««« LOAD 23 »»»
"How is it, Lady?"
Louise looked at her reflection and marveled. She almost looked like a completely different person. Almost. "Would you have anything I can tie my hair with?"
"Of course, one moment." The armorer turned to his seamstress, and wife from what Louise understood. "Caroline?"
The woman stepped forth, a white ribbon in her hands. "How would you like it tied?"
"A ponytail, high." In deft hands, Louise's long hair was secured into a ponytail in record time.
Now Louise looked at her reflection and barely recognized herself. The only things she still wore from her original outfit were her undergarments, her shirt and rising breeches. Her riding boots had been replaced by a tougher sort, that she wore without folding the top. Over her shirt, she wore the main piece of her armor, a buff coat. It covered her thighs and had double sleeves only to her elbows, leaving her forearms and wrists with the proper freedom of movement. Even a different mantle had had to be made to fit over the buff coat. To complete the set she'd gotten a pair of boiled leather vambraces and greaves. Ideally, Louise would have wanted plate, and a cuirass at the very least, but there was no time to have them forged to her size. With her hair out of her face and neck, she looked older.
She glared at the mirror, and the reflection was so eerily reminiscent of her mother glaring at her that she almost scared herself. It was the hair, mostly, but never before had Louise looked so serious. That was the armor. There was nothing like battle garments to remove the youth out of one's composure.
She didn't look like a noble knight… maybe more like a cleaner mercenary. Certainly professional though. She understood what Sébastien had meant before. Nobody would give work to an Academy student just like that. To someone who looked like they meant business however….
"Yes. This will do. This will do very nicely." She said to both herself and the shopkeeper.
Since it had already been paid for, and well paid, for Louise had spent twenty-eight livres for everything, it was only a matter of folding her original clothes and putting them in her bag. She thanked the shopkeepers and promised to return later for the rest of the armor she wanted.
Stepping out onto the streets of Tristania was different. People looked at Louise differently. She wasn't a student of the Academyof Magic anymore. She was a noble dressed for battle. She wore no insignia that marked her as part of any of the Corps, so did they wonder for which noble she worked? Between her posture and attire, there was respect in the eyes around her.
Louise had never been looked upon like that in her life. Not really. There were always other things lurking in those looks. She found she rather liked it. The anonymity of coming into the capital and being seen as only another student from the prestigious Academy had always felt good, but this felt better.
The blacksmith she'd visited a week before took a couple of moments to place the young noble that stepped into his shop. It was hard to conciliate the young Academy student that had had maybe a bit too much alcohol with this serious young lady. The true difference was subtle, but he could spot it.
Before, it had been bravado. Now, it was confidence.
"Good morning, Milady," he greeted Louise. "Your request is ready, are you here for them?"
Louise nodded. "Just so."
The shopkeeper excused himself and moved into the shop's back, also his workspace. A few moments later, he returned with a sword and dagger in their sheaths, along with a pair of belts.
Louise picked up the dagger first, unsheathing it to test how it fit in her hand. Perfectly, was the case. With this blade, she thought, she could probably use some of Lecküchner's more close-range techniques. She replaced the belt holding her coat by the one provided by the blacksmith and fixed the scabbard and dagger to her right side.
Then she picked up Derflinger, still shrouded in mystery, and the sword stirred. "Is it time already? Oh, there you are girl!"
"Hello Derflinger," she greeted the sword and drew the massive blade from its scabbard. This time, no figment came to tell her she couldn't equip it. And indeed, now Louise held the mail-long sword one-handed with ease.
"Uh, this is new." Commented Derflinger.
Louise smiled and raised the sword to her shoulder, legs bent, then slashed forward, following into a text-book perfect feint and thrust. This was also new. Although she knew the movements in theory, it was good to see how seamlessly the knowledge she'd gained from the book was applied. It felt like she'd learned the techniques with Derflinger and only repeating what she'd trained a thousand times before.
"Oh, now we're talking." Laughed the sword, delighted at the skill his wielder was demonstrating. "You've gotten stronger, girl!"
"And you've gotten shorter." Remarked the wielder. The sword looked like new, having lost all of its rust and dirt, been polished and sharpened. The blade itself was actually made of rather dark steel and sported a wicked cutting edge. The hilt had been cleaned and re-wrapped with thin leather. Yet, in total, Louise estimated the sword had lost three of four fingers in length. She didn't think the balance was different from the first time she'd picked it up, but seeing as she hadn't been in full possession of her capacities, she couldn't tell.
"I was too big for you to handle." Said the sword suggestively. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper paled, hoping the surprisingly skilled noble didn't take too much offense at the sword. It was bad enough when it scared customers away, -but now it also shrunk without being asked too and cracked dirty jokes with a noble lady?
It completely flew over Louise's head. "Yes, probably. This will be remarkably more convenient." The pink-haired noble was far busier liking the fact that the sword wouldn't drag on the ground even if she wore it across her back.
"… You're something else, girl."
Oh, the sword had no idea. "Let's just see how good of a swordwand substitute you are, Derflinger."
"I'm the best, girl."
Louise raised a skeptical eyebrow she wasn't sure the sword could even see and held the blade in a guard. She focused. "Spark." And without delay, a number of sparks burst from Derflinger's tip. No painful shock meant she had kept full control of the spell. Perfect.
"Ah, you've become a stronger mage too, girl." Said Derflinger. "I could taste the wind in your magic."
"I'm a Line mage now." Louise couldn't help but smile.
She'd had three days. Three days to level up all of spells to level 10. It had been an uphill battle. Every level it got harder to rise up again, every level took longer. Louise had practiced hours on end, claiming a corner of the training grounds to herself. It had been Gust after Gust, Wind Slash after Wind Slash. During classes she practiced small, innocuous spells like Whispering Wind or Farsight. When she left the grounds, and only because it would really strange for her to continue practicing into the night, she cast Air Shield inside her room, pushed the furniture aside to make space to cast Wind Wall. She only stopped to eat, when she couldn't get away with it in class or when her Willpower ran out, which was more often than not. And not even those downtimes were iddle and unproductive, as she used to catch up with her studies. It was how she'd discovered she could also gain 'INT', which she'd correctly assumed to be intelligence.
It had been close. Very close. But Louise had done it. In three days, she had made herself a Line mage. On the fifth day since she'd succeeded for the first time. It was mind-boggling in a way, but Louise cared less. She had ten years of hard work supporting her, ten years of relentless study habits she finally saw bearing fruits.
The night before, after finally getting the twister spell to level ten, she'd gotten the second wind affinity. Louise's willpower had been almost gone by that point, but she'd still left her room and climbed up to the Fire Tower. She had to test it. She'd chanted the incantation for the two winds Wind Slash spell and the Line spell had burst out of her wand, cutting through the air like a honed blade. The figments had only appeared later, to tell her she'd learned the spell. She'd done it.
The sword in her hand chuckled, the metallic sound ringing inside the shop. "Oh, I think things are going to be interesting around you, girl! This is great! When do we leave?"
"Right away," replied Louise. "I have an appointment to get to."
) and tolerate her daughter's new hobby. That said, Louise might or might not get a stealth bodyguard following her without her knowing, at least for a while... 
