Disclosure: I do not own anything related to Sonic the Hedgehog or The Familiar of Zero/Zero no Tsukaima. All properties belong to their respective owners. This is fan-fiction and should not be treated as part of a canon with any franchise.
Sonic is owned and trademarked by SEGA Corporation.
Familiar of Zero/Zero no Tsukaima is made by the works of Noboru Yamaguchi, and its Light Novels are published under Media Factory.
Apart from that, I hope you enjoy it!
-TokuBinu
Psst. There's something I need to tell you in the author's notes.
The sun's light peaked through open orifices within the bowels of the academy's walls, streaming across the uneven design of the interior of the interwoven halls of the building. So great were the distances of space between such openings did the trails of light snake around the interior of these passageways where its pulsating light seemed the least intrusive and most comfortable for a non-trivial traversal of the halls during the day.
The building, as it stood momentarily, was left shaded against the light; this damp darkness, though ripe for the development of mold, protects its occupants from the sweltering heat of the sun during the peak of its rise in temperatures amid the sun's position relative to the academy.
Magic encompassed the whole thicket of the academy almost suffocatingly, in no small part due to the mass of occupants blooming magic, such that at certain intervals of the day, the magic that flows within the academy could be "nudged" and influenced in its effect by the staff on seemingly insignificant though no less unnecessary decor of the interior. Despite being enveloped in daylight, small, disembodied kindling flames continued to dance around their perches, an effect of such tampering to light the way. The light was intense in a way regular fire could not pierce the skin, its fumes illuminating the beholder with a burn that buried deeper if prodded.
The halls of the academy were without the whistles of life at the moment, where only the creaks of the beaten waxed wooden floors remained. Despite the inviting comfort and warmth of the halls to its rustic and aged grandeur, there was cold dampness that threads uneasily on the sheer scale and depth of the woven galleries, and its many dead ends implore the exploration of its Kafkaesque absurdity of the design.
Down amidst the still and near-listlessly quiet hall of the many spindling winding corridors of the institution, empty of any occupants, a faint clacking of firm leather heels striking against the floor could be observed, the gentle, rhythmic taps rising in its temperament with a passing moment. If it could be peered with ears, this respite from the imposing quiet was matched with a breathless perturbed murmuring.
"Oh, Brimir. What have I been witness to!" Siesta whispered underneath a restless, jittery breath. She criticized her imagination; she cursed and simultaneously lauded the sights that held her over. Despite her harsh tone, a broad, aloof smile graced her lips. Siesta felt like her heart and mind spilled in two arcs.
Siesta sighed, swooned, and was enamored with the rapturous discovery that morning; her star-crossed eyes glimmered brightly with awe. Siesta's lips were wide and lopsided with admiration, opening, and closing in quick breaths as she could not help her delirious giggles erupt in laughter. Her face was impressed with a feverishly red blush as she continued deeper inside the crevices of the halls, her head bobbing to the sides sing-song. Thin hair braids would stream across her eyes, blown away with raspberry, as she hummed and cooed over the thoughts that possessed and enraptured the manic girl. She would shake her head on occasion as she made her merry way, and her steps would fasten for but a few moments until she slowed to a crawl and a halt as she cupped her cheeks, an exasperated flush spreading across her whole face as she squirmed excitedly. And again, she strolled onward to repeat.
The maid hummed a nameless romantic tune as she recounted the events that unfolded—just before she meandered listlessly across the grand halls of the academy.
The girl and the hedgehog gingerly halted as they came upon the nursery; the soles of their wear squeaked as they came to a close just before the entrance. Siesta breathed deeply as she caught her breath; a hand was brought upon her bosom as she held down exasperated, winded sighs. Her mouth was parted open slightly, breathing in wisps of air quietly as she steadied herself.
Siesta shook her head with a wistful gaze about her eyes as she glanced down to her blue companion—he in tow turned to Siesta uneasily as he glanced between the door, the floor, and the girl. His resolve wilted; the door standing between him and the sole occupant of the room felt cumbersome, daunting with its uncertainties that lay before.
Sonic reached for the handle yet paused, troubled with a tremble in his hand as he held it in the air. He shook his head slightly, his brows furrowing in dismay. His mouth parted open only to close as it thinned into a contemplative frown, deducing him to swing his arm back from the doorknob limply. Siesta cooed at the sight of the shy hedgehog; her hands fuddled listlessly between locking themselves between her heart and grasping at her cheeks, interlocking together suddenly as she rested and cushioned her cheek.
A slight rosy blush developed across her face as mirthful silent giggles thrummed at his anxiety. Siesta squared herself with the hedgehog, leaning down slightly as her fingers cupped Sonic's hand, her eyes peering down with a suggestive glint. Sonic stiffened and escaped his stupor as he reproached the maid with a furtive, embarrassed look.
"Go on, go, little guy. The mistress will be so thrilled. She can't wait to see you!" Siesta whispered excitedly as she dabbed her thumbs on the back of Sonic's hand, beckoning him onwards with a reassuring nod to the door. The maid slowly eased her grasp on the hedgehog's hand and unfurled her fingers as she gingerly pulled away, her excited eyes and a dotting smile never wavering as she backed from the hedgehog and took a step aside; the cloth of her dress shifted subtly as it wrung back and settled down.
Sonic nodded—his mouth slightly agape with fraught- before he furrowed his brows and took a deep breath as he reached for the door.
The hedgehog shrunk back tentatively as he was within reach of the handle, again, glancing at the floor for a moment before he turned and locked eyes with Siesta; a newfound confidence glistened in his eyes—and he gave her an appreciative, small smile. Siesta nodded softly, her shoulders raising carefully before relaxing and falling comfortably. Just before he was about to turn away, she approached the hedgehog and patted Sonic's cheek, pinching them teasingly as she pulled away.
Sonic laughed noiselessly as he turned to the door and grasped the handle, pushing it open gingerly. He finally took a step within.
Siesta held her smile as she clasped her hands together and rested them neatly upon her waist and stood still, rigidly, a maid in waiting ready to tend to her mistress. A bright, mischievous smile plastered itself onto her face as she, with great resolution, drowned the white noise of the background. The cracking of the embers that burned eternally in the halls faded, and the weary hum of the galleries was silenced as she listened carefully to the mistress.
At first, there was an impressive enveloping silence except for perhaps the littlest creaks of the floorboard as the hedgehog made his way to Miss Valliere. It paused, and then... nothing. Siesta stepped closer to the door, suddenly conscious that perhaps Miss Valliere had congealed the room in a silencing spell deterring prying ears. The maid deflated momentarily and began preparations to make her leave... until she heard the faintest gasp, one of shock and awe.
Siesta paused, eyes widening with anticipation as she turned swiftly to the door, her steps discomposed while reeling in her excitement to the best of her ability. She held a hand over her mouth as giddy mischievous laughter threatened to escape her sudden, restless breaths. Then, her ears were finally impressed upon the moment of truth, of the girl's delight!
Siesta released a shuddering breath as she allowed herself to laugh alongside the occupants, feeling secure in her voice being drowned by the mistress. Her intuition was rewarded with the love that unraveled itself before her. Oh, what a story to tell the girls! Siesta thought mindlessly while she impressed herself upon the doorway and hungrily ate what she could hear.
Every word that escaped the mistress's mouth stunned Siesta, and she was suddenly reminded of the material that possessed her romantic heart during the day and lived in her dreams at night.
Her mind swam with debauched imagery. Siesta's cheeks reddened to a crimson sheen, and her heart leaped to her throat with such ferocity that Siesta had to hold back a shuddering gasp with her hands cupping her mouth.
Oh goodness, oh, Brimir!
Siesta suddenly felt exposed as she listened and tore herself away, glancing frantically to and fro, dreading the sight of another soul that roamed the halls that came upon her unsightly person. When she saw no one, she leaped at the opportunity to flee and skipped down the aisle, her mind awash with all that she envisioned to have transpired through the closed door.
Siesta paused in her steps as she now tried to absolve her mind of the depths it found itself and, with great deliberation in the maelstrom of her imagination, reproached her gaudy thoughts with regret.
'Oh, why had I let curiosity get the better of me!? Should I have stayed to listen more? No, I-I shouldn't, but what if—oh, think of something else... there must be someplace I should be!' Her mind prattled on as she lightly tapped against her bottom lip and played with her hair as the girl retraced her steps from earlier in the day. There had to be something that weighed her mind down in importance earlier to that which could tear her away from her freneticism, but the girl could not recall the urgency in her stricken mind with great clarity.
Until all at once, the realization struck—immediately, her hands clammed up and stiffened as the girl straightened up and squeezed out a choked, frightful gasp. Her half-hearted stroll was broken into a stumbling dash as the girl nearly tripped over herself into a frantic race to the fifth tower, recalling the task Chef Marteau gave her.
The halls were alit with the booming strikes of her soles as their echoes thundered across the empty corridors in a sharp cadence. The perturbed maid passed against the many cavities aligned in the walls with near reckless abandon; kindling flames stretched her way, disturbed. The hems of the girl's dress flapped against the still and quiet air.
The girl turned at a hike in the hall and paced further down. It was then the damp warmth of the halls billowed out to the lobby of the central tower, and the girl found herself impressed with a dry cold grasp that pricked against her skin uncomfortably. The stiff silence of the halls that had drowned Siesta earlier was replaced with a thrumming of light steps and haughty conversations between peers, breaking against the grand expanse.
Siesta could not pay mind to the utterances that ushered for her as she continued her journey through the tower, dodging and hopping from those that suspended her motions. Near shoving her presence throughout the halls, the girl skipped with practiced movements, weaving about the busybodies that impressed every which way of her path, contorting slightly along the opening and closing of spaces between students as she went about uninterrupted in her steps—carrying alongside the drapes of wind that parsed through her hair as they spindled wildly.
Spotting the double doors, the maid reached for the entrance as it slowly came to shut and gripped the handle as she pulled with her might to throw the doors open; the momentum of her swing almost barreled her out into the courtyard as she stumbled haphazardly down the steps—appearing as if with each step the girl would falter in her pace and smear herself against the earth—to the bewilderment and bemusement of the students before her. Siesta's final step down into the trails that dot the courtyard began with a tumbling start as she finally righted herself.
The trek to the tower had winded the girl as her face dribbled trails of sweat, her sleeves felt damp and uncomfortably tight, and her cadence lightened with each pace closer. Siesta paid no mind to the scene surrounding her, only that she was driven with tunnel vision to her destination.
At long last, when the maid had arrived at the fifth tower, she rescinded the energy that pumped her across the academy and slowed to a shuffling pace. She gradually stopped and finally allowed herself to pause, to gain respite from her fraught. She breathed deeply and sagged onto her knees, holding herself up with her arms. Taking in gasps of air, the girl arose within a moment's notice. Her face appeared with a blossoming rosy hue as more sweat dribbled down her skin and hair.
Siesta sighed graciously as she held a hand to her collar, tugging at it timidly as she fanned herself. Wiping at a stream of sweat that poured down her chin, the girl gripped the aged and unmaintained door of the tower and tugged the rusted handle that withheld its contents. The door came to with a loud croak, the pieces of wood on the face of the door quick to peel and crumble unceremoniously with just enough force applied in a pinch of its skin.
Siesta coughed lightly and squinted her eyes, turning her head in distaste as a plume of dust wafted into the air and thickened around the girl. She swatted the air to parse the wisps of dust. Siesta suddenly paused and held her hands over her mouth, choking back a gasp as she quickly rummaged through the slits of her uniform and plucked a handkerchief neatly unfolded in her grasp. Using the handkerchief as an improvised face mask, she roused it to her lips.
Coughing lightly, Siesta peered inside initially with a watery sight before dabbing a few wipes of tears away with her tissue—wincing from the slight sting in her eyes as the tufts of flecks continued fissuring around the girl. Siesta flapped the cloth, lightly dissipating the motes of dust that seemed to be funneling toward her until she was left alone without any specks, none left to sell how stuffy the place was. The girl neatly folded the cloth and glided it back into a seal of her dress as she examined the tower's contents closely. The walls to the entrance were rather bare, and the light from outside was gradually snuffed out in the darkness the further along the halls it went.
As the maid took her first steps inside the tower, she felt a chill run up her spine and choked a gasp. The drop in temperature was so sharp she had to bite down a yelp; the stale air suffocated her with its cold and dry embrace.
Now fully immersed in the cloak of the halls, Siesta scanned her surroundings and found a handy wheelbarrow facing the wall beside her. Beside the barrow, a light suddenly ignited, illuminating the drab halls with its embers and unveiling a door next to it. Siesta leaned closer to the door, noting the scrawls labeled on the door's wood: the food storage! Just a skip and prance away, it seemed. Siesta turned to the barrow but, upon closer inspection with the newfound source of light, found the barrow upside down with a pair of gloves. She clicked her tongue softly, oriented herself lower to reach the barrow, and put on the gloves. The maid cusped a handful of her dress, parsed it aside—as it hindered her movements—and lifted the barrow using its hinges.
The wood that sustained the structural form of the barrow groaned as it was raised and upturned, slamming onto the floor on its side. Siesta quickly turned her head to avoid the plume of dust floating her way, bubbling her cheeks while holding her breath. With another heave, Siesta pulled the barrow upright, the wheel and pegs of legs landing on the floor with a thud. The maid sighed, leaning onto the barrow while pulling out her handkerchief to save a couple clean breaths. After recovering from her weightlifting, Siesta finally made her way into the food storage, huffing as the door buckled from the barrow pushing it open.
The flame within the room was rekindled and cast Siesta in a warm embrace with its flaming whisps, illuminating the girl to its keeping. The maid paused as she absorbed the sights before her: of boxes, crates, and entire linings of glass containers before she trudged onwards. The girl whisked the scrawled list she'd been given and, with a momentary glance to her surroundings as she peered down the paper, began her search with a shove of the barrow.
Initially, Siesta combed through and plucked the room's keeping in a thorough inspection as she looked for the required items, slowly but surely going over the spices and herbs. However, it was not to last as she was interrupted by the rumblings of the Academy; deep within the crown of the spire lay the University bells, ringing suddenly in a rising crescendo, pulsing louder with every other second, before their performance settled within a rhythmic and solemn dispense, a repeating melody rippling like a disturbed pool of water.
The echoes of their lullaby reached Siesta's ears.
She gasped and took to the wheelbarrow quickly—The students!
The muffled and soft footfalls of the girl ballooned in a frenzied cacophony of steps as the girl paced rapidly throughout the room, forgoing even a once over of the items and eyeballed what she could discern only at a moment's notice, plucking them and resettling the things inside the wheeled basket.
When the last bells echoed into the calm winds of the day, Siesta turned from the room and fled. However, in her haste to be rid of the room Siesta had sifted through, she found her pace delayed and dragged by the sheer weight of the barrow she held, audibly groaning against her physical ailments as she tried with much more force to nudge the barrow forward and act against the force of gravity that weighed her shoulders down with a burning agitation.
It was a troublesome effort on Siesta's part to prop open the door as it required her to let go of the barrow to twist the doorknob, leaving herself enough space to proceed. However simple the predicament Siesta found herself in, it was a cumbersome circumstance as it required disciplined and unforgiving timing for her to be light on her feet to avoid colliding head-on with the door.
Siesta steeled herself as she made her way to the door and pushed it aside, striding alongside the barrow within the same instance as she heaved with all her might to hoist the absurdly heavy and unwieldy barrow out the door. Despite how much power she poured into her limbs, she couldn't help but let go of the barrow every few moments. The weight was too much to bear alone. Siesta's march to reach outside was marred with pauses as she gathered her bearings to go further lest she tumbles.
The maiden's voyage reached an impasse with the door that separated the tower from the courtyard, and Siesta deflated at the prospect of holding up a door that looked just about ready to fall apart. Still, the girl had a missive in her duties, so she swallowed her irritation and trudged forth as she swept away the hems of her dress and rolled up her sleeves. Siesta poured her might into her arms, lifted the barrow's hinges, and threw it and herself against the aging door.
Slamming the door aside as she barreled through the halls and outside the entrance of the tower, she steadily made her way to the commoners' quarters, her steps uneven and awkward in their gait as the girl carefully balanced the delicate jars within the barrow from spilling out from underneath her gaze, edging close to the ridges of the barrow; occasionally the girl would have to pause and consider to reach for the jars from spilling out of the barrow before resuming her steps. Siesta saw an uneasy sight before her as a developing crowd streamed into the entrance of the academy, entering no doubt to take a seat in the Alviss dining hall for lunch.
Siesta winced and gasped—suddenly overcome with a grazing hot flash, unceremoniously dropping the barrel down next to the staircase leading to the front entrance. The loud clamoring of the jars colliding with each other and the dull thud of the wooden barrow drew eyes to the girl, of which one of the spectators was a colleague of Siesta's, the woman stepping away from her duties momentarily to tend to the ailed girl.
"Oh, Siesta!" A female voice called out. "What happened here and—poor girl! What's befallen your wear, as well? Where were you? Monsieur Marteau was worried that you had trouble bringing back the ingredients he needed." The woman gazed at the girl with wide, bemused eyes.
The maid in question was gasping for air, leaning onto the cart for support. There was a moment of awkward silence between the two before Siesta finally stood up, drenched with sweat on her face. "I-I was held so for long because of the weight, and I had gotten sidetracked with other pressing things." The girl sheepishly gestured to the wheelbarrow with an airy wheeze. "Forgive me and my impotence, but would you mind lending a hand?"
The maid gawked at Siesta, stupefied by how soaked her apron was and how the girl was miserably dirtied—ruined in a coat of dust. The woman recomposed her bewilderedly indecisive stillness and rushed to the girl's aid, quickly settling down a large wooden basket strewn about with clothes beside her. She patted her dress and rolled her sleeves, hiking up the corners of her dress's hemline as she held onto the rim of the barrel. "O-of course! Please allow me, Siesta."
The older woman gestured to the girl as she went to assist, but Siesta could not find the strength to lift the barrow anymore; her face went red as a tomato when she tried before her gloves slipped from the handle and flung the girl back—"Ah!" Siesta yelped in surprise—startling her companion to stiffen and pause in bewilderment before reaching to Siesta and pulling her up to a seating position.
"O-oh, dear!" The maid huffed in exasperation, noticing how caked the girl's face was with grime and sweat. She whisked and unfolded a small fan within the cuffs of her sleeves, lightly brushing Siesta with small gusts. After catching her breath, Siesta reached for the barrow but was held away.
"Rest, dear, one thing at a time."
Siesta huffed, feeling slighted, but eventually relented with a disapproving glance. She reluctantly pulled her handkerchief and dabbed its woven cloth across her face.
After confirming the young girl's rest, the maid made a once-over of the barrow, realizing the weight would be too much for her. Scooping a handful of items in her hands would take multiple trips to empty the cargo, and with an already exhausted Siesta out of the count, the job quickly grew troublesome.
"I can't do this! I need a couple more helping hands." The woman muttered under her breath.
By perfect chance, upon glancing at the front entrance, the maid spotted a group of staff members passing by inside the building among the students. The passersby lagged behind the rest of the staff; the rigid cadence in their steps drowned the boys' uneven footfalls as they strolled casually. The distance between the pairs grew as they held their steps longer, blithering eagerly amongst themselves; their smiles and soft laughter were all she needed to see.
"Looks like we've got a couple of slackers off at the port. Yoohoo, noble boys!" She chirped, her tone layered with sarcastic derision.
The men winced and or groaned angrily as they turned to the maid, pausing their steps as their faces wrinkled with disdain at the mere mention of nobility.
The maid smiled brightly at her way of words and the predicted outcome caused by her use of said words. "You boys got time to give an old lady and a helpless girl a hand?" The woman stepped off to the side, revealing Siesta busily fanning herself—the maid pausing her motions suddenly as she turned to the woman, distraught at the attention pointed at herself before she timidly looked away.
One blink, 'hup,' and brightened—ecstatic facelift later, the young men put away their concerning demeanor and rolled up their sleeves, playfully attempting to show off their toned muscles as they jogged up to the pair.
"Let's bring it over to the kitchen!" The woman raised her voice slightly, shifting into 'work mode.' "Ya'll 'ready know where we be heading, so get to it!"
Sweeping the barrow from its rest, plucking a few items falling off the rim of the barrow, the men heaved the heavy weight into their arms and made their way to an entrance into the kitchen for commoner use only. The maid briefly watched the group before turning to Siesta.
"Think you can stand up for me?" The woman asked, leaning slightly with her hands together in front of her.
"Yeah." While Siesta still felt tired, disguising her deep breaths as sighing, she garnered the smile to get herself up.
"Alright. Let's get going then." The maid offered Siesta a hand and helped the girl onto her feet.
After thanking the woman, the two maids followed the group as the men began chatting amongst themselves, their voices growing with zeal as a display of disrespect against the noblemen slithered from their coarse tongues. Their hearty vitriol continued as they babbled ceaselessly, each scandalous vulgarity flung at the noblemen and amongst themselves continued to be pelted and one-upped by another eagerly before their banter grew into a stream of simple insults towards nobles. Laughter followed a particularly haughty jest, causing one of the men to lose their grip on the wheelbarrow and ultimately drop the whole thing onto the floor with a thud.
"Oi, what do you boys think you're doing?!" The woman exclaimed with tired exasperation.
The maid huffed as she stomped her way over to the joyful atmosphere, leaving Siesta behind to witness a rather... absurd display? Just as the older maid ran off with her mouth catching up with the group, the men laughed even harder at the escalation of the situation, one even tumbling down onto the floor in a heap. It was just too much for them to keep a hold of themselves, even with how plumes of pouty steam somehow puffed out of thin air from the maid.
"Just keep yer head in the game and get the barrow up and over!" The maid sighed.
Though they were still giggling, the group nodded and continued their trek, picking up the wheelbarrow back into their hands.
Siesta followed along sheepishly as the cast bickered about their steps. Still catching her breath, Siesta spoke as she inhaled a sip of air, "Please, allow me—" her airy voice drowned to the billowing winds.
"This way! Watch your step!" A voice broke suddenly in the crowd and was silenced as quickly.
"Steady! Free hands better catch these drops of jars unless ya want me to drop these bars!" A youngster rang with an astute certainty in their tone.
"H-hold on—" Siesta stammered airily, taken aback by the growing ruckus of the group.
"What're ya even saying? Over here, you dunce!" A grizzly man retorted at the youngster.
The frenzied group suddenly pranced ahead, faster than prior.
"J-just wait a minute!" Siesta piped up briskly, her voice coming out unevenly as she bounced with each step, but her attempts were for naught as her voice was drowned in the commotions rung about by the enlarged group.
"Yer just off your prime old man." The youngster smirked, hoisting the weight higher. "My back hurts carrying for yer prime ol' hands!"
"Why I oughtta start throwing 'these hands' then!" The grizzly man barked.
"Quit yer yappin', you two." The woman butted. "We got a chef waiting!"
Watching the people in front of her, jesting without a care, Siesta paused momentarily, astonished. "...Goodness!" Siesta giggled with a slight acquiesced shake of her head as she grasped the wilts of her dress and hiked it as she increased her pace. Her heart thrummed excitedly, recalling similar mayhem in nostalgic times.
The group galloped around the outer walls of the academy and into a more discreet entrance, for use primarily to the staff of commoners—for which the kitchen staff relied upon for preparations daily.
There was a mighty lift as the barrow rolled to the on-sight kitchen supplies. "Oi, can we get a hand over 'ere?!" A voice yelled, the owner at its wit's end grasping the barrow. The kitchen staff nearest paused their work. Some observed with bemused glances the herculean task of lifting the heavy barrow up the uneven cobbled steps while others came to assist.
The head chef, Marteau, paused his observations of a station as he was alerted to the sudden furor outside, doubling with the quieting of tumbling silverware as the group finally strung the barrow up the final flight of steps. He sighed as he wrapped up his work and affixed his uniform to be presentable, making his way to overviewing the barrow's contents.
"Clear the table! We gotta sort all this!" The woman leading the group directed her colleagues while cleaning a large table where the students' meals were plated.
With pairs of hands swiping away everything on the table and others emptying the wheelbarrow, Siesta and her maiden companion meandered alongside the group as the last to carry the leftovers. Marteau watched in contemplation as he glanced at one of the items a staff member held, plucking a container from them in surprise. With a quick once over of its contents and the contents of several other spices sitting on the table, Marteau fell over in a heap.
The jar of spice flung high up in the air as he fell.
There was a brief moment of silence within the kitchen before a frenzied crowd dispelled the quiet and lit the station in frightful, confused gasps as the staff clamored to lift the dumbfounded-limp head chef. It was when the staff raised the large man to an upright seat, did the jar crashed right down his hat—*plink*—a muffled echo of the glass jar reverbed across the station as the man jolted awake with outstretched hands to see the jar roll onto his lap and back into his palms. The man stared down the jar bewildered as he stood back up before his eyes glanced to his staff members, parting away slightly for space.
"..."
Marteau's face fell flat, but somehow, he expected this.
The jar resting on his hands shattered suddenly. The middling crowd winced collectively as the spices within splattered to the floor while the rest of the grains streamed down like a waterfall from his palms as glass shards collected by his soles—he expected that, too!
Marteau glanced down and clenched his hands a few times, stretching out his wrist from knots built up over the day, before he patted his hands together, cleaning them of the debris as the rest of the glass shards and spices also settled to the floor.
Siesta had done what was asked of her and returned some things as was instructed on the list, but... most of everything else in the barrow was beyond what the chef had asked for. It was far too overbearing for the day's course of meals. Marteau sighed, the ping of guilt running over him as he turned to a bashful Siesta. He set his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. "Everyone, stop what'cher doing and come on over here!"
With no hesitation, the staff members threw down their rags, plates, knives, and tools, a few wiping their hands down on their aprons and spare towels. They approached the burly man, listening in for his following words. Marteau did a once over of the room, staring sternly at each and every person whose face happened to fall unto his sight. "D'you see what we have 'ere?" He gestured to the assortment of ingredients lining the table before him. Not a peep rung from their once boisterous mouths. "Do you donkeys see what we have 'ere?!"
If the first wave of cowardice had not shown, all ears were on the chef once he went up an octave. Many spectators hardened their hearts, holding themselves tense for his scornful display.
The kitchen was filled with non-stop swearing for the next two minutes, thrown out without any consideration for a break. Marteau aimed and fired, lighting the flame on everyone in the room. After two minutes of not taking a breath, the head chef paused, glancing at the crowd around him as he breathed.
"Everything on this table that'cha see right'ere is exactly what nun us here want to see. Not a single damn one'uv'ya took the simple chore of picking up 'arr stuff from the fifth tower and bringin' it here." Marteau paused again, raising a hand. "Five minutes! Five minutes to go to the tower, take whatcha need, and return. Done. No fuss, no cuts, a simple, clean sweep. Everyone goes on with their work, and the nobles bat no eye." Marteau huffed silently, the waves of his hands accentuating his point with each raise of his voice; he eyed the flinch in everyone's eye the moment he uttered the word 'noble.'
"You and I know how those stuck-up crocks of shits sock our back-breaking work with a flick of their sticks and bureaucracy. All'uv'it from one single mistake, be it 'arr fault or theirs." The burly man crossed his arms, sighing audibly at his coworkers' circumstances. "The only reason I bring this up is so we don't come 'cross another Bite Sight. You all know the consequences we face, the penalties we bear at their mercy." He sighed, his voice coming morosely at the last words as he glanced down, his face scrunched up in painful recollections of sights and scenes.
The staff members lowered their heads.
Marteau remained silent a moment longer as he focused his gaze back on his staff. His eyes were stern, and his cheeks puffed with an impressionably deep and furrowed frown. He stood up straighter, if only to push past the frustration burning through his throat. "Because of today's choices, we have to make up for it startin' now. Get creative. Those preparin' the meat, get in line wit' the seasoning, salting, and presentation. All 'arr vegetables must be washed, peeled, skinned, what'ere it takes before the bell tolls. Take all 'arr pots and wipe away every speck of grime you can find. Better the taste, less the waste, I say! Even if half of those students don't eat their food, we won't get any magic aimed at us. More for us to eat later then—all the better, I say!" Marteau could see a sense of hatred hidden behind the stillness in the air as the crowd's gazes soured and wrinkled, some of whose hands were clenched into fists. That energy needed to be focused somewhere, someplace productive.
Marteau smirked; it was time to work.
"Now, get to it!" He roared, meeting the passionate cheers of his staff reaching his ears. The room quieted for a moment, but it rose to a determined nimbleness, to the sounds of pots and pans as the staff marched back to their stations.
The men and women of the kitchen pulled their belts and tightened their wraps, jumping into their work with a renewed and raging vigor. The head chef remained in his spot; his stance portrayed an air of stoicism as the staff emptied the station and took their place as the kitchen resettled and work continued, leaving only Siesta behind, who clamored to the supply closet to sweep the mess of the broken glass aside.
"Siesta..." Marteau called out softly. His tone was stilled in exhaustion. The girl paused and turned to the burly man with a wince, who only nodded in return. Siesta turned and met with the man; her hands mindlessly played with her hair as she struggled to meet her eyes with the head chef. Marteau exhaled as he massaged the crane of his neck. "You haven't been to the fifth tower before today, have you?" He asked with an air of certainty and weariness.
An uneasy sigh escaped Siesta as she spoke up. She clasped and sheepishly tugged at her aching arms. "No, Monsieur."
A huff whisked Marteau's lips. "Figured as much. I shouldn't have entrusted you alone to the task. That was my mistake. Should've brought one of our guys to go along, witcha." Marteau scratched his beard as he glanced down at the girl, mumbling incoherencies to peering eyes except to himself. He nodded after a moment. "You should take a moment to rest up—a break, methinks. You've more than earned it these last few days—" He was just about finished when the maid interrupted, shocked at his words.
"But... but the mess, I've nothing to do for the moment. It's no issue to address it with a clean sweep." Siesta countered, but Marteau did not budge. "I've got plenty of years left in these bones. Besides, I need something to pass the time. This'll hold me for a couple o' moments." Siesta continued—albeit halfheartedly—pleading her case to the head chef, but he was having none of it, holding a hand to pause her. Siesta relented and bit her tongue from raising the molehill any further.
The head chef contemplated another thought and considered his next words, but after taking another look at the poor girl, he decided against himself and held his tongue. He shook his head slowly and moved on to the dwelling turmoil of the kitchen space. Siesta could only blink in shame as the shadows of every maid, butler, and cook scrambled nimbly at their stations.
The room was bustling with noise, reaching to the sounds of searing, yelling, and clattering, all but mere rumbling in the background through Siesta's ears. She fiddled listlessly to her running mind, bridging a hand crested underneath her lips as she pondered her duties for the day. She would've remained in place had she not been shoved by a passing staff member.
The two cohorts yelped in surprise, one meek and the other grizzly. A bundle of iron, steel, and metal rang throughout the kitchen as various pots and pans fell onto the floor. The grizzly man shook his head, groaning at the mess in front of him. "Oi, watch out—!" The man paused as he saw Siesta on the floor, quickly scrambling to pick up the fallen items.
"Forgive me, sorry! Let me help!" Siesta rose to her feet, her hands full of the cookware as mentioned earlier.
The grizzly man and Siesta peered at each other briefly until the man huffed as he began walking. "What are you waiting for? Bring it over." He continued shuffling for another minute—with Siesta in tow—shifting his form against the frantic scattering of the kitchen staff as he settled into his workstation near the swaths of chefs preparing the meals for the day. As they cut into the dishes with articulate and nimble hands, the damp thumps of iron striking the wooden tabletops thundered across the kitchen halls. Siesta finally placed the silverware on the counter, sighing in relief.
"Can someone hand me the lye?" A voice yelled into the kitchen.
"Ah, coming!" Siesta turned and exchanged a goodbye with her companion as she made her way towards the collection of lye.
"I need three more sets of garlic and two bowls over here!"
"I'll be right there!" Siesta dropped off the lye and made her way to the dishes.
"Who put away the napkins?!"
"I'll get them! Just a moment!" The young maid swiftly brought the bowls and garlic where they belonged and went for the napkins.
Before she knew it, Siesta had run herself into circles within the kitchen, bringing supplies, notes, and more silverware to her co-workers—her peers—to and from one corner of the kitchen almost repeatedly without a break in the flow. Her hands fiddled with the silverware and the hectic atmosphere of the kitchen with a refined sense of flow as her mind faltered and settled away as the girl went through the motions inside the kitchen space. One finished task led to another hand in need of aid.
With whirring eyes, Siesta tumbled around the hectic mass as she went uncertainly across the kitchen steps, pulled, and spun around like a round-up figurine. Here at the cacophony of busybodies, she was at peace with her labors, where her mind and body acted in unison—she felt like the observer of her own handiwork, sometimes in these occasions when she would forget her own presence as she buried herself in her responsibilities.
Her eyes gradually clouded over and narrowed with an intense glare as she ran around the kitchen isles unperturbed, running little errands for the staff—until she paused suddenly, numbly noticing the cluttering of silverware fading away to the recesses. Siesta jolted from her intense stupor and glanced about herself and her surroundings curiously, with a passive acknowledgment—as if she was awakened from possession of her mind.
"...Wha—" Siesta's voice was caught as she found herself standing out in the dining hall, holding a bucket full of herbal remedies held securely in her arms.
She blinked momentarily and lightly shook her bangs aside, suddenly aware of herself and the world her eyes fell upon. Whipping her head side-to-side, she tried collecting her thoughts, timid in her steps. The students wandering around the dining hall filled the air with a buzzing sense of vocal life, capturing the maid's attention as crowds of students across the years began filling in any chair available to them. Siesta felt weighed down slightly—as if the very air condensed and coalesced around her chest—and she stood up straight, discomposed.
The girl exhaled and wordlessly murmured beneath her breath, conscious of herself and wondering about her obligations alone. She jumped and turned with a slight fidget—startled and thrown from her musings as the doors behind Siesta opened and closed. Her dress flittered along sharply, wilting as the cloth settled; with a shrill, thin whine, the doors continuously moved on their hinges in a fixed stream as the commoners teemed with their labors. Siesta gazed upon the butlers and maids as they scoured the student body, her mouth slightly agape at the fluidity and listlessness of her peers as they scribbled down notes to return inside.
Siesta slowly looked down into the bucket, staring at its contents in disorientation, faintly weighed with an imposed meagerness. She held her head in a low, aloof gaze, crossing her legs as the leather welts of her dress heels ground against each other anxiously. However, just before she could register contact, her foot caught a slight depression, and she stumbled a step forward, catching herself from a half-hearted fall. The unimpressive trip in her unsteady pace lulled her somewhere, elsewhere from the cafeteria. The maid's initial stupor took her down a stroll alongside the dining hall, leading into the maze of corridors of the central tower. At no point did she have any idea where she was going. Only the hazy conundrums of her thoughts occupied her mind.
What the lips of her maiden friends and superiors, to more risqué and outlandish claims of wife's tales they'd shared with such authority, she pondered the uncouth scandalous claims with a rising fervor of interest—and perhaps how she may apply it and delude herself with its seductive temptations from the world.
The girl parsed her lips as a fleeting curiosity was plucked mindlessly in her muddled thoughts of 'what ifs.' If she instead went ahead and completed her tasks before detouring with Louise's familiar, would things not have gone south? Had she been more assertive in her approach with the blue familiar, would she have had more time to spare a few more moments? Siesta hugged the bucket tightly, finding no answer to the theoretical.
She blinked as the faint smell of iron and the aroma of the herbs threatened to overwhelm her senses. Siesta pulled away from the bucket and deflated as she considered its presence. Again, this bucket... she had almost completely forgotten why she even held onto it. The importance of the material was drowned in her scattered thoughts as other... subjects paralyzed considerations. She had to return to the ward to resupply the dwindling stock if she recalled.
While walking down the hall with a bucket of herbal treatment in hand, Siesta huffed a weary sigh as she made her way to the nursing ward. Her dress bounced slightly as she strolled, occasionally revealing her glossy dress shoes from underneath the hems of her dress, reflecting the embers of the ceaseless flames of the torches that littered the halls as she continued forward. The damp air that clung to Siesta faded as the warmth of the halls embraced her skin.
She dawdled on the mistress from earlier to fill her mind with something to occupy her thoughts. At that moment, upon the passing of the pink-haired girl and her familiar, did the girl come to a halt as it crept up and dispensed her scattered thoughts. She could barely repress a squeal of anxiousness and excitement that threatened to erupt from her lips. 'Her familiar's her guardian angel? And... what does she mean to make him her familiar?!'
Such thoughts whirled around Siesta's head, like the passing of white dandelion seeds in the wind, entertaining her with curiosity and mindless spur. Her walk slowed as she nipped away her thoughts, and her fascinations subtly circled to the familiar. It impressed upon her mind—like lichen to rock—as she neared the door leading to the room where the two occupants were.
Siesta's brows shifted, creased slightly upward, and suddenly she felt bothered, felt hot in her chest—she held her breath lightly, for a moment blinking uncertainly—and she paused her steps, pressing a tender hand to her chest. The girl became keenly aware of how suddenly and expeditiously her heart thrummed softly in her palm. So many debauched feelings rose and piled within her chest as they crept up to her gaudy mind, as she imagined—no, entertained—a scandalous sight between the blue familiar and his master, a ritualistic, ceremonial performance between the two.
Siesta didn't understand much of how the familiar-summoning ceremony worked. All she understood was the intimacy of such a ritual between the summoner and the summoned. The girl's mind fluttered to more depraved thoughts of what that intimacy might entail... and suddenly, her face brightened with a furiously red blush as the risqué implications tethered their tendrils in the depths of her romantic heart.
Siesta closed her eyes and shook her head madly to rid herself of images that had begun consuming her mind, feasting on her imagination hungrily. The girl stiffened, whisking the bucket higher and held it to her chin, hugging the bucket tightly as she rested the end of her nose on its edge, huffing softly; a heavier breath escaped her lips. Siesta murmured and giggled and hummed anxiously as she furrowed her head as deep as she could to her collar, to shrink herself away from peering judgmental eyes. The girl appeared afflicted suddenly with a maddened embrace as the sole occupant within the empty halls.
She could see it now. With hungrily greedy eyes, she sequestered to the perversions that continued to plunge her mind deeper into its recesses. Her heart thrummed excitedly; one could hear its leap across her chest loudly with its muffled immodest raptures. Like a rose, all the beauty within the veins of its petals protrudes from its thorns.
It was just like her collection of literary materials she managed to obtain on occasional trips to the capital. She felt dumbfounded by this insight: The listless stories featured a girl who's been troubled her whole school life, living in turmoil as her peers condescended her and her magical failures, pushing her away from them as they mock and bully her. Driven away from their jeers, she stumbles upon a remote place where she meets a beast one day, and she makes a startling return with something in tow, with all that had transpired between the two. Plenty of such tales existed, but some went into further... detail than others. Siesta bounced slightly, continuously on her toes, squealing in delight at these revelations.
'These stories weren't fantasies. They were real!' The maid could hardly contain her excitement. Oh, how she imagined the girls would react to this little peak behind the privacies of the nobility.
Siesta giggled happily as she finally stopped in front of the nursery. She prepared to knock but halted her knuckles just before rapping against the waxed wood and slowly retreated her hand. Siesta carefully descended the bucket onto the floor as quietly as she could before she stood still for just a moment; her expressionless face betrayed the anxiety that bubbled up and hammered at her heart. Siesta leaned on her toes and pressed her face softly against the door, her cheeks squished and flattened against the sturdy surface. It was quiet enough, but she could hear the muffling of something within.
Siesta's eyes widened, and immediately she pulled herself away, her cheeks reddened as she mulled the gaudy intrusive images that seeped into her mind.
'I-I might be interrupting something... perhaps I should wait? But what if they don't leave until... no. It wouldn't be a bad idea to peek in on them, right? I must prepare myself and wait for an opportune moment of my entrance.' The girl half-heartedly reassured herself and her intrusive resolutions. "I-it's just a little peek..." The girl murmured breathlessly; her body stilled despite the feeling of her blood boiling at every inch of her skin. Siesta glanced aside subtly, not a soul in sight. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her hands felt cool and clammy as a wide, lopsidedly devilish grin eased upon her, stretching across her face.
Ever so quietly, Siesta kneeled to the floor, straightening the wrinkles on her uniform and flitting them aside. She leaned down and held still with the tips of her fingers on the door's surface. The maid began peering through the small hole, looking through the doorknob, as a faint pocket of light etched upon her iris.
Sonic whined noiselessly as he plucked at his hand, rubbing tenderly on the faint scarring at the back of his left palm. The faded skin appeared before the hedgehog, like the makings of a word, but he couldn't deduce the nature of it. He continued his prodding, hoping that this mark of sorts wasn't etched onto his hand permanently like some otherworldly tattoo, but to his dismay, it remained firmly implanted on top of his skin. The hedgehog paused as his hand reddened with a slight swelling; he frowned, knowing there was little else he could do to remedy it. Sonic sighed as he reluctantly brought his glove back on and slumped back on his spot, an air of dejection radiating from the needle mouse.
However, this dejection lasted only momentarily as a thin shadow hung over the hedgehog before a weight pressed lightly upon Sonic's scalp and held itself there.
The hedgehog paused his thoughts and stiffened at the feeling, glancing up curiously to meet the glistening eyes of his companion, the girl from the night prior. The girl peered before the world with glazed eyes, initially lost in her little world of dreamy comforts before she saw the slightest movement of her familiar. She came to meet her spell-bound guardian with warm, prideful acknowledgment. Louise gave her familiar a cheeky wide smile before she nuzzled herself further into his rich coat of fur, a reassuring squeeze as she deepened her embrace of the hedgehog, humming softly with a pitched doting rise in her tone. She lazily swung her legs back and forth, rhythmless in the passing moment, yet with an impassioned reception every time she gazed at her familiar. She never faltered in that regard.
"My familiar, my familiar..." Louise murmured lovingly softly as she held the hedgehog in her lap, rocking side to side as she ran her fingers through his matted fur and brushed them aside lightly, repeatedly. The pinkette shifted on the edge of the bed as she snugly buried herself into the sheets of the mattress, her posture straightening momentarily as she leaned down to glance at the eyes of her familiar. Sonic breathed through his mouth, but as he did, he felt hairs caught upon his tongue, and the hedgehog gagged. Louise shook her head, bemused at her familiar's antics; said familiar noticed the pink strands of hair suddenly entering his sight as they draped over his face. He tried blowing the strands aside, yet some slithered on the black nub that was his nose. The hedgehog winced as his nose twitched at the prickly feeling. Sonic sneezed airily as it escaped his lips in the form of a squeak, and he turned to the girl bashfully. Louise giggled as she tapped his nose.
Sonic's nose twitched as he breathed. He was suddenly made aware of how, faintly, the place smelled of mint and old wood.
The girl sighed merrily as she gave her familiar, the most passionate, adoring smile she could give, "Who's my familiar~ Who's my familiar?" Louise sang giddily as she waited for a response that'd never come.
Sonic groaned as Louise peered at him expectantly; his brows faltered in exasperation.
"That's right! You're my familiar. Mine, mine, mine!" The girl squealed with a babyish voice. Her eyes shimmered at the feeling of her heart swelling up in her chest bursting full of love—she craned her neck, buried her whole face into his fur, and patted his stomach, her hands interchanged from rubbing and scratching his surprisingly soft belly.
Sonic stretched uprightly, and before he closed his eyes, try as he might to compose himself, the hedgehog's mouth bubbled into a lopsided and comforted smile.
Louise continued her merciless pampering of the hedgehog until she noticed a subtle, continuous rumbling coming from the hedgehog. She brought her ear upon Sonic's head and listened. She not only felt the rumblings, but she could hear them! Louise cooed as she listened to the faintest purring escaping from the hedgehog. Sonic's eyes widened in horror as he realized the girl had heard him. He caught himself quickly and put a pause on his purrs as fast as he could manage, but it was too late to undo what had been heard. Louise peered down at the hedgehog with a mischievous glint in her eyes as she suddenly paused her motions of coddling the hedgehog, letting the dissipation of her pampering catch her familiar's attention. Sonic winced as he poked his eyes open and glanced about himself gradually—uneasily at the hands that held him securely before he glanced up. Sonic shriveled under the imposing devilish grin that spread across the girl's face.
"I'm not done, yyyeeett~" Louise proclaimed playfully under her breath before she redoubled her efforts, enveloping the hedgehog with a hug. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" She teased.
Sonic stiffened in shock at the onslaught of the girl's incessant barrage on his quills; the sensations that rolled throughout the hedgehog itched to him reflexively as he held onto the arms of the girl. Despite his best efforts as he clamped his hands on his lips firmly, Sonic couldn't help but let himself purr again as the hums escaped between the slits of his fingers, and even more so, his comfort was made apparent as his tail flipped-flopped—wagging happily from the girl's pampering. Louise laughed at the sight before she flicked the tail lightly. "You're a good boy~ Yes, you are!"
Sonic blushed furiously and shut his eyes tight, enduring the sensations wracked throughout him as best he could before he released a breathy exasperated whine, his reservations easing as he lay at the mercy of the girl's scritches. Eventually, after some time, the hedgehog opened a wary eye in the midst of it all and wondered throughout his little torment...
How did he end up like this?
Before him, some time ago, when they made proper introductions, the bed-ridden girl had leaped out from the sheets of her bed to greet the blue hedgehog, and when she did, she just... kept moving and acting around without any consistency, jumping about one moment, giving him hugs at another and then—Sonic blushed as he held a hand to his lips—kissing him, and was the apparent cause of catching him on fire the next moment.
Sonic glanced up and blearily recounted the hour prior to make sense of his predicament and to pass the time.
...He was marked.
Sonic gazed incredulously at the runes that etched themselves into his skin, leaving behind thin wafts of smoke as they dissipated into the air.
Louise shifted in her seat nearby before she clambered and rose to her knees as fast as she could. She gazed at the hedgehog with relieved eyes when she noticed he'd calmed to a still. The girl scooted over to the hedgehog, dragging herself across the hard wooden floor, and lifted a hand as she grasped Sonic's gloved digits carefully, ceremoniously as she glanced between his sights and the smoke that filtered away from him. She thumbed the back of Sonic's palm and blew at it harshly to rid it of the steam that seeped from his skin. Louise cradled the hedgehog warmly as she took a seat beside her familiar and gave a thorough inspection of the runes.
Louise narrowed her eyes, concentrating on motioning and testing out the runes as they spelled its title. Her lips opened slightly and closed in repeated motions as she listed to herself how to best pronounce the words that made themselves known upon her familiar. The girl tried deciphering the meaning behind the word that etched itself upon the familiar, but she couldn't make heads or tails the meaning behind it.
"Ganad-no... Gandl, no... Gandalfr..." She stated flatly, slowly at first, as the girl tested the syllables of such a title. "You are a... Gandalfr." Louise repeated as she suddenly glanced at Sonic. "That's right. You're a Gandalfr, my Gandalfr. I'm not sure what it means..." The pinkette sighed, resigned but nevertheless thrilled.
She understood what it said, just not what it might entail for her. Still, she had successfully summoned a familiar, and that's all that mattered. "Well, it doesn't matter. You're here now, and that's all I care about!" Louise tugged and shimmied the hedgehog's white gloves back, held snugly in place, as she met her eyes with her familiar, her brows raised excitedly. She gave Sonic a warm, small smile that stretched wide as she giggled. "My Gandalfr, my familiar!" Louise laughed giddily. She launched herself at the hedgehog, enveloping him in a proud hug as she lifted herself to her feet and spun the two of them around merrily, without a shred of care for the world. She pranced on her toes, singsong as the hedgehog lay snugly in her arms.
They were wrong, they were all wrong, and she proved them wrong! Louise proved Kirche wrong, proved her peers wrong, and proved Professor Colbert and the staff wrong! Louise proved herself wrong, proved herself to her mother!
She was still worthy of the Valliere name!
Louise buried her face into her familiar's fur and laughed. If she could, for once, successfully conduct a single spell, then the sky's the limit with the ability to tend to the rest of her failed spells and eventually accomplish what she couldn't before her peers. Louise brightened; in fact, why couldn't she try it now? What was stopping her other than herself? Nothing, of course.
So, Louise sat Sonic down carefully just by her side, her hand snaking around Sonic's and intertwined themselves together as she ensured the strength of her grip. She turned to Sonic and winked as she went to search for her wand, fiddling around the pockets of her dress. Louise blanched as she struggled to find where she'd left her wand. It wasn't in any of her pockets, of either her shirt or her mid-plaid skirt. She patted about her clothes in one last desperate attempt to get a feel for where they may have lain, but sagged, horrified; her wand wasn't where it was. It wasn't anywhere on her!
Louise's grasp on the hedgehog slackened as she thought over her circumstances. She played with her hair and straightened loose strands. She huffed. Days into the academy and she already lost a wand! Louise inwardly groaned; she'd have to get to her dorm for an extra wand as soon as possible. But her dismay at the thought of it all washed away with a glance to the only other occupant in the room, her familiar. The pinkette laughed uneasily as she pulled the hedgehog into her arms and lifted him. She sagged slightly; goodness, he was heavy.
She poked his stomach teasingly, and the hedgehog squirmed in her grasp as he repressed a giggle. He was slickly ticklish there. Louise swooned warmly at the response as she brought him closer, "Now, who's just the most adorable little thing?" She spoke out loud with a motherly tone. Sonic's face flushed at the tone of voice while Louise laughed at his embarrassment. "You are!" The girl pressed her forehead with Sonic's, nuzzling herself tenderly into his fur for just a moment before she pulled away. Her cheeks were flushed with pride as she pulled the two of them to her bedside and sat at its edge.
The bed creaked lightly as the two bounced briefly before they settled still.
"How I wonder what you are, my familiar," Louise murmured happily. She made herself comfortable as she kneaded the bed sheets, patting them aside and fluffing up the covers for maximum cushion as she sat in the middle of the bed with the hedgehog amid her lap. The girl crossed her legs, fully enveloping the hedgehog as she glowered exuberantly at her quarry. A thoughtful look crossed her face as she peered down at Sonic; she reached for Sonic's ears, kneading them lightly. Her lips parted wide as she spoke, "Welcome to your new home, my familiar." Louise began, her voice never wavering.
Sonic peered up at Louise consciously and expectantly. This was it, he reckoned. The girl spoke with a calm tone, so that meant serious business.
"I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. I am the III of the Valliere family name, the youngest daughter to my renowned mother, Karin Désirée de la Vallière, and my father, Sandorion de la Vallière." Louise's voice rose, and she straightened her chest as she huffed. Her pride swelled within her heart as she recalled her familial name.
Sonic's eyes searched hers as he listened, tried to listen as he mulled over her words; to capture and pick apart every last sound that left the girl's mouth, in the hopes of recognizing anything that spilled from her lips—despite all that she spoke, her words continuously unraveled to be the exact opposite of understandable. Then, gradually, his face faltered as he approached what his loss of understanding might entail.
"You'll be in my care, and as of henceforth, never shall we separate ourselves, my familiar—until the day and hour in which death does us part. I promise I'll do my best to take care of you, and as your master, this is my promise I've made and will uphold for you, always until then." Louise spoke as she patted his mottled fur and brushed them neatly. The fur traced faintly along with her fingers. Louise grinned warmly, "You're something really special. You're a promise that I can be something more than what the world thinks of me, what even I think of me." The girl paused as she tore herself from Sonic for a moment. She held a hand to her lips and pulled a handkerchief from her dress as she coughed lightly into the silky cloth piece, clearing her throat before she folded it up and flitted it elsewhere in her dress.
She glanced down at Sonic, gauging his eyes for any reaction.
Sonic glanced up at Louise, his expression vacant of any conceivable expressions.
She smiled and gave Sonic a small hug, squeezing his form lightly. "You're the living proof of that, that there's something deep inside—bound to my willpower, for something that I'm worthy of." Louise prattled on as she continued kneading Sonic's ears. But as Louise continued with her pleasantries, did Sonic realize there was nothing to glean from. He couldn't understand her. There wasn't a shred of recognition in anything Sonic heard from her—or anyone else, for that matter. Here it was, at last, that Sonic understood then the gravity of his situation; despite his best wishes, he was lost with a people that spoke a completely unrecognizable language than he was familiar with. Sonic grimaced at the thought. What could he do now?
Before he could collect his thoughts and figure out where to take himself with these revelations, his ear caught the blaring roars of chiming bells ringing not too distantly from the room, just above the observatory of the central spire. Sonic glanced up inquisitively at the ringing bells, wondering about the purpose behind their existence. Sonic peered at the girl, his face portraying a look of curiosity as he awaited what she may do next. It seemed Louise herself did not expect the arrival of the chiming carols of the bells as she jolted slightly on the bed before glancing up. Sonic could faintly hear her heart quicken slightly. Louise looked between herself and her familiar for a few moments, suddenly shifting from her bed, but then she paused as she looked away distantly from her familiar, mulling over the bell.
It was the morning bell, ringing shortly after the morning assembly to announce breakfast for the morning.
Louise hummed, putting a finger to her lips as she mulled the idea of going to the lunchroom with her familiar in tow. She wasn't particularly hungry since the soup already settled her difference earlier. Louise felt over Sonic's stomach and placed an ear, listening carefully. Not a sound could be heard, so she pulled herself away from his belly; it didn't seem that her familiar was hungry at the moment either. Was there any need to rush? Probably not, and even then, if she were to go, she'd have to separate herself from her familiar for some time; it was customary in the academy where the familiars would have to wait outside for their masters until they were finished with their meal, unless if the student decided to dine in the courtyard.
She decided then that she wasn't going to the Alviss dining hall for the morning. Instead, she'd rather spend that time with her familiar, not away from him. Louise smiled as she hoisted Sonic and turned the hedgehog around, her fingers digging into his quills as she patted his rung-up fur. Her familiar appeared a little disheveled, perhaps due to a scuffling prior, she rationalized. Since she was here and had some experience grooming animals with dearest Cattleya, she figured she could try to make the hedgehog more presentable before they did anything else for the rest of the day. So, Louise started, running her fingers through the thick mottled coat of fur and quills as she went to work, setting them straight and comfortable for the familiar.
Sonic squirmed as he lightly slapped the girl's hands running through his fur aside and shook himself, fluffing up his fur. Louise laughed as she continued regardless; despite Sonic kneading his fur up top, Louise would not sit idly by and let the hedgehog do all the work. Sonic blew a raspberry as he slackened, defeated. He wondered how Tails dealt with his fur coat fluffing up in the winter, and he tried recollecting if the fox had a brush for moments such as these.
A swirl of emotions came and went in Sonic's head as he nodded to the littlest feeling of his fur being tended to. Begrudgingly, he accepted the girl's lovingly warm embrace. He didn't feel the need to reproach the girl any further than he had. Her mind seemed lost in a different, happier world as she hummed into his fur. Sonic didn't wish to interrupt her peaceful reverie, recalling a more somber sight earlier. He glanced up to see the girl bobbing her head slightly as she glanced down with a fascinated and adoring look cast his way. He wished to be upset with her but couldn't find it in his heart to pull himself away from her embrace. She appeared blissful and lovingly tender in her care of the blue hedgehog.
Sonic blinked, his eyes twitching, wincing as he felt the girl pluck out a quill. That was then to now—where he'd been held up since. Louise had murmured throughout, but he hadn't caught much of what she said, probably meaningless jargon meant for herself. Sonic kicked his feet alongside the girl, and she seemed pleased as they fell into a comfortable motion. Sonic sagged; his face fell as he pondered the meaning behind the girl's actions.
Sonic was happy, yet what had he done to earn all this affection? Why does she care for and love him so? Why could she not find it in herself to let him go? Sonic closed his eyes dolefully, and a moment later, he found himself looking at a snapshot of his past. The sights that met him and blurred past his eyes were following the love he felt from having the honor to be in the presence of; meadows hidden in depths of endless fields ripe only for the brave and curious eyes, forests whose existence relied solely on the isolation of their terrain, whole new shades of life he'd been previously ignorant of, entirely new worlds—friends he made along the way and people he could never return to.
Sonic cringed. The pain he felt at the moment was probably nothing compared to the pain shared by all in his old world. The hedgehog stopped himself from entertaining these melancholic musings; he shook his head, blinking rapidly. The sights receded to the depths of his mind as he returned to the humbly barren room, acting as a point to rendezvous and take his recourse from the world.
Sonic noticed curiously how it seemed a little more bearable to breathe, and he found himself glancing at the girl for an answer to his curiosities. Louise seemed held up with something as she loosened her grasp on the hedgehog, fiddling mindlessly with the gold ring hung loosely at her wrist; the girl peered down the indents on its edges curiously as she traced her fingers on it, feeling the texture. Sonic returned his focus and studied the walls, allowing himself to think more clearly as he twiddled his thumbs, his mind rumbling to the past and present circumstances. He looked up, his eyes peering past the wooden ceiling and beyond, recollecting the image of the twin moons that hovered in the sky nights prior.
This clearly wasn't home, but then where was here? The blue blur wasn't particularly observant of the stars or planets that lay beyond, but if nothing else, he knew he was far—far away from home. What had become of his world, his stars? Sonic shook his head rapidly, scratching his fur and wincing as he felt the girl play with his quills. Sonic sighed as he felt the ends of his fur tugging into some kind of knot. Was she making braids with his fur? Sonic laughed silently, mirthfully at the thought. What would he look like with a ponytail or a bun?
Sonic unconsciously buried himself further in the girl's grasp, his face sunk into Louise's arms until only his eyes could be visible. He reached for his head and scratched his quills, unsure how to approach the girl in this state. He was buzzing with questions, yearning for answers to his current predicaments and curiosities, but he hadn't the faintest clue where to start when she refused to let him go. He refrained from speaking; he was muted, but the hedgehog was seriously considering abandoning this aspect of himself if only to get his point across to the girl with how lost he was with the world. To his dismay, however, even if he was desperate enough to try, he hadn't the faintest clue she'd even understand him. As it stood, he could not understand anyone he met thus far. They all talked with an unusual consonance, alien to other languages he'd encountered in his adventures. It was as if this language—languages even, perhaps they were multilingual—had been birthed in isolation without common ancestral backgrounds.
Removing himself from his dubieties, Sonic tapped lightly against his muzzle, the soft texture easing his temperament as he debilitated how to approach the girl, never mind how he could comprehend her. There had to be something to reach a commonality, some way to catch up with her language. Sonic's face brightened as he reached a conclusion; there had to be books about this stuff. What did Tails call a collection of them in an institute? A group of them in a place was called... a library, that's it! This building was big, looked important, and had lots of people coming together now that he had a feel for its layout earlier. There had to be a library here in significant buildings, typically in these kinds of places. He'd need to start with something easy, however. A book that was easy to grasp and simple to understand yet extensive when explored.
He wracked his head; would they have toddler's books about their alphabet? Letters associated with a picture, a sound to accompany the letter, that kind of stuff. Surely, some would be lying around, and from there, he could slowly gain an understanding of their language as he advanced further. He'd take an alphabet equivalent at this point, even. He just needed something to work with to get started.
As Sonic contemplated his next move, Louise—buried in the thicket of her handiwork—hummed singsong as she paused, letting a hand fall beside her lap as she peered about the hedgehog, eyeing him thoughtfully. Her other hand was buried partially in a ball of the hedgehog's furry quills—frozen while forming a thicket of strands to be melded; in her standstill, she had Sonic's quills hang while his fur was left unfinished with her hair makeover. Louise reached for a tuft of his quills and fumbled about the shapely appearance of the handful of follicles that streamed about her fingers. She resumed her makeover with a flair of fascination as the girl studied the hedgehog with an attentive, curious gaze.
Louise hummed as she flitted about with a partially formed strand of furred hair, thinking absentmindedly about lithe and inane idiosyncrasies surrounding her familiar. Her hands worked diligently outside the visual focus of the girl as they weaved more strands into a plaited mold. Louise crossed a stream over on the side of the hedgehog's head as what appeared to be a hairstyle in the spirit of the "French Braid" began to take form with her intricate weaving work. She paused momentarily as she mulled over the next few steps, her hands shifting from partitioning the hedgehog's hair into sections to tying it to a knot or braided.
Although she busied herself with her new familiar, attempting to make him look more distinct and presentable, she took another good long look at the little hedgehog. She couldn't help but wonder about the origins of this blue creature, what it was exactly.
It was furry, small, and prominently blue; it was a charming sight for a little thing, albeit mysterious as it stood then. Somehow, it had the utility of a pair of white gloves and wore them on its person—as if it were mimicking noble fashion. Louise liked that about her familiar as she glanced between her hands; it understood the sensibilities to carry itself in elegance as was de rigueur for nobility alike, at all times, with or without peering eyes. Louise's volitions veered their course as she listlessly began to articulate the countenance of her familiar. She studied his eyes and noticed it was expansive and very dark—like black marble. Its fur was a distinct and unique shade of blue, a very bright and saturated blue like the fluff of blueberry cotton candy. The sheer mess and depth of his fur made the girl believe initially that he was a sort of mole, not unlike Guiche's familiar.
That fact that she once thought such things moments prior bewildered the girl, as when she was with her familiar up close, there were notable differences between the two familiars that made her ashamed even to compare the two. The Vallière's familiar carried with it a dignity and respect of a different species that didn't feast themselves all day in the dirt, unlike a mole. If anything, because its fur was presently unmottled and groomed, its behavior was more similar to that of a cat, which carried a sense of dignity and elegance such as her own familiar, albeit spikier than any cat she'd seen before. Louise noticed that although it was an unusually rich shade of blue, it had arms and a chest with pale skin like a human's. Even more remarkably, compared to her peer's clique of familiars, her familiar outfitted itself just like a proper noble—dressing fashionably for whatever occasion may come and displaying an intelligence unmatched by its familiar brethren.
Her hands reached for his quills as she went back to work, and as she resumed herself to the middle of her work, Louise admonished how easily the hedgehog's quills unfurled themselves despite her handiwork. The girl ceased her work momentarily and reflected beside herself with a wistful sigh, wishing she was as graceful and delicate with animals as dearest Cattleya. Nevertheless, the youngest of the Vallière's tried her best to replicate her sister's approach as she redoubled her efforts.
Louise wondered about the ware of her familiar and the bright red and white baronial shoes it carried with itself. Large, glossy red kicks held together with a single white strap and a gold buckle set on the outsides of those shoes. It was fashioned with supreme delicacy and an impressively keen eye for only the most voguish noble fashions of the time. Was the white cloth spilling about the shoes the folds of its socks? It held a completion of the shoe's aesthetic, an unorthodox yet pleasant and striking poise in its ware.
Together, the picture held itself, expressing the hedgehog with a glamorously endowed look. He was adorably round, bright blue, and incredibly sharp, and Louise couldn't be any prouder to have summoned such a remarkably gifted familiar.
But why was it wearing a bandage on its head?
Louise fiddled with the wrapping, finding it coming loose off her familiar's head. It was one thing that she finally summoned a familiar, but one that was injured? And who exactly put on the bandage for it? The girl untied the knot holding the bandage together and unwrapped it, finding no wounds that the bandage hid. She blinked; her brows furrowed. "Strange..."
Tossing the wrapping aside, Louise returned to admiring her contracted familiar. The more she looked at him, the more she believed that her familiar came straight out of a child's drawing or a fairytale. It was as if it was summoned into reality by the nature of her mind and not the nest of familiars to pick and choose from across her world. Louise smirked with a devious look; she couldn't wait to see the look on Kirche's face when they crossed paths. She was counting on the chance. What was a mere lizard compared to the likes of her familiar? Nothing worth mentioning, she'd say.
Louise paused as she pondered such a reunion with her nemesis. Her brows rose in contemplation and excitement. What'd Kirche say, do next in the face of her? Oh, how priceless it'd be when she'd get to rub it in her ugly mug. For the first time, Louise was curious and eager as to the whereabouts of Kirche—who'd know when they'd cross paths again? Louise was ready and willing to tear the door off its hinges to go and look for the redhead right at the very moment, entertaining the thought. Unconsciously, she gripped the bed sheets with renewed strength, her wrists shaking slightly as the golden ring jittered wildly about in place. Oh, how she was buzzing with anticipation about the looks on her peer's face with the familiar she now had in her grasp and bound to her will.
Louise suddenly perked up; her voice caught her breath, and she dropped her makeover session with her familiar as a thought crossed her mind. "The professor! I need to find Colbert! I need to tell him that I got a familiar!" The existence of the little blue creature would be just enough for her to continue studying in the academy.
The Vallière could hardly contain herself. Soon enough, she'd be able to write back home of her success, no doubt to the pride and amazement of her family once they'd heard the news. Louise hugged Sonic tightly to her form, exhilarated by the prospect of her family coming to visit and see with their own eyes what familiar she had captured, of what Cattleya would say, as she dragged herself off the edge of the bedside and stood up with her familiar in tow. She winced as she felt the hedgehog's weight pressed down on her gradually, uncomfortably. Louise leaned down and let the hedgehog land on its feet before she let go of her familiar, patting her skirt from the fur that collected itself to her linen clothes as she did a once-over of the hedgehog.
She nodded happily, seeing her handiwork on the hedgehog as the creature sported a pigtail and double-tethered plaited quills—the clumps of its thicket of quills appeared massive with the sheer coat of fur. Sonic glanced between her and his head, lifting a hand to brush and prod lightly against his quills quizzically, feeling how his fur was suspended in the style the Vallière girl gifted him. He gave the girl a resigned look and a small grin, with a slight shake of his head as he left his hair as it was made by Louise, acquiescing to her handiwork despite his qualms.
Louise leaned over and cupped the hedgehog's ear, giving it a gentle brush as she peered before her familiar with a proud and loving gaze.
The Vallière slowed her motions as she rescinded her hands and turned to face a corner of the room, her mind enraptured with matters of future importance, but she shook herself from this reverie—there was no time like the present, and presently, it was time to make a move on. Louise was spurred by this resolve to begin her first steps as a mage proper.
Louise glanced behind herself as she caught sight of the glowing pink hue the flowers glistened underneath the sun's hazy light. The girl gasped before she turned around, plucked the flowerpot from its rest on the nightstand, and held it securely in her arms. The youngest of the Vallière's eyed the flowerpot with a wondrous, impressed gaze. Glancing between the flowers and the ring that fitted loosely upon her wrist with a wistful starry-eyed reverence, Louise strolled up to the hedgehog. She offered her hand, opening up to take his hand and journey away from this sorry sight of a room.
Sonic huffed as he firmly grasped Louise's hand. Perhaps they'd be off to prettier horizons, he half-heartedly wondered.
The pair took a few steps before Louise suddenly stopped. A frivolous thought crossed her mind and she blanched in a cold sweat. She couldn't go to Colbert; he'd know what she did to get her familiar, and she would likely be expelled with such a revelation. Louise couldn't be seen, especially not with her familiar. If she came across the professor... she didn't want to entertain what may come out of such a frightening plausibility.
The pinkette grew nervous and trembled slightly as she carefully considered her options. It'd be mostly fine if it were just her at her lonesome in the halls, but even then, how long could she hide her familiar as she tried her best to articulate and break it down to her professor what she'd done to summon him? Louise was quickly running out of options, squeezed into an impossible position with each passing moment.
Louise remained at a standstill, considering her options. "Headmaster Osmand!" She nearly shouted out of her lungs at the realization. Of all her superiors and elders, the Headmaster was liberal and fair with his assessments of punishments and sins committed by the student body upon themselves and each other, as well as being the most relaxed about violating guidelines.
Within her stupor, Louise quickly devised a plan on the spot—head up to the Headmaster's office, out of sight of any teacher's eyes, and appeal to the Headmaster to heed her case.
Louise straightened up and pulled her cloak over her chest, wrapping her body from the neck down as her feet were hidden to the depths of her cloak, and all that remained was her pink hair that bled down her back. She turned to face her familiar and parted her cloak aside. "Come on, my familiar. We should get a move on and out of here. Our destiny awaits us!"
Sonic blinked, unsurely off-put by her sudden erratic change in behavior. He didn't like the look of what she was attempting to do with him. Louise scoffed, humored at his unease before she plucked the hedgehog from his feet, turned him around, and stuffed him inside her cloak. She shifted momentarily, lifting the hedgehog to fit snugly within her cover and not look too out of business. The girl whipped her hands out from her cloak as she held the flowerpot outside her veil to complete the image. Glancing about herself for one last check-up, Louise finally departed. At the slightest pull of her legs, Sonic jumped and squished his feet on top of hers.
"Ow!" She squealed in pain and soon realized that the hedgehog was quite heavy. The student shifted her steps, then aligned Sonic to the ins of her feet, adjusting his form to meld with her cloak. Louise took a few uneasy steps, testing out the efficacy of the disguise. The duo walked a reasonable distance, albeit hindered by her familiar's short gait.
As it stood, this was better than prior.
Louise then put on her hood and glanced about herself, flitting and parsing through her cloak and adjusting the wrinkles in more deceptively hidden spots. When she was done flitting about her cloak mindfully, the girl proceeded to make her way to the door. Unbeknownst to Miss Vallière, a certain lithe maid was lying in wait and eavesdropping all the meanwhile, just before the door on the other side.
Siesta scrambled to make herself presentable and inconspicuous as best she could within the seconds she had as Louise grabbed ahold of the door handle. The student turned the knob and opened the door only to face Siesta, the maid appearing frazzled after hurrying up onto her feet and straightening out her dress at a most impromptu time.
Louise and Siesta promptly crashed into each other as they moved with the intent to leave/enter the room swiftly out of sight and mind from any nosy busybodies.
"Wah!"
"WHA—oof!"
The two girls stumbled back a bit, Louise from being startled and Siesta from bumping against a hidden hedgehog. The two took a moment to recover from the surprise.
"S-sorry, Mistress!" The maid yelped as she steadied her footing. She went to face Louise, grasping and clutching her hands together as a cold sweat streaked down her scalp. "I-It's not what you think! I-I wasn't, I mean—I didn't mean to get in the w—... way?" The maid suddenly paused, perturbed as she looked at the noble. Siesta couldn't help but notice something rather bizarre sticking out. She peered down subtly to an ever-noticeable bulge protruding where Louise's stomach lay. "Uh... are you okay, Mistress?" The girl asked, glancing at the 'belly' again.
Louise blushed and stammered as she scrambled to get a response. "I-It's nothing. I'm... full, is all!" The girl tried deflecting the maid's inquiry as she clutched her belly and interlocked her arms over her stomach, holding the potted plant. Siesta stared bewildered, glancing between the noble and her belly in quick succession before she blinked her eyes and shook her head slightly.
"A-um... I... take it the soup was fulfilling, then?" Siesta asked, unconvinced and perturbed by the sight.
Louise bobbled her head back and forth. "Y-yes! It was very, um, stuffing?" Louise shimmied out of the doorway and slid herself out into the corridors of the academy, feverishly glancing about herself, the maid, and the hallway before her. The pink-haired noble's face paled as she noticed how busy the hallways were at the moment, occupied by the student body accessing the halls for recreational purposes.
Siesta was at a loss for words, her mouth opening agape and closing exasperatedly, noiselessly. She didn't know how to respond to the student's halfhearted riposte. So, in her attempt to salvage her moment, the maid did her best to reply accordingly. "That's... good?" the maid's voice hitched up in an uncertain cadence—her voice carried with it a sense of befuddlement and embarrassment by her own choice of words.
Silence fell onto the two girls, and they entered into an awkward staring contest, one looking for something to say to the other to deflect from themselves. The maid's hands fluttered about erratically, settling still in jarred motions as the girl deliberated internally how best to progress the conversation, each possibility wrought with doubt and uncertainty with how the mistress may proceed. Louise was left at an impasse—uncertain if she should go without explanation as her steps shuffled back and forth from leaving or addressing the maid. With such stifling silence exponentially growing into grinding tension, the maid gave in to her tongue, rolling words that came off the top of her head.
"I'll... just take the bedsheets and leave." Siesta quickly entered the nursery, picked up and set down the bucket on the counter, and began pulling blankets sporadically as fast as her meek hands could. She hurried and then left the room at an awkward pace. "If you'll excuse me, Mistress." She bowed, not daring to cross her eyes with the noble before she scurried down the halls, the thick condensed soles of her black leather dress shoes thundering listlessly and dissipating into the air.
Though Sonic could not see anything apart from the sound of ruffling, he could feel the dubious yet anxious pink-haired student sighing in relief. She was planning something, and that something was about to go down.
Louise shuffled her way through the halls as crowds of would-like busybodies came to and from, engrossed primarily on their proclivities, their concentration focused either on their personhood or on their colleagues and friends that passed them by. The usual bustling scene of the halls entrenched in the spirit of nobility and friendly quarrels were held with a feint that demanded their observation of the unusual sight before them. Some of the student body nearest to the scene of interest restrained their previous personal affairs to gawk flippantly with derision.
The sudden onset of disquieted silence in the face of the once rapturously vocal halls had given intrigue to the rest of the bustling crowd, eyes scanning the environment to see the commotion. Of the people that streamed by, students, staff, and teachers alike, they paused momentarily to glance at the young girl standing out with her hood on. It was uncommon and more so weird that a girl like Louise would cover herself entirely with her cloak, and for what reason nobody knew, but what really caught their eyes—and drew a double take in their sights—was the bulbous 'presence' popping out her stomach.
Louise was no longer holding the potted plant, instead gripping onto her cloak and leaving her familiar to keep it safe, but just because she was holding onto her cover didn't mean that her round and fat 'belly' would go unnoticed. Murmured whisperings behind the mass increased as the pinkette walked. Still, Louise paid no heed to the whispered words thrown her way, too preoccupied with orienting herself and her familiar to take another step. The girl's pace was riddled with a shambling walk as she constantly righted herself from falling over her own feet, her familiar completely unsynchronized to her strides.
The crowd paced slightly after them. Their curiosity quarreled with the sensibility to return to their duties, but as much as they wanted to ponder the possibilities of reason, their responsibilities and destinations awaited their company. The onlookers stirred to a stillness and found it within to tear themselves from the sight and attend to more important matters. There were still some persistent onlookers who remained as they were—staring at Louise. They were stunned into stillness at how the girl presented herself to her peers.
It was evident to all who witnessed how Louise bore herself in her woeful attire as the girl slinked down the halls, evident how visible the pink-haired student was in her efforts to stay hidden, evident except to the girl in perpetration. By then, a scandalous epiphany fell onto Louise as she paused to meet a sneaking glance about herself, finding the halls to have quieted a pinch. She immediately rammed the 'presence' into her stomach, only to find retaliation from Sonic.
"Come on," Louise grumbled in fearful agitation, a cold sweat dribbling down her scalp. Louise—ever so self-conscious about her presentation—quivered slightly in place from the exertion of her limbs as she tried desperately to readjust herself as inconspicuously as possible from the ostentatious audience she suddenly entertained. She pushed the hedgehog closer to her as she took a hobbled step forward, a step that nearly threw the girl to the floor. "Why won't you stay..." The girl hissed quietly as she grabbed a handful of her cloak and hugged it against her waist, stuffing the dress against herself as best she could. "—In there!"
The pinkette's uneasy frown turned upside down, more so into a satisfied grin, as she managed to cobble together an obfuscated method of locomotion; her familiar lurched in tow to be aligned alongside her soles. Sonic desperately tried pacing alongside the girls' long strides compared to his stocky limbs.
A few students paused, and some crawled to a stop, their jaws dropping as they witnessed the absurd scene before the onlookers played out. A commotion rang out quickly, acting against the bold endeavors of the first years, bumbling about the halls haughtily and sharing the same space as the second and third years.
A noble stumbled upon a third year and tripped before them, throwing the duo to the floor as they looked at the bizarre scene before them. Followed by the two of them, a clash of bodies strung into each other before a small bout of mayhem erupted all at once—with a student body of all ages tripping onto the floor and shambling about in their interwoven mess, people began squirming about feverously in agitation at the claustrophobic space. Voices of concern rippled out in lieu of such a commotion interrupting their morning walks. The search for the one to blame was thrown around viciously and childishly.
While all this happened, Louise shuffled onward and continued her trek to the Headmaster's office in a growing stride, despite her grounded soles squeaking and rapping against the flooring underneath. Unbeknownst to the youngest Vallière, as she mindfully paced her steps so that she could walk mostly unencumbered, the 'presence' in her stomach had shifted to her rear—glorifying the bounciness of her hips in an uncouth display of a timid eminence.
The blue blur within the cloak did his best to keep up with the sporadically random arches of Louise's steps, all the meanwhile, to his absolute confusion.
The shambling walk was becoming a cumbersome hindrance for the two, so Louise had to contend with a compromise in their pace. The girl deliberated with great focused haste to figure out a different walk pattern. Thus, of the thoughts that crossed the girl's mind, she immediately chose to hasten their journey to the spiraling path up to the Headmaster's office. Louise quickened her pace, and her strides shortened immensely to the annoyance of her quarry, whose head was repeatedly pricked by the potted plant's vase against his visage. Sonic tugged the girl's cloak and drilled his feet to the earth. The duo nearly tripped before Louise righted herself as fast as she could, hindered by the drapes of her clothing hitching alongside her shins and lapping around to constrict her movements.
The pinkette shuffled about in place awkwardly as she tried to redress her familiar's concerns with another change of plans, but without warning, she suddenly stopped, avoiding cross-traffic as students streamed past the girl. Sonic was inevitably thrown to the qualms of inertia. Within those instances, the hedgehog swiftly took ahold of Louise's long skirt, nearly toppling him and his companion over in the process. Louise staggered as she tumbled forward roughly, trying to right herself up as she thundered the halls with a slipping grip. In this blunder, she just about crashed into who she could to right herself up—
"Hey, watch it!"
"Coming through!" She would apologize before the strange balance of momentum pushed her forward to whatever direction fate would lead them. Louise strode in a march to right herself and look a bit more presentable and natural. The exaggeration of every step was too much for Sonic to handle, his limbs unable to compensate for the long and slender legs of the pink-haired student.
One small step for woman, one giant leap for hedgehog kind.
Such a form of transportation was too awkward for the two, almost resembling a pendulum in how their motions constantly collided and retracted in opposing, dithering reactions. The apparent lack of synchronicity caught on to Louise, finding that the weight below her had tried using her dress as a makeshift swing. She grumbled as she fought the frustratingly unorganized tempo before realizing they had wasted more time taking three steps instead of four.
And so, Louise moved on to walking briskly, her effort to appear somewhat presentable thrown to the wind as she about skipped down the halls to the cavity within the campus that departed to unveil the spire. The girl sagged in relief, finally reaching the spiral staircase that led directly to Osmand's office. But in her haste to get to the horn of the spire, the sounds of steps tapping against the cobbled floor intensified suddenly as another figure collided with the girl with enough force for her to stagger back some paces. Louise gasped as she clutched her chest; it felt like she suddenly bumped into a wall without notice.
"Oof!"
"Woah! Excuse me."
The cloaked duo fell back from the sturdy force they slammed into. Louise rubbed her temples, massaging them as she looked to see who she had knocked. When her vision settled from its blurry haze, the girl swallowed a gasp as she peered up at the individual. It was without a doubt the professor—Professor Colbert who led the familiar summoning session—in the midst of picking up his glasses from the floor. Louise hurriedly stood up from her spot, immediately forgetting about the pain as she dusted herself off to be presentable.
"Ms. Vallière?" Colbert began with a startled disposition, adjusting his glasses as they settled into the ridge of his nose and holding a hand to his frightened heart. "Oh, what a relief!"
"Professor, I, uh... um..." Louise tried forming an excuse, but her words were caught in her throat.
He waved his hand dismissively, his head shaking with a reprieved smile. "It's nothing. A little dust on my person is hardly a trifling matter." The middle-aged man patted his clothes to rid himself of faint smearing of lint and dust, bouts spraying into the air as he swept half-heartedly along the folds.
Louise's rebuttal to save herself from the teacher's wrath at discovering her familiar faltered and died at her throat as listless, confused noises escaped the girl's lips.
"Nevertheless, where in Alfheim were you all morning?" The man glanced down worriedly in Louise's general direction as he plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed it lightly on his scalp.
"W-what?" Louise began in earnest confusion at the professor's sudden switch up of the rather one-sided conversation.
"When morning classes rotated earlier for homeroom, and we began the roll call, you were absent. The staff checked your room to see if you might have overslept, but you weren't there either!" The professor sighed quietly, albeit tersely, with a frazzled strain in his voice as he wiped the last of his once glistening cranium and pocketed the cloth where it lay previously. "You gave all of us quite the scare. The other professors worried you went missing. We assembled hastily to observe our students in the halls to see if you'd be found tagging alongside them." Colbert's eyes blinked rapidly as he spoke, his vision without focus as his eyesight adjusted to the corrective aid provided by his spectacles.
Louise shrank from his gaze and stepped back, lowering and wrapping her arms over her cloak as she hooked her familiar in her grasp; holding Sonic close to her, picking him up, and covering him with her oversized cloak and potted flower, Colbert was none the wiser as his sight finally returned. The professor shook his head to remove the last visage of blurred vision before refocusing his attention on the then-found student.
Louise went and intended to offer an apology, but the girl froze as she felt the familiar shuffling about underneath her cloak, poking and prodding her disguise. She clasped her stomach in an attempt to diminish the movement as quickly as it appeared, hoping that the professor didn't notice the oddities of her cloak. All Louise could muster at his remark was a sympathetic shrug. The girl mentally slapped her head at such an indignant response.
The man continued, noting the student's silence and her shrug with a raised brow. "Well— regardless, I'm just glad you're okay, and I believe the staff would be as well. But, er... do carefully watch your surroundings the next time. Better to know where you're going in the instance of what you're doing." He scratched at his balding scalp, exasperated at the prospect of adjustments and paperwork to attend to now with Ms. Françoise's rediscovery.
"Yes, monsieur." Louise was quiet in her acknowledgment and tentative in conversing with the professor.
The bustling steps and rambunctious hollers of the student body, a few paces down the halls before the duo, reverberated around the two as silence fell upon them. With nothing else to add, Louise began to make her leave, taking a few uneasy steps. "If you'll excuse me." The girl bowed lightly without so much as glancing her professor's way in lieu of perhaps avoiding his concerns.
"Ms. Vallière, wait— a moment, please?" The professor shuffled aside as he requested the student, turning slightly to face the Vallière with a sympathetic albeit stern look.
Louise froze, her face becoming hot with anxiety as a cold sweat trailed down her cheek, and more droplets began forming down her scalp. In her heart, the girl believed she had been discovered. Her mind bristled at the thoughts that came with the sentiment, spewing vivid scenes of reprimanding and punishment to have broken something as sacrosanct as the familiar summoning, yet despite the girl's troubled mind and ashamed disposition of her actions, there was just as much cause for concern from the other party.
Something was bothering Colbert about the student. Under normal circumstances, bumping into someone wasn't a big deal when it came to the student body. It was to be expected with the many students the academy housed and accepted from prestigious families of nobility across Halkeginia—for its repertoire of excellent educational prowess and reputable involved history—but the youngest of the Vallière's was a student of grievances. Thus, she was a magnet for controversies within the campus. She was a cause of concern for the staff as they noted her developments in the academy the previous year.
Even if he hadn't been proactive, per se, in his lectures and tutoring courses with Ms. Vallière, he was still responsible for her development as her homeroom teacher for the perpetuation of excellence in education. Furthermore, in the years Colbert spent as an educator within these facilities, he had noticed a pattern in his students and students outside his classes; if someone, more specifically a kid, was in a rush in the academy or absent for a course, it was either because they were late to class or... they were skipping classes.
A scroll materialized before the professor as he went to grasp the parchment and unravel its contents, plucking a long, snowy white feather from his breast pocket. He flicked his arm outwardly as a vial of ink slinked into his palm and, in a swift motion, uncorked its lid and dabbed the feather's quill lightly inside. Colbert coughed lightly into his palm as he began scribbling into the parchment with practiced movements.
"Forgive my presumptions, but your unexcused absence must be documented for posterity's sake. Furthermore, this absence is to be explained by the student involved as soon as possible to be reviewed by student services under academy guidelines. Do you understand?" The professor glanced at Louise as his hand—which scribbled incessantly on the paper—suddenly paused, awaiting a statement from the girl.
Louise found herself unable to voice a word as she was frozen and paralyzed in anxiety and confusion. Her lips parted and opened, her voice escaping in airy noises as she tried to organize her thoughts amid the query from her professor. "I... what—um." After a few moments of weighing her options, Louise nodded. "I... understand, I think."
Colbert nodded and gestured for the girl to go on. Louise racked her head on how to proceed with her words, and as she settled her mind wrestling away plausible explanations, the girl quickly decided then, on the spot, to settle on a white lie.
"I was going to... to visit the headmaster." The student stammered as she considered the few options available in which she could walk away with a word of warning. Louise cringed internally. What a lousy excuse, even if it was partially true. Turning to the professor, Louise glanced between the quill scribbling on the parchment and the unconvincing gaze of the professor. She grimaced; it wasn't satisfactory enough of an explanation, so Louise continued, clarifying her position. "It's something important I have to confirm with the Headmaster, a-and I need to see him as soon as possible to address it."
Professor Colbert's face remained neutral, but inwardly, he grimaced in disappointment. It appeared like he was right on the latter option.
Louise nearly plucked her hair as she desperately tried to think of anything to salvage her statement. Just as she gave up finding something substantial to save herself—a lightbulb figuratively illuminated above the girl as she settled on how to steer the information. Louise rejoiced at her brilliance as she spoke, "The reason I was absent for so long and late to meet with the Headmaster was because of—because of the prior day and what happened at the familiar summoning. I needed time to... think and reflect... about that day before I went for the headmaster." Louise added several pauses in her explanation as she let her voice grow with fake sorrow, pretending to lament about the day prior with a wavering tone.
The professor's scribbling stopped as he took the information in and nodded sympathetically with a pained grimace on his face. Louise nodded alongside the professor with a similarly applied sorrowful disposition, but internally, she celebrated in jubilation, congratulating herself on how convincingly she sold the story!
With that, the professor finished the last flick of his quill before the scroll rolled up and dematerialized from his grasp. The teacher took out a handkerchief from another portion of his breast pocket and cleaned the tip of the quill with a few practiced strokes, removing the ink. Colbert placed the cloth piece back into his breast pocket, followed by the quill, storing his ink vial away as he covered the lid and put it inside his coat pocket. He readjusted his spectacles as they slid down the ridge of his nose slightly, turning with a sigh. The teacher suddenly huffed, his stern albeit sympathetic demeanor lifted, as a more cordial impression was donned—addressing Louise with a friendlier tone.
"I see... Your words have been duly noted! And, on behalf of the staff, you have our sympathies and sincerest apologies." The professor bowed slightly apologetically as he spoke, his eyes half-lidded to help express his words. Standing upright a moment later, a friendlier look crossed his features, nodding to Louise. "Well, that's enough about that, methinks. You know it'd just come to my attention, curiously, I might add, about this luck. Our paths are quite a coincidence, as you could see—" he gestured to the paperwork materialized in his grasp "—I'm actually on my way to see him myself!" Colbert nodded to the student as he turned to the open space of the spire.
"I suppose I'll see you there shortly then. Until then, I'll leave you to your devices." Colbert made his way to the spire's central hub, walking past Louise, his hand raised with a slight wave of his wand as he recited the incantation to initiate the levitation spell. The middle-aged man paused in his steps, standing over a decoration in the flooring depicting an ornate shape with imperceptibly small figures adorning its edge. The last incantation was spoken as the professor swung the wand to the ground, piercing directly into the decorative piece.
The reins of the professor's cloak flitted about slightly, intensifying with each passing interval as they parsed from his ankles. The hems of his cloak reached their maxima—they snaked around in the air viciously as a gust of magic pulsed from underneath the professor, inching his feet off the ground until only his toes touched the earth. Then, nothing held the man upright anymore besides this invisible force.
Hovering over the floor, the professor flicked his wand as a dew of sparkles coalesced around his figure; the glimmering lights faded away, and the gust propelled him further along the spire. The teacher gradually ascended up the innards of the spiraling staircase with a concentrated gaze; however, just as he flew out of view, he caught himself and glanced down.
He almost forgot about the... quirks of Louise's magic.
Louise released a stuttering breath, wiping her brow and thanking the heavens that she slipped past the stern professor. Just as the girl contemplated what to do in the meanwhile, since Colbert would spend a lengthy amount of time up in the nest of the tower, an uneasy foreign cough caught her attention. Louise whisked her eyes towards the staircase. The footwear of the professor suddenly came into view and hung limply. Peering above, Louise viewed with an exasperated look as he wilted down, appearing light as a feather gliding down the air with his magic draft.
"Err... that's right. I'd forgotten your flight spell still... needs some more work." Colbert muttered.
Louise grimaced, and her face flushed with a bristled scowl. The professor's attempts to prevaricate her explosive magic as a 'work in progress' felt... demeaning.
Colbert continued his train of thought, and though unseen from the girl's sight, the man glanced up with a thoughtful gaze. "The journey up top would take quite a while, wouldn't it? In that case, since we'll both require an audience with the Headmaster today, would it ease your spirits if I may journey up alongside?" Colbert's voice thundered from the depths of the spiraling staircase, even though the only thing that could be seen was the man's shoes—wiggling slightly in the air.
Colbert's descent was gradual, inching down to the floor, however just as half his person could be seen from Louise's perspective, the professor suddenly dropped to the floor with a particularly painful-sounding dull thud as the clacks of his leather soles howled against the cobbled floor. The middle-aged man steadied himself as he sheepishly scratched against his balding and receding hair, glancing pointedly at the girl.
Louise felt her heart drop as her brows raised in alarm. It would be impossible for Colbert not to notice the oddball hidden underneath Louise's cloak, never mind the tedious walk itself going up the entire staircase with two sets of feet revealing audible hints of another presence! Louise's voice was, like before, caught in her throat as she tried to respond to her professor in a way that wouldn't immediately incriminate herself for suspicious behavior. She shook her head from side to side, blinking rapidly as she tried to get her point across to the professor, who could only look in bewilderment at her behavior.
Overwhelmed with the situation, Louise remained silent, rigidly staring straight ahead as she strolled uneasily to the foot of the steps. The youngest of the Vallière's did not bother to acknowledge her professor's presence as she paced around the older man in a strained gait; her silence was stifling in its envelopment of the halls as she went before the stairs. The girl reached with strained hands for the crest where the rim edged the spiraling staircase—and began her ascent.
Colbert raised a brow at the whole debacle with his student, illuminating the snuffed noise in the hall with an exasperated sigh. His widened eyes expressed a bewildered look as he tried to decipher the nonsensical answer. Contemplating honestly, he shook his head dismissively, no longer bothering to extract the purported answer, glancing to address the girl inquisitively. "I'll presume that as a yes... a no... a yesn't, then?"
Louise had already scaled a quarter of the stairs in the professor's quieted reprieve, gradually disappearing before the middle-aged professor's sightline the further she went. The only sound that met the man's ears was the taps of the student's footsteps upon every high rise. Her dress shoes echoed firmly and ever more distant as she all but crawled up the stairs at a sluggish pace.
Colbert shrugged with uncertainty; his appointment with the headmaster still needed to be conducted today, sooner rather than later. He materialized the wand in his grasp and repeated his prior motions, quickly taking him into the air once more as he ascended the staircase using the levitation spell.
The walk up the spiral staircase was quiet, save for the 'pitter' and 'patter' of footsteps and the occasional subtle gusts of wind slinking underneath Colbert's wand. Despite the minimalist use of willpower in the man's magic, his ascension was still faster than Louise's current pace walking up the seemingly never-ending tiled steps. At a distance, the man gradually outpaced the girl as he flew higher, exacerbating the slow crawl in the girl's steps. Louise nevertheless took another step furtively; her face contorted in indignation as a slight, flustered scowl snaked from her lips.
Within the professor's flight, he leveled himself with the student, and in an effort to break the ice-hardening around them, Colbert decided to speak up. "You know, there's this hypothesis I've been working on if you'd be willing to lend an ear to my theory." The man glanced Louise's way, though the girl seemingly made no effort to acknowledge his presence; she stared at the floor, her hair covering her eyes while making her appear as if she were a solemnity in a frozen piece of a scene plucked from its place. Her face seemed red with discomfort as sweat trailed down her chin listlessly. She held onto the safety rail with a deathly tight grip at every step.
Colbert coughed awkwardly, taking her silence as her approval to maintain his train of thought. "Right, well, let me gather and collect my thoughts for a moment..." Colbert hummed as he organized his points of interest meticulously, expressed in a manner the girl could comprehend with relative understanding. Colbert furrowed his brow, closed his eyes, and thinned his lips into a thoughtful frown as he concentrated on how to lay out his thoughts. After another lengthy period, Colbert opened his eyes and nodded, approving his charted course.
"Fire—" the man began, "—cannot exist without wind. It... almost acts as fuel for the flames, a medium for which fire breathes. Without it, all that could be formed in the effort to create the whisps of fire is a cloud of fumes, caged to suffocate eternally in its dark plumes." The professor began, scrunching his face as he glanced up at the top of the staircase. He noted it was still far from reach. "Truth be told, even though what I am as a fire mage was determined on account of Brimir's blessing, I... hate fire." The professor shrugged noncommittally with his last words. The expression was meant for himself to ease his conflicting thoughts despite the clarity of his position. "I despise its slow and accursed consumption, how it dissipates away all that exists, that... lives. It burns everything it touches, blackening all before the crisp that remains flies away in ashes. You'd never know what each fleck of ashen remains once appeared."
A frown landed on his lips as dark memories surfaced. "Sometimes, in spite of Brimir's judgment with my willpower, selfishly I... wish that I couldn't use fire magic, that I was born for and judge with a different element instead, as a mage of the elements of water or the earth perhaps. However," Colbert paused, his voice wavering as he whispered the last word uneasily, "However... without the tendrils of the flames, the things that are applied to our society, that is the foundations of our civilization, wouldn't be able to survive if it weren't for the element. To cook our food, to warm our person, to see in the dark, to conduct the measurements of time, to melt the wax in our stamps... without it, we wouldn't be able to make swords or shields."
Louise grumbled enviously as she glanced aside, watching the professor slowly ascend past the girl while she remained ridden to the ground floor, walking the earth no differently than the commoners.
Colbert paused, humming silently as his frown was replaced with a small smile. "And that is precisely why I've been ruminating on how to tame fire, and I believe I'm in the process of a reinterpretation of how we, as a collective society, view fire as a destructive force since the beginning of immemorial. You see, I've been at work on something that I believe can utilize the extreme temperatures of fire for constructive purposes. It's a contraption of sorts... well, it's more like an application process for which fire could be utilized, but in the meantime, my prototypes they're more like, well... experiments, come to think of it, there's a lot of tinkering I have to do to demonstrate my prospects. Much of my research has been nothing but trial and error, but I think something grand will come out of it despite how simple and minute its application may be."
While Colbert began falling into a trance, mainly rambling to himself as he listlessly went about his voice to a disinterested audience, Louise felt her whole world spin. With each step, she meandered and fell awkwardly up the steps. Upon every elevated stair, she tried matching her pace with the hedgehog as she would lift her leg and spring herself up, but with such extreme anxiety looming over her, exhaustion caused her to stumble about. In reality, she was just ambling as she unconsciously followed a silent tempo with Sonic's stride during the climb.
Through the narrow windowsills that adorned the walls alongside the arduous and seemingly endless passage of stairs, streams of light from the morning sun poured into the hollowed space, casting a grand shadow that stretched far below the girl as she passed through their open crevices. Louise's manes glowed like cherry blossoms passing through the light of the sun as she was illuminated in a radiant and obfuscating sapphire, appearing blindingly pink with each pass of the sills she reached.
"—Maybe my hypothesis and its conclusion are sound, and I do everything in accordance with Brimir's will, to the structure of God's grand design in this reality—but despite my efforts, it yields no results, then... then what must I do?" The professor asked rhetorically, not expecting a response from the student. He continued swiftly, "I do what I can do. Wield the nature I cannot deny of myself and begin anew—like the phoenix from the ashes! Though dismayed with my failures, I am enlightened with the prospect that although I may have failed, I could choose something of myself differently than before and look elsewhere to satiate the pursuit of my own will upon the world."
Colbert's voice, which had carried the duo faithfully for as long as he rambled on, finally paused for a moment, the professor allowing the weight of his words to reach Louise's ears without interruption, being considerate for her contemplations as she dawdled on the steps of the stairs wearily hanging by. A period of silence followed the professor, allowing the duo to absorb the quiet to reflect on his words.
Louise's strained pace broke abruptly as the girl's foot caught on the ridge of the stairs with her other foot caught on the hems of her cloak, violently slamming her to the nearest step. The girl threw her hands out as she went to catch herself. Her descent slowed to a stop, but not before her face crashed to the elevated step, and she felt a sharp pain explode at her nostrils. She whined quietly as she stood up jerkily and plucked her hands from the ground as she tenderly massaged her nose, the potted plant laid aside for the moment while the girl took her impromptu respite.
Louise shivered in quick and anxious gasps, breathing laboriously as she went to rest from her journey. Droplets of sweat fell upon the steps. With nothing to do or observe as she waited for the pain to subside, Louise decided to think about the ramblings of her professor with a somewhat attentive look. Louise peered upwards as she wiped her nose, and from where the girl lay, she could about make out the double doors leading to the room, yet Louise felt no relief nor respite from the sight.
The entire time the girl made one step closer to the top of the tower, Louise had tuned out the professor's words as she was engrossed internally in how she would approach the Headmaster and how the appointment might play out. The girl imagined scenarios where the Headmaster had rejected her efforts to reason and argue her case with her familiar, and every single time she had failed in these scenarios, it was all due to the presence of Colbert himself dissuading the Headmaster to consider her words. Although he was a good man at heart, he made himself clear the limits of his kindness; that exact line was drawn at the forefront of his words the moment he gave Louise a second chance on the day of the familiar summoning.
By the time Louise would reveal the ever-defying presence that was her will underneath her cloak, she would have betrayed not only the professor or the academy but she would also downright cause heresy to her ancestors before her. The student tried coming up with excuses, reasons and lies to catch the professor's attention and delay his entrance to the appointment, but his inclusion in the conversation was unavoidable. The girl noticed curiously after a moment, as she tried to entail his words and how she could effectively stall the teacher, that his voice grew more distant.
Achoo!
"Bless you," Colbert spoke suddenly from above, interrupting the reflective silence of the moment to address the girl swiftly.
"...Thank you."
Had she blown her cover? No, somehow, Colbert didn't catch that it wasn't Louise who sneezed. Louise surprised herself; that sure was a good save.
Achoo! A-achoo!
Louise peered at her quarry with agitation at his incessantly continuous sneezes. The professor blessed the girl a few times later while Sonic rubbed his nose tiredly inside the cloak. Louise glanced up exasperatedly, looking between her familiar and her professor—before her eyes widened with a panicked look. The girl suddenly raised her hands in an exaggerated, wildly swinging motion to grab her professor's attention.
Colbert continued his talk, oblivious to Louise's concerns, drawing his words to a close.
"What I'm trying to say, Miss Louise is—"Professeur Colbert."—Perhaps it'd be for the best if you reconsidered the previous day, not as a failure but an opportunity! A moment of learning, if you will, and with greater knowledge comes greater—"Professeur Colbert."—possibilities! Although what happened yesterday was unfortunate, perhaps this is a sign, a sign that Brimir has different plans for—"Professeur Colbert!"—you. Fate can be a weird thing sometimes, as God works in ways mysterious to man, after all." Colbert hummed thoughtfully. The older gentleman had known somewhat since he'd bumped into Louise that she wouldn't have quickly bounced back from the events that happened the day before, but he believed, despite the prior day, the girl would have to—at some point, accept the path given to her whether she knew it or not.
Maybe his attempt at empathizing with her found no ground, but the mere mention of it and his encouragement might inspire Louise's mind. She will inevitably have to make a decision, for what he may not know, but it would be better sooner rather than later to begin the healing process and move on.
A respite of peace followed as Colbert flew ever higher, content as his words reached—"Colbert!"
With his name echoing and reverberating along the walls of the hollowed spire, Colbert had been shaken out of his thoughtless ascent, cringing as the shrieking belt reached his ears. He glanced down, noticing his quarry had lagged behind considerably several floors down. Colbert's face blanched; everything he said completely missed Louise's ears!
"Ah! Miss Louise pard—D'Ow!"
Just as the man attempted to apologize for his mindless abandon to his words, he suddenly crashed at the ceiling of the spire, completely negligent as to how much space remained to ascend the tower. Louise cringed at the sound of the impact. The weight he slammed into the roof splintered some rocks from their place in the ceiling as grains filtered down suddenly, disturbed from their stilled and frozen peace.
The sound of the impact on the ceiling had enough force to span far beyond the long empty passage of the hollow spire, reaching as far as the Headmaster's office. Osmand, meanwhile, was taking a whiff of his pipe when the noise thundered and shook his room slightly. He coughed violently as he gulped down a particular wad of gas down his sternum. The old man suddenly stood from his chair with unusual haste from his old age.
Hack!*
The old man coughed as he dragged his seat back from underneath, rapping his hands against his chest with some force to clear his throat. Puffs of smoke escaped the man and landed on his documents, staining them all with ash and the stench of smoke.
Ack!*
The Headmaster suddenly gripped his throat as the gas caught on his thorax, and choked on a gasp of air. His eyes grew slightly bloodshot as he hobbled in place until his familiar jumped up from its perch in the Headmaster's desk and crawled up the old man's wavy beard as it made its way to reach his back. The mouse threw a few pats on Osmand's shoulder blade, just enough for the puff of smoke to escape the old man's lips. Osmand stumbled and took a gracious gasp of air. The senior dropped his pipe as it fell from his hands and landed unceremoniously on his laminated wooden desk, spilling its contents across important documents and smearing several pages of economic considerations for the education committee of Tristain.
Osmand grumbled as he went to clean his assortment of paperwork desk and his stained clothing, "How!" The man suddenly cried out, angrily wringing a hand into the air. "How does that woman possibly know I went for a smoke?! Good grief, is this the fabled woman's intuition?!" He whined childishly at the injustice of it all, cursing his recent dour moods on behalf of his secretary's insistence on her health program for him. Motsognir hopped off the old man's shoulders and rolled down onto its master's desk, fetching the Headmaster's smaller, indoor-appropriate wand to begin his cleanup.
Louise redoubled her efforts to reach the end of the spiraling staircase, rife with concern for her professor, who sat at the end of the steps clutching and massaging his scalp. She skipped up the stairs and raced haphazardly to the end of the cobblestone archway, stumbling awkwardly as she gradually approached the professor; the extra weight from her familiar made it challenging to take an expressly simple step, her legs hampered by the improvised hiding spot of her familiar. Nevertheless, despite the long journey up the spire along with the accessories Louise carried, the student finally reached the end of the staircase.
Upon reaching the horizon leading into the petite lobby just outside the Headmaster's office, Louise collapsed to her knees and swung herself to the side, laying on her back as she sprawled on the ground. She laughed silently in broken gasps of air, happy to have even made the journey, let alone make it to the end.
Unbeknownst to the pinkette, her exhausted mannerisms kicked Sonic out of his hiding spot, plopping him into the real world as a furred round ball. Like a wandering coin rolling on an uneven floor, the blue hedgehog landed just before the rim of the doorframe, right below where Colbert was standing in front of him, the man still holding his head from powerful pulses of pain—squinting while blindly reaching for the doorknob.
As Louise regained her energy, listlessly turning her head to the double doors, she realized that Sonic was nowhere to be found on her person. The familiar in question was precisely where he shouldn't be. Louise quickly tore herself from the floor and reached out to the professor in a frenzied panic.
"Wait!"
With one hand occupied by the task of holding the doorknob and the other tending to his head as he rubbed sensitively on his inflamed skin, Colbert turned from the door to Louise, unveiling the small folder of papers hidden within the sleeve of his robe as he did so. "Yes—?!"
The attack could never have been more perfectly timed; Louise swiped the papers straight away from their pocket of residence, purely out of sheer coincidence in her panic to restrain the professor from entering the room or taking a good look at her familiar. The squares of white swung around aimlessly, a few straying far from the path of their brethren and hopelessly fell farther than Louise anticipated.
Colbert watched the mess solemnly, peering over the railings as one fell farther down the staircase... as much as the bottom of the spire.
"S-sorry!" Louise quickly made a visible attempted effort to reach for the mess of papers all floundering about on the floor. The girl kneeled to the floor and began picking up the lot she made by shoving the documents towards the professor, carefully plucking her familiar from the floor, and stuffing him back into the safety of her cloak—faceplanting her hidden companion with a furtive shove.
Colbert sighed. It was worrying to see Louise so uneasy, so much so that she caused a mishap. He hated to admit it, but troubled students are the most troubling when they trouble so honestly. Their sincerity would bring about an irritating annoyance simply because their actions would repetitiously garner a sense of unwanted tenderness, and by the time the problem is fixed, the benefactor would then create an uncomfortably tricky atmosphere to react to, either hanging the receiver undone or cycling them in a frenzy of humbling apologies.
Colbert recognized how much of a mouthful that was.
"It's no problem, really." A ping of irritation ran through the professor as he pulled out his wand. Silently, the papers began bundling themselves together. "I can gather the rest myself. You can go ahead and see the Headmaster." Colbert picked up the small pile from the floor before heaving a sigh. "I'll be a moment." With that, the professor made his way to pick up the leftovers, levitating while doing so.
Louise stood up, taking a step back in bewilderment at the successful aversion to her familiar. How did that... work? She felt her knees buckle and immediately grasped the doorknob, the handle supporting her tumbling weight and saving her from falling onto the floor. It was mere moments earlier when her familiar's cover would've been blown and all her hard work to reach the Headmaster would end up for naught. The sheer audacity to recover her familiar, distract her professor, and reach the Headmaster's office in time was utterly absurd to have pulled off.
But she made it anyway.
Louise shook her head, glancing between watching the professor's fading form as he went from one spot to the next before staring up at the plaque next to the double doors. Her mind muddied itself into a blank, rumbling into nothing but fear... or was it anxiety? Whatever the sensation was, it felt like her blood boiled at the prospect, and it pushed her through the two sets of double doors.
"Excuse me!" Louise suddenly spoke, her shrill voice carrying with it her anxiety. She timbered down the short walk to the office space where the Headmaster sat attending to his station in the academy. Her footsteps rung loudly as she broached the office, though the reach of her gait was swallowed in the carpet, which blanketed the noise. "Headmaster!"
Osmand, who was leaning on the two rear legs of his chair with a look of contention, yelped in surprise as he fell onto the floor and was obscured entirely by his impressively large office desk.
"I don't mean to intrude so suddenly, but there's something really important I have to share with you, and I think I need your help butit'sreallyhardtoaskbecauseIbrokearulewelltechnicallyIdidn'tbutIdon'tknowifwhatI'mdoingisrightIcan'tbelieve—"
"Slow... ugh. Slow down there, young one. An old man as I... don't have the willpower to bounce back from such a sudden appearance." The elderly man groaned as a hand plucked from the ground and reached for the sky, waving slightly in clear view of the Vallière. The same hand grasped the desk's surface, pulling with it the Headmaster; his breaths labored not only from the pain onset by the fall he had encountered but also from disturbance of the peace he enjoyed earlier by the girl's shrill vocal cords.
Just earlier, he was enjoying the puffs of his pipe, his secretary Ms. Longueville finally gone with a couple of errands to run on behalf of the Headmaster. Well, the keyword being was, until he was interrupted.
The Headmaster slowly stood up from the hardwood floor with a stagger in his steps. His ears were still reeling from the fright of the comforting peace being abruptly shaken with a yell. "Oh, Louise. It's just you." He gently tapped the back of his head, checking for any bruises that might've appeared. "Well, first and foremost, try to knock next time you come by. While it's certainly a pleasure to see a familiar face oft, it's preferable to greet one another with proper etiquette before getting into business, is it not?" The senior man continued while he collected his seat and set it back on its feet from where it fell over. Osmand patted his robes and adjusted his chair before he sat back down. He hummed as he saw his office before him, finding it suddenly off-putting the longer he looked.
Osmand shifted slightly in his seat and rechecked the room, finding it still not his liking. This continued for a few moments as the old man went to find the most suitable sitting spot in the chair. The girl fidgeted where she stood as the old man went about ever so annoyingly meticulously with how his seat was positioned; her hands flitted about as she restrained from interrupting. Louise tried to speak until Osmand raised a hand, sighing loudly as he sat in his seat for the umpteenth time and glanced about himself, finally finding it suitable for his liking. The Headmaster dropped his hand and addressed the girl with a glance as he reached for his reading glasses and unfolded them, adorning the ware a moment later. Osmand blinked rapidly, his eyes taking a moment to grow accustomed to the change in sight while he settled the papers on his desk in a neat file.
Although pressed for time, Louise gulped down her worries, if only for a moment, as she remembered the noble rules of formalities. "Yes, monsieur... Good morning, Headmaster." The student bowed quickly yet ornately and mentally prepared to articulate her stance.
A small smile adorned the old man as he nodded approvingly. "Good morning, Louise. Well, now that we're already here, why not go ahead and tell me why you're here? Begin slowly, please. My ears aren't all that they used to be anymore." Osmand laughed at the rather tactless sense of self-depreciative humor. He began picking up his pipe, preparing to hide it away within the confines of his desk as his wand waggled in his hand, with which a dustpan and brush were utilized to clean his mess. At the same time, he held a parchment in another hand, giving it a noncommittal once over.
There it is. The very question she dreaded. It was now or never when she would reveal the bubbling fears inside of her, yet the situation had already escalated her only with the former option. Louise would have to tell someone about her particular circumstance, asking them what she should do and say. The first and only important person she should ask is none other than Osmand.
Louise took a stuttering deep breath, trying her best to settle and still her raging heart while she attempted to state her case. "I-its... there's... w-w-what if... sh-should I..." Louise quickly realized how hard it was to speak, let alone utter coherent words past her lips. Her hands flipped wildly in the air to express her uncertainty. At any other given time, would it have been so easy to speak one's thoughts, but there was so much Louise had to cover. Where would she even start?
The girl continued her sporadic sentences, the bridge of each sound broken into mere syllables. This harbored nothing but confusion from the Headmaster, raising one of his brows as he glanced at Louise. Old Osmand plucked at an ear, clearing out any obstructions, holding another hand and cupping it behind his other ear. "Pardon, but would it be easier if you could speak up? It's quite hard to hear for people my age."
Louise tried speaking up, but it only resulted in audible pauses. Nothing her mind had commanded was following through her body. Why had such a predicament left her like this? With no other option left, Louise opted to bring out the ever-more present thing that could change her entire life.
Holding him right between his arms, Louise pulled out Sonic the Hedgehog, still curled up into a ball. "I SUMMONED A FAMILIAR!" Louise squinted, waiting for the man's reaction.
Osmand glanced between the curiously furry ball and the girl with a skeptical look before recoiling as the ball suddenly unfurled itself to be a very furry blue creature holding a potted plant of pink flowers. Blinded by the sudden change from his burrow to the light, the blue blur blinked a few times before his eyes landed on Osmand. He waved awkwardly, a smile of downright confusion donning his face.
A plume of smoke puffed past Osmand's lips.
At one point in time, Osmand had learned the humble teachings of news. Whether it'd be rumored or not, there was no such thing as good news or bad news. But this certainly was news, so much so that he dropped his pipe. Osmand plucked his glasses and wiped at them before he slid them back on while gazing in stupefaction at the blue-furred creature.
"Come again?" Osmand spoke suddenly, breaking the stiff, tense quiet with a dumbfounded voice.
Louise cringed, "I SUM—"
"That was a rhetorical question, good grief." Osmand interrupted, closing his eyes as he pinched his nose tiredly.
Louise had her moments of unexpected developments, and if it was her involvement, it was always something new. He muttered to himself, recalling Colbert's words concerning Louise's circumstances the previous day. With such newfound information now in his hands, the Headmaster could only accept the fate of it, but questions arose as a result of this new development.
"Congratulations, Miss Louise." Osmand nodded with a simple smile, giving Louise quiet applause as he clapped his hands.
Louise gawked at the simple gesture and nonplussed observation of the old man.
Osmand's eyes narrowed suddenly with an air of seriousness dawning on him. "That being said, how did you summon this..." Osmand paused as he glanced at the blue being, snapping his fingers and furrowing his brow as he tried to gather his words, "Actually, what in Brimir's name is this, Miss Louise?" His hands clasped together pointedly, gesturing to the furball.
Louise faltered. "My familiar?" The girl responded. With the lack of exciting drama that never came from the Headmaster, Louise felt her arms give out, losing the strength to hold the blue blur in the air. She plopped him onto the floor, huffing in surprise at her endurance.
Osmand gave the pinkette a dubious and unpleased look as he glanced between her familiar and its master. Osmand stood from his desk with a curious gaze while his familiar Motsognir ambled down in front of the hedgehog, sniffing inquisitively.
The old man plucked his wand from his desk and whipped it around like a ruler, using its end to prod at Sonic curiously. Osmand lightly poked the hedgehog's belly, earning him a quiet giggle. The Headmaster then lifted Sonic's arms and gloves, curiously testing its reactions. Motsognir, meanwhile, returned to its master as it clambered its master's arm and reached his ears, its assertations proving no more helpful in diagnosing its identity.
"Hmm... right, well, as you were Louise? How was the summoning procession?" Osmand encouraged the girl to continue as he felt against his beard, rubbing it thoughtfully while he stared at the hedgehog. Though he had already received notice of Louise's summoning procession—rather the failure of—to hear first-hand the explanation from the party involved would help him understand how the event came to be.
Louise faltered for a moment, recollecting the moments leading up to her standing smack dab in the middle of the Headmaster's office. "I... It went by. That much I can attest to..." Louise gestured to her familiar, the volume of her words dying by the end of her sentence.
Osmand nodded, "There were no complications in the process, then? You summoned your partner without so much as a... well, you know..." The Headmaster dawdled on the subject, not wishing to push the girl's button on that sensitive topic. Osmand made a sound resembling an explosion as he cupped his hands and parted them to demonstrate the point. He coughed after a moment, glancing away awkwardly. "...You get the point."
Louise squirmed under the old man's watch as he looked between the student and her familiar curiously, waiting on her words expectantly. She rolled her thumbs, trying to find the right words to convey the prior night to obfuscate how she went about summoning her familiar. "Well, not... exactly. I summoned my familiar, and that was it..."
Osmand furrowed his brows at the lack of clarity. The girl was shrinking at every word, not literally but more because she feared the consequences of her actions. The old man scratched his beard, contemplating the girl's words with passive interest. "Well, I'll be, I must admit—in all my years, I've never witnessed a unique circumstance such as yours, Miss Louise." Osmand nodded, curious to know more about this curious little creature. "Have you considered a name for it? A special familiar such as yours should deserve a great name to be referred to, methinks." He leaned down to meet the eyes of Louise's familiar.
Motsognir, who had been resting on Osmand's shoulder the last few minutes, stirred awake from its rest and glanced at the blue hedgehog before letting out a lazy squeak. Sonic huffed hearing its words.
Weird?
Yeah right!
The hedgehog didn't consider himself to look weird at all!
Sonic stuck a tongue out at the mouse as his cheeks were puffed angrily.
Louise sagged. Matters such as naming her familiar had never crossed her mind, not when she was at the nursery or where she stood in front of Osmand. The only thing that mattered to her was that she had finally gone against her inevitable fate, relieved that the one chance she had desired for so long had come true. But now that she had finally reached that point, what was she supposed to do? Louise muttered as she sought to answer Osmand's question. "I... forgot about it, Headmaster."
Osmand hummed thoughtfully. It was pretty obvious how defeated Louise grew. Usually, the excitement of the familiar summoning would carry about an air of dreaminess, collectively prompting students to mingle and brainstorm names for their familiars as soon as the contract was made. It's admittedly part of the show to bring the students together. The fact that Louise remained vague about her familiar raised red flags, the prime example being her forgetfulness to name her familiar.
"How did thee fare then with your familiar? You've spent time growing accustomed to its presence since its arrival, no?" As much as Osmand wanted to continue his curiosity, he knew that silence would fall between them, and just as he predicted, the student barely nodded as she stared at the floor.
The Headmaster said nothing as he glanced between the two, using the sound of his shoes rapping the wooden floor to fill in the quiet as he sat back on his seat and picked up the scattered documents on his desk, straightening them with a few kicks onto the desktop. He leaned forward on the chair, setting aside the papers, and planted his hands together.
"It seems by all accounts, your summoning was a great success, Ms. Vallière. I suspect you'll be working evermore diligently to improve your performance in the future with such an accomplishment." Osmand nodded approvingly, continuing. "Nevertheless, while I am happy about your achievement thus far for this semester, I must inquire about the purpose of this visit—I feel this isn't all you wish to discuss," Osmand spoke with a curious tone in his voice. At the same time, he peeked an eye in Louise's direction before he adjusted the last of the scrolls still sprawled about at his table.
Although he wished to respect Louise's hesitation of her own silence, it was also clear that both of them knew something. She may not have said anything outright, but the lack of communication would worsen the understanding between them, even if they already knew what they knew separately, to a certain extent. The only problem is, were they truly on the same page? Osmand had to give Louise an outlet, a path she could take with the confidence to say that he was willing to walk with her, to listen to her.
Louise thumbed her hands anxiously as she considered the applicable words to make her case with the Headmaster. She raised her head and addressed the Headmaster, the man sitting patiently for the girl to collect her thoughts. "I, the truth was... I was outside the academy and summoned my familiar beyond its walls. I didn't succeed with summoning my familiar... not at first, anyway." Louise grasped her wrist, ruminating on the tender sensation of the golden ring and its texture of the writing.
Osmand remained silent, contemplating his next words. His initial shock and disbelief faded away from the summoning of the familiar; his suspicion and disappointment rose in him as he quickly realized the issue... or so his initial reaction would've been had his eyes not twinkled in recognition of her words. He already knew the crux of the girl's issue, at least a presupposition—that Louise failed twice with her entire class as a witness in her familiar summoning. So, in the advent of Louise's circumstances, he had already gone through the motions of bewilderment. He'd deliberated a few possible courses of action to acclimate Louise and her family, having to face the reality that Louise was... magically disabled. But that was then, and this was now.
Standing before him, with a familiar at that, Louise's current predicament seemed truly... precarious.
"I see... Ms. Vallière." Osmand blinked, admittedly having to wipe his tired eyes from the news. It was almost numbing. "Please know I mean no offense with what I say to you. I merely wish for you and I to understand what we are saying and eventually come out of this room with a sound peace of mind, no matter how small it may feel." The old man glanced at his secretary's desk, wanting something to look at before he proceeded. "Your professeur," he sighed, "Mr. Colbert, told me you had failed to summon a familiar the prior day twice. If what you are saying is true, then you have not only done what is impossible..." He turned his gaze to Louise, a very, very heavy gaze. "You have also committed sacrilege against the foundational teachings of our academy."
Only one outcome stuck out to Osmand, more obvious than anything else he could imagine that would explain Louise's current predicament. She did fail to summon a familiar. She just kept failing to summon until it worked.
Louise hunched over; she deflated miserably in acquiesced defeat. Her face was shadowed beneath the thickets of hair that streamed down her face and covered her eyes behind their thin veils. "You knew..." Louise whispered airily beneath a shaken breath. Louise shook her head guiltily, her eyes blinking rapidly as she considered her words. Her lips parted and sealed repeatedly as she tried to reproach the Headmaster, each attempt dying in her throat. She swallowed cautiously downing bile that threatened to spill out her throat. When Louise glanced to peer at the headmaster, her expression melted to a pleading fright. "I-I know, monsieur... but it's the truth. I—"
"Didn't stop until you got what you wanted, a familiar." The inflection of his tongue postured his comment more so as a factual statement. Osmand leaned back on his chair as he adjusted himself upon his perch. His lips were pursed in a thin, inexpressible line as he glanced down, his sights addressing the hedgehog and the girl.
Louise stared at the floor, shame dawning on her expression. Hearing the vocal description of her actions and what they committed sounded worse than she initially thought. "Y-yes, monsieur..." Louise's lips were puffed with the intent to speak, but there was nothing she could say, the words simply refused to present themselves. Louise's lips quivered slightly as she thumbed the golden ring now clutched between her fingers.
There were many more questions about the familiar that Osmand wanted to ask, to understand more of Louise's standing, but just as his intuition had come—a sudden knocking thundered courteously on his door, postponing the conversation.
"Excuse me, Headmaster, Ms. Vallière." Not a moment sooner did the mysterious originator open the wooden door leading to the office, unveiling Louise's professor entering the room. Colbert quickly stopped and turned to close the door, adjusting his glasses as he strode across the floor, innocent of the tense atmosphere surrounding the office. "Good morning! I hope you pardon my intrusion, but the doors were left open when I made my presence known, and I wasn't sure if—" The professor stopped and retreated from his words as he turned to the three figures all looking about the room, silent amongst themselves. "I should close... before... entering?"
Colbert coughed suddenly, now noticing the terse silence that radiated from the occupants of the room. The middle-aged man stood still as he scanned the scene before himself, his face contorted in bewilderment at the appearance of the giant blue... cotton ball? Whatever it was, standing next to Louise. The cotton ball caught sight of Colbert in the corner of their eye and waved at him. The professor wiped his eyes and cleaned his glasses before reapplying them. It was still very much waving.
Osmand sighed through his nose, leaning forward on his chair as he wrapped his hands together and set his elbows on his desk. "Good morning, Colbert." He spoke with newfound vigor. "Though I do say it looks like it may already be noon, who knows what time it really is?" While he may have spoken rhetorically, Osmand joked to settle down the atmosphere. His smile at the arrival of the professor, though, was genuine. "It's good to see you too, my friend. Miss Louise," Osmand addressed as he turned slightly to face the student.
The girl nodded courteously as she went to the attention of the Headmaster, her sights ripped from peering back and forth between Sonic and her professor.
Osmand rubbed his scalp, a tick developed over the many years he managed the academy. Though he never said it, he was embarrassed to admit that he picked up the habit from Colbert. "If it's not too terribly a trifling request, I would like to speak with my colleague for the moment, privately. There are matters of great importance for the academy's concurrent status that he and I should discuss."
Colbert tentatively parted for the headmaster's desk, giving the strange creature a weak and confused wave.
The youngest of the Vallière's nodded quickly at the Headmaster's request, "Of course, and... shall I wait in the lobby in the meantime?" The spirit of her question lay in distress as to the materials the older duo would discuss.
"Yes, you may do so." Osmand nodded, waving his goodbye.
Louise made her leave with a lithe curtsy. She carefully nudged her familiar, the hedgehog turning to her in confusion before Louise tugged his hand.
The Headmaster meanwhile stood from his chair as he plucked his staff sitting behind him, propped by the windowsill. He twirled the long staff as if it were a pen in his hands, his old, wrinkled digits moving with youthful ease as they spun it around until the end of his staff came to a rest on the floor with a firm thump on the ground; the staff in the hands of the old man stood rigidly tall.
Osmand shook hands with the professor warmly. "Welcome, welcome, Mr. Colbert. I hope the journey to my quarters wasn't too vexing for your willpower." He laughed silently at his little platitudes with the professor to ease the gentlemen in a more casual presence.
"Ah, well, it's been no different today or yesterday, as far as I can tell you!" Colbert joined him with a simple yet friendly retort to the question. In saying this, he couldn't help but rub his head where he had crashed into the ceiling earlier.
Osmand nodded with a faint sigh as he turned and paced behind his desk, his sights now finding themselves far more interested in the school life below and the academy's architecture streaming out into the vast green plains before him. "That's good to hear, good indeed... Now, my old friend, I'd hate to cut the pleasantries short, but there's been a matter I've been meaning to discuss with you these past few days concerning academia and the curriculum for the second and third years in particular. You see, it's come to my attention that the current academic material for the foreseeable semester and suppli—"
The rest of Osmand's words eroded from Louise's ears as she made her way down the corridor of the office space with her familiar in tow, grasping along his cuffs while the girl all but dragged the hedgehog away from the room.
Without much of a clue as to what was happening, Sonic could only glance curiously between the three humans within the office as Louise led him out of the room.
End Chapter 5.
Well, congratulations! You just finished the chapter and now we're here.
First, formalities. What I need to tell you is...
I AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMM BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKKKKKKK!
*ahem*
I have returned. I've heeded your calls, and long have I waited these last few years to finally f*cking return!
Tonight of all nights!
It's not over. We're so f*cking back.
And I can't think of anything else. Editor, wanna take the reins?
[Editor]: WE'RE SO BACK, THE NEW CHAPTER IS REAL!
And... that's it. Uh... welp, I s'pose I should leave some kind of commentary, but knowing me, I'll probably save that for another chapter.
For this chapter, we celebrate its arrival!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the fifth chapter!
-TokuBinu
