Magister Negi Magi is owned by Ken Akamatsu and Kodansha Ltd. Tokyo in Japan, and by Funimation and Ballantine - DelRey in the United States, NOT by me.
SPOILER ALERT! AU story occurring after c189.
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"One cannot truely undestand what it means to be a 'Broom-Rider,' until they have built one with their own hands."
-Comment found by Yue Ayase in her artifact book: 'Orbis Sensualium Pictus.'
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Ala Alba in the World of Magic: Tales From the Fireside
Chapter Ten: A Philosopher Witch.
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"A boring but peaceful, ordinary life."
"An interesting, but dangerous, extraordinary life."
How well she remembered those words. How brave she sounded when speaking them, now that they had came back to haunt her.
Now Yue Ayase had both.
A peaceful life all alone on a deserted island.
An interesting, dangerous, but extraordinary life all alone on a deserted island.
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Yue Ayase knew how to swim. She just didn't like to.
Since she and her friend Nodoka Miyazaki were effectively flat-chested, at least, in comparision to their roommate Haruna Saotome, and well, everyone in 3A except for three others, whenever they went swimming, they were made fun-of, or treated like kids and ignored.
Yue Ayase did know how to swim though.
For Yue Ayase, the aftermath of the Megalo-Mesembrian Gate Port battle was very nearly a one time lesson in how to drown. The flash of the teleport magic was followed by a flash of lightning and instant immersion in a stormy sea.
Yue somehow managed to stay afloat, but the constant tossing of the waves kept pulling her under by dragging on her billowing raincoat.
More concerned with living that what might be in the raincoat's pockets, Yue struggled out of the garment and let it go.
Without the sail-like effect of the coat pulling her under, Yue managed to keep her head above water until a wave threw her down and tried to crush her on an unseen beach. Desperately digging into the sand as the wave tried to pull her back out into the water, she locked her fingers on to something unmoving, then held a deathgrip on the object until the wave receded.
With a flash of lightning showing her the barest of ways, Yue scrambled up the beach and past a line of trees just as the next wave crashed ashore. Only wanting to get away from the foaming water, she continued blindly forward until she tripped on something unseen, fell down, and passed out from exhaustion.
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Morning brought a passing of the storm and warmth from the sun to mark Yue's first day on her island.
A most unfortunate, strange-looking crustacean, testing her finger for its edible nature, gave it's life for Yue's breakfast that morning. Waking up to the feeling of being nibbled on, she shrieked and jerked her hand away from the inquisitive creature.
Startled, the crab-like crustacean tried to turn and run, but Yue quickly pulled her crescent-moon training wand out of a pocket in her shorts, and chanting a fire spell fueled by the desire for revenge at the temerity of the creature, stopped it in its tracks. The steaming aftermath proved too delicious smelling to resist, and its date with her stomach was delayed only by the need to find a usefully sized rock.
After two days, Yue realized her situation, while similar to a certain American movie who's title she couldn't recall, wasn't completely hopeless. Fresh water could be had, though she might have to boil it with a fire spell, the crab-creatures were too slow and stupid to get away as long as she didn't startle them before she was close enough to zap one, there were plenty of bread-fruit coconut thingies, and as the dinner now cooking on a magical fire in front of her small cave indicated, any fish foolish enough to get close to her in this island's lagoon was no match for a determined levitation spell.
With survival assured, escape came next. Using her artifact would have made it easy, but the Pactio card was gone now, lost with her raincoat in the desperate struggle to survive the storm. Still, she was better off than the person from the movie. She had magic, low level perhaps, but still enough to help her get along, memories of the content in her artifact, and common-sense intelligence.
Chamo once called her a 'Philosopher Witch,' citing her ancestry and her inclination towards catalyst magic instead of pure sorcery. Well then, philosophy meant nothing when all alone on an island, but being a witch meant she should be able to use a broom to escape. The information on broom-making in her artifact had been only a few pages long. The details for 'making' a broom were easy to remember. The only real problem was that she knew what spell to use, just not how often to use it. Perhaps the spell was only supposed to be used once, when the broom was finished, but that didn't seem right. The other extreme, using the spell on every stick or piece of straw it the broom also didn't seem right. In a case were too-little levitation meant falling into the sea and possible death, she would lean towards too-much levitation, and hope she didn't take a trip into space.
In the morning though. First, a trip to her bathroom, then a good night's sleep.
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Gathering materials for a broom proved harder than Yue thought. The island was big enough for her to survive on, but not quite big enough to have the right kind of wood for a broomstick. Unless she wanted to cut down a palm-type tree, (something she might not be able to do,) and make a jumbo-sized broomstick, she would have to find something small and reasonably straight somewhere. Two days of careful searching finally netted her a piece of driftwood, jammed into a crack along a rocky, precipitous, difficult to access part of the island's shore.
Unable to reach the driftwood physically, or to levitate it out of it's position in the rocks, Yue finally swam the short distance needed to reach it, climbed the rocks, and started trying to pull it out. Her frustration at being unable to do so was eventually cooled off by a wave that splashed up against the rocks, shifting the driftwood slightly and making her glad it wouldn't come out as the wave receded and tried to take her along for the ride. The salty water finally drained away, and she pulled out her prize with no more effort than lifting a pencil would take. A quick plunge and a short swim later, she was safe back on the sandy beach, and ready to start working on her broom.
Another two days passed, and everything was ready. A nice broomstick, shaped and trimmed with minor magics, magically dried grasses for a brush, and, Yue suddenly realized, staring at her efforts dumbly, nothing to bind it together with.
Leaning back with a creeping feeling of depression, Yue realized she had no video tape to use as a binder like the man in the movie did. Grass would work, but she wasn't skilled enough with transmutation magic to bind the stuff together into effective lengths. Cutting and minor shaping was one thing, but bonding for strength was different.
Sitting up to go take her frustration out on a fish or crab, she caught her hair on a crack in a rock and pulled several strands loose. Rubbing her tormented scalp, she looked down to see three strands of hair trailing down from the crack in the rock. Reaching out excitedly, she took the loose ends of the strands and began braiding them together. The result was not as good looking as what other girls in her class could do, but if she made something to hold the strands better, she could braid strands of her hair, then braid the braids to make binding material for the broom. If she recalled the information in her artifact correctly, the addition of a personal catalyst in building the broom should make it easier for her to use, and less likely to be stolen by another magic user.
Much to the distress of the local population of crabs and fish, (she was starting to hate crab,) it took Yue nearly a week to braid enough magically cut hair to use as bindings for the broom. Casting levitation on each piece as she assembled the broom, along with each braid of hair as she used it, eating and resting after the constant use of her levitation magic, consumed the rest of the week. A few early mistakes, ruining one of her braids of hair and some of the grass, taught her to be patient, but even so, the slow pace seemed to conspire against any thoughts of getting home before summer vacation was over.
Eventually, working after dinner one night, the broom was complete. Not perfect in any way, it still represented Yue's first serious step into item creation. Leaning the broom up against her cave's wall, she gave a stretch, then lay down in her magically-dried grass nest to sleep. In the morning, after resting, she would try the broom out.
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In the morning the broom was gone.
Searching frantically about her cave home, thinking the broom fell over or she misplaced it, produced no results.
Yue ground her teeth in distress, wondering how the broom could be gone. Unless someone came and took it, the only way for it to disappear would be if it flew away on it's own. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she looked up at the cave's ceiling. Resting against a rock lip near the entrance, prevented from escaping the cave only by that flaw in the ceiling, was her broom.
The control spell.
Yue realized that the previous night, in her exhausted state, she had forgotten the final thing needed to make the broom completely her own. Using her hair for the bindings would make the broom even 'more' hers, but only after finalizing it with the control spell. Special Mahonet or store-bought witches elixir was the preferred catalyst recommended for the control spell in her artifact. In an emergency though, many other things could have been used. Blood, sweat, or tears would have worked. Now, because she had left out the most important part, the broom was just a stick with a levitation spell cast on it, doing what any such thing would do, trying to levitate.
Now, if she couldn't get the thing down, Yue knew she'd have to start all over again, and she was 'seriously' getting sick of crab and fish as a diet. Unfortunately, her stature worked against her in recovering the broom. Kaede Nagase could probably have just reached up and grabbed it with a running jump. She would have to do it the hard way.
Terribly upset at being reduced to the level of a monkey trying to get a banana down from a string with a stick and a box, Yue set about to scour the island for something to stand on. Her entire effort for the day, most 'useful' items being too big or heavy to carry, only produced a pile of driftwood and rocks that would work if she could jump the remaining distance.
After three tries, Yue slipped and fell so badly she tore open the skin on her knees and palms. Sobbing, holding her knees to try and lessen the pain, she looked up at the broom and broke down into a string of invective and unlady-like language that would have sent her best friend Nodoka Miyazaki into a faint from shock. With a depth of language her grandfather might have admired, but not approved of, she insulted the inanimate broom and her own short, clumsy self in every way she could think of until she ran out of breath and had to stop.
Glaring at the uncaring broom, Yue suddenly realized her shouting and swearing were the first words she'd heard in nearly two weeks. Now she started laughing. Laughing so hard it kept up until she ran out of breath again and had to start pounding her thigh with a fist until she could catch her breath and stop.
Sucking in great, heaving breaths until she finally calmed down, Yue pulled herself to her feet, climbed back up on the pile of rocks and wood, then looked up and shook her bloody fist at the broom. "All right broom! I didn't spend a week putting you together just to let you float away! I'm tied of eating crab! I'm starting to hate fish! YOU'RE MINE!"
Gathering herself for one last effort, Yue thought about the insanely simple control spell, swung her arms back while bending her knees, and jumped up with all the strength she could muster.
"MIA VIRGA!"
A bloody palm, coated with an effective catalyst for activating the control spell, closed around the broom's bindings and there was a blinding flash of light.
When Yue opened her eyes, she was hanging from the broom and slowly descending to the floor of her cave. Once more on a firm footing, she held the broom out before her and smiled like a child with a new toy. From the tip of the broom-handle, to the bloody hand-print that still glowed faintly with residual magic, to the ends of the grass bristles, this was something 'she' had made. Independent of Negi, or Eva, or even really, of her Pactio artifact. Weather or not she ever recovered her original, or received a new Pactio artifact, this was a unique item that was hers, and hers alone.
Placing the broom against the cave's wall, Yue walked to the other side and held out her hand. "Mia Virga!"
Instantly, the broom leapt across the distance to land in Yue's hand with a satisfying, and painful, smack.
After cleaning herself up, Yue exited her cave and looked up at the setting sun. Normally it would be time to find dinner, but now, now was the time to see if her efforts and blood were going to pay off. Walking down to the beach, recalling how she'd seen Negi fly with his wand, straddling it, and how she'd ridden the wand, side-saddle, she swung the broom behind her back and, thinking simply about floating, sat on it. The broom held her weight, hovering about three feet off the ground. Balance was a small issue to her, but Negi never seemed to worry about such things, so it surely wasn't any more complicated than walking or riding a bicycle.
"I think, therefore I am balanced."
Yue grinned at hearing her growing confidence voiced. Her grandfather may have groaned at her twisting of words, but surely he would approve of their intent. Balance walking was an unconscious effort, therefore, balance flying must be the same. Otherwise, how could anything be accomplished while one was flying? She thought about going higher. The broom rose. A rush and a stop. The broom shot forward and stopped so suddenly she fell off and into the sand.
Sitting up and laughing, Yue looked back at the broom as it slowly settled to the ground. It may have been a reflection of her own embarrassment, but the broom actually looked sheepish for having dumped her.
"Mia Virga."
Gently this time, in response to her quiet words, the broom came over and lay itself in her palm.
Thinking about floating once more, Yue settled herself on the broom and by just thinking about it, started moving along the beach. Slowly at first, she followed the sand down to the waters edge, and after a moments hesitation, moved out over the water. Gaining further confidence, she leaned into a turn, just like riding a bicycle, and began to circle her island. when she completed the circuit, she wore the biggest smile she could ever remember wearing. Leaning into the opposite direction, she decided to circle the island one more time before returning to her crabs and bread-fruit coconuts.
"Faster! FASTER!"
Responding to it's master's request and joyful attitude, the broom shot forward, leaving a tiny rooster-tail in the water and carrying Yue around the island again in half the time taken by the first trip. Finishing once more and happy beyond her experience, Yue decided to conclude her test by taking a quick look at the cliff face where she'd found her broom's stick. If she was going to leave the island, she selfishly wanted to say that she'd looked over every part of it at least once.
Approaching the somewhat concave cliff-face in the growing dark, she saw the last rays of sunlight reflecting off some glistening object cought on several fallen rocks. Rushing over, she reached out carefully, almost afraid it would vanish if she hurried, and retrieved her raincoat. After a quick examination that confirmed the pockets were still sealed, she forgot about dinner and flew the broom directly to the entrance of her cave.
After quickly starting a fire to ward off the rapidly approaching darkness, Yue lay the raincoat out on the newly built pile of rocks and driftwood and cautiously opened the pockets. A lump in the first was her share of the spending money passed out to everyone by Donnet McGuinness. The second pocket contained her soggy, but very much intact Pactio card. sitting down roughly next to her fire, she held out the card towards the flames.
Ignoring the heat trying to burn her hands, she waited impatiently for the card to dry and stiffen up. Finally, she backed away from the fire and stood up.
"Adeat!"
A flash of light, and Yue stood clothed in her apprentice's robe and witch's hat. In the hand that previously held the Pactio card was her artifact, the 'Orbis Sensualium Pictus.'
However, unlike her picture on the card, there was no broom. Looking around, Yue's eyes fell on the broom she'd built leaning against the wall. Apparently, as Chamo said on numerous occasions, the artifact reflected the partner, and if she didn't need a broom, it probably wasn't going to come out.
Removing the hat and robe, Yue sat down and opened her artifact. "Well now, let's see if we can find out where we are... 'World Map, crustaceans, bread-fruit coconuts, island grasses...'" The book flipped itself to a page containing a map of the Magical World, then projected several magical holographs holding relevant information. One held a list of possible matches, and one held a message; 'No results found. Advanced search?' She mentally tapped that window and began refining her search questions.
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Several days passed while Yue narrowed down her possible location. Occasionally, she had to remind herself to eat and sleep, but eventually she decided her location was somewhere in the Cerberian Sea, east of a land mass called Sabrina, a part of the Elysium Continent in the Southern Hemisphere of the Magical World.
Yue made time to practice using her broom. THAT was for fun, and the enjoyment she received from quickly learning what she could do made it worth the time away from her artifact. However, it was also for caution, re-reading the section on broom-making had made her realize she'd built a fire-cracker. By casting a levitation spell on every piece of the broom, it had the potential to be too-fast and uncontrollable for ANYONE to handle. The high level of levitation magic was why it tried to float away on it's own. Only by using her hair, and accidentally-on-purpose her blood, had she made the control spell strong enough to get such a rocket-broom to obey her. Side research of related subjects revealed her perception of the broom showing emotion was not that far off. The normal control spell elixir would not have done such a thing, but blood magic could have very powerful effects, and it was possible her use of such had attracted a 'familiar spirit' to the broom. Fortunately, it shouldn't need anything else but proximity to her magic as 'food,' but practice meant more control and abilities, so she made sure to practice.
Eventually, Yue felt confident enough to leave her island home. Megalo-Mesembria was too far to the North and East. She would head West. Several cities and towns showed along the coast on the Sabrina map in her artifact. A city called Dracogenia was closest, so she would head there first.
After allowing herself one last look at her home of the last two weeks, the cave, an outside fire pit, the pile of cracked crab shells and bread-fruit coconut husks, and finally the rocks and waves, she sat on her broom and flew off. Flying away from the rising sun, without looking back, and hopefully towards reunification with her friends.
tsuzuku
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Author's Notes:
Slight stretch made in the ability of Yue's artifact to act as a 'locator.'
It can connect to the Magic World 'Mahonet,' accessing very high level information. If it can also act as a Magic World encyclopedia, or, 'Magipedia,' then the stretch is not too far.
An extreme stretch would be the 'Orbis Sensualium Pictus' acting as a MPS. (Magical Positioning System.) Though it is difficult to say it could not. A more realistic version of Yue's efforts would be her focusing on location determination, with the encyclopedia version, by establishing a general 'range' of creatures and plants on her island, maybe with a little positioning of the sun and stars thrown in for good measure.
"Mia Virga." I looked up 'broom' on an E-L/L-E dictionary website, and received 'virga.' So it seems, 'My Wand,' and "My Broom,' are the same in Latin.
There might be a delay in the next chapter while I work on a Chao Lingshen story. I'm hoping I'll be able to work on both together, but one can never be sure about such things..
Nodoka Miyazaki will be next.