Halkegenia Online v2.0 - Chapter 12 - Part 4
It was rare indeed in a man's life, Mazarin thought, that his convictions would be called into question. Always it was a tumultuous event, one that challenged faith, faith in God and faith in oneself. But if weathered truly and openly, it could be a reaffirming experience as well. To let go of old falsehoods was to learn new truths, nurturing wisdom and humility in equal measure.
'In which case, we've all grown very wise indeed these past months,' Mazarin thought. The Rebellion in Albion, the failure of the marriage alliance with Germania, the Fae, by the Founder the Fae! To think they would ever be allies to a race of… of Firstborns, humans of another world, or whatever they ought to be called…
'God must be testing me.' He mused grumpily. It was too late in life for an old man to change so much.
For he who had been, if not the most devout of the clergy, a man who had lived humbly and for the sake of the people he was to shepherd, it seemed an incomprehensible thing that God expected of him now. To so challenge him this late in life. Albeit, these days his flock had been greatly reduced, to a single infinitely important lamb.
He settled back in his chair at the meeting table beside Princess Henrietta, Prince Wales Tudor, and Queen Marianne. All of the Faerie Lords and several lesser but highly trusted Fae were in attendance as well as the closest Noble allies of the Crown, not necessarily the most powerful but those of the most unshakable loyalty. Only those who could be trusted completely had been summoned. This matter had emerged as if from nowhere only as the dust of the Gala had settled, but its proper handling was of the utmost importance to the Kingdom.
Massaging his temples, Mazarin gave his young charge a sideways glance, noting not for the first time the signs of lost sleep and poor appetite that came with the burdens of leadership. Though she was not yet officially Queen, Henrietta had all but slipped into the role after that chaotic night and had been working ceaselessly ever since.
Henrietta was growing up before his eyes, becoming the Queen she would need to be. A reminder that all of his schemes, the careful plans laid on her behalf from the moment her small lungs had taken their first breath, had been for naught, ruined one by one along the way until she stood here, stronger then he could ever have imagined. She would have need of that strength soon. The past days had been hellish, and those soon to follow were certain to be harsher still, especially if Romalia caught wind of what had happened.
The attack of two nights ago had changed what should have been a carefully calculated move to consolidate the Crown's recent gains into a devastating fiasco that had only managed to push more moderates into the camp of the radicals.
Oh, there were efforts in place, even now, to undo what had been done, to mitigate the damage. The help offered by the Fae was not going unnoticed by those still undecided in whether they were angels or demons. But that did nothing to change the facts that had now entered the realm of public knowledge.
Despite all reason and good sense, three Faeries of ample ability had knowingly sided with the Conspirators and offered them aid in their attempts to seize control of the Kingdom. Those acts of treachery had echoed louder through the Kingdom than any amount of softer measures, offerings of peace, or goodwill ever could.
There would be consequences to this, far reaching consequences that even now, with his years of experience, Mazarin could not fully fathom. At the very least, additional hardships in their efforts to forge Tristain into a united kingdom in the face of the coming war, and also in the simple promotion of civil harmony. All because of the failed schemes of a selfish few.
But the greatest hardship yet, he thought idly, might have nothing to do with the Conspirators at all. It had taken time, time for reports to be sorted, for the immediate demands to be met, time during which all else had been pushed back as of secondary importance. When finally the events of that night had been unraveled, the pieces placed and the board examined, the most notable actor proved to be no great traitor, prince, or lord, but rather, a young girl who had until now been considered nothing special at all. Until now that was. He still didn't believe it, nor did many of those at this very table.
"Cardinal Mazarin?"
Mazarin was surprised to find his thoughts wandering, so unlike him to be lost at a time like this. A sign of his years no doubt.
"Pardon me?"
He located the source of the voice, sitting across from him, the Lady of the Sylphs. 'Lord to two of the conspiring Fae,' Mazarin thought with an internal sigh. A difficult position, to have to answer for the actions of traitors, made even worse with her near death at their hands. If this unfortunate detail had been weighing on her, Sakuya did not show it now, remaining as composed as ever. A marvelous mask she wore, and one that Henrietta would do well to imitate.
"I was asking if you can give us any ideas about how the Church would be likely to take this news?" Sakuya asked. "To my limited knowledge, this is rather unprecedented, is it not?"
Mazarin gave a small snort. It was a question the Cardinal would rather like to know the answer to as well. The Church had long since set many of its policies in stone, to the point that it could be reassuringly easy to predict in well trod, common matters. But since the ascension of the new Pope, a young upstart who had garnered considerable political backing within the College of Cardinals, the Church's direction and intent had at times become alarmingly inscrutable.
Once, not too long ago, the Reconquista insurrection would have spurred Romalia to immediate action. Barring heresy and other complications, the Church had long stood with and supported the monarchies descended from the Founder's bloodline. Now, however, with the deposal and near extinction of the Tudors, even with verified evidence of Necromancy, one of the highest heresies, the Church remained unusually coy, choosing to investigate further before committing itself in earnest. Much the same could be said about their dealings with the Fae.
The Holy Father had made his position known that, so long as the peace was kept, that the Faeries would be tolerated by the Church and contented himself with the dispatch of a relative handful of observers.
Either the young pope was nothing but a weak puppet, the figurehead of a powerful alliance of Cardinals so seeking to deny the seat of Pope to their rivals that they were ignoring events abroad, or he was as politically deft as he presented himself and had his own inscrutable motives that reached beyond normal Church policy. Mazarin himself could not say, and it was pointless to speculate further without knowing more. Further complicating matters, even if he had known more of Vittorio, Mazarin still couldn't speak definitively.
"The problem is that this is quite without precedent in the history of the Church."
A human, a mage who by all accounts was a malformed blunt, an affinity-less sub-dot, had been witnessed utilizing non-human magic of impressive potency. If it was to be believed by the reports of trusted Royal Knights, Fae Magic. The Church's policy for those heretics experimenting with other non-human magics had long since been set in stone; instant arrest and execution. Here, the issue could well be far murkier.
"Likelier than not, the Holy Father will want to see the evidence with his own eyes before making his decision." Mazarin concluded. "Or at the least have it relayed by one of his trusted servants."
"You mean, such as Sir Julio?" Henrietta wondered aloud.
The young man who seemed to have the Pope's ear. He'd arrived in Tristain as part of a contingent of Holy Knights sent to observe the Fae, but it was very clear that he held some status. A commoner by birth, it was peculiar that he had risen to the ranks of Knighthood within the Church. A likely sign of skill and political reliability far beyond his years. He had been on dispatch to Tristain for the past months, though investigating other matters that had taken him from the Capital for several days. His absence had bought them a little time to decide how they would proceed.
Mazarin was under no illusions what attempting to conceal heresy would look like to the other nations, and especially after the failure of the White Isle's Monarchy, Tristain was far more vulnerable than Albion. If the Church and its new Pope sought to assert its authority after failing to shore up the monarchy of the White Isle, they could well choose to punish Tristain for its heresies for simply being the weaker nation, the easier target, where Albion was still potent enough to resist.
After the Church's failure to support the Tudors, the Church The near extinction of the Tudors had also deprived Tristain of one of its great allies in papal affairs. Even if Tristain didn't attempt to hide the heresy, instead giving their full cooperation, he trembled to think what Romalia might do, like a boy confessing to his failings knowing full well that it might be the cane either way.
"He would be the most likely, yes." Mazarin confessed, thinking carefully on the matter. "We will need to make every effort to present this in the proper light, else accusations of heresy might be leveled."
The slamming of hands against the table, the Duchess de la Valliere rising so swiftly that her chair nearly fell back behind her. "My daughter is not a heretic!" Voice loud and carrying the full weight of a threat. It was a rare sight to see such a distinguished noble matriarch making a display like this, least of all the Duchess de la Valliere. It took most of those at the table by surprise, surprising even the Duchess herself.
Then, the anger receded, voice cooling swiftly. "Be it that we in the past, as all Kingdoms, have had our differences with the Church, sometimes even to the spilling of blood. But never, never, has our devotion wavered. I and my family are as always faithful to the teachings of the Founder. If such sedition existed in my house, I would have rooted it out myself!" She remained standing, breathing slowly, as if daring anyone to challenge her proclamation until her husband took hold of her arm, gently urging his wife to return to her seat.
There was no request for forgiveness or offer of apology from the Duke for his wife's outburst and none seemed forthcoming. In all likeliness, of the two, she had merely spoken first.
'As controversial as ever.' Mazarin mused. And here in his senile old age he'd thought that wild girl who had all but been raised as a boy had long since been tamed by her obligations.
"Don't take this the wrong way." Lady Alicia spoke next, propping her elbows up on the tabletop. Some of her typical air of humor and youthful energy had waned in recent days. She spoke with an unusual cold seriousness. "But we've got a stake in this too. That whole clause about 'Not inciting heresy' could really come back to bite us in the tail right now."
"That must be our chief concern at the moment." Lady Sakuya agreed. "The Church could offer leniency if we can show that this was an accident," Lips curved into a thin lipped frown, "Somehow. But that window closes if this was deliberate or if more Mages show an affinity for our magic." Her eyes dropped down to her hands. "To think that we would discover something like this, and at the worst possible time."
"We can only adapt to our changing circumstances, Sakuya-san." Lord Mortimer offered in a hushed voice.
The Salamander currently sat partially reclined in a wicker chair, his aide fussing over him from time to time. The Salamander Lord had participated little in the proceedings of the past days, leaving his brother to lead in his stead while he chose to recover his strength, but this matter had demanded the personal attention of all of the Lords and Faerie representatives.
"Those have been my thoughts as well, Lady Sakuya[J1] ." Henrietta steeped her fingers. "For everyone's sake." She added for the benefit of the Duke and Duchess.
"Which is why I might need to ask for forgiveness." Lord Mortimer said calmly, receiving looks from the gathered Lords. "I may have made things more difficult, by recently pondering an unpleasant question."
"Oh?" Lady Sakuya asked with a hint of worry that her serene persona could not entirely mask. Odd, mere days ago she would have been hard pressed to disguise her suspicion.
Mortimer nodded solemnly. "I fear I've taken the initiative to act on my own again and sent for one of my people. She's one my skirmisher support mages and fancies herself a researcher of the ALfheim magic system."
Lady Sakuya couldn't hide her frown of displeasure. "There are plenty of people speculating all about our magic." She turned over her own hand to examine her palm. "I've gotten a dozen reports from enthusiasts in the last week alone. Even a whole group at TRIST[J2] . Along with learning all of the utility spells[J3], it's practically our new national pastime. Nobody's been making much progress, so what makes this one special?"
"I'd prefer to allow Enya-san's report to speak for itself. In fact, I've been intending to recommend her for a position at TRIST because of her efforts." Mortimer supplied. "Enya-san has provided the most detailed analysis I've seen so far and done so while following rigorous methodology. More importantly she's had the help of a local Mage in her studies, something that even our TRIST staff cannot boast."
"I would ask how she managed that?" Mazarin asked, frowning.
Hardly a mage in Tristain had wanted to touch Fae magic with a ten mail pole, much less attempt to decipher its inner workings. Not the least of consequences was fear of being dubbed a heretic. It was much more a matter of distaste, dislike for something they were certain was inferior to their own Founder granted magic. That went even for the Academia who had continued to find creative ways to delay their obligations to study the Faeries. Now that this had come up, they'd need to put a stop to that, by Royal decree if necessary.
"A mystery for the ages, I'm afraid." Lord Mortimer shrugged his good shoulder. "She appears to have fallen in with that rarest of things, a free thinker. And while she has not made great progress, Enya-san has made some valuable observations."
A degree of interest was evident from all participants around the table. Sakuya reluctantly waved a hand, gesturing for Mortimer to proceed.
"Firstly, it has been Enya-san's observation that other mages have been consistently unable to use Fae magic."
Those words, spoken so calmly, elicited a chill from all those present at the table. They were contemplating the possibility of one human mage using the magic of the Fae, now they had to entertain the idea that others had been attempting to do the same for some time!
"Are they perhaps mad?" General Gramont pondered aloud.
"Or young, and impulsive." The Duke de la Valliere suggested quietly.
"Quite right." Mortimer elaborated. "Some of the children attending the academy have been parroting our chants, out of curiosity it would seem. They've elicited no result save disciplining from their teachers. Similar results have been observed during controlled tests conducted with Enya-san's mage partner. Which tells us that there is likely to be more at work here than Miss Valliere simply chanting Fae runes." A wince of discomfort elicited an immediate response from his aide. Only after gently pushing her away did Mortimer's blood red eyes level on Lady Sakuya. "I believe that we have all been made aware of a certain peculiarity involving Miss Valliere."
A peculiarity? Mazarin's eyes narrowed. The question seemed to be the same for many of the others around the table. If they had known of this 'Peculiarity' then it may have slipped their minds. As it had Mazarin's it appeared, that was, until he came to the emotionless face of the Duchess de la Valliere. It was the first time in his memory that he had ever seen her squeezing her husband's hand.
"I think… I know." Princess Henrietta said softly. "This has to do with Louise's… with Louise fainting when she failed to summon… only, you're proposing that she didn't fail, aren't you?" Silence in the room, utter silence as those gathered were asked to ponder the impossible.
"Pardon?" General Gramont cocked his head to the side, and then looked over to the other military men, Admiral La Ramee and Captain Hammond, and then back over to the Duke, Duchess, and gathered Lords.
"It was only an interesting coincidence, before now." Lord Mortimer said simply. "Was it not, Kirito-san?"
A small nod of the head to the two Faeries sitting beside Lady Sakuya, the 'Black Swordsman Kirito' and 'Asuna the White Flash', two Fae of superb skill who had risked their own lives to ensure the safety of Princess Henrietta and Prince Wales.
The black haired youth closed his eyes, sighing heavily as if letting the whole weight of the world off of his shoulders. "It stuck out to me." Kirito admitted. "Which is why I reported it to Lady Sakuya and the other Lords and kept an ear out for news. But I let myself think that coincidences do happen. The Headmaster of the Academy and the Mages from the Academia didn't take it seriously, so there wasn't much point in spreading rumors that could get Louise-san and her family in trouble." And it would be trouble, hell to pay for the Vallieres if the summoning of the Fae was somehow to be laid on them.
Mazarin realized that it had very likely come up early in the negotiations, prior to his personal involvement. If the matter had been dismissed beforehand, then he might never have known of it. Pinching the bridge of his nose, the old Cardinal grimaced. God was indeed testing them today.
General Gramont scoffed. "Please, tell me, are you suggesting that the Transition, the realization of your dream realm in the flesh, was a familiar summoning?"
Preposterous! It was the ramblings of the mad. The sheer willpower for such a conjuration would be enormous. Thousands of tons of living matter in the bodies of the Fae alone, millions of tons of complex life much too vast and complex to create from magic. And what of the summoning itself? The ritual handed down by the Founder. No, he refused to believe that a spell divinely inspired by the Founder, a sacred spell that touched upon the Void itself, would be the cause of all this!
"One coincidence is happenstance. More, lead to a story." Lord Mortimer said. "I've done my research, Louise-san is poorly regarded as a mage. I believe the term was a 'Zero'?"
"Watch your tongue, Lord Mortimer." The Duchess de la Valliere growled.
"I merely mean to say that there was something quite unusual about her to begin with, a sub-dot with no known affinity, but whose 'failed' spells were able to punch holes in the hide of a Field Boss. On the very day that the transition occurred, in fact, only minutes before, she failed to a summon a familiar, a ceremony performed by thousands of mages every year. Two coincidences. Tell me, how many mages fail this ritual?"
The answer was virtually none. In fact, though not all mages summoned a familiar, it was considered unneeded for Royalty and above the station of most petty mages, Mazarin knew of no person with even a single ounce of magic who could not be trained to perform the familiar summoning. It was indeed because of this that it was oft considered a perfect spell, proof of its status as a gift from the Founder.
"Yet despite her failure, she collapsed as if from willpower exhaustion, a condition that only occurs when a mage exhausts themselves using magic." The Duchess remained expressionless, eyes burning into Mortimer. She couldn't have been more displeased or more powerless to stop him.
"Finally, to bring us to the present," said Mortimer, continuing his tale. "Just two nights ago, she was witnessed using, in battle, wandless magic, Fae magic, by multiple Royal Knights. She is the only human thus far to do so. Three times she has been at the center of coincidences, all unlikely, all tied to the Transition. When we arrive to this point, we must cease with the weak explanations of coincidence and happenstance. I should think these events have begun describing an intriguing narrative, one that we must grasp before taking action."
"I agree that Louise using Fae runes ties her to the Fae." Henrietta looked unsure. "But I cannot fully grasp in what manner. The summoning is a ritual to bring forth a familiar to serve its master. The ritual does not grant its caster any special powers save the services of their familiar. And it most certainly does not conjure forth a familiar from whole cloth, Lord Mortimer."
An excellent response that demanded an immediate answer.
Lord Mortimer appeared contemplative for a moment, no doubt considering how to describe some Fae notion without being misunderstood. "Perhaps what is at issue, is what exactly Louise-san summoned. An entire world and nearly everything within it. There are very few ways to explain this while remaining consistent with the basic requirements of the summoning ritual. Princess, I remember having a talk with you not long after we met. You were quite taken with the analogy of Full Dive technology as an illusion enchantment." Laying on hand on the table for support, fingers splayed wide, Lord Mortimer began to elaborate.
"Obviously to create a detailed, illusory world that could interact with thousands of minds at once, ALfheim would need to be a tremendously sophisticated enchantment." Mazarin nodded, along with every other Mage at the table. If there was anything on the same awesome scale to imagine as the Transition it was the description of ALfheim in its original form.
"Obviously, this enchantment would be much too complex to be completed at once and instead would be broken off into separate enchantments devoted to specific tasks and still further sub enchantments performing the parts of each task. We refer to this enchantments and sub enchantments as…"
"Programs, functions, and subroutines." Henrietta nodded her head urgently. "Yes, I recall. And the aggregate of these enchantments is called an 'Engine' yes?"
"Correct." Lord Mortimer agreed. "ALO in particular is built upon a very powerful engine referred to as the 'Cardinal System' which incorporates a powerful suite of natural language processing algorithms, database analysis tools, and self learning systems collectively known as an Artificial Intelligence."
"Artificial…" Henrietta began.
"… Intelligence?" Prince Wales finished.
"Think of it as a sort of artificial spirit set to a specific task." Lady Sakuya suggested. "Or perhaps as the enchantments that permit Alvis to operate without a controlling mage. Lesser AIs would have been responsible for things such as dictating mob behavior, player behavunique events, and mob respawning while Cardinal made high level decisions such as executing game balance adjustments and managing the game economy. Theoretically, Cardinal could even alter the 'physical' makeup of the world."
"Sounds a mite sophisticated for a mere Golem." General Gramont observed uneasily.
"That analogy may not carry the full weight of what an AI of Cardinal's caliber is capable of." Lord Mortimer admitted.
"Cardinal is even more advanced than Lord Mortimer is describing." Kirito added. "It can also perform Quest Generation functions, in other words, imagine new scenarios for the players to act out.
"Parts of Cardinal have even attained true intelligence. In previous games that is." Lady Asuna added with a mild look of discomfort.
"Sounds like your first guess was closer to the mark." The Earth Mage stroked his chin. "Closer to a spirit I should think. And what would this spirit have to do with anything save to flatter the Clergy with its name?"
"Getting to that." Lord Mortimer continued. "This is entirely speculative on my part. But there must be criteria for the summoning spell, some method of selection in place that allows the spell to discern between, for instance, a stone and a living being."
"I would suppose." Mazarin felt intensely uncomfortable, this was entirely too much like trying to contemplate the sacred Void. "The spell seeks to match a master to a familiar that suits their affinities and potentials."
"With our patented fifty nine point survey…" Lady Alicia whispered under her breath.
"And this Spell is intelligent enough not to summon a familiar that will be nonviable, correct? No dying or incontinent creatures, always a suitable familiar." Lord Mortimer pressed the question home with growing impatience, and now it appeared that Mazarin himself had been made the spokesman to answer these increasingly nonsensical questions.
"Yes. I've never heard of a successful summoning delivering a dead or dying familiar."
"Then is it possible that the Transition, the realization of illusion, was somehow the summoning spell's solution?" Mortimer looked on calmly, red eyes blinking once. "The Game Engine is integrated into the entirety of ALfheim, there is not one thing that the System does not touch. In fact, the game system and the players may be viewed as a single massive network for purposes of modeling the full dive system. But the Engine itself lacks a physical existence, and as we have already seen with our own changed bodies and the mobs, particularly the Pixies, these former constructs have been actualized in line with their intent. This leads me to a single conclusion."
Silence around the table. Breaths drawn. "I posit that Louise Valliere succeeded in her summoning. Her familiar is nothing less than the Cardinal System."

Halkegenia Online v2.0 - Chapter 12 - Part 5
It had been a very long time since Marianne had seen Karin Desiree de la Valliere look so defeated. It was not an expression that suited her, but it was perfectly understandable after what they had just been told. The meeting had been adjourned a short while ago, most everyone else had already departed, and now she found she did not know what to think of what was happening, what had happened, and the far reaching consequences that would come to exist if the truth was ever learned by the public.
For it was the truth, though Lord Mortimer was insistent to call it 'Only a tentative theory, tenuously supported speculation at best'. It had the ring of truth to it, and that alone was an awesome revelation.
Now, however, there was the entirely mundane task of managing the aftermath. Not the least of which was her oldest friend, her only true friend, standing distraught before the windows of the conference room.
"Karin, I want you to worry not about this." Marianne said gently. "No matter what happens, your daughters will be safe, you have my word." She would have offered protection for the house of Valliere, both personally and as a political entity, but she honestly couldn't say if that was within her power. So much depended on what came next, for how long they could keep these revelations secret and what enemies would emerge when and if the information was leaked.
The Duchess de la Valliere looked to her, a sad smile gracing her lips. "I'm honored as always. But, Marianne… if a word of this becomes public knowledge…"
"I know." She agreed gently. The Vallieres had any number of enemies, it came with the privilege of high nobility, and every last one of them would try to use this news to take their long-awaited pound of flesh. They'd pick the family down to the bone if given half a chance. "But it is the least I can do for all of the years you've been loyal." Karin opened her mouth but Marianne would have none of it. "I owe you so very much Karin, though you've always claimed otherwise, the least I can do is pay some small fraction of my debt." And even if there had been no sense of obligation, she still would have done so for a trusted friend and confidant.
"You are generous." Karin decided. "Very generous." She shook her head slowly. "But even a Queen cannot save someone from accusations of heresy." And so the source of Karin's defeat, looking shamefully to her own hands,  knowing  that no one, not a queen, not even the Heavy Wind could resist something like that.
Marianne put a hand on the other woman's shoulder, leaning close to whisper in her ear. "It hasn't come to that yet. If the Church learns of this, when they learn of this, surely if Louise has completed the familiar summoning, even with such a familiar, then they cannot accuse of her heresy. Others have summoned unusual familiars in the past without attracting the Church's ire." For the Church to accuse the Vallieres of heresy for a successful summoning would fly in the face of the Faith it claimed to uphold. The Holy Father would have to make an exception.
Karin bit her lip. "Cardinal Mazarin is right, Anne, the Church will not see this as a completed summoning. This is not at all what a familiar summoning is supposed to do, they'll draw conclusions from her malformed magic, that she corrupted a holy spell of the Founder. So instead of being a heretic, they'll brand my daughter an abomination!" Voice rising with every word until it was nearly a pained squeak.
Marianne held her ground, feeling the other woman as she trembled. It had been a very, very long time since she'd seen this. Once, Karin had been a strikingly intense person, but since her marriage, much of that had been controlled, restrained, channeled by a resolve that was as unyielding as steel.
"That's  if they find out." Marianne said firmly.
"No." Karin said.
"I can swear my Knights to secrecy." The Queen went on. "And the Fae Lords have a vested interest in keeping this quiet." To protect their hope for a way a home if nothing else.
Lady Sakuya and Lady Alicia had expressed great concern for Miss Valliere's continued safety if her role in the Transition became public knowledge. Too many were desperate, too many eager to lash out at the perceived source of their plight. But cooler heads had to prevail, and so the Fae Lords had agreed to keep this knowledge in a small circle, for now, only themselves.
"No."
"That only leaves the Germanian girl…"
"A Zerbst." Karin supplied. "And one who seems of all things to have taken a liking to my daughter." The Duchess turned around, looking Marianne in the eye. "And the answer is still no. It is no simply because this is bound to reach the ears of the Church, somehow, someway, eventually. Too many already know. Anne, I'd rather invite it than appear to have something to hide. I know it's for the best, for Louise as well, but even so," Karin balled a fist over her chest, "Why do I have this horrible premonition?"
A premonition? A bad omen. Not difficult at all to imagine why. Marianne bit her lip. "Then… what now?"
"Now?" Karin wondered.
"For Louise?" Marianne tested. "Your daughter, what are your plans for her? The Fae will want to keep her near, as part of the treaty."
"Yes, I'm well aware. Lord Mortimer wants Doctor Shouichi to do an examination on Louise's eye." Karin turned and walked slowly to the window, looking down at the Gardens. "Our treaty obligation, it seems, falls on the Vallieres to fulfill." Among other things, the promise to furnish the Fae, if possible, with a means to return to their place of origin. If Louise de la Valliere was the cause, then she would be indispensable to finding a solution.
Karin frowned as she observed something, curious, Marianne followed to the window to look out. In the gardens, a trio was conversing, a child, a young man, and a woman. The woman's gossamer wings told her identity at any distance. The two Fae sword fighters that were regarded so highly by the Faerie Lords, and their daughter.
Parents standing attentively over her, the girl had eagerly thrown herself in her mother's arms as soon as she'd arrived and was now busy chatting as only children could, no doubt about the time that her parents had been away.
"A lovely family." Marianne observed. "Truly a sign that the Fae are human beings as they say." Such love and trust between them.
"I've told you the story of my daughters, haven't I?" Karin asked without looking away from the window.
"A time once before."
"We never planned on Louise." Karin confessed suddenly, seemingly shamefully, as if a secret she had held close to her chest.
So like her friend, Marianne wanted to laugh. "Nobody ever quite plans on a child, children just happen."
"I mean," Karin said, "When Cattleya was born, when she began to fall sick, I didn't know what to do. We took her to every healer, every natural philosopher. Nobody could tell us what was wrong, only that it had something to do with her own body. I was so…  scared of what I had done to her." Karin's voice trembled. "I didn't dare have another child after that. But men and women are sometimes thoughtless, and measures are not always as fool proof as are claimed, and when I found myself pregnant with Louise, I couldn't stop thinking of Cattleya. I feared that I had made a horrible mistake."
Marianne's eyes widened.
"But then, I held her for the first time." Karin squeezed her eyes shut remembering a happier time. "So small, healthy, she was like a little blessing. My greatest fear was that she'd be hurt, and now… her eye, Anne, they don't know what they can do for her eye." Karin looked anguished. "It is healed fully, but still she still can't see."
Silence as outside the Spriggan Kirito lifted his daughter up onto his shoulders and took off running, the small girl squealing in delight.
"Louise has given enough. No more. I will not risk her anymore, not after the traitor and not after this. She will be made available to help the Fae, but as for the rest, her training, these ill-conceived lessons. They're over. I'm taking Louise back to where she belongs."

+++

"Cheer up, Valliere." Kirche said as she concentrated on the task of slicing an apple, about the only fun to be had in a Tristanian infirmary. Perhaps that was why she didn't realize her gaff before it was too late. "After all, you still have your health."
As soon as the words escaped her lips, the Germanian was kicking herself. Tact wasn't her strongest suit, but compared to Louise she had it in spades, most of the time. It was simply that recent events had left her shaken. It wasn't every day that a girl had the impossible shoved in her face.
Kirche let her gaze fall on Louise. 'Although, I should be getting used to that with you.' She pondered, if the summoning reflected on the mage, just what did that say about Louise?
It was a great irony that a girl with a moniker like 'Zero', a small girl, barely more than waif really, might well have achieved something that would rock the foundations of the Kingdoms to their core. Even if this could be kept quiet, the Church was bound to know of it soon somehow, and then, then things would get very 'interesting' indeed.
If Louise had heard her, she didn't show any sign of it. The pinkette Valliere was lost someplace within her own little world, the place she'd been since her mother had delivered the news. Bad news as far as Louise was concerned, disastrous really.
Louise was going home, back to the Valliere estate. And along with that, her training was to be ended. Louise had been forbidden to continue her practice of magic, her parents going so far as to confiscate her foci, recovered by the Knights who had rescued her. Apparently the Duke and Duchess had been in complete agreement that it was what was best for her now.
And as distasteful as it was to contemplate, they were probably right. Louise needed to be kept away from the public eye for now, until she could be studied and the full extent of her strange new abilities examined.
This left Kirche with the unusual privilege of being a foreigner kept abreast of a state secret of a foreign power. A privilege that had been made clear in no uncertain terms by the Duchess de la Valliere, could and would be terminated,  terminally, if she were to let a word of this leak back to her homeland.
Threats to her life aside, Kirche should have been pleased, at least a little. She'd finally gotten the proof she'd been looking for since that fateful day. Vindication. Except, she'd never wanted it like this.
Louise's best quality was her tenacity. Give her a bone and she'd worry it to the marrow, knock her down and she'd climb right back up. Nothing seemed to stop her, to even slow her down. It was probably what had drawn Kirche to Louise in the first place. There was an admirable strength in her, a worthy strength of spirit, something to measure herself against that wasn't just squandered magic potential.
And over the last few months, there had even been more than that. Trust and mutual respect, even friendship. They'd joined in small triumphs, and ones not so small. They'd shared in many small setbacks, and a few that were quite big indeed. Kirche had grown invested in Louise, and in time had found that she'd wanted to see her succeed for her own sake. It made the present dilemma all the more painful, like the loss was her own.
Watching Louise now, the younger girl looked truly defeated. She'd looked defeated before, for a while at least, but for once, she didn't look like she was going to bounce back. Whatever that she-wolf of a mother had done, she had accomplished what Kirche had never dreamed possible; she had broken the pinkette.
'Come on Louise.' Kirche thought.
There had to be something she could do to rekindle that fire. At the moment, even getting a rise out of her would have been enough, something to show that she wasn't just a shade still inhabiting this world. Words of encouragement, gentle ribbing, even veiled insults had garnered the same reply, a small nod, and a murmur of assent. The only time it was any different was when Kirche tried to engage her, then, inevitably, the reply would be a shake of the head, and further retreat into herself.
Kirche had thought at first that she'd come around on her own, but that was looking less and less likely. Which was why Kirche had decided to resort to extreme measures. Louise probably wouldn't thank her for this, which was why she hadn't uttered a word of it to her, but that Sylph Doctor was a pretty big hearted guy. Kirche's lips twitched slightly, noting that he was not entirely terrible in the looks department, though a bit on the young side; she couldn't imagine he'd have much experience under the belt.
Well in any case, all she had to do was buoy Louise's spirits for a bit longer and then see what came of it. "Come on Louise." Kirche set the apple slices down on the nightstand. "You have to keep up your strength so you can get out of that bed."
Louise didn't look up, just shaking her head slowly. "Not hungry."
"How about some tea then." Kirche nudged. "You haven't had anything to drink since this morning."
"Not thirsty." Louise said back, voice flat and inflectionless.
This was getting her nowhere. Before now, Kirche would have tried games or drills to get Louise's attention, to get her to stop worrying and start thinking about something else. But now, those little games, memory tricks and exercises would be worse than useless, now, they'd just remind Louise of what she'd lost, what she was forbidden to even contemplate.
An unfairness that Kirche had only really begun to realize when she'd started to help her.
Lots of Mages practiced magic for the wrong reasons. Louise was not one of those. Quite the opposite, Kirche had discovered. At heart, Louise just wanted to be of help to others, to find some value in herself. How terrible then that she was locked into a path of unachievable expectations. Maybe being branded a mage had been a curse for her. If she'd been born a commoner, then she wouldn't have burdened herself like this.
She had nimble hands, Kirche thought. She could have been a seamstress. A sharp mind, the Church accepted such girls into the abbeys, women who performed many clerical tasks and could rise to a status equal to priests. An excellent sense for mixtures and potions, in Germania she could have been well on her way as a brewer's apprentice.
None were positions of great status, all carried hardship, but Louise could have excelled at them, could have found happiness in a life like that. Instead, surrounded by privilege, she did nothing but punish herself.
At last, Kirche's shoulders slumped, defeated, and uttered the words she'd been hoping to avoid. "Well, it could be worse."
There was every chance that it would get worse, much worse, before it showed any sign of getting better. If the Church learned of this soon, things could get worse, if the Church learned of things later, things could get worse. If Gallia learned of this, it could get worse, if Albion learned of it, it could get worse. If Germania learned of it, especially Germania, things could get much, much worse. If the wrong Fae learned of it, it would get worse.
By the Founder if this became common knowledge it would be terrifying. Louise could find her life forfeit!
The Duchess had acted like she needed to cow Kirche into submission with petty death threats, so much like a Valliere to think that way, Kirche would have kept her mouth shut out of simple sanity. Even more so, for Louise's sake.
"What did you say?"
Kirche blinked. It was the first thing Louise had said all day that wasn't a dull, repetitive none answer. "I said, things could be a lot worse, Louise."
Then Louise looked up, a hollowness in her good eye. She'd submitted to having the left eye kept covered, partly in hopes that it could still be saved. But mostly to save Louise from seeing in her own reflection as her left eye trailed listlessly to the side. She didn't deserve that, to feel any more disfigured. With the gauze, she could at least pretend it was an ordinary wound.
A hollow, bitter laugh, like a dog's bark. "Worse? Kirche, look at me!" At last a shout, but not the one that Kirche had wanted. There wasn't any fire here, any passion, just the last, feeble embers of anger. Her hand balled over her ruined eye, tears forming in the other. "I nearly killed myself with willpower exhaustion, and now I ruin myself casting failed spells! You heard what Doctor Shouichi said!"
Kirche winced. The Fae had many strange ideas about medicine and any number that were unheard of on the continent. So naturally, they had been deferred to for a second opinion on Louise's eye.
The young Sylph healer had been called to examine Louise, though the exact nature of his patient had been kept from him for the time being. Kirche had been permitted to watch, along with the Duke and Duchess, as the Fae physician had exchanged words with Doctor Paman and several other Royal healers.
They had each taken their turn with Louise, explaining their techniques and reasoning, both to each other, and to their patient. But it had been Doctor Shouichi's commentary that had been most insightful.
He'd called it something specific. Neurological blindness he'd said, an affliction of the brain rather than of the eye. Louise's left eye could still react to changes in light, perceive light and dark, it merely was not registering to Louise's consciousness. Rather, the problem was likely to exist in the connection between the brain and eye, or perhaps in the mind itself.
Kirche had shuddered. She'd seen the effects of brain fever for herself, watching her own grandmother, a formerly vibrant woman, wither away as the damage took its toll. All the healers had been able to do was sooth her, keep her comfortable until the end. And it had appeared that Kirche wasn't the only one in the room who was familiar with such maladies.
The Duke and Duchess had reacted with startling alarm, looking to one another before retreating from the room for a time. Upon their return, they had given their definitive answer, that Louise would be forbidden to continue her practice of magic.
She hadn't asked at the time, but Kirche suspected she knew why. They were afraid, fearful that whatever had allowed Louise to use Faerie magic had been the cause of her blindness. So afraid in fact that they had even been keeping the knowledge of the incident from their daughter. Their fear was perhaps well founded, even though Louise could keep the secret, the thought that Louise might do something reckless if she remembered what she was capable of no doubt burdened heavily on their minds.
Along with her blindness, Louise seemed to be blind to the time while she had been casting in Fae runes. She credited her own survival to KoKo's valiant effort and had filled in the blanks in her fragmented memory from there. Kirche still didn't know how the information would be broken to her, or even if it should be. What would they even tell her?
So far, she hadn't been told a thing for fear of how it might upset her. Not until she regained her strength, it had been decided.
The sudden outburst seemed to exhaust Louise, falling back into her pillow, arm held over her eyes. "Look at what's happened to KoKo because of me." She whispered under her breath. "Because I was weak."
"Louise." Kirche tried to speak, low and soothing. Founder! She was used to doing this with Tabitha when she was distraught, but even at her worst she was so much less difficult than Louise was now. "Louise, you are not weak." What else could she say? The only reason KoKo was alive now was because of her.
"If I hadn't been there, she wouldn't have gotten poisoned." Louise muttered. "She would have been able to fight alongside you or Miss Caramel and the Lieutenant. Without me to slow her down, she could have gotten away, she could have warned the Palace, maybe in time to stop all of this!" The tears were running down from her good eye now. "How pathetic am I Kirche? I need rescuing right in the middle of the Capital. Mother is right, I'm unfit."
"Louise…" Kirche breathed slowly.
"Why are you even here?" Louise asked suddenly, voice filled with curiosity. "Why Kirche? There's no point anymore."
Kirche soured. "Because I'm still your tutor, even if your devil mother tries to dismiss me. Because that's my choice." She answered sharply. "And because I still believe in you. How can you give up on yourself when you've made so much progress?" Even more than she could possibly know… .
If only Louise could be made to understand. Perhaps when the time came to tell her of what she had done, or when and if she remembered on her own. She was now indispensable in the eyes of the Fae Lords, their hopes riding on her. Her mother and father would be made to understand that, if need be the treaty would compel them, and Louise would be allowed to practice magic again in time.
"It wasn't enough." Louise choked out. "It's never enough! What's wrong with me?!" Her voice was hollow with despair. "First my sister, whenever Cattleya played with me, she'd get sick. I used to think it was my fault, she only got worse around me." Louise whispered. "I kept hoping I'd be a water mage so that I could find a way to heal her. Then I couldn't do a single thing right! Mother and Father called in favors so I could attend the Academy, and who knows what they had to do so I could stay. Then KoKo put her faith in me. She… she deserves better than that. She deserves better than me!"
"What was the point?" She wondered out loud. "What's been the point of this?" She started to hiccup bitter laughter. "I should have… should have seen right away. I should have known my place after the first semester and gone home, outstripped by everyone. Instead, I kept deluding myself that I could be something I'm not."
"Louise, that's enough!" Kirche almost had to shout. Didn't she see that she was destroying herself? "You've put in so much effort, you can't just give up now!"
Then the voice turned more sinister, pitch heightening as Louise looked out of her bloodshot eye. "It must be nice for that to be so easy to say, Zerbst. Sitting up at the zenith. You put in the effort and become a master duelist. I heard you fought two of Jangler's men to a standstill. I do the same thing and fail. I can't manage a thing without help."
The Germanian frowned. What was this? Something ugly was rearing its head, resentment and anger she hadn't seen before in the girl. But if it was a way to get her back to her old self, Kirche would play along. She'd rather see Louise cursing her name and fighting all the way, staying true to herself, than caving in without a hint of resistance. If she had to be despised, then so be it. Besides, unlike Louise with her mountain of insecurities, all ripe for the prodding, there was little that Kirche was insecure about. There was nothing Louise could do that would get to her.
That was Kirche's first mistake.
"Everyone has different talents Louise, you just haven't found yours yet." Kirche said and smiled slyly. "Not like you to be jealous."
"And it's not like you to be generous." Louise said suspiciously, voice growing cold. "I've been wondering. Why did you have your change of heart about me Kirche?" Louise's eyes narrowed. "It was so sudden. One day we were at each other's throats, the next day, we were still at each others throats, but you were volunteering to tutor me. You and Tabitha, always pushing. I've never seen you spend even half that much time on studies. I didn't think very much about it. But maybe I should have."
"You think I'd waste my time on trash, Valliere?" Kirche grinned viciously. Come on, get mad. "Like I said, I can't have a substandard rival."
"But it's probably a good joke to be lording it over that rival, huh?" Louise said darkly. "You've probably enjoyed every second of this, building up my hopes and confidence, making me feel like I was actually w-worth some praise. But you… you just wanted me to be stronger so you'd look better yourself. Well guess what," she smiled with a very un-Louise like cruelty, "It won't work, because everyone already knows everything about you."
She smirked. "If you're going to call me a harlot again then I'll give you failing marks for originality."
"Oh, but you weren't a harlot. Not back then, were you?" Louise's head hung low now, hair obscuring her eye. Her clenched fists shook in her lap.
"Louise?" Kirche narrowed her eyes in equal parts worry and suspicion. "What are you talking about?"
"A certain incident a few years ago." Louise said. "I bet you thought that, coming all the way from Germania, you'd be able to get away from it. But rumors like that don't just disappear. Even I heard them. Everyone whispers about it behind your back."
"Louise." Kirche breathed dangerously. "You don't want to go there."
"About your old school." Louise breathed. Kirche knew what this was, and she should have known better than to let it go on. This wasn't about anger or needing to act out, it was the simple desire to hurt another person, to make them feel just as miserable. She'd never have thought Louise had it in her.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Louise." Kirche threatened.
"A certain teacher you fell in love with."
"This is your last warning, Louise."
"Who didn't love you back." Louise finished, looking up through her hair with one hateful eye. "You think people don't know? Don't know the reason you'll  fuck anything that moves!"
Such vulgarity coming from Louise, the time spent among commoners had done her a world of good, Kirche would have applauded her if not for how she'd just used it. Smiling tightly, she started to laugh right back, tried to diffuse what had just been said, tried to give her time for her blood to cool, but it wasn't working. Louise had learned some tricks too in their verbal sparring and she knew this one.
Kirche felt her grip on her temper slipping. Louise didn't know. She wasn't supposed to know. How could she know? Louise was barely more than a child, her heart still closed to things like romance. She didn't know how painful these sorts of mistakes could be. How humiliating they could be.
Kirche's laughter began to wane. Louise  couldn't  have anything else, surely her anger was spent.
"It's why the boys know to wear their hair a certain way. Why they wear that perfume. Because they've heard it all." She went on. "Kirche, the only reason I've been able to stand you, is because in the end, you're as much of a joke here as you were in Germania! So maybe you really do know what it feels like Kirche, for someone to not want you?"
What remained of Kirche's resolve broke. Her second mistake.
The laughter returned, and it didn't stop, it was too late for that. Kirche just kept on laughing until she thought she was going to scream. All she wanted now as to hurt Louise as badly as Louise was hurting her. And so, Kirche reached for the most painful thing that came to mind.
That was her last mistake.
"Founder! Louise, here I thought you were some shriveled up little Valliere prude who'd gotten herself mistaken for a child! But you've had teeth all along, and you've finally bared them. You must be so proud!"
Louise half recoiled at Kirche's mirthful laugh. "You've got me read Louise! Why in the deepest infernos of hell would I ever waste my time with a defective piece of Tristanian inbreeding like you? You want to know?"
"Kirche?" Louise seemed suddenly taken aback. There wasn't any wit to what Kirche was doing now, she just wanted, wanted to be as hateful as she could, as hurtful as she could.
"You think we'd have wasted our time watching you butcher spells like that?" Kirche leaned over Louise. "Well it wasn't because of your personality Valliere! You're right Louise, me and Tabitha only helped you because of something we thought we saw, and by the Founder's own judgment, we were right!"
Louise grabbed hold of her blouse by the collar, pulling herself up level so that she could looking into Kirche's left eye with her own good right eye. "Make sense you prattling Germanian bitch!"
"I'm saying that you're not as much of a failure as you think you are Louise, you're an even bigger one! The only reason the headmaster was keeping you at the Academy, granting permission for special materials was as a freak to be experimented on because of what you summoned!"
"Summoned?" Louise blinked furiously.
"You can't have not wondered about it." Kirche sniped cruelly. "You're not that dumb Louise." The smaller girl's hand loosened on her blouse collar, slipping free. "It's pretty funny if you think about it, isn't it Valliere?" Louise shook her head, confused. "Considering how much you get along with them. Especially KoKo. 'Oh KoKo? Oh KoKo?'" Kirche imitated Louise's voice in shrill tones. "'Where art thou my darling KoKo? I love you KoKo. I want to help you KoKo!' Except you can't help her!" Kirche looked down her triumphantly. "Because you're the problem. In fact, you're everyone's problem. Founder, there could be a war because of you, you selfish little brat!"
"No… no…" Louise's eye widened, raising hands to her shaking head. All of it, the coincidences, the vague suspicions, started to come together. "What you're saying doesn't make any sense!"
"Face it Louise. Collapsing from willpower exhaustion right before the World Tree appears? The Headmaster keeping you after your failure? Me and Tabitha wasting our time with you? And then what you did two nights ago?"
"Two… nights ago?"
"The transition, the Faeries, all of it!" Kirche exalted as she watched Louise break. "You're the one who brought them here!"
Silence as Kirche breathed in, savoring her ill gained exuberance as Louise's eye dulled into complete absence of thought. It served her right. Maybe now Louise would have an idea of the kind of betrayal she'd been so casually using against her.
But it wasn't Louise who answered, and it wasn't for Kirche to feel any joy when she heard the small voice behind her.
"Louise-chan? That's not true… that's not true, right?"
Kirche's blood chilled as she turned slowly to the door, and forms standing there. There was Doctor Shouichi of course, the Sylph offering himself as support for his patient. Garbed in a linen gown, even now KoKo looked frail from her near run in with death, the healers and her natural vitality had gone far, but she'd only even been allowed out of bed just this morning.
Bandages were still wrapped around her chest, one bandaged across her cheek, and another covering the stitching of a torn ear. Gauze protruded from the collar of her gown, and even from here she reeked of healing salves and disinfectants. It would have been a tragic sight on its own. But the look in her eyes broke Kirche from her own tirade.
Sad, desperate not to believe, hoping that it was all a bad dream.
No! She wanted to take it back. Such horrible, hurtful words! She hadn't meant them! Kirche eyes widened. She raised a hand, but she wasn't the one KoKo wanted.
"Louise-chan. Tell me it's not true." She smiled feebly, shaking her head.
"I…" Louise licked her lips, opened and close them. "It… I… I…"
"Why don't you tell me it's not true?" KoKo asked, letting go of Doctor Shouichi, stumbling forward on her own two legs into the small room. "Please!"
"KoKo-san, please. This isn't good for you. This sort of stress." The Doctor warned. "You could tear your stitches!"
"Why won't you tell me, Louise?!"
Louise finally found the words to say, she couldn't have picked more badly. "KoKo I'm sorry!"
The Cait stopped, dead, head drooped, her hands fell to her side, twitching, fingers tensing and loosening. Kirche could see the tendon's rise and fall as she clenched and unclenched her jaw, an action almost like chewing. The Faerie's whole form began to shake, first with small tremors and then like a leaf.
"S-send us… back." Barely more than a whisper, and barely discernible from the throaty growl that it had been said in.
"I… I don't think… I can…" Louise supplied, stammered as she tried to sit up, even to skooch away deeper into the bed, wanting nothing more than to retreat fearfully from the Cait Syth, to make it all go away. "I don't know how…"
"You have to!" KoKo said quickly, shoulders hunching, her fists balled so tightly that sharp nails drew blood, squeezing out from between knuckles. Her voice began to shake, to gain a feline bent. "You have to,  you need to, I… we… ne-yknow!" KoKo almost launched herself forward, half stumbling, half throwing herself onto the bed, the wooden frame groaning as she threw herself onto Louise, voice full of rage, eyes full of tears.
"I have to go back!" She screamed into Louise's tearful, disbelieving face. This wasn't the KoKo either of them knew, gentle and mild, but rather a woman broken and near hysteria.
"KoKo-san!" Doctor Shouichi shouted out into the hall before grabbing hold of her from behind, wrestling to get her into a hold.
"Send us back. Daisuke's only seven. Send us back!" Voice breaking into sobs as she fought to hold onto Louise, sharp nails drawing bloody scratches on Louise's forearms as she was pulled loose. "He still  needs his  mother !"
More people were arriving now, the musketeer who had been standing Guard at the end of the hall, and two other Fae, Sylphs by the look of them, a girl and boy of the same age as the Doctor.
"Eterne!" Shouichi gestured at the doorway, calling for a barricade. "Some help!"
A swift nod from the girl and even swifter chant, a jingling of her ringed staff and a translucent barrier of Faerie magic walled the grief stricken Cait off from the far side of the room. Safe behind the magic, for the moment, Louise and Kirche watched on, stunned, as Doctor Shouichi and a lime haired Sylph boy wrestled with KoKo, their muted cries and shouts echoing across the barrier.
She got loose one last time, reaching out to hammer fists against the barrier with a sound like the surface of a drum. Then, more Faeries arrived, these two in armor, soldiers by the look of it. They were stronger than KoKo, but were surprisingly gentle, each taking an arm firmly, but not letting go, waiting for her struggles to weaken.
Only then did then did they dare to shift their grips, tenderly lifting the woman off of her feet to take her away. KoKo struggled one last time, and then surrendered, limply sinking into her captors arms like a rag doll. The barrier was dispelled with a small chant and wave of the Sylph girl's hand, the room returning to its normal volume.
"K-KoKo?" Louise whispered, reaching out with one bloodied hand.
The Cait didn't say a thing, didn't even look up. All that was left was the soft trembling and the utter silence of someone whose vocal cords were locked in inaudible screams of grief. She'd been taken away without another word, the Guards walking her gently from the room.
There were apologies, pleas of forgiveness from Doctor Shouichi, who somehow, despite hearing everything, had managed to retain his composure. He'd either already been told, or he was made of remarkably sterner stuff than he appeared. After quickly conferring with the guards, an additional pair of musketeers were sent for, to stand watch over Louise's doorway.
Doctor Shouichi then turned to treating the scratches on Louise's arms, only stopping when a healer arrived to take his place, no doubt alerted by the screaming earlier.
"I… I have to go check on KoKo-san." Doctor Shouichi said quickly, looking Louise over. "Again I am sorry about this, Valliere-san. She merely wished to surprise you. I see that I should have checked beforehand." But he had checked, with Kirche. She'd forgotten. The Germanian sank teeth into her lip until she tasted blood.
Only after the Sylphs had left, when Louise and Kirche were alone with the healer, did she speak out loud again. "Daisuke?"
"Her son." Louise said without a trace of emotion. "He's back in the world they came from."
Kirche nodded her head slowly. "Louise, I…"
"Kirche." Louise interrupted. There was no anger, no rage or pain, nothing at all. Louise didn't even consider her worth of a glance. "I never want to see you again."
Kirche squeezed her suddenly burning eyes shut. She knew that she'd just lost something precious, something irreplaceable that she hadn't even realized she'd had. If she even wanted to keep even a tiny shred of it alive, there was only one thing she could say now.
"Yeah. I understand."