more." Not that we don't prefer her bigger tits. But hell, maybe this bond is influencing us: Staying with her tonight would have destroyed our relationship with our little mistress.

On the other hand, despite tonight's peepshow we do get to see Louise's bosom every night when she undresses, and it may be petite but it's about as nice looking as a smaller chest can be.

She was blushing again, and looked down. "I didn't give you permission to sit on my bed."

"No, you didn't." He kissed her on the top of her head, stood up, and snapped his fingers to turn the lamp off.

As he lay down on his air-mattress . . . "Sweet dreams, little mistress."

He heard her sigh. "Go to sleep, Jason."

That's gonna take us a while, lying here after almost getting to . . . holy shit! Now she has to go to sleep tonight in the same room as a guy who was molesting her! Who . . . oh, dammit, who just had the gall to wish her sweet dreams! "Wait, Louise, I don't have to stay here. I, I could go-"

The light came back on as his little mistress snapped her fingers. Then she scooted under the covers until she was at the edge of the bed, glaring down at him balefully. "What are you trying to say?" she demanded in a cross tone.

He sat up, facing her. "It can't be comfortable for you, having me sleep next to your bed tonight. The servants' dormitories probably have a spare bed or two, I-"

Louise leaned out, her head now less than a foot from him, looking him in the eyes with an unamused expression. "After all the trouble I went through to get you back from Zerbst tonight," she said flatly, "you are not leaving this room again!"

"Ah, as you wish," Jason replied, trying not to chuckle. "But still, I forced you to kiss me, and you had to use the bucket before I stopped and . . ." he trailed off, grimacing.

His little mistress continued to stare flatly at him for a moment, before she nodded. "It's true, you didn't ask. So I'm going to punish you now, and then you'll go to sleep, and that will be the end of it. Understood?"

"O-okay," he said. If she can feel better after slapping us or-

Then Jason then swallowed as Louise pulled out her wand from under her pillow, put the tip under his chin, and prodded the soft spot to guide his head a little closer to the bed. "Uh, little mistress, you don't have to-"

"You should probably hold still now," she interrupted with an evil smirk.

He gulped, eyes wide, but did as she suggested. She continued to favor him with that same evil expression for a long moment, before suddenly darting forward and planting a light kiss square on his lips. "There," she said as she pulled back. "Now we're even." She wiggled back to her usual position and snapped her fingers to turn the light back off.

"Uh, Louise-?"

"Go to sleep, Jason," she commanded, this time in a much more amused tone.

But he lay there, feeling very confused, and sleep was a long time in coming.

---

A/N:

Primus: Saito never developed much of a mental connection with Louise, but then again he never tried. For all his 'curiosity', figuring out precisely what he could do just wasn't a big priority for the boy.

Secundus: Kirche's kiss spell isn't canon. It just seemed like something a family specializing in fire and passion might come up with. She typically employs it when she's breaking in a new boy-toy and he has performance anxiety. It obviously has utility as a date-rape spell (although if you already know Hold Person it's a bit redundant), but it's not, technically, mind control.

Tertius: It's interesting to do the research and find out just how many of our modern conveniences were invented in their original forms relatively recently.

Quartus: Yes, 'vis' is pronounced 'wees' in the original Latin. Just like 'veni vidi vici' was pronounced 'weenie weedie weekie'. Or at least in Church Latin, because I've also heard claims that the Romans were too manly to pronounce a 'v' with a 'w' sound. Although that strikes me as suspect reasoning, 'cause what they'd consider 'manly' isn't necessarily what we here in the 21st century would consider manly.

Anyway, vis has etymologies of 'wish', 'power', and 'aggression', so while Tristanian to Japanese to English babelfishes to 'willpower', in this fic when Tristanian is translated directly to English, Jason hears 'vis'.

New Terms: Elementari – plural elementari. Spells that require one to four elemental figura to cast. The depth of magical power is how many figura you can manage in one spell, and the breadth of magical power is how many different elements you can use at a given shape. This means that you can have talented teenagers like Kirche and Tabitha, both Triangles in their respective elements (Fire and Air), but who still have a lot to learn as they grow older.

Telluric flow – streams of Earth-flavored magical power. Because 'ley line' is a 20th century New Age bullshit term and I refuse to use it.

Vis – the intent that mages can use to make physics curl up in the fetal position, weeping softly.

New Spells: Fruitful Bounty – presumably helps ensure a good harvest.

Hold Person – more-or-less what the D&D spell does.

Firebolt – a modification of Ignite that presumably shoots fire at something rather than setting something nearby on fire.

Fireball – the Line upgrade to Firebolt.

Dazzle – shoots out a spray of sparks. Probably a Line spell.

Ring of Fire – a spell that, it is stated, traps people by threatening them with a horrible fiery death should they try to escape.

Date Rape? – spell of unknown name and strength (but almost certainly Dot or Line), known by Kirche, that can rouse carnal passions to a fever pitch.

Magic Items: Alviss – artificially intelligent dolls that can move on their own. Their instincts don't derive from evolutionary biology, and so aren't intuitively grasped by organic creatures.

Delicate repose – a way to put someone to sleep quickly with less impact on their health than, say, chloroform.

Established Limits: Potions to regrow teeth are expensive.

Potions to relieve bruising and recover overnight from over-exertion are readily available, at least for mages.