Where was she?
Everything is so dark, she couldn't see a thing.
She tried to feel her way around, but quickly she realised that she wasn't on the ground. Gravity finally took over, and she had grabbed whatever was in her hands to keep from falling.
Where was she?
The air was so hard to breath.
She tried to pull herself up, but she was too weak. She needed help, she reached out forward.
Her eyes saw something.
[Scene]
Louise's eyes opened. She stared upwards at a bland looking ceiling, her narrowing in confusion. Slowly she sat up, and realised that she was lying on top of a, rather uncomfortable, bed. She looked around.
'The infirmary?' She thought to herself, as she looked at the rows of simple beds, curtains, and occasional patients that were lying in the former.
'What am I doing here?' She looked down at herself, and noticed that she wasn't in her uniform. It was a simple white garb, meaning that she had changed.
'Did I pass out?' A hand went to her head, and she remembered what had happened. She had spent most of the day trying to cast a spell, drenching herself and the ground with water when she merely failed over and over. Then… She managed to cast a spell, forming the water in a large whip. Then there was the exhaustion, her falling, the water and her calling for help that, and receiving no response.
It was then she finally noticed that someone was sitting next to her on a chair, turning her head away from her body she saw Bug. Its head was tilted down, making it seem like it was asleep.
That was right, her Familiar was with her.
"Bug," she said in a whisper.
Its head lifted up, and it stared at her with its empty eyes of it.
For a while Louise did nothing except return its stare. Then she asked
"Why didn't you save me?"
As if on cue, the door to the infirmary opened. Both of them turned their heads towards the door, and two students stepped in.
Kirche and Tabitha, both of them talking to each other. Well one of was talking, the other was still looking at the book in her hands as she walked.
Bug, upon seeing the red head, jumped off the chair it was in. Louise watched as it walked around her bed, and headed towards the far end of the room.
"And there it goes," Louise turned to see Kirche give an amused smile as Bug left. "I told you that if I get here it tries to get away from me, Louise must've trained it well." At that moment she caught sight of her newly awakened form, and her eyes widened "Oh Louise, you're finally up."
Confused she asked "What're you doing here?"
"I'm just visiting Louise," Kirche replied "You did almost drown in a puddle." Her eyes then went to the far end of the room "And making sure that someone is watching over you." She jabbed a thumb towards the direction of her Familiar "After I put you here, your Familiar tried to leave."
Her eyes turned to Bug and furrowed her eyebrows a bit "Why would he try to leave?"
Kirche shrugged "It doesn't like me apparently," she grabbed a chair and took a seat by her bed. Tabitha took the chair that Bug was just in "After the nurse changed your clothes and everything, it almost left the room before I stopped it." She raised an eyebrow and smirked "You wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?"
Louise looked away "I might've told it to stay away from you."
Kirche snorted "Fair enough I guess." She leaned to the side so that she could see her Familiar. "Think you can take back that order? I feel kinda sorry for the little guy, just standing there alone."
Louise turned to see Bug was staring at one of the lanterns on the wall, the Water Spirit was balanced on a desk. Her attention was momentarily taken by the new lantern that was emitting a bright white glow, but it returned to Bug afterwards.
"Bug, come here." She called out for it.
Her Familiar turned away from the lantern, and faced her. It shook its head and pointed at the direction of the Germanian.
"Rude." She heard Tabitha mutter out.
Louise sighed "You're allowed to get near Zerbst Bug," she waved it over "Now get over it."
It hopped off the desk and walked back towards her bed. It looked at where Tabitha was sitting, and instead simply decided to stand on the other side of the bed.
Both Kirche and Tabitha were subjected to its head peeking over the bed, as it stared at them quietly.
"So what're you doing here?" Louise turned away from Bug, and asked the two.
"Like I said, we're visiting." Kirche shrugged "Or at least I am, Tabitha here just decided to follow after she finished reading in the library." Her eyes turned to her and for a moment Louise noticed a flash of concern in her eyes "What about you Louise, are you okay?"
"Besides being a little bit tired, and a headache, I think I'm fine" she replied. At the mention of the head ache, a small dull throb made itself aware. "Ugh, am I supposed to feel like this?" She groaned.
"Overcast." Tabitha replied.
"What Tabitha said," Kirche jerked her head to the small blue head "You spent like, the entire morning casting spells Louise of course you're going to pass out."
"I guess so," she muttered "I just, never thought I'd pass out from that is all."
A smile grew on Kirche's lips "Well, I guess you can also blame that huge water whip for pushing you over the edge." She flicked her finger upwards "That spell probably costed more than you're used to, since it's an actual spell."
At the mention of her spell, Louise couldn't help but smile a bit "Yeah, it wa-" Her eyes narrowed when she noticed the last words. "I guess a proper spell," she put emphasis on the word "Probably heavier cost than my usual explosions."
"It was a good start to," Kirche admitted "Even if it was all black like your Familiar, that was a pretty large amount of water you moved for your first spell."
"Black?" Tabitha's eyes lifted from her book and raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Louise nodded "The spell turned the water black for some reason." She shook her head and shrugged "Like Bug's body and skull when it did the water whip, but I don't mind."
"Louise The Zero, finally being able to cast a single successful spell." Kirche let out a chuckle "Should we start calling you, Louise the One instead?"
She rolled her eyes "As flattering as that tittle sounds Zerbst, I'd rather prefer it if I didn't have a title like anything you've been mocking me with." she gave a light glare "Period."
The two glared at each other.
Tabitha eyes looked at the Familiar, her blue eyes looking into its eye sockets.
After a while, the nurse of the infirmary returned. She told her that she had nothing to worry about, besides having to recover from the exhaustion, and that she'd be fine if she didn't pass out in puddles.
So Louise left the infirmary, saying goodbye to Kirche and Tabitha, while Bug followed behind her.
[Scene]
"I'm going to the bath," Louise told Bug as it entered her room.
It stopped and turned, but was halted when she held up a hand.
"You stay here," she told it angrily, pointing to the floor.
It looked up into her eyes.
"This is your punishment," she crossed her arms "I'm not giving you any food today."
It tilted its head.
"Don't give me that look," she wagged a finger in its face "I was drowning, and you didn't do a single thing to help." She placed a hand on her chest "I could've died, and as Familiar is your job to protect me. And from the fact that you were strong enough to carry the metal pot that we used as practise, and you didn't pick me up from the puddle, means that you just watched!" She ranted.
She took a deep breath and exhaled "Familiar, you will not get any food for today," she grabbed the door handle "And for further punishment, you are not allowed to leave the room, understand?!"
She didn't give it a chance to nod or shake its head, before she slammed the door in its face.
Bug looked up at the door and turned away from it.
It took a seat on the haystack and looked around the room for a while.
After a while, it stood up and started walking around. It jumped on her bed, bouncing a bit when it landed. It looked down, and jumped again.
The springs under the bed creaked as it jumped a couple more times, each time sending it slightly higher in the air.
At the height of one of the jumps, it faced towards the bed. Its body shifted and lengthened its arm into the whip-like form that it had taken during the morning. It swung towards the bed.
Instead of propelling it further up however, all it did was scratched the bed sheet.
So it simply landed on the bed without going any higher. It tilted its head at the scratch, but decided to keep bouncing.
In an apex of one its jump, Bug head turned to the top of the closet. It shifted its body and dashed towards it. Its foot touched the top of closet, and looked around the room.
It saw a spider on the corner of the wall. It was smaller than it was used to, much smaller, and it scurried away from it on its eight legs. Its arm lengthened again, and struck it. Splitting the small spider in half, as well as making a small scratch on the ceiling.
Bug looked at its new whip-like arm, watching as it turned back to its normal stump. They shook the stump a bit.
For a moment Bug simply stood there, on top of closet looking at it hand. Then it looked around the room once more.
It moved towards window, and stared out.
The sight of the red moon gave it pause.
It glowed with a bright crimson glow, even when partially shrouded by the clouds. Besides it was a larger moon with a green hue.
But the red one had its attention.
Was the Nightmare here as well?
[Scene]
A pair of black stumps pushed against the glass case above it.
It was so close to its skull the stumps couldn't provide enough force to break it. It tried to give another push, but fail to either shift it away from it or even crack it.
Somehow it was awake, despite its last memory telling it that it should've perished. Its shell had been broken, and its shade vanquished.
The small stump stopped pushing against the glass, and instead reached for something.
Lying beside it was a simple looking weapon. It had a handle that was enough for the grip of a child and no more, while the rest of it was a simple triangular blade attached to the handle.
It tried to swing against the glass, but no matter how much it tried to swing it would get caught the walls of the glass coffin it was in.
Despite that it didn't stop them from trying, and kept swinging.
The eye sockets that showed nothing but a black abyss stared up at its reflection, as it continued to do so. It's mirror image only slightly obscured by the occasional black bubbles that came from its fractured skull.
It didn't know how long it was awake, all it recalled as that it was awake.
It couldn't be trap here, it had something to do.
The weapon continued to bounce against the glass, but failed to build any kind of momentum to actually cause any damage.
It stopped swinging, and for a while it stayed still.
It launched its skull forward, but only lightly bumped the glass due to how close it was. It kept trying to bang its skull against the glass.
Why was it trapped in a glass like this, and furthermore what had summoned its shade back into its shell after it had been vanquished?
When it couldn't do any damage, it instead started to shake its head side to side. The right side of its head tapped against the glass, its horns trying to at least scratch it.
When the side of the glass didn't budge, it tried the one above its head. Working away at the glass like a pick chipping away at stone, except without getting any progress done.
The Vessel continued to try and break free of its glass prison, switching from weapon to skull when one failed.
The Abyss was calling for it.