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For the second time in a week, Louise stood waiting in front of the headmaster's office's doors. It was incredible, really, how much her life had changed in a week. She'd been fine without this part though. Well, she thought as she sent a mental prayer to the gods, time to face the music.
Once more, Miss Longueville opened the door for them. She was, noticed now Louise, quite high-leveled but what she couldn't help but notice again was how the figments seemed to have doubts about her. It was disquieting. The words were always so certain that the possibility of them not being certain, of them being wrong, was chilling in a way. Hopefully, those doubts would be as clearly marked as they were for Miss Longueville, whom she still couldn't understand. Perhaps it was something to look into in the future. Perhaps not.
This time, there was another person in the room with the Headmaster. Monsieur de Smet stood nest to to Old Osmond's desk, his long healer's staff resting against his shoulder. Louise kept her face politely neutral but couldn't help the surprise that she felt. Why would a healer be present?
It… it couldn't be news from home, could it? Founder, she prayed to all gods it wasn't so.
"Ah, Jean, thank you." The old Headmaster puffed his pipe then addressed Louise. "Miss Vallière, I'm seeing you quite sooner than what I expected." Louise smiled weakly. "Still, I hear your greatest difficulty has been surpassed. Congratulations. And relax," he told the tense student, "it's nothing serious."
Louise didn't completely relax. "Then, may I know what is going on, sir?
"Ah, yes, that." He puffed his pipe again. "Now certain parties that shall remain unnamed expressed certain worries about certain recent events. I think it's quite ridiculous, so the sooner we straighten this out the better."
"Sir?" Now Louise didn't understand. Not unless… and well, it couldn't be, right?
"To be blunt, Miss Vallière," Osmond explained almost apologetically, "a number of students have been expressing worries to the faculty about your recent breakthrough. There were a few insinuations with big words like impersonators and doppelgangers. Which is miffing me quite a lot. It's like they don't trust the faculty to know proper magic!" He huffed. "Regardless, they made too noise, so gestures must be made."
It was. They had. Louise was livid. A great part of it was anger, but there was some fear as well. Being accused, formally, of… of faking her magic? How could they insinuate that she would ever stoop that low? Did they think she had no decency? No pride? Didn't they have any pride as well to be throwing around these accusation? Because of what? Because… because she was no longer the zero? Then… then there was that last accusation. Doppelganger. A Firstborn. Like even a creature replacing her was better than Louise actually succeeding at magic. How could they? And Louise couldn't, not in good faith, completely dismiss it. What were the figments, truly? She didn't know. She knew she had made no pact with no spirit, but what did that really mean?
There was nothing she could do though. Nothing she should do either. As a student and a faithful servant, this was a test she had to go through. And… in the event that the figments were the work of a spirit… well, there were certain precedents for that.
So Louise responded, back ramrod straight and face pale, with a simple, "Yes, sir."
The Headmaster nodded. "Good. Now, I will perform a simple Detect Magic, Henry here will see how your health is, and then I would ask you to perform a couple of spells for us. Would that be alright?"
"Yes, sir."
With a comforting smile hidden by his beard, Osmond the Old picked up his staff from where it rested against his desk and concentrated on the magic in his office, and more particularly, within his young student. Miss Vallière had always had great magic, but its feel was slippery. It was a magic that did not want to be defined and defied analysis time over time. He'd found it fascinating the first time he'd seen it, if worried over how it affected the young girl. Now, he saw, the magic was still there. A great magic that still opposed analysis. Yet, he could tell, if he focused, that it was… more organized. Cleaner and sharper.
Oh oh, he thought. Wasn't that interesting? His smile widened fractionally. Well, the differences were so small he saw no problem in reporting there had been no changes. He doubted any other mage could tell it apart from before. Except maybe that Iberian brat. Whatever, nobody else had a way of comparing that past and this present like him. It wasn't spirit magic of any kind he'd encountered, and he'd traded with the nomadic elves of the northern wilderness, played cards with a rhyme dragon and attempted to seduce sirens.
"Everything looks fine. No changes. Like I thought." He gave a self-satisfied nod. His student relaxed, but he wasn't worried. His old gut told him there were better things he should worry about concerning the young girl than her magic. And his gut hadn't been wrong in forty years! Yes, within this room, there were far more problematic individuals than Miss La Vallière. "Henry?"
The water mage nodded and raised his own staff, muttering an incantation as he felt the detailed water-flow in the young noble's body. It was just like seven days before. Healthy. "There is nothing abnormal I can feel either. Miss Vallière is in exceptional good health." He lowered his staff.
"That is good!" The Headmaster chuckled. "Now Miss Vallière, if you could perform the spell Flame as well as a Dot and a Line spell of your choice, this will be over."
Louise blinked. "Headmaster, I can't cast Line spells yet."
"That's quite alright. The important is that you try." He said.
Louise nodded and retrieved her wand. She took a deep breath. She had to relax. She was a bit surprised that her magic was the same as before, seeing as nobody had been able to tell her what was wrong with it, but not ungrateful. However, she was still angry. With a tiny wrinkle between her brows, she channeled that into her first spell.
"Flame!" The gout of flame appeared on her wand tip as normal. It was maybe a bit stronger than the first time she'd tried it, but she'd been practicing. She extinguished it when the Headmaster nodded.
"Light Point." That spell also worked pefectly.
She took a deep breath and focused on the spell Professor Colbert had explained to the class that lesson. A Line rank spell. "Sigil Cen Eh Soldaeg, Beacon."
You cannot learn this skill.
Required Fire Affinity: 300
Louise focused very hard on not reading whatever the rectangle that had popped up said and kept her eyes on the Headmaster instead.
He nodded. "Very good castings. I expect you to reach Line soon, Miss Vallière." Louise almost preened. "Everything checks out. Like I knew it would. Now I will have to have a talk with certain people about baseless accusations and the limit age for throwing tantrums."
"Headmaster," started Monsieur de Smet, "although they were wrong and clearly out of proportion, those students did have a reason, a base, to come to the faculty. It can't be denied that after her accident, the timing of Miss Vallière's improvement is rather suspicious." Louise felt betrayed. "We cannot simply dismiss them..."
"We can." Harrumphed the Headmaster in a rather undignified way.
The water mage didn't even pause, obviously more than used to his boss' peculiarities. "… yes, but that would just mean they will try something again and I'm sure Miss Vallière does not wish for that to happen. We must give them a reason, an excuse of some kind."
"Hmm." Old Osmond stroked his beard. "You have a point Henry. And I think I have just the thing. It may even be what happened! This case reminds me of a man named Hans." He straightened, his tone dropping as if he was preparing to tell a story. "Hans was a Germanian militia I met during my travels. We were heading north and we heard of a band of orcs lead by a troll attacking nearby villages. We decided to help, of course. Hans was himself a former seeker of fortune, but an orc had clubbed him in the head and he had since completely lost any ability to form words. If he tried, all that came out was gibberish, so he retired and served half-time as a guardsman in that village. Now it happens that the troll and his orcish companions attacked Hans village and we were there to help. Hans, brave man, took a blow for a friend of mine that died not a year after, stray arrow to the…. And well, anyway, Hans got clubbed in the head again, but by a troll. He became blind, lost his hearing on one side and broke all of his ribs, but he could speak again. It was quite phenomenal. I proposed to the Academia that we research this subject, but couldn't find traction. Something about people not wanting to be clubbed on the head…. Shame, it was such a curious thing."
Louise no longer felt betrayed by her teachers. Instead, she stared in horrified amazement at the Headmaster, trying to understand if he was really saying she had been dropped on her head as a child, and that her last explosion had fixed it. Professor Colbert was nodding along and Miss Longueville was rubbing her temples, most likely in frustration.
Monsieur de Smet opened and closed his mouth once before he spoke. "I see. Yes, the brain is truly one of the… great mysteries. But won't that be a… problematic explanation all by itself?"
"Nonsense. It's a perfectly good analogy."
"Ah… analogy?"
"But of course. Certainly you weren't thinking I would insinuate the Duchess de La Vallière was neglecting her child's health?" Yes, yes they all were. "I merely intended to use it as an example of how traumatic events can undo the effects of similar traumatic events. Let us say Miss Vallière had an accident while learning the very basics of magic that ended explosively. It could be possible that from that moment on, subconsciously, Miss Vallière was sabotaging herself into exploding all of her spells. After all, isn't Willpower intrinsically tied to our moods and emotions? If a mage can be bolstered by intense positive emotions towards magic, like joy and anger, couldn't it be said that intense negative emotions towards magic like fear and doubt might have the opposite effect?"
"Isn't that… part of Vives' theories? Mental strength can influence magical strength?" Commented Professor Colbert.
"Just so. So, I propose that Miss Vallière's new accident at the summoning ceremony has liberated her from her fear and the Academy's own rules have pushed her past it." The Headmaster turned to her, now serious. "Would there be a problem with this Miss Vallière?"
"Ah. No? It… it sounds plausible." She supposed. In a way. It did sound like she was a coward. But it wasn't like it would hurt her current reputation any more, now would it? And just like that, Louise's earlier good mood was gone. "Yes, it sounds fine. Thank you for the help." She bowed. "There's just… one more thing I would like to take care of."
The book incident turned out rather well and was resolved quickly. Louise would have to provide the school with two copies of the book, or pay for them.
It wasn't time for lunch when she left the headmaster's office. Louise snapped at the first servant she crossed to run to the stables and have them prepare her horse. Then she headed to her room to get changed and in thirty minutes she was putting her things on her saddle bags and riding off. She needed the air. She pushed her horse to a gallop until it tired and let it slow down to a pace for the rest of the way. If the couple of tears running down her cheeks weren't from the wind, then they surely weren't out of sadness. Her knees remained clenched tightly to her horse's sides, her shoulders were pushed back and her hands held the reigns with more force than necessary.
"Founder damn them all. Damn." She took a deep breath. "Damn it!!"
