Louise de la Vallière, frequently known as the Zero, still had no idea what to make of the young man who was, apparently, her familiar. From the beginning she'd had very little idea; when the smoke had cleared her first thought had been that he was just another in a long line of her failures.
But he wasn't. She hadn't known what to think about that. Kirche and the dwarf had been sitting together laughing over whatever ribald jokes he was telling while Guiche had his own little hissyfit in the corner and her familiar, her servant, just sat there quietly.
He'd answered questions, when she'd asked. Quietly, concisely, in slightly accented Tristainian. Without making eye contact at any point. She had eventually agreed to the contract if only because Professor Colbert had helped to draw it up, and she really wanted this to work.
She'd done it. He was bound to her, and contracted into her service. It was like she was dreaming. Of course, he was a person. That hadn't been expected. Really, she'd not had much of an idea what to do with them. In the end he'd suggested that he sleep with the other servants and come attend to her in the morning.
'Attend'. Hah. What a word. She'd woken up to find him waiting for her with a maid, and clothing laid out. Then he'd left the room while the maid helped dress her. When he came back in she'd informed him that she could dress herself from then on. That had been… embarrassing. The maid was nice about it, but she'd felt like a child again.
His reaction had been horrifying. He'd pulled out a riding crop, her crop, and apologized for his… his 'presumptuousness'. She hadn't understood what was going on. Her familiar was just kneeling down and offering her a tool. Then she'd understood. He wanted… no, perhaps the better word was that he'd expected to be beaten for it.
To what she would now say was her shame, Louise had considered it. She'd taken the crop from him and held it for a few moments. Her mother had punished servants in the past, but never by striking them. She knew other nobles did so. Maybe she would have done it, even, if he wasn't so… sincere.
That was the word. He obeyed orders without question and acted with a level of efficiency that matched anyone worthy of employ by the Vallière's. It might be different if he was irreverent, or insulting, or disrespected her on any level. Instead he… he turned his back to her so she could strike him more easily.
She'd let it go. They'd gone to the dining hall together, with him following quietly only a few steps back. When they arrived he'd done all the things she supposed a servant was meant to do. He was drawing quite a lot of attention, though, with how he stood perpetually ready to attend her.
In the end she'd ordered him to familiarise himself with the grounds while she was in class just to get him out of the way. The constant attendance was nice, she supposed, but the amount of focus she was getting from everyone wasn't something she was used to. When it was positive, that is.
Lunch became another surprise. She'd been cleaning up the classroom after another failed spell when he'd appeared with a pre-prepared lunch for her. While she ate he'd started doing her job in her stead; an attempt to tell him not to got a mild rebuff followed by another apologetic offer for her to punish him.
That seemed to be the routine from then on. He'd show up to wake her, with her clothes for the day laid out already, and then step outside while she dressed herself. During breakfast he would handle her chair, fix a plate for her and calmly wait until she was done. If she had a mishap during the day then he'd shortly appear to help her clean up.
At the end of the second day, when she returned to her room, it was spotless. He'd dusted and washed everything and also waxed all of the wooden surfaces. All of her clothes had been washed, pressed and apparently infused with some sort of flowery scent that was quite nice. When she pressed him for information he eventually revealed that he'd stepped out of Academy during her classes yesterday and acquired some wildflowers that he had distilled down to their vital essences.
It was just all so strange. Louise had never had a dedicated attendant before. The servants at home were certainly skilled but, at the same time, they were always just sort of there. Almost like furniture. Whereas her familiar was always there beside her. Whenever she needed him he just materialized to do her bidding; carrying out her orders with an intensity that seemed to consume him, utterly.
On the third day with him she was suddenly struck with a deep and abiding fear that, if she did not keep an eye on him, he may just start going even further overboard. A vision of her familiar diligently renewing the lace on all of her underthings drove her to imperiously demand he stay with her during class time.
That was when she learned about another trait of her familiar. He was an idiot. Against the advisement of all of her classmates she was called upon, again, to try and perform a spell in class. The expected happened, of course, with a devastating blast. Luckily, nobody was hurt… except her stupid, courageous, heroic idiot of a familiar.
He'd crossed the room and knocked her down with a flying tackle. When the dust had settled she'd been fine, as had the majority of the class. Some scrapes and a few scratches and one person in a mild fugue due to Montmorency's terrified lizard crawling over their face. Then there was him, with a twenty centimetre splinter of wood in his back.
She'd gotten permission to take him to the infirmary straight away and return to clean up later. The school's healer had removed the shard of desk and cleaned him up right-quick. It hadn't penetrated all that far; apparently because of how tense his muscles had been when it hit. He'd been advised to not do it again.
When Louise had tried to order him not to do it again she had received, for the very first time, a glimmer of an emotion beyond blind obedience from him. If that even counted. Saito had outright refused to do so. He'd said that she had accepted his service and that meant he would protect her whether she liked it or not.
It had been… certainly something. The fervor in his voice had given her pause. Although he threw himself fervently into any task she gave him it somehow felt more genuine in that moment. She did punish him, then; assuming that punching him in the shoulder for saying something so stupid counted.
Afterwards she'd hugged him as well, because it felt like the thing to do.
The next day was uneventful even if she was finally falling into a proper rhythm with Saito. He didn't seem quite so intimidating after the previous day's events and so she felt like she could stand up to him. Sort of. Well, that was how she saw it.
Ignoring his many attempts to dissuade her she took him into the woods near the Academy in order to point out which plants made useful reagents. Apparently, when he'd come here on his own, he'd had to avoid a few instances of dangerous wildlife. She merely pronounced her confidence in his ability to protect her and actually got a very tiny huff from him in response.
Well, he might have just been breathing out. It was very hard to damage his composure. Still, the day had gone well. He'd even demonstrated one of his skills at her request; his ability to read tracks. Saito hadn't fully explained himself until after the first demonstration which had involved leading her to the hiding place of an adorably terrified fawn.
The moment had been somewhat spoiled when he asked if she would like venison for dinner. That had lead to a discussion as to what sort of game was and was not acceptable with fawns being highly ranked on the 'unacceptable' listing. Besides which, in many places certain animals belonged either to the local noble or the crown and hunting them would be poaching. She wasn't sure what applied to this area but it was likely property of the Academy itself.
He'd moved on to showing her how he'd identified the tracks of the mother deer in a way that made her suspect he might already be guilty of poaching. It was actually refreshing to know that even her seemingly perfect familiar could make mistakes. Louise made a note to bring it up at every opportunity.
It was, however, a productive day; even if she couldn't understand the explanations. In some small way, Louise still felt like she was a little closer with her familiar. From what she'd seen of the others Saito was meant to be more like a lifelong partner than an actual servant.
The bond was supposed to persist until the death of one of you; in theory you could summon a new familiar but few chose to do so. At least not soon. She knew her mother had done so, and almost immediately, but apparently she'd needed a mount immediately and had no time for sentimentality. Just one of many things she rarely had time for.
Apparently Louise didn't either, because the thought had barely time to cross her mind before she fell asleep. Saito hadn't woken her up, but her clothes were laid out as per usual. He wasn't waiting outside of her door like she'd expected. She'd had to venture into the servants area to find him and that had certainly been awkward; all of the Academy's maids kept looking at her strangely.
He had been deep in discussion with one of the maids, in fact. She almost hadn't wanted to interrupt them but he'd seemed to sense her and turned around as soon as she thought about stepping back. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed; another human emotion that seemed out of place on her oh-so-precise familiar.
Saito had apologized, of course. Apparently he had come here for some inscrutable purpose that he did his best to gloss over and simply gotten distracted. Although, after a bit of pressing, she was able to figure out why her usually unflappable servant was so deeply invested in some random maid.
Seems he'd recognized something she was carrying as a religious symbol from his homeland. She'd given him the morning off, then. He'd looked conflicted but, in the end, had acquiesced with her request once it became a command. Louise knew that he'd never ask her for a day off even if she had to, by contract, grant them to him.
Instead of attempting to bond further with her familiar she'd spent the morning catching up on coursework. It wasn't that difficult. She could barely recall a time when she'd had difficulty with any theory work. Even the third year's curriculum had grown dull. Nowadays she preferred to look up some of the professionally published treatises in the library; anything by one of the Professors tended to provide a nice challenge.
Well, she could barely understand it at all but challenging herself like that was at least more interesting than crunching through sets of questions that were essentially the same. Number of unique spell configurations, number of known spells, reason for discrepancies, so on and so forth. She doubted half her classmates paid as much attention as she did; they were too focused on the practical side.
When Saito had finally returned to her she was trying to figure out a paper by the new teacher who'd had her blow up a classroom the day of the summoning while trying a basic transmutation. It was about the nature of certain metals being harder to transmute or manipulate than others and why that might be so.
At the time he interrupted her she was puzzling over descriptions of certain alloys and the rough amounts of willpower consumed by shaping them, as well as comparing the difficulty of transmuting a simple stone into one versus shaping the component metals instead. It was… well, perhaps it was not interesting but she found it to be so even if others did not.
Still, her familiar had come to her with a curious request. He'd asked if they could travel into town so that she might purchase some weaponry for him. They had been lucky before to avoid any dangers in the forest but if they came he would be forced to defend her with his hands alone. While he would certainly do as such it would not do for him to so shamefully die while his master had need of him.
The argument had swayed her and she'd agreed to go; next weekend. For some reason that would not do, though, and when she pointed out that the ride there would take up time enough even without considering the return trip he had simply said that he would take care of it.
Louise made careful note that, in the future, if her familiar declared he would 'take care' of anything at all she would get all of the details before allowing him to do so. She was unable to make this note until such time as the horse they were riding on skidded to a halt. As her thoughts had readjusted themselves she'd tried to figure out precisely how he'd managed to get her on the animal behind him.
It had seemed reasonable. She was capable enough of riding her own horse at a reasonable pace, but he claimed to have far greater experience at controlling such animals at speed. Louise hadn't doubted him there; her own skill in such could not be measured due to its total absence. How very reasonable he had seemed when the horse was not galloping full speed down the main road.
The reason for her blessed respite had been the other person to receive a strange familiar; Guiche de Gramont. She had little care for the foppish young man but was rather surprised to see him in such an unruly state and out in the middle of nowhere with his, ah, dwarf. Until she'd had a moment to think on it she realized that she hadn't seen much of either of them since the summoning save for during class time.
Said dwarf, whom she'd needed to remind herself actually had a name, had made a curious offer that Saito had been eager to accept. Some moments of conversation had lead him to explain, in short, that the individual in question was a literal living legend in his homeland and that to refuse an offer of a dwarf-made weapon, without any mention of payment, was the height of foolishness.
So she'd acquiesced. Then there had been the weapon store and, well, the less thought about that debacle and the incredible rudeness involved therein the better.
Mostly because it had ended with
her mother coming to the school in person to check on her. Guiche had looked similarly green to be faced with his own father and, so, some part of her was thoroughly unsurprised to have him come to her the next morning to commiserate.
She'd never known him to have an emotion beyond vanity, arrogance or preening. The latter surely counted as an emotion; at least when dealing with Guiche. To see him as morose as she was certainly changed her opinion of him. Then his family situation, and almost perfect relationship with his father… well, from her point of view, at least. He didn't quite see it that way.
In the end he could understand her at least a little bit as well even if they approached the issues of their parents from different directions. Guiche seemed to do his best to be anything but what his father wanted whereas she… in the end she would have simply settled for not being a disappointment.
Which lead to the frankly astounding scene she had come face to face with. Her mother, standing beside her familiar in the central courtyard of the school, was smiling. She looked…
pleased. Then she looked up at her daughter
and her expression didn't change.
It might just be the greatest day of her entire life.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bumping into Louise's mother, and familiar, on the way down to meet his father was definitely in the running for the most unpleasant moment of Guiche's entire life. Even then, that was really the wrong word. It was less unpleasant and more absolutely, abjectly terrifying.
He knew very little about the Duchess. His father spoke of a number of nobles with varying frequency, the Duke de la Vallière certainly being one of them, but the topic of the man's wife never seemed to come up. Something about her just made Guiche's hairs stand on end. She was a woman who gave the constant impression that she was restraining, at great personal effort, from laying waste to everything her gaze fell upon.
If he hadn't met Kenneth then he might not have been able to identify it. But it was something he'd asked the dwarf about; the curious intensity he seemed to be able to bring to bear at a moment's notice in order to immediately shatter Guiche's resolve and bring him to heel. The dwarf had eventually said, after some hemming and hawing, that it was a mixture of two things.
Firstly, it was evaluation. Kenneth was, on some subtle level, constantly examining everything he saw to see if it was a threat to him. The only time he let his guard down was when he was alone with his wife. Secondly, it was determination. That explanation had left Guiche cold. Simply put, Kenneth was a killer. Not a murderer, although he was guilty of that crime in some cases; where it had been his word against another's, where there was no evidence to be brought before a magistrate and no justice save that delivered at the end of an axe swing.
Rather, he had killed before. He would kill again if he had to. Without hesitation. Not without cause, certainly, but once that cause was there he would wade through pools of blood to see it through. It was the path that Guiche himself would end up upon if he carried on under Kenneth's instruction. The dwarf had promised him, though, that he would tell him when he reached the point of no return. Few people got that luxury.
That was Louise's mother in a nutshell. She could and probably would slaughter him with a flick of her wand should she feel sufficient cause to do so. He resolved, then and there, never to give that to her. In the face of that steely determination his father was almost a joke.
The key word there, Guiche mused, being 'almost'. He had followed the Duchess quietly, though not as quietly as Saito, and they'd ended up outside. Kenneth was standing beside his father and holding some things. They were both waiting for him.
It seemed unfair that even after being exposed to Kenneth for almost a week now his father could so easily cow him. Surely they weren't even on the same scale of fear? But, no, one stern look as they drew closer brought him to silence… although the words that followed would have done so anyway.
"My son's familiar has proven he has an… adequate level of skill. In non-martial spheres, at least. Your daughter's?" The Duchess glanced down at Saito, who was standing in his usual demure holding pattern right where a casual sideways glance could see him.
"I have extracted the rough details of his capabilities from him, with no small amount of effort, and evaluated those I could. Now all that remains is to test the remainder with the help of this dwarf." Kenneth didn't rankle at the nomenclature even if it was likely not meant as a racial identifier. He merely offered the bow up to Saito.
The young man seemed almost perplexed by it. However, at the Duchess' command, they moved outside of the Academy's walls to the low plain nearby. Kenneth apologized for not supplying proper arrows but apparently he'd run out of time.
"Hmph. A true soldier does not blame his tools for poor performance… but I shall be interested in the results nonetheless." General Gramont was not quite swayed yet, it seemed. Several porters carrying makeshift archery butts had shortly followed them out and set about laying them out. There were quite a few; three were laid out at around fifty metres, then one laid out at a hundred, then a hundred and fifty, and lastly one at two-hundred. That was her command, at least, and they seemed close enough to the mark to satisfy her.
"You may now demonstrate." Saito nodded and stepped up as Guiche watched with bated breath. This was it. Not only was the fate of Louise's familiar resting on this but also the reputation of his own. If Kenneth's bow proved to be unsuitable then his father would have cause to rescind his earlier assessment.
The first shot went nowhere near the first of the three closer targets; Saito overshot by a good thirty metres. His second was far too short. Then the third passed between two of them. Guiche had to resist the urge to groan. If not for the circumstances he might be elated at the failures simply due to how thoroughly the perfect servant had proven himself to be otherwise.
His moment of despair collapsed in on itself as the fourth arrow hit one of the targets. It was not complex; they had taken unused easels and simply laid scrap fabric around a circular frame, with a rough red spot in the middle about the size of a fist. Still, he had hit the target.
Saito's fifth arrow hit the red spot. His sixth did as well; on the next target over. His seventh did too, and by then he was drawing and releasing in a single, smooth motion that left him adjusting towards the next target before his arrow had even hit. After all three had hit at the fifty mark he struck the hundred next, then the hundred and fifty, then back to put an arrow in each of the fifties once more before circling back around yet again.
His first shot at the hundred and fifty butt had hit it, but not the center. He finished off by putting the last three arrows through the red mark and lowered his bow. Three misses out of fifteen arrows, but once he'd hit a target he hadn't missed again.
Guiche and his father had rather similar reactions to the display; that being a burst of initial surprise and then simply being mildly impressed by the end. Certainly, it was a good showing but not a particularly strenuous feat for a quality archer, surely? But Kenneth was smirking for some reason.
"Y'barely strained y'self there, lad. Why dun we go fer a real challenge?" Her Grace seemed to agree with his familiar's sentiments, for she directed the porters to recollect the arrows and take the butts out even further. One was shortly sitting at two-hundred metres, and another at two-fifty. After some consideration they put one all the way out at three-hundred metres.
A truly skilled musketeer could only reliably hit a target at under a hundred and fifty metres; although some of the elite could supposedly make better shots. Accurate archery range was a little better than that, but you tended to mass bows for effect in any case. It was the only way to reliably damage an enemy army with any wind mages seconded to it.
Saito took a few moments to prepare before taking his first shot. It landed within a metre of the two-hundred. He paused for a few moments before firing again; a hit, this time. The third went right through the middle. For the two-fifty he actually clipped the edge of the butt with his first shot, then the second and third landed within a handspan of the center. Guiche found he was actually holding his breath.
For a time the familiar was very still. He sighted on the last target and then closed his eyes to take a few deep breaths. When he opened them he drew and fired in one smooth, beautiful motion. Their eyes were glued to the arrow as it described a short spiral on the way downrange before, finally, landing firmly in the top of the target.
"Hm." The Duchess broke the stunned silence as she cast a critical eye over his shots. "You will practice more; but your skill level is… acceptable. How is the equipment?" Saito raised the bow and held it out. What a curious mess it was. Strangely shaped arms, multiple strings on an odd frame and a construction that featured wood and metal in a bizarre fusion.
"It is curious. After a point some peculiarity in the mechanism makes it suddenly easier to draw; I suspect sustained shooting will be easier than with a traditional bow, although my speed may suffer." Kenneth nodded with a certain air of smugness. It was his craftsmanship on display, after all. "Distance is also good. With proper fletching I should be able to increase my accuracy in the middle ranges but beyond two hundred and fifty metres it is more luck than skill to hit."
Guiche just silently noted that, if that last target had been a standing man, the arrow would have likely caught them in the forehead or throat. Her Grace looked rather pleased, though. They followed her lead back inside and left the porters to tidy up. Saito was clutching his bow like it might run away from him at any moment; he seemed inordinately pleased to have it.
As they reached the courtyard Louise finally came forth. Her mother hadn't asked him where she was, but if she had then he'd have gladly volunteered she had to clean up yet another mess. Only a small one this time, relatively speaking. Funnily enough, she seemed strangely startled at seeing her mother for some reason.
"Ah, Louise. Your familiar has met my expectations. I have agreed to the terms of his contract, and shall append his wages to your monthly allowance." That was much better than Guiche had expected to get. He also hadn't expected Her Grace to lay her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Your judgement was sound. He is a quality servant, and well worthy of our house."
Tears were actually welling in Louise's eyes as she stared up at her mother. Ah. Right. That was probably the closest to a complete compliment that she'd ever heard from her parent. Guiche couldn't help but glance over at his own father; who was watching the proceedings intently and with disapproval.
"Hmph. It seems that neither of you are, as first I had suspected, a pair of brazen rogues attempting to con our children out of money." That was likely the closest that his father would get to admitting he'd been wrong. Guiche could just sense the oncoming counterpoint, though.
"However; while I will gladly acknowledge Karin's judgement in regards to her own daughter's familiar I am not so convinced as to yours, Guiche. Certainly he has a level of artisanal talents, that I will not deny." Luckily, with how Kenneth was facing, nobody but Guiche saw him roll his eyes. "Yet it remains to be seen if he is worth the exorbitant wage that he is demanding."
The General looked to Karin, who gave him a similarly fixed stare back. There seemed to be a silent war carrying on in their gazes; some severe struggle back and forth. In the end it was his father who looked away.
"Your presumptions give credit to your bravery, Armand, but not to your intellect. I shan't play the role of your fighting dog in this ring." The way his father shrugged led Guiche to believe that he had expected as much and merely asked on principle.
"Very well." Armand de Gramont shrugged his cloak off and waved over one of the omnipresent guards he'd brought with him. Guiche had rather forgotten they were there, if he'd ever taken notice of them in the first place. Underneath he was clad in his fine breastplate embossed with their house crest.
Others brought over greaves and bracers for him that they set about quickly securing as Guiche slowly realized what was going on. He grasped his familiar by the shoulder and pulled him around; lowering himself to the same height.
"He's going to fight you!" Kenneth nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face. This was going to be a disaster. His father was a Square-class Earth mage! While the dwarf was certainly strong and tough and eminently skilled there was no way he could hold his own against someone like that, even with his own peculiar talents.
"Aye, boy. That'd be what ah was countin' on." His familiar shucked his stone burden and carefully laid it down on the ground. Then he looked to Armand. "Mayhaps y'wanna do this outside th' walls. We dinnae wanna do any damage to th' grounds, do we?" The look of amusement on the General's face was palpable but he inclined his head all the same.
They strolled back out on the the plain where the archery demonstration had taken place; now devoid of targets, and stood some ten metres apart. Guiche stood much further back with the Duchess, Louise and Saito; the foremost of the three conspicuously standing in front of them. As was custom, his father bowed to Kenneth and then introduced himself.
"I am Armand the Quake, good dwarf, and I would know your name as well... before I test your mettle." This couldn't end well. He hadn't heard that name in so long, now. Only when Louise laid a hand on his shoulder did Guiche realize he was trembling. His father had drawn his swordwand and stood at the ready, while his familiar just stood there.
"Aye… ye would, would ye? Ah get yer meaning there, boy." Even if he was trying to be polite about the duel it still seemed to annoy his father every time Kenneth did that. Even if it was, by his standards, entirely accurate.
"Very well. Ah am
Kenneth Manson, once
Son of Man; called by name o'
Flamecutter,
Mountain Rider,
Dragon Drinker, an'
Tomb Bearer. Y'may think yer a big man 'round these parts, kid, but lemme tell you; ah was fighting wars afore yer grandfather
were e'en born." He loosed his axe from his side and lifted his hand to run it along the edge of the blade. There was a glow between his fingers as the surface began to glow red.
"T'summarise for ya,
brat? Bring it."
