"Headmaster!" Osmond startled as Longueville quickly approached him. Her normally pristine appearance had been decayed by stress over the last two weeks. Her hair was tied back loosely with a few free strands falling over her face rather than the tight bun she normally kept it in, and there were dark bags under her eyes.
"Sir, a great white bear arrived at the western gate, obviously someone's familiar. It was carrying this." His secretary held out a letter sealed with the royal sigil. Osmond took it and gestured for Longueville to follow as he continued to walk towards his office. Seeing that she did he opened the letter and quickly read through it.
"The crown is preparing to send a contingent of Griffin Knights to the school, led by their Captain. They will assist us as they are able, but their primary mission will be to reestablish contact with the surrounding villages and provide aid to them. They will use the school as their base of operations while they do so. We will need to prepare the stables for their Griffins and what rooms we can for the Knights. Contact Professor Ravier, he will be in charge of coordinating our Earth mages in case we need to quickly create temporary shelters. What is the status of the familiar that delivered this?"
"Resting. Malan is taking care of it. The storm is weakening noticeably, but the trip through was obviously difficult." Osmond felt a moment of relief, that meant he had time to figure out what he was going to tell the crown about Louise.
"Have Malan send someone to inform me when it has recovered. I will draft a reply to send back with it. Are the rooms prepared for our new guest?" Longueville nodded sharply. "Good, I will be meeting with our guest momentarily, after which I expect she will want to be shown to her accommodations."
"Sir." Longueville hurried away to carry out his instructions.
Osmond continued towards his office, as he did he prepared himself mentally. He needed to figure out who Louise was and how he should handle her going forward. He owed her a debt, not only from the deal he made but because her actions will have saved everyone in the school once the storm had finally dissipated, but she also claimed to owe fealty to the being that had endangered them all in the first place. Not to mention that look in her eye when she confronted Charlotte. Whoever she was, whatever he owed her, she was dangerous. And if he was to ensure the safety of his charges he needed to understand how she was dangerous.
Osmond entered the reception room for his office, inside Louise sat on one of the chairs, her posture perfect and her hands folded on her lap in front of her. She looked every bit a perfectly refined young lady. Osmond bowed his head towards her, "My Lady, if you could come with me to my office we can talk there."
Louise silently rose and made her way to the door to his office proper, as she did so he turned to the maid who stood in the corner, "Miss-"
"Siesta, sir."
"Miss Siesta, please wait here. I have set aside rooms in the guest manor for the lady. After my meeting with her please escort her there and see to any needs she may have." The maid curtseyed and Osmond entered his office, Louise following behind.
After they entered Osmond pulled out his wand and placed a barrier of wind in front of his door and windows, he then turned back to his guest, "Those will prevent eavesdropping."
Louise responded with an amused smile, but before she could speak Osmond continued with a firm voice, "Now tell me, who are you actually?"
"I do not like repeating myself, headmaster. I am Louise de la Valliere."
"You saved Jean and likely this whole school so I owe you a debt, but please, do not lie to me."
Louise glared and Osmond felt himself wilt under it, "The only person I speak lies to is myself."
The odd response startled him, but he persevered with his question, "Look, I am willing to accept that you aged at least a decade in two weeks, the magic you demonstrated when you dispelled that curse is at a level that I find myself questioning if the things I thought were impossible actually were. But you also claim to owe fealty to the thing that cursed Jean in the first place, and that look in your eyes when you were angry at Charlotte earlier…," Osmond felt himself shudder, "I'm not sure that you are entirely human. If you are Louise de la Valliere, as you say, what happened to you?"
The woman's face softened, "I suppose that question is fair. After my Queen finished with Professor Colbert she turned her attention to me. I offered to become her Familiar in exchange for her sparing my family. So now I serve her, as I will until the day of my death, and, knowing her, possibly beyond even that."
She took a deep breath then continued, "As for my humanity, do you remember the staff I used to dispel that curse?" Osmond nodded, it was a difficult thing to forget given that just looking at it had made him want to give into death. "That is the Staff of True Ice. It amplifies my power, but it also contains the Mantle of the Yuki-onna. When I chose to take up the staff in exchange for power I also accepted the Mantle into myself, and it is slowly eating away at my humanity."
Osmond stared at Louise in horror. "Why would you do that?"
Louise's expression darkened momentarily, "There was someone I wanted to suffer, and I needed power to make that a reality."
Osmond felt a chill run down his spine at her words. The reason she now served the monster that attacked her made sense to him, and he had known people who had thrown away their humanity in search of revenge so that wasn't too surprising. He had just not known it was possible to literally throw away your humanity before, that sounded insane. "You not being entirely human, will that pose a risk to the students if you were to stay here rather than at my estates."
Louise laughed softly, "While I am your guest it is my humanity that may pose a threat to your students, rather than my lack thereof."
"What does that even mean?"
"The less human I become the more I am bound to my word and the Old Laws. If my humanity was completely gone then it would be physically impossible for me to purposefully harm anyone here unless I could do so in such a way that it would not be a breach of etiquette, such as in a duel. As I am now doing so would leave me ill for a time, but I could still choose to do so if sufficiently motivated."
Osmond dropped into his chair and put his head in his hands, her explanation was insane. After a moment of contemplation, he decided to just accept it. He had always known the knowledge of magic they had inherited from Brimir was incomplete, he had just not realized exactly how lacking it had been until now.
He looked back up at Louise "Okay, I'll accept that you are who you say, but sadly that makes my situation more complicated rather than less. I have no idea how to report any of this to the crown in a way that doesn't make me come off as insane or result in the church ordering our arrest for heresy."
Louise nodded, "That brings us to what I wished to discuss with you. I do not want my family to discover my fate."
"I thought you said that you don't lie."
Louise smiled softly, "Lying to someone and deceiving them are not the same thing."
"Isn't that just semantics?"
Louise giggled, "You will find that few things are of greater import than semantics while dealing with the Fae."
Osmond sighed, "Then what should I tell the crown?"
"That I broke the curse, avoid any details about me and call me Yuki. I can say with honesty that I am Yuki-onna due to the Mantle, and I can deal with their questions of how I got here and did such a thing myself."
That was easy enough. There was nothing good that could come from claiming she was Louise anyway. "I will do as you ask. If I may have your leave, we have received a missive from the crown and I need to draft a reply. I also need to make sure the school is prepared to receive the Griffon Knights."
"You do not have it." Osmond looked up questioningly, "We need to discuss what to do about my disappearance. It would be inconvenient if you were to be removed as headmaster as a consequence of it."
Osmond hadn't considered that, he had spent the last two weeks dealing with matters of life and death so he hadn't really had time to consider how this all might impact his career. "What can we do about it?"
Louise smiled coldly then backed up towards the door while she started chanting quietly. Osmond listened, the chant sounded like the spell to summon a familiar. Before he could ask what she was doing she stopped and a circle of green light appeared in the middle of his room, out of which tumbled a boy who looked like he could be no older than five. The circle vanished as the boy stood up, his legs unsteady.
The boy quickly scanned the room, eyes wide with fear stopping on him. Osmond stared back in stunned silence. The boy glanced at his feet for a moment then his head jerked back up towards Osmond, the fear that had been plain on his face moments ago had vanished in favor of anger.
The boy spoke in an accent reminiscent of something he had heard while in Albion. "Oi! Fucker! Where do you get off summoning me? And not even using a bloody circle to protect yourself! I am going to shove my hand so far up your arse it is going to come out the other side and then I am going to tear out your bloody throat!"
Osmond looked on in horror as the boy stepped towards him, his right arm growing noticeably longer as he did so. Then Louise spoke, "He did not summon you."
The boy stiffened to a stop as his eyes widened and his arm returned to normal. His breaths came out short and quick as he started to shiver noticeably. He slowly turned around and then gave a stiff bow, "You calling in your marker, Lady Valliere?"
Osmond looked up from the boy who now had his back to him and at Louise, he felt himself start to shiver as well. All of her warmth and humanity had vanished from her eyes. He had no question that right now he was not looking at Louise de la Valliere but at the Yuki-onna.
"I am."
The boy straightened, "Very good, my lady. What favor are you asking of me?"
"You will be imitating me from before I came into my Queen's service."
The boy seemed to relax at her words, "I am sorry my lady. I need hair from when you were that age in order to do so, and they can't be more than a few weeks old."
There was a sudden chill in the air and the window behind Osmond blew open. He whirled to look and saw a small winged woman fly in carrying a hairbrush over her shoulder like she was lifting the trunk of a tree. The woman flew to Louise who took the brush and tossed it to the boy, who caught it stiffly. "The hairs on that should meet your requirements."
"I see." There was a pause while the boy took a deep breath. Then he spoke again, his voice filled with obviously false confidence, "I cannot accept this. Pretending to be you sounds like a good way for a bloke to find an early grave."
Louise nodded, "Our deal does allow you to refuse any favor you find unreasonable. Then I will contact the Winter Knight, he owes me a favor and will escort you back to Earth."
"Oh you bloody bitch!" Louise raised an eyebrow and the boy's voice quieted. "You know Dresden will turn me into a pile of ashes."
Louise smiled sweetly "You should have considered that before you killed children in order to steal their families."
The boy paused for a moment longer then looked up towards the ceiling. After a moment his jaw stretched open several times wider than should have been possible. He raised the hair brush above the gaping maw and dropped it inside. A moment later his body began to shift and stretch, growing into the form of a young woman with pink hair. The clothes remained the ones the thing had been wearing upon its arrival, stretched and torn into rags.
Louise gestured and the rags were replaced by a blouse and skirt that fit properly. The newly formed girl curtseyed, "I am most grateful, my lady."
Louise ignored the words, walking in a circle around her younger self inspecting her before nodding in approval. "Those will turn back to rags at noon tomorrow, I would suggest getting a change of clothes before then."
Finally Osmond found it in himself to speak again after what he had just seen. He pointed to the girl, "What is that thing? And if it kills kids like you said, why would I let it into my school."
"That is a Doppelganger. They are shapeshifters who kill people to take over their lives and feed on the love and affection they receive. They are completely harmless, unless they are hunting for a new family."
The Doppelganger turned to face him as well, "Which I will not be doing until Lady Valliere releases me from my favor."
"Now I must retire soon. I will leave it to the two of you to figure out a story as to how she survived the blizzard. Sliver you supervise them." The small winged woman saluted towards Louise as she walked towards the door.
Before opening it to leave Louise stopped and turned to look at her younger form once again. As she did so the temperature in the office plummeted. "If you harm my family I will ensure you spend the next thousand years wishing for the fate I rescued you from."
She then opened the door and stepped out of the office leaving Osmond alone with the shape shifting monster. It turned to him, "So, did you make a deal with her as well?"
Osmond nodded stiffly.
"Well at least I am not the only one here who is fucked."
A/N: Some clarification about Louise because Osmond doesn't know enough about Earth mythology or the metaphysics of the Dresden universe to make it into the chapter. Louise got two Mantles from the staff, similar to how Odin has the Mantle for the Allfather as well as the Mantle for Santa Claus. She has the Mantle for the progenitor Yuki-onna and one for a High Sidhe of the Winter Court that is associated with wolves.
The chapter is exposition heavy, I needed to give Osmond some context for what he is caught up in, and let him figure out that he is quite likely to end up regretting his deal. But it does actually set up my original idea, the fic with the imposter Louise. It came out really quick, mostly because I wanted to write a preschooler cursing someone out with a Cockney accent.
