Louise took a deep breath as she sat up on the bed she found herself laying on. She still felt a bone deep exhaustion from her spell. Her collapsing after breaking the curse was disappointing, if unsurprising. Even with how suited void magic was to curse breaking, a curse placed by the Queen of Winter was not something easily banished. She would not have been able to manage it without the Staff of True Ice.
The thought made her shudder. She spoke aloud, "I am free." Louise let out a long breath, she could still speak falsehoods. The curse she had accepted when she took up that staff had yet to fully consume her. She did not know how much time freeing Professor Colbert had cost her, but it did not matter. If breaking that curse had cost her life she would have died with a smile on her lips, progressing her curse was a small cost all things considered.
Thinking of Colbert she needed to find him before he awoke, she would not let the man who tried to save her suffer a moment longer than was necessary. She could hardly believe that she would have the chance to help restore him, when Mab had sent her here she had planned to manipulate someone into having her break the curse on Colbert as part of a deal. But she had assumed that he would have been up on that tree for almost fifteen years, once he was down she had thought the only mercy she would have left to offer him was death.
But in the timeframe of this world it had only been two weeks since she had left. Intellectually she knew that fact should terrify her, Mab had not spent the resources necessary to stretch time here without a purpose. The mission she had been given was far more important, and thus more dangerous, than she had assumed. Still she could not bring herself to care, this was an opportunity beyond her wildest dreams, she allowed herself to feel a rare moment of gratitude for her queen as she stood from the bed.
A young woman's voice rang out. "My lady, please lay back down. The healers said that you should get a full night's sleep before getting to your feet after collapsing in that storm. You might hurt yourself if you were to collapse again."
Louise chided herself, it had been careless to not examine her surroundings for potential dangers upon waking, if this had been Bluebeard's castle… An involuntary shudder ran through her. She forced it down with difficulty, Bluebeard would never touch her again, she had made sure of that.
She quickly scanned the environment with her eyes, taking care not to make any sudden movements that might give away her surprise at the voice. She was in a small but well furnished room. Most of it was taken up by the bed she had been laying in, in the corner to the left of the door was a stool and a table. Sitting on the stool was a young woman dressed as a maid, she looked startled and was quickly stashing away a book she had been reading.
Louise glanced down, her shoes and cloak were removed but otherwise she was still dressed as she had been when she had arrived in this world. She looked back up at the servant, "Where is Professor Colbert?"
"He is resting in the room next door."
Louise nodded at the words, her eyes catching a rack on the other side of the bed holding her cloak, her shoes resting at its base. "Send word to the headmaster that I will be finishing up with Colbert as we discussed earlier, and that I must speak with him at his earliest opportunity."
"Of course, my lady. But please get back to bed, my instructions are-"
Louised reached out a hand and summoned a gust of wind pulling her cloak off its resting place and into her waiting hand, the temperature of the room dropping noticeably as she did so. The servant started, then dropped into a hurried curtsy and rushed out the door. After taking a moment to put on her shoes Louise followed, before turning and entering the room next door.
The room was identical to the one she just left, save for the man sleeping on the bed. Louise strode forward, ignoring the protestations of the servant sitting in the corner and placed her hand on his forehead and began to examine his mindscape.
Lousie found herself floating above a vast battlefield, fire and death spanning before her as far as she could see. She floated down and looked closer at the charred corpses littering the ground. The earth around the corpses was a spider web of fractures as if each body had struck the ground like a meteorite. As she looked closer she noticed that it was not only the earth that was cracked, but the air around the corpses. As she examined the cracks she noticed that while some were slowly closing, new ones kept opening to replace them.
Louise nodded, the bodies and the battlefield were old wounds brought to the forefront by the curse, but they were reopening. Honestly it was impressive how whole this place was, especially with what this environment said about the past trauma Colbert must have suffered. But it still was breaking, as things stood she could not guess whether or not his mind would remain whole without assistance.
Not that she had any intention of leaving such things to chance, she raised a hand and a pack of wolves appeared in front of her before disappearing into the smoke of the battlefield, hunting.
Mental magic is a dangerous art, the slightest error could have devastating side effects that would destroy the mind of the subject. The White Council of Earth banned the practice almost in its entirety, as even attempting it with their magic would damage both the caster and the target of the spell. Of course she was not using their magic, she was using the magic of a High Sidhe of the Winter Court, granted to her by her curse.
Winter magic is the magic of predators, dangerous but not in the same way as the magic of mortals. Her wolves would not damage Colbert's mind as they hunted their prey, predators could be vicious but they did not destroy their own hunting grounds. To do such as that was the madness of Man, not of Winter.
As she waited, the battlefield she was standing on disappeared, driven deeper into Colbert's mind as the wolves found their target and drove it towards the front of his mind. She found herself within the walls of the school a storm of ice and fire raging around her. She glanced down at the corpses laying at her feet acrid smoke rising off them.
After a moment the smoke rising from the corpses seemed to stream back into them and they rose to their feet. The charred skin vanished and she began to see faces, some she recognized and some she did not.
The grounds of the school seemed to stretch into the infinite, pulling the newly reformed people away and causing the walls to vanish into the distance. Finally the wolves reappeared having hunted the memory she wanted and driven it to isolation. In front of Louise stood three figures.
The first was a monstrous creature, its hands, hair, and eyes were all blades of ice set into a body of living shadow, above its head floated a crown of shadow covered in gems of ice. As Louise examined the figure she considered how her Queen would react to this depiction of herself. She would likely be pleased, it cut a terrifying but oddly regal figure.
Louise turned her attention to the second figure. It was a depiction of herself from before her time in Arctis Tor. The figure was wearing a collar of ice, attached to a leash of shadow being held by the representation of Mab. Her ankles and wrists were bound in manacles of flame, and her head was turned towards the third figure even as she followed the first, her eyes appearing dead. Louise felt a spike of pain as she looked at the depiction, it seemed accurate carrying all the imperfections of humanity that had been slowly stripped from her by her curse.
She turned away from it and looked towards the third figure. This one was the frozen corpse of Colbert. His hand extended, reaching for her own figure yet unable to reach. The only movement in the entire scene were bloody tears flowing down his cheeks.
Louise looked at the scene frozen in front of her. Part of her, a large part if she was being honest, wanted to destroy this scene and forge a new one in its place where Colbert was knocked senseless after having driven off Mab and saving her. Allow him to live out the fantasy she had held for so long. It would not be difficult, she would need to rewrite the minds of those who saw him crucified to that tree, but she had no care for them so that was no cost. But she would not risk it, in turning him into the hero from her dreams she might shatter him.
With a flex of her will the scene disappeared into a glacier of black ice, which then disappeared from her sight, having been sent into the deepest recesses of the professor's mind. She once again found herself in the middle of the school, the storm having been replaced with a mild snowfall and the flames having almost entirely disappeared. Around her the students were milling about.
After a moment she found what she was searching for, the cracks in reality that had been forming. She examined them, noting that the rate at which they were disappearing had not changed, but now new ones were not replacing those that vanished. With a satisfied nod Louise extracted herself from Colbert's mind.
Osmond watched as the woman who claimed to be Louise de la Valliere stood over Jean's bed, her hand resting on his forehead. When they had spoken under that Brimir-damned tree, her claim that she would be able to use magic to repair Jean's mind had convinced him to agree to her deal but now that he saw her just standing over him with her eyes shut and no outward sign of magic he wondered if he had been deceived.
While water mages could heal the body he knew of no magic that allowed one to heal the mind. He shook his head, trying to free himself from the suspicion. He had watched her break the curse, the magic she had used had behaved in ways he had not even known was possible while she had done so.
Beside him stood Charlotte, the school's head healer. She was a grandmotherly looking woman in her sixties, though the impression was currently spoiled by her vexed expression and the fact that she was muttering curses under her breath. She had wanted to forcibly stop Louise when Osmond had explained what she had said she was going to do, stating that misapplied healing magic could interfere with Jean's recovery. He had been able to convince her not to do anything rash, though he believed the only reason he had been able to do so was the fact that there was no outward sign of magic from whatever it was Louise was doing. If she had been using a basin of healing water he probably would have been forced to bodily stop the healer if he wanted to prevent her from interfering.
He felt a pulse of frigid air and then Louise opened her eyes and pulled her hand away from Jean's head. She stepped away from the bed and Charlotte rushed forward to examine Jean. Louise glanced at her before refocusing her attention on Osmond and spoke, "I have sealed his memories of the last two weeks. When he wakes he will be unable to recall what has happened since the day of the Summoning Ritual, but his mind will still be fragile. The curse drew upon his past traumas, and from what I glimpsed they were significant."
Osmond winced, wondering what Louise now knew. He had helped Jean hide his past as the Flame Snake, he would need to ensure she did not speak of it carelessly. Still that was hardly what was most important right now, "Will he be able to recover?"
A faint smile appeared on Louise's face. "Absolutely. His will is strong, even with the memories of the curse actively tearing new holes in his psyche he was piecing his mind back together through sheer will. In fact his will is strong enough that I chose to use a seal that will slowly thaw, releasing the memories back to him slowly as his mind grows stable enough to deal with them."
Osmond shuddered, "Why allow the memories to return? Wouldn't it be better to permanently seal them?"
Louise shook her head, "If I thought he could not deal with the memories I would, but the damage the curse did to his mind would still be there regardless of whether I permanently removed the memories or not. Without him being able to recall the source that trauma would be more difficult for him to recover from in the long run. By allowing them to come back slowly his recovery will be more stable in the long run."
Osmond nodded slowly. He wasn't sure he agreed but she obviously had more experience with mind magic than himself, especially given that he had thought it to be mythical earlier this morning.
Charlotte stepped away from Jean, seemingly satisfied that his health had not been negatively impacted from Louise's intrusion. She glared at Louise, "Headmaster why are you listening to this prattle? I wouldn't be surprised if Jean awakens without his memories of the event, it is a somewhat common reaction to severe trauma like he just went through, but magic cannot seal memories. There is no physical sign she did anything to Jean, she did not even pull out a focus for Brimir's sake! I do not know what game this girl is playing but she is trying to con you."
Louise turned to look at the healer with a bored expression, but Osmond felt a chill run down his spine as he saw her eyes. He could not understand what had changed about them, but her gaze was now distinctly inhuman. She spoke, her voice as cold as the blizzard she had dispelled only hours before. "Do not assume that what is possible is defined by your ignorant perspective, child. I have seen sights that would leave you weeping blood as your mind shattered from the horror of it."
Charlotte slowly backed away from Louise, one hand forming a holy symbol while the other grasped for her wand, "E-elf!"
Louise's bored expression morphed into a predatory smile. The temperature in the room plummeted and there was a creaking sound as the water in the healing basin at the foot of the bed froze solid. Osmond felt panic rise in his gut, he did not understand Louise's magic but he remembered that moment of frozen time from when she had unmade the curse. She was far beyond a square mage like himself, let alone a triangle mage like a triangle mage like Charlotte. If he did not defuse this situation immediately this would be a disaster. Desperately he searched his memories of his interactions with the woman, desperately looking for anything that might help
"Louise, You are here as my guest! Please do not harm my staff." The words were the only thing that came to mind. Louise seemed oddly concerned about deals and exact wording, and she said she would behave as a guest as part of the deal he made with her, responsibilities that she had said included defending his home. Whatever moral system she followed he had to believe that her killing his staff while his guest would be a violation. He felt his knees weaken as she turned to face him, but did his absolute best to maintain a stern expression.
As she met his eyes Osmond had to stop himself from sagging in relief. Her eyes were once again those of a human and she had a contrite expression plastered across her face. The room warmed noticeably as she bowed her head to him in apology then turned back to Charlotte and spoke, her voice kind "Be calm, good healer, I am no elf and I will cause you no harm while I am treated as a guest at this school. As for my words, I apologize. I spoke before thinking. I would blame my exhaustion but making excuses for foolishness still leaves one a fool."
Charlotte glanced at Osmond and he desperately tried to indicate that she should accept without speaking. After a moment she turned back to Louise, "Thank you for your apology. This has been a stressful couple of weeks for us all."
Louise turned to him, "Before I can retire we must speak in private."
"Go out and ask a maid to escort you to my office, I will be with you momentarily, I must discuss something with Charlotte first." Louise nodded at his words and glided out of the room.
As Osmond heard the door click shut behind him he turned to the healer. She spoke before he could, keeping her voice hushed in case Louise was listening from outside the door. "Headmaster, who was that? And what did she mean she is a guest at this school?"
"I don't know, though I will try to learn when we speak after this. But she is currently a guest here, she has some business in Tristain and I offered to allow her to stay here while she attends to it as payment for her banishing that cursed storm." Osmond purposefully did not mention he owed her two additional favors as payment.
Charlotte turned to the door, "She is dangerous, Osmond, and even if she is telling the truth about not being an elf, the magic she demonstrated is not of Brimir. It must be heretical. With the storm gone the knights should be here shortly. Just tell them about her and let the crown or the church deal with her."
"No! She claims to be here on orders from her Queen. If we were to betray her after the deal I made, it may have consequences for all of Tristain." Not to mention if her claims about the identity of her queen were true, doing so may leave him envious of Jean's time on that tree. "At least allow me to speak with her before doing anything rash. I will tell you what I learn and we can choose how to deal with her after."
Charlotte paused a second before agreeing. Osmond trusted the healer to keep her word, at least for as long as she thought he was not recklessly endangering the students. He started walking back to his office, he had promised himself he would not regret his choice when he chose to make a deal with that woman. He would have to see if he could live up to that.
A/N: I'll be honest I was not expecting this to be the story I released a chapter for as an end to my hiatus. But my muse is fickle, and no matter how much I was hoping that my return would start with a new chapter of Khepri-sensei or Lady of the Flies, this is the chapter my brain would not stop bugging me about while I tried to sleep.
Anyway I hope everyone enjoyed reading this. Writing the mindscape scene was quite fun and I really like the visuals of magic this story allows me to write. I do have another chapter of this fully outlined but I make no promises about when it will be posted. I really would like to finish a chapter of some of my other fics first so they at least aren't stuck mid arc.