Chapter 2 of Dire Familiar

Disclaimer: I own neither Familiar of Zero nor D&D, though I wish I had both.

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Thank you for your comments and encouragement, it really boosts my resolve to continue my foray into actually writing instead of just reading fanfiction.

For those unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, which by many is considered the gold standard for D&D, an adult Dire Wolf is a mottled brown, black, or white. Its dimensions are around 9' long not including the tail, and 5 ½' tall in the shoulder. Additionally, a healthy adult weighs over 900 lb(think a small car).

Historically, dire wolves were only about a foot longer than grey wolves, but this is dungeons and dragons, not real life that I am pulling from.

Physical stats: Strength=25 Dexterity=15 Constitution=17

Intelligence= 2-6 Wisdom=12 Charisma=10

Armor Class=14

For non D&D players, a score of 10 is what a normal Joe Blow human possesses, while 18 would be considered a Gold medalist in the Olympics. At 3 intelligence, you cannot even learn to read and are barely sentient. After becoming a familiar however, all creatures get their intelligence boosted to 6, making them capable of reading and learning human languages, but often lack the vocal apparatus for speaking. However, after spending time together and strengthening their bond, a familiar can communicate at first just to their Master, and later in the common language to others even if they normally would be biologically incapable of this feat. Armor Class describes how strong hit they can take before actually getting hurt. For reference, if you put a trained Joe Blow commoner in full body scale mail armor, that is how tough it is to actually cut a Dire Wolf. Comparatively, a trained knight in full plate and with a shield, would have and Armor Class of around 20 or 21.

Diverging from D&D: All of the above is for a druid's familiar, note that not only is Louise's familiar still barely a puppy, which has dropped his physical stats in half, but he is (according to Zero no Tsukiama wiki) the Heart of God, aka Lifbrasir, a living vessel that Louise is filling with her void magic through the runes. In the canon story, said familiar was then transported to an enemy army and exploded like a magic nuke. But Louise doesn't know that, and it is never mentioned what happens to the familiar if, say, he is non human and gets pumped with void magic while still growing up and not immediately turned into a bomb.

Diverging from Zero no Tsukaima: Magic as is applied in the anime just doesn't operate on a logical system, with the explanation for it being nonsensical, such as simply pointing with a wand or staff and then saying a line of mangled poetry. Additionally, overly straining your magic has no consequences, which strikes me as rather absurd considering the forces being summoned and controlled.

Anything else would be a spoiler!

Chapter START

Back in her room at least, Louise felt herself about ready to collapse from the combination of exhaustion and relief as the exultation that had buoyed her on the trip back to her room finally began to fade. Sitting at her desk chair while her new familiar began to snuffle around her room, she couldn't help the tears that began to prickle at her closed eyes.

Her gamble worked. Even if she failed all of her practical magic classes, she was a noble! While she would never admit it aloud, especially to any of the other students, Louise knew damn well that she was essentially a failure as a mage.

But a familiar, and a mighty wolf of a clearly giant breed at that!

While she may be a failure as a mage, she still was a noble and not a failure.

Even if she was engaged to the Viscount of Wardes, the official contract had specified her in the contract as the noble Louise de la Valliere, third daughter of the Duke of Valliere.

If she had failed to even summon a familiar, even the engagement would have likely been lost to her.

Sitting in her chair full of exhaustion, she couldn't help but be swamped by the relief, that at least she wouldn't have to face the embarrassment of having her engagement canceled. While the Viscount Wardes had been kind to her when she was younger, she had no illusions that the engagement was based on such emotions as love. Maybe fondness and love might happen in time, but the engagement itself was purely practical, both for him, as well as for her family.

As the most noble family in all of Tristain short of the royal family that consisted of only two members, her family was a political power in and of itself, even if it had supported the Royal Family for generations.

In addition, with Cattleya's poor health and Eleonore's cancellation of her first engagement, any children that Louise would bear would have a good chance of inheriting her family's lands and assuming their title. Viscount Wardes comparatively, was of a very minor noble family that had managed to distinguish himself to the point of becoming the captain of the Griffon Knights, which were a well regarded royal order, if not quite on the level of the Dragon Knights or Manticore Knights.

Even if Louise was incompetent as a mage, she could still bring in a highly skilled noble to their family, while the Viscount would manage to marry far above his normal social station, as well as possess the chance of one day being recognized as the Duke of Valliere.

Breaking from her contemplation at the whining of her familiar as it nudged at her hand, she couldn't help but notice that nearly an hour had passed based on the position of the sun moving toward the horizon with her in a fugue state of exhausted contemplation. Patting her familiar on the head, she couldn't help but smile as he whined at her.

"Alright then, enough moping for now, let's get some dinner for ourselves and get a good look at what exactly you are my fine wolf."

Standing with no small effort, another wave of exhaustion swept over her, but not enough for her to stop, she tottered over to the bell pull that was present in every student's room, and used it to summon a servant. Carefully making her way back to her chair she couldn't hold in sigh as she sat down feeling as if her legs were made of overcooked noodles. Petting her familiar's head, she just hoped that the servant would arrive soon, as she felt about ready to fall asleep while sitting upright.

Watching the fur-less pack sister sit on the funny wood thing, he wondered what would happen now, and where the rest of the pack was.

The day had started so normally too. Mother and the rest of the pack had stayed near the den-cave, as food had been killed the previous day and there was still much on what had been brought back. Most of the morning had been fun with hunting fluttery things in the short grass and bushes. When a rabbit had been seen near the edge of the meadow next to the cave, he had given chase like a true hunter. After all, if he could catch a rabbit, then Mother might be willing to let one of the weaker hunter's begin to teach him how to hunt

After following the scent of the rabbit a short ways, he had found the rabbit burrow and settled in to wait. After waiting a short time, he had jumped when movement happened at the burrow, instead of a rabbit though, it had been a strange floating disk like one Father had told him two-leggers would use when they were ready to kill things in the woods, or even when different packs of them would hunt each other. It was all very silly, but for those without claws or death, they had to use something to scare away others that would try to steal their territory and hunting grounds. He knew that it wasn't though, since Father had talked about how they smelled like wood, blood, or the other hard stuff that two-leggers liked to carry around. Instead, in the instant before he hit it he had smelled spicy and nutty power from it.

Afterwards, the female two-legger had used the same funny smelling stuff that the disk had been, and then the new place had all made sense.

The pink haired female was his new elder pack-sister and she had taken him to be part of her pack so that one day he could be the hunter for her pack! Until then though she would take care of him and he would help her by watching out for danger like the lesser hunters from his old pack. As all these new thoughts and concepts ran through his head, his pink-haired pack mate was making funny noises at all the other strange two-leggers that were standing around holding all sorts of interesting food, though the presence of a really big bird-lizard was more than worrying enough to keep him from trying to impress his new pack mate with his hunting skills like he would for Mother.

After leaving the strange meadow to go into the giant fake cave that smelled like many many many two-leggers, they had stayed in a smaller cave that smelled like pack-sister. Pack-sister was tired though and just sat there, which was boring.

After giving his new den a thorough inspection though, without pack-sister doing anything, he decided to check whether she was okay by smelling her hand and lap that was just at his height. She got up and pulled a rope on the side of the room, then went back to sitting which was silly, but at least he knew she was okay, which was good.

Even better though, was she was rubbing his head, which felt wonderful. After petting him for a while, a new two-legger came to the den. Then his sister and the new person made funny noises at each other and the black haired female went away, before shortly coming back with FOOD!

The black haired one must another member of elder sister's pack since she made sure to bring food for both sister as well as some strange chunk of meat for himself. When she came back and collected the dishes while sister went to sleep after eating, he made sure to go and introduce himself like Mother always taught him to do to strangers.

After first approaching and then waiting for the new lesser pack member to stop he then checked her smell, a mix of food and water, to make sure that she was okay to be part of the pack. If she had smelled of sickness or filth he would have known to watch out for her to drive her away so that the pack wouldn't get sick, but since she smelled nice and was clearly a provider for the pack, she would be protected by him and elder sister. Even better, she was willing to pet him like elder pack-sister did, which in between the food and the petting, just confirmed that she was clearly another member of the pack.

Upon leaving, he went over to the big fluffy area that sister was and curled next to her like pack, ready to sleep for tomorrow.

Maybe elder sister would give him hunting lessons like Mother would!

With the arrival of a maid, Louise was quick to order dinner not only for herself, but also a cut of raw meat for her familiar. After she left, she forced herself to get up and retrieve a book detailing most of the common animals, both mundane and magical, of Tristain and its surroundings that Cattleya, her big sister, had given her when she had first gone to the Academy. Flipping through it to the well worn section on wolves that she had regularly checked when deciding on her catalyst, she was unable to find anything remotely similar to her familiar. While the book contained information about several types of mundane wolves as well as 2 known magical species, neither were remotely similar to her oversized familiar.

Setting the book aside and instead withdrawing a piece of parchment as well as a pot in ink and quill, Louise quickly prepared her letter for her elder sister starting with a basic retelling of the day, as well as her standard greetings and well wishes to the rest of the family.

Putting down her quill, she couldn't help but smile as she turned to watch her familiar as he sat and watched her from the hay bale that she had acquired earlier in her desperate hope of successfully summoning a familiar.

Now that she had a good look, Louise couldn't say that there was anything other than his size that really stood out as unusual compared to the wolves that were native to Tristain. And what a size he was, even lying down watching each other, Louise wouldn't be surprised if her new familiar outweighed herself by a fair margin. Add in the gangliness of his limbs compared to his body, it was fairly clear that she had summoned a rather young wolf, one that had only just recently started eat solids and begin to explore away from its parents. And while summoning a juvenile familiar may have been a sign of a lesser mage, Louise couldn't say that she would have looked forward to trying to bind a familiar the size her familiar's parents if her wolf was going to grow as big as she thought it would.

Aside from his size though, his coat was primarily a dark grey with white fur around his paws, shoulders, and mouth. But most spectacularly, and a point of particular pride, was the familiar runes that lay upon her wolf's brow. Consisting of a circle formed of what appeared to be ancient runes, along with a solid dot at the center, the runes could clearly be seen to be faintly glowing a bluish green in the dim candle light.

Taking notes of its major characteristics as well as its unusual size for her sister, the only other thing of note that she could find was its large chest and head. Compared to the diagrams of the wolves in her book, it clearly possessed an enlarged set of jaws and was much deeper in the chest compared to the wolves that were common in Tristain.

Shortly after finishing up her letter, the same dark haired maid as before arrived with dinner for both herself and her familiar.

After finishing and feeling rather full and tired from her summoning, she was quick to soon go to bed, almost immediately passing out as soon as her head hit the pillows.

Chapter 2 Finished!

On Louise being exhausted; she used a spell that actively would draw the magic out of her, not something that she was the sole caster for. Considering she managed to pull a familiar from much further away dimensionally than she normally would have, she had more magic drained from her than she would have if she had been the sole caster of the spell.

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