Ch.5 of Dire Familiar

AN: I don't own anything but what I have invented, and even then you can never be sure.

Sorry for the delay, currently working my butt off studying for my Nursing Program as well as working part time. Add that this and the next chapter have been giving me trouble and you get a slow writer.

OCness: I am starting to move many of the characters away from how they are shown in the anime, as most of them are portrayed as archetypes and are rather flat in terms of personality.(and not just Louise's chest) I will do my best to have them develop in a logical pattern but as I have stated before, first fic, so no promises.

Super thanks to my betas Zaralann, weather witch nami-zo and Skelo who helped with input, ideas, and generally forcing me to stay somewhat on task for this chapter and hopefully in the future as well.

Chapter Start

Having finished class for the day, Louise was ready to start her main task for the day of the non-academic variety, namely preparing both herself and Onai for the Familiar Exhibition.

Of course that was still nearly two weeks away, but Louise was willing to admit that if she wanted to avoid embarrassing herself she would likely need a bit more in the way for prep time than most of the other competitors. Add in the fact that she still didn't know what element she possessed based on her familiar, and Louise was aiming for just showing off how awesome her familiar was without trying to use too much in the way of magic. At the same time, she planned to be involved with her familiar's performance as she had seen many of the competitors do during last year's competition.

Most of those that didn't perform with their familiars tended to get laughed at.

This of course was why she was currently out in one of the gardens watching Onai try to chase butterflies and figure out what she could do with him that would be sufficiently impressive. Considering that while Onai was certainly obedient, thus far, things like complex instructions hadn't been very well followed.

Prime example being that she had told him to go find Siesta to do her laundry, as there had been a particular lode that day due to an accident when she was working in potion lab, and nearly two hours later he had returned with a seriously dead and slowly bleeding rabbit that had been happily dropped at her feet with a proud giant wolf looking at her.

Trying to make him perform something complex wasn't exactly going to be happening if Louise wanted everything to occur smoothly.

Add in that the only magic she could regularly cast was invisible explosions and there wasn't all that much that she could contribute to show off for the Exhibition.

Watching him jump around however reminded her of why Onai had recently needed to start sleeping outside near the kitchens where a shed had been built for him. Namely, her wonderful familiar that had started out at nearly 3 feet tall in the shoulder was now nearly as tall as her in the shoulder, with his head rising a good margin above her own. And while he had finally started to look a little less likely an adorably oversized puppy, it was pretty clear that he had yet to reach anywhere near his adult size.

Eyeing his new size, Louise was reminded of something that she had always wanted to try with some of Cattleya's hounds that had never quite worked.

If what she planned worked out it would certainly be impressive enough to keep her from being ridiculed by her peers.

After the bad men had been made to go away by Elder Sister and everything had gone back to normal, Onai had made a new FRIEND! The big flying lizard that smelled of magic had finally acknowledged Onai as being the superior Alpha by bringing part of her kill to share!

Of course it was only part and after she had eaten part of it, but that still meant that the big lizard that called itself Irukuku wanted to be his friend and be allied packs.

The fact the Irukuku could talk had been almost as big a surprise as anything else that Onai had experienced in his life, right up there with finding himself in this new place with Elder Sister. Afterward, Onai had begun to realize that not only could Irukuku talk, but many of the sounds she was making were something that he could do too.

Unfortunately all the other familiars were still too scared to play with him.

Irukuku, instead of being scared, wanted to share his toys and play with him when Elder Sister and Irukuku's two-legger that called her Sylpheed were busy. Even if they couldn't play Chase the Stick, there was still the rope that they could play Tug of War with and Hide the Squeaky. Tug of War was the best though since whenever he had pulled on it both of the two-leggers in his pack would always lose, which wasn't any fun, even if they made up for it by being able to throw the stick for him to chase.

What was absolutely the best though was that Irukuku actually knew how to talk like a two-legger! While the language lessons hadn't gone very far since it was a bit difficult to get his mouth around a lot of the words, he already knew not only how they sounded, but also how to speak the really important words like 'food, dinner, stick, Louise, and Siesta,' though the last two he still had trouble with saying right. He couldn't wait to see how happy Elder Sister would be with him when he said her name and managed to ask her to play. Naturally he wasn't going to be showing a skill like that until he really had it down, but until then he had a friend that would play with him, and sometimes he was even willing to share some of his food since Sylpheed always complained that she was hungry all the time, just proving that Elder Sister was the best since she had gotten Siesta to be his Little Sister and have her always get food when he was hungry.

Unfortunately, he had grown so big that it was hard for him to go through the doors in the fake stone cave that Elder Sister spent so much of her time in. Last time before she had told him to stay outside, as he had gone into her room his head had nearly reached the top and his sides had scraped the sides, with his spikes managing to show how sharp they were by cutting into the sides of the doorway. They hadn't grown all the way out, but they still extended a good several inches above his fur. HE thought that they were awesome since they were going to get as big as his parent's were, and showed how he was special, but Elder Sister thought that since they always rubbed against doors and stuff, that he wasn't allowed into the narrow areas of the stone cave any more.

It was fine though, since Elder Sister had made one of the old two-leggers make him his own stone cave near where the food smells would always come from that was all for him and for his toys. There was even a bunch of old rugs that were on the floor so it was super soft just like the grass in the meadow for when he slept.

For Siesta, the past week had been more than wonderful. No more threat of Lord Mott, or any other nobleman looking for 'fun' looming over her head, and Ms. Louise had been spending almost every hour when not in classes working with her familiar doing some sort of training, leaving her with plenty of free time. But for all the free time, Siesta still had a few new duties as a result of the shift in schedule, including the one that she was currently doing. Namely carrying a pitcher of water and a few snacks for both Ms. Louise and her familiar out past the Academy gate to where they had been practicing that afternoon for the Familiar Exhibition that would happen later this month.

With how large Onai had gotten recently it shouldn't have surprised her, but watching Louise, who was barely over 5 feet tall try to stay balanced on her familiar that was already taller than her was something that made her want to laugh every time she saw them. Add in the fact that her familiar was significantly wider than a horse was, and you got a noble that had to grip her familiar's fur for dear life every time that Onai would take a step. While the spikes that swept back from his shoulders had become more apparent with his recent growth were still small enough to not be an immediate danger for Louise, who was seated as far back on Onai as possible, they remained something of a threat for any passenger on his back.

As she set out their repast, Siesta noticed that Louise had changed her normal routine, and instead of trying to ride Onai sidesaddle, had instead shifted to kneeling on Onai's back while gripping his fur in one hand in order to keep herself stable as Onai swayed as he walked around the open field that they had been practicing on.

Earlier that day she had set up several posts on hastily lashed tripods as per Ms. Louise's orders, and she was quite glad to note that most of them remained standing, a testament to her attempt at craftsmanship.

As another explosion rocked the field and a crater was blown out from next to one of the targets, along with a set of curses that almost turned the air blue, Siesta couldn't say that the number of targets left standing was a particularly glowing testament to Ms. Louise's accuracy with her magic. Though the sheer size and number of craters around the various targets spoke well of her endurance and willingness to try again and again. Considering that Onai was barely walking along the side of the field and the targets couldn't have been more than 50 yards, from her, Ms. Louise would likely be practicing quite a bit more before she got the hang of accurately blowing things up while mounted.

What had shown a great deal of potential for the exhibition that Mistress Louise was preparing for was the stack at the far end of the field of various construction materials that she had managed to acquire for a similarly destructive purpose. After having managed to get several other servants to move the various boards and rocks to the edge of the field that Louise had laid claim to, Mr. Colbert had stopped by around lunch, apparently at Louise's request, to enchant the materials with a variety of hardening spells.

Now, however, they were almost uniformly ripped in half or otherwise shredded, having been chewed on by Onai. Most impressive though was the slab of marble that had been strengthened with a line class Earth spell. The toughest material present as well as the most strongly reinforced magically, the edges had been broken off with large divots running down the slab from where Onai had tried to scratch it. Onai had more than demonstrated that nothing short of a highly skilled line class or better mage would be capable of making a construct that could even slow down, let alone stop, Louise's familiar if he ever desired to destroy his surroundings.

All the destruction just reminded her how glad she was that Onai had taken a liking to her, because there was no way that everything would have turned out so well for her if Onai had been half wild like some of the other predators that she had heard of being summoned in previous years.

Finally finished setting out the snacks for Ms. Louise, as well as the rather larger snack consisting of a large cut of mutton for Onai, she called out to the duo, "Ms. Louise, I brought your afternoon snack."

After announcing her presence, Louise was quick to break off from her most recent attempt at accurate destruction while riding her familiar, and instead refocused on trying to dismount from Onai before he realized that there was food to be had and launched himself at it, with her still on top of him.

After Louise having safely dismounted and made her way over to the table where Siesta had set out her a pitcher of water as well as a small selection of pastries, Siesta couldn't help but ask "Um, if it isn't too much, what are you trying to do by riding Mr. Wolf like that?"

Muttering into her plate of cookies, Louise blushingly responded, "Mother can cast battle spells while riding her Manticore in the air… And, and, even if my spells don't always work, well, at least I can still train myself to cast from my familiar as well."

Perking up a little, "and if I ever managed to get good at casting spells, being able to cast spells while I'm mounted will help me stand out as a mage of the Valliere family. Neither big sisters Cattleya or Eleanor have big and fearsome familiars like mine, so I can show that even if my casting isn't exactly the best, I can still use my magic like mother does while mounted."

Even as they continued to discuss how Louise could one day manage to use her familiar as a mount, Siesta was glad that with her new position as Ms. Louise's maid she could actually talk to a noble without being punished. Of course she would never be allowed to be anything other than respectful to the utmost, it was still a far cry from the social level she held as a general maid for the Academy, where the only words expected out of her had been agreement to any request that she was given.

"Ms. Louise, wouldn't it be better to use something else for casting spells though," Siesta said as a new thought came to her. "Why don't you use something longer so that you can aim better like one of those sword wands that are in some of the stories about knights?"

Watching Ms. Louise mull over the idea after having spent several moments sputtering into her cup of water about how she didn't know how to use a sword, Siesta was just standing next to the small table she had set out earlier hoping the Ms. Louise never asked where she had gotten the idea or exactly what stories she was talking about.

There was no way she could mention that the story in question that she was referring to was A Country Maid in the Hall of the Duke. While Ms. Louise hopefully wouldn't recognize the title of her favorite novel, there was no way that she wouldn't eventually find out the 'romantic' subject matter.

Thankfully, there was no further comment or conversation as Ms. Louise stood and headed off towards the academy, likely to search out from either a teacher or from the library on whether an alternate from her normal wand focus would help her in her attempt in directing her magical blasts.

Even when left with both the remainder of the dishes as well as a wolf familiar's giant head that could bite her in half sniffing around her in search of further food, Siesta could happily say that she was definitely rising in the world compared to what she had been.

Now if only she was making even more money and the world would truly be excellent.

Ah well, in a couple of years Louise would be graduated, and with it would likely be a raise from being a student's personal maid to a Lady's Maid, with the corresponding increase in status and pay to go with it.

Watching Louise return from the window in her room, Kirche couldn't help but wonder what was going through that girl's mind. Several weeks had passed from her initial realization that Louise had managed to nearly kill herself summoning her familiar, and she still was far from having a solid answer on what Louise had done in order to tax herself so severely.

Sure she recovered fairly quickly from the willpower exhaustion from the summoning, but the question of what she had summoned was still up in the air.

In between spending time bonding with Flame and her normal number of distractions, she had done a bit of asking around about Louise's new familiar. Hearing from Guiche that Louise's familiar had managed to bite through a pillar of magically strengthened Bronze over two feet thick that he had cast had certainly given her a clue however. Asking Tabitha had only gotten a negative response on whether she thought that Sylpheed could have accomplished the same task with ease.

Heading down to the library both to research more about Louise's familiar as well as do her own homework, Kirche couldn't help but wonder what element Louise could possibly be. A wolf was relatively neutral elementally speaking, but most of the texts that she had read about familiars pointed to dogs, and most canines, as being elementally most related to earth, though water and fire were apparently also common. Which based on Louise's past attempts to cast Earth spells was most definitely not her element, just as all the other elemental spells she had tried in class had failed. Add in the way that the explosions that she had just watched her cast had no relation to her own element of Fire and Kirche was feeling just as stumped as the Professors as to Louise's element.

Passing several other students in the hallway, Kirche couldn't help but smirk at the memory of the Librarian's complaint when she had been in the library earlier about how he had to practically reshelve then entire section on Familiars due to Louise checking out almost every book in the section prior to the Summoning ritual.

Entering the library and spotting Tabitha reading one of her seemingly endless supply of books at one of the tables set out for reading or note taking, she quickly moved to secure a seat at the table in order to both start work on her homework as well as taking a glance at the pile of books stacked in front of Tabitha. Noting that they were a mix of topics, ranging from several biographies of famous dragon knights to what looked like a treatise on aerial magical combat, Kirche could immediately see that while Tabitha wasn't doing her homework, she would be unlikely to be interested in renewing their earlier conversation on what it meant that Louise had exhausted herself during the Summoning. Similarly, any conversation on what powers or special powers her familiar likely had would also be unwelcome.

Ah well, no conversation just meant that she could spend the time focused on her essay about elemental recomposition before seeing if she could find anything in the bestiary section that would come close to describing what kind of wolf Louise had summoned.

Whether she ended up finding what she was looking for, Kirche couldn't say that she was too upset that it seemed that Louise had finally found a little bit of fire in herself.

After all, for herself who carried the Runic title The Ardent, having a Valliere her own age with a bit of spunk just added to the fun that she could have at school.

For Tabitha, the past week had been more than busy enough without the added difficulty of trying to deal with Kirche's curiosity.

For a Knight of the North Partierre, often being sent on dangerous missions was a fact of life, and in order to survive there was no real solution other than to regularly train and work hard in order to expand her magical capabilities whenever possible.

Ever since she had been forced to become a chevalier, her life had been a never-ending stream of dangerous missions that her Uncle Joseph, the King of Gallia, had made clear that she was not expected to survive. That she hadn't could be attributed to the sole fact that time and time again she had thrown herself into both her training and the missions with the sole goal of surviving and becoming stronger in order to survive. Living alone and fighting alone with no help and no one to rely on had forced her to not only become strong, but also to withdraw from most of her peers, as she found less and less that she could relate to among them. Being assigned to observe the nobles at the Academy of Tristain and meeting Kirche had changed that, if only slightly. While neither had much in common, Kirche was still someone that Tabitha could consider a friend, and one that it was unlikely that she would one day face in battle at that, considering the distance between their respective nations.

Summoning Sylpheed had changed that status quo once again, but in a radically different way. Having a dragon that could fly was an immense boost in her combat abilities. After having bound the creature, having her familiar actually start talking to her later that night about how she was hungry however was not at all what she had been expecting of her familiar.

The only dragons capable of speech were Rhyme Dragons, which were widely acknowledged as having been extinct for over a thousand years due to having been hunted down and rendered for potion ingredients. Adding in that Sylpheed, or rather Irukuku as she called herself, was both rather young and not overly bright, and Tabitha was confronted with not just a familiar that could aid her, but instead a person that she needed to become strong enough to protect.

Regardless of the consequences, Tabitha had kept the secret and was incredibly glad that she had. After several years of living a life with no one that she could talk to or rely on around, having Sylpheed as a familiar, a friend, that she could always trust and would never betray her had been something new and incredibly valuable. Tabitha hadn't had anyone that she could truly rely on since she had ceased to be Princess Charlotte and become simply Tabitha.

Recently though, Sylpheed had been gushing to her about how she had acquired a new friend that she could play with at night when the two of them weren't practicing their aerial abilities. From what she had said, it was definitely one of the other familiars at the Academy. While she hadn't seen this new friend of Sylpheed's yet, she had every intention of going out and shadowing her familiar in two night's time, which was when the two apparently had planned out some event that had sent Sylpheed into a flurry of kyuis to the point where Tabitha still didn't know exactly what they were planning to do.

Glancing at Kirche where she sat across the table in front of her in the library, she shortly contemplated offering to bring the girl along, but quickly decided that it would be difficult to fit her under her wind spell 'invisible cloak', a triangle class illusion spell capable of hiding the user from all five senses. While she considered Kirche to be a friend, it would be difficult to explain her proficiency with a spell that was relatively unknown outside of the military. Add in that if Kirche came with her it would stop her from asking questions of Sylpheed and it was a relatively easy decision to leave her out her evening plans.

Settling down to her reading, Tabitha set her thoughts on her plans for later to the side with the practiced ease of a combat veteran and returned once again to her book.

After nearly a month of dedicated practice, Louise was as ready as she could possibly be. More to the point, she had managed to get Ms. Chevreuse to help get her demonstration props ready.

These weren't the simple posts or hardened construction material that she had practiced her aim on, or that Onai had tested his strength against. This time she had a set of three reinforced marble statues that were dressed in basic unenhanced bronze armor. And hopefully by the time she was done tomorrow they would all be scorched by explosions and then ripped apart by Onai's fangs.

Considering that she had seen Guiche practicing his poses on a bed of flowers with his giant mole, even if she fell off Onai during the Exhibition she would likely still be ranked higher in the competition than at least one of the other competitors. Having found out that morning during classes that the Princess was arriving later that day and would be acting as one of the judges for the competition, Louise was feeling as if things were truly looking up for her. Not only had she been practicing for weeks longer than anybody else had been, with the Princess in attendance there would be no chance of some noble managing to convince the Royal Family later on that she wasn't a noble due to her, and she wasn't too proud to admit it to herself, failure to cast any spell that wouldn't end in an explosion.

Knocking at the door and quickly followed by the door opening with a cloaked figure slipping inside was quick to shake her out of her contemplation of the next day's festivities. Standing from her desk as the figure pulled back the hood to reveal Henrietta's face, Louise immediately dropped to one knee regardless of being dressed in only her nightgown.

"My Princess." Immediately breathed Louise

"Oh come now Louise, there is no need to be so formal. After all, did you not once push me into the dirt so that you could be the princess when we played when we were younger?"

"But that was a long time ago, and, and…" she quietly spoke, "and before it was obvious that I was terrible at magic, regardless of who my family was." With her eyes downcast, Louise didn't see how Henrietta's eyes widened at the admission that must have cost Louise immensely just to say.

Stepping forward and enfolding Louise into a big hug, Henrietta just held her childhood friend and hope that her support would be enough even as she felt Louis shudder in her grasp as well as feel warm wet spots appear on her chest where Louise's head was.

Stroking her hair, Henrietta searched for what she could say that would help her friend who clearly hadn't managed to prosper as well as she had hoped since they had last met.

After several moments of silence, Louise started to tug herself free while attempting to apologize for her improper behaviour.

"Oh shush, sometimes everyone needs a good cry. Now what have you done to fix the problem and what can I do to help. I know you summoned a familiar, I would have heard the gossip and you would be back at your home if you hadn't."

With that, the conversation continued to Louise hesitantly explaining her summoning of a familiar of unusual size as well as her practice in regulating the size and direction of the explosions that seemed to be the only magic that she could reliably cast.

"Well, it sounds like your familiar isn't going to point to a particular alignment." Mused Henrietta out loud. "And none of your studies have indicated any of the normal problems that other mages have historically had such as a lack of power or ability to direct it. It's just that all the spells you've tried won't work right?"

Seeing Louise's nod while she sat on the side of her bed and wiped her face with the kerchief that Henrietta had provided, Henrietta couldn't help but smile.

"So all you need to do is figure out how to make spells that will work for you. Maybe if you stick to the non-elemental spells and try to build your own spells that make sense for you they will work better." Continuing that line of thought, she pointed out her reasoning, "And I know that when I started modifying some of the spells that I was taught by my tutors they worked far better than what I had been taught. So really, all you need to do is figure out your own spells and everything should work out!"

Clapping her hands at the thought of such a simple conclusion to the problem, Henrietta couldn't help but feel pleased at how she had helped her friend.

Staring up at her from where she was seated, Louise's thoughts were slight more disbelieving at the task that the Princess was suggesting. While she may have gotten the best grades in class when it came to magical theory, it didn't change the fact that often a new spell could take weeks and even months to create, and most of the spells that were in common use had been improved from their original versions for centuries to become more effective and easier to cast.

Considering the alternative of just continuing to fail though, she supposed it was probably worth a try, especially since after the familiar competition she should have enough spare time to really start work on what she would need if she seriously started trying to make her own spells.

After spending the rest of the visit reminiscing about earlier times as well as renewing their promise of friendship, Henrietta headed out to the kitchen garden instead of her quarters. Louise had told her all about her new familiar when she had asked regarding the lack of familiar in the room and she wanted to take a peek for herself of her friend's familiar before she was called on to judge them in the next day's competition.

Making her way through the silent halls to the entrance to the kitchen courtyard where Louise had told her that her wolf familiar was staying due to his size, she summoned a ball of light as she stepped out into the darkness. After a few moments of searching she found the large shape that was the oversized shed that served as Onai's new home after he had gotten too large for inside Louise's room.

Staring at the giant lump of sleeping fur that even lying down was level with her chest, Henrietta was once again reminded of how truly powerful Louise's magical potential was as a descendant of the cadet branch of the Royal Family and the legendary Karin of the Heavy Wind.

Watching her familiar continue to sleep, Henrietta murmured, "Louise, even if you don't believe it, if you ever grow into your potential you will change the world."

Chapter End

So, I have part of the next chapter written, but am having serious trouble with the action scenes.

Remember, reviews are love!