Chapter 4 of Dire Familiar

Disclaimer: D&D and Familiar of Zero aren't mine, only a sandbox that I am kicking around in.

Comment section for questions people have/will ask.

Economy: I am going to be dealing with a lot of money issues in this chapter, so I thought I would address it before I got half a dozen messages and comments on certain discrepancies. Familiar of Zero currency is composed of the Ecu, and from scenes in the anime, is the only currency used in all the Brimiric Nations. With no variation in denominations, as well as varying wildly in value depending on what is being purchased in the anime, it is essentially worthless for an actual economy. To that end I will be using the D&D money system, with some minor tweaks, which has a wide variety of tables on relative values for services and objects I can check against.

For those unfamiliar with it, the basic unit is 100 copper to 10 silver to 1 gold piece. In terms of value, market price is 6 coppers for a live chicken and 10 golds for a cow. Similarly, a complete peasant outfit is 1 silver while a set of clothing for a noble is 75 gold for everything, including basic jewelry. Decent commoner food for a day is 1 silver at a tavern, with a mug of ale for an extra 3 coppers. In comparison, a good meal for a noble is 3 golds with a bottle of ok wine being 10 golds.

Tweaks= In D&D the values for land and property ownership are through the roof and heavily dependent on the Campaign setting and game master discretion. According to the charts, a small farm lot is around 1,000 gold pieces, with the farmland itself going for around 1,000 again depending on setting. Essentially, a farm should be impossible for anyone to own but a noble, which is not how the Familiar of Zero setting works, resulting in me resetting property values down so a family farm and lands should be around 200 to 300 gold depending on location, which is within range of purchase for a commoner couple that pools their savings for several years assuming they live at the poverty line while earning at the level of a skilled commoner.

Derflinger went for 100 Ecu, which in reference, a similar masterwork sword is worth 120 gold, and a basic +1 enchanted sword is around 1,000 gold depending on the enchantment on it. Of course normally an Epic class magic eating sword would be in the hundred thousands, but that's what happens when no one has and Identify spell handy.

But enough of that, let's get on with Puppy Fun Time!

Chapter Start

As the sun slowly made its way into Louise's room, peace reined over the sleeping body of Louise. Awake and getting ready to stalk his prey, Onai was less sanguine about letting his Master continue to sleep in, especially on the Day of the Void, meaning a whole day with his Elder Sister free from the classes that she insisted on dragging him to where he was forbidden from doing anything interesting.

From his bed of blankets in the corner, Onai carefully made his way to the elevated bed that was of only minimal effectiveness in preventing his planned course of action.

Curled in her sheets, Louise would normally have been fast asleep and helpless against any kind of assault on her person. After several days of waking to a gigantic beast with foul breath standing over her licking her face, Louise's sleeping habits were beginning to change more to those of a veteran soldier capable of wakening to battle readiness within a moment's notice at the slightest hint of danger.

Of course the danger was merely of waking up to her familiar saying good morning in his own particular way, but the same principles still applied.

Just as Onai began to crouch for his epic leap that would properly awaken his Elder Sister for a Glorious Day of Fun, his target twitched, prompting him to hold totally still so as to remain undetected.

As Louise awoke to an empty bed and a distinct lack of wolf breath and saliva, she couldn't help but give a mental sleepy cheer to her previous night's successful plan. Namely, by having that maid Siesta spend most of the afternoon playing games such as fetch the stick while she was studying in the library for her classes, and then after dinner distracting Onai with a piece of heavy rope with a piece of ribbon on the end, she had managed to tire out her familiar enough that she had awoken before her familiar was ready to ambush her out of boredom the next morning.

Getting out of bed to the sight of Onai waiting to the side of her mattress, Louise couldn't help but feel glad that she had managed to shanghai the maid into distracting Onai as well as improvise her most recent toy for Onai's use.

Looking at the rope that had been progressively destroyed last night though, Louise couldn't help but add another item to her list of things to do today. During the Day of the Void there was only one major responsibility for nobles; that of morning sermon at the school's chapel dedicated to the Brimiric Faith.

While as nobles there was no formal obligation to attend the sermon as long as one took a part of the day to dedicate to the Founder, missing repeated sermons had been known to damage a noble's dealings with the Church, as well as prompting speculation on what had become so important that a young noble couldn't attend. While most of the rumors from missing sermon centered on oversleeping due to the previous night's romantic entanglements, Louise had no intention of having her name bandied about for yet another reason beyond her own lack of spell casting ability, which was bad enough as it was.

As both she and her familiar were expected to attend, Louise had planned to attend the earliest sermon given, allowing her plenty of time in the rest of day for her main task, that of going into the nearby capitol, Tristania, which was the closest city to the Academy in order to acquire some of the supplies for her familiar that she felt were only appropriate as his Master.

One of those items that she had been planning to acquire for the past week was an appropriately sized collar. While she did have a collar available from the supplies that she had gathered when preparing for the summoning, the collar in question was appropriate for a normal sized wolf, not one that was nearly as tall as she was.

Of course there wasn't exactly a need for the collar to help her control her familiar, which had shown himself to be highly obedient most of the time, but instead so that commoners and other visiting nobles to the Academy wouldn't mistake her familiar for a wandering monster that would need to be hunted down and destroyed if Onai managed to be spotted when wandering the Academy late at night.

Now added to that list however were several oversized dog toys that would likely need to be custom made and strengthened with earth magic in order to be durable enough to survive being played with by her familiar. Thankfully that maid Siesta had mentioned that it would be possible to get the cook to set aside several of the larger bones from the animals being butchered by the kitchen for her familiar to chew on. Other than that and posting the letters that she had written for Cattleya and Mother, it should be a relatively quick and easy trip on one of the Academy's horses that were made available to students.

Of course taking Onai with her would have been Louise's preference, but somehow she doubted that she could manage to convince the horse not to panic when Onai would show up. On top of that, Louise wasn't sure whether Onai could manage to keep himself under control and behave appropriately in the crowds of a city. Instead, it was best just to have Onai stay at the Academy for the day while she ran her errands.

Getting dressed for the day, Louise couldn't help but smirk as she imagined Siesta's response to having Onai spend the rest of the day following her around as she did her work. While the first couple of days had resulted in the first introduction, and injury, of the maid, Louise couldn't say that it had been bad in the past week being able to trust a servant with keeping her familiar out of trouble.

After that first disastrous meeting, Louise had run into Siesta again, as she was the primary maid responsible for arranging for food appropriate for the various carnivorous familiars that had suddenly come to populate the Academy.

Siesta of course had done her best to be polite to the young noble and even managed to not flinch when Onai had come up and greeted her happily by giving her a quick bit of grooming as was appropriate for a younger member of his pack.

Squaring away the arrangements for Onai being fed was easy, as the Academy had already had a great deal of experience arranging such things in the past, and all that was needed was making sure that a sufficient number of cattle were regularly purchased from one of the farms surrounding the Academy and that the bill be added to the Valliere account with the school for when they paid for that months tuition.

Considering the degree to which Onai had been friendly to the maid, Louise had taken the time to track down Siesta somewhat regularly whenever she wanted time to herself and had Onai follow Siesta around.

Normally just letting one's familiar wander around the castle or stay in the noble's room was the preferred option, but after Louise had spent a few moments thinking about how 'active' Onai was, letting him run around the Academy without her to prevent him from wrecking havoc was pretty much a totally stupid idea. Similarly, leaving him locked in her room would insure there wouldn't be much left of said room by the time that the day's classes ended.

Either way, Onai was taken care of for the rest of the day and Louise had a full day of relaxing and shopping to take care of.

Today was a fun day for Onai. First, Elder Sister had gotten up on time and had fed him some of food that came from the pink oinking prey that had arrived at the food making place yesterday.

It had tasted great, and then Elder Sister had even given him some of it after it had been cooked like she ate it, which was even more amazing!

Then, she had told him to go play in the big meadow with the other familiars while she went in the building with the big windows and the singing noises. Afterwards then she had told him to stay with Little Sister in her black and white dress and to play with her.

It was important that food providers like Little Sister were taken care of since she didn't have any claws like him or explosions like Elder Sister had.

Anyway, a day of fun with a pack member, yummy food, and even maybe Little Sister would play games with him like throwing the stick so he could chase it!

For Siesta, the Day of the Void was definitely her least favorite day of the week. Sure there was less work as most of the servants got a half day off in order to attend church and perform any personal tasks, but at the same time it also meant that most of the men, especially the noblemen had free time to get into trouble.

More specifically female trouble.

As a an admittedly 'developed' member of the maid staff, having young noblemen have free time to take an interest in your body was something that Siesta would far prefer to avoid. While that sort of thing was a problem for a maid anywhere you worked, it was much more of a concern in a place like the Academy.

Of course they also paid far more than other possible places so it did balance out fairly well, and often times the professors and senior servants were more than willing to help the younger staff avoid any problems, if only to prevent a scandal from injuring the Academy's reputation.

What had been of great help recently though was the regular presence of the wolf familiar that seemed to have taken up following her whenever his master was in class. Siesta even had a sneaking suspicion that Louise, Onai's master, had specifically instructed the giant wolf to follow her around, if only to give the rather energetic animal something to do that would keep it out of trouble.

Of course the most recent trouble to sweep the Academy had thankfully occurred where she hadn't witnessed it, but she had still heard quite a bit in the kitchens from those that had been present in the dining hall during lunch earlier in the week.

One of those frisky young noblemen had been caught trying to woo two young noblewomen at the same time, and when confronted had managed to get slapped by both of the girls in question. Additionally, Kirche, who stood out as the only young noble in the school from Germania in addition to her other reputation, had afterward complemented the young Gramont on his fire, implying that if he truly wished to experience a passionate encounter that he should have instead have tried to have them at the same time.

Of course it had snowballed from there and the argument and words used had had the gossips among both the servants and the nobles in a tizzy for the rest of the week, quickly eclipsing any rumours about Siesta and having a notable familiar like Onai follow a particular servant like her around.

While spending part of the morning playing with a familiar wasn't exactly how she had expected the day to go, given that Louise should have been free for the day to watch over her familiar, Siesta couldn't feel too annoyed, especially when she finally managed to get the wolf to let her pet it long enough for it to eventually go to sleep out on the lawn of the Vestri courtyard.

By the afternoon however, Siesta was about ready to kick herself for ever thinking that letting Onai sleep somewhere while she did her work was a good idea.

The Count Mott, a royal messenger and noble to boot, had spotted her while she was cleaning in one of the hallways, and had been quick to both compliment her as well as ask for her name.

Attention, especially from an adult nobleman, was not in any way good for a maid. Considering what she had heard about how the Count liked to dally with women whenever he traveled to various cities, Siesta had a pretty good idea of how bad things could get.

Best case scenario, the Count was going to stay several days while whatever business he had was conducted, during which he would ask for her to serve as his maid while he was here. Of course she would have essentially no chance of refusing if he wanted additional 'service,' but at least it would be over quickly and pregnancy was something that could be avoided easily with the right herbs. She might be able to convince Chef Marteau to assign her to go into Tristainia for some difficult to find supplies in order to avoid him, but that wasn't in any way a sure bet.

Worst case, the Count would purchase her contract of employment from the Academy and take her back to his estate with him to act as a mistress. Several years of that and then being kicked out once her contract ended with no prospects as a maid for further employment at any respectable place and a distinct chance of getting pregnant before then.

After several moments of panicking as the Count walked away, Siesta placed her cleaning equipment back in her cart and headed off to find the Headmaster's secretary in order to take steps to prevent the worst from happening.

She had a plan, and time was of the essence.

Returning in the afternoon from a successful day of shopping, Louise couldn't help but feel more relaxed than she had for ages. Sure her magic studies were less than exemplary on the practical end of the scale, but she had a powerful and obedient familiar and had just gotten several toys for him for his obedience as well as restocking on several of the reagents that Onai hadn't managed to find on their walks in the forest.

After stabling her horse and directing the servants to take her various bags back to her room, she set out to collect her familiar and show him some of the toys that she had managed to acquire as well as his new collar that even had his name etched onto it.

After searching the main courtyards, including the kitchen courtyard where Onai would often spend time begging for scraps, Louise returned to her room with her good mood slightly lessened from being unable to immediately locate her familiar.

Technically she could try to look through her familiar's eyes, but that always was both difficult and headache inducing, and thus would only be tried as a last resort.

Opening her door to her room and finding Onai on her bed was about what she had expected though. Finding that maid Siesta also there and having clearly spent some time crying while petting her familiar was distinctly out of the ordinary.

Entering the room and closing the door as the maid stood and curtseyed, Louise couldn't help but feel most of her good cheer begin to fade at the prospect of yet another crisis, though one that was unlikely to be her fault if the lack of whispered conversations around her as she had been outside was any indication.

Learning that her convenient distraction for her familiar was being sent off to be some lecherous noble's mistress pretty much killed her good mood on the spot. Hearing the maid's request to become her personal maid however did help her ego, but doing something gauche like directly countermanding a request from a Count to the academy wasn't exactly something that she had any desire to do; regardless of how inconvenient it would be for her personally to find another way to distract Onai during class time.

From Onai however, she could feel that he was distressed about the whole thing. He may not know what was happening, but it was pretty clear to him that something bad had upset his Little Sister and the food provider, which meant that it was his job and Elder Sister's to fix it.

"Milady, if you would be willing, it would be possible to hire me before the Count does." Siesta was quick to try to argue her point while Lady Valliere looked like she was undecided.

"I already talked with Lord Osmond's secretary, and she told me that she would be willing to delay any paperwork from the Count long enough for you to have my contract transfer be dated well before the Count's, and any confusion could then be dismissed as a mistake on the part of the Academy."

After hearing that, Louise was definitely looking more favorably on taking the maid on permanently. Between the feelings from Onai to protect her as well as the maids ability to plan ahead and prepare an excuse that absolves responsibility for any scandal from the Valliere name, Louise was at that point pretty much decided on helping out the maid. Any maid that could both help distract Onai during the day as well as clearly having enough of a brain to plan out how to avoid becoming some noble's sex toy was a servant that she could make use of.

Of course there was only one question left?

"And how much do you expect me to pay you out of my personal allowance in addition to protecting you?"

Sure she was pretty much convinced that taking the maid was going to be what she did, but she hadn't ever hired anyone before, and while she still had a goodly amount of her allowance saved up, if this maid asked for more than she had, well, she wasn't going to be trying to convince mother to send her extra money and try to justify hiring a maid.

Hearing her quote a price of 40 gold a year plus room and board, which was around another 20 gold while at the Academy, Louise did a quick mental tally. Call it 60 gold pieces total a year, that was around 5 gold a month for her own maid that would look after of Onai as well as provide personal help with anything else she needed.

Considering her monthly allowance was nearly ten times that, it was totally small change, even after she had spent half that month's allowance on the toys for Onai as well as getting the reagents and wolf pelt used in the original summoning ritual. Add in that it would secure her maid's loyalty from keeping her from becoming some rich idiot's mistress, and Louise couldn't see any clear reason to turn the maid away, and quite a few incentives to hiring her not only for ability to care for Onai but also to improve her own level of comfort and free time.

Several days later and Louise couldn't help but enjoy her newly acquired maid as she sat at her desk in the afternoon and worked on a paper on the principles of non-Earth based transmutation. With a fresh pot of tea and biscuits brought up by Siesta and with her having taken Onai down to one of the gardens to play with him, Louise could work in peace and comfort and at the same time be assured that tomorrow morning her familiar would have been too tired out to give his personal brand of wake up call.

Putting down her teacup at the sound of knocking, Louise couldn't help the small frown at the interruption to what had otherwise been a perfect end to the day of classes.

Seeing Professor Colbert standing in the doorway with a distinctly worried expression, Louise felt her frown deepening at the sight of the normally reclusive teacher appearing before her. His next words however made it seem as if her stomach had turned into a solid lead weight.

"Ms. Valliere, I would like you to come with me to the Headmaster's office in regards to an issue with your familiar."

As she stepped out into the hallway to follow him, Colbert's next question was enough to stop her in her tracks.

"Did you intend for your familiar to maul two guardsmen in the employ of the Count Mott earlier today?"

For Siesta, the past several days had been spectacular, barring the encounter with the Count Mott.

Being a personal maid to one of the young Noblewomen of the Academy was turning out to be everything that she had dreamed of when she had first gone to work as a maid at the school. While being a glorified playmate and babysitter for a giant wolf wasn't exactly what she had imagined, it was far better than the majority of her previous job had been. Sure there was getting to know Mistress Louise and all of her preferences as well as having to take care of her more personally than she had as a general maid, but that was still a good bit easier than cleaning the Academy or working in the kitchens had been. Waking Louise in the morning and helping with her hair was so reminiscent of home and all her younger siblings that it hardly felt like work to her. And then the rest of her job was in many ways was even easier.

Currently, her main task was to do Louise's laundry all the while making sure that Onai was sufficiently distracted so as to not cause trouble as well as to play with him so he was sufficiently tired so as to go to sleep at the same time as Louise later that night. To that end she had managed to acquire a live rabbit from the head chef for Onai's dinner and then set the familiar to hunting it in the enclosed garden area of Vestri Courtyard. Watching Onai bumble around the various bushes and trees in search of his dinner was more than sufficient entertainment to keep her distracted from the drudgery of washing clothes.

Thus distracted, Siesta didn't notice the pair of guards that entered the courtyard from the servant entrance and had made their way over to where she was working.

"Siesta of Tarbes?" Hearing a voice from behind her, Siesta just about jumped out of her skin, having been too distracted by her work as well as her thoughts to notice the two armed men that had approached.

As befitting commoner guards, they only wore chest armor and carried spears, but it was still far more in the way of military gear than Siesta was familiar with at the Academy. Even the classes for magical combat rarely involved more than the sword wands that were popular among the more militant members of the nobility.

What shocked her into immobility though was that the one nearest one immediately attempted to grab her with one hand.

"You will come with us as demanded by the Count of Mott where you will be punished for failing to present yourself at his estate after you were instructed too."

At this point Siesta was beginning to break out of the shock of being accosted in the Academy, a place that she had grown to expect as being if not safe, then a place without violence of any kind against commoners. Half standing and half dragged upright from where she had been scrubbing laundry, she was about ready to protest the treatment. Even if the Count thought that he had a right to her service by purchasing her contract, having his guards forcefully kidnap her from the heart of the Academy was really too much. With having convinced Louise to purchase her contract before the Count could arrange it; legally they shouldn't even have been able to get past the guards at the entrance to the Academy that normally acted to screen visitors.

Even as they began to move her back towards the entrance by which they had entered the courtyard, things began to rather spectacularly go downhill for the two guards.

While ownership was practically nine tenths of the law when it came to posturing between nobles over commoners, that only really applied when the noble in question could successfully remove said commoner from another noble's possession without getting caught. With the papers that they had with the Count's seal on them as a royal messenger, leaving the Academy, as long as they didn't encounter a professor interested in stopping them would be straightforward, as would traveling with the girl back to the Count's holdings.

Unfortunately, niceties of paperwork and seals were pretty much as useless as their weapons were when it came to giant, Void magic buffed Dire Wolves, even young ones like Onai.

Break

Chasing the rabbit had been beyond anything that Onai had ever done before.

No burrows for it to hide in, no other pack mates to try to either steal his prey or to help him hunt, just him and the quickly moving rabbit that Little Sister had managed to capture and then release from its cage for him to hunt.

No more practicing chasing the stick or pouncing on the dancing rope thing, just him and the still living food.

The best part was that they were both in the fake meadow that was surrounded by rock walls so that the rabbit couldn't escape after he missed the first several times he lunged for the quickly moving animal. Eventually he was victorious though, managing to get around the bush the rabbit had ducked into soon enough that when it came around the other side he was there and waiting for his dinner to try to stop long enough for him to land a paw on it, which promptly broke its spine, leaving him with a fresh meal that he had managed to catch and kill all on its own.

After finishing his meal and getting ready to return to Little Sister so that she could pet him and even give him something to drink from where she was washing the strange fake skin that Elder Sister wore, he realized that there was the scent of someone else in the meadow.

Watching from behind the trees, he saw the other two-leggers grab his Little Sister and try to drag her away. Along with the fear scent on the air from Little Sister towards the armed people, there was only one response to such interlopers.

Breaking from the bushes, Onai charged the guard that wasn't holding onto Siesta with a lunge that carried him not only to the guard, but quickly through where he had been standing.

When confronted by a monster wolf nearly as tall as they were, a well trained veteran commoner might have been able to respond in time to avoid injury. The two guardsmen were not of that variety, having served the Count for several years each as well as regularly being trained with weapons in order to support the Count against any potentially dangerous commoners that might accompany another noble with a grudge against the Count for his womanizing. While well trained and capable, neither were prepared or able to respond to nearly 500 pounds of wolf that had just knocked one of them to the ground and then proceed to hit the downed man with a paw nearly the size of his head.

Watching his partner go down under a giant wolf, the guard holding Siesta immediately let go, moving several steps to the side so that he could fully grasp his spear and get ready in case the beast attacked him as well. When the wolf instead seemed focused on his fellow guard trapped screaming underneath it, the still standing guard immediately followed the opening given to him with a charged stab from his spear in accordance with the training that had been drilled into him.

Having the spear practically bounce off the wolf's flank, barely leaving more than a slowly bleeding scratch at the same time as his fellow guards screams cut off was not particularly reassuring to the guard.

Confronted with a quickly turning almost 5 foot tall wolf that looked ready to take him next, the guardsmen decided to take the path of safety and immediately make a break for the kitchen entrance in the hope that the old axiom about hungry lions held true for wolves as well.

Namely, 'you don't have to outrun the lion chasing you; you just need to outrun everyone else."

By the same extent, if he could manage to get through the door into the kitchen, odds were that the monster would either eat his companion or the other servants would be enough of a distraction if he was followed that he could get away.

Letting the nobles handle a monster like that sounded like a much better idea than trying to fight something that was barely scratched after getting a solid hit with his spear.

Snarling at the man that he was busy standing on, Onai was ready to bite down on the bad man, but he had a feeling that Elder Sister wouldn't want him too. She had after all spent no small amount of time telling him not to hunt or eat any of the other two-leggers or fellow familiars that were everywhere in the giant stone cave where he had been spending most of his time.

When the other man had tried to hurt him with the point stick, it had stung, but since the bad man then tried to run away and left Little Sister alone, it was okay.

Little Sister was looking better now that the bad men weren't being mean, so that meant that he did a good job and Elder Sister would be happy!

When Louise got to the Headmaster's office, she was about ready to, well she wasn't sure, but she was going to be doing something, she just hadn't decided on what yet.

Siesta's job was to keep Onai out of trouble, so normally she would go for punishing her new maid, but if the Count Mott had sent guards to assault her maid, then Onai needed to be rewarded for protecting a servant under her personal protection.

The bright spot, at least in her mind was that neither of the guards were dead. She remembered quite well the first couple of times she had tried to play with Onai by throwing stick for him to fetch. He'd run after the branch thicker than her arm, and then when he got it squeezed so hard it had broken on both sides of his jaws.

Since then she had used a branch strengthened by line class earth magic since the same thing had happened when a dot level spell had been used to try to strengthen a new branch.

Louise was pretty sure that regardless of whatever armor those two guards had been wearing, if Onai had seriously tried to kill them, they would be in pieces by now.

Entering the Headmaster's office and seeing one of the Count Mott's guards as well as Siesta, Old Osmond, and his secretary Ms. Loungeville, Louise could only hope that this ended in her favor. Normally the legal system considered any action taken by a familiar as the exact same as if that action had been taken by their noble master. If Osmond, in his role as Headmaster, judged Onai's attack as being unprovoked, then she would be considered accountable and fined, though that wasn't exactly what had Louise worried.

Her mother's response when she heard did.

Of course, since it was Count Mott and his men had been involved with harassing her maid Siesta, his, and by extension his men's, would normally be considered at fault. According to the paperwork that had been filed with Ms. Longueville, Siesta was her maid, and as she had both the paperwork filed with the Academy as well as having paid for the contract to be transferred, there was no reason to have Mott's men at the Academy on unofficial business. Which meant that Mott's hands were sufficiently dirty that it would look dirty and embarrassing if ever brought before a court justice, something that would likely be avoided.

Old Osmond was, while not happy, certainly not overly displeased with the recent incident that had occurred within his domain.

Having enjoyed a look or two at Ms. Louise's maid, as well as some reconnaissance from his mouse familiar Motsognir, he could certainly see why a man like Mott would be interested in having her. While not quite on the level of his secretary, she was undeniably a temptation for a younger man, and likely would have been a source of trouble for some of the young male students as well if not for her finding a place with young Louise.

Under normal circumstances he would have been quite happy to slap down an arrogant little shit like Mott in the courts if it weren't for politics. Namely, the Viscount Mott was a special messenger for the crown, meaning that it was difficult to pin a misdeed solely on his shoulders without implicating the royal family by extension for choosing an unworthy agent. Add Louise's position as a daughter of the Valliere family as well as the juggling of verbal demands from Mott for the maid's services and the paperwork filed by Louise with Ms. Longueville, and it looked like everyone, including his Academy, would get smeared if it wasn't resolved quietly.

Of course the thing that really helped him was that the Count wasn't present. Sending his guards back with a copy of the legal documents showing that the maid Siesta was contracted to the Valliere girl was a simple and clear way of showing the Count that the Academy would quietly side with the Valliere family as well as demonstrating to him that the legalities were observed and most importantly, documented.

Without any permanent harm to either guard that wouldn't heal within a month without a water mage, the Count, if he was smart, would move on to other opportunities, and thus the problem would quietly go away for all the parties involved.

What was the best part was that his Academy managed to keep yet another pretty lady around to help keep him feeling young.

Sure, theoretically he should be punishing Ms. Longueville for failing to fill out the Count's request faster, but he knew that sometimes it was best to let women get their way. Of course that it helped out a young lady from a less than pleasant fate certainly wasn't going to be a problem in his book.

With the Headmaster's ruling that it was clearly all just a big misunderstanding, and that the maid's deception had borne out as she had planned, Louise was more than happy to get on with her afternoon.

Nothing was pinned on her as being her fault, and if the way that Professor Colbert was looking at her, it was likely that she would get further support from at least one of her teachers for her actions.

Now all she had to do was figure out how to reward Onai for managing to not kill the guards.

Chapter End

Holy crap, 13 pages, 6,000 words, and done on schedule.

For all those people still reading, I am looking for a beta reader beyond just my own re-reading. If you are interested, please PM me, I would be delighted to have someone give me a second opinion before a chapter gets published.