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[agelesslorddio-blog]

Chapter 10: Crossover The Street!! (April Fools)

And with that we're all caught up on this site and SpaceBattles! Now we wait for me to complete and upload more chapters!

The April Fools Chapter was originally the ninth chapter, but I moved it to the tenth chapter for organizational purposes. It also has absolutely nothing to do with the main story, so you don't have to read it to have an idea of what's going on.

For those unaware, it's a crossover of Monmusu Quest and a pen and paper role playing campaign (the specific series of which will not be mentioned) that a few friends of mine were going to play, but never actually got around to. The characters of Felix and Kirisaki just happen to be two members of the would-be party that have made a life of their own through a series of in-jokes (such as the Felix vs. jokes, which this is an example of) between myself and a few friends.

It was sort of a rush job, so the quality may have suffered due to that, it also wasn’t beta read.

"So yeah… I think we're lost." A boy spoke to his companion as they traveled down an eerily empty street in what they'd both assumed was supposed to be a bustling city.

The boy was around average height for his people, measuring in at one-hundred seventy-three centimeters at sixteen years old, and he looked fairly normal for his age, with his soft-rounded facial features and slightly larger than normal Emerald-eyes that adorned his face, which looked around with a sense of cautious curiosity at the emptiness of the city they were traveling through. In addition, there was one fairly strange detail about his appearance that made him stand out like a sore thumb in any crowd, and that would be his hair. His brown hair was long, possibly half as long as he was tall, but it was held upright in a series of large, sharp spikes, by an almost inhuman amount of hair spray and spiking glue that gave it the texture and feel of a hard carapace.

His attire was, for the most part, also nothing out of the ordinary for a person his age as well, consisting of denim jeans, and a blue cotton shirt with a polyester jacket over it. Though there was one strange addition to his outfit, which was made doubly strange by the fact that they were currently going through a heat wave. It was a bright-red tattered scarf, which hugged his neck tightly. The scarf had certainly seen better days, and would have been better left at home due to the absurdly high temperature, but it was something that held immense sentimental value to the boy, so it was rare that he'd ever be seen without it. The jacket, on the other hand, held no such value, and if one were to ask the boy why he was wearing it despite the heat he'd likely respond with "Well, I mean I look good in it!"

"That's a bit of an understatement, Kiri, I don't actually even remember entering this city…" The boy's, Kirisaki's, companion replied as he scratched the back of his head, staring up at the buildings that surrounded them.

His companion was of a similar age, but this most definitely wasn't something one would think upon first glance. He came in at one-hundred ninety-five centimeters, well above the average height of his age of seventeen years old, and had a build that would make a Kodiak bear squeal with jealousy. It wouldn't be unfair to say that puberty had hit him like a freight train… That fell from orbit.

Other than his absurdly stacked build, he had short, light-brown hair that measured in at less than three inches at the longest, and sharp, solid facial features which were ornamented by his soft eyes that matched his hair in color. Much like Kirisaki, he was also wearing plain clothing, a simple white cotton t-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo-shorts with mostly empty pockets.

"Now that you mention it, neither do I, Felix." Kirisaki responded to his companion, Felix, as they turned a corner onto what appeared to be a main road, though this road too, was abandoned of all people, save for the two strange looking teenagers.

"Ahh, wait, I think I see a fountain in the distance, that's probably the town square!" Felix said, pointing down the road. "Maybe we'll find someone there."

With that, the two sped up their pace toward the square, but what they saw when they arrived surprised them greatly. Yes, there were people, but these people were clad in armor, and were armed with swords, shields, maces, and several other types of melee weapons that the two boys had only seen on T.V. or in video games with any regularity.

It seemed that these strange people were all embroiled in combat with a lone combatant, who was more than capable of handling them all simultaneously. Most of the heavily armored people that'd caught the two boy's attention initially were either just barely holding themselves up, or had their faces planted firmly in the cobblestone beneath them. Every single combatant, save for the lone warrior that had beaten them down, had scorch marks covering their armor, and every bit of exposed skin they had gleamed brightly with sweat.

"How boring." The lone combatant spoke with disinterest at her opponents. "Is there not a single strong person in this entire city!?"

Upon closer inspection, there was something odd about the warrior. She was a fierce combatant to be sure, but her armor barely covered her at all, and in fact, she appeared to be naked everywhere else. At first, the two boys had thought that the pale greens and yellows covering her bare limbs came from whatever garb she happened to be wearing, but that wasn't the case. It wasn't that her skin was colored strangely either.

"Are those… Scales?" Kirisaki asked with some confusion as he strained his eyes to get a better look.

"Y-yeah, I think so…" Felix replied.

The swordswoman definitely had scales, but that wasn't her only odd feature. There was a strange webbed crest coming out from around the back of her head, just underneath her red hair, and while she had ears, they certainly didn't look like a human's, but instead had an appearance similar to small jointless wings. In addition, her fingers were much longer than any human's of a similar size, ending in sharp claws, and she had a tail hanging down from the top of her buttocks.

All in all, she gave off the appearance of some sort of humanoid lizard, or possibly-

"Ahh! She's a dragon!" Kirisaki let out a small squeal as he shook Felix's arm.

"A dragon?" Felix asked.

"Yeah, she's a dragon-girl, like something you'd find in an RPG!" Kirisaki responded with glee, but looked a little worried after the initial wave of excitement left him.

"Really? I always imagined they'd be… Scarier, I guess." Felix responded.

Kirisaki sighed to himself. The two boys were close friends, but Felix wasn't into video games like he was, and was a pretty pure-minded person in general, so explaining the reason why a dragon-girl looked more girl than dragon wasn't something he felt would be a good idea, as it would likely lead to needless misunderstandings.

Several of the fully armored soldiers in the square, all of which were likely human, began to voice their disbelief at just how strong the swordswoman was as they tried to regain their breath. They were all either incapacitated or exhausted after having fought her and a few that were still standing when the two boys arrived at the square finally gave in to their exhaustion and crumbled onto the scorched ground.

"You three…" The swordswoman called out to the last soldiers standing. "Are you going to fight, or not?"

It appeared that she hadn't noticed Kirisaki or Felix yet, or at least, didn't consider them as combatants.

"Only you three are left… Are you just going to watch while I take control of this city?" She called out again. "Or is one of you going to be a Hero and try to face me!? Well… Hurry up and decide!"

Two of the three remaining soldiers responded to her provocation, while the third cowered in fear behind his charging allies.

"That's the spirit. But even if you have the spirit, it's meaningless!" She called out to her charging opponents as flames enveloped her large sword. The heat of which could be felt all the way across the square, where the two boys had been watching.

Kirisaki immediately winced, though not because of the intense wave of heat that struck him on an already hot day...

"WAS THAT MAGIC!" Felix yelled, his deep voice cracking due to his uncontainable excitement.

"WAS! THAT! MA! GIC!" He exclaimed again as he turned to Kirisaki at his side, clasping his shoulders tightly with his enormous hands.

"WAS THAT MAGIC!" Again he yelled, this time directly into Kirisaki's face as he lifted his lifelong friend off the ground by his shoulders.

Kirisaki knew it was coming as soon as he realized the swordswoman was a dragon-girl, but he sincerely hoped it wouldn't have come that fast. Felix was, by all accounts, a fairly level-headed person, who spent more time training his body or mind than playing in fantasy worlds, but that all changed when magic was involved. For reasons that were a mystery to Kirisaki, Felix absolutely loved magic.

Luckily, the swordswoman hadn't taken notice of Felix's sudden outburst, due to her intense focus on her charging opponents. With no discernible effort the swordswoman knocked out her two opponents in only a few seconds time, leaving their third, cowering ally as the last man standing.

"Well then… What are you going to do?" The swordswoman called out to the cowering soldier, who, after hesitating for a moment, turned and ran, abandoning his allies and the town square.

"That's a wise choice. But in the future, you can't call yourself a Soldier or a Hero." She called to the retreating soldier while making no effort to chase him.

At this point, Kirisaki had succeeded in calming Felix down by reminding him that there were people in trouble, and the two were now watching as the fleeing soldier escaped from the square.

"So, uhh, should we do something?" Kirisaki spoke without looking away from the swordswoman. Given the performance the swordswoman had shown, it was understandable that he'd be unsure of if they could match her. "Can we do anything…?"

"…" Felix's expression grew darker as he watched with his friend.

"Is that it!? Having your city taken over by a monster… There's no complaints!?" The swordswoman's voice echoed throughout the square, but no one came out from any nearby buildings, and none of the soldiers could get back up even if they wanted too.

"Well then, I've taken control of this city. Next I'll…" The swordswoman spoke, but trailed off after she took notice of the two boys approaching.

"I'll be your opponent." Felix spoke as he approached her with Kirisaki at his side.

"What was that?" The swordswoman called out to him with some indifference, but when she got a better look at him irritation began to seep into her tone. "You're challenging me? Without a weapon? Are you so confident in your skills that you could beat me bare handed!?"

"No I am not." Felix spoke as he approached a fallen soldier, and apologized as he borrowed their sword. "Nor would I ever presume to disrespect such a skilled warrior by implying I was."

With that, the swordswoman seemed slightly less irate, but still stared daggers at him with her bright amber eyes.

"Kirisaki, if she beats me, I'll leave the protection of this town in your hands." Felix spoke to his best friend with absolute confidence.

"What the fuuuu-n do you mean!?" Kirisaki, on the other hand, definitely didn't share that sentiment. "Felix, what makes you think I could do anything to her if you lose!? I'm not a fighter!" He exclaimed, barely capable of keeping his voice from squeaking.

Out of the two boys, only one received any sort of stringent combat training, and that was clearly Felix. Kirisaki, while no slouch in gym class, was more of a "sit at home and play videogames" kind of guy, rather than the honorable warrior his friend was, so of course he'd be surprised by his friend's confidence in him. Though considering this wasn't the first time Felix had said something like that to him over the course of their friendship, he wasn't entirely sure why he didn't see such a comment coming.

"My name is Felix Björn, and I will be your opponent!" He called out to the swordswoman, completely ignoring Kirisaki's reasonable skepticism.

"…" Something in the way the swordswoman eyed Felix changed in that moment, and she silently raised her sword before calling out to him. "My name is Granberia, the Swordswoman of Fire, and one of the Monster Lord's Four Heavenly Knights! I will be your opponent! Now… Give me your best shot!"

"Did she say Monster Lord? Does she work for a Monster Lord!?" Kirisaki's surprised exclamation went ignored as the two combatants charged at each other, and a loud smashing sound rang out through the square as the two clashed.

Immediately, the sword in Felix's hands chipped along its edge and cracks could be seen forming over its surface just from that single exchange. The sword in his hand, much like most of the other swords littering the ground by the soldiers that'd used them, was a double-edged straight blade, which only began to taper an inch or two from its tip. Given the design of the sword and its length, it was likely meant primarily for thrusting and chopping attacks, which wasn't something Felix was used too.

He had much more experience with blades that were meant for cutting, rather than piercing or chopping, and while he had some experience with that kind of weapon, it was comparatively insignificant to the experience he had with his weapon of choice. The uncertainty that came from that inexperience made him subconsciously use much more force than was necessary to match her attack, and it damaged his sword because of it.

His opponent, Granberia, was able to read his movements and understand all of this, so she brought her attack down to something he could manage instead of shattering his sword outright. Her own sword, which was a hulking mass of heavy metal, was completely unscathed by the exchange.

Felix stepped back to brace himself as another strike came from his opponent, then another, and another. With each strike he carefully moderated his strength and the angle of the blade as he blocked her attacks, having realized his earlier mistake, but the sword was too damaged to even take those strikes, and the cracks grew over the surface of the blade with each attack until it shattered in his hands.

He quickly rolled backwards with catlike reflexes and picked up another sword as he avoided her follow-up attack, and for a second, he thought he could see a smile appear on her lips, before she charged in to strike again.

This time, his sword fared much better, and he saw an opening in her defenses. Without taking his eyes off her neck he slid past her, letting her sword come down where he was just standing. As he stood behind her, he knew she would be too fast to strike with his sword, so he waited for her to turn, and when she moved to strike him he slid underneath her arms and grabbed her wrist, then, as he moved his hips into her side he used what leverage he could get on her and threw her down onto the ground in front of him.

However, instead of crashing into the ground she turned mid-throw and tucked into a roll, creating a short distance between the two. She charged back in and struck at the base of his sword, just above the hand guard, and knocked the blade to the side with surprising force, cracking the blade in the process. It seemed that she was beginning to hold back less than she had earlier, and if Felix was to stand any chance at all, he'd need to adapt quickly.

Again a flurry of blows came, and again, his sword shattered in his hands, but Granberia refused to let up, and Felix could do nothing but dodge her aggressive swings as he tried to look for an opening to arm himself of something better than a broken hilt.

This went on for over an hour, and eventually, they'd exhausted the supply of weapons left in the square, leaving Felix seemingly unarmed, save for the various shards of metal and broken hilts that littered the area.

Both combatants were breathing heavily now, and there was something off about Granberia, the way she eyed her opponent now was completely different than it was earlier, but in a way that Felix, being a pure-minded individual, couldn't possibly understand.

Through heavy breaths Granberia called out to her opponent. "Haa… Haa… What'll you do now? There're no more weapons left for you to use… If you submit to me now, I'll spare your life, but…" Given her previous fights with the soldiers, and the way her face twisted uncomfortably, it would seem that she disliked needless killing, and she clearly didn't want to finish that last sentence.

"I'm not done yet… I've still got at least one weapon left!" Felix yelled out with determination. "Kiri!" He called out to his friend who was sitting a few feet away now, by the fountain at the center of the square.

"Wha- !? Uhh… What?" Kirisaki responded, seemingly dazed and sleepy. In the same way Felix had absolute confidence in Kirisaki's abilities to carry on the fight without him, Kirisaki had absolute confidence that he wouldn't be able to do anything at all, should Felix have lost, so instead of watching the fight, he occupied himself with other things, like dragging the fallen soldiers out of the square, counting the stones that made up the fountain, and reading things he'd previously downloaded to his phone, since there was no signal in whatever world they'd ended up in. It also helped that, despite his initial concerns, he had difficulty believing anything, even a dragon-girl, could fell Felix in a fight.

"What the-!?" Kirisaki exclaimed as Felix grabbed him by the ankles and held him out in front of him. With his free hand, Felix drew his index and middle fingers up from the base of Kirisaki's spine, causing the smaller of the two boys to straighten rigidly. "What the he-! H-heck are you doing, Felix!?"

Felix flicked his best friend on the forehead. "Stop almost cursing." He said simply as he held Kirisaki in front of him like a sword. "I let the first one slide." He continued, leaving the latter half of the statement, "but not this one", to go unsaid.

"OH NO! YOU ARE NOT USING ME AS A SWORD AGAIN!" Kirisaki screamed out, but was unable to move his body, almost as if there was some subconscious imperative mechanic in play, preventing his body from objecting like his mouth did.

"… Again?" Granberia spoke with confusion, the starry eyed look she was giving Felix replaced with one of bewilderment. "They've done this before…?"

"Prepare yourself!" Felix shouted as he lowered his center of gravity, then, taking a completely different stance than any he'd shown before, charged in. "Sworisaki Technique Number 1: Storm, the Sky Torn in Two!"

The distance between the two was closed almost instantly, and Felix swung Kirisaki upwards. Granberia just barely had enough time to register what was going on and block with the flat of her blade, which was struck violently by Kirisaki's hair. As the blade met with his hardened hair, a strange noise, like a foghorn could be heard over the strike, emanating from the fountain.

The force of the impact was far greater than anything Felix had demonstrated before, and was strong enough to lift Granberia off her feet, knocking her back several paces. The sudden ferocity of his attacks, coupled with his peculiar weapon was enough to throw her off-guard for a moment, but that strike told her that if she didn't take them seriously she'd be in danger.

Felix didn't let up, and continued to charge in. "Sworisaki Technique Number 2: Descendant of the Wild!" When he'd reached Granberia, he came in with a feinted pommel strike, using Kirisaki's heels as the pommel, and when she moved to parry her attempt was met with empty air as Felix jumped above her.

At the height of his jump he redirected Kirisaki downward, and, almost as if the gravitational force pulling him back to the ground increased tenfold, his falling speed increased until he was moving faster than when he'd jumped up. Granberia rolled backwards, just barely evading Kirisaki's piercing hair. As it tore into the ground below, the same strange foghorn-like sound could be heard again, this time it sounded three times in a row.

Unfortunately, this sudden downward attack had caused Kirisaki's hair to get stuck in the ground, leaving the two teenage boys open to retaliation by the powerful swordswoman. As she moved in to strike it seemed that her sword was heating up with every step she took, until she was upon them. As she struck a heavy blow aimed at Felix's back, it burst into flames. Felix finally managed to pull Kirisaki out of the ground, taking a large portion of the stone and dirt with him, but he wasn't fast enough to block her strike.

Granberia's mighty swing cleaved into his back, both creating and burning closed a wound all at once, and he swung Kirisaki in response, who's hair now resembled a stone afro with brown spikes sticking out of it, intent on bashing her with what could only be described now as Stone-Hammer Kirisaki. The retaliation managed to strike her arm as she attempted to block it, and pushed her away from the two boys, her sword still ablaze.

Now that the two were separated again, they both took stock of their injuries.

"H-hey! Felix, are you alright?" Kirisaki asked after spitting out some dirt and tiny rocks from his mouth. His concern for his friend clearly shown on his face, despite his current inability to move his body.

Felix's shirt had been almost completely destroyed by the strike and lingering fire, so he took this opportunity to rip off his badly damaged shirt, exposing his powerful muscles and sweating torso to the open air. With what he could salvage of his shirt, he tied it tightly around his torso in an attempt to cover up his wound, and then redirected his attention toward his opponent.

"I'm fine, Kiri, but we should probably finish this…" He said as he readied himself once more.

"I agree." Granberia interjected, readying herself as well.

"Sworisaki Technique Number 17: Ancestral Scale, Wurm!" Felix shouted at the top of his lungs as he burst into a sprint, matching Granberia in speed, and as the two met, he thrust Kirisaki foreward with a small spin, intent on parrying Granberia's own flaming strike and striking her in the gut with the blunt of Stone-Hammer Kirisaki. As the two combatants exchanged blows the strange foghorn-like sound blared out again, far louder than before. Accompanying it this time was a strange voice, that seemed to have been welling up from everywhere and nowhere all at once, which shouted "W-W-W-WOMBOOOOOOOO COMBOOOOOOOO!"

To Be Continued…?

[agelesslorddio-blog]

Chapter 9: Riders In The Night!

Howdey! We're all caught up with the other sites that have this story uploaded (except for the April Fools Chapter, which'll be released here as well for some reason). This is the first chapter I wrote with betareaders, so if it feels a little different, that may be why. If it doesn't, then it's probably because of the way I'm trying to work with my betareaders. I’m new to the whole process, so I’m still trying to work the kinks out.

It was getting late as Charlotte turned away from the mess of clothing and personal belongings, mostly books and notes, littering her bed and the surrounding floor. Absentmindedly, she looked toward the door as she waited. Kirche said she’d stop by to help, but she was taking longer than expected.

Sitting there staring into space wouldn’t help her any and she didn’t want to start reading anything and risk being interrupted, so she began to reorganize what she had splayed out atop her bed for what felt like the umpteenth time. She already had most of what she wanted to bring set aside, but she knew Kirche would want to add to it. The older girl would probably say something along the lines of “You’re travelling to another country with only three bags? That’s a little light, don’t you think!” or “You can’t just bring your uniform and a few dresses…”

Of course, she’d set aside more than just a few dresses and her uniform. She also brought a few pairs of pajamas and a whole slew of books! In fact, the largest bag she had was dedicated solely to carrying books. This became apparent to anyone who bothered to look at the sizable bag which leaned against her now partially barren bookshelf.

Besides that one mistake, she didn’t find her friend’s input on her packing habits to be unwelcomed. It was embarrassing for her to admit, but it made her happy to have someone take such a mundane interest in her.

It only took her a few minutes to reorganize her belongings again and to notice that she’d left the chest at the foot of her bed open. She went over to close it, but stopped when something caught her eye in its nearly empty depths. She sat down beside it to get a better look.

It was a small doll that caught her attention, one that she rarely ever played with anymore. Though her version of “playing” nowadays only consisted of patting out the wrinkles in the cloth and hugging it. She didn’t pick it up or move it, instead settling on just staring at it as she lazily pressed her weight against the front of the chest.

The doll was gifted to her over five years ago by her mother, during a much happier period of her life. Its hair was green, but the sun had bleached it almost white around the top, and it wore a similarly faded pink dress. Overall, it wasn’t an impressive sight to behold, but it meant a lot to her.

When Charlotte was younger she would play with it in more traditional means for a little girl, like talking to it, playing house, or throwing tea parties with it, but as she aged the games she played with it began to diminish. She still kept it with her in her leisure time as a silent companion and comforting presence, even if it earned her a few odd looks from the servants, but that quickly changed the year before.

After she arrived at Tristain’s Magic Academy she realized the difficulty in doing even something as minor as that and delegated her beloved doll to a bedtime companion. Although with time that use slowly began to dissipate until it was left alone, undisturbed in her bedside chest.

“… I’m sorry, Tabitha… Mother...” She wasn’t sure if she was apologizing to her mother or the doll, but she wondered if a silent apology was enough for the way she’d neglected the gift her dear mother gave her. In the end, whether it was or wasn’t didn’t matter at that point. After all, it wouldn’t matter to her mother whether she still played with the doll or not.

“Are you here…?” Someone called out from the door as it swung open. Charlotte could feel the temperature of her face and chest raise at the unexpected entry, and quickly turned her head toward the intruder.

“Roland…” She greeted her Familiar as he closed the door behind him, silently wishing he would have knocked first.

He gave her an odd look when he noticed her sitting on the ground, but didn’t bother to comment on it; choosing instead to walk around her and the various items and clothing spread across the room as he made his way to his usual seat by the window and rested his club against the bookshelf.

“What?” She asked as she reached up and brought the lid of the chest down, redoing the small latch on its front. Before it closed completely she took another short glance at her doll and decided to sneak it into her baggage sometime before the trip. When she was alone, of course.

“I was looking for you…” He replied, looking at the various objects scattered about the room, seemingly more focused on them than whatever reason he had to look for her.

“I’m packing.” Charlotte lifted herself up off the ground and sat on the chest by her bedside. As she watched Roland’s eyes wander around the room she started becoming more self-conscious about her messy travel preparations.

She didn’t think her… haphazard organizational methods were that interesting. After all, everything was organized well enough, the clothes, while not neatly folded, were in piles separating them by color and style. Her various books and notes were organized into stacks based on their genre, and were further organized within those stacks chronologically. Her academic books being organized similarly, with the added consideration of their subject, in their own area. She’d finished packing her undergarments and personal care items first, so they were nowhere to be seen.

“What is it?” She asked.

He turned his attention back to her and spoke. “I’m fighting the boy who summoned that… Familiar we found in the forest, tomorrow.”

Silence overtook the room as the two stared back at each other. Charlotte pursed her lips tightly as she let the full weight of what he said sink in.

“What?” Charlotte spoke up finally.

“The one who summo-”

“Guiche. Why?” Charlotte interrupted, offering the boy’s name.

“He challenged me.”

“…” She sighed. Her interactions with Roland where beginning to convey to her just how frustrating trying to learn something from someone who dislikes talking can be.

“Tell me what happened.” She inquired.

This question was met with similarly barebones answers, which frustrated her further, but after her fourth attempt at questioning him she began to get a better picture of what happened. From what she could tell of his explanation Guiche was still upset about his Familiar’s condition and blamed Roland.

Thoughts of how to avoid a fight between the two began to flood into Charlotte’s mind. She’d rather not have Roland or one of her peers getting hurt over a misunderstanding, but with every thought that came to her she found herself immediately picking out the flaws with it.

Given her understanding of the situation, just sitting down and explaining what happened in the forest was no longer an option, though she never considered it one in the first place. Them going into the forest to check why it’d been so quiet for the past few days and coincidentally running into a monster that assaulted and killed several Familiars, and then killing said monster, seemed farfetched by most standards. If one of her classmates had told her that she’d be understandably skeptical, which is why she didn’t act when Roland told her that Guiche confronted him the day it happened.

She considered talking to the staff of the school, but there were problems with that as well. Duels between nobles were against the rules, and even though Roland wasn’t a noble himself, he was still a Noble’s Familiar, so they’d probably intervene to prevent the fight, but then she’d have to worry about how Guiche would react to that.

If they were in Gallia then she wouldn’t have to worry as much about that, but they were in Tristain, and she was a transfer student, unlike Guiche, who likely knew a lot more people in the country than she did, and was from a fairly prestigious family as well. So he’d be more capable of “retaliating” against them off school grounds, be it in a direct confrontation or by some means of subterfuge. Though he could probably commit some form of the latter on school grounds as well.

This thought reminded her of another pressing issue, that she was a transfer student, and that any prolonged or escalating conflict could be turned into a political issue. At worst, it could strain diplomatic relations between her motherland and Tristain even more than they already were, but that wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on at the time. She wasn’t entirely sure how her family situation would contribute to the problem, so she quickly dismissed the thought in favor of considering more ways to avoid or reconcile the confrontation itself.

Charlotte considering apologizing to Guiche, but threw out that idea as soon as it came to her. It would only cause more problems if they admitted fault for something they didn’t do. Even if by some miracle Guiche decided to drop it at that, they’d have to deal with the fallout of basically admitting to killing a number of her peers Familiars, which seemed much more dangerous than just committing to the fight.

Over and over thoughts came and went as she looked for some peaceful way of defusing the situation, and the room went quiet as her mind raced. Roland stopped looking toward her after a few minutes of this and turned to look out the window. He turned back a few minutes later when Charlotte began pacing through the tiny path clear of her belongings, which was between her bed and bookshelf.

The motion itself didn’t help with her thought process, as she found herself just as capable of thinking while moving as when still, but it helped to alleviate some of the tension she felt building in her limbs.

She continued to walk back and forth with an almost frenetic energy guiding her movements, which held Roland’s attention for a few more seconds before he lazily reached over to the bookshelf and grabbed the first book he could reach without standing from his seat, his blasé attitude toward the situation starkly contrasting her own clearly displayed frustration.

Eventually, she gave up trying to come up with anything else, having had no luck so far, and collapsed flat on her bed, holding down the hem of her skirt to avoid unintentionally flashing Roland. There she laid, face down in her blanket and across several piles of dresses, as she let out a small, irritated groan.

She disliked being taken by surprise like that, it always made it difficult for her to think through things clearly. If she’d bothered to consider what might happen after Roland and Guiche’s confrontation several days prior she might have been able to avoid this conflict, but it was too late to worry about that.

“… Wind dragon… Breathed his last… The... guar-… No, that’s not it.” Roland mumbled to himself as he stared down at the page, cutting himself off when he realized his mistake. “By the time the wind dragon had slain the bandits, the guard had breathed his last.” He corrected himself under his breath, though the slight upward inflection of his voice conveyed how uncertain he was of his take on the sentence.

“You’re calm…” Charlotte called out to him as she strained her neck to look down at him from her position on the bed, not bothering to sit up properly.

“So I’ve been told.” He responded as he met her gaze. “Why are you so upset?”

“I’d rather no one got hurt.” She replied as she righted herself and got up to check the page he was on. She pointed to the sentence he read and confirmed he’d gotten it right on his second attempt in a monotonous voice.

“That’s a hard thing to avoid in a fight.” He flipped the page as he responded; now looking back toward the book.

“I’d rather avoid the fight entirely.” Charlotte replied as she moved to sit across from him on the edge of her chest again.

Roland looked up from the book at her, and then his eyes shifted away. His eyes drooped slightly as he stared off into space for a moment before meeting her gaze again. He didn’t say what he was thinking, but given the way they had been acting it seemed like they’d both reached the same conclusion. The fight was unavoidable.

“… I don’t intend on killing the boy.” He spoke carelessly, missing the way Charlotte’s face twisted uncomfortably at what he’d said as he redirected his attention back down at the book.

She didn’t know Guiche personally, but she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied by just beating up someone that wounded his Familiar, or at least, someone he believed to have done that.

“What if he doesn’t feel the same way?” She asked as what little color there was seemed to drain from her already pale face.

Roland looked back up from the book at her without moving his head. He seemed to be considering something, and a small sound soon came from his barely parting lips.

He said something, she was certain of that, but his almost inaudible words sounded more like an irritated groan than actual speech. It seemed odd for him to react that way, with irritation towards the idea of someone trying to kill him. Given what she knew of his “world” she figured it wasn’t out of the ordinary for his life to be endangered, but meeting such a scenario with what seemed like mild irritation rather than fear or concern was still a jarring departure from what she considered normal.

“I don’t want you to die…” She spoke with some uncertainty as she stared up at his face. It was true that she didn’t want him to die, but she hadn’t exactly come up with a plan either. She knew Roland could handle himself well enough in a fight, their encounter with the monster made that clear. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any armor, and his only line of defense, his shield, was reduced to a pile of splintered wood now, useless to all. Not to mention that his only weapon, a simple wooden club, probably wouldn’t do too well against metallic golems.

His body could heal a fatal wound from what she understood, but she didn’t know enough about that ability to rely on it. Besides, if something like that got out the rumors about her sleeping with him would be tame compared to what people would start saying, let alone what they might do.

“It’s fine.” Roland said after seeing her perplexed expression. “It doesn’t matter either way.”

Charlotte wanted to respond to that, but she didn’t have the words. They weren’t actually close by any means, despite her goal of friendship, and even if they were she couldn’t possibly know what to say to someone who didn’t care if they lived or died. She wasn’t Kirche, or any number of other, so much more expressive and passionate people, so of course she couldn’t get across what she felt when he said that. She didn’t fully understand it herself!

Her head slowly turned away from him without her realizing.

“It matters to me…”

She chose not to voice her thoughts, and instead went back to the various piles of clothing and other belongings she’d left scattered around her room as she awaited Kirche. The conversation, if it could be called that, didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so despite her feelings on the matter, she let it di-, end there.

__________________________________________________

The sweet scent of perfume and scented candles wafted through a dark room as its inhabitants leaned up against each other, naked and heaving heavy sighs as they tried to catch their breath on a large bed.

Kirche reached out to her bedside table blindly for her wand and with a short incantation she cast a spell directed at her lower abdominal area. It was a spell that she had ample practice casting and absolute confidence in. The spell caused her insides to increase in temperature significantly, though not enough to actually harm her. As the intense heat reached its peak it slowly began to spread through the rest of her body as it dissipating. She placed her wand back on the table now that it had run its course.

“You’re casting that spell again? Shouldn’t you only need to cast it once?” The man asked.

“Well, maybe once per load, Styx.” She responded as she smiled up at him in the dark room, still leaning against his chest.

Styx was well built for his age. His muscles were tightly packed on his slender chest and arms, with small amounts of fat rounding them out in places, however, his face was one of his more catching features. With lengthy brown hair, sharp eyes just below his bushy eyebrows, a sturdy-wide nose, and a rock-solid jaw line adorned with a set of large-wild sideburns that framed his larger-than-average head. His sturdy facial features gave off the impression of someone decades older, despite his slender physique being fairly typical of someone his age with militaristic aspirations.

“Isn’t that overkill?” He asked curiously.

“This spell’s been used by my family for generations, so I’m pretty sure I know how to use it, though… Well, I guess it’d be even safer to cast on your ‘friends’ down here, wouldn’t it?” She asked jokingly as she reached her hand between his thighs, eliciting a frown from her companion. “Oh don’t give me that look, it was only a joke, a joke!”

Kirche learned the spell from her father after her first period. It was something he first learned around that age from his father as well, and he from his father, and so on. Its primary use was for preventing bastard children who could challenge the rightful heir to the family estate, but over the generations its use expanded to more mundane areas. However, she never cared to use it much outside of its purpose as a contraceptive and keeping herself warm during winter.

“Uh-huh…” He leaned back and extended his arms to keep himself upright while supporting Kirche’s weight.

“That was a lot to take, though. Don’t tell me you were saving up for little old me?” After all they’d done his load had decreased considerably, but he’d still delivered a lot more than anticipated.

“Ahh, well… Y-you see…” He spoke hesitantly as he looked away in mild embarrassment.

“Oh my god he was!” She giggled with childish glee at the thought. She couldn’t help but find his embarrassed stammer somewhat cute.

“Hey! I-” He exclaimed as she looked up at him warmly, even in the darkness of the candlelit room his blush could be seen.

Before he could continue she cut him off with a sudden kiss. Their lips locked sweetly in an exchange of sweat and saliva as she readjusted her body to face him. As she leaned more of her weight into the kiss she suddenly broke away from his lips. She grabbed his arms and pulled them out from under him, knocking them both down onto the bed. Kirche moved to sit atop him, straddling him as they locked eyes.

“Wanna go again?” She asked as a seductive smile graced her face.

“I would love to… But I’m…” Styx looked down toward her shapely body, now in full view above him. His eyes traced along her curvaceous form as he took in her attractive figure. “Finished…” His grave tone made it clear just how much he regretted saying it, but they’d been going at it since she’d found him near the main entrance earlier that day. He’d reached the point of exhaustion several times already, and lacked the will to go on.

“Well, I can fix that for you… If. You’d. Like.” Kirche leaned down closer to him to whisper in his ear. She spoke in a voice sweeter than honey, letting each word sink in slowly as she reached for her wand again. She knew he was spent by the way he’d been pressing limply against her, but she knew ways around that. She was a Triangle-Class Magician, after all! So while her elemental affinity favored Fire, she could still cast Water spells. One such spell allowed her to increase the longevity of certain… biological events. Without it, they’d have been long finished.

“No, no.” He gently grabbed her wrist before she could reach her wand. “I really need to eat something, or get a drink. I’m starving!”

“Oh fiiiine!” She responded with a childish pout as she pulled her hand back and got off him. She sat by the side of the bed and reached into the drawer of her bedside table for a towel.

It was getting late, and she’d already vented her pent up frustration from earlier in the day, so she didn’t press the issue. More importantly, going any longer was likely to make her sore despite her magical help. Her legs already felt unsteady underneath her. So she began wiping off the sweat and other liquids that still coated her body.

“Hey, can I get one of those?” Styx asked, indicating the towel in her hand. Without a word she pulled a matching towel out of the drawer and held it out for him. “Thanks.”

“Was it just me, or were you more into it than usual?” He asked as he began wiping himself down.

“You’re probably just imagining that.”

“Heh, maybe.” He said, smiling to himself.

Kirche stood slowly, giving herself a few seconds for the sensation in her legs to die down, and stretched her body before dropping the towel on her bed. Her eyes scanned the dark room as a niggling sensation began to crop up in the back of her head, now that she was less focused on her copulation. A few minutes passed in the dark room as she considered what it might be.

“Why do I feel like I’m-… Oh dammit!” She thought to herself as her face twisted into a grimace. Due to the stress she’d felt earlier it had completely slipped her mind that she made plans with Charlotte earlier that day. She snapped her fingers, causing the lamps in the room to flicker on.

“Hey Styx, get dressed! I need to go somewhere.” She said as she gathered his clothing into a pile and hung it over the foot of the bed, and then went over to her dresser and grabbed a fresh uniform for herself. Before putting it on she checked herself again and sprayed some perfume on herself to mask the scent of sweat and other liquids. She would have preferred to take a proper bath, but certainly didn’t have the time to do so. She’d already made her friend wait long enough as it was!

“Ehh?” He let out with a confused expression. “Alright...” He added with a weak shrug. He seemed dissatisfied with that, but didn’t voice his complaint as he dressed himself before heading off to his own room. With her companion departed, she met up with her Familiar in the hallway and headed off toward Charlotte’s room.

__________________________________________________

Guiche returned to his room for the night after spending the rest of the day running around the school, searching for his peers who summoned the now-deceased Familiars. It took a while to find them all, but he eventually did. He informed them of the challenge he made  and invited them all to come and watch as the man who murdered their Familiars was punished for his crimes. It irritated Guiche that of the classmates he spoke to only three agreed to come and watch.

“Are they not even interested in seeing that man punished?” He didn’t want to believe there were so few others that felt the same way he did.

Of those three only one knew who the man was. After Guiche offered a physical description, Louise said that she had run into the man a few days prior. She didn’t actually believe he had committed the accused crime. According to her, some hired commoner and a fledgling Gallic Magician could never have hoped to defeat her noble Familiar, a powerful Manticore. Further, in the off-chance they managed that, she doubted they could repeat that miracle a second time. So it was not that the girl believed he wouldn’t have done it, but rather that he was simply incapable of such a feat.  There was also some mention of a stone creature, but Guiche had no time to listen to such nonsense.

Regardless of what his childhood acquaintance said, his mind was made up! Guiche wasn’t going to back out of the fight. With a sigh he leaned against the door he just closed and looked around his room. It didn’t take him long to realize something was wrong, and once he did, it only took him looking down to see what that was.

His Familiar, Verdande, was sleeping on the ground in front of his door.

“Ahh, no. Get back in bed.” He called out to it gently as he crouched to get a better look at it. He checked his Familiar’s bandages to ensure that the movement hadn’t caused them to tear.

He was told by the Water Magicians in the school’s infirmary that his Familiar was well enough to leave their care on the previous day, but that it’d need some more rest before it was fully healed. Thankful that his Familiar would be okay, he had them bring Verdande up to his room where he gave up his bed for his newly summoned friend.  Oddly, it had a tendency to try and leave the room whenever it woke up. Closed windows and doors seemed enough to thwart its attempts, but Guiche was left with a scratched door for all of his trouble. In this case it looks like the animal scratched until it fell asleep where it lay. Given how thin his door was wearing, it must have been at it for a while.

He lightly shook his Familiar on its back, being careful not to agitate its wounds as he tried to wake it. It stirred as he spoke, telling it again to get back in bed.

It looked at him through groggy eyes and seemed to understand the simple command. He would’ve rather not woken his Familiar, but because of his lack of strength and the school’s enchantments on the dorm rooms,  he had no other option..

It didn’t take Verdande much effort to go over to the bed and climb up it, using a small stepping stool as a foot hold. This relieved Guiche partially of his worry, as it meant that his Familiar had regained some of its strength, but that thought lead to something darker.  Anger welled up within Guiche at the thought of his Familiar being injured. He would be sure to kill that man.

”Kill… Huh…”

Guiche sat down at the small-round table situated in the open space near the foot of his bed, leaving his arms to hang limply as he watched his Familiar. He began to push off the ground with his feet, balancing himself and the chair on its hind legs. For a time, the only sounds that could be heard in the room were his Familiar breathing peacefully as it drifted off to sleep and the shifting of the chairs hind legs against the stone floor.

He tried to push away the thought that he’d never killed anyone, or even thought of taking anyone’s life before. At least, no one he’d known the face of. Having grown up listening to his family’s stories had filled him with fantasies of becoming a powerful and infallible war hero, striking down enemy combatants by the droves, and returning home to receive countless accolades and the adoration of his countrymen. But, there was a difference between the idea of doing something and actually committing to it. Even though he’d never felt as much anger, hatred even, toward another person, the weight of knowing that, even if he wanted to deny it, that man was a person, still pressed down on him in this time of calm.

The feeling was overpowering, and despite his best efforts to push the feeling away, it pervaded his mind as he rocked back and forth. And, as his mind focused on the duel to come, he began to lose touch with the world around him.

Crack!

The chair fell to the ground, planting its front legs firmly on the stone beneath it, and the sudden impact as the chair righted itself was enough to knock Guiche out of his empty reverie. His Familiar stirred for a moment at the sound, but it didn’t seem to wake.

Guiche stood, and approached his bedside to get a better look at his Familiar, and after confirming it was still asleep he bent over and kissed it on an unbandaged portion of its forehead.

He hadn’t slept in his bed since he’d given it up to his Familiar the day before, and he didn’t intend on changing that now.  He went over and arranged the bench by the window and the three chairs by the table into a makeshift bed, as he’d done the previous night. It wasn’t comfortable to sleep on, but he could still manage to get some rest on it, after all, if he had to choose between a comfortable nights sleep and his Familiar’s well-being, he’d obviously choose the latter over the former any time.

With his makeshift bed made, Guiche grabbed a blanket and placed it over the wooden seats  before changing into his pajamas of beige silk. He shut his eyes, opting to turn in early for the night, and hoped that he might find a measure of peace before tomorrow's events.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 8: Spider In The Forest!? Unrelated!

Looking back on it, I definitely boosted a certain character's deductive reasoning higher than it should be.

Two days after Charlotte met with the headmaster, Kirche was out in the forest, inspecting the site of the battle that’d taken place a few days prior.

She’d made her way there to try and get a better picture of what happened between her friend and the monster she’d mentioned, and of course, to determine whether there were any more of those beasts skulking around the forest. The fact that she didn’t have any experience with tracking or hunting didn’t dissuade her from looking either, despite knowing she’d be unable to effectively determine whether more of them truly were in the forest at this point in time.

She moved around the battlefield, playing over what Charlotte had told her about the fight in her mind, and could more or less picture how it unfolded as she scanned the clearing. She could see some faded bloodstains here and there near a small hill that separated the clearing into two halves, and some bloodied paths leading around it, like something had been dragged from either side of the hill. There were some now rotting chunks of flesh left strewn around the field as well, nothing large, just small pieces of muscle, fur, and scales, things that probably went unnoticed when the Familiar’s bodies were collected.

Flame, who’d been with her the whole time, was noticeably shaken by the odor of blood and other fluids that’d permeated the area, smells which had died down considerably, according to Kirche’s nose, but she was aware of how much more sensitive her Familiar’s nostrils were when compared to hers. She bent down and stroked Flame’s head, scratching around the ridges of its eyes and the back of its neck, in an attempt to sooth its nerves. It didn’t take long for this to calm it down, and they both moved around together, surveying more of the area.

She came up to a tree with a large chunk that’d been seemingly ripped out of it, and felt the inside of the gap that’d been left behind. A portion of one side of the gap had been smooth; at least, smoother than the rest of the gap, which was a rough mess of splintered wood and loose fibers. She looked over to where the chunk had fallen on the other side of the clearing, several meters away, and then got up to continue her inspection.

As she walked around, looking over things here and there, she’d nearly fallen on her face when the tip of her foot had sunk into a narrow hole in the ground, but luckily her Familiar had caught her on its back before she landed in the dirt. She noticed there were similar holes in the immediate area around the one she’d tripped over as she stood, and some more closer to the hillside. Each hole also had a shallow groove extending a few inches from it in a straight line, which looked like a small ramp leading up from the deeper holes the grooves were connected to. Kirche remembered being told that the creature had a weapon, and figured the punctured ground was a result of its use.

That thought made her uncomfortable when she remembered that same weapon was used on her friend, but more than that, it made her mad. She could feel the muscles in her arms and legs tensing slightly and her chest heating up due to her anger.

“Well, gettin’ mad isn’t going to change anything now.” She let out a frustrated sigh, relaxing her tensing muscles as the air left her lungs, to calm herself, and looked back down.

With her attention now refocused on the ground around her, she took a closer look at something she’d been consciously trying to avoid inspecting in any real detail, the blood stains. She noticed them, and the leftover chunks of flesh, but they were definitely low on her priority list, and were honestly things she’d rather not look at.

She made her way over to the hillside, a mostly dirt hill with a few large rocks on its sides, but the dirt was packed tightly, making it easy to climb and keep your footing on it. It seemed like a good place to start surveying the… remains. There was an inky black substance mixed with the blood around the hill, and the vague memory of an octopus-like Familiar played in the back of her mind, though she didn’t remember who summoned it. But, as she looked at it, something odd came to her attention. About two or three feet to the left of the inky, blood-mixed substance there were two indents in the hill, one large impression below a smaller one, and as she looked at it, she remembered something Charlotte had said, that Roland had been thrown by the beast.

Kirche looked over at him. When she’d decided to come out here, she knew she didn’t know the way to the clearing, so she’d asked him to show her. Well, “asked” wasn’t entirely honest. She had to push some to get him to show her, but in the end he agreed, and accompanied her out there. Since they’d arrived, he’d been silently standing over by the hillside, staring out into the forest.

This was fine with her, as she’d rather ignore him entirely than have to interact with him. She wouldn’t say anything about it to Charlotte, past her initial concerns, but she didn’t like him, and only tolerated his presence because Charlotte decided to keep him around, so she excused herself of any guilt from ignoring him with that reasoning, but he didn’t seem to mind.

She didn’t know if she was just assuming the worst, or looking for another reason to dislike him, but she got the feeling he also merely “put-up” with her, and while she had no problem with them mutually disliking each other, the thing that absolutely infuriated her about that was that it seemed like he just “put-up” with everyone else as well, including Charlotte.

In the back of her mind she just barely recognized the hypocrisy in that thought, and actively ignored that she’d thought that exact same thing about Charlotte when they’d first met, though at the time she didn’t have a reason to spare Charlotte any of her ill-will, unlike with Roland currently. Kirche wasn’t nearly as close with Charlotte when they’d first met, after all.

As she looked between him and the indents, she could tell that the distance between his head and torso was the same as the two impressions in the hillside, so that matched the story, but...

Her face twisted uncomfortably as she looked down at the indents, she’d tried to stay stone faced throughout her time out there, but what she saw now was too strange. There was a lot of blood between them, surrounding where his neck would have been when he landed.

“…”

She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of anything. She wanted to think the blood came from what had thrown him, or that blood stained the ground sometime before or after he’d been thrown into the hill, but it clearly hadn’t. The space directly between the two indents, where his neck would have been, was mostly clean of blood, save for a few now-dry lines that’d dripped down from above, and the indents themselves seemed clean as well, save for, again, what had flowed into them, and there was simply too much of it there for it all to have come from the monster, which apparently was still well enough to keep fighting after throwing him. The space to the sides, between the two indents, was covered with dulled red stains, and looked like he must’ve sprouted wings of blood from his neck.

In the back of her mind she wanted to think that the blood had come from his shoulders, or maybe something had been thrown at him after he’d landed, but that seemed unlikely. If something had been thrown at him, it would have left some marks on him, a broken nose or some bruises, something, and it seemed unlikely that both his shoulders were injured in the fight and nothing else, and even if they were, the bloodstains wouldn’t have looked like that.

“Wait…”

A thought came to her, far later than it should have. Kirche realized that he didn’t seem injured at all after coming back from the forest before. With that, she had difficulty fighting the urge to look over to his neck to verify what she was thinking, but she already knew she wouldn’t find anything if she looked. She would have noticed if he’d been injured over the past few days, especially if he’d had any cuts or bruises on his neck, but she’d seen nothing, and being thrown with enough force to leave an impression in such a tightly packed hill, even one this shallow, was probably enough to knock most people out, or at least leave them woozy for a good portion of the day, but he got up and continued fighting, according to Charlotte, and didn’t seem dazed at all when he’d come back to the school carrying that Familiar.

“What?” Roland asked as he looked down at her.

In the end, Kirche couldn’t help but look. She didn’t know what kind of face she was making, but it seemed that her expression was enough to gain his attention.

“N-nothing…” She spoke hesitantly. Her chest tightened as the unsettling feeling that’d been creeping up inside of her compounded drastically when their eyes met. His gaze was definitely directed toward her, but at the same time, she got the feeling he was looking past her, through her, even. It was at the same time a foreign, yet familiar feeling, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

She got up from her crouched position and made her way to the other side of the clearing, Familiar in tow, but, maybe because it noticed her discomfort, Flame trailed behind her a few paces, and stared back at Roland as it followed her. It carefully kept itself between the two.

She made her way to a close grouping of trees that had some strange rocks nearby, and crouched down to inspect them, positioning herself to keep Roland visible from the side of her eye.

The rocks felt odd to the touch, mostly because of the unearthly cold surrounding them, which contrasted with the warmth of the rocks themselves, but there was something else about them that seemed odd. Their texture seemed… Wrong, somehow. She didn’t really get why she felt that way, but she hurriedly attributed it to the sudden feeling of unease that’d taken hold of her after inspecting the bloodied hillside, rather then let herself dwell on it.

“H-hey…” Kirche called out. “You two fought out here, right?”

“Yeah.” Roland spoke. He’d been looking down at the dull red spots on the hillside before she called out to him.

She wanted to say more, but again was put off by how he was looking at her. Even his response felt strange. He was looking at her, and spoke to her, but it felt like his answer and his gaze were directed elsewhere, like they were automatic, and in the back of her mind, she started to realize why she’d felt familiar with the sensation he’d given off, and her discomfort compounded further.

Kirche recalled when she was younger and still living in her family home, when soldiers under the employ of her house came to visit. They gave off the same feeling Roland was now from time to time, and a few of them even acted violently, screaming wildly and flailing at or attacking whatever happened to be nearby at the time, though that was rare. In her youth, this was a frightening experience, so much so that it pushed her to study magic much more seriously than she would have otherwise, in case she needed to defend herself.

Her wand, which was concealed between her sizable breasts, felt heavy under her shirt, and the sudden urge to return to the academy took hold of her, however she didn’t move. She didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d responded, but she found herself staring at his hand, or rather, the club he held in it. There was enough distance between them that she was confident she could kill him if he tried to attack her, but she’d rather avoid that. She couldn’t imagine how she’d explain that to Charlotte, and she definitely didn’t want to take a life.

She wanted to think that she was being paranoid, and that the feeling he was giving off now was coming more from her own discomfort than Roland himself, but as far as she could tell, that was wishful thinking.

Roland stepped forward, and as he did, Kirche instinctively stepped back, now on guard.

“What…?” She asked, clearly nervous at his sudden movement, but he didn’t reply, and only continued to walk toward her.

“Roland, what’re you doing?” She hastily spoke again, but he didn’t reply, and only kept moving. Her arm moved toward her bust without her realizing.

“Roland!” She just barely stopped herself from shouting as she called his name, and as she did, he turned, not breaking his stride in the process. He stopped when he reached the torn out tree chunk off to the side of the clearing.

“That wasn’t my imagination… Right?” She thought to herself. He was walking right toward her with a blank face until a moment ago, but now he was acting like nothing happened as he bent down to lift up the tree chunk. The air around him seemed to have shifted entirely as well, and that familiar, distressing pressure he gave off softened as it did.

“Don’t worry.” Roland spoke as he carried the chunk back to the tree it came from, catching her by surprise. “As I am now, you’d probably win that fight.”

“W-what?” Kirche cleared her throat as she attempted to regain her composure. “What are you talking about?”

He placed the chunk by the base of the tree it came from, then turned and pointed at her, more specifically, her hand.

Because she was so focused on him, Kirche didn’t register what she herself was doing, but now she had the chance to take it in. She’d been gripping her wand tightly in front of her, and a cold sweat had started to overtake her as her arm shook slightly.

“…”

She slowly lowered her wand and took some slow, deep breaths. Flame was just as on edge as she was, so she knelt down and stroked its neck and head again in an attempt to calm it, though the action itself was also meant to calm herself, all while never taking her eyes off Roland.

“You seem pretty relaxed for someone who just had a wand pointed at them.”

“It takes more than a threat to scare me.” He looked down at the tree chunk as he spoke, and then straightened it against the base of the tree.

“But less than a threat to…” She cut herself off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. It wasn’t something she wanted to admit, but what she felt from Roland just a few seconds ago scared her, much like it scared her in her youth.

Roland looked over his shoulder at her; something about the way she spoke caught his attention.

“Nothing.” She got up now that Flame and herself had calmed down some, though not enough to relieve the tension they’d felt entirely.

He seemed to be considering something as he slowly turned to face her completely. “You know…”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He closed his eyes as he shook his head. “It’s not important.”

With that, he started walking away, back toward the road leading to the academy.

“W-wait! Where are you going!?” Kirche called out to him as she put one foot forward.

“Back to the Academy.” He said without breaking his stride, leaving her alone with her Familiar in the clearing.

“That man…” She already disliked him before, and this certainly didn’t help with that. Though now she had something more important to worry about.

“What… Who did you summon, Charlotte?”

__________________________________________________

Marteau, Head Chef at the Academy of Magic in Tristain, was currently looking over a few recipes he’d gotten out of a new recipe book the Head Master had given him a few weeks prior. He’d meant to do so earlier, but had forgotten about it until he’d seen the book lying under his desk in the back of the academy’s kitchen. He wasn’t sure how it’d gotten under there, but decided to look it over and convert the recipes, all of which were meant for a few servings each; into something he could produce on a much larger scale, as to accommodate the student body.

With that as his goal, he took out a large journal, flipped through the pages until he reached a free page, and started to write down the changes to the recipes he’d need to make in order to produce it on a large enough scale. Of course, he didn’t have enough time to do that to every recipe in the book in one day, but he’d figured he could manage a few recipes a day in his spare time, and could probably finish in a little over a week. It was a fairly large book, but he was confident in his mathematical and culinary skills, so he figured converting them wouldn’t take too long. The only thing that would actually prevent him from getting all the conversions written down was the fact that he didn’t have enough pages in his journal to hold them all, so he’d have to send someone into town later that week to go pick up another journal and a few other odds and ends.

“Chef Marteau!” Someone called, taking his attention away from his journal. It was Siesta. “I’m done with the vegetables, is there anything else that needs to be taken care of?”

Marteau had asked her to take care of a few things, including peeling and dicing the vegetables for that night’s meal, which, while not exactly hard, was still a daunting task due to the sheer volume of the work. He glanced over at her work station, and was unsurprised at how she’d done.

Siesta was a hard worker, and her knife skills was some of the best he’d seen in his time at the academy, but she wasn’t someone he liked spending too much time in the kitchen. It was nothing personal, he, like many other staff members, actually liked the girls’ personality, but she had difficulty working with others in the kitchen. She wasn’t disagreeable or standoffish; the problem came from her performance.

In small groups or alone she really excelled in her work, but for whatever reason with larger group endeavors, like batch cooking, her work performance would suffer. It was something that had frustrated Marteau about her to no end when she’d first come to the academy, but he quickly decided to assign her to tasks that better suited her abilities. After all, a good employee is only good when you play to their strengths. Incidentally, she was also a semi-decent server during meal and snack time for the students.

There was nothing else for her to take care of that day. She had a good understanding of what kind of tasks he’d wanted her to do when she was scheduled to work in the kitchen, so she’d only come over and ask him for further instructions when she knew she was done, in case there was something new he needed her for. Usually, this ended with him dismissing her, and her going off to help in another part of the academy. Her job description didn’t specifically cover any one kind of work, so when she’d exhausted her responsibilities in one area she’d just go to the next to continue working, but this time he’d wanted to talk to her.

“No, but before you go, I wanna ask ya about something.” He spoke as he closed his journal and the recipe book. “I heard that you and Renée ran into some trouble a little while ago, something about a fight with a noble?”

Rumor spread fast of a servant and a noble fighting, in no small part due to Renée’s embellished gossiping, and since no corpse was found, and no one was fired, some credence was lead to the possibility that the noble had lost that fight.

“Oh right… That…” She let out a nervous laugh. “We weren’t fighting, it was R-… That boy that Miss Orléans summoned.”

Marteau recognized the name, not because he’d known Charlotte, but because he had an easier time matching the names of the transfer students to their faces than he did of Tristain’s nobility, and easier still when it came to Gallic names. He’d spent a good portion of his youth working and learning in Gallia, so even though he’d never spoken to the girl, he could still pick her out of a group of her peers if he had too, though the blue hair, which was unique even in Gallia, certainly made that easier.

“Oh right, I heard about him! The naked boy, right?” He let out a hearty laugh. “I didn’t think he’d be so outgoing! Well, I guess he’d have trouble baring the brunt of the noble’s pride.”

“R-right.” Siesta forced out another nervous laugh at Marteau’s joke.

“Hmm? Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to get the boy in trouble, couldn’t be further from it, really. I wanna meet him! You think you could bring him around some time? If ya see him, of course.”

“Yeah.” She hesitated before answering.

“Is something the matter, Siesta?”

“Sorry, it’s just… That situation was pretty stressful. I didn’t really know what was going on until after the fight, so…” When she’d heard the nobles laughing in the distance she didn’t realize at the time that they had anything to do with Roland tripping, so when he’d went after them she thought he was just trying to start a fight out of some stubborn pride, and out of everything that could happen, someone dying due to stubborn pride was definitely something she’d prefer not to see. Of course, she had no idea how strong the nobles in question actually were, she just thought it better to assume they were at least Triangle-class and to avoid unnecessary conflict with them.

She’d explained what had happened at an almost lethargic pace, like talking about it stressed her out, and, even though the fight itself was fairly boring in her opinion, she managed to convey just how surreal she thought the sight of a commoner not only attacking, but beating down a noble with his bare hands was. It was made even more bizarre when he’d taken the noble’s wand off him and cracked him over the head with it, leaving it crooked just above the handle.

The short recap of the fight had earned her another laugh from Marteau, who clasped her on the shoulder as he began speaking with high energy.

“That’s great! I like him already! Though honestly, I’m a little disappointed that the other nobles didn’t help their friend… Well, so much for honor among nobles I guess.” He shrugged as he looked over at the rest of the kitchen before continuing. “Well, I better let ya go. I heard some of the lecture halls in the Tower of Fire are due to be cleaned today, so you should head on over there.”

“Yes Chef!” She bowed as she spoke.

“Baah, you know you don’t have to bow to me, just get on, now.”

__________________________________________________

“Dammit!”

Malicorne sat outside at one of the small tables set up near the main tower of the academy, slowly eating from a plate of pastries and other small snacks that were being passed out to the students at the time. It was an activity he usually enjoyed, but a combination of his foul mood and sore stomach made what would otherwise be a nice afternoon into an annoying reminder of his tarnished pride.

“How the Hel does this even make sense!?” He thought to himself as he looked down at his plate, just barely fighting the urge to slam his plump fist down on the table.

“That damned… Perverted… Dammit!” Malicorne silently complained in his mind, though he was unable to organize his thoughts in any meaningful way. All the while, his vehement anger showed on his pudgy face, which contorted and twisted as he frowned, leaving deep lines along his brow and cheeks. In his hand he held firmly the fork he was using to eat, and in the other, he held nothing in his tightly wound fist.

If it had been a noble that’d beaten him, he probably wouldn’t have been this upset, but it wasn’t. It was a commoner. A commoner of all people, who had beaten him, disarmed him, shamed him! He couldn’t accept that, not one bit, but unfortunately, he got the feeling that if he’d tried to challenge the man again that it’d end much the same way, after all, he was only a Dot-Class mage. Of course, the thought of that made him go red in the face with anger.

He really wanted to yell, to shout and complain, maybe even scream, but he knew that wouldn’t help him any, so he settled with throwing his fork down at the plate in front of him. It bounced a few inches from the impact, which let out a pinging sound, before landing in the middle of the table.

“I was done anyways!” He thought angrily. Malicorne wasn’t a neat-freak, nor was he any more afraid of germs than most others, but he wouldn’t eat using a fork that had touched a table that was left outside.

With his meal now effectively finished, despite the plentiful delicacies still inhabiting his plate, he leaned on the table in front of him, resting his head in his hand as he looked around in an attempt to calm himself.

No one had been paying attention to him, despite his less than perfect attempt at restraining his anger, which he was grateful for, but at the same time, it felt like the absolute disinterest his peers had in his anger, or rather, in him, just poured salt in the open wounds that now covered his pride.

Swallowing the swelling anger that threatened to boil over once again, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting a sigh escape his mouth before he opened them again. He continued to look around the dining area that was set up in the courtyard and noticed someone he hadn’t at first. It was Guiche.

Despite attending several of the same classes, due to their shared elemental affinity of Earth, the two weren’t close at all. They knew each other, and conversed rarely, but it was more so out of social obligation than actual camaraderie, and, if he was being honest with himself, Malicorne felt fiercely jealous of his fellow Earth Mage, who was far more popular with the ladies, and in general.

This jealousy warped and twisted in him, until it became a sort of thinly veiled animosity, though Guiche never seemed to notice it, or at least, never saw it as anything to worry about. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but thinking about it now, after having his self-respect dragged through the mud by a commoner, just fueled his anger.

Guiche was, of course, sitting with a girl at his table, but it wasn’t one of the first years, like usual, instead, it was his fiancé, Montmorency. It seemed that he was upset about something, and that she was comforting him.

“Oh right! His Familiar was injured!” Montmorency gently placed her hand on Guiche’s as the realization struck Malicorne, and he could feel the weight of his jealousy increase as she did.

Thinking back on it, he remembered that Guiche blamed that man, that stupid, slave of a man,  for his Familiar’s injuries, and with that thought, another came to him. A way to assuage, at least in part, his damaged pride.

He took another minute to calm himself further, and got up to approach his peers, trying to seem as sympathetic as possible as he did.

“Guiche… I’m sorry to hear about your Familiar.” He said as he approached from behind Montmorency, and positioning himself off to their side. It seemed that she’d just succeeded in calming her fiancé down only a few seconds ago, if his smile was anything to go by. “It… It must be tough.”

“Yeah…” Guiche responded, the smile that only just appeared faded into a look of concern.

“I don’t know what I’d do if my Familiar di-, got so badly hurt, but I’m glad to hear yours is still alive.” Malicorne spoke slowly. He probably would have been just as upset if the same had happened to his Familiar, despite having only known it for a little over a week, and he drew off that feeling in order to give some sincerity to his words.

“Y-yeah…” Again, Guiche responded, and his lips curled downward into a frown.

“Ahh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you feel any worse over it, I just thought that I should give my condolences. That man… He’s pretty awful.”

“… What are you doing?” Montmorency spoke up now, looking up at the plump boy standing to her left with suspicion.

“What? I’m just trying to show some support for my classmate, but I guess I-”

“Wait, what did you mean ‘He’s pretty awful’?” Guiche interrupted.

“It’s nothing, I shouldn’t have brought him up.” Malicorne replied, doing his best not to smirk at how easily Guiche had fallen for his trap.

“He’s right, Guiche. Just relax, I’m sure Verdande will be fine.” Montmorency chimed in, which irritated Malicorne. It wouldn’t do for her to go undoing the progress he’d made so far by calming Guiche down again, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t reveal his real intentions.

“No no, it’s fine. I want to hear what he has to say.” Luckily, he didn’t need to, as Guiche was already too invested to just let it go.

Montmorency laid her hand in her fiancé’s and gave it a light squeeze, but didn’t say anything.

“Well, it’s just… I saw him attack a few of the Dot-Class Mages recently and… Well, I think he’s going to go after Line-Class next.” Malicorne responded, trying to sound as uncomfortable as he could manage.

Guiche’s free hand tightened into a fist as he stood, letting go of his fiancé’s hand.

“Where is he!?” Guiche demanded.

“I-I don’t know! I think he went out into the forest again today!” Guiche’s sudden aggression had thrown Malicorne off, and he responded with some panic. His plan was to turn him against that naked slave, but he didn’t expect it to be so easy.

Montmorency, who was still sitting, stared daggers at her rotund peer. She had noticed only too late what he was trying to do, and she knew Guiche well enough to know that saying anything about it now wouldn’t do anything to calm him again. She silently cursed herself for thinking Malicorne was being genuinely sympathetic.

“There!” Guiche exclaimed with barely restrained anger as he looked over at the entrance to the school.

That man, that damned slave that’d shamed him, was walking in, almost as if on queue! His timing couldn’t have been better!

Before either Malicorne or Montmorency could say anything, Guiche was already marching over to him.

“You!” He called out to the man as he approached, and when they were within five meters of each other, he stopped. “I challenge you to a duel!”

“Alright.” The man responded as he readied himself, placing his club in front of him and eyeing Guiche’s throat. With his hands now in front of him, it became apparent that his off hand was covered in blood, mostly around the tips of his fingers and the base of his palm.

“Rabid dog.” Guiche thought at the man’s response. He wasn’t sure what kind of response he would have preferred, but the man’s immediate willingness to fight just seemed to confirm what Malicorne had only just said a few moments prior.

“Not now. Tomorrow, after class, in the Vestri Courtyard.” Guiche replied, not bothering to hide his disgust from the man. He was prepared to pull out his wand at a moment’s notice, should the man have attacked anyways.

“Why not now?” The man asked as he lowered his weapon, though he sounded completely disinterested as he did, which only further agitated Guiche.

“Because���” Guiche took a deep breath to calm himself. Losing himself to anger against a maddened animal like him wasn’t something a noble should ever do. “I need to speak with your victims.”

“You’ll need more than a day for that.” The man mumbled under his breath.

“What!?”

“Nothing.” The man replied, and sighed before continuing. “Fine, I accept. I’ll meet you in the Vestri Courtyard tomorrow after classes.”

“See to it that you do.” Guiche responded as he turned to walk away, prepared to turn back at a moment’s notice, should the man decide to try a sneak attack. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if the man didn’t show up or tried to run, but he got the feeling that someone like that wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to fight. 

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 7: X Days Until Naomi!

Here’s a weird one! I feel like the references I was trying to make in this chapter threw the tone off, but I count it as a learning experience!

After their brief meeting with the Headmaster, Roland and Charlotte went about their business for the day. Charlotte retrieved a few books she'd been interested in reading from her room, and Roland decided to go clean the clothes he'd been wearing the day before.

Charlotte, who'd just sat down in one of her preferred reading nooks, just next to the steps leading up to the entrance of the Tower of Void, pulled one such book out of a small stack, and began to look it over.

The book was small, scarcely even eighty pages at most, and it had a simple leather cover with the title and author embossed on it. This book was one of the few printed on its subject, and it was odd that she was able to find it in a Magic Academy, odder still, since it was originally printed in Gallia, but she supposed that wasn't something to complain about. In truth, she'd never heard of the book until a few days ago, when she was skimming through the books in the school library, but she figured it would be a good idea to read it and see what new information it had to offer.

"Okay! So you've gotten my book because you're looking to master a new and potentially horrifying skill? Great! That's what I wrote it for, now I'll skip the introduction and get right down to it!

So the first thing you'll want to do is acquire a target. I suggest you start near your own home, but you can still do it regardless of where you find yourself. Once you have your target, get to know as much as you can about them. Learn about their routines and habitat, and don't be afraid to ask the locals about them if you need help with your reconnaissance, but be careful of whom you ask! Some people can be pretty tight lipped about things, and others might figure out your intentions and sabotage you, so always be on the lookout for anyone who seems like they might offer up the information without hassle. I'll go into more detail with this step in the next chapter.

Next, after you've taken the time to gather information and gone over it, it's time to use that information to your benefit. With what you know now; start to plan out your excursions accordingly. Take care to place yourself in your targets habitat in unobtrusive ways, and for now, you'll want to make yourself as close to a natural existence there as you can be. You don't want to end up scaring off your target, so caution and patience is key here. Just remember, your time and effort will be paid off in full, should you be successful, so don't try to rush things. You'll also want to keep your eyes and ears open so you can continue to learn about your target and avoid any potential dangers to yourself and your goal. This topic will be covered in more detail in chapter three.

So, now that you've learned as much about your target as you can at a distance, and you've hopefully integrated into their habitat without much notice, it's time to push the envelope, so to speak. You'll want to get closer to your target, while masking your intentions. Much like the previous step, you'll want to take your time getting close and make it seem as unobtrusive as possible, while being careful not to scare off your target. Stealth isn't something you need for this, unlike the previous two steps, but you don't want to run in flailing your arms and screaming either (unless you're certain that'll help). More often than not though, I find a stealthy approach to be detrimental for this step, as it'll likely put your target on guard, causing some… Complications. This'll be expanded on in chapter four.

Now we get to the crux of the matter! Hopefully, you'll have read through the whole booklet by now, instead of just reading each step as you come to them, and have prepared yourself mentally (and physically) for this step. You can now use your newfound proximity and knowledge of your target for, what is likely the most daunting task you'll face. But don't lose heart just yet! You've prepared for this, so take a deep breath, throw your shoulders back and go in there with the confidence that comes from preparing for a difficult challenge! Believe in yourself! Barring that, believe in the me that believes in you! Now…

Talk! Converse! Discuss! Use all the knowledge you gained to start conversations with your target. With some luck and ingenuity, you might just be able to close the gap and create a relationship with your target, be it friendly or romantic.

For a lot of people, especially those who seek out a book like this (no judgment here, I'm just words on a page, after all), this is the most difficult part, so you'll want to use what you've learned already and come up with some topics to speak with your target about. It doesn't have to be a huge deal, just a few words in passing, or a short exchange here and there whenever you see them is fine, but try to build on it quickly. I'll go into more detail with this in chapter five, but remember, you're the one who needs to decide what to say, and then say it.

This last step is optional (but highly recommended!). Using your repository of knowledge on your target, you'll want to pick out a few things that your target might like. They don't have to be big or valuable, in fact, it might be better if they're just simple or easy to get things.

What you'll want to do with this stuff is give it to your target. But not so fast! You don't want to just show up some day and shower them with gifts, and giving them something everytime you see them is out of the question too. After all, you don't want them to like you only for what you can give them (or think that you're trying to buy their affection), you want them to like you for your other, probably innumerous aspects. To that end, you'll want to only give them one or two gifts a week, three, if it's their birthday. More details on gift giving will be graciously given in chapter six.

The rest of this chapter will be used to cover a few details that don't warrant their own chapter."

Charlotte sighed as she slowly closed the book.

"What the Hel is this? How is this supposed to help me make friends…?" She thought to herself as she looked down at its cover. The words "How to Connect With People on a Deeper Level" were printed on the cover, and underneath them was printed the authors' non de plume. Though, unlike the title, that was Germanic in origin.

"Actually, that kind of makes sense…" Charlotte considered as she looked down at the cover. The terminology she'd seen so far in the book was unsettling, to say the least, especially with how it seemed to advocate hunting or stalking the would-be friend in question, but if it was written by someone who spoke Gallic as a second language, the strange tone made some sense. They'd likely not have as strong of a grasp on the language, and could potentially misconstrue a few meanings here and there, but the overall command of the language that the author demonstrated contradicted that, so she thought it might just be the author's attempt at levity, or at least, she hoped that was the case.

"Hey, what're you reading!?" A familiar voice called out from above her as she sat with the closed book held in front of her, breaking Charlotte out of her train of thought. As she quickly craned her neck upward she was surprised to see black panties, and long-plump dark-skinned legs covered in white stockings jumping down from the stone railing she was leaned against.

"N-nothing!" Charlotte responded as she hurriedly inserted the book into the stack in a random place, knocking the top two books off in the process.

"Oh… 'Kay… Anyways, I was looking for you, Charlotte." Kirche spoke as she turned to face her seated friend, and sat down next to her, opposite the pile of books. "So how'd the meeting with the Headmaster go?"

"It went fine." Charlotte responded as she replaced the two fallen books on the top of the pile. "They just finished up confirming whose Familiars had gotten killed."

"Yeah… That's a shame. I'd heard it was only a handful of Familiars, but they were all pretty big." Kirche spoke, then, noticing the questioning glance her younger friend had shot her, continued. "Ajax mentioned it last night. Apparently he saw Colbert bringing them in."

"So, do they intend on sending a few teachers out to secure the area?" Kirche spoke again, and received a small shrug from Charlotte, who didn't know. "Is that so…"

Charlotte, who noticed the sudden shift in her friend's demeanor, looked over at Kirche, who was looking toward the main entrance of the school.

"Don't." Was the only word Charlotte said.

"Don't what?" Kirche asked.

"Don't go looking for more of them."

"What!? I have no such intention!" Kirche responded with exaggerated offense, then immediately changed the subject. "Anyways, I was looking for you because I was wondering if you wanted to play a board game. Gimli bought one recently and we need at least one more player to make the game interesting. He said it was a game from the Far East, and said it was about… Racing animals…? I think that was it."

Charlotte turned away from her friend, and leaned back against the stone railing, slouching a little further down. She knew better than to believe Kirche wasn't going to go out looking for trouble, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do about it, which frustrated her immensely.

"Hey!" Kirche leaned forward to get into Charlotte's line of sight. "Do you want to play or not?" She continued, pointedly ignoring the irritation painted across Charlotte's face.

"No… I have to… Study." Charlotte responded as she tapped the stack of books beside her.

"Suit yourself." Kirche shrugged as she leaned back. "So do you have what you're going to bring to Gallia packed yet?"

Charlotte shook her head in response.

"Neither do I. Do you want to pack together later this week?" Kirche asked in a relaxed manner.

Charlotte nodded.

"Great, how about we do it in two or three days?"

Again, Charlotte nodded.

"Alright… Actually, I should probably get permission from the Headmaster to go with you. Baah, I'll do it tomorrow." Kirche said dismissively. "Anyways! I should probably go. Gimli gets a little pissy when it comes to board games for some reason." Kirche leaned over and gave Charlotte a light peck on the cheek before standing, and then the girls waved to each other as the older of the two departed.

With her friend now gone, Charlotte turned her attention back to the stack of books at her side. She pulled out the booklet she'd started reading before, and opened it back up to the page she'd left off at. Slowly, as she began reading, the frustration she felt had begun to fade, giving way to concern, but she kept herself focused on her current task. It didn't take long for her to finish reading the booklet, and afterward she moved onto one of the larger books in the pile, an advanced book on Magical Theory, which took up a sizeable chunk of her free time that day.

__________________________________________________

Roland was currently hanging laundry in the courtyard near the fountain. Originally he was going to clean his own clothing, but found the equipment he needed, as well as the fountain itself, was already in use. So, without much else to do that day, he offered to help the two maids that were working there. Luckily, he was already acquainted with one of them, who easily accepted his help, and so he took over hanging the cleaned bedding while the two maids worked together to wash it.

Due to the way he'd folded his clothes before coming, the blood stains weren't as noticeable as they could have been, so they didn't catch the attention of either maid as he laid them down behind them on the edge of the fountain, and while their faces contorted as the scent reached them, they didn't seem to know what exactly the smell was at the time, and the new scent quickly became overpowered by the smell of the soap they were using as they continued to clean. He placed his club down against the fountain next to his dirtied clothing, and then began hanging the cleaned laundry to dry.

"So like I was saying, apparently the war in Albion is going poorly for the royal family." A short, brown haired maid was talking.

The entire time Roland had been helping the maids he'd been silent, but the two maids had been filling the air with idle chatter and some rumors they'd picked up around the school. Apparently, there was a civil war happening in one of the neighboring countries to the north, though that didn't affect him in the Academy, and he doubted it would become relevant when he went to Gallia in the south.

As time went on, the two maids continued to prattle on about the various rumors they'd heard, talking about the war, sharing fears that it might spill over into Tristain, and eventually working their way around to discussing some of the lighter rumors that were floating around the campus. All the while, Roland was still silently hanging laundry as he absentmindedly listened in. He wasn't particularly interested in their conversation, but he felt it a better option than letting his mind wonder or letting his thoughts stagnate.

Roland overheard a few things about the students and staff members of the Academy, like how one student was caught cross-dressing, or how another had gotten hurt and accidentally destroyed their bed when they were sleeping with their wand, and how one teacher's Familiar had gotten loose and made a mess of a few lecture halls before getting caught and calmed down. That was an alleged prank by one of the students, but nobody knew for sure. After that, there was a short silence that fell over the two maids, before they both tried to speak at the same time.

"You know-"

"Hey! I was Wondering-"

The maid Roland knew, Siesta, and the other maid stopped to let each other finish, then after a short back and forth between the two, each egging the other on, the one he didn't know continued her question.

"Hey! So I was wondering… Are you… You know…" The brown haired maid, who was directing her question toward Roland, as opposed to Siesta, who had been directing her statement toward her fellow, paused for a moment to consider her next words carefully, then, with as much reckless abandon as the motion could contain, she shrugged and continued. "Are you that Orléans girl's paramour?"

"Renée!" Siesta exclaimed as she elbowed her fellow maid in the side.

"Ouch! What? I'm not the only one who's wondering… I figured I'd ask since he's here." She spoke with a faux hurt tone as she rubbed her side, and then moved closer to Siesta to whisper in her ear. "You can't tell me you're not a little curious."

"I don't know what that is." Before either could speak again, Roland responded indifferently while still hanging up the laundry.

"That's… It means you're her lover." The maid he now knew as Renée responded as if she didn't believe Roland wasn't familiar with the term.

"I'm her Familiar."

"Yeah, I heard you were 'summoned', but a lot of people were saying that since you're… You know, human, that it was faked." Renée paused to readjust herself. "And that you were chosen to be used as her Familiar because you two were… Well…"

"You're the only one saying they're lovers." Siesta spoke in a quiet, dismissive voice as she continued her work, but was seemingly ignored by Renée.

"… I'm her Familiar." Roland repeated himself as he bent down to grab another large sheet. He'd overheard a few rumors like that when he'd been in her classes or walking around, but none of them implied that the relationship between the two was a mutual or equal one, as Renée had.

"So if you're not her lover, then what's your relationship with her?" The short maid continued to question him, leaving the actual work to Siesta, who seemed to be intent on not listening to their conversation any further, but her hands begun moving much slower than her previous pace as she looked down at her work.

Roland didn't respond as he reached down to grab another sheet and hang it on the line. He straightened it out on the line, and then folded it over on itself like the rest of the bedding being hung. He figured they were being hung that way to save space on the line, and hadn't given it much thought past that. It wasn't until after he reached for the next sheet that he spoke.

"… Again, I'm her Familiar." Roland repeated the same answer he'd given twice already, though with noticeable irritation this time. However, the redundant questioning had prompted him into considering if their relationship really did go farther than Familiar and Magician.

He'd thought about the fact that she was teaching him how to read, but they didn't have the sort of relationship a teacher would normally have with their student, based on his interactions with Logan and the other Sorcerer's he learned from, and the strangeness of those differences made him feel uncomfortable. Aside from a few conversations here and there, and the aforementioned reading lesson, they didn't talk much, so he figured they weren't friends either, though that was to be expected. And, despite being summoned by her as a Familiar, and having reaffirmed that fact several times, he still wasn't entirely sure what that meant.

Normally, being summoned as a phantom to another's world meant he was bound to protect or kill them, and while protection seemed to be a part of being a Familiar as well, it seemed there was more to it than that. Aside from just being treated like a pet, he saw a few students and teachers using their Familiars to help with spell casting and gathering materials, but considering how old a few of the teachers were, and the fact that they still had Familiars with them, he also guessed that being a Familiar was a lifelong thing. Of course, he wasn't willing to let something like how he arrived in that place dictate the rest of his time there, but that didn't mean he'd just ignore what his current role entailed, or how that role was normally carried out.

"Huh… That sounds really boring." The maid responded with another shrug as her hands resumed their work. It seemed like she was considering saying something else, but choose not to after looking toward her co-worker, who seemed upset as she pointedly ignored Renée's glance.

The next few minutes passed by without anyone talking, until something odd happened. Just as Roland was about to pick up another sheet, now refocused on his musings about what a Familiar is, the ground underneath his foot seemed to shift slightly. It buckled under his weight, and then moved to the side quickly, causing him to trip and almost fall over into the fountain, but he caught himself in time.

A few students could be heard laughing in the distance, and when he looked over, Roland could see that one of them had their wand out, and it was pointed his way. The boy who was holding it was one he recognized, it was the overweight boy that was making a ruckus in the first class he'd attended.

Of course, aside from the boy's unpleasant voice and apparent lack of respect for his classmates, Roland knew nothing of him, but that was enough. Knowing any more than that wouldn't change the fact that the boy just tried to harm him, even if it was in such a minor way. With that in mind, Roland began to approach the group of boys, not bothering to mask the aggression he felt.

"Oi, what do you think you're doing? Get back to work, slave!" The plump boy calmed his laughter and addressed Roland as he approached, filling his hoarse voice with as much contempt as he could muster, but received only silence in return.

"Are you deaf? I said get back to work!" The boy waved his wand toward Roland at face level as he continued to advance. "What, are you angry? Well I don't care! Turn around, before I make you regret it."

While the boy's threats did nothing to stop Roland's approach, something else did. There was a hand holding his, and pulling him back.

"Come on, let's just finish the laundry!" It was Siesta, and she had a surprisingly strong grip for someone of her size, but not strong enough. Roland quickly shook her off of him and continued forward, but she grabbed him again, holding on even tighter this time.

"You can't fight a noble, it'll only end badly for you!" But she was shaken off again.

"Stop!" This time she didn't grab his hand, but instead placed herself between the group of boys and Roland, who exhaled sharply with a look of frustration plastered across his face. After a few tense seconds, Roland turned away from the maid with a roll of his eyes and walked back over to the fountain. Siesta sighed with relief before following at his side.

"Yeah that's right, you better walk away, filthy slave." The boy called out, but Roland only responded by waving him off in a motion similar to how one would shoo away a fly, which infuriated the stout boy. He aimed his wand at the ground and with a short spell he formed a tiny rock, then, with a flick of his wrist, preceded by another short spell, the rock went flying toward Roland, striking him in the nape of his neck.

"Oyy, that's what your master does, right? She throws things around because she can't cast any real spells!" The boy called out again mockingly, then broke out into laughter again, seemingly trying to be as obnoxious as possible, but again received only silence in response.

Without bothering to check the back of his neck, Roland turned on the balls of his feet and immediately charged in. The action surprised the three boys and Siesta, who, despite reaching out to him, didn't react in time to stop Roland's approach.

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Later that night, Charlotte and Roland were sitting in her room, wrapping up a reading lesson. As an addition to the normal curriculum, Charlotte also pulled out a book of short stories and had Roland pick from a few she'd listed. Story in hand, they began their normal lessons, with the addition of having Roland read out the entirety story to the best of his ability.

Overall, Roland was picking up her language quicker than either had expected, given that he'd only started learning it less than a week ago, and while he had a few minor issues remembering the seldom used portions of the language, the main issue holding him back from being able to read and write properly was the difference in syntax between their languages. He could understand short sentences with little effort, but when what he was reading became longer or more complex he ran into difficulty organizing the statement, this problem was compounded greatly when the writing included wordplay, as he tended toward more literal interpretations.

As she continued to watch him write and read, and saw where and how he failed to grasp the language, she began to develop a clearer understanding of his native languages' syntax, though at first it did just seem like gibberish to her. Charlotte noticed that in most cases, the syntax of his language dictated that the subject be spoken first, and often the predicate would be last. And while she still wasn't entirely sure of the order between the two, it seemed to go: clause, indirect object, and direct object. There was some variability with this order, which had confused her at first, but she recognized this one the most.

This was odd to her, as she thought Contract Familiar worked by implanting knowledge of the Magician's language into the Familiar, but now that misconception was debunked. She'd considered that it might act as a sort of translation spell, as that was the second most likely option, but she threw that idea out almost immediately. There were seemingly too many moving parts to the spell for it to be able to function that way.

"You're doing really well." Charlotte spoke as she replaced the books they'd used on the bookshelf. "It shouldn't be long until you won't need these lessons at all. That's… Surprising."

"Hmm." Roland replied after standing to stretch his now-stiff body. Much like their previous lessons, sitting there with her for a few hours had done more to tire him out than a whole day of sitting through her classes, but he choose not to say that, or express his relief that their lessons would likely be ending soon. Bringing attention to the fact that he'd found her to be a boring person to listen too seemed like an idiotic idea, considering she'd been doing him a service by teaching him to read.

After she finished putting the books away, she sat on the edge of her bed across from Roland, who was still standing, and looked up at him silently for a moment. Her face made it clear she was thinking about something, and that whatever it was, it made her feel at least a little uncomfortable, but despite this, she spoke.

"So… What did you do today?"

Roland didn't respond, instead, he looked back over at the young girl with a blank expression, silently wondering why she'd asked. Most questions she'd asked him over the past week were general questions about his world or knowledge, so something as mundane as what he did that day was thoroughly unexpected.

His lack of a response caused a small frown to form on her normally flat face, until she became disheartened and turned toward her nightstand, positioned by the opposite corner of her bed from her current seat, where a small pile of books lay.

"… Nothing much. I just took a walk and helped with the laundry." Roland responded finally. Though, unlike the previous day, he failed to mention that he'd had a run-in with one of the students.

The interaction with the boy who summoned golems was something substantial for Roland. In his mind, there was a real sense that he could die if the situation actually came to violence, and that stuck out to him, so he told Charlotte about it. After all, even if being a Familiar was different from being a phantom, he was still supposed to protect her, so not telling her about a potential threat would be terribly short-sighted on his part.

His interaction with the rotund boy, on the other hand, could hardly be considered dangerous. Yes, he'd taken two spells directly, but being tripped and having a small rock flicked at the back of his head weren't dangerous enough to warrant concern from Roland, this, coupled with how easily he'd defeated the boy only further liquefied the thought, making it far easier for it to drain from his mind as he answered her question.

"Is that all?" Charlotte responded, now facing Roland again.

"I went with you to your classes… And to meet those two men." Roland spoke with a questioning tone, but that gave way to one of understanding halfway through his statement.

"First that maid and now you… I'm not interesting enough to receive this much attention." He thought. The same feeling of discomfort he felt in the bathing room began to crop up again, but now he had a clearer picture of how he felt, regardless of his attempt at avoiding the thoughts. It felt weird, almost wrong, to receive what was probably just basic human kindness, and if he were to be honest with himself, it was something that scared him.

This was something he'd felt far less with Siesta than with Charlotte, as she had only gone out of her way to get him some extra clothing and teach him how to clean them, both of which he could dismiss as her just being instructed to do so, despite how frail of an excuse that felt like. Charlotte, on the other hand, was harder for him to shrug off.

She had given him a place to stay, and while that seemed expected of Magicians when they summoned Familiars, a lot of the Familiars he'd seen that were around the size of or larger than a human were left to make their own homes on the school grounds, much to the displeasure of the school's staff, or in the forest surrounding the school, though that had become problematic as well, due to the recent demon attack. That contrast between Charlotte and her peers was made all the more jarring due to his own experiences up until now, which mainly consisted of him being denied respite until he took it by force, so just being given a place to stay felt so utterly wrong to him when he stopped to think about it that he wanted to reject it out of hand.

The way she'd shared her own food with him, unbeknown of his distaste for eating, was something else that he'd found disturbing. He didn't need to eat, but he knew that it was needed for most beings to survive. He also understood how huge of a motivator good food was for the living in general, though his understanding of that was roundabout at best. So someone freely sharing such a basic necessity as food, even in an environment that seemed to have it stocked in excess, was more than he could bear.

She'd also gone out of her way to teach him how to read, something that, given their situation, was wholly beneficial to him and a waste of her own time, especially considering that neither of them thought he'd learn as quickly as he did. He could have tried to justify it by thinking that she was just doing it in case anything where to damage her eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to believe something like that, considering her other actions.

"This wouldn't be a problem if I was actually human…" Roland concluded internally as he sat down on the bench across from her. Again, he could feel fear playing at the edges of his mind, and the urge to run away began to rise inside him, but he didn't. He realized the discomfort and fear he was feeling was unreasonable, but that realization did nothing to alleviate how distressing it felt, it only gave him clarity of mind enough not to try and escape it.

"Oh… Well…" Charlotte began, but was thrown off by how suddenly Roland's mood seemed to sour as he sat down. Still, his willingness to respond had encouraged her to keep going. "So what did you think of the story?"

"Hmm? It was fine, I guess." Roland spoke as his face reset to its default expression. "I don't understand why the man in the story decided to help the dragon. Well, I don't know why the dragon tried to save the child either."

The story was about a dragon, who, after attempting to save a human child's life, was caught in a trap lain out by a group of Dragon Hunters. Though, luckily for it, a strange man came in and slaughtered the hunters before they could finish it off, and then treated the dragon's wounds.

"Wasn't it out of kindness?" Charlotte spoke her mind as she studied Roland's expression. She'd begun noticing recently that, more often than not, any emotion to show up on him would quickly fade into nothing if something where to catch his attention.

"I don't think so." Roland replied as he leaned his arm on the windowsill. "He said he wanted to be king, so he might have wanted to make the dragon into an ally to exploit its strength."

The man, after patching up the dragon's wounds, had explained his goals, and how he wanted to go about them when the dragon questioned him, but hadn't asked for the dragon's help or tried to make a deal with the dragon.

"Maybe, but I don't think that was his goal. I think he just saw the creature in trouble after trying to save the child, so he felt he needed to help it." Charlotte countered. "Even before he knew it could talk, the man could see that the dragon was sentient, and more than that, it was selfless enough to endanger itself for a child. If he wanted to be a just king, he couldn't just ignore the murder happening right in front of him."

"But he could have seen that as a chance to ingratiate himself with the dragon, taking advantage of its kindness. The dragon was clearly badly injured by the time he jumped in to help it, so if he did see it attempt to save the child, and truly wanted to help it, he would have came to its aid sooner instead of waiting until it was so close to death. It makes more sense that he was waiting to rescue it until the act would have had a bigger impact on the beast." Roland grimaced slightly as the image of Charlotte running out to face the demon played over in his mind again, but let out a small sigh in an attempt to alleviate the tension he felt building as he leaned his elbows onto his knees. He didn't think that statement was applicable to what Charlotte had done, and that bothered him as well.

"The dragon was fighting too fiercely for him to get close to it, and using his bow to pick off the hunters could have ended up giving his position away and endangering them both further. He could have also accidentally hit the dragon." Again, Roland's face reverted to its neutral position as she responded. She wasn't sure why, but it didn't seem like he was getting distracted, it was more like he took special care to focus heavily on whatever stimuli presented itself whenever he seemed upset or off.

"True, and I suppose it's possible that the dragon could have misunderstood his intentions and killed him, thinking the man was another hunter." Roland straightened his back as he responded, but didn't continue past that.

"So… What did you think of the ending?" Charlotte asked after a brief silence overtook the room.

After the man had patched up the dragon and it had rested for some time, reinforcements that the dragon hunters called for before their demise had shown up and attacked the pair. The ending of the story involved the dragon ripping out its own tongue and giving it to the man. When it did, the man pierced the tongue with his sword, which imbued the sword with the dragon's power and caused an enormous gout of fire to burst forth from it, incinerating the remaining dragon hunters, though in the end, the dragon still succumbed to its wounds. After the battle, the man carved off a few hand-sized scales from the dragon, and made a small monument in its honor.

"I think the dragon died for nothing, and only served as a stepping stone for that man's ambitions." Roland readjusted himself on his seat as he answered. "I think that, had they never met, nothing would have changed for the man, save for his sword."

"I don't think that's a fair assessment." Charlotte responded, with her cheeks slightly inflated in frustration at Roland's answer. "It seemed to me that the meeting had served to fortify his resolve to become king."

They both continued to discuss their opinions on the story from that point on, until it came time for them to sleep, but neither could win the other over to their opinion.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 6:

Here’s the sixth chapter, right on schedule (unlike the previous chapter, which was a day late)!

You know, looking back on my earlier chapters has allowed me to take hold of the fact that I really, really should have planned them out before actually posting them. Thing is, I feel that going back and rewriting or editing them would be a terrible course of action to take at this point. It feels like a dishonest thing to do, and would defeat the purpose of posting my work online to gauge/track my development as a writer.

Roland sat naked on a small wooden stool in the servant's bathing room. The room itself wasn't that big, and certainly wasn't large enough to fit even a third of the servants that worked at the school, but since it was late, he was the only occupant in the normally overcrowded room. Unsurprisingly, the run-in with the demon had put him on guard, so when he'd first entered he took a look around to find that no one was hiding, and even took special care to avoid being taken off-guard by anyone who might be using Sorcery to conceal themselves, though, he was unaware of the types of stealth magic that the people of this world used, so he was still on guard for any surprises that might occur due to his lack of knowledge.

There was a large fire pit situated under an equally large water-filled tub in the center of the room that acted as the main bathing area for the servants. Roland had considered bathing in there, but decided against it. The only reason he'd want to do that would be if he wanted to bath using hot water, but he didn't want to go through the trouble of heating it by lighting the fire pit, so he sat off to its side, using a bucket and wash towel he found in the corner of the room to clean himself.

He began to visualize the fight back in the forest. The sensation of his shield buckling under the powerful impact of the demon's punch replayed in his mind. An intense feeling of dread began to overtake him as he imagined the demon's visage, with its four glowing eyes glaring piercingly at him. It played back in slow motion as he dodged the demon's attacks, striking it, and finally being skewered by its exposed bone, only to be thrown down into the blood-soaked dirt.

Slam!

The sound of flesh hitting against stone reverberated in the quiet room. While Roland was lost in thought his fist had struck the stone floor, just by the bucket in front of him, similarly to when he'd slammed his club into the demon's leg. Blood slowly dripped from his knuckles before the wound healed itself without a trace.

"Not this crap again." Roland whispered to himself as he opened his eyes, having just realized they'd been closed. He took a deep breath before exhaling slowly, and rose off his knees, taking his seat on the small stool before going back to cleaning himself. It didn't happen much recently, but every so often, he'd forget himself in his memories, recent or old. And though it didn't take long for him to regain his composure now, there was a time when he had a much more difficult time distinguishing reality from his memories.

One good thing that came from the normally disconcerting experience was that it illustrated just how slow and weak his body had gotten, now that he was outside of battle and had time to think about it without distraction. It was frustrating for him, knowing how far he'd gotten, to have all his progress, all his effort, reset again, but having experienced his newfound weakness firsthand was important, it gave him a goal to reach, and more importantly, it demonstrated very effectively where his limits were. His body didn't move as quickly as it did before, and even if it did, his reaction time also decreased with his speed and strength.

Roland began to wipe a few spots around his lower abdomen, just above his crotch where Charlotte had avoided earlier, with the towel now. He remembered what she had done earlier as well, and while he didn't dislike that she tried to "save" him, he couldn't quite say he liked it either. He appreciated it, much like he could appreciate the other things she'd done for him, but in the back of his mind, he thought it was odd.

For him, being summoned by someone who actually cared if he lived or died wasn't common. Before, when he was summoned as a phantom, his summoner usually didn't care about his death, so long as it benefitted them. To him, that was fine, he was willing to die if it would help his summoner get where they needed to be. He knew what it was like to be stuck in that world, and would rather make it easier on any others in similar situations to his.

Kindness wasn't something that he was used to, and the realization that it made him feel nervous when people acted that way toward him played on the fringes of his mind, but his thoughts reflexively shifted back to the insanity of her earlier actions.

"That idiot…" He let out a soft sigh. The image of Charlotte running out of hiding and attacking the demon played over in his mind as he ran the dampened towel against his legs, being careful not to forget himself. She came out almost immediately after he landed, probably with the intention of preserving what little "life" he had left at the time, since she was unaware of his Undead state, but it was still foolish for her to even try. Roland began to clean his pelvis; he could admit that he found it impressive that the demon hadn't killed her before he'd gotten to them, even if she was clearly focusing on surviving and drawing it away from him, since the difference in power between her and a demon, even one so old and decrepit, was still overwhelming.

The bizarre feeling of someone risking themselves for him played in the back of his mind again. It was something he couldn't understand.

"That idiot…" His thoughts repeated as he considered her actions again. There was no way she would be able to beat the demon on her own, he was sure she knew that, but she put herself in danger regardless. Sympathy had its limits, so he doubted she put herself at risk due to that or some form of guilt for summoning another "human", which seemed to be unheard of in her world, given some of the rumors he'd been hearing about Charlotte and himself. Then again, in his current state, he probably wouldn't have been able to beat it on his own either.

"Actually, maybe that's it…"

Another possibility occurred to him, though it was one that seemed almost alien to him, given his experiences. Many people he'd met were more interested in themselves than they were in the lives of others, be it their own survival, pleasure, or revenge, it didn't matter. Some of these self-centered individuals even considered the people who did care about others to be more useful as tools than as people, so it wasn't something he usually had reason to think about, but…

"Maybe that's what it means to value more than just your own life, regardless of your own strength."

Of course, he realized the apparent hypocrisy in that thought. When he saw the demon bearing down on her, Roland didn't hesitate to charge in and attack it, despite his weakened state, but it was different for him. He was Undead, so endangering his life was different from her risking hers.

"Or maybe it's closer to not valuing your own life at all."

He thought to himself as he reached out for a bar of soap, then wrapped the towel around it and started rubbing the two together, mimicking something he'd seen one of the servants do a few days ago, until the towel could be used as a bathing sponge, since the servant's baths had none. He then started wiping down his body again with the towel, starting with his neck and working his way down. He wasn't sure why Charlotte had done what she did, and decided that thinking about it any longer wouldn't do him any good, so he started considering what to do with his newfound souls

It went without saying that he wanted to regain his strength, but he had yet to find a single Bonfire or Fire Keeper, and given what he'd already learned of this world, he thought it unlikely that he'd find either any time soon.

The demon was one thing, Roland could understand how it and he might end up in this world, but Fire Keepers, and their Bonfires were another story. As far as he understood it, the Bonfires could only exist when the First Flame was fading, and the Fire Keepers, while capable of moving away from their Bonfires, usually didn't. So it was unlikely that he'd run into either in a world without the First Flame, meaning he'd have to find another way to reinforce himself with the souls he gathered.

Roland finished scrubbing himself, then dumped the bucket over his head to rinse off before cleaning the towel and putting what he'd used away. He decided to clean his clothing some time tomorrow. With his bathing done, he headed back to Charlotte's room as he considered his limited options.

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In a large room, fit with a glorious, marble-lined swimming pool, sat a lone girl in hot perfume-mixed water. Unlike the servants bathing room, the pool used by the Nobles was heated via magic, so it always stayed at a pleasant temperature, in addition, the room itself was far larger than it needed to be, so overcrowding wasn't normally an issue. Though, since there was no one else in the room, due to how late it was, the size of the room made little difference. The girl, Charlotte, had already finished cleaning herself, so now she sat in the water to relax her body.

As she sat there, soaking in the scented water, her mind went over the day's events, working hard to slowly pick apart every detail she could consider to try and understand what she had learned, but more than that, she was distracted by the decision she made on the day she summoned Roland. At the time, she probably hadn't thought it all the way through, but she followed her gut and hasn't been made to regret it yet, so she was at least satisfied with that. However, the events of the past day had certainly complicated things.

Over the course of that first day, she had spent more time thinking about what to do with her newfound companion than she did paying attention to her lessons, and came to the conclusion that, if he wanted to leave, she wouldn't stop him. Charlotte didn't want to be responsible for keeping someone away from their loved ones, but he didn't want to leave. It didn't seem like he particularly wanted to stay either, but he decided not to leave, which surprised her. Oddly, she also felt relieved by Roland's decision as well. Maybe because it meant that she hadn't just uprooted him from a place he wanted to return to. That thought was saddening to her, in a way.

Regardless of the reason, she decided after that short exchange on their first day together, since he choose to stay, that she'd do her best to become friends with him. The thing Charlotte didn't count on, however, was her own ineptitude at making friends. She knew how to be nice and respectful, but wasn't much for conversation, nor was she overtly expressive, two things she quickly realized she had in common with Roland, so besides just not treating him like a servant, she wasn't sure how to become friends with him.

Even with Kirche, their friendship had only really taken off because Kirche took the lead, after a period of… turbulence, admittedly. Charlotte had even considered talking to her about it, but decided against it. She wanted to do this herself, not due to pride, but do to her own conviction. She absolutely, definitely, certainly wasn't too embarrassed to ask for help making friends. But five years of self-imposed isolation, one of which was spent at this foreign school, surrounded mostly by strangers, had put a damper on her ability to create such a bond.

She sighed to herself due to her own ineptitude, and slowly lowered her head into the water until not even a single hair remained above it. Charlotte stayed under the water until she couldn't hold her breath any longer, then finally emerged, gasping for air. Her skin, which was pale to start with, became bright red from head to toe due to the hot water. Having regained her breath, she focused her thoughts onto her most recent conversation with Roland.

If she were to assume he really came from another world, she'd have to abandon all her preconceived notions about her own world in order to understand him. Even going on what little information he'd already shared with her, it seemed that, while there were a few similarities, there were different natural laws governing it. Which was made apparent by what he said about magic and the "First Flame" in his world. Not just anyone could learn magic in her world, and a person's ability to do so wasn't solely dependent on their mentality, which was completely different from how he described the magic of his world. And the First Flame, she didn't really know what to make of that, but she got the impression it was important.

Charlotte stood in the water, exposing her skin to the warm air of the bathing room, and exited the pool to dry herself. As she did, she began to consider why it was she didn't get the impression Roland was lying about the strange things he said. It occurred to her that it was, at least in part, because of how terrible he was at masking his omissions or describing certain places or people like he'd never visited or met them, despite his extensive knowledge of them.

Whenever he'd try to avoid giving certain details he changed the subject almost immediately, and had even done so in the middle of a sentence a few times, and when he tried to describe a location or person, he'd usually start the statement off with something to the effect of "Stories say", or end it with something like "Or so I've heard", despite the almost ridiculous amount of knowledge he had on most of the places and people he described. Of course, him being a terrible liar could have been an act, but she wasn't paranoid enough to believe something like that without reason.

Having finished drying herself, Charlotte got dressed and headed back to her room. On her way back, she left her dirty clothes for the servants to clean with a note that informed them of who the clothing belonged to. When she got back to her room, Roland was already there, seemingly deep in thought as he waited by the door.

"Roland…" Charlotte spoke; she'd forgotten to mention it earlier due to what had happened in the forest. "I've been called back to Gallia after the next Day of Void."

"I don't know the days of your week." He responded.

"The next day of Void will be in six days. A carriage will arrive the day after to take us there." She explained, making a mental note to explain the days and months to him later. Roland replied with a nod, and then followed her into the room.

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After sunrise, at breakfast, Charlotte and Roland took their usual seats and began eating. Kirche, having seen the state they were both in the previous day, immediately began interrogating Charlotte about what had happened. She would have done so when she'd seen them before, but Charlotte told her she needed to report it to the Headmaster, and asked her to wait a day.

"Alright, Charlotte, what the Hel happened out there?" Kirche's tone was a mix of irritation and concern as she inquired about the previous day's events.

"There was a monster in the forest. We… It's dead now." Charlotte replied, but before she could continue, Kirche cut her off.

"There was WHAT!?" Her sudden shout caught the eye of many of the surrounding students in the dining room, but interest quickly faded as they all went back to their own conversations.

"A monster. It was killing the animals and Familiars in the forest." After swallowing the small piece of chicken she'd popped into her mouth when Kirche yelled, Charlotte responded with an even tone.

"What do you mean a monster?" Kirche lowered her voice as she spoke, trying not to draw the attention of her peers again.

"It was a Goat-Man monster, the kind that's been spotted around the eastern portion of the Fire Dragon Mountains." She took another small bite of the chicken in front of her.

"Aren't those just old wives tales?"

"No."

"So what? You two killed it? How?"

Charlotte put her fork down as she paused to consider what to say.

"I separated it from its weapon, then Roland charged it." She indicated her stave as she spoke. Kirche was no stranger to the "unique" way Charlotte's spells acted, so she understood what her friend meant.

"It was missing part of an arm, but it still fought back with its remaining fist. It broke Roland's shield." Charlotte continued. "I was throwing rocks at it from behind a tree." She again indicated her stave.

"We had the upper hand for a while, but it grabbed Roland and threw him, then came after me, but…" She paused again. She knew it wouldn't be good to mention anything about what happened to Roland's neck where so many people could overhear, but she wasn't sure if it was something she should tell Kirche about yet or not. She trusted her best friend with a lot, but until she had a clear understanding of how he healed so quickly, she thought it better to not bring it up. "It got its weapon back first."

"Before it could kill me, Roland charged it, and damaged one of its legs. Then an arrow hit it in the eye, and we took the chance to kill it." Kirche winced at the mention of it attempting to kill her best friend, but before she could ask, Charlotte answered her next question. "I don't know who shot the arrow." She took up her fork again and started eating again.

Charlotte had thought about it, but couldn't figure out who it could have been. It was unlikely that any of the students or teachers had done it, since they'd be more likely to rely on their magic, and she was unaware of any servants with a background in Archery, but she thought it was just as unlikely that a hunter or soldier just happened to be out in the woods at the same time. Unless they were hunting that beast, which was more likely than one of the nobles or commoners from her school helping them, but that possibility only raised more questions.

"Hmm…" Kirche hummed to herself with her arms folded under her impressive bust. Her lips puckered slightly as her eyebrows furrowed in contemplation. After letting out a small sigh, she spoke. "Well, alright. I know I asked yesterday, but are you sure you're alright?"

Charlotte nodded in response as she chewed on the morsel of chicken in her mouth.

"Kirche." Charlotte spoke after swallowing and taking a sip of her water to clear her throat. "In seven days I'll be going back to Gallia."

"Is that right? Going to visit your family home?" Kirche responded. In all their time together at the school, Charlotte had never once returned to Gallia for anything, even during holiday breaks.

Charlotte nodded again, but her expression made it clear she was uncomfortable with the idea of going back.

"Is something the matter?" Kirche said as she began eating. She was too concentrated on their previous conversation to notice the food in front of her until now.

Charlotte didn't respond as she started pecking at her food with her fork, seemingly struggling to figure out what to say.

"I haven't been there for a few years." Was all she could muster as she looked away.

"So you're nervous? Isn't it just a visit with your parents? I'm sure they'll be happy to see you no matter what." Kirche responded with an upbeat voice in between bites.

"It's not… They're not…" Charlotte trailed off. She'd never told anyone about her family circumstance.

"You're bringing Roland right? Why don't I come along too?" Kirche offered excitedly.

"…" Charlotte considered if that'd be okay. She couldn't leave Roland behind, the entire reason she was called back was to inspect her Familiar, but she wasn't sure if it'd be okay to bring a friend as well. After a brief moment of consideration, she nodded.

"Alright, then it's settled! Now… Will we be stopping in any Gallic cities while we're there?" Charlotte responded to Kirche's question by shaking her head in denial. "That's a shame, I'd of liked to check out the markets in your home country… Hey! How about we go shopping the day before we leave? Tristain's capital is pretty close, and it'll be a Day of Void, so it'll be a perfect opportunity to shop!"

Charlotte wasn't one for shopping trips, but it looked like Kirche really wanted to, so she nodded in affirmation.

"Great!" Kirche exclaimed as she attacked her food with renewed vigor. They finished their meal as they conversed about various unrelated things, with Kirche doing most of the talking, before heading to class.

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After class, Charlotte and Roland headed to the Headmaster's office, but just as they were about to enter, the door opened, revealing the wizened old man from the day before, Headmaster Osmond.

"Ahh! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Appearing out of nowhere like that!" He exclaimed while clutching his chest. Apparently, he didn't notice when Charlotte had knocked a moment before.

"We need to go down to Professor Colbert's lab. He went out and brought the body of the monster you fought back, as well as the… Cadavers of the Familiars it killed. Hopefully he'll have finished verifying whose Familiar was whose by the time we get down there." The Headmaster spoke after calming himself down. "It's horrid business, but we had to call in the students who we suspected the Familiars belonged to…" He trailed off, clearly displeased with having to show his students the mangled corpses of the creatures they'd summoned.

Without further ado, the three headed down to Professor Colbert's lab. As they approached the door, they overheard yelling from inside.

"What do you mean this thing killed him!? It's a damn statue!" It was a girl's voice.

They could hear that Colbert was talking, but his voice wasn't loud enough to hear clearly from outside.

"That's bullshit! What creature turns to stone when it dies!? That kind of thing doesn't exist!" The girl yelled again. Professor Colbert could be heard trying to calm the girl down, but she stormed out of the small shack that he used as a lab in a huff, bumping into Roland as she did.

"Watch where you're going, dammit!" The girl was short, even shorter than Charlotte, and her long, strawberry-blond hair trailed behind her as she stormed off.

With that distraction out of the way, the trio entered the shack lab, only to be greeted by a mess of various papers, strange equipment, and a few empty cages around the room.

All the tables, cages, and equipment had been pushed to the sides of the room currently, and in the center laid several corpses. They were the bodies of the recently deceased Familiars, though they weren't left out for all to see. Each body was covered by a tarp, but that did nothing for the smell in the room.

Professor Colbert was saying something under his breath as he pulled a tarp back over the mangled body of what looked like a lion with wings and the face of a human, but it had the misfortune of having its jaw ripped off and its torso torn asunder. The sight wasn't something Charlotte particularly enjoyed, much like she didn't enjoy seeing it back in the forest.

"Ahh, you're here! Please don't mind the…" Professor Colbert trailed off, clearly not wanting to finish his statement. "Anyways, I looked over the area you mentioned, and the various corpses therein." He regarded Charlotte. "I think it's a safe bet to say this… Beast, was the one who killed the Familiars, but it's amazing that you two could defeat it on your own. From all the stories I've read of these, I didn't think a single Mage and Familiar would have been able to beat one." The Professor concluded. He indicated the body of the beast Roland had called a demon, which was lain out on a large table off to the side of the room.

"It was old and injured already. If it were in its prime, I'm sure we wouldn't be talking like this right now." Roland spoke. It was clear from his tone that he knew what he was talking about.

Colbert stood after having secured the tarp. "Is that so? I don't suppose that means you've ran into younger ones before?"

"Whether he has or hasn't, that's not why we're here today, Professor." Headmaster Osmond interjected.

"Right, right. So where do we start? I was up all night studying it's… Cadaver, if you could call it that. I could go into detail with my autopsy or-"

"That won't be necessary, just please document your findings and submit them to me later." Osmond interrupted Colbert's excited suggestion. "For now, I think it'd be best if we just went over what happened again. Umm…" He looked toward Roland.

"Roland" Charlotte offered.

"Right, yes, Roland, we've heard what Miss Orléans has had to say about what happened, but you where there too, and from what we've heard, you fought the monster directly. So could you tell us what happened in your own words?" The Headmaster continued

"I noticed that there was less noise coming from the forest, and I wanted to investigate. When we got there, I noticed a few things that were out of place, approached the clearing, and discovered several corpses and the demon over there." Roland pointed toward the table holding the beast up.

"Once we'd discovered it, I told her to leave. She didn't. We fought it, I was thrown by it. Then, someone shot an arrow at it, giving me the chance to finish it off." He indicated the beast's crushed head.

Silence overtook the room, in part due to the almost exaggeratedly bare-bones explanation of events Roland had described, which was far more simplified than the explanation Charlotte had given the day before, but more so because of the last part he'd mentioned.

"And this arrow, do you know who shot it?" Osmond asked.

"No." Roland replied.

Headmaster Osmond hummed to himself in consideration as he looked toward the corpse of the beast that had killed his students' Familiars, his disdain for the creature clearly shown on his face.

"That'll be all, you two may go. Thank you for your time." Osmond spoke to the pair.

Charlotte bowed before heading out, followed by Roland who showed no such courtesy.

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After they had both left, and the door to the room was closed, the Headmaster turned to Professor Colbert.

"And you're sure this beast is responsible for… This?" He asked as he indicated the bodies covered in tarps, he'd seen them when they were first brought in, and knew just how bad a state the bodies were in.

"Certain. Though this is the first time I've run into anything like it. I'd heard stories about them in the past, but I could never find anything more than hearsay on them." Colbert responded.

"And it's stone body? How was it able to move? It certainly isn't like any Golem or Gargoyle I've ever encountered."

"That's the strange part. I probably wouldn't have believed it myself if I didn't see it firsthand. It was slowly turning to stone when I'd arrived in the clearing yesterday, and according to Miss Orléans, It was doing that when it was alive too." Colbert explained. He wasn't sure how it happened, but with more time to study it, he was certain he could find out what caused it.

"And the arrow, did you find any tracks or evidence that anyone else was there with them?"

"The broken remains of an arrow were lodged into its skull, but I couldn't find any tracks or campsite, so I doubt that it was a passing hunter that assisted them, but while I was there, I noticed a few bits of torn cloth around that didn't match what Miss Orléans or her Familiar were wearing."

Headmaster Osmond sighed to himself as he walked over to the beast's corpse. His days were busy enough as it was, what with his secretary on vacation and the mountain of paperwork that came with every year's Familiar Summoning, so this creature definitely wasn't a welcomed surprise, and while he was thankful that none of his students were hurt, the fact that it killed several of their Familiars was still problematic, and the mysterious archer who'd helped Miss Orléans and her Familiar out in the clearing was another matter he'd inevitably have to deal with, knowing his luck.

Of course, he'd checked the staff roster for any servants or teachers that had a background in Archery, but came up dry. He intended on making an inquiry to the nearby villages too, but considering they mostly subsisted on farming, and to a lesser extent, ranching, he doubted he'd have much luck finding the identity of the Archer through them either. The thought that it was some foreign entity that had been hunting the creature crossed his mind, but he shook it away. It was a possibility, but one that was far more trouble than he cared to think about currently, besides, he had no way of confirming whether or not that was the case, so it was better to consider what he could do now.

"Still, I wouldn't have thought the Myoznitnirn Familiar would have used such crude methods to defeat something." Colbert changed the subject as he stared over at the crushed skull of the beast. On the previous day, he'd excitedly rushed into the headmaster's office with his findings on Charlotte's Familiar. It was shocking, to say the least, that her Familiar was one of the three legendary Familiars of Brimir.

"Speaking of, did you remove the books, like I'd asked?" Osmond responded. When Colbert explained the situation to him, he told the professor to search through the library, both the parts open to the public and staff only, and remove any books that made mention of Brimir's Familiars. He didn't want that news getting out, and possibly being leaked to either the Tristain or Gallic governments, as he felt it would do more harm than good for Charlotte, who, despite having no personal ties with, still felt the need to protect her and the rest of the students and staff from unnecessary hardships.

"Yes, but… Are you certain this is for the best?" Colbert asked, the concern he felt was evident on his face as he spoke.

"No, but I'd rather my students be safe than have any government try to use them or their Familiars for their own gain." The Headmaster spoke resolutely.

"Should we at least tell Miss Orléans?"

"No, not yet. She'll be going back to Gallia soon, and I'd rather not have something like that weighing on her mind when she visits her family." Osmond spoke as he turned toward the door. He'd given her permission to go the previous day, before she'd encountered that horrible beast. "Anyways, I've got paperwork I need to get back to." He walked toward the door after exchanging a brief farewell with the professor.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 5: Dark Words Spoken Lightly!

Heyo! I was unable to upload the fifth chapter yesterday, so here it is today. The sixth chapter will be coming out tomorrow.

Roland reached the Academy as twilight began to overtake the sky. There weren't many people out in the courtyard at the time, but the few that had been were sitting at the tables set up near the central tower. Charlotte, who had been with him up until they reached the road leading back to the Academy, ran ahead to inform the headmaster about what transpired, and judging by the lack of anyone there to greet him, was either still explaining the situation or hadn't gotten the chance to start yet.

The blood that'd gushed from his neck and soaked his shirt and parts of his pants had begun to mix with the dirt and blood coming from the Familiar he carried. His movements weren't sluggish or dizzy, as one might expect from someone who suddenly lost copious amounts of blood, as he made his way towards the central tower, and there were no bruises, scars, or cuts to indicate that most of the blood coating him came from his own body. This, coupled with the fact that he'd been carrying a seemingly dead animal on his back, caused the few people populating the courtyard to stop and stare at him in disgust, while only one made any movement toward him.

The boy that approached him had feathered blond hair just above his light blue eyes, and wore a similar uniform to the other students, with the exception of his shirt, which had a deep v-cut and frills running along the front of it. His expression was grim as he pulled a rose-tipped wand out and swung it aggressively toward Roland, causing three petals to fall to the ground.

Three humanoid golems sprang up from the ground where the petals landed, and they immediately surrounded Roland, creating a triangle around him. Each golem was roughly three meters away from him, with one directly behind him, and, while they were all unarmed, they were still clearly stronger than Roland was currently. Realizing that, in his injured state, it wouldn't take much more than one clean hit from one of them to kill him, Roland cautiously listened for any movement from the one behind him and watched the other two from the corners of his eye as he stared at the boy.

"What have you done to my Familiar, you wretched cur!?" The boy shouted angrily as he pointed his wand toward Roland, the rage in his voice was equally expressed by his scowling face. He was seven meters away, far outside the triangle of golems that surrounded Roland.

Seeing this display, Roland stopped in his tracks and slowly lowered himself to the ground, carefully letting the Familiar he carried slide off his back and onto the ground behind him while the boy watched him, wand still pointed directly at him. He took care not to cause any friction or sudden impacts that might worsen its condition, before standing back up and stepping away from it.

"It was injured, I carried it back here." Roland replied in an even tone. He was completely aware of how this looked from the boys' perspective. He was covered in blood, but didn't have a scratch on him, and he was just carrying a bloodied animal on his back. The blood that'd gotten onto the club he held didn't make matters any better, even though the wounds on the animal couldn't have come from it.

"So you say, and yet, I find myself not believing you." The boy responded with clear contempt as he leaned to the side to get a better look at his Familiar, though as he did, Roland stepped to the side, giving the boy a clear line of sight to the creature. As his Familiar came into view his expression became conflicted between relief and anger. Relief as he saw his Familiar's torso rise and fall slowly, indicating it was still alive, and anger at just how badly it was injured.

"How do I know you weren't the one to do this?" The boy spoke as the relief in his expression turned back to anger when he glared at Roland.

"It's going to die of blood loss by the time this boy is done. The trip back to the Academy was stressful enough on its body."

"You don't." Roland decided against counting on that demon's corpse to still be in the clearing he'd fought it at. He knew fairly well that a lot of things he killed tended to disappear, usually by turning to ash and blowing away, there was also the possibility that whoever had shot it with an arrow had moved the corpse as well, if it didn't disappear on its own after he left. "If you want to fight me, I'll face you, but I don't know how much longer this thing can last without medical attention." He indicated the injured Familiar.

The boy's expression darkened as he considered what to do. It was clear that he was still angry about what happened to his Familiar, and wanted to take revenge, even if it was misguided, but he also clearly cared about the creature's life. He stood there for what were probably a few of the longest seconds of his life, considering what to do, before finally deciding. He lowered his wand and moved to the side, clearing the path between Roland and his destination, the central tower, though the golems remained in their place.

"Leave, I'll decide what to do about you later." The boy spoke in a commanding tone, even through his rage, the boy clearly saw himself as the superior of the two.

"Of course you will…"

Roland continued to walk toward the central tower in silence.

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As he entered the tower he caught the attention of several of the servants, but didn't recognize any of them. He ignored their stares and continued toward where the headmaster's office was located, with any luck, Charlotte would have explained what had happened so far, and with even more luck, she would have neglected to mention his "miraculous recovery".

It didn't take long for him to reach the headmaster's office after he entered the tower, having familiarized himself with its layouts earlier in the week, and as he was about to reach for one of the ornate door knobs to enter the room, the large double doors opened, revealing an older man with a balding head. Roland recognized the man, but he couldn't recall the name. He knew it was the man he'd seen when he was first summoned, and the first person he'd seen flying, but other than that, he didn't know anything about him.

"Oh!?" The man exclaimed, surprised to see Roland right outside the door, and probably even more surprised to see him covered in so much blood and dirt.

"Professor, what's the matter? Why've you stopped?" A clearly older voice called out from inside the room.

"Ahh, I'm sorry, it's just, Miss Orléans' Familiar has arrived." The professor stepped aside to reveal Roland to the older man in the room; he was sitting behind a large-elegant desk on the far side of the room with an enormous window running the length of the wall behind him. "A-anyways, please excuse me." The professor departed from the doorway as he excused himself, though as he did, his eyes darted up to Roland's forehead, looking at the hair that now obscured his runes.

Inside the room there were two desks, one of which was situated in front of a large window across from the doorway and covered with various documents, the other was against the wall to the right of the doorway, and had nothing covering its surface. Both desks faced the center of the room, where a small coffee table, surrounded by a long couch and two recliners, rested on top of a bright red rug with intricate golden embroidery running along its edges. There were bookcases lining the walls from the entrance to the back wall, and a strange slit in the center of the ceiling, just above the coffee table.

Roland didn't wait to be invited in, now that the doorway wasn't blocked, and stood by the couch near where Charlotte was sitting, still looking toward the wizened old man.

"So, you must be this Familiar I've been hearing about." The old man stayed seated, staring intently back at Roland as he stroked his long beard, seemingly mulling something over in his mind. "Well, for now, you two may leave, I've already gotten the gist of what happened from Miss Orléans here, but I'd like the both of you to come by here tomorrow, after classes of course, once Professor… Um…" The older man cut himself off, clearly having forgotten the name he meant to use.

"Colbert" Charlotte offered.

"Right, once Professor Colbert is done investigating the sight of the incident." The headmaster continued. "For now, you two should probably go get cleaned up. Especially you, mister Familiar, you're a bloody mess." He paused; seemingly waiting for some kind of reaction, but none came from Charlotte or Roland. He cleared his throat before continuing. "Anyways, it's getting late, and you two need your rest."

Charlotte stood, and turned to face the old headmaster. "Sir Osmond." She bowed to him slightly as she spoke, pointedly ignoring the displeased expression that crept across the headmaster's, Sir Osmond, face, then turned and walked out of the room with Roland following her. Roland reasoned that the tame reaction from both of the men meant that Charlotte hadn't mentioned his recovery.

As they both exited, the headmaster waved his catalyst, causing the doors to close slowly behind them.

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Charlotte and Roland made their way back to her room after that. Roland had told her what happened when he returned to the school, but she didn't respond. The sun had already set by the time they returned to her room, still reeking of blood.

Charlotte entered the room first, turning on the lamps with a snap of her fingers, and walked over to the dresser. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out two basins and several towels, then placed them on the surface of the dresser as Roland took his usual seat at the window.

"Take off your shirt." She spoke as she tapped the side of one of the basins twice, paused, and then tapped it a third time, causing it to fill with water. Roland, seeing this display, recalled a few things he'd heard in her classes. About how the condensation of water vapors in the air was one of the rudimentary spells of the element, and how it was possible for skilled Magicians to enchant items with spells that can be activated with a motion, like the lamps in the room, or through a phrase or key word. His shirt was already removed and hanging over the windowsill by the time she turned to face him.

She placed the basin filled with water by his side on the bench, and the empty one on the floor between his feet, then brought over a towel and doused it in the filled bowl. She squeezed out the excess water into the bowl before trying to rub it along Roland's bloodstained skin.

Just as she did, his hand reached up and grabbed her wrist. "What're you doing?" Roland asked as he looked up at her. He didn't let go of her wrist as he waited for an answer.

"You need to get wiped off before taking a bath." She answered back plainly. Both the servant's and noble's bathes were group baths, so going in while covered with blood would only ruin the water.

"I can do it myself." He responded.

"It's fine." She spoke as she freed her wrist from his grasp. He'd only had a light hold on her wrist, so it was easy for her to break his grip when she pressed the towel against him. He rolled his eyes and he lowered his hand, seeming to have deciding not to make any further objections. Charlotte wasn't used to seeing men naked, or even topless, which made the situation somewhat awkward for her, but she put aside those feelings for now. She had something more important to deal with.

As she wiped away the blood, she covertly studied his body. While he wasn't overly muscular, he wasn't frail or weak looking either, and he had almost no noticeable fat or loose skin, which made him seem plain, unremarkable even. The only odd thing about him might've been how his body practically radiated heat without a shirt on. It gave off more heat than anyone she'd ever met; even Kirche's body temperature could be considered cold compared to him, and that was saying something. Though, the heat didn't reach very far from his body, rather, it seemed contained to a few inches around his exposed chest, similarly to how an oven or a fire might be during a cold night, only on a smaller scale.

As she worked her way toward the blood around his heart, she could just barely feel his heart beating inside his chest. It was beating incredibly fast, but felt weak at the same time, and now that she'd cleared away more of the blood on him, she started to notice that his skin was paler than normal as well. Physically speaking, his body was reacting the same way anyone's would at loosing that much blood, but it didn't seem like that was affecting him at all. He was even capable of carrying a large animal the distance between the forest clearing and the academy on his back in this condition.

The whole thing seemed odd from her standpoint. The fact that he gave off warmth and had a heartbeat meant he wasn't some sort of sun-immune Vampire or other type of Undead, despite his quick healing, but it didn't mean he wasn't some sort of human-like First Born, though, there was also some unknown possibilities due to his mysterious origin.

She held the bloodstained towel over the empty basin on the floor and wrung out the liquids that had seeped into it. The mix of blood and water dripped from the towel, and as it hit the surface of the bowl, the hiss of steam could be heard as the liquid instantly evaporated. The steam it produced began to disperse immediately, scattered by a quick gust of wind that came from the bowl's rim. Charlotte doused the towel again, and wrung out the excess water, as well as some more of the remaining blood, over the empty basin, causing the same reaction as before.

As she continued to wipe him down, she scrutinized his body even closer. He didn't have pointed ears, something she already knew, but now that she'd taken a closer look they didn't seem to be an illusion or like they were mutilated or purposefully deformed to make him look more human, and there was nothing noteworthy on his back that would mark him as a wingless Winged One, just a few sunspots, though the skin on his back did seem more tan than on the rest of his body, like it had far more exposure to the sun. There was one patch of skin covering the edge of his serratus anterior, just below his heart, that felt unnaturally cold compared to the rest of his body, but she wasn't sure what to make of that.

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Their evening continued in silence as she slowly cleaned and inspected the rest of his upper body, and before long, she was done. She had to change the towel she was using once, because the first one had gotten too dirty and needed thorough cleaning, but that was all. More importantly, her inspection hadn't given her much more information than she started with, aside from the few strange things she'd noted about his body, and the fact that Roland winced as she started wiping off his neck. And, while that was a small, easily missed reaction, it at least told her that he could feel pain, further solidifying in her mind that he wasn't some sort of Undead. But, with the exception of divine intervention, or maybe Spirit Magic, she couldn't think of a single possible reason as to why he was still alive, and as far as she knew humans couldn't use Spirit Magic.

Charlotte looked down at his pants. They were still clearly covered in blood, but she had already decided she wouldn't be cleaning anything down there, and didn't request for him to take them off. She was already embarrassed from cleaning off his chest, even if she tried to ignore the feeling.

After she unbuttoned her cuffs and pulled her long sleeves back, revealing her slender forearms, she began to wipe the blood and dirt off of them with a fresh towel. She was clean of blood for the most part, having avoided being hit by that beast's terrible weapon, but she'd gotten some on her when she helped Roland pick up the surviving Familiar, and some more had gotten on her when she was wiping him down. Aside from that, the only noticeable signs that anything out of the ordinary had happened to her that day was the dirt that'd gotten all over her clothing and in her hair, a few tears in her stockings, revealing the pale skin covering her thin legs, and how badly tousled her chin-length hair was, all of which came from when she was trying to avoid being killed by that monster.

Afterwards, she took the empty basin and put it on the windowsill, next to Roland's shirt, and poured the other basin's contents into it, causing the steam of blood diluted water to escape into the cool night air, then wiped them both down with a fourth towel before putting them back into the drawer she'd taken them from. She left the four towels on the windowsill, opposite his shirt. Roland moved to give her some space as he watched her empty the basin, then sat back down when she'd finished.

"Are you done?" Roland broke the silence that'd overtaken the room since she'd started cleaning the blood off him.

"…" Charlotte's eyes met his as she considered what to say. The questions she wanted to ask were clearly defined in her mind, and yet, a part of her really didn't want to ask. The Familiar one summons is an important part of a Magician's growth, and could even be considered a representation of the Magician's power, so of course she wanted to know more about him, but, his existence as her Familiar was already strange, rather, it was completely unheard of for a Magician to summon another human as their Familiar. That was part of the reason why she'd shut down their previous conversations about him prematurely, she felt nervous, downright scared even, that his existence as her Familiar might reveal some horrid truth about herself she wasn't prepared to deal with.

"Are you… human?" She decided that she needed to ask despite her trepidation. She felt that the longer she put off the conversation, the more questions would pop up in her mind, and the harder it'd be for her to ask any, besides that, what'd happened earlier that day made putting it off any longer completely unreasonable.

"As far as I can tell, I've not lost my Humanity." Roland responded honestly as he looked up at her. He'd begun to get the impression that the humans of his own world and this one were somehow different, still, he wasn't sure if the Humanity he was talking about was something she'd know of or not. How she reacted now would tell him just how different they really were.

Her expression seemed somewhat confused by his statement, but didn't reveal much else. This probably meant that she found the phrasing of his sentence strange, which meant that she'd never heard the word "humanity" used in the way that he meant it, and instead considered it a strange way to answer her question, because if she had been aware of the Humanity he'd referred to, she probably wouldn't be so calm. The only implication that could be gained from his wording was that he wasn't sure whether or not he was human currently, but knew he was at one point.

If she was truly some different kind of human, her appearance, as well as the appearance of her peers and professors, didn't make that clear at all. Yes, she was a little on the pale side, but he'd seen paler people, and though she looked young for her age, he was never very good at judging a person's age from their appearance. Her hair color, and the hair color of many of her peers was also somewhat strange too, then again, since he was in her world now, he'd be the strange one, the "human-shaped creature" that looked convincingly like the real thing.

"Do you know how you healed so fast?"

"No." He answered with a half-truth. Though he knew he was Undead, and that the reason his neck healed was because of that, he didn't know how being Undead made his body act that way. It healed just enough to allow him to continue moving, even if the injury would normally be fatal, and his body seemed to be incredibly dense, which prevented dismemberment and swimming, but that didn't make him impervious to harm, as he could still die if he took enough damage, and still felt the pain as intensely as a normal human.

"Those places you mentioned, they really aren't a part of this world?" She asked.

"Yeah." He replied as he took his shirt off the windowsill. He was originally going to put it back on, but decided against it after inspecting it. The only thing to have gotten damaged in the fight was his shield and neck, but his clothes were still stained with blood, and while he was used to the sight and smell of blood, he figured most people here probably weren't. He also didn't want to give Charlotte any reason to start cleaning him again. He didn't feel one way or the other about the act itself, but he could practically feel her eyes scanning every inch of his skin while she was cleaning him, which made the process incredibly unsettling for him. It reminded him of his cell in the asylum, more specifically, the hole in the ceiling that acted as his main light source.

He couldn't remember it clearly, but whenever he'd though about it, the feeling that someone was watching him from that hole crept into the back of his mind. It was an unnerving feeling, that'd filled him with paranoia, and wasn't something he wanted repeated.

"That demon, do you know anything about it, or why it was in the woods near here?" Roland asked as he folded the shirt and draped it over his leg.

"I remember reading about them… They came from the east, past the desert. Some people say they fell from the sky, but most think they're just empty rumors." Charlotte answered as she walked over to the chest at the foot of her bed, then moved the side closest to Roland two feet away from her bed and sat on it, probably to avoid getting her bedding dirty.

She told him about some of the things she remembered reading about it, said it was usually called something along the lines of a "human-goat" monster, and explained how it was speculated that it was possibly some type of "First Born", though he wasn't sure what that was, that was a subspecies of Minotaurs, or possibly some sort of cross between a Minotaur and a Satyr. Apparently, the creature had first been spotted a few decades ago.

"Have they been sighted anywhere else?" Roland asked as he slowly processed the information he'd been given. The fact that other beings from his world somehow ended up here was both dismaying and somewhat relieving to him all at once. Roland hoped that meant some of the people he'd met in his travels might have escaped that place, but he knew it wouldn't matter for most of them, they were Undead, and as far as he knew, they didn't have the "good fortune" of being incapable of hollowing. It also made him realize that no matter where he went, he'd never be able to escape what Gwyn had done to the world… What Gwyn had done to him. The thought cast a dark shadow over his mind, causing a black expression to cover his face, which he hid by turning away from Charlotte.

"Yes. They've been seen in a few places, but most recent reports place them around southern Gallia, along the mountains." She responded as she got up to pull out the atlas in her bookshelf, seemingly unaware of his expression, and began leafing through its pages, then showed him a map of Gallia and traced her finger along a long mountain range that separated southern Gallia from the rest of the country, before sitting down.

Roland's expression returned to normal as he stared at the map, considering how to respond, but before he could, Charlotte spoke again.

"You seemed like you recognized that 'demon'." She wasn't asking if that was true or not, he could tell she already knew he did.

"You asked me before if I had proof about where I came from, right?" He looked away from her, toward the forest out the window. "That's my proof. The demon came from the same world as I. Though that one was injured, and very old, it was undoubtedly a demon from Izalith."

"Izalith?" Charlotte asked.

Roland started explaining what he'd known about The Witch of Izalith, what he'd seen in her city, and what he'd heard from Quelana. He was careful not to mention Quelana, or that he'd fought with the Witch herself, rather, what became of her, but he didn't deny having run-ins with the demons she created in the past, and went so far as to explain how the demon they ran into would have looked like if they'd seen it when it was younger and uninjured, as well as describing a few other demons he'd run into, and what he'd seen happen to them as they aged. Charlotte continued to listen to his explanation with rapt attention.

He also explained Lost Izalith's location in relation to Lordran, and told her that he had no idea how it had come to be there, for all he knew, it might have always been there, or it could have somehow shifted from its original place and time to become closer to the First Flame.

"The First Flame? Does that have to do with the 'fires fading'?" Charlotte inquired, and received a nod in response.

He explained what he'd learned about the First Flame in all his travels, which didn't amount to much. He knew that it brought change to the world, and its advent set in motion the end of the Age of Ancients, ushering in the Age of Fire. It allowed those who harnessed it to become gods with incredible power, but when it faded, so did they, and everything they made followed suit.

Their conversation continued on like this until late into the night, mostly due to Charlotte's inquiries, which caused his straightforward explanations to break off into varied tangents that covered a myriad of topics, from what he knew about the Age of Ancients, to stories about the gods, what he'd known about the countries he hadn't visited, and so much more. Roland did his best to avoid mentioning the Undead Curse or anything that hinted at its existence, but it was clear to her that he was holding back information as he did. She wasn't sure if it was because he didn't trust her or if it was for some other reason, but she didn't call him out on it, because she never got the impression he was lying about the things he did say, even some of the more outlandish things, like a giant wolf deftly wielding its former master's massive sword in its mouth.

Rather, the fact that he seemed to be being honest implied that he had at least some trust in her, and while the possibility that he was lying about the whole thing had popped into her mind, for some reason, it seemed unlikely to her, but she knew she couldn't just accept what he was saying because of that. She decided that for now, she wouldn't doubt or trust what he said completely, and would wait to see if some more substantial proof would come up, as the existence of that "demon" alone wasn't conclusive, even if she decided to believe what he'd said about it.

Over the course of the conversation, Charlotte had also gotten the impression that he was talking about his own experiences, partly due to the many finer details he knew about the various beings and places he mentioned, but more so because of the way he talked about them. While he retained a neutral expression, his inflection changed slightly depending on what he was talking about. He'd sounded almost sad when he talked about certain people, frustrated when he talked about others, and even downright scornful at times. There were a few people he spoke about that he seemed genuinely respectful of, but they were definitely in the minority.

However, he never admitted to having a personal connection to anyone he mentioned, or even admitted to so much as having met them at all, despite the way he talked about them. He'd admitted to having run-ins with the "demons of Izalith", and having visited a few places after they'd already been abandoned, but that was all. She stifled a yawn as she considered whether to ask about that or not. He hadn’t denied it, but if he hadn't admitted to knowing any of them yet then she doubted he'd do so just because she asked, though she decided to inquire about it regardless.

"You've been talking like you know these people."

Roland paused to consider her question before answering.

"I knew some of them." He gave an unexpected answer.

"It doesn't really matter if I knew some of them, all of them, or none of them, so I didn't mention it." He continued, though his tone conveyed that was the last he'd speak on that topic. Given his description of some of the people he'd talked about, like Big Hat Logan and Black Iron Tarkus, who he'd referred to as "legendary heroes", she assumed that they were likely people he'd only heard about in stories, but the way his voice almost sounded hurt when he talked about Logan, and the clearly apparent respect he had for Tarkus, gave her reason to doubt that.

"You… How'd you survive in places like that? Were you a Knight, or a ma-, Sorcerer?" Charlotte asked, using the terminology he'd been using. The way he'd fought earlier gave off the impression that he'd known what he was doing, and even if he didn't cast any spells at the time, it was possible that he was a Magician skilled in close-combat, who simply didn't have a wand or stave to use.

"No, I'm not a knight. I served no lord and I don't know the first thing about riding a horse. I wouldn't call myself a Sorcerer either, but I do know some spells, and, while it's not actually a form of 'magic', I know enough tales of the gods to draw on their Miracles, with the right tools, and I'm an experienced Pyromancer, but…" He lifted his hand off his lap and held it out away from Charlotte and anything flammable, like he was trying to will something into existence. "My Flame seems to have gone inert."

"Inert?" She asked curiously.

"How to put it… 'A Pyromancer's Flame is a part of their own body. The flame develops right along with their skill'." He paused after repeating an old friend's explanation. "The thing is, when I end up somewhere new, I lose whatever I've gained previously, except for my knowledge. Even my body reverts."

That was definitely one of the odder things he'd said that night. She'd heard of certain beings being able to use magic without Catalysts, but this Pyromancy, it seemed it was supposed to be somehow apart of his body. If that were the case, then he'd be considered a heretic in any of the Brimiric countries, and would probably be ostracized in the non-Brimiric ones, even more so due to his amazing recovery. The idea that his body reverted back to what seemed like a normal human being after arriving "somewhere new" implied he'd become something else in the past, though, she doubted that meant he became something inhuman, but the possibility existed, given how much she didn't know. Still, it seemed more likely that he would have just gotten stronger in his previous travels, if he was to be believed.

Charlotte reached up to rub her eyes, which were starting to blur due to fatigue. They'd been talking for a while, and she'd only just realized how long it'd been since they started talking, and while she wanted to continue the conversation, they both needed to wash themselves properly.

"Do you know where the servant's bath is?" She asked. There probably wasn't anyone in either bath this late at night, so they'd both likely be bathing alone.

"I've seen it." Roland responded, realizing that she wanted him to go take a bath, so he put his bloodied shirt under his arm and pulled out a fresh set of clothing from under his pillow, then took the dirtied towels off the windowsill and draped them over his arm. "I'll clean these as well." He would have asked if she wanted him to take her clothes after she changed as well, but she seemed put-off when he'd offered earlier that day, and refused.

Charlotte, had asked if he'd like to get a dresser or use one of the drawers in hers after he'd come back with more clothing, but he refused the offer. It seemed unnecessary since he only had a few shirts and pants, and a loincloth.

She went over to her dresser and pulled her neatly folded pajamas out of one of her drawers, before Roland and herself moved toward the door to go to their respective bathing areas.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 4: A Quiet, Uneventful Stroll!?

Here’s the next chapter!

It was the afternoon of the sixth day since Roland was summoned, and he was currently exploring the forest surrounding the academy. Classes had already ended for the day, and instead of taking reading lessons from Charlotte, he elected to get to know the surrounding area better. It was a bright-sunny day, but the light had difficulty penetrating the canopy of the forest, which gave the forest a darkened, morose feel to it. Strangely, there weren't any animals around.

He'd heard a lot of chirping and other noises coming from beyond the academy's walls the first two days he'd spent there, but they'd all started to die down since then, and were now all gone. The inactivity coming from the forest was off-putting for him, so he decided to investigate the cause. If something was killing or running off the animals in the forest so close to the academy, whatever it was could be a potential threat. That, along with his want to understand this new world, spurred him onward, and though it wasn't something he cared to think about, there was a third reason he'd decided to explore the forest that day, and she was right there with him, despite his warnings.

Charlotte was walking with him through the forest while leafing through a small book; her crooked catalyst was held in her off-hand. From what she'd taught him so far, he could tell the book was some kind of collection of short stories, but he couldn't figure out much else. The reading lessons she gave had been very helpful for learning how to read individual words, but he'd hit a wall with them as he realized that the syntax of their languages was completely different, which elucidated something about the Contract Familiar spell she'd cast on him.

It didn't implant any linguistic knowledge in him, instead, it seemed like it was a fast acting translation spell, in addition to the other effects she'd told him about, that allowed him to communicate with the people around him, which made learning the actual rules of her language all the more difficult, as he had to wrestle with the effects of the spells' translation. Though, he'd noticed that most other Familiars couldn't speak her language despite the spells' effect, he attributed that to the differences in their anatomy making human speech difficult for them.

Charlotte, having realized the syntax problem after Roland failed miserably to read anything in its proper order, redoubled her teaching efforts, which also resulted in longer-stringent lessons. This was the third reason why he'd decided to take a break from her lessons. He appreciated them, and realized the value of being able to read in a functioning society, but he found the way she taught to be incredibly boring, unlike the way most of her professors taught, which was the product of many years of teaching, and needed a break from it.

Come to think of it, now might be a good time to ask.

Roland thought as he turned to face his companion.

"Why have you been being so…" He began to speak, but paused when he realized just how many ways he wanted to end that sentence. He'd wanted to know why she treated him the way she did, despite some of the terrible things he'd heard about nobles from this world, and the way he'd seen some of them treat their Familiars, she had shown him consideration and respect, and while he appreciated it, it was still unsettling to him for a multitude of reasons. He'd wanted to ask why she was so damn quiet as well; he knew it was hypocritical of him to find fault with that, but given the boisterous personalities of her peers, and even her closest friend, it seemed odd that she was the only one who isolated herself to such an extent. He'd also wanted to ask why she'd been ignoring her peers' disrespect, despite the fact that it clearly bothered her, but he figured that wasn't a topic he should bring up without a good reason, and settled on waiting for it to come up on its own. He'd wanted to ask several other things as well, but in the end, he decided to ask the first thing that came to mind.

"Why have you been treating me like this?" His words elicited a confused expression from her, so he clarified. "Why have you been going out of your way to be nice to me?"

Charlottes' mouth bent into a small frown as she stood there, staring down at the pages of her book. She made no attempt to look at him as she considered how she'd reply to his sudden question.

"I know what it's like to be sent away from your home…" A sad expression covered her face as she spoke, still refusing to look at him, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared.

Roland didn't like pity, and he wasn't misguided enough to mistake her sympathy for that, but her response still surprised him. He didn't think she'd tell him her reasoning, or at most, that she'd lie about it, but he got the feeling that she was being honest. Though, there was something else in her voice that he couldn't decipher. A sort of emptiness that belied the sadness she felt.

"So where are you from?" He asked the first thing to come to mind. It wasn't a question he really wanted or needed answered, since the answer wouldn't have changed anything for him. He was summoned by her, and even if it was different from the summoning he'd experienced before, it still meant he was tasked with protecting her, besides that, he already decided to stay with her for the time being, so he'd fulfill his duty to the best of his ability. Her country of origin was irrelevant in that regard, but letting the conversation end there didn't sit right with him.

"Gallia."

He recognized the name. She'd mentioned it when she asked about where he was from, and he'd seen it in the Atlas she kept in her room after he'd learned a bit of her language. From what he could tell of the map, it was the largest country on the continent, but didn't know much more than that. He knew that the Academy was close to the border between Tristain and Gallia as well, since it was located in southern Tristain, but he wasn't familiar with the units of measurement they used here, so he wasn't sure how "close" that meant it was.

"That's the country to the south… Why are you in Tristain? Do they not have magic schools in Gallia?" Charlotte shook her head in response to his question. It looked like she was considering saying something, but she kept quiet. Roland shrugged as he turned away from her.

"If you don't want to tell me the reason, then don't." He spoke as he surveyed the area in front of him. He'd been periodically looking for signs of the local fauna, or whatever had run it off, throughout their walk, but hadn't found either yet. It wasn't like he was an experienced hunter, but he had sharp eyes and a keen sense of hearing, so it was only a matter of time until he found something. "It wouldn't change anything for me if I knew."

She looked up at the back of his head when he continued, her face had retained its neutral mask, but she still seemed unsure of whether she should answer his question or try to change the subject.

"I looked for Lordran, Drangleic, and Lothric, but found nothing." She'd decided to change the subject for now.

"That doesn't surprise me." He responded as he scanned the canopy above them for any signs of movement, but saw none.

"Not even past the desert to the east, nor in any history book or myths." She continued.

"And?"

"I don't think you were lying." She spoke with an even tone as she looked over the rim of her glasses toward him; her face was still pointed toward her book.

"I wasn't." He responded plainly as he walked over to a few trees and started looking for any sort of markings that might give him some clue about what was happening in the forest. "This place, Halkeginia, it doesn't exist where I come from." He couldn't find any slashes or claw marks on the trees, but he noticed a few were missing bark in some places. "Sorcerers, or Magicians, as you call them, didn't need to inherit their power from their parents. Anyone, with a strong enough intellect, could cast or develop Sorceries." Upon closer inspection, he found several deep grooves in the exposed sapwood, like it'd been struck hard by something with a blunt edge. "There was only ever one moon." He examined the low hanging branches of the damaged trees. They reached around three or four meters off the ground at their lowest, and seemed undamaged. "The Fire faded, and with it, the very Light of the world diminished."

His tone was somber as he spoke about his world. Giving enough information for anyone to realize he wasn't talking about the world they stood in now. He had originally thought it would be better to avoid talking about where he came from, but he'd changed his mind. Maybe it was because of the way she'd treated him with kindness, rather than as a servant or "human" shield, or maybe Roland just needed to talk about it to stifle his doubts about whether the world they stood in was even real, regardless of what his reasoning was, he gave her a few telling details about his world. He still avoided talking about the Gods and Undead, but he decided he needed to bring up the Fire, if only to verify a thought that had occurred when he'd learned of the magic in this world.

He looked down toward the base of the damaged trees as he finished talking. Scattered around the ground were several small stones, unlike any others he'd seen in the forest so far. He picked up one of the larger ones, about the size of his palm, and began to look it over. The stone had a pale, purplish-blue color, and had a small burgundy-colored, vein-like line running through it. It felt warm to the touch, almost as if it was alive, but the air surrounding it gave off a terrible chill. Roland turned it over in his hand, it looked smooth on one side, but every other side was shaped jaggedly, like whatever it was attached to had been shattered by some powerful force. As he traced his fingers across it, he felt small ridges running along the smooth portion of the stone, and tendon-like threads, made of a similar material as the stone, entwined with the jagged ridges of the rest of the stone. Oddly, the stone seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't place where he might've seen it before.

"The fire faded?" Charlotte asked as she watched him bend down by a tree and pick something up, the book now in her skirt pocket. Her voice conveyed her confusion as she processed the information he'd just told her. The implication wasn't lost to her, but it was still hard to believe. She didn't get the impression he was lying, but the idea of there being another world besides the one she'd always known was difficult to accept, even for someone who delighted in reading about people and places that might never have existed. Still, she didn't think he was lying, but she couldn't just blindly accept what he was saying without any proof, even a child would be too skeptical to blindly believe in something so unorthodox.

"The Fire faded." He repeated her question definitively. "I take it that something like that means nothing to you?" He continued as he dropped the stone on the ground and looked for any tracks or signs that could lead him to whatever drove off the animals, and probably dropped those strange stones as well.

"No…" She responded as she approached him. When she reached his side she looked down at the strange stones that were scattered around the base of the tree, and noticed the indents in the sapwood he'd been studying.

"Figured." Roland walked toward a few trees in the distance whose exposed roots looked like they'd been crushed. Charlotte followed him, though she was on guard after having seen the depressions in the trees up close. Originally, she wasn't as worried about the sudden lack of activity in the forest, attributing it to the sudden influx of Familiars that'd arrived earlier that week driving off the local fauna, but the indents in the trees clearly weren't made by any Familiar she'd seen, and the strange stones littering the ground gave off a chilling-unnatural feeling.

"This world, everything about it is different from where I came from." He sighed as he bent down to get a better look at the roots; they were crushed by the weight of whatever stepped on them, based on the way they were mashed into the ground, rather than due to some sort of impact.

"Proof?" She asked as she turned around to see if anything was behind them. There was nothing there, but she continued to look off into the forest cautiously.

"You know I have none, but it doesn't matter. I don't expect you to believe me." He could hardly believe it himself. "Wait…" He stood up slowly as he noticed something. It was faint, but he could smell blood coming from deeper in the woods. "This'll probably be your last chance to turn back. Whatever did this is close by." He told her as he looked over his shoulder at her. She shook her head in response, and held her catalyst at the ready. "Suit yourself."

He skulked slowly toward where he thought the smell was coming from, being sure to keep a tree between him and his destination at all times. Charlotte followed suit, and snuck behind him as well, being careful to watch their backs as they progressed. She made a disgusted face at the stench of blood strengthening as they continued.

They soon reached the source of the smell, a clearing in the forest near a small hill. The clearing was riddled with the bodies of the local fauna and a few of the larger Familiars that he'd seen on campus the first few days he'd been there. The bodies themselves were mangled, beaten into bloody masses of crushed bones and exposed organs. Several of the bodies littering the clearing had been thrown into a pile opposite the hill haphazardly, but they weren't what drew Roland's eye now.

Just next to the pile, a large mass of brown fur had been shaking the entire time they'd stood there. Whatever it was, it was still alive, but he could see that its fur was matted down by the blood slowly draining from its wounds. He put his hand up in front of Charlotte, and motioned toward the mass of brown fur before walking over to it. Charlotte had been standing there, looking on in disgust and anger at the scene before them, but swallowed her rage and followed him, still watching their surroundings carefully, ready to start casting at any second.

As he knelt down to inspect the brown-furred creature he noticed the dirt underneath it had been displaced, like it had been trying to dig a hole to get away, though it didn't get very far. The hole it dug only seemed to be about a foot deep, and the creature seemed to have done its best to squeeze itself into the small ditch after being attacked, but it couldn't continue digging. As it sensed Roland next to it, its eyes opened in abject terror, as it assumed him to be its attacker, but it calmed down when it realized he wasn't what assaulted it. It looked up at him pleadingly as tears ran down from its blood-covered eye, but it didn't make a sound. It was either too weak or scared to vocalize its distress, but there was no doubt that it was afraid for its life.

Just then, a loud impact rang out through the clearing, followed by the sound of an agonized screech and tearing flesh. Whatever had caused it was on the other side of the small hill, opposite from the pile in the clearing. Slowly, Roland began to walk over to the hill, with his club and shield at the ready. With every movement he was careful not to make a sound, and watched for even the slightest bit of activity coming from his destination. Charlotte was behind him, moving towards some of the nearby trees to try and flank whatever was behind the hill. Roland stood just before the top of the hill now, and peeked his head over it to see what had caused all this.

He narrowed his eyes as the beast came into view, realization striking him, then lowered his body to avoid detection. The beast looked almost human from a distance, but he knew it wasn't. It was far too large to be a normal human. Its entire body was covered in tightly packed muscles, and some parts of it seemed to have jagged, bone-like rocks, jutting out of it. There was a stump where a tail used to be, but even that seemed to be made of some sort of exposed bone. The only clothing it wore was a roughly hewn pair of pants, secured to its body by a thin rope tied around its waistline. Though, the pants were in such a state of disrepair that they could have been mistaken for a skirt.

Burgundy colored veins had begun to show through its sickly purplish-blue skin, and its left arm had been completely shattered below the elbow, leaving the sharp remains of its exposed radius as the only remaining part of its forearm, but there was no mistaking it. In its one remaining arm, it held a large-hooked machete, and its head was a large, elongated skull, with two long horns protruding outward from both sides of its head, though one had been broken in half, and two faintly glowing eyes in front of each horn. It was old and dying, but Roland knew exactly what it was, he'd killed its kind before.

He looked over to Charlotte, who was standing behind a thick tree trunk, staring over at him. She'd seen the beast, but she hadn't made a run for it yet, so she must have intended on fighting it, or was too scared to move.

He pointed at himself, then the demon behind the hill and his club in turn, trying to convey that he intended on fighting it. He then pointed toward Charlotte and back to the direction they came from, trying to get her to run away, but she shook her head in response.

She pointed toward Roland, and then the beast, then made a small striking motion with her hands, indicating that she wanted him to attack it. She then pointed toward herself, and then her catalyst and the beast in turn, indicating she was going to give him magical support while he did.

This time, he shook his head, and pointed toward the demon, then her, and drew his thumb across his neck three times quickly, trying to get across how easily it could kill her, but she shook her head in response, and repeated the hand motions she'd used before, this time with more emphasis.

Is this girl trying to get herself killed?

He thought to himself as he quickly stuck his head up to see what the demon was doing. Its back was still facing them while it kneeled down, pinning an octopus-like creature to the ground using its shattered radius as it tore off its tentacles with its remaining hand. The large machete it used as a weapon was lain out by its side, but he had no doubt it would immediately take it up if either of them approached.

Charlotte had looked out from behind the tree as well, and saw what Roland had. When their eyes met again, she began to motion toward its weapon and her catalyst, and then flicked the air with her free hand. She seemed to be saying that she'd try to separate it from its weapon.

He'd seen her cast spells a few times before, in the first class he'd attended with her, and a few times outside of classes, and knew they always ended up acting the same way from observation and what her peers had said, with whatever she'd cast a spell on violently reacting to even a little friction. If she was going to do that, then they might be able to get the drop on it and defeat it before it could regain its weapon. He nodded at her, and prepared himself to rush the demon as she began quietly chanting a spell.

The beast couldn't hear her, likely because of how quietly she chanted, but it being so focused on its task, coupled with the sounds of tearing flesh, meant it probably wouldn't have noticed even if she barely hushed her voice. He waited for her to signal the completion of her spell, which she did by nodding, before jumping over the top of the hill and rushing the demon.

Upon noticing Rolands' presence, the demon quickly reached for its machete, but was momentarily surprised when it shot away from its hand, and imbedded itself into a nearby tree, as its fingers grazed the handle. Giving Roland enough time to close the distance between the two and slam his club against the back of its right leg. He struck it two more times on the same leg as it struggled to get up off its knees, then stepped a few paces back. He knew better than to just attack it mindlessly, and took the chance to regain his breath as he waited for another opening in its defense.

The demon turned to face him now, and didn't seem to notice Charlotte hiding behind a tree. The strange creature that it was pinning down was still stuck to its arm, so it swung the broken arm towards Roland, throwing the mangled carcass toward him. Roland quickly dodged underneath it, landing him less than a meter away from it, and held up his shield to block the incoming punch, which buckled under the impact, but didn't break, still, he could feel the force of the punch transfer through the shield to his arm, and grimaced at the pain it caused as the demon slowly pulled back its fist to strike him again.

This time he ducked under the punch, then slid behind the demon, striking its right leg again as he did. He reared back to strike it again, but was interrupted by its elbow slamming into his face, knocking him onto his back. It turned to face him while it reared back its shattered left arm, primed to skewer him where he lay, and as it stabbed the sharp radius toward Rolands' chest, a large rock rammed into the side of its head, coming from the direction Charlotte had been hiding.

Roland quickly rolled behind the decrepit demon and attacked its leg again, he struck it three times with his club, and as it turned to face him, he put all his weight behind slamming into it with his shield, in a failed attempt to throw it off its balance, before he was pushed back by another powerful punch. He managed to block it, but his shield didn't survive the second hit, and snapped in half, sending splinters of wood to fly off of it.

While the demons' focus was on him, he could see Charlotte moving behind another tree, it wasn't any closer than the first, but it was big enough to hide her whole body, besides that, not moving around would make it easier for the demon to find her if it decided to attack her. Though, he had no intention of letting its attention wander enough to go after her. Roland held the remnants of the shield above his head and made a small circular motion with it when he saw Charlotte looking over at him, with any luck, she'd realize what he was trying to get across and start chanting.

The beast bent its knees until its center was low to the ground, then it jumped at him, trying to skewer him with its exposed bone again. Roland quickly rolled underneath its jump, successfully dodging the attack, and turned to strike its leg from behind again, but missed as it turned to face him.

Shi-

He didn't even have time to think or move as its sharp radius pierced his neck, a fraction of a second before it did, a rock quickly flew past its head, missing by only a few inches. It slowly lifted him off the ground as he struggled to pull himself off its exposed bone, but couldn't, and after it lifted him as high as it could, it threw him down, into the small hill he'd been hiding behind before the fight.

Charlotte, who saw this from her hiding spot, watched as the beast walked over to its machete and wrenched it out of the tree it'd been imbedded in, taking a sizeable chunk of wood with it, and tried to think of something she could do as it approached Rolands' bloodstained body. He was still moving, if only barely, which meant he was probably still alive, so if she acted fast, she might be able to save him. Despite knowing she wouldn't be able to kill that monster by herself, she couldn't stop herself from acting.

Her body moved on its own as she picked up a few rocks and ran out into the open after she started chanting a spell. The monster had taken notice of her, but still approached Roland, so she threw one of the rocks as she finished chanting the spell. It struck the monster in one of its eyes with impressive speed, crushing the sensory organ as it did. The beast reeled back from the impact and pain, and then turned to face her. It was roughly six meters away from her, and began charging at her.

Just as it was about to reach her, it stopped itself, preparing to jump at her, which caused her to dive away from it before it landed. It turned just as quickly as it had with Roland and swung its machete down on her, the hooked end just barely missing her head as she rolled to her left, then right, as it swung its weapon downwards a second time. She scuttled away from it as she regained her footing, and positioned herself on the other side of a tree from it, giving herself some cover while she began casting again.

When it reached the tree she'd used as cover, she was shocked to see Roland running up behind it, and stopped chanting. He leaped up and slammed his club down on the monsters' right leg, causing it to fall to its knees, then he continued to mercilessly assault its leg until cracks could be seen forming around its knee. He'd abandoned the destroyed shield he'd been holding until then, and had instead been gripping his club with both hands.

He rolled past it, putting himself between Charlotte and the demon as he waited for it to stand up again. He jerked his head to the side, motioning for her to move, which she did, and he circled around the demon to keep himself between it and Charlotte. She quickly recovered from the sudden shock and started chanting her spell again.

The demon used its machete to pick itself up off the ground, and approached the pair slowly; small chunks of stone-like flesh began to fall off its cracked right leg as it moved.

Roland approached it cautiously, putting himself within the edge of its machetes' range, he wasn't even trying to hide his intentions as he waited patiently for it to attack him, and stepped backwards as it did. It flailed its machete wildly as more chunks fell from its leg. Roland began circling it, careful to only get within the edge of its reach as he baited more attacks from it, and made sure that he was still close enough to Charlotte to intercept the wounded demon, should he need to. Some might've thought it'd be a good time to charge in and start single-mindedly beating it, but he knew better. It was desperate to survive, so it would attack far more ferociously now than it had been before, even if it couldn't move around as quickly.

He baited out several more attacks over the course of four minutes, watching its movements carefully as it alternated between attacking and approaching him. Charlotte, who'd finished chanting her spell, had been waiting for a chance to fire it, but hadn't gotten a clear shot on her target, its right knee. Whenever it tried to move forward, its machete was placed in front of its right leg defensively, so she couldn't strike it then, and when it attacked, it flailed its machete in front of its right side, simultaneously swinging at Roland and attempting to keep its knee protected. She probably could hit it while it was attacking, but she didn't like the possibility of it deflecting whatever she threw, and held off for a better chance.

After baiting another attack from the beast, something neither of them expected happened, an arrow imbedded itself in one of the beasts' eyes, interrupting its attack and causing it to buckle under the pain slightly. Charlotte took this chance to fire her spell as she threw another rock at the demons' injured knee, causing the rock to pick up enough speed to shatter the knee completely, separating its lower leg from the rest of its body. Roland quickly ran over to it after it fell and began beating on its skull until cracks started to form. The beast had stopped moving when he finished, but he struck it a few more times to be sure, breaking off its intact horn and caving in most of the left side of its head.

Strangely, there was no blood coming from its stony cadaver, instead, a burgundy-colored marrow-like substance could be seen stuck inside what he'd assumed where its veins. Now that he was this close, he knew for certain that the rocks he'd found had been the petrified remains of the demons' lost arm, and sighed to himself. He'd have to look into how this demon was in this world, but there were more pressing matters to deal with at the moment.

He looked in the direction the arrow came from as Charlotte approached him, but he didn't see anyone there, either they were hiding or they already left. Regardless of which, he bowed slightly in that direction before turning to meet Charlotte's suspicious gaze. She didn't need to say anything for him to understand why she was looking at him that way, but she did anyways.

"How are you still alive?" She asked as she stared up at him, after confirming that the monster was dead. She saw him moving after he was thrown, but being able to get up and continue fighting after receiving such a deadly wound, it was an inhuman feat. This was made all the more apparent when she got a closer look at his neck. Where there should have been a gaping hole was nothing but blood-soaked skin, there wasn't even a scar to mark where the wound had been.

"We should head back to the Academy before we figure out why I'm still alive." He spoke, feigning ignorance to his curse, as he walked past her. She watched him walk several paces toward the small hill before following after him, still eyeing him with suspicion.

As they rounded the hill, his eyes scanned over the mangled remains of the local fauna and the few Familiars that'd been killed by the demon. The only one still left alive was the brown mass of fur in the ditch. He walked over to it, and put his hands on it gently. Initially, the creatures' trembling intensified, but when it noticed he still wasn't the demon that did all this, it began to relax slightly.

"It's dead." He told the creature. It gave out a small cry of recognition in response. "I'll take that to mean you can understand me." He moved his hands lower until they were just above the top of the ditch, causing the creature to tense up slightly. "Relax, I'm going to take you back to the Academy." Roland couldn't understand the creature, but he'd hoped its master would be able to. If whoever it was did, then he might be able to find out more about what that demon was doing in the woods.

He did his best to gently pull the brown-furred creature from the ditch, and once he had, asked for Charlottes' help getting it safely on his back, which she gave. With that done, they approached the Academy, brown-furred Familiar in tow.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 3: Almost Had To Roast A Frog!

Hello, dear readers!

I altered the recent history of Halkeginia’s setting in order to make Charlotte/Tabitha the main character of this story, and incorporate some more elements of the Dark Souls universe into the world. The specific details of these changes will have some light shed on them later on in the story, but are only hinted at as of the most recent chapter... Assuming I’m any good at foreshadowing.

Also, I forgot to add the dividing lines to the last chapter, which is a mistake I just corrected. When uploading to Tumblr I have to add them in using underscores since the divider I use on the other sites/word document doesn’t get pasted on here.

The morning had come and Roland woke first as the sunlight streamed into the room. At first he was confused as he gazed up at the strange ceiling, but his mind soon started working properly as he sat up and looked around. He was in the corner of a girls' room, the girl, Charlotte, was still in bed. As he stood and stretched his stiff body she began stirring in her sleep, before finally sitting up groggily. Her eyes were closed as she blindly reached for her glasses and placed them on her face; she blinked a few times as she pulled the blanket off her and stood, her bright blue hair was messily tousled from her slumber, but her pajamas seemed undisturbed, almost like the only part of her that moved at all during her sleep was her head, as opposed to Roland, who didn't move at all.

She pointed to the door as she turned to face him, her face as expressionless as it had been the day before, but he could tell that she still wasn't fully awake by the way she stared at the wall three feet to his right with unfocused eyes, and the way she just barely suppressed the urge to yawn. She wanted him to step out so she could get ready for the day, and so he did, taking his club and shield with him, which earned him a confused, half-drowsy look from Charlotte.

It didn't take long for Charlotte to come meet him outside the room, now with freshly combed hair and fully dressed in her uniform with her catalyst in hand and some books under her arm. She regarded him, and his club and shield, but said nothing as she motioned for him to follow her down the tower.

"Where are we going?" Roland asked as he followed.

"Breakfast, then class."

"I'm allowed to attend?"

She nodded before speaking. "If you want to… I asked yesterday. You can attend, but can't participate" She looked down at what he was holding and added. "You might need to leave those outside the classroom."

Their exchange was short, but to the point. Neither of them said anything else as they walked over to the dining hall, an enormous room inside the central tower with three incredibly long tables parallel to each other running the length of the hall. Charlotte pointed Roland toward a single-seat, out-of-the-way table by the wall; it clearly didn't match anything else in the room, being far plainer than its larger-ornate cousins, before making her way to the nearby end of the center table.

It was still early in the morning when they arrived, so the food was still being passed out by the servants. When they'd made their way to the end of the center table and placed Charlottes' food in front of her, she stopped one of them and began talking, the exchange was short and ended when she gave them a portion of her food while pointing to Roland, which the servant then brought over to him with a similar meal to what he'd had the previous night.

He had debated whether he should eat the meal, or just leave it as is, but after a few minutes of sitting there he began to feel like he was being watched. When he looked over, he noticed that Charlotte had been staring at him from the corner of her eye as she ate, probably looking to see what he'd do. Roland let out a small sigh as he began eating. Though he didn't want to eat, he didn't want to invite anymore suspicion on him then there already was either, so he did his best to hide his discomfort as he ate again. Even if the texture of the food felt odd in his mouth and throat, he was at least thankful that it tasted better than the various plants and strange liquids he'd ingested in his travels, though, almost anything would taste better than those.

As he ate, he absentmindedly stared around the room as students came in and began eating, though the only people he recognized were Kirche, and of course, Charlotte. Kirche had arrived and sat by Charlotte, who'd already finished eating and was currently reading something, when she'd caught sight of her. He could see that Kirche was talking about something to the younger girl, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Roland had good ears, but he still couldn't hear either of them over the cacophony of voices coming from the other students that had populated the hall, though he could see just fine that Charlotte nodded or shook her head, rather than said anything, in response more often than not.

It didn't take long after that for him to finish his meal, or for the two girls to finish their conversation and walk over to him. Kirche gave him an odd look before her face shifted back into a smile, probably still unsure of whether she should trust him. He paid her no mind as he stood to meet them.

"Class?" He asked the younger of the two girls.

"Class." She affirmed.

He debated internally whether he should come and risk being disarmed, or simply find something else to do. It was true that he wasn't defenseless without a weapon, but it definitely wasn't an ideal situation to be in, regardless of how safe this place seemed.

Another thing he had to consider was his total lack of knowledge on the world he was in. He wasn't capable of reading before he arrived, and he already knew he couldn't read their language with the help of Contract Familiar; when Charlotte showed him a map the night before he was unable to read the words in the map key or the names of the various territories on it, meaning that just reading about his new surroundings wasn't an option.

Still, he would have to learn about this world eventually, and the sooner he did the better, even if that meant being disarmed for a while. Additionally, no one knew he was Undead, so if he was attacked and killed, he could use that to his advantage and escape from wherever he ended up after death. There was also the possibility that he wouldn't be disarmed, after all, this was a magic school, so every student here had a far more dangerous weapon with them than his club.

Roland nodded to the girls and followed behind them on their way to class.

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As they entered the class they could see that there were already a few students and familiars waiting for the professor to arrive. Charlotte walked over to one of the desks and began to organize her notes and textbooks, Roland, having not been directed elsewhere, sat next to her and placed his shield and club on his lap under the wide desk they shared. Kirche had gone over to another group of students, all males, after a brief farewell, but she continued to keep an eye on them from her seat.

All throughout the classroom conversations could be heard, and while most of the students were content with just shooting the breeze, others had started to joke insultingly about Roland and Charlotte. They spoke about how he was a "perverted slave", "foolish commoner", "idiot actor", and several other insults through barely hushed voices, though nothing they said offended him. After having died as many times as he had being insulted by a few children didn't have any sort of impact on him, though that wasn't the case for Charlotte.

A few of the students had been insulting her as well, calling her an "Empty headed failure", "worthless magician", and some other similar insults through comparably hushed voices, and while she pretended not to notice them, Roland, from his position next to her, could see she did. Her shoulders and elbows moved toward each other as she flipped through pages in one of her books, she slumped her back slightly, and squeezed her legs closely together, giving the impression that she was trying to shrink herself to avoid notice. He could also hear her chest rising and lowering as she breathed, and noticed how it seemed to get caught mid-breath whenever she heard certain insults.

Though, she also seemed to notice what she was doing, because after a few seconds she began to forcibly relax her arms and took up a slower, deliberate breathing pace as she straightened her back. This, her trying to shrink herself to avoid notice, then realizing what she was doing and trying to put up a neutral front, repeated several times before the professor arrived. It was unlikely that anyone besides Roland or herself noticed her actions, since he wouldn't have picked up on any of it if he wasn't sitting right next to her.

The arrival of the professor, a chubby woman wearing a purple mantle over a long-black robe, and a pointed-purple hat with a wide brim crowning her reddish-brown hair, signaled the end to the idle chatter and insults. As the woman walked over to the front of the classroom she began her introduction with a kind smile adorning her plump face. She called herself Chevreuse, and was apparently new to the school, but she didn't say much besides that before beginning her lecture.

To start, she gave a broad overview of the four elements, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind, and what they were capable of, but only explained their basic spells. She made mention of a fifth element, Void, but didn't explain anything about it. After Professor Chevreuse finished with her explanations she began to go into more detail with how the magic of the Earth Element worked, and talked about some more of its uses as well as its impacts on their society.

Roland found everything she said about it fascinating. There were some tentative similarities between a few spells she explained and a few he knew, but he was far more interested in the differences, rather than their sparse similarities. The magic she described seemed to work in a fundamentally different way than the Sorceries he used, though they seemed to share a limited number of technical similarities, their uses were far different, and if the magic here was so different than what he knew of, then there must be other, even more intricate differences between this world and his own that existed alongside it. That thought alone gave him some minor spark of hope, just like he'd felt whenever he ended up someplace new.

When he defeated Gwyn the first time, he was filled with… complicated feelings. Roland could hardly remember it now, but he could still feel the shallow pangs of those emotions. How he felt when he looked at that Bonfire, he didn't want to die at that point, but he was afraid to let the fires fade as well. He felt that way when he woke up in the cell after his first time Linking the Flame as well, and continued to feel that way for many times after, either Linking the Flame or letting it die.

It took him innumerable iterations before he finally decided he truly wanted to die, and even then, when he ended up in Drangleic, he could feel himself filling with hope at the thought of being freed from his curse, though even that was a lie. Well, not entirely, but the freedom he gained wasn't the kind he wanted, it wouldn't allow him to finally die, and it didn't make any other kind of difference either, as he was still forced to repeat that contemptible cycle after achieving it.

His arrival in Lothric was no different. His new surroundings, coupled with what he'd learned in Drangleic and Lordran, had given him some hope that it might finally be an end for him, but that hope was extinguished even faster than it had been in Drangleic. At this point, that spark of hope he felt now might just extinguish itself before he died even once, but just like in every other place he'd been, a part of him struggled to hold onto that feeling.

Roland sighed as he returned his attention to Professor Chevreuse, she had written something on the board, but he couldn't read it. Charlotte, who'd heard his sigh had been looking at him for a few seconds, before deciding to move some of her textbooks out of the way and placed her notes between the two of them on the long-curved desk they shared, though Roland only responded by putting his hand up, palm facing her, signaling her to stop. She looked at him with a considerate expression before nodding, seemingly having come to some conclusion, though she didn't replace her notes or textbooks back in their previous position.

The class continued on with no more interaction between either of them, and by the end, Chevreuse had started calling some students up to attempt a basic Earth Element spell, Transmutation. She created several small rocks and demonstrated the spell herself before asking a few students to try, and as the students attempted the spell some were more successful than others, but everyone seemed to be able to turn the rocks into some other material. It was only when Charlotte was called up that the demeanor of the classroom changed. A few students snickered; earning them a glare from Kirche and Professor Chevreuse, but nobody said or did anything else.

Charlotte stood at the front of the class between the rocks and her peers, though Roland and most of the students on either side of the classroom could still see them, and began to chant the spell, holding her large-crooked catalyst towards the rocks. As she did, a few small specks of light started to appear around the rocks, before gathering on them, making them give off a light glow, but nothing else happened.

Chevreuse, who'd been watching from a few feet away reached out to touch one of the rocks, but as soon as her fingers grazed it, it shot out, resulting in a loud cracking noise as the rock broke into several smaller pieces against a wall. The professor immediately pulled her hand back in shock, and a few of the students started laughing a little louder than before, though Chevreuse merely dusted herself off, an action meant to allow her a few seconds to recollect her thoughts, before speaking.

"That's… an interesting spell. By any chance, did you add a Wind Element to your spell?" Chevreuse asked

Charlotte shook her head in response, but said nothing.

"Well, please try again, Miss Orléans… And remember, you only need the Earth Element for this spell." Chevreuse said, before creating a new rock to replace the one that shattered.

Charlotte recast the spell, but the results were the same, this repeated twice more before one of the students called out.

"Professor Chevreuse, you can't expect that Empty-headed girl to be able to cast even the simplest of spells!" The classmate who spoke was a plump boy, with a perfect-blonde curlicue adorning the center of his forehead. His sudden shout caused more of the students to break out into laughter, and Kirche began to stare daggers at the boy in response. Roland, on the other hand, was annoyed by the boys' voice rather than what he'd said, it was a hoarse voice that was similar to the sounds a certain demon he'd fought in Drangleic made, and it grated on his nerves severely.

Chevreuse, surprised by the sudden outburst, hadn't thought to respond yet, allowing the boy time to continue.

"She's been like this since she's arrived here. This Empty little girl won't be able to cast even the simplest of spells!" A few other students yelled out affirmations to this while others laughed. Charlotte had been standing there quietly the whole time, still facing away from her classmates, but given how she'd been acting earlier, she probably wasn't taking it as well as she let on.

"Now that is enough." Professor Chevreuse called out as she raised her wand with a flick, causing the mouths of the laughing students to be filled with red clay. "You all should know better than to mock a fellow noble like that!"

"But Professor Chevreuse, it's true! She couldn't even cast Summon Familiar properly, and had to hire some naked commoner." The boy with the disturbing voice replied as he pointed toward Roland, flashing a mocking smile as he did.

"Would you-"

"Shut the Hel up, you damned frog!" Roland was about to speak, aggravated by the sound of the boys' voice, but Kirche yelled out angrily, continuing his sentence for him.

"Wha-!? How dare you talk to me like th-" The boy attempted to respond to her, but was cut off by another angry shout.

"I said shut up, you disgusting toad, or do I have to make you?" Kirche was standing intimidatingly at her desk as she stared over at him now. She hadn't reached for her wand yet, but if the situation escalated further she probably would have.

"That's enough out of both of you as well!" Chevreuse flicked her wand at the both of them, causing large clumps of red clay to appear in their mouths as well. "Mister Grandpré, Miss Zerbst, as I've just said, you shouldn't be insulting your classmates like that. If you both continue on this way I'll have to put you in detention after classes, WITH that clay in your mouths, do I make myself clear?"

They both were clearly still angry, but they begrudgingly nodded their heads.

Class ended shortly after that, and when Charlotte came back to the desk, Roland could see that her hands were shaking faintly. She was still upset by what happened, but she said nothing as she hastily gathered up her notes and textbooks for the next class.

The rest of the day was pretty calm in comparison. While a few students still made the occasional joke, no one insulted her directly like the Grandpré boy had, but that didn't stop Kirche from staring daggers at them. Some of them stopped altogether when she did, but a few kept on going. A few of the boys that were a part of Kirches' group began helping her stare down their mocking peers as well, but nobody started arguing like earlier.

Charlotte hadn't said anything to either Roland or Kirche until after classes were over for the day. All she did when she finally spoke was ask Kirche not to get involved like that again. This annoyed Kirche, but she kept a level tone and explained why she'd gotten involved, because she didn't like it when people insulted her friends, however she did promise to try to keep herself calm if a similar situation arose again, before reluctantly parting from them to go to a previously made engagement.

__________________________________________________

Charlotte had gone back to her room after Kirche left, and asked Roland to follow her, which he did, despite wanting to explore the towers on the school grounds. When they arrived, Charlotte put her textbooks and notes away and turned back to Roland, who had sat down by the window and placed his club and shield against the side of the bookcase. She seemed hesitant to speak, maybe because what happened earlier was still upsetting her, but she stood as tall as she could as she looked at him. He was curious about what she'd say, so he waited patiently for her to speak.

"You don't know how to read." She spoke after several seconds of silence, it was unclear if that was supposed to be a statement or a question. That wasn't what he expected her to say, but he nodded in response to her.

"I never learned." He vocalized his answer as he looked up at her, causing her to flash a considerate look at him before replying.

"I'll teach you… If you want."

Roland wasn't sure if she was trying to be nice by offering, or if she was just looking for anything to talk about besides what had happened earlier, but he supposed it didn't make a difference, he needed to learn more about this world, and being able to read would only help in that regard. Though, he also decided to avoid mentioning anything about what happened earlier in case she was just trying to avoid talking about it, it wouldn't do to upset her and cause her to rescind her offer.

Besides that, he'd secretly wanted to learn how to read for a long time now, though his reasons weren't the best. He'd seen how their research had driven Seath and Big Hat Logan mad, and had hoped that going mad might somehow lead to his own hollowing, barring that, he'd hoped that whatever he learned would teach him how to kill himself properly, but that option never presented itself, since no one was willing to teach him before.

He nodded in response to Charlotte, who seemed somewhat relieved at his answer. She quickly grabbed a book from the shelf and sat next to him as she began to explain the basics of their language, starting with the letters of the alphabet and their pronunciation, then explained the difference between short and long sounds, and began trying to develop his phonemic awareness. He didn't think she'd start right away, but he did his best to keep up with her sudden lesson, and tried to internalize the information as best as he could, but since he didn't know how to read before she summoned him, he couldn't rely on any of his previous knowledge to help him understand her lesson now.

The lesson went on for about two hours before Charlotte had decided it was time for a break after giving him a short quiz. She replaced the book in its spot on the shelf before turning back to him to speak.

"You did good, for a beginner." She spoke honestly, but that didn't mean much. Roland could recite the alphabet in its entirety, had a basic grasp of some of the phonemes she'd spoken of, and even understood what a phoneme was from her explanation, but he still wasn't sure how to decode some of the phonemes of letter combinations she hadn't explained. He let out a quiet groan as he stood to stretch his body, somehow those two hours had him feeling stiffer than the entire day of classes he'd sat through with her, and he wanted to go for a walk to loosen up his now rigid muscles, so he told his intentions to Charlotte as he picked up his club and shield, who nodded, and walked with him out the door.

She told him she needed to go to the library, so she'd accompany him part of the way before leaving him to his own devices, but asked that he return to her room when he was done, and was sure to give him directions back, just in case.

__________________________________________________

Three days had passed since Charlotte started teaching him to read, and while the progress was slower than the first lesson due to dealing with some more complex words and a few esoteric rules of the language, he was definitely getting better. This was partially due to the extra material that Charlotte had gotten from the library, a few books that were meant to teach beginners to read; and some extra notebooks that she gave to Roland for his own practice writing, since she didn't need them.

The classes that they attended together over the three days went by similarly to how they'd gone on the first day as well, though with no outbursts from the Grandpré boy, or any of the other students, for that matter. Some students still made jokes, but they made them amongst themselves and didn't start slinging insults directly, even if they still didn't bother to stifle their volume. The professors seemed to let this slide, so long as no one tried to do so during class, and taught about the various elements, except for Void, and their variety of uses. Some had done a few demonstrations using a few of the students, but none of the professors called on Charlotte for assistance since Professor Chevreuse' class.

After classes and reading lessons, Roland would usually begin exploring the school grounds, and became acutely familiar with most of the layout of five out of the six towers on the school grounds. He wasn't allowed entry to the tower without a cloister leading to it, and he wasn't familiar with the parts of the five other towers that were closed off to the general populace, but where he did go made getting around a lot easier.

It was on this day that he ran into one of the servants, literally, and after apologizing for bumping into her, realized that it was the black-haired maid who'd gotten him his clothes when he was first summoned, though apparently she had been looking for him for the since the previous day, and asked if he had enough time to follow her back to the servants' quarters for a few minutes, which he agreed to.

"Here. I figured you might need a few extra sets of clothes, so I asked around and got some for you." She said in an upbeat tone as she handed him the clothing. He was still holding onto his club and shield, so he put the clothing underneath one arm. It was only a few extra shirts and pants, but he appreciated it, and thanked her before going toward the door.

"Oh wait!" She called "My name's Siesta. Uhh, I was wondering if I could ask you something."

"Sure." He responded as he made eye contact with her. She still seemed nervous around him, but she was trying to put that aside and be friendly.

"I heard… Well, overheard that your name is Roland. Is that true?" He nodded in response to her question, which caused a small smile to appear on her face. "Well, would you mind if we talked for a bit…? I-I've already cleaned those clothes, but I can show you how to clean what you're wearing, if you'd like." He decided to accept her offer and nodded, it was a little odd that she was so keen on talking to him, but he decided to try and indulge whatever curiosity had been spurring her on as thanks for her assistance.

Before they made their way outside she suggested that he put on one of the other sets of clothes she'd gotten him so she could show him how to clean the set he'd been wearing, and said he could use the servants' quarters to change, which he did, before meeting her outside the room. All the clothing she'd gotten him looked fairly similar, the pants were all made of the same material, and the shirts were either white or off-white cotton with long sleeves.

Siesta had gotten a large bucket with some sort of strange board, as well as a few other things, inside it by the time Roland was done changing, and before she could react to his presence, Roland had placed the extra clothes in the bucket, picked it up and carried it for her. She tried to refuse his help, but he had already started carrying them, and declined to give them up, so she stopped trying to take them from him and began explaining what each item was used for as they made their way to the fountain. It was getting close to sundown, so not many people were in the courtyard as they entered it.

When Roland put the bucket down she began to pull things out of it and showed him their uses before moving out of the way for him to try.

"So… where are you from, Roland?" She asked as she watched him work. It was immediately clear to her that he wasn't used to doing laundry, but she said nothing about it after her initial explanation since he hadn't been doing anything wrong or damaging to the clothes, he was just doing the work awkwardly.

"I'm not really from anywhere. I've spent as long as I can remember traveling." He responded with a half-truth. He'd already had a similar conversation twice a few days ago, so he wasn't interested in repeating it a third time, only to be met with another confused stare. "And yourself?"

"I'm from a village up in the northwest of Tristain. It's called Tarbes." She sounded happy as she spoke of her home. "It's a pretty nice place to visit; a lot of my family still lives there as well. So did you travel with your family, or…?"

"Or." He said definitively. "I don't remember my family, nor do I remember traveling with anybody." His answer was blunt, and there was no sorrow in his tone, but that didn't stop Siesta from looking sad when she heard it.

"Oh… Sorry." She spoke as she toyed with the hem of the white apron she was wearing over her skirt.

"It's fine. I don't feel like I've missed anything from not knowing them." At one point, he might have felt lonely, or maybe even remembered them enough to miss them, but after so long, he simply didn't care about them.

"I see…" She spoke slowly, trying to decide what else to say. "Uhh, so what's it like… being Miss Orléans' Familiar?"

Roland took some time to consider her question. It was true that he'd only been her Familiar for four days, but he already noticed a few things about the girl. For starters, she was incredibly quiet, barely talking to anyone besides Kirche and himself, and even then, if she could express herself without words she would do that instead. Though, he wasn't sure if that was because she was afraid of being bullied more than she already was or if she was just uninterested in most people.

Charlotte was also a kind person, in his opinion. He had no doubt that if she summoned someone or something else, the way she'd gone out of her way to get him some proper bedding, shared her food, and offered to teach him how to read, along with a few other small acts of kindness she'd shown him, that whatever else she'd have summoned would have appreciated her treatment greatly. He'd seen how some of the other "Magicians" had taken care of their Familiars, and while some treated them decently, others treated them like slaves, or made shows of punishing them, which made their docile attitudes seem even more bizarre. That's not to say that he didn't appreciate how she treated him, he did, he just wasn't used to being treated that was so readily, it made him feel uneasy.

"Charlotte is… a nice girl." He concluded, causing a look of surprise to form on Siestas' face.

She was surprised by the way he'd used her first name, rather than use a title or honorific, though Roland merely shrugged in response. He told her that Charlotte had never told him to refer to her any specific way, so he didn't know of any other names or titles to call her by. This caused the conversation to turn from general small talk, to her talking about how odd it was that a noble would act so casually towards a commoner. Roland, having precious little information on the subject, asked her to explain what she meant, and she did, though not without a look of confusion due to his lack of knowledge.

Siesta explained how nobles were the ruling class of the human countries, and that they were all capable of using magic, whereas the commoners made up the bulk of the workforce and served the nobles. She continued on, talking about the various differences in responsibility between the social classes, about how either class was supposed to properly address the other, and many other things, though it was clear from her explanation that she knew more about commoners than nobles. Most of this information was new to him, as Charlotte hadn't really cared about enforcing her societies' class structure on him, and the classes he attended focused solely on the different uses of magic and magical theory.

As she continued her explanation, she didn't seem to notice that Roland had finished cleaning the shirt and pants he was wearing previously, and continued on for quite some time, with Roland voicing questions or responding to her every so often. After she was done with her explanation, which also branched into what little knowledge she had about the four Magician-run countries, she noticed that he was finished. Seeing this, she showed him how to dispose of the dirtied water, and where to rinse off the tools they'd used before showing him where to put them when they were done. Since it was only the one outfit that was cleaned, she showed him where he could hang it to dry, and then told him that she'd get it back to him after they were dry since it was getting late and she felt a little guilty for taking up more of his time than she meant to. He tried to refuse the offer, but she insisted.

With nothing left to do, Roland headed back to Charlottes' room for the night as he processed what he'd learned from Siesta.

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 2: Was That Supposed To Make Sense?

Howdey!

Anyone want to hear some dirty little secrets!? The first six chapters to this story only had one draft, seven and on (with the exception of the April Fools chapter) had multiple. And I didn’t actually start writing out an outline until the seventh or eighth chapter. Before that I had the overall plot I was going to go with floating around in my head, but I was still semi-winging it. And please, don’t tell any!

Anyways, here’s chapter two!

Roland continued his exploration of the school grounds, now expanding it to the three other courtyards, which were divided by cloisters leading from the central tower to four, of the five, towers along the outside walls. He could see students coming and going from several of the towers, but most had been meandering about in the various courtyards, playing with their Familiars, talking with each other, or eating small snacks at the various tables set up near the central tower in one of the courtyards. Some of them pointed and made jokes when they caught sight of him, but most simply ignored his presence entirely.

Roland wasn't sure what to think of the Familiars. Many of them seemed like mundane animals, albeit, ones that were larger or smaller than normal, though the ones that occupied his mind now were the few intimidating ones that were summoned. They were, without a doubt, fierce beasts, some might have never seen a human before, yet they were all acting subservient to the Sorcerers that had summoned them. It was… Odd. Normally, a relationship like that had to be started at birth, and carefully cultivated to prevent the beast from devouring its "master", yet they all acted so placidly after having only just arrived here.

“Just how much power does Contract Familiar exert over the Familiar?”

The thought worried him. It worried him more than his own unending life. Even though he wanted some end to his life, that didn't mean he was willing to become someone else's puppet while he was still "alive". Roland wasn't prideful, nor was he above working for someone, but mindlessly following someone or something else, even the thought of it sickened him. He sighed. This situation wasn't a favorable alternative to what he'd been going through up until arriving here, if that was the case, but he'd decided to stick with it. If the worst came to pass and he did become an unwilling tool to that girl, he'd at least hoped his mind would disappear with his will.

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Later that day, Roland was taken to Charlottes' room on the fifth floor of one of the towers. When they went to the servants' quarters after meeting up again, he'd thought she'd be having him stay there, but apparently she just wanted to ask for a spare mattress. The servants had offered to carry it up for them, but before any had a chance, Roland had picked it up and hoisted it over his shoulder to expedite the process. The mattress was thin enough to fold, with almost no padding, similarly to the other mattresses in the servants quarters that he'd seen earlier, though they had the benefit of being held off the hard ground by small cots. They had offered to find him a cot, but he refused. He didn't need to sleep, despite being able to, so he didn't particularly care about where he slept or what he rested on.

They arrived at her room without a word, where he was told to put the mattress in a corner, which he did, and then took in his surroundings.

If the lone window in the room were considered north, than the bookcase was directly west of it, stretching from the northwestern corner to just a foot away from the window at the center of the wall. Just underneath the window was a bench of equal length to the window, and in the northeast corner of the room was the mattress he'd carried. At the center of the western wall were a large bed with a chest at its foot, and a nightstand sitting south of its headboard. There was a dresser on the eastern wall, and a door at the center of the south wall. The only things lighting the room were a few lamps hanging from the walls and one on the nightstand, as well as whatever light came in through the window.

Though the thing that stood out most about the room was how empty it seemed, it was large enough to make the empty space between the four major furnishings seem almost comically exaggerated, and the utter lack of personal items added to the empty feeling the room gave off.

Roland took a seat on the bench, placing the club and shield he'd been holding while carrying the mattress down on the bench, and leaned back on the windowsill as he stared at his new surroundings. Charlotte had sat at the foot of the bed, looking toward him silently for a few minutes before speaking. He couldn't help but think that she stared an inordinate amount without saying anything.

"Where are you from?" She'd asked him, seemingly trying to continue their conversation from earlier.

Roland considered her question, but wasn't entirely sure how to answer. He didn't remember anything about his life before he turned Undead, and even then, his earliest memory was of him waking up with nothing but a sword hilt. He knew he remembered his past at one point, but so much time had passed since he'd become Undead that his life before Lordran had simply been overwritten.

"The first place I remember being was Lordran, but I've spent a lot of time in Drangleic and Lothric." He decided to answer to the best of his knowledge. He thought it unlikely that she'd have heard of all three places, but she must have heard about at least one of them, even though he'd never heard of Tristain until that day.

"Never heard of them…" She replied immediately, eyeing him with slight confusion.

His face clearly displayed his skepticism at her reply, but shifted back to a flat expression as he considered what it could mean. "I've never heard of Tristain before today."

Charlottes' expression turned from confusion to surprise at his statement, before returning to its usual neutral mask as she began to question him.

"Germania?" She asked.

"No."

"Romalia?"

"No."

"Gallia?" As she asked, a twinge of… Something, appeared on her face before disappearing.

"No."

"… Albion?" Another twinge twisted her lips into a small frown, but disappeared as quickly as the first. Roland took notice of it this time.

"No." he had replied to all of her questions the same way. He'd never heard of any of them, but he assumed they were all large countries, given her look of shock at his ignorance. He was similarly shocked that she'd never heard of the places he'd mentioned. Even if they had fallen long ago, it was still likely that some ruins, legends, anything, might have survived the ages. Countries that large didn't just vanish into nothing.

Charlotte walked over to the bookcase, pulled one of the larger books out, and began flipping through the pages before showing Roland the page she'd found. It was a map. She said nothing, but her question was clear. "Do you recognize anything?" He shook his head in denial.

Charlotte gave a disconcerted look, as if she couldn't tell if he was being honest or not. There were some reasons he might be lying about not knowing anything of them, but he wasn't giving off any signs that he was lying. The fact that he'd spoken a language that sounded unlike any other she'd heard before lead credence to his claim of ignorance as well, though she did only hear a few words of it before casting Contract Familiar, so she could be mistaken.

"Have you really never heard of them?" Roland asked, giving a few details about each place and about the things he'd found in them. He was careful to avoid saying anything that would imply he was Undead; he also avoided mentioning anything about his run-ins with the gods, instead focusing on a few sparse details he'd learned about the countries before they had fallen to the curse, some descriptions of the land, and the few noteworthy names he knew. The sun had set when he'd finished.

"No."

"Surely Big Hat Logan would be known here?"

"No."

"King Vendrik and his brother, Aldia?"

"No."

"The Abyss Watchers?" There was a distinct tinge of sadness mixed with disgust infecting his voice as he mentioned them.

"No." She'd replied to all his questions the same way he'd done to hers. It became clear to both of them that asking any more questions about what either knew of the others homeland would prove futile.

"Tell me more…" She pressed him for more details as she replaced the book back in its spot on the bookshelf, she didn’t expect to hear anything familiar, but she felt unsatisfied with ending the conversation there. Unfortunately, her question didn't get a chance to be answered, as the door violently swung open, revealing an older looking woman in the same uniform as Charlotte, though that was where their similarities ended. The woman had red hair and dark skin, with brownish-amber eyes adorning her face, making a sharp contrast with Charlotte. The shape of her body pushed the contrast between her and Charlottes even further, not only was she almost a foot taller, her breasts were full to bursting and her hips and thighs were comparably large, these facts were made explicitly clear by her clothing, which, with the exception of her black mantle, seemed to be a size or two smaller than they should have been.

"Charlotte! I was waiting for you at the dining hall! If you were going to skip dinner you could have at least told me." The older woman spoke up as she walked into the room, arms moving dramatically as she did.

"Why?" Charlotte replied as she walked past the older woman to close the door.

"Because of him!" The woman pointed at Roland, "My best friend summons a man as her Familiar and I'm supposed to ignore that!?" She said animatedly. "Not only that, you're having him stay in your room! Do you want rumors flying around about you!?" Her finger pointed to the mattress in the corner as she continued.

"Don't care." Charlotte sat down at the foot of her bed as she responded.

"You don't care? You've only just met him! He might be dangerous!" She spoke with seemingly no regard to his presence, despite standing across from him, but he could tell she was on guard. He couldn't find it in himself to care about her sudden accusation.

"And you! Who are you?" She demanded. He was getting the impression of an over-protective mother from her.

"Roland." He responded in a level tone as he looked up at her.

"Kirche…" Charlotte called out to the woman in a placating voice. "Calm down."

The woman, Kirche, sighed, massaging her temples with her left hand. It felt like her concern was being disregarded, but she knew that wasn't the case. Kirche knew Charlotte wouldn't have brought him here if she thought he'd hurt her, but that wasn't enough reason to trust him outright.

"Fine, but I'm not leaving until I know more about him." She said as she walked over to the door, opened it, and waved her hand, beckoning someone towards her. A small Fire Salamander walked in, almost the size of a large dog, though the most eye catching thing about it was the fact that its tail was on fire. It walked around Kirche, rubbing its torso across her legs as it did, similarly to a cat, as it eyed the two other occupants of the room. Roland assumed it was her Familiar.

Kirche also grabbed two plates of food and two glasses of water from a servant that was waiting outside the doorway, before thanking him and closing the door behind her. She placed them both on the windowsill behind Roland, who had moved to the side and leaned his shield and club against the side of the bookcase to give her space.

"I brought you both some food, so eat up. We can talk after you're finished." She said as she walked over to the foot of the bed, opposite Charlotte. Her Familiar was now sniffing at Charlottes' legs as they hung from the bed, blocking her path to the plate. Kirche called it over to her from the other side of the bed to give Charlotte room to walk.

"I'm not hun-" Rolands' sentence died in his throat as he looked down at the food on the windowsill, or rather, the plate it rested on. Two strange lights were reflected off the rim of the plate. Without thinking he looked up at the sky.

“What…”

“Two Moons…”

He thought to himself. He'd seen a lot of outlandish things, but he'd never seen two moons in the sky before. As far as he was aware, there had only ever been one, and those two didn't look like they were one moon broken in two, given their different colors, nor did they seem like an illusion. Illusions of that size didn't move, not really, they shifted and repeated, some even seemed alive, and could react to things to a certain degree, but the moons moved slightly as he stared at them, and the clouds obstructing them affected the land below in complex ways. He could see sections of the Evergreen forest that surrounded the Academy fall into darkness and reilluminate as the clouds and moons moved through the sky.

He was so caught up in his observation that he didn't notice Charlotte had taken a seat next to him, and was currently staring at his shocked face.

"Something wrong?" She asked as she turned to her plate and began eating.

"There're two moons." He responded in a hushed, almost inaudible voice, still staring at them, like he thought they'd disappear if he turned away. Charlotte responded with a look of mild confusion, which he didn't see, before deciding to speak again.

"Eat." She said quietly.

He closed his eyes as he processed this information. He had no idea where he was, but it certainly wasn't anywhere he'd ever been before, it was like an entirely new world.

He looked down at the plate in front of him, it had some bread and soup on it, but it appeared that Charlotte had placed one of her sizeable drumsticks on his plate. She was either trying to be nice, or thought she couldn't finish her meal on her own, though her reasoning didn't matter. He was Undead, and didn't need to eat, though his digestive system and taste buds did still work similarly to a regular human’s when he had eaten a few times in his past, so long as his body wasn't hollowing.

"No thank you." He responded.

She stared at him with her brow furrowed slightly, but didn't say anything. A few minutes after he turned to her and their eyes met he eventually sighed and picked up the bread as she continued to stare at him. It'd cause him trouble if he had to explain why he didn't want or need to eat. Even if this world was different from his old one, he doubted the Undead would be looked on any differently. Still… He would've rather not eaten. After going so long without actually eating anything he came to dislike the sensation of chewing and things going down his throat, though he'd mostly remembered ingesting various mosses and a few other things, it still felt… Weird.

He forced down his meal, trying his best to hide how much he disliked the feeling of it. Whether Charlotte noticed or not, she made no comment on it.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Kirche had been sitting on the bed watching the two at the windowsill and listening to their conversation, if you could call it that. She'd found it weird how similarly they talked, or rather, tried not to talk. If it was anyone other than her best friend, she'd probably find it uncanny, but it felt strangely appropriate that Charlotte had summoned a Familiar that seemed so similar to her, even if it was another human.

Of course, Kirche watched them out of more than boredom or curiosity at what they'd said. Even if Charlotte trusted him enough to bring him here, she still needed to be on her guard. She would need to be prepared, should he suddenly turn violent or tried anything untoward, and was ready to grab her wand, which she hid between her massive bosoms, immediately, should there be a need.

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"Sorry, I've never heard of any of that." Kirche replied to Roland. She'd asked him about where he'd come from, and he'd gone over the same things he told Charlotte in response, with much the same result. Roland sighed as he leaned back on the windowsill; the two plates were stacked on top of each other, with the soup bowl and utensils piled on top. The two glasses were now empty, and sat next to the plates.

Charlotte and Kirche were both sitting on the foot of her bed, though Charlotte had begun reading a book while her friend interrogated him, and Flame, as Kirche called it, was curled up in the corner. It originally wanted to lie on the mattress in the corner, but Kirche had told it not to. Rolands' eyes had wandered over to the Fire Salamander several times throughout his explanation, perturbed by how it acted so obediently.

Kirche had a far more difficult time of accepting his ignorance of their world than Charlotte had, or at least, wasn't able to hide it as well, and even outright accused him of lying at a few points.

"What do you think, Charlotte?" Kirche said as she rubbed the side of her head in disbelief.

"I don't think he's lying." Charlotte responded while looking him up and down, though she looked unsure as she said it. She might not have thought he was lying, but that didn't mean she thought he was telling the truth. It was possible that he'd truly believed what he said and was deranged, or that he might've been under some spell before arriving, though, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that he'd been being honest with them…

"Do you have any proof?" Kirche asked with her arms folded across her sizable chest. She'd been there when he was summoned and knew he had come with almost nothing, so she doubted he'd have any sort of proof, but it was worth asking.

"No. Whenever I end up somewhere new I seem to lose whatever I've gained previously." His response was honest.

"You've been summoned before?" Charlotte asked as she placed her book on her lap, leaving one finger in between the pages as she closed it to mark where she was.

"That's not what I meant." Roland pulled the bench over enough to lean against the wall next to the bookshelf while sitting, putting him slightly closer to the bed. "When I woke up in Lordran, I was in a cell with nothing… I don't know who put me there, or how long I'd been there. My earliest memory is of being freed from that cell by a Knight who dropped me a key." He paused to consider if he should say anything else about the Asylum, before deciding against it. Both girls were staring at him now, but only one made any attempt to hide her skepticism. Neither spoke up, so he continued.

"When I woke in Drangleic I found myself in a strange cavern. I made my way through it to a small cabin filled with old woman. They stripped me of what rags I wore and sent me on my way." His voice was deadpan, but that didn't stop Kirche from snickering as he said it. He stared at her impassively until she stopped laughing.

"Oh wait, you're serious." She said finally. Before she could continue he spoke.

"When I woke up in Lothric, I was dressed similarly to how I was summoned here…" He gave Kirche a knowing glance before continuing. "In a stone coffin."

A stiff silence fell over the room. Outside of the fact that he'd been naked in the three places he'd ended up previously, there was one other thing they had in common. They were all places that people would rather not think about, put another way, they were places that most people wanted to forget existed, and he'd been thrown into them all. He was left to rot in a cell, abandoned in a cave, and disposed of in what he assumed was supposed to be his own grave.

"Amnesia?" Charlotte spoke up to break the silence.

"Time." Roland replied without thinking, and immediately regretted it.

"Time?" Kirche asked, "You look around my age. How long ago did you wake up in that cell?" Her tone made it obvious that she didn't believe him, but she played along and asked anyways.

He considered what to say. He couldn't answer honestly without causing problems, but lying would be more trouble than it was worth.

"I don't remember." Roland decided on a half-truth. It was true that he didn't know how long it'd been since he'd first awoken in that cell, but he knew it had been many years, possibly hundreds. "I looked similar to how I do now."

He didn't mention anything about his lack of visible aging, or being forced to repeat the same actions innumerable times. Constantly running through, fighting the same beings, and meeting the same people for the first time, over and over again, he'd been at it for what felt like an eternity, but he knew better than to mention that, he was intimately familiar with just how unnatural his experience was.

Kirche shook her head in disbelief. "Of course." She sighed as she rolled her eyes before continuing. "Let's just say you're around 18 or 20."

Before he could respond to her assumption, Charlotte had spoken up. "You two…" She pointed to the door as she looked between Roland and Kirche. The message she conveyed was clear, she wanted them to step outside, which they both did.

"Kirche." Charlottes' soft voice called to her before they closed the door.

"Oh right. Come here, Flame!" Kirche called out to her Familiar, who immediately got up and followed her out before Charlotte closed the door.

Roland could hear a drawer open from the other side of the door, and someone, Charlotte, rummaging through it. It seemed she was looking through her dresser, probably for a change of clothing. Aside from that quiet noise, the two, three, if Flame was included, stood in silence.

"You…" Kirche was the first to speak. "Roland, I don't know if you were being honest in there, but it doesn't matter to me, Charlotte's who matters here. I won't forgive you if she gets hurt because of you." Her voice was firm, but not aggressive. It was clear that she wasn't trying to intimidate or threaten him; she just really cared for Charlotte, though he had no doubt that Kirche would do what she must to protect her friend.

"I have no reason to hurt her." He replied as he looked back at the door. Hearing Kirche now, and seeing how she acted earlier, bursting into the room out of worry, even bringing food with her, she was a bit brusque in how she acted, but it reminded him of something he hadn't felt in a long time. It felt almost comforting for him, that there were still people capable of caring for others so honestly, though he wasn't sure why. His face unknowingly twisted when he considered why he felt that way.

"Was what I said odd?" She replied when she noticed his almost confused expression.

"No. You just… reminded me of something." Roland responded as his face returned to its neutral position. Kirche had eyed him suspiciously at that, but didn't get to say anything else as the door opened, signaling the end of their short exchange.

Charlotte stared up at them; she'd changed into pale-blue pajamas that fit her securely, but seemed somewhat oversized. The pajamas were completely opaque, decorated with snow-white trimmings, and matching buttons that went down the front of her shirt in two rows. It was a simple outfit, but it suited her well.

"Is that all?" She spoke to her friend as she held the dirty dishes in her hands. It was getting late, so she probably wanted to get to sleep soon.

"…" Kirche looked at Roland with a complex expression. "Yeah, I suppose." She shrugged as she turned to walk away, taking the dishes from her friend before leaving. "Goodnight you two… Stay safe."

Charlotte was the only one to reciprocate the gesture as they watched her walk away, Flame in tow, before looking back toward Roland. Charlotte was the first to act as she moved to give him enough space to enter her room, which he did.

They sat in silence, Charlotte on her bed, leaning against the pillows she'd propped against the headboard while she continued to read, and Roland at the window, staring out at the forest that seemed to stretch out endlessly in the pale moonlight, though his focus was more so on the light that shone onto the canopy and the way it reacted to the shifting clouds and moons, rather than the trees themselves. The noise was feint due to the distance, but he could make out the activity of the forest’s nocturnal denizens.  It wasn't long before Charlotte called over to him.

"I'm going to turn the lights out." She said as she put the book and her glasses on her nightstand and replaced her pillows in their original position. Roland looked back at her and nodded before going over to his own mattress. He had debated whether he should bother with sleep, after all, just because he could, didn't mean he needed to, he was Undead, after all. Though in the end, he decided to do it. He'd rather not do anything that might reveal what he was, and he decided against staying awake while he lay in bed, as what little purpose that served would just result in boredom on his part after a while. So he took his club and shield over with him to the mattress.

Charlotte looked over with blurry eyes at his mattress as he lay there, before walking over to offer him a pillow and spare blanket. Before he could respond to her actions, she'd already walked away, back to her own bed and snapped her fingers, causing the few lamps in the room to extinguish themselves.

"Goodnight." She called out as she shifted into a comfortable position on her bed. He placed the pillow and half of the blanket under him; he then used the other half to cover himself, before replying.

"Goodnight."

[agelesslorddio-blog]

A Hollowed Bond, Chapter 1: This Nearly-Naked First Impression!

He wanted an end to what felt like an eternity of suffering through the same, horrendous events; to finally be laid to rest. She wanted to become a powerful Mage, and make up for a failure that'd haunted her since childhood. Though neither of them had expected to meet each other, they were now bound together, and would have to cooperate to overcome their own demons.

Hello all! I'm new here and to writing, but I'd like to share a story I'm working on with you. It's my first attempt at writing fan fiction of any kind, so any criticism or thoughts on the work would be greatly appreciated!

I've already uploaded this story on Fanfiction (under the screen name "Ageless Lord DIO") and Archive of Our Own (under the pseudonym and screen name "Ageless (Lord_DIO)") where it's currently up to date (nine story chapters and one April Fools chapter, at the time of posting). You can use those links to binge read the story, but I'll be uploading each chapter here every two days until it's up to date, if you'd rather read it here. I'm also uploading this story to SpaceBattles in this thread. I'll be uploading the chapters there with the same schedule as I'll be uploading them here.

Traverse the White Light.

A man in mix-matched armor stepped forward as he eyed his opponent, the azure-blue tassel of his helmet swaying as he approached.

“How many times has it been already?”

The man thought to himself, the chains on his gauntlets clanking together as he drew his sword, a large-black greatsword, a weapon that once belonged to a powerful warrior, and a black-medium shield with a flowing canal chiseled into its face.

“You don't even understand what's happening…”

The sorrow and fatigue he felt as he thought this disappeared as he readied himself. He regarded his opponent, a hollow shell of the man he once was, focusing on the neck behind his opponent's rugged beard, as he walked forward slowly. His guard was down, but only as a feint to draw out his mindless opponent. He rolled forward as his opponent launched into the air to strike him from above, its large-flaming sword coming down hard, but just missing the golden armor protecting his chest. He immediately stood to face his opponents back.

“How many times have I killed you, Gwyn!?”

He wanted to yell, almost as if he had hoped it would awaken his opponent's hollowed mind, as he swung his black greatsword. The blade barely missed its target, which had slid out of the way before immediately charging in, swiping at the black-iron leggings the man wore with its flaming greatsword. The man jumped back this time before charging in and swinging his own greatsword at his opponents head, this time he didn't miss his target.

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A young girl stood, in an open courtyard, all around her, her classmates lined up to take part in an important ritual, the Springtime Familiar Summoning. Some of her classmates had already finished summoning and contracting their familiars, and after a few more minutes, it would be her turn to try. Given her track record with magic, she was understandably nervous, unsure of if she'd be able to summon anything at all.

After seeing the kinds of creatures her classmates were summoning, her anxiety had compounded. They had all summoned such interesting beings, like manticorns, salamanders and even an enormous snake, even if she succeeded, she was afraid of summoning something disgraceful, or worse, of only summoning a portion of her familiar. It was uncommon, but still possible to do so, effectively killing most familiars outright.

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Enter the Mist.

The man recoiled as the flaming greatsword smashed into him repeatedly. He had gotten distracted by his opponent and was pushed back against one of the large stalagmites littering their battlefield. He quickly rolled forward, barely escaping his opponents reaching hand. He didn't want to be picked up by the hollowed beast of a man he fought.

“You have no idea what you've robbed humanity of.”

The man attacked his opponent's back. His strike landed, and he took his chances and attacked again, and again, until he was forcibly pushed back by a powerful swing of his opponent's greatsword, which he blocked with his shield. The man put some distance between himself and his opponent after recoiling from the strike, he was lucky to have avoided his opponent's follow-up attack. His opponent walked slowly toward him, then charged again at him, letting off a flurry of strikes, most of which were dodged by the man, who rolled behind his opponent, the ones he hadn't dodged struck his shield.

“Did you even know the consequences of your actions when you took them!?”

He had known for a long time that his opponent was beyond being able to understand his crime, or even be punished for it. All it was capable of receiving was an end to this façade of a life it held. His opponent charged him again, but before it could reach him, the man put his sword away, and immediately after, a flame appeared in his palm, he pushed his hand forward and created an explosion from the flame. His opponent hastily jumped back, though whether the reaction was from fear or reflex was unknown.

“Your light perverted the natural order of the world, and no matter how many try to perpetuate its glow…”

He calmed his mind as the flame in his hand disappeared to make room for a crude, axe-like catalyst. He held up the catalyst, and from it spilled five dark figures that floated above his head. His opponent was already charging in at this point, causing the man to roll forward again. As he did, the dark figures grew in size and flew toward the hollowed opponent, almost like they were trying to cover him in some twisted embrace. Before his opponent could recover from their assault, he let fly a line of dark balls of energy which spread out before him. Only a few of them hit their mark, the rest landed to the left and right of their target.

“The lie you created, no matter how sweet it is for some, is still a lie.”

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It was her turn now; she took a single, calming breath, before stepping forward. She closed her eyes and began to chant the words of the spell while focusing the magical energy through her large stave, and as she reached the end of the spell, she opened her eyes to see a few sparks in the air in front of her. She had failed to summon anything. She tried again, and again, each time failing. None of her classmates had said anything, but she could hear them talking about it in hushed tones, and a few had not so subtly broken out into laughter.

Her professor, a balding man with a similarly sized stave called over to her, urging her to continue. She looked at him silently for a few seconds before attempting the spell again. In truth, she doubted this time would be any different, but she decided to keep trying until she was told otherwise.

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Traverse the Fog.

This was it; one more strike would kill his hollowed opponent again. The man breathed in deeply as he prepared himself for what was to come. His victory here was assured, but what happened after wasn't always the same. It mostly lead to him waking up in that decrepit cell again, only to be given some means of escape shortly after, at other times, it lead him to an old cabin, situated inside an enormous cavern. Fewer times still, it lead him to his own grave, a simple stone coffin, surrounded by a myriad of other coffins piled haphazardly around it. Where he ended up had long since lost all meaning to him.

His opponent charged one final time, trying to grab him with its free hand, only to miss as he jumped backward. He charged again and slammed his black greatsword into his opponent, who fell to its knees before disappearing. He stood there, staring at the spot his opponent disappeared for what seemed like eternity, before walking away. He looked to his two options, to kindle the Flame, or to leave it to die. At one point, the decision weighed heavily on his shoulders, but he could hardly remember the last time he felt that way about anything.

“Why am I still here?”

He questioned himself. He had given into despair over these endless cycles long ago, but he hadn't been able to find any release from it. The cycles never ended, and he never hollowed. It was enough to drive anyone mad, and yet, that too, was a mercy he never received. He wanted to collapse, to give in, to die, but he couldn't. Some would say his supposed immortality was a gift, but they were wrong. Whatever was happening, that stopped him from hollowing, from finally, truly dying, it was a worse curse than the Dark Sign could ever hope to be.

He started walked toward the bonfire, intent on kindling the Flame this time, before he heard something. It was faint, but unmistakably there. It was the sound of a voice calling out to him from the entree way, and it didn't belong to Kaathe or Frampt. Differences were rare, almost non-existent as he worked his way through this damnable cycle. He had lost count of the number of times he had gone through it all, but he could count the number of differences he found between the cycles on one hand. Without thinking, he walked toward the exit, and found that it was being blocked by a reflective disk, measuring in at roughly two meters tall and one meter wide.

He looked at it in silence for a few seconds, considering what it could be, before the voice started calling to him again. He couldn't understand the words, but the tone gave off a specific impression. It wanted him to come toward it. He regarded the disk once more before reaching out to it, even if it was nothing more than an illusion, it still warranted investigation. If he were lucky, it might finally lead to an end to this horrendous cycle, or at least, to his hollowing. As his hand touched it, he felt… Nothing. His fingers sunk into it, then his hand, wrist and forearm. He pulled his arm back to see that it was still intact, before stepping through it.

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The man woke up in a daze. He was lying on the ground as the bright light of the sun beat down on him. As he sat up and opened his eyes, that same light blinded him temporarily, causing him to shield his eyes for a few seconds as they adjusted to it. Now on his feet and able to see properly in this new light, he could take in his surroundings properly, but first he looked down. He held a crude wooden club and a similarly primitive wooden shield, the only thing covering his body was a thin leather loincloth. Just like before, anytime he arrived someplace new he lost everything he had gained elsewhere, save for his knowledge, and even that could be forgotten.

All around him in the courtyard were young men and woman, wearing similar uniforms. The women wore white blouses and grey-pleated skirts, and the men wore white-dress shirts and dark colored pants, though everyone in the crowd wore a black mantle over their shirt, save for an older looking man who wore a dark-long robe with sparse white trimming, and a pair of glasses on his balding head, though the most eye-catching thing about him was the large catalyst he was holding. He could hear some giggling and murmurs from the crowd of young people.

Out of all of them, there was one person that stood out most to him, though not for her appearance, but for just how close to him she stood. The girl looked young, almost like a child compared to everyone else, but she wore the same uniform as the women around her, and carried around a similarly large catalyst to the older man. Her eyes and hair were both bright blue in color, and she was around a foot shorter than himself. She stared up at him silently behind a pair of red rimmed glasses for a few seconds before finally deciding to hand him her mantle. She spoke to him in a soft voice as he fastened it around his waist, though, even if she had yelled, he still wouldn't have known what she said.

"I don't understand your language." He said plainly. He didn't expect her to understand what he said either, but when she heard the difference in their language he hoped that would be enough to get the message across.

She broke eye contact with him and furrowed her brow, seemingly considering how to convey her message to him, before looking back at him and making strange hand signs. He was confident in his ability to understand and convey things non-verbally, but her motions seemed odd to him. She made a talking motion with her hand before pointing to her catalyst and him in that order. He didn't know what she was trying to get across, but nodded to her, deciding to play along. He didn't feel any hostile intent from her, and even if he did, he probably wouldn't be able to get out of there safely when he was this outnumbered. He watched as the girl began chanting something in her quiet voice before stepping closer to him. She placed her hand on his cheek and gently pulled his face towards hers, lightly kissing his lips before stepping back and looking away from him in what appeared to be mild embarrassment.

After her lips left his, a feeling of warmth, then heat, began to build up in his body, enveloping him in its choking embrace. He looked down to inspect his body, twisting and turning to look at his back as well, looking to see if there was anything visible happening to him, but he saw nothing strange. Just as he was about to strip the mantle and loincloth off because of it, the heat drained from his body. First, his appendages cooled down, then his torso, neck, and face. The heat lingered on his forehead before finally subsiding completely. He slowly reached up to touch his forehead, but felt nothing.

"After failing several times at Summon Familiar, you completed Contract Familiar on your first try. Congratulations, Miss Orléans." The older man said as he walked over to the two. Wait, why could he understand him? Did this man speak his language, or…?

"Professor Colbert…" The girl looked like she wanted to continue speaking, but stopped herself as she considered what to say. The older man, Professor Colbert, stared at the partially naked mans' forehead before finally speaking.

"I know it's… Unorthodox, to summon a human as a Familiar, but what you summon is important for your growth. It helps to determine your element and what classes you should take." Professor Colbert said to her before he rose into the air. "We need to go back and finish afternoon classes. Miss Orleans, please get him some clothes before coming back to class." He continued before he flew off towards the nearest tower. The crowd of students around them followed suit, flying toward the tower. As they left, some could be heard mocking the girl and naked man in barely hushed voices.

The girl watched them leave before turning back to the naked man.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Roland." She nodded as he responded, and then pointed to herself.

"Charlotte."

"You know my language?" He asked the girl, Charlotte, as they locked eyes.

"No. We understand each other because of Contract Familiar." She said tersely. He didn't know what that was, but he assumed it had to do with the kiss she gave him.

"You mean when you kissed me?" Roland asked back. She broke eye contact with him at the question while she tried to hide her embarrassment behind a neutral expression. Charlotte nodded in response before walking past him, motioning for him to follow her across the courtyard. They came up to a small wooden door near a fountain where a pair of servants were doing laundry. It was a perfectly normal, everyday activity, but it seemed foreign to Roland.

This place itself was completely foreign to him. The grass was green and lively, the sun shined gently, and the air felt warm and pleasant, this place even smelt different. Almost everywhere he had been before had the unmistakable stench of death or decay, barring that, the atmosphere in most places was terribly oppressive. The sun never shined like this, and whatever life existed struggled to do so in most places. Everything here seemed so… Calm. Though, the biggest difference had to be the people. He couldn't remember the last time he had been around so many people who weren't trying to kill him, in fact, he couldn't remember if he'd ever been around that many people before.

Charlotte was talking to the two servants, asking them for any clothing they could spare for him. Apparently they couldn't spare the clothing they were laundering now, as it belonged to the first years, but one of the pair, a maid with black hair adorned by a white headband, said she would get him something to wear, and asked him to follow her. Just as he was about to, he felt something holding onto his wrist, it was Charlotte.

"When you're dressed, come wait out here." She said. Roland nodded back to her, and she nodded as well before walking towards the tower Colbert had entered.

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Roland had followed the maid into the servants' quarters and was given some spare clothes from a few of the male servants. He was told he could dress himself in their living quarter. After putting the clothes on he looked into the small mirror on the wall of the room to get a look at his face.

Whenever he wound up in a new land his appearance would be different, but it was always in some minor way, this time was no exception. His hair and eyes were dark brown, like usual, and his face looked mostly the same as it was previously. His eyebrows weren't too bushy or thin, his hair was a few inches in length, and his face was clean shaven. All in all, he looked mostly the same as usual, save for one, significant detail. On his forehead, where the heat had concentrated before, were strange runes. Roland tousled his hair with his hand in an attempt to hide the writing; he didn't want it visible, as he never cared for tattoos or brands.

He picked up the mantle, loincloth, club, and shield he entered the room with and exited to find the maid that procured his new clothes, a long-sleeve white-cotton shirt, brown-hide pants, and brown leather shoes, waiting for him. She had tried to take his club and shield from him when she offered him the clothing, but he refused to relinquish them. She looked unsure at first, but decided against trying to persuade him.

Their walk back to the courtyard was mostly silent. Every few paces the maid would try to engage him in small talk, but it didn't get very far. Roland wasn't trying to be rude, he just wasn't much of a talker, nor was he very expressive, so he only gave the minimum required responses. Still, she tried her best to talk to him, so he appreciated the effort, even if the conversation she was hoping for didn't really get anywhere.

It didn't take them long to get back to the courtyard, or for her to bow to him and say her goodbyes as she went back to work on the laundry. With nothing left to do, he began exploring the courtyard before deciding to wait by one of the towers connected to the courtyard. He wasn't sure, but he thought this tower was the one the older man, students, and Charlotte, had gone into earlier.

He leaned against the wall and began to absent-mindedly look around as he considered what had happened so far, and, more importantly, what would be happening from now on. He was in what could be considered a wholly new situation. In every other place he'd been there was always a few things that were similar. Namely, that whatever society had existed there was gone when he arrived, almost all the people that were still there had turned Undead, and most of them had already hollowed, the fires were beginning to fade, and someone, or something, was trying to continue the current Age of Light, while others wanted to extinguish it.

It didn't take much to realize that most of that wasn't the case. He was in a currently functioning society, from what he could tell, and there were no signs from the people he'd met so far that the Undead Curse even existed, which seemed almost unreasonable, but the world itself seemed to confirm this. The world around him exuded life and warmth, two things that he'd never really seen in his travels. That also meant that the fires weren't fading, as they would've taken the warmth and energy he felt with them. He continued to consider these things as he waited for Charlotte to come back, and though he'd seen the same places hundreds of times before, and explored them as thoroughly as he could, there was still much he didn't know, or couldn't remember.

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A few hours passed before he saw Charlotte again, inside a crowd of her peers as they all walked away from the large tower he was standing by. As she separated from the crowd she looked around for a few seconds before locating Roland, and walked up to him. She stood, staring up at him in silence; her stare was piercing, almost like she was trying to read his mind through sight alone.

"You don't seem upset." Charlotte said as she took her mantle back from his offering hand.

"About waking up here?" She nodded in affirmation. "I've woken up in worse places."

She eyed him strangely at that statement, probably assuming he was talking about alcoholism or some similar vice. Regardless of what she thought, she motioned for him to follow her to a tree by the edge of the courtyard, away from the chaotic din of students, and sat down in its shade. She looked at him expectantly as he sat across from her; he figured she was waiting for him to talk. It began to dawn on Roland that she wasn't much for talking either.

He sighed as he pondered what to say, it was pretty apparent he'd have to be the one to carry the conversation, which was a wholly new experience for him. Most people he'd known would talk to him regardless of his interest in what they were saying.

"So where are we?" He started with an obvious question.

"Tristain, Academy of Magic."

So he was at a school of magic. That made sense, despite their strange uniforms. He'd been summoned by her, but outside of phantoms, he'd never heard of physically summoning another being. The fact that the students, and who he assumed to be their teacher flew away was also strange, but this girl seemed even stranger. She had somehow been able to insert knowledge of her language into him. In comparison, him having never heard of Tristain before seemed like an unimportant detail.

"Why am I here? How did you summon me?"

"I was supposed to summon a familiar." She responded. "You answered my call."

"What is a familiar?"

She paused, what little expressions she made showed that she was surprised by his question. Was it really all that odd to ask?

"It's a Magicians' Partner and servant."

Roland looked around the field; many of the students there had creatures with them that accompanied them out of the building just a few minutes ago. He had thought they looked strange, and some dangerous, but no one here seemed particularly scared or put-off by them, in fact, they seemed to treat them more like pets than threats, partners, or servants. Were they other familiars? Charlotte had noticed his gaze and nodded when he looked back to her, having picked up on what he was thinking.

"Human Familiars are rare."

"It looks like they're treated as pets, not partners." He told her what he thought of the other familiars, though her only response was a conflicted look that faded as quickly as it appeared. Did his statement upset her? She didn't say anything if it did.

"Why can I understand you now?" Roland asked his previous question again, both out of curiosity and a want to avoid an awkward silence.

"Contract Familiar allows for communication between Familiar and Magician. It alters your mind and body." She expanded on the answer she'd given him earlier.

He didn't like that answer. Having his body or mind altered without his knowing permission made him uncomfortable, but aside from his current understanding of her language and the markings on his forehead, he felt no different than before. Still, he felt it imperative to ask what exactly she meant by that.

"Do you not want to be here?" Charlotte spoke before he had a chance to voice his own question. Her inquiry derailed his previous train of thought temporarily. Roland hadn't really ever considered what he wanted, aside from some ending to his journey, be it death or peace, so if being here could somehow lead to an end, he'd be better off staying in this place, though, he wasn't sure how to answer her question. He knew she was asking if he wanted to be here with her due to the summoning, and that was the difficult part. Whether he was with her or not, if this place, Tristain, somehow lead to an end, he'd be satisfied with that.

"I don't mind it." He responded, deciding he'd like to stay with her. If he was to stay in Tristain, he figured it would be better to be with someone who knew the rules of the society they were in. After all, functioning in society was different from killing everything that attacked you.

Charlotte seemed relieved by his answer, but only slightly, as she leaned in closer to the tree trunk she sat next to.

"So… What do you mean by it affecting my body and mind?" He asked the question he was most concerned with.

"… You're more likely to risk yourself for me… And you're more inclined to follow my instructions." She responded, her expression remained neutral, but her tone expressed her distaste for what she was saying. Roland wasn't sure how to take that response, but he didn't get the impression she was the type to take advantage of that kind of power. If she was, she probably wouldn't have told him about those effects, still, he decided it'd be best to be cautious around her.

"I'm not sure how it's affecting your body." She continued in a lighter tone. A strained silence fell over them as she finished her short explanation.

It looked like she didn't want to talk anymore, as she pulled a small book out of her skirt pocket and began reading it. Roland still had a few questions, but decided to leave them for later, deciding it would be a better idea to walk around a bit to get a look at the rest of the school grounds. He had only looked around the area between the two stone pathways that marked the edges of the courtyard they sat in now, and figured it would be good to familiarize himself with the rest of the school grounds.

He told his intentions to Charlotte, who only nodded in reply, her eyes never leaving the pages of the book she held.