Beyond the Silver Chair of Night (FnZ/Exalted)

[drakensis]

Kirche von Zerbst blinked, then rubbed her eyes. Contrary to all previous experiences of Louise de la Valliere and magic, her classmate had actually managed to complete the summoning.

And said summoning was certainly unique, if not magnificent or beautiful.

For one thing, familiars do not generally appear wearing clothes and this one was wearing a red, ankle-length robe and a straw hat.

Secondly they do not typically use tools and yet, Louise's familiar was holding an intricately wrought silver rod approximately its own height. Whether or not the thing was magical or not, it was unquestionably valuable.

And while it is not unheard of, it is vanishingly unusual for a familiar to speak, since only the most magical of creatures have that capacity. And yet:

"Who presumes to summon Yin Luang?"

On the other hand, he was a monkey.

And rather a small one.

"Why Louise he's so cute," she said teasingly. "I bet you can barely wait to complete the ceremony."

Louise's cheeks flushed crimson. "Shut up, Zerbst!" she snapped. "You're just jealous."

"You? You summoned me?" The monkey - Yin Luang, whatever sort of name that was - examined Louise rather sceptically. "Pff. You are a mere child, hard to imagine that you be capable of summoning one of the Chosen. But I see that it is so."

"Absolutely," Kirche told the smaller girl with a grin. "Kissing a monkey has always been an ambition of mine and now you get to do it before me. You can tell how jealous I am."

"That will be enough, Miss Zerbst." Professor Colbert waved her to silence. "Please proceed, Miss Valliere."

Louise stepped towards the magical monkey, raising her wand. However, when she made to wave it above the head of her familiar, the monkey raised its rod and blocked the implement firmly.

"What are you doing?" she protested.

Yin Luang shook his head firmly. "I elect to overlook your rashness in summoning, out of a certain troubling compassion for your scant years," he declared confidently. "But that does not mean that I will subject myself to the indignity of being bound like some common spirit or demon or ghost. I am Child to the Burning Moon and if you desire my services then be prepared to bargain for them!"

Louise stamped her foot petulantly. "It is a great honour for you to be familiar to a mage!"

"Honour? Walk through the Dragon's Graveyard, look upon the Memorial of Fallen Stars... then talk to me of honour, mage-child." Yin Luang tapped his staff on the ground. "For at this moment you know not one thing of it."

Colbert stepped closer. "You must accept this," he advised the monkey. "It is a sacred ritual -"

Without blinking, Yin Luang spat out a number of syllables unfamiliar to anyone on the field. The professor backed up abruptly, raising his staff and preparing what Kirche realised to her surprise must be a fire spell of at least triangle level. However, what none of them expected was a blazing white and silver flame to leap into existance around the monkey. The last thing Kirche saw before she had to turn away from the fierce light were Yin Luang's eyes blazing with an incandescent light.

There was a pained cry from Louise, who having been facing the monkey directly, must have been unable to turn away in time.

"I am Yin Luang, Seventh Sage of the Perfected Lotus, Champion of Rockfell, Master of the House of Unnecessary Violence. Sunblinder, Deathslayer, Demonrider. There is nothing that you may demand of me save that it pleases me."

"What... what must I offer you?" Louise asked and Kirche raised both eyebrows. That was a desperate thing to ask. Could Louise really think that she could salvage anything of this mess.

However, there was a note of amusement in Yin Luang's voice. "Most persistent, child. You are highborn?"

"I am." What impossible demand would this Yin Luang make? The Valliere were a wealthy family, but Louise's ability to pledge that fortune was limited.

"Pledge then, that when I bring a child to your house, be it at tomorrow's dawn or a thousand years hence, that you or your kinfolk will raise that infant amongst you as a child of your house. For that favour, I shall offer you my services for a year and a day."

Louise did not appear to hesitate in the slightest. "For myself and my descendants I make that pledge. But only so long as I may complete the ritual to mark you as my familiar."

"Well bargained. Let it be done then."

The terrible, searing light vanished in the literal blinking of an eye and Kirche turned to see Louise, eyes red and watering, pressing a kiss against the lips of the monkey.

.oOo.

Kirche was lying in wait when Louise got back to her room, having flown ahead with her own familiar. A few taunts about Louise only having her familiar for a year should get the Tristainian spitting with fury as usual - Louise was adorably cute when she was fuming.

The sound of Louise muttering to herself as she climbed the stairs was sufficient warning to lean over the rail and prefer her opening salvo.

"I can hear everything that you are saying," Yin Luang observed as he climbed up the steps behind his mistress, apparently little bothered by the fact that each stair was almost knee high on him.

Kirche could see Louise blushing again. "You're not what I had in mind for a familiar!"

"You wanted something magnificant, powerful and beautiful. In what measure do you consider me lacking?" the monkey declared in an irritated voice.

"You're... not beautiful."

The monkey sneered. "You're a narrow-minded little girl, aren't you? Still, I did accept you as my master. It shall be as you desire." With those words, Yin Luang... stretched was the only word of Kirche's vocabulary that fit. The small frame extended under the red robe, which seemed to tear open to reveal shoulders that were no longer furred. Indeed, as the familiar grew, proportions shifting, fur vanished and was replaced with human flesh.

Discarding the hat revealed a luxurious mane of golden-blonde hair cascading down the back of the young woman that had replaced the monkey. The robe had somehow become a sinfully short dress that hung off a figure only marginally less lush than Kirche's own. "Is this more pleasing to your eyes, master?" Yin Luang asked in a voice that had also changed, velvety and feminine.

Louise seemed to be choking on her tongue since she wasn't getting anything coherent out of her mouth. With a sigh, the new and (in Kirche's eyes) very much more interesting familiar picked the girl up and finished climbing the stairs.

"Good afternoon," she greeted Kirche cheerfully. "Could you tell me where Louise de la Valliere's room is?"

Kirche pointed mutely to the appropriate door, eyes searching for any sort of blemish on the other girl.

"You're a darling," Yin Luang assured her and stepped closer to press a quick kiss on the Germainian's cheek before carrying her spluttering master through the door.

After a moment of standing looking at the door, pressing fingertips against the target of the kiss, Kirche switched her gaze down to the Salamander coiled at her feet. "You're not going to do that, are you Flame?"

.oOo.

Fortunately for Kirche's peace of mind, and probably to the benefit of Louise's disposition, Yin Luang had returned to the form of a monkey when she saw the familiar the next day. It was probably bad enough for Louise that her familiar seemed to have several quite impressive magical abilities to contrast with the youngest Valliere's profound limits in the working of magic. Having said familiar's bosom also outstripping her would probably drive her to an early grave.

In fact, Yin Luang solemnly escorted Louise to her seat at the breakfast table, seated her with a bow that would not have disgraced the chief butler of any great household and then retreated from the Alviss Dining Hall in a dignified fashion, presumably seeking out his own meal.

The sudden eruption of azure light from the direction of the Vestri Court during the benediction over the meal was unexpected and Kirche was far from the only student to abandon their meal in order to rush to windows overlooking that part of the Academy.

The court was usually an open expanse of grass. To this had now been added a spectacular palace of white ivory, so fine that in places Kirche could see through it as if it were glass. Plainly visible from her position was a large feasting hall that now played host to the scores of familiars that would normally be waiting for their masters outside, her own salamander amongst them. Seated at the end of the table in the place of honour was, of course, Yin Luang. The monkey was perched upon what could only be called a throne and taking desultory bites from an unfamiliar yellow fruit.

Kirche's attention was drawn to the teacher's table where Professor Kaita had apparently decided to take it upon himself to deal with the unexpected addition to the school's architecture. Given that Flame would be in the midst of the confrontation, the Germainan dashed for the doorway, followed by many other second and third year students who didn't want their familiars - in many cases brand new - to suffer the wrath of the irascible wind mage.

"Who is responsible for this!?" Kaita roared as he marched through the doors of the palace and into the hall.

Yin Luang used a bowl of fruit in his hand to push back his hat to look down at the black clad professor. "Ah, professor. Please join us. Would you like a banana?"

Tabitha's familiar considerately pushed an empty chair into place next to the monkey's throne.

"No I do not want a... banana, whatever that is!" Kaita looked around the hall for any sign of the earth mage responsible for the palace. Other than the students who had followed him, there did not seem to be any other animals present.

"All the more for me then," Yin Luang lowered the bowl of fruit, having retreived another of the long yellow fruits. Holding it by the stem the monkey flicked his wrist, causing a long section of peel to break away. He used his other hand to lift a crystal goblet of wine. "They are truly the king of fruits." Having worked the rest of the skin off he took a genteel bite from the creamy fruit inside.

"I demand -"

The monkey glared forbodingly at the man. "Your manners are atrocious, sir. Amend them forthwith or I shall seek satisfaction."

"A-are you... challenging me, familiar?" Kaita exclaimed incredulously.

Kirche gulped. This could not end well.

Yin Luang tossed the peel of his banana forward, placing it neatly under Kaita's foot as the mage stepped forwards towards the throne. There was a startled yelp and the professor's foot went skidding out from under him, dropping him to the floor in a painful looking fall.

"Such a careless man," Louise's familiar said matter of factly. "Would one of you noble gentlemen care to take him to whatever passes for an infirmary here?"

.oOo.

"So do you come here often?" Kirche asked. She had opened her door to hear more clearly the shouting of Louise at her familiar only to be just in time to see the door slam behind Yin Luang when he was banished from the Valliere's chamber.

"Every now and then," the monkey replied to the limp sally, leaping casually onto the rail at the top of the stairs and standing on it, tail curling down to provide a third point of contact. "And yourself?"

The redhead grinned. "Oh, all the time! It's very much the place to be for young women of ardor!"

"And so it has become home not only to yourself but also to young Tabitha and to my master. How fitting."

"And to you," Kirche pointed out. "After all, you are also a young woman, are you not?"

Yin Luang chuckled, a deep and very masculine sound. "If you accept the theory that one is only as old as the woman you feel, then perhaps the first part is so. As for a woman... well such matters very little to one such as I."

"But you're not just a monkey, are you?"

"I am the veritable Monarch of Monkeys, darling," the familiar told her without batting an eyelid. "It's one of my many titles."

Kirche nodded. "Champion of Rockfall, Seventh Sage of the Lotus..."

"Of the Perfected Lotus, if you would be so kind as to recall."

"Oh quite, I do apologise."

"Your remorse is accepted." Yin Luang rolled casually forwards off the railing, describing a slow arc as he pivoted on his tail's grip, slipped between two rails and then in mirror image of his fall ascended in a similar smooth fashion back to the top of the rail. Thereupon he stalked back and forth along it. "It is understood that being in a place so far removed from the Creation that I know as to have two moons that proper terminiology may be little known."

"How can there only be one moon, aren't they same everywhere?"

"Not quite, no. I have to say, I have no idea how the Silver Horned Watcher would respond. Rage, laughter or lust... perhaps all three."

Kirche almost asked who Yin Luang spoke of but she hesitated.

"Afraid?" the monkey asked her wryly. "You're taking steps into a wider world. Of course, that's not unusual at your age but this is perhaps taking it to extremes."

"How old are you?" It was perhaps the least of questions to begin with.

Yin Luang shrugged. "Time is not always a constant measure. More than an millenium, probably."

A thousand years? Older than her entire nation? Kirche shivered at the thought. "Is that normal for you?"

"It's rare, but hardly unheard of." He smiled at her. "Now ask what you really want to."

"...is she still you?"

"She is he, he is she and both are me." Yin stepped from the rail and when bare foot touched the stone floor, she was there once more - golden hair, milky-white skin... Kirche shook off the urge to wax even more lyrical as the familiar drew her into a close embrace and then there were no more words.

.oOo.

"How could you!" Louise demanded of her familiar.

Yin Luang nodded solemnly. "Well we started out with kissing and moved on to general caresses before Kirche got embarassed and insisted we should go to her room before continuing..."

"That's not what I meant!"

"It isn't?" A grin crossed Yin Luang's simian lips. "When I was your age I was fascinated by the topic of lesbian sex."

Kirche couldn't resist butting in. "She'd probably be more interested in two boys making love, but don't expect her to admit it. Tristainians are very repressed."

Louise's face was almost the colour of a tomato. "I-I-I-" she stammered.

Yin Luang patted her comfortably on the knee (being about as high as he could conveniently reach due to his current diminutive size). "Well if I hit it off with any of the boys around here, I'll be sure to tell you in private, master."

"Yaaaargh!" Louise screamed and tried to slap at Yin Luang's head. However, he had adjusted his pace suddenly and by the time her hand finished sweeping through the air on Louise's left, he was walking on her right. "Don't touch me! I don't want Zerbst on me."

"Zerbst on you, master?"

"You were touching her all night! I don't want any of that on me."

Yin Luang looked over at Kirche. "I thought your name was Kirche."

"Kirche von Zerbst." The redhead shrugged. "Our families are rivals."

Yin Luang nodded. "Don't worry master, I had a bath afterwards."

"Oh yes, that was fun," Kirche agreed. "And then we -"

"Aaah!"

The monkey shook his head. "Again, after that," he corrected Kirche. "Cleanliness is important."

Louise's wand went off - Kirche couldn't really describe it as anything as formalised as casting a spell - and the Germainian ducked by reflex. The resultant explosion appeared to have been centred on Yin Luang who disappeared behind a pall of smoke.

"Is something the matter Master? Are we under attack?" the monkey asked, having somehow moved himself up to Louise's shoulder. He had raised his silver staff defensively and was facing towards the explosion.

Louise spun on her heel, Yin Luang dropping easily from her shoulder and cast fireball almost randomly. Not that the result was a fireball, but the resultant explosion did a not insubstantial amount of damage to the wall of the academy's central tower.

"I don't believe that there are invisible enemies around here, master," Yin Luang advised from somewhere behind Louise's feet. She turned again, tripped over her own feet - probably dizzy, Kirche thought - and fell over on top of her familiar, who caught her easily - which shouldn't have worked given the relative sizes but somehow Yin Luang was able to hold Louise bridal fashion despite being less than two feet tall.

Louise latched onto him like a blanket. "I forbid you to have anything whatsoever to do with Kirche von Zerbst!" she ordered frantically.

Yin Luang blinked. "If that is your order, master..." He threw an apologetic look over at Kirche, who pouted. Then she saw him glance down at Louise, shrug his shoulders slightly and look up, somewhat abashed. It wasn't fair to blame him for being so cute that Louise was being possessive.

Kirche frowned suddenly. Wait, he hadn't said that out loud... that was an awful lot to read into a few expressions and movements. Except she was sure that that was exactly what he meant. Hmmm. "Say, Yin Luang, can you take other forms? Look like a man, for example?"

"Master, am I allowed to answer if Miss von Zerbst asks me a question?"

"Hmm... no!" Louise said triumphantly. "Wait... can you?"

"I could answer her, but I won't since you asked me not to."

"I mean take a man's shape."

"Of course I can master. I was born a man after all."

Louise struggled out of his arms and sat on the grass. "Why didn't you tell me that?"

"You never asked, master." Yin Luang looked up as a section of stone fell away from the Academy's tower. "Do you think anyone will be upset that you broke the tower?"

Louise and Kirche looked up at the fractured stonework. "um..."

"Wow, Louise the Zero strikes again. Do you think you'll be expelled this time?"

.oOo.

Old Osmond looked befuddled, Professor Colbert looked disturbed and Osmond's secretary appeared to be pretending that she wasn't present and definitely was not hearing the conversation.

"So the reason that there is now substantial damage to the fifth storey of the Academy's central tower is that Miss von Zerbst engaged in..." Osmond coughed awkwardly. "...an affair with Miss de la Valliere's familiar." The three adults stared at Yin Luang, who was sitting on the floor, sharing a banana with the headmaster's mouse. The secretary looked away, cheeks flushed.

Louise nodded earnestly. "I'm very sorry for missing with the spell, but I was distraught."

"That is, perhaps... understandable," Osmond murmured. "And what do you have to say for yourself, Miss von Zerbst?"

Kirche blinked. "Louise the Zero blew a hole through the Academy. Why are you accusing me of anything?"

"You prior conduct," (Which had led to her expulsion from every prominent Academy of Magic in Germainia) "does lend some credence to Miss de la Valliere's suggestion of provocation."

"What!?"

"Miss von Zerbst, I have never had to ask a student this: have you engaged in sexual activities with Miss de la Valliere's familiar?"

Kirche looked over at Yin Luang. "Well... yes."

There were gasps.

"He wasn't a monkey at the time!"

Colbert cleared his throat. "Could you expand on that statement, Miss von Zerbst?"

"He's a shapeshifter." Kirche thought back to the shape that Yin Luang had taken and couldn't help but blush. God, what would the male form look like? "For our tryst, he took the form of a girl."

The bald teacher had to lean on the headmaster's desk to stay upright. For his part, Old Osmond had a glassy look in his eyes. The secretary removed her glasses and polished them for a moment. "I find that rather hard to believe, Miss Zerbst. Monkeys are a little known species, but they are not generally shapeshifters."

"Well he can show you."

This elicited no response from Yin Luang except to twitch the empty banana skin teasingly in front of the mouse that he was playing with.

Kirche crossed her arms under her breasts and leant forwards. "Please, Yin Luang, won't you show the teachers?"

The monkey did not look up. "I'm sorry Kirche but my master has forbidden me to have anything to do with you."

"Yes, absolutely!" Louise agreed. "I have to protect my familiar from your twisted lusts."

Yin Luang snickered. "I think my master wants to keep me for herself," he confided to the woman. "She's not the first woman to feel that way."

Osmond cleared his threat. "Miss de la Valliere, I do think that we are getting away from the essential point. Did you cause the damage?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then you must be held accountable for the act," the old mage declared. "Notwithstanding the entirely seperate matter of Miss von Zerbst's conduct."

.oOo.

"This is all your fault!" Louise snapped at Kirche as the two girls assembled their possessions upon seperate wagons.

"Mine?" Kirche glared at the smaller girl. "You're the one who manufactured accusations against me!"

"I wouldn't have been expelled if you hadn't led my familiar astray!"

"And I wouldn't have been expelled if you'd kept your mouth shut about it."

Yin Luang sprawled carelessly on the back of a carthorse. scratching at the neck of Flame, who was half coiled around the monkey and all but purring. "That's something that you don't see every day."

The two girls looked over at him. "What?" Louise asked.

He pointed up past them towards the centre of the campus. "It's not quite the largest warstrider I've ever seen, but it's not far off."

Towering over the architecture of the school, a gigantic earth golem drove its fist into the side of the centre tower, exploiting the existing damage to breach the walls entirely.

"Um, isn't the school's treasure chamber on that floor?" Kirche asked uneasily.

"We have to stop it!" Louise shouted and pulled out her wand.

Kirche grabbed her hand. "How? By destroying the rest of the Academy?" She drew her own wand out of her cleavage. "Leave this to an expert, Zero."

A torrent of flames lashed out from her wand, wreathing the elemental in fire for a few moments. Which was very pretty but didn't seem to have an effect.

"Ha ha!" Louise called. "Looks like you're the one having zero effect, Zerbst!"

"That's pretty good magic," noted Yin Luang, who had abandoned his perch on the horse to stand by Louise's feet, just as Flame had moved to support his own master. "The wrong tool for the job, but nice anyway." He tilted his hat back. "Hmm, I do believe I saw someone step from that strider into the treasure chamber before the fire struck. A thief perhaps?"

The two girls exchanged looks. "It must be Fouquet the Crumbling Dirt."

"A challenge? A powerful mage?" A wicked grin crossed Yin Luang's face. "Master, may Flame and I go out and play?"

"What!?"

"Sounds like permission to me." Yin Luang hopped onto the Salamander's back, riding the fire lizard if it were a horse. "Let's go, Flame!"

The salamander scampered forwards to the resounding cry of: "Don't you dare get my Familiar hurt!" from Kirche.

Thirty seconds later the golem reverted to a heap of soil in an emerald flash. The vocal accompaniment to this was "Hmm, thought that that might work," from Yin Luang and a shriek of surprise from Fouquet, who had been standing on the golem's shoulder when it disintegrated.

A minute later and Yin Luang walked out of the dust cloud sent up by the collapse of the golem, Flame at his side and the headmaster's secretary draped over his shoulders (which required the use of both hands to keep her head and knees from dragging on the ground). "...what works for you. Yes, my way makes women fall out of the sky but it doesn't necessarily work for other people and wouldn't you rather it was a nice salamander that was falling for you?"

Flame nodded and gave a reluctant hiss.

"I'll give you some pointers later," the monkey told the rather larger salamander. He looked over at Louise. "Look master, it's a secretary. Can I keep her?"

Louise stared. "But what about Fouquet?"

"I'm pretty sure that this is her."

Kirche palmed her face. "Why would a famous thief be working as the headmaster's secretary?"

"Well she might be casing the joint and he might want someone decorative around his office."

The woman groaned. "I'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you kids and your damn monkey."

[drakensis]

"I can't believe they still expelled us!"

Louise and Kirche were sharing a seat in one of the two carts that were slowly rolling eastwards from Tristain Academy of Magic. While both nobles were accustomed to riding horses, directing a cart was stranger to them and so hired teamsters were responsible for the actual driving.

"We saved the Staff of Destruction from being stolen!" Kirche agreed. "The headmaster's ingratitude is unbelievable!"

"The staff did get broken in the process," Yin Luang commented. Apparently it had hit the ground rather hard when Fouquet dropped it. Lousy craftsmanship in his opinion. "And he did state he would recommend that you would be made chevaliers. Whatever that means."

"It's a title of nobility," Louise explained snootily.

"Hmm. So Flame and I do all the work and you get all the credit. This all seems terribly familiar somehow..." He didn't seem particularly bothered by the idea though.

"How is it you're a monkey if you were born a man? Is it some sort of curse?"

"What part of being a monkey could possibly be a curse?" Yin Luang asked Louise in surprise. "You should really try it some time."

"Er, I'm not a shapeshifter so..."

"Pff. Give me a little time to figure out the details and..."

"There's really no need to go to the trouble."

"It's fine, I've always meant to work out how to shapeshift someone else and having a test subject will help a great deal."

"Familiar, I absolutely forbid you to ever try to change me into a monkey!"

The monkey sighed. "Alright, alright."

"And show me your normal body."

"What, all of it?"

"Well, ye- uh, no. Remain clothed."

Yin Luang did not move from his seat, his body simply expanded much as the girls had seen previously. Once again, the fur receded from his body but where before the skin left behind had been pale it was now a very dark brown, almost black. The red robe shrunk to a short vest that did nothing of substance to cover a broad and very well-defined male chest, although fortunately for the shapechanger's modesty blousy white pants covered his lower body. In some manner than Kirche could not identify, the straw hat was replaced with a white turban, decorated with a large square gemstone over his forehead.

"I hope that this meets with your satisfaction, master," he said in a deep voice that sent trembles through Kirche. She guessed that he was only slightly taller than her, but far larger. Why, she could almost lie upon him as if he were a bed...

"Eeeeee," Louise mumbled and blushed furiously.

"So you both live in the same part of Halkegina?" Yin Luang asked, apparently unbothered that Kirche took advantage of Louise's distraction to perch herself upon his knee.

"Why yes," Kirche agreed. "Our family estates have faced each other across the border between Germainia and Tristain for two hundred years."

"Get off my familiar, von Zerbst," Louise shouted, her perceptions catching up with the change in Kirche's seating. When words were not enough, she tried to scramble onto the man herself to throw the other girl off.

Yin Luang tolerated this scrambling around until Louise's foot, searching for a footing, came entirely too close to his groin. With a deep sigh he grabbed his master by the back of her blouse, hoisted her up in the air for a moment before placing her on his other knee, facing Kirche. "I am not a duelling ground," he said and placed one arm firmly around her shoulders to keep her from moving. "Why is it that you two can't get along?"

"A Zerbst stole away my great-grandfather's fiancee!"

"My great-great-grandmother was far too passionate a woman to be tied down to some second-rate Tristainian noble!"

"How dare you refer to the Dukes de la Valliere as second-rate!"

Yin Luang put his free arm around Kirche and firmly kept the pair out of arms reach of each other. "It seems a matter worthy of revenge, master," he agreed. "But may I suggest that the punishment fit the crime?"

"What?"

"Since the Zerbst family stole away a Valliere's woman, perhaps the Valliere should lay claim to a Zerbst woman." Yin glanced at Kirche and a sly smile flickered across his lips for a moment. "Conveniently, we have one right here."

Louise's eyes went wide. "B-b-b-bu..."

Kirche swallowed nervously and then smirked quietly. Louise would never go for it. "Mighty mage, I beg you," she pled holding up her hands, wrists pressed together as if bound. "Ravage not my lands and people, for I offer my body as tribute to you."

The cartdriver lost control of the team at that point and only frantic tugging on the reins kept the cart from crashing into a ditch. Yin Luang smiled broadly.

"Gah!" Louise screamed. "Stupid familiar! You're just trying to get her to seduce you again!"

"Quite the contrary." Yin Luang shook his head firmly. "Firstly because I'm the one who seduced her. Secondly because I'm quite evidently trying to get her to seduce you."

"What!? Why!?"

"You're too tense, master. A passionate tryst could only do you good."

Any further complaints were cut off as Kirche managed to lean forwards (Yin Luang's grip may possibly have slackened somehow) and bury Louise's face in her cleavage.

.oOo.

The edge of the Valliere estates were not more than a day or so from the Tristain Academy, but the actual seat of the family (a palatial chateau) was located a further three days travel away. Kirche and Louise had both kept an eye on Yin Luang at this, with Kirche adding that the Zerbst holdings were quite similar in size. From his reactions they could not tell if he was hiding surprise at the great expanse of the estates or simply didn't find land management on that scale to be at all unusual.

"You mentioned when you were first summoned that you were Champion of Rockfall," Kirche recalled. "Is that your home... region?"

"It's a sovereignty," Yin Luang answered. "Probably a little larger than either of your family estates but it's mostly mountains so there isn't a huge population. I have an estate there that's quite pleasent in the winter."

"So you're wealthy?"

"A little money here, a little there... it all adds up and land is a fairly stable investment until someone tries to take it away from you."

Louise blinked. "What happens then?"

"That's where the Champion part of the title comes into play." Yin Luang shrugged. "It doesn't happen all that often - Rockfall really isn't all that important to anyone who doesn't live there."

"How did you become their champion?" Kirche asked, leaning her head on his shoulder. SHe was pretty sure she wouldn need to flirt to induce him to seduce her again, this time while he was a him, but flirting was not a means to an end, it was an end in itself.

"Oh is it storytime already?" The black man smiled broadly, displaying dazzlingly white teeth. "This would have been... oh, about eight hundred years ago. I was running away from the Ice Witch of Tzatli at the time..."

"You were running away from someone?" Louise had somehow not envisaged her formidable familiar as being afraid of anything.

Yin Luang nodded solemnly. "There's always a bigger fish, master. Forget that at your peril. In any case, Rockfall seemed like a nice place to hide but I needed an ironclad cover. Fortunately, their lord was in dire need of a means to stave off an invasion by the neighbouring Prince. Traditionally, offering to settle such matters with a duel of champions is a face-saving gesture: the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun serve as their own champions and they don't lose very often. So I offered him a similar deal to that I offered you, master. I would serve him as his champion in the matter if he would adopt a child of my choosing to raise as his own."

"And you won?"

"Tore out her eyes and ate them," Yin Luang agreed cheerfully. "Then I took the form of a baby and put myself on the lord's doorstep in a basket. He got his independence and I got raised as his daughter for twenty years while the Ice Witch's temper warmed."

"Warmed? Don't you mean cooled?"

"No, her temper runs cold." Yin Luang frowned. "Master, have I offended any bitchy-looking blondes lately?"

Louise blinked and frowned. "Not that you've told me about."

"Hmm. I wonder why she was glaring at me when her coach went past."

"Which coach?" Louise looked around, having missed the passage of the other traveller while listening to the admittedly rather short tale that had been told.

Yin Luang leant back a bit and twisted his head to look back. "Ah, the one that's turned around and is chasing us."

"Urk."

"Master?"

"About as tall as Kirche, glasses like this," Louise traced triangular shapes over her eyes, "And a sort of pinched expression?" She thinned her lips menacingly.

"Yes, that's her."

"Aaaah! That's my sister Eleanor!"

Kirche tapped the carter on the shoulder. "We should stop for a moment."

"No, no we should speed up!" Louise suggested. Unfortuantely for her, the carter was far too sensible than to turn this into a chase where the pursuing mage could win by damaging the poor man's cart and harming his livelihood.

Almost immediately, a coach emblazoned with the heraldry of the Valliere family pulled alongside and the blonde that Yin Luang had described stormed out of the door almost before it had come to a halt. "Louise, you runt!" she snapped, lunging at the young de la Valliere. "What are you doing, sitting in the lap of that comm-!?"

An instant before Eleanor de la Valliere's hands could close upon her errant sister, Yin Luang's voice uttered a single sharp syllable: "Kiai!" The noblewoman shrieked as she was bowled over backwards by the cry and dropped into the mud of the road.

"Your sister is very rude," Yin Luang observed in a mild voice as he lifted Louise from his knee. Kirche sensibly scrambled off before the familiar vaulted off the cart.

Eleanor's wand came to her hand the same moment that Yin Luang, once more a red-robed monkey wearing a straw had and wielding a silver rod, landed next to her.

"What...! Where did that man go."

"Foolish child." Yin Luang twisted the rod in his paws, stretching and pulling at the implement as he spoke gently. "I am not without pity, should you apologise for your attempted assault upon my master."

.oOo.

"Y-y-you... defeated Eleanor!" Louise exclaimed after her mud-soaked sister finally collapsed against the wheel of her coach and decided that yes, now would be a nice time to have a nap.

Yin Luang nodded wisely and then held up one finger. "I do not understand your surprise Master. It is not as if she laid a finger upon me."

This was indeed true. Yin Luang had simply walked slowly towards the oldest Valliere sister occasionally uttering battle cries that had smacked the mage's wand from her hand on the occasions she had recovered it, or bowled her over back into the mud. This had gone on for some time, with Kirche, the carters and even the coachman frozen in the appreciation of a not unattractive blonde being repeatedly thrown into damp, clinging mud.

Louise had simply been frozen in horror.

"Mother will kill me," she concluded. "Goodbye cruel world."

The monkey frowned. "That would be unfortunate. Why do you believe that your mother will react badly?"

Louise gave her big eyes. "Eleanor will tell her all about this!"

A nod. "Well there is a simple solution to that: we should speak to her first. The first report is generally given more credibility that that given later."

"How does that help!" Louise wailed.

Kirche wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder. "Here you are, returning home after capturing the dread thief Fouquet when your sister attempted to assault you for no explained reason. Your familiar spoke to her and she fell over in the mud: fainted perhaps. After all, it's not as if Yin Luang touched her."

"That would work," agreed Yin Luang.

"But Eleanor is a wind mage! She can fly home faster than we can go with these carts!"

"Pff." Yin Luang waved off the objection. "You fellows! Load all of Miss von Zerbst's possessions on this cart with Miss de la Valliere's."

"But the horses aren't going to be able to pull the cart if you do that," protested one of the carters, although he did start walking towards the second cart.

"Don't worry, they won't have to." Yin Luang pointed one finger at the coachman. "Get Miss de la Valliere back into the coach immediately. It is possible she has been taken ill!"

The coachman gave him a confused look and then turned to Louise who gathered enough self-possession to nod imperiously. "Please take care of my sister, Jon-Pierre. She may be suffering the same ailment as Cattelya."

"umm.... of course, Miss Louise," the coachman said deferentially. "And may I say that you are looking very well today."

Louise's expression warmed slightly at the support implied by that compliment. "Thank you, Jon-Pierre."

With Yin Luang's help - no one, by this point, was surprised that a monkey not even waist high on the diminutive Louise can carry more than a large man - the girl's possessions were consolidated quickly onto one cart. "Now unhitch the horses, if you please."

The carter hesitated. "Um... what you going to do to my cart."

"Well, first all I'm going to buy it from you."

"You're what?"

"What's a fair price?"

"Uhm... two hundred and fifty new gold," the man asked tentatively. Even Kirche knew that that was far too much.

Yin Luang laughed. "I like your nerve, young man." He pulled a pouch out of his robes. "There's about three hundred in there. I trust that that will also pay your friend there's wages with enough for a drink or two besides."

"Yes sir, that's very kind."

"Now unhitch your horses from my cart."

"Where did you get three hundred new gold?" Kirche asked quietly.

"Louise's sister donated to the cause," Yin Luang said straight-facedly.

"You picked her pocket!"

"She donated it to the cause," the monkey repeated seriously. "It's important to have our story straight before we tell it to anyone else."

"Without horses how do you intend to get the cart to my home?" asked Louise nervously. "It's sixty miles - Eleanor could be there by morning if she rushed."

Yin Luang jumped onto the front of the cart and raised his staff. "If you would both sit on the cart then I shall demonstrate for you."

Brilliant blue light formed a mandala around the monkey's head, like an eccentric halo. A second blazing circle erupted around the cart and then both occult diagrams began to slowly rotate in opposite directions. "Witness now the power of a celestial sorcerer!"

Feathers sprouted from the air above the familiar, joining together to form tremendous wings, hundreds of feet long. From the base of the wings, two long taloned feet reached down and lifted the cart off the road and up against the headless body that was still forming between the wings.

"Now if someone doesn't mind pointing me in the correct direction," Yin Luang declared cheerily, "We can be at our destination in time for afternoon tea."

.oOo.

Afternoon tea was a tense meal for the Valliere family. The reason for this was not the second daughter of the family - Cattelya was delighted that her younger sister had returned home and enchanted with her new familiar, who played up to the attention shamelessly.

Nor was it the presence of a von Zerbst, one of the family's hereditary enemies, at the table. As an important and sophisticated noble family, Duke Gaston de la Valliere and his family were entirely accustomed to sitting down and dining with nobles that they despised utterly. In fact, were it not for the family history involved, Kirche thought she would probably have been more welcome than most Tristainian nobles: she, after all, was not a rival for power within the kingdom.

The source of the tension was unmistakeably the Duchess. While her husband had embraced Louise with enthusiasm almost equal to Cattelya and blustered angrily about her expulsion after hearing that she had distinguished herself against Fouquet, Karin de la Valliere's only positive reaction so far had been an offhand mention that she was pleased Louise had successfully summoned a familiar.

"I really cannot understand why Eleanor would have collapsed," she said with great precision. "She has never shown signs of Cattelya's illness."

"She seemed rather tired," Louise observed, which was strictly true although it omitted the reason. "Perhaps we should ask when she arrives if she has been overworking herself at Oriz."

"Oh my," Cattelya said thoughtfully, petting Yin Luang's head as he sat on her lap. "It may be that Eleanor has been more affected than I thought by the end of her engagement."

"Eleanor's engagement was ended?" Louise sounded surprised by the idea. Having met Eleanor only briefly, Kirche suspected that the fiance in question had ended the arrangement with a degree of relief, even if it would have meant losing a connection to one of Tristain's most powerful families.

The duchess sipped from her tea cup, earning an appreciative look from Yin Luang who knew exactly how difficult it was to express menace with such a mundane gesture. Everyone else at the table tried not to meet the Duchess' eye. "It would have been best for you to bring Eleanor with you, Louise, so that she could recover at home."

"Yes mother. I was uncertain how smooth the ride would be while travelling so swiftly. Had it been rough then she might have suffered as a result." Louise looked down shamefacedly. "I should have had more faith in the spell."

"Twenty minutes to arrive here from the edge of our estates is rather a remarkable pace," Louise's father noted. "It's most of the distance to the capital, after all. Perhaps you could teach it to your aging father to spare his bones the long ride?" he 'hinted' heavily.

"I..." Louise hesitated, this not having been something that had been considered when the three of them composed their story. "I am not sufficiently familiar with the spell, father. Yin Luang, would it be practical to teach my father the spell that you used?"

The monkey scratched at the hair on his chin. "Unfortunately spells of the Sapphire Circle are not possible for an unaugmented elementalist," he observed thoughtully.

Gaston looked irritated. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"The magics that I practise are naturally somewhat different from those taught by Founder Brimir," Yin Luang explained. "I see no reason that you could not learn similar spells of the Emerald Circle which are commonly used by elemental sorcerers but unfortunately I don't happen to know any travel spells of that Circle."

"You seem to be quite an unusual familiar," Karin observed in a neutral tone. "Given that familiars do not generally speak and do not cast spells, I must wonder if you are instead some imposter taking advantage of my daughter."

"Mother!" Louise squeaked indignantly and then shrank back when her mother raised one eyebrow.

"I am particularly concerned at the convenience of your arriving the day before the royal party calls here on their return from Germania."

"The Queen of Tristain has visited Germainia?" exclaimed Kirche.

"It is Princess Henrietta who has made the visit," the Duke grumbled. "For no reason that she or Cardinal Mazarin have chosen to divulge."

"Were any assassin or foreign agent to threaten the Princess while she was our guest, the disgrace would be considerable, even before the consequences for Tristain were considered."

"My familiar is not an assassin!"

Yin Luang cleared his throat. "I have carried out assassinations in the past, Master. And as I have no attachments to any causes within Tristain it wouldn't overly concern me were you to order me to do so again on your behalf."

Kirche started. She had thought that she was accustomed to the shapeshifting sorcerer but this was a facet that she had not expected. Then again, since he admitted to being ancient there were doubtless an enormous number of things that she was unaware of about him.

"Your statement does nothing to persuade me that you are anything but a menace, Mr. Yin Luang." The Duchess placed her cup very deliberately on its saucer, the clink of the china sounding uncannily like a sword being drawn.

"Under normal circumstances, that is precisely what I am, your grace." Yin Luang bounded from the lap of the startled Cattelya and picked up the tea pot, pouring himself a cup. "It is my custom, you see, to remain a free agent and to pursue whatever goals and activities please me without regard for title or allegiance. Now at this time, I have of my own free will contracted to serve your daughter as a familiar, but there is no reason or evidence in the world for you to believe that any more than there is evidence of perfidity on my part."

"So I should not place any faith in you?"

"You may place faith wherever you wish, your grace. But there are no facts within your reach to support either conclusion so you will have to judge by what you think best."

"And if I conclude that you would be better destroyed?" Karin de la Valliere asked without the least break in her demeanor.

Her daughters gasped in horror. "Mother!" Cattelya protested. "Surely Louise could simply send him away while the Princess is here."

Yin Luang sipped from the tea cup. "Then one of us will probably be nursing a bruised ego by sunset. And while past history suggests that it won't be me, modesty reminds me that you hold yourself like an accomplished warrior." He met her gaze.

The duchess considered this for a moment and then the corners of her lips quirked up fractionally. "I would be interested in the outcome," she admitted almost girlishly. Was Kirche imagining it or was there a hint of pink in Karin's cheeks?

.oOo.

The Duke and Duchess did not make an appearance at dinner. From the way that they had departed from tea, Kirche personally suspected that they would be entirely too busy in their quarters - Yin Luang seemed to habitually have that effect on people. Cattelya sat at the head of the table with Louise to her right and Kirche at her left. Yin Luang sat cross-legged on the table, a small plate in front of him.

"So are you and Louise close friends at the Academy?"

Kirche giggled at the idea. "Oh the family rivalry got in the way of that. I teased her terribly, I'm afraid."

"Then how did you become friends?" Cattelya asked.

"Oh we're not." Kirche grinned broadly. "I'm Louise's concubine!"

Both pinkettes blushed furiously.

"That's not -"

"Oh my!" Cattelya clapped her hands against her cheeks and switched her gaze from Kirche to Louise. "Oh how sweet! It's just like in Inigo Montoya and the Pirate Queen of the South Seas!"

Louise hesitated and then blinked. "Is that a new book, sister?"

"It is!" Cattelya agreed. "I thought that it might be a little too... but as you have a lover now you must be old enough." She leaned over and threw her arms around her sister. "You've grown up so fast!"

"Then I can borrow it?"

"Of course, come to my room after dinner and we can read it together." Cattelya looked over at Kirche and smiled. "You can come as well Kirche, it'll be fun."

The busty girl blinked. Louise's sister was supporting the idea? She looked the older girl over for a minute, noting again the resemblence to Louise. If the younger girl developed in the same areas then she'd definitely be interesting. Not as beautiful as Yin Luang, but Kirche quietly admitted to herself that she was probably never going to encounter anyone equal to that measure and there were other things to look for in a lover.

"I'd be pleased to," she said honestly.

[drakensis]

"Mother!" Eleanor cried out, storming into her parent's rooms. "Louise has -" The blonde took one look at the great four-poster bed and demonstrated more survival instinct than Kirche would have credited her with. "I'm sorry!" she blurted and then made an undignified retreat in the direction of her next-oldest sibling, making a firm note to insist she be served strong spirits to drink alongside her breakfast, to dull the images she had just carelessly exposed herself to.

It was dawn, no doubt Cattelya would be awake to tend to the smaller of her never-ending horde of pets. The eldest Valliere daughter swept into her sisters' room...

...and tried desperately not to have a nervous breakdown.

She'd travelled the distance of sixty miles at a frantic pace and it was quite beyond possibility that her-sister-the-failure could be here first, even assuming that she had been coming here and not running away entirely. However, there was one head of pink hair in Cattelya's bed and it rather evidently was not the middle sister. There was also orangy-red hair in evidence, the head that it garnished rested upon the hip of the pinkette. Now that she thought back, yesterday there had been a deeply tanned redhead alongside Louise in the lap of the big, black-skinned man who had...

Eleanor shook her head firmly and then looked around the room again. No large black men. No monkey. But also no Cattelya. She squared her shoulders, stalked over to the bed and reached for Louise's cheeks.

"Sssss," observed the sizeable salamander that poked its head out from under the bed. Eleanor looked it over, noting the fiery tail that marked it as coming from the Fire Dragon mountains and wondered where Cattelya had come by the rare creature.

Alright. Eleanor's youngest sister was sleeping with a redheaded girl, in Cattelya's bed, with a sleazy Inigo Montoya romance about bisexual pirate tribes of exotic climes (not that Eleanor had read it. Or had a collection of similar books hidden in her bedchamber at Oriz, using a cunningly constructed bookshelf that appeared to hold a multi-volume colleciton of texts on the history of the Germainian invasions of eastern Tristain) open between them while an intensely magical fire lizard guarded them. Eleanor was a mature woman, she could deal with this.

She walked out into the corridor, down to the nearest sitting room and had a good cry while she waited for the world to start making sense again.

After a few moments, this drew the attention of one of the maids, who advised one of the housekeepers who discussed the matter with the duke's valet, who delivered instructions to one of the butlers who in turn allowed several of the footmen to draw straws over who would deal with the long dreaded moment when the tragic end of Miss Eleanor's engagement finally caught up with her.

Thus, fifteen minutes later, there was a discreet knock on the door of the sitting room. "Miss Eleanor, do you require assistance?"

"I'm quite fine!" Eleanor snapped defensively, hastily pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes before replacing her spectacles. She used a mirror in the room to straighten her clothes. "Where is Cattelya?"

The footman winced. That was the one question that all the staff had hoped Eleanor would not ask, today of all days. "I believe that she was last in the stables, Miss Eleanor. Would you like to freshen up before breakfast?"

Eleanor looked at her blouse and admitted privately that that would probably be a good idea. Despite her best efforts earlier, there were distinct traces of mud in the seams. Still, Cattelya, in the stables, surrounded by her usual entourage of all creatures great and small, would be a welcome note of normality. "Yes, but only after I speak to my sister."

Drawing her wand, the blonde walked out onto the sitting room's balcony and levitated herself down to the ground before breaking into a brisk stride around the side of the castle towards the stables. Yes, touch base with Cattelya and then over breakfast interrogate her ruthlessly as to what Louise had been up to so that she would know what to recommend to mother later. Possibly in writing, since she wasn't entirely sure she could face Karin in the immediate future.

It was in this mind that she marched confidently into the stables, ignoring the determined but quite futile efforts of the stablehands to diplomatically divert her.

"Catt- elya..." She called out on seeing her sister, her voice breaking as she took in certain details.

The happy.... perhaps even sated... expression on the young woman's sleeping face.

The discarded clothes around the blankets that converted the small haystack into a bed for her sister.

The small monkey that Catteleya was hugging against her chest.

The... monkey...

For the second time in less than twenty four hours, Eleanor de la Valliere collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

.oOo.

Breakfast was late that morning, a shocking breach of discipline that the Duchess would probably have been most peevish about, were she a hypocrite. As it was, she seemed slightly embarassed and went so far as to apologise to the staff for disrupting the usual schedule. Her husband seemed quite unbothered however and his mood was in fact expansive.

Moving along the family, Eleanor was sat at her father's right hand and steadfastly declined to look anyone in the eye. It could hardly be disguised that the teapot she was using to fill her cup was not that used by the other diners and by the scent, it was plain that the tea within had been laced with strong brandy. Catteleya, sat next to her, was a complete contrast, radiating happiness to a degree usual even for her usual cheery self.

Opposite Eleanor sat Louise, who was evidently somewhat confused by her sisters' divergent moods, and kept stealing embarassed looks at Kirche who sat at her left. Invisible from the table itself, Yin Luang sat on the floor between their chairs, heartily digging into the plate of food that Cattelya had ordered he be served and drinking from a tankard that was very nearly the size of his head. It had seemed prudent not to be visible to Eleanor, as she seemed unaccountably bothered by his presence.

"How pleasent it is to have all of our family together for a change," Gaston observed. "And particularly when we are about to enjoy a royal visit." He smiled indulgently at his youngest daughter. "I am sure that Princess Henrietta will be glad to meet her old playmate again."

Louise blushed. "I'm sure she hardly remembers me," she replied, looking down at her plate. Kirche reached across discreetly and squeezed her hand reassuringly, preferring the girl's more typical fiery temprement to the more retiring face that she was showing to her family.

"Why not at all," Cattelya told her. "I happen to know that she was planning to visit the Academy later in her journey just so that she could be reunited with you there." She smiled fondly. "And she isn't the only old friend that you might meet during the visit."

"Oh?"

Her eyes sparkling, Cattelya leant forwards. "It seems that the Princess's guard for the journey is headed by the Captain of the Griffin Knights!"

Louise's eyes widened. "Not...?"

"Oh yes, Viscount Jean-Jacques de la Wardes himself."

"Oh!" Louise looked down at the plate again. "Oh..."

"That... may be prudent," the duchess said thoughtfully. "I suppose that it is a suitable time to give thought to your future, Louise."

Kirche gave Louise a searching look. Yin Luang apparently felt that being in visible support of his master was more important than catering to Eleanor's mental traumas and scampered up to Louise's lap and then onto the table to sit on the corner between mother and daughter. "When you are considering that matter, among the options that you may wish to consider is a period of tuition by myself."

"Louise was trained by the best mages in all Halkegina," Eleanor snapped. "You presume to think you could do better, you perverted monkey? Mother, any plan you make for Louise should include ridding her of this... demon!"

"Firstly, I am not from Halkegina. Secondly, given her evident potential and the failure of previous teachers, I would be hard-pressed to do worse." Yin Luang compressed his staff between his hands and then pulled it out into a fan, which he waved in front of his face. "Thirdly, be grateful that I am not a demon, since you appear ill-prepared to confront even the least of their breed."

The duchess gestured sharply at Eleanor for silence. "And what is your opinion, Cattelya?"

The pink-haired young woman looked at Yin Luang and then at Louise before answering her mother. "I have no gauge of Mr. Yin Luang's magic," she admitted. "However, Louise was expected to attend the Tristain Academy of Magic for almost two more years. I see no urgent need to make a final decision now."

Her father leant forwards slightly to look past his wife. "What do you desire, Louise?"

She hesitated. "Father, I am not ready to wed. Summoning Yin Luang is the first magic that has ever worked for me the way it should have."

"That," Karin observed thoughtfully, "Returns us to yesterday's discussion of your familiar's trustworthiness."

Eleanor leant forwards to the duke and started whispering into his ear. His eyes went wide and then he turned a stern look upon his eldest daughter. "Eleanor, I am disappointed that you would say such a thing. Spreading such a vile rumour is beneath your proper behaviour."

"Father this is no rumour, I saw them with my own eyes!"

"What is this?" Karin asked sternly.

Eleanor pointed her finger at Yin Luang. "That beast is an enemy of our family," she declared. "He has Louise twisted around his finger and last night he worked his vile magics upon Cattelya, leaving her a ruined woman."

Louise slammed her fists against the table. "What are you talking about, Eleanor!?"

"Last night," the blonde wind mage declared in a ringing voice, "that animal you claim to be your familiar deflowered our sister in the stables!"

Kirche jammed her fist into her mouth to keep from laughing in disbelief. The same accusation again! And probably as true as before, actually.

"Cattelya, is this true!?" Karin asked, incredulous. She had always known that her second daughter loved animals, it was impossible to miss, but she had never in her wildest imaginings believed that this included the physical act!

The young woman flushed crimson but remained calm. "There are certain facts that my sister is not aware of, but essentially yes."

"You beast!" Gaston exclaimed, turning upon Yin Luang, his wand coming to his hand in an instant. His jaw dropped however as he saw not the small monkey he had expected but a blonde woman of surpassing beauty in a crimson dress more revealing than any of his wife's nightdresses.

"Among other things," she agreed in a throaty voice, apparently unconcerned that both duke, duchess and their eldest daughter were pointing their wands at her face. "This would be one of those facts that Cattelya incorrectly believes that her sister does not know of. In fact, Eleanor saw me take another shape entirely in our first meeting."

"Who are you, really?" Karin demanded.

The woman stepped away from the table and bowed deeply, revealing a deep cleavage as she did so. "I am Yin Luang, Seventh Sage of the Perfected Lotus, Champion of Rockfell, Master of the House of Unnecessary Violence. I have been named Sunblinder, Deathslayer and Demonrider, all of which are true. And I am at the service of your youngest daughter." She sniffed slightly as she straightened and then smiled warmly. "Assuming of course, that it is not another daughter that you bear, duchess."

"What are you saying?"

"Why would this surprise you?" The blonde shrugged casually. "You can hardly claim your years are too advanced to have conceived again. My congratulations to you both."

The three sisters gasped as the meaning of the words sank in.

The Duke pushed his chair back. "Regardless of that matter, I find that you have abused my hospitality, be you woman, moneky or whatever other title you may lay claim to."

"Father, no!" Cattelya wailed.

Pulling a glove from the pocket of his coat, the enraged father flung it into Yin Luang's face. She snatched it from the air and examined the item of apparel. "I am unfamiliar with your customs, but I presume that you desire that we should step outside and settle this dispute between ourselves in an honorable fashion."

"I do."

"Very well then." Yin Luang flipped the glove back to land by the duke's plate. In the instant that it struck the tablecloth, the blonde woman was replaced with the short, broad mass of Yin Luang's male form and body. "I bear you no malice whatsoever, your grace, but if this is how you would have it..."

"Don't kill him!" Louise grasped at Yin Luang's wrist.

Cattelya simply stared at her lover in dismay.

.oOo.

"Mother, that creature is dangerous!" Eleanor rose to follow the two men out of the room.

"Eleanor." Karin's voice was cold. "Since you are aware that he is dangerous, why precisely did you arrange matters so that your father would be required as a matter of honour to challenge him to a duel?"

The young woman spluttered.

"As a duel, it would be disgraceful for us to intervene." Karin pinched the brow of her nose. "Your current illness is no excuse for such poor judgement. I do not recall Cattelya behaving so poorly at any time." The duchess turned towards her second daughter. "Which is not to say that I am entirely pleased by your behaviour last night, Cattelya but I believe that decisions on that matter can be deferred until the status of your paramour is determined."

Moving her gaze across the table, Karin fixed Kirche with a grim expression. "It is not my preference to discuss family matters in front of a guest. Regrettably this has not thus far proved to be possible in your case. I trust that you understand that I would be displeased should this conversation be gossiped about."

Kirche gulped. The utter mayhem Karin the Heavy Wind had wreaked upon the army of von Zerbst soldiers who had assaulted the Valliere estates a generation before were still a living memory for the handful of survivors, one of whom was her father. "My lips are sealed," she said with a nervous smile. Now it was Louise's turn to take Kirche's hand and squeeze it in reassurance. What a ridiculous turn of events, Kirche thought, to be taking comfort from holding hands with Louise the Zero.

The gesture did not go unremarked by Karin who raised an eyebrow. "Is there something that you wish to tell me about Miss von Zerbst, Louise?"

Louise clearly intended her swift look at Kirche to be one of repression, to prevent another bold claim by the germainian. However, the red in her face was easily misinterpreted and even Kirche had enough discretion not to repeat the jest in front of the formidable duchess. Not that it mattered.

"The two of them were sleeping together!" Eleanor declared accusingly.

"Eleanor!" Cattelya gasped, reaching out to ineffectually restrain her sister.

The duchess was far more direct. "One more outburst from you, Eleanor Karin de la Valliere and I shall send you to your room like the child you insist on acting as."

Eleanor stiffened and sat back in her chair. Cattelya wavered and then poured two cups of tea from Eleanor's tea pot, pressing one into her sister's hands before drinking from the other.

"Louise." Karin turned to her youngest daughter and made a visible effort to soften her expression. "I am surprised that you have taken a Germanian lover, particularly a von Zerbst. However, I see no reason that this should become one of those tragic romances that playwrights adore."

"Y-you approve?" Louise squeaked

"It is natural for a girl of your age to explore such matters," the duchess observed calmly. "As you are engaged, turning to one of your fellow girls is a sensible choice to avoid staining the arrangement with Viscount Wardes. In order to maintain discretion, I will insist that you avoid obvious activities while the royal party are here."

Kirche leant over and kissed Louise on the cheek. Across the table, Eleanor gulped down her tea in an unladylike fashion and poured herself another cup. Cattelya covered her mouth and burped delicately, looking at the cup she had been drinking from in surprise.

"Now, I am going to prepare myself. Louise, you and Miss von Zerbst will see to your father and determine if I will be acting as his second or avenging his death. Cattelya, take your sister to her room and sit with her." The duchess swept out of the room purposely.

.oOo.

Outside, Kirche spotted Duke Gaston and Yin Luang walking towards the lake that served as a partial moat to the palace. The two men were side by side and from the angle of their heads, conversing in a desultory fashion. Were it not for the conspicious space that they were each giving the other and the occasional twitch of the duke's wand hand, it would have been easy to forget that they were apparently in search of a suitable place from which to begin killing each other.

At least they hadn't started yet.

"I don't believe I've fought a duel around here," Yin Luang observed. "Is this the sort of situation where only death will suffice or are there alternatives like first blood, surrender or that old favorite: inability to continue."

Gaston nodded his head calmly. "With the exception of first blood, all of these are acceptable."

"Very well." The black-skinned man glanced to the left and right along the shore. Open, only slightly sloping grass with the jetty that ran out into the lake, a few small boats moored against it. "This would seem a terrible place for an actual fight, so I suppose it will suffice for a duel."

"Excuse me?"

The familiar waved one hand dismissively. "In a true conflict I look for terrain that gives me advantages. A duel, on the other hand, assumes a degree of... civility."

The Duke's mustache twitched irritably as he took the hint that Yin Luang was not regarding the duel as a serious conflict. "En garde then," he barked and with a crisp tearing sound four golems tore themselves out of the ground in response to his summons. Each was wrought of stone, taking the form of an armoured knight wielding a heavy broadsword.

Gaston was not rash enough to simply have the golems rush in however. For a moment Kirche thought that he might delay long enough for Karin to return but after taking a measuring look at Yin Luang, he held two Golems back to protect himself and set two forwards to flank his opponent.

For his part, Yin Luang stretched his arms out to either side, flexed them slightly and silvery light flickered into existance around his hands. He glared at the light in evident concentration and it seemed to sink into his skin. However, as it did so, it shifted slightly until traceries of light spreading across him were golden. Nodding in satisfaction, he turned back towards the two golems that were marching towards him.

"Probing my defenses? A conservative strategy." He darted forwards and to the astonishment of his oppenent and the two girls watching him, as the golem he was charging leveled its blade to thrust towards him, he bounded up and placed one foot on the sword blade while the other foot arced upwards and struck the golem squarely in the chest with a thunderous detonation. A considerable amount of the stone that made up the construct exploded out of its back and under the cover of the destruction, Yin Luang rebounded into the other golem that had come forward - which came out of the confrontation no better than its counterpart had.

Gaston grimaced but showed no other sign of concern. Kirche had to admire the duke's composure - she'd seen earth mages come apart if a strategy failed, unable to adapt to the fluidity of combat. "Your father's quite good," she admitted to Louise.

"But what if Yin Luang hits him like that," the pink-haired girl asked, her voice nervous.

"Well you did tell him not to kill him. I don't think he'd do that."

There was a crunch as a sizeable part of the lawn snapped shut around Yin Luang like fingers closing into a fist. Exactly like that in fact, since that was the shape that Gaston's spell had summoned out of the earth.

"Nicely done, sir," Yin Luang observed, stepping out from behind the fist, quite unscathed. Then he delivered a thunderous punch to the construct, shattering it into a million pieces of dirt. "However that's two attacks you've made on me and I've yet to make one on you. Perhaps before I even the score, you'd tell me the real reason that you're angry with me."

Gaston spluttered. "Real reason? Real reason! You dishonoured my daughter!"

"Hypocrisy. Do you expect me to believe that you were chaste before marrying your lady wife?" Yin Luang shook his head grimly. "Your youngest daughter explained the concept of virginity to me, but it only applies here if you intend to use Cattleya as a political gamepiece. And I do not think so little of you as that."

The duke made a savage swipe of his wand and both golems standing beside him hurtled forwards like missiles. Yin Luang leapt into the air, spinning like a top and kicked one into the other, depositing both into the lake with tremendous splashes.

"A feeble riposte," he observed. "No, I think that you love your daughter and want to protect her... but you are mistakenly seeking to protect her from the very joys that you were sharing with your wife at the very same time." Yin Luang shook his head dismissively. "Hypocrite."

"There is a difference between doing that within the bounds of matrimony and some drunken fumbling in the stables."

Yin Luang blinked slowly.

Kirche looked at him slowly. "Louise, have you ever seen Yin Luang angry?"

"Uh, when I summoned him?"

"Oh yes... does his expression remind you of back then?"

Louise paled. "Father! Run!"

"Yin Luang DOES NOT FUMBLE!" The familiar crossed the distance between himself and Gaston in the blink of an eye, dragging the duke off his feet with one powerful arm. Around him blazed the incandescent shape of his monkey form, grown to the size of a large man. He brought Gaston face to face with him. "And nor do I descend to TAKING ADVANTAGE of the drunk!"

With one flex of his powerful arm, Yin Luang hurled the stunned nobleman out over the lake with such furious force that Gaston landed in the shallows of the far side. From his flailing as he drew himself out of the water, the Duke did not seem badly injured by the landing. Evidently it would take some time for him to return though.

Yin Luang was still glaring out over the lake, hands twisting at the silver rod, when Karin the Heavy Wind's wind lance smashed him squarely in the back.

.oOo.

Yin Luang hit the water hard, a plume of water yards high thrown up as he crashed into the lake, propelled by Karin's spell. Fragments of the spell whipped up a fury of waves across almost half the lake. As the water settled it took a distinctive pinkish tone to mark where Yin Luang had landed.

"Mother!" Louise shrieked. "Why!? You said we shouldn't interfere!"

Karin walked forwards, wearing her old uniform of breastplate, breeches and high riding boots. A mage's cape billowed from her shoulder, secured at her throat by the badge of the Manticore Knights, and her hair was pinned back in a simple bun. "The duel was over. Your father lost, but in the process he showed this Yin Luang's weakness: his arrogance."

The water exploded again, this time as the result of something exiting the water. The lizard that crawled out of the lake was the size of a dragon, with a mouth full of jagged fangs and a long, spined fin across its back that was torn and battered. Blood flowed from dozens of rents in its flesh but even as the three watched the flesh was knitting back together with unnatural speed. Yet despite all this, it was strangely magnificent and the silver light that surrounded it left no doubt of its identity.

"It's alive?" Karin was clearly shaken, surprise audible in her voice. "That spell would tear a battalion apart..."

The lizard gave her a baleful stare and then water splattered onto the grass as it shrank rapidly into the familiar small monkey, now missing his hat and holding his silver rod in his jaws. He spat it out into his hand and glared at Karin. "I gave your husband three free shots but that was the only one you're getting."

Karin shook her head in an understated way. "Bravado."

"Oh come now." He spread his hands mockingly. "You're afraid of me. The famous Karin the Heavy Wind is taking counsel of her fears. Why else would you strike when my back was turned? When your husband has yet to surrender, die or be otherwise unable to continue?"

"You're a threat. You admitted it yourself."

Yin Luang smiled broadly. "Indeed I am. But you forget the most important question: what am I a threat to?" He leapt forwards, twisting impossibly to avoid the razor sharp wind that the duchess aimed at him. At the last moment, Karin raised up her wand and called the winds to shield her.

It was too little, too late.

There was a crash like thunder as Yin Luang's small fist struck through the winds and caught Karin squarely in the centre of the chest. Similar blows had shattered statues effortlessly. The metal of the breastplate deformed, creating an indentation the size of a soup plate and the woman inside it was hurled from her feet and crashed to the ground, twitching, yards away.

Louise screamed belatedly.

Her familiar lowered his hands. "She is unharmed, master. Though it might be best to remove her armour as I imagine that it is hard for her to breathe like that."

.oOo.

Cattelya jumped nervously as the door to Eleanor's room opened. She had been dividing her attention between the window (from which she could observe, albeit distantly and at a poor angle, the events down by the lake) and Eleanor (who kept trying to get out of her bed).

"This is quite unnecessary," Eleanor grumbled, now wearing a warm nightdress and a tasselled nightcap that Cattelya thought was adorable. "I told you that I'm not - ah!" She shrieked and shrank away as the monkey walked in, leaning somewhat upon his silver rod.

"Mr. Yin Luang!" Cattelya exclaimed and rushed over to hug the small creature. "Are you hurt?"

"Mmm," he replied resting his head shamelessly against her cleavage. "Yin Luang is weary."

"Aww!" The pinkette cradled him like a child, making for a wingback armchair, so she could sit with him in her lap.

Eleanor drew blankets up in front of her like a shield. "Cattelya, he might have just killed our parents! Don't cuddle him!"

Yin Luang raised one paw towards Eleanor in what neither noblewoman recognised as an obscene gesture (Halkegina having less familiarity than Creation with tentacles). "Your daddy is a bit soggy and your mother is a bit breathless. That is all. Why is it that no one believes I'm a nice person?"

Cattelya hugged him closer. "I believe you, Mr. Yin Luang."

There was a muffled snort from the bed. "Fine. You stay here and cuddle that... thing. I'm going to prepare for the royal visit."

"You have to stay in bed, you're not well," Cattelya insisted.

The monkey sighed. "She's not ill, Cattelya."

"Are you sure, Mr. Yin Luang?" Cattelya observed. "She's fainted twice..."

"She's highly strung, didn't get much sleep last night and then there's the whole thing about her engagement..."

Yin Luang's voice was sympathetic, something Eleanor had not come to associate with her sister's familiar. Her hands trembled. "I don't care about the Earl of Burgundy one little bit!" she shouted. "He's a worthless feckless excuse for a noble who'll never amount to anything!"

"Of course you don't care," Yin Luang all but purred. "It's not as if you were looking forwards to the wedding."

"I wasn't!"

"Or the wedding night."

Eleanor went red. "Not at all," she mumbled unconvincingly. The bed suddenly seemed very welcoming to her. She could pull the covers up over her head and then no one would be able to see her. She squirmed as her mind suggested other activities that could take place in bed.

Cattelya lifted Yin Luang off her lap and crossed the room to her sister. "Oh Eleanor, someone will be right for you. It's just a matter of finding the right person to sweep you off your feet." There was a tinge of colour in her cheeks.

"Like he did for you?" her sister asked, trying to sneer. It didn't quite work when there was an image of her sister being pressed into the hay by a large, barechested man with ebony skin... "So I should wait for some strange man to follow my sister home and then drag me off to the stables."

The pink-haired woman's cheeks pretty much matched her hair. "Ah...! Big sister... it was..." She hid her face behind her hands and mumbled something.

"What was that?"

In a small voice, Cattelya repeated: "I'm the one who took her to the stables."

Eleanor's eyes shot back to the armchair to see Yin Luang's female body curled into it, eyes coquettishly peeking over her knees at the two sister, only the position of her feet keeping the pose somewhat decent. "Urk," the blonde Valliere managed to comment.

"Oh there you are, Miss Yin Luang."

The other blonde smiled sleepily. "We're the same person, Cattelya. Why don't you simply call me Luang?"

Cattelya have her a thoughtful look. "I suppose that that would be proper."

"Wait so," Eleanor looked and back and forth. "Cattelya, you didn't... you know... with him?"

"Same person," Yin Luang pointed out with a wave of her hand.

"But he wasn't a man when you..."

Her sister nodded. "Well yes, but not in the stables. That was later."

"Later?" Eleanor couldn't help but wonder at the rest of the tale. "Then where did you..."

Cattelya looked down. No, not down. Looked at the bed. "Well you were away, and Louise and her concubine were in my bed..."

Her sister paled. "Here?"

She received a nod of confirmation. Oh dear god! Right here? Right where she was lying right now? Maybe she could have the bed burned? And move into a guest bedroom. Oh wait, they'd all be needed for the royal party. Cattelya's room? No, Louise and her germainian... girlfriend (Not a concubine. Not a concubine. Her little sister was not adopting bizarre foreign customs!) had been there. Well in that case...

"Cattelya, I think you're right. I do need to lie in for a few days. But with my room so near to the guest wing I might be disturbed by our visitors tonight. Please arrange for me to exchange rooms with Louise." Eleanor threw back her blankets and plucked the nightcap from her head. "In the meantime I think I need a bath." Possibly several baths.

.oOo.

Gaston's mustache twitched angrily as Cattleya and the Yin Luang arrived arm in arm to lunch, which was being served on the terrace outside so that the dining room could be prepared for dinner and the the royal guests. Of course, the terrace was overlooking the lake so there was ample reminder of the morning's excitement. "Sir Yin Luang," the duke began with forced formality.

"Your grace," Yin Luang replied and curtsied.

"My wife has explained her reasoning for assuming that our duel was concluded. While I am not entirely in agreement with it, as the difference would be between my defeat as being unable to continue or my forfeit for Karin's involvement of herself it is not my wish to further debate the matter: you were the clear victor," he admitted with reluctance.

Yin Luang raised her chin slightly in expecation.

"...and I apologise for suggesting that you took advantage of my daughter."

"Your apology is accepted, Duke de la Valliere," the woman replied civilly.

Gaston sighed. "While I am in no position to make demands of you, Sir Yin Luang, I would hope that you understand that the appearance of impropriety in front of the princess and her company would reflect poorly not only on myself and my wife but also on all my family."

"I am subject to the orders of my master," Yin Luang replied equably. "I do not believe that she would desire that I cause disgrace to fall upon her family." She looked over to where Kirche was openly and Louise covertly listening to the conversation. "Isn't that right, master?"

"That's right," Louise agreed quickly. "Come and sit down so we can talk more easily."

Obediently Yin Luang came to the table and took one of the four seats around the small table, offering it to Cattelya before taking the third and sitting between the two sisters. Since Eleanor had pled fatigue and was eating in bed, this left Karin rather evidently alone until Gaston joined her at the other table, and the Duke seemed to be in no hurry to do this. "Louise," he asked. "I believe that Sir Yin Luang has proven his capabilities and even if they seem... eccentric, I have no objections if you wish to be his student for a few years."

Louise beamed. "Thank you father!"

"However, please consider how this may best be presented to the Princess and to Viscount Wardes."

The girl's face fell comically and Kirche reached over and threw her arm around the smaller girl's shoulders. "Don't worry Louise, with me on the case you've got nothing to worry about."

Gaston cleared his throat. "Ah... and please think of some way to explain Miss Zerbst as well." Rather than dwell on that matter he finally went over to the table he would be sharing with his wife. The welcome he got there didn't seem excessively warm.

"Why would I be difficult to explain?" Kirche asked plainitively. "Are Tristainian hearts too jaded to accept the gentle passions of two maidens in love?"

"We're not in love!" Louise insisted loudly.

The flame-haired girl shrugged. "In lust then."

"That's not any better."

Kirche grinned broadly. "I'm not hearing a denial."

Cattelya giggled at the younger girl's antics and slipped some meat from her plate down to Flame, who was curled happily around Kirche's feet. When she looked up again, Yin Luang was holding out some fruit. "You need to eat properly," the familiar scolded mildly.

Obediently, Cattelya took a bite out of the pear and was surprised when the other woman took it back. "Luang?"

Yin Luang took a bite herself out of the same side the pinkette had, sucking on the juices slightly in a lascivous fashion before returning the fruit. The two Valliere sisters flushed, although this did not keep Cattelya from accepting the pear and running her lips across its flesh before taking another bite.

"Take me now," Kirche whispered, not sure which of her three companions she meant. The corner of Yin Luang's lips quirked, suggesting she had heard the whisper.

"Familiar, are you going to flirt with my sister every time you see her?"

"Probably."

"Even in front of the princess?"

"Would that be a problem?" Yin Luang's eyes sparkled naughtily.

Cattelya brushed a lock of hair back from the familiar's face. "I don't think Henrietta is quite ready for your beauty, Luang. And it might cause confusion."

"And occasional heart failure," murmured Kirche.

"Please just stay male then," Louise decided. "If anyone asks, you're my tutor and... Cattelya, do you really like him?"

Her sister smiled happily. "Yes, Louise, I do."

Louise rolled her eyes. "I suppose he could be worse. Somehow. Right, familiar. Turn into a man and propose to Cattelya. Right now."

"As you command, master." Yin Luang shrugged, at the end of which gesture he was blackskinned and male. Fortunately he was also wearing the accompanying clothes rather than the red dress. "Cattelya de la Valliere, you are a beautiful and accomplished woman. May I propose that we go to your room and make love well into the night?"

Kirche fell off her chair.

"That sounds lovely, Luang," Cattelya said after a moment's thought. "But I don't think that that's what Louise meant."

"Marriage! Propose marriage!" Louise shouted.

Gaston and Karin abandoned their own lunches and walked over to the table. "Who's marrying who?"

"I'm a little lost on that point myself," Yin Luang admitted. "I'm pretty sure it's not either of you though, unless there's something you forgot to do before Eleanor was born."

[LadyTevar]

I'm not sure what FnZ is... but BRAVO I have been laughing like crazy.

[Archaic`]

FnZ is "Familiar of Zero", better known in the original Japanese "Zero no Tsukaima".

I hope this new fic doesn't mean you're abandoning the other FnZ crossover you were working on drakensis, I was rather enjoying reading that.

[drakensis]

Eleanor was woken from an uneasy sleep in Louise's bed, filled with dreams that she preferred not to think about, by two sharp knocks on the bedroom door, followed after a short pause. Who in the world would seek her out at this time of the night? She dragged a dressing gown on over her nightdress as she walked to the door. Perhaps mother had decided on a night time attack to rid them of the accursed monkey? With the princess in chateau, such an action would be unexpected.

However when she opened the door she saw a woman wearing a long hooded cape and a veil in dark colours that hid her identity. "What!?" Eleanor exclaimed, drawing her wand. "Who are you? An assassin?"

Startled, the figure turned and tried to flee but the wind mage shot a blast of wind at her, tangling the long cape around the other woman's feet and tripping her to the floor.

"Now, who are you?" Yanking away the veil, Eleanor was astonished to see the face of Henrietta de Tristain. "Your highness? Or are you an imposter?"

The princess raised her chin. "I am no imposter, Lady Eleanor. My apologies for disturbing your rest."

"We live in troubled times, your highness. Can you prove your identity?" Eleanor did not raise her wand from the fallen girl.

In answer, Henrietta raised her hand, revealing a ring that Eleanor recognised as being part of the royal regalia: the Water Ruby of Tristain. "Would an imposter we wearing this?"

"She would not," agreed the firstborn Valliere and lowered her wand before helping her liege to her feet. "My sincerest apologies, Princess Henrietta. But why in the world are you creeping around the chateau at this hour?"

Henrietta blushed slightly at the admonishment. "I... I thought that this was Louise's room," she admitted. "I must have mistaken my way in the darkness."

Eleanor frowned. "If you will excuse me for asking, why are you looking for my sister at... at this hour? Oh by Brimir!" she exclaimed. "Don't tell me that this is an assignation! How long has Louise been practising such perversions?"

"Assignation? Perversions?" Henrietta seemed taken aback by the words. "Lady Eleanor I do not understand your words. You know that Louise and I have been friends for many years..."

"I swear," Eleanor hissed menacingly, forgetting for the moment that she was addressing royalty. "If it was you who seduced my little sister into these unnatural practises then I will flog you, see if I do not! Go back to bed - your own bed!" She stalked into her room and slammed the door behind her, leaving an astounded princess behind her.

.oOo.

Having been lingering in earshot of Henrietta and Eleanor's conversation, Yin Luang grinned broadly and then drew back to allow Henrietta to pass him on her way back to the guest room she was expected to be sleeping in.

Of course if she kept looking for Louise then he would simply follow her but the embarassed princess was sufficiently confounded that she opted to retreat instead so Yin Luang sauntered after her on silent feet. He had just passed the entrance to the wing of the house that held the ducal apartments when he felt a board beneath the carpet fail to flex. Hmm, not wood at all, but stone. The man paused and was unsurprised when the door leading into the apartments opened to reveal Duke Gaston.

Yin Luang held one finger to his lips in an appeal for silence and Gaston, after a moment's surprise beckoned for his prospective son-in-law to join him.

"Should I ask why you are prowling the passageways of my home?" the mustachioed duke asked.

His guest's face creased in a smile. "My master asked that I ensure the safety of the Princess Henrietta while she is here and she chose to take an evening stroll."

"Ah." Gaston produced a bottle of brandy and two glasses, waving Yin Luang to sit in one of the two armchairs of the antechamber. "This is a good year," he advised, pouring two glasses. "Suitable for a discussion between men."

Yin Luang was tempted to check behind him for Karin sneaking up on him but instead simply made sure he had his defensive charms readied for possible ambush, something he'd made the mistake of not doing so previously. Despite pouring a prodigous amount of essence into charms that had knit his flesh and bones back together - an exertion he was not entirely recovered from - his back still ached and probably would for another day or so. It was a small price for almost being splattered across the landscape, but having been a demi-god for quite some time now it was a price he would prefer not to pay too often.

He accepted one glass of brandy and took a seat, admiring himself in a mirror: Tristainian finery rendered him suitably magnificent by local standards. The tight pants were a particular boon in that regard. "So how can I help you this evening, your grace?"

Gaston stared into his own glass, not sampling the contents. "My daughters are all precious to me, Sir Yin Luang. What are your intentions towards them?"

Well, he'd have to give the man points for stones. Took quite a lot to ask that of someone who'd thrown you across a lake. "In reverse order of age: Louise is my master for a year and a day after she summoned me. Beyond that will depend upon circumstances but I am not unfond of her. She is also my student which she will doubtless find uncomfortable once she gets started." He knocked back a good mouthful of the brandy which was good but not, in his judgement, excellent. "And there's a certain amusement to being in her company."

"I see. And... Cattelya?"

"Your grace." Yin Luang's voice was very even. "While Louise is my master I am loyal to her needs, not to her whims. I would not have asked Cattelya for her hand in marriage if I was opposed to the idea. I am growing very fond of Cattelya but I presume that you do not want details of certain parts of our relationship."

Gaston paled and gulped down a hefty slug of brandy, coughing as the liquor burned its way down his throat. "You presume correctly," he managed to confirm. "Ah... Louise tells me you are a man of property in your own land but that is is some unfathomable distance away. I take it that there is no concern about your ability to support Cattelya?"

Yin Luang thought of his assorted wealth and property back in Creation (some of which even the I AM, the intelligence that administered much of Creation on behalf of its Exalted masters, might not have realised were his) and grinned broadly rather than laugh out loud. "It's fair to say that I could keep her in reasonably style in my homeland," he observed. "Regrettably those resources are not available to me here but I am sure that by the end of my period of service to Louise that I will have rectified the matter one way or another."

The duke frowned. "One way or another?"

"Either I will have made contact with my homeland..." Hopefully secretly or may your God help you. Yin Luang could imagine the outcome of a publicised return vividly: dozens of Solars and no small number of other Exalted would arrive within the month, intent on carving out new provinces for the Realm. "...or I'll have obtained wealth and rank here."

"This is not Germania, Yin Luang. Titles of nobility are not for sale."

"I didn't know that they were in Germania, althought that does suggest itself as an alternative. I'm reasonably sure I could persuade some king or queen to bestow a title of nobility on myself or on Cattelya. Failing that, there's always conquest."

"You can't be serious!" Gaston's glass dropped unheaded to the carpet, soaking it in

Yin Luang leant forwards calmly. "Oh but I am. Are you are beginning to understand just who your wife and oldest daughter are intent on making an enemy? At one time I was a human, perhaps not so very different from the commoners in your service, Duke Gaston. But that was a very, very long time ago and I am grown old and powerful. Well, mostly powerful."

He could see the question forming: 'What are you?' but instead Gaston surprised him. "You still haven't told me your intentions regarding Eleanor."

"Ha ha ha. You're an interesting fellow. Oh I don't mean her any permanent harm, she's about as amusing as she is annoying really."

.oOo.

When a hand closed over Eleanor's mouth she was not surprised that reaching for the table by the side of the bed found her wand to have been removed. I thought I was taking Louise's room, not a crossroad, she thought.

"Not Louise," a girl said, her voice bearing the accent of the Gallian court athough her terse speech was not the eloquence Eleanor might have expected from one who moved in those circles. "Who?"

"Her sister," she replied when the hand was removed. "HELP! ASSASSIN!" she then shrieked suddenly, hoping to take the girl offguard. There was no response however.

"Silence spell," the girl explained laconically. In the darkness Eleanor could tell that she was quite small and carried a staff rather than a mere wand. "Where?"

"Oh Brimir, not another one. How many lovers does Louise have?"

The girl blinked and then poked Eleanor on the forehead with her staff.

Eleanor caught herself actually considering giving her sister's (what was this, third or fourth?) paramour directions to the relevant bedroom and was vaguely shocked by the temptation. "No, I'm not playing these games. Go away." And then she pulled the blankets over herself and turned away.

Apparently this confused the girl, who poked at her a couple of times before giving it up as a bad job and departing. She at least had the courtesy to close the window after herself.

.oOo.

Yin Luang watched in amusement as the small figure left Eleanor's bedroom window. His orders from Louise had been been specific: he was to guard the princess during her stay and except when in his natural male body (which Henrietta had been introduced to as Louise's tutor and Cattelya's fiance) he was not to allow himself to be seen.

That left him with a certain amount of latitude and he didn't see that anything in his orders required him to act upon the infiltration of Eleanor's new room. Particularly an intruder of such an innocuous nature.

Of course, the fact that she was now working along the chateau systematically checking at windows suggested that sooner or later she would reach the room being used by Princess Henrietta who had returned from her abortive little foray earlier. Somehow, Yin Luang doubted that she was asleep so there was a considerable chance that she would wind up noticing someone at the window.

And it would probably be best to interfere before that happened.

Moving out of the shadows of the roof, the monkey bounded onto the head of the other person watching the infiltrator. "Greetings, Irkyuu."

"Kyui!" the rhyming dragon exclaimed in astonishment. "Li- Kyui! Kyui-kyui!"

"Kyui indeed, Irkyuu," Yin Luang observed, leaning forwards so that his head was in her field of vision. "Would you mind inviting your big sister up here so we can have a little chat? Because otherwise I might have to invite her and, well... kyui."

The dragon's eyes widened in alarm. "Kyui?"

"Uh-huh. Big kyui."

"Eek," Irkyuu (who most believed to be named Sylphid) observed, impressed. She launched herself off the top of the roof where she was lurking quietly, barely noting that Yin Luang had hopped off of her head.

Yin Luang watched in amusement as the sizeable dragon flapped down on Tabitha in her best rendition of stealth. The fact that no one appeared to notice Irkyuu really said more about the laxness of the guards than anything else - although the fact that almost all the soldiery were stationed outside the chateau's immediate grounds meant that there weren't all that many eyes to see the dragon.

After a short conversation, the intruder hopped onto Irkyuu's back and the pair flapped up to the roof where Yin Luang was waiting. It was, the monkey thought, the first time he hadn't seen Tabitha with her nose buried in her book.

"Well now, Chevalier Tabitha. What brings you snooping around the Valliere estates at this hour?"

The blue-haired girl didn't bother with denials or excuses. "Kirche."

Ah. The girl had sought out her only friend at the Academy upon the latter's expulsion and lost her trail on the road, leading her to come here to question Louise about the redhead's whereabouts. All became clear, except of course for why she was looking for Kirche.

"I shall take you to her," Yin Luang offered and took his male form in order to comply with Louise's instructions regarding his being seen. Tabitha blinked furiously and Irkyuu squealed excitedly and also transformed, something that actually surprised Yin Luang.

"Little Monkey can be little person too!" the blue-haired girl who had just been a dragon declared in apparent delight.

"Yes, that's correct Irkyuu," he agreed, accepting the nude girl's hug magnaminously before hoisting her up to sit against his hip. "Now are you coming?" Yin Luang asked, extending a hand towards Tabitha who hesitated. If the light had been better then there might have been a visible flush in her cheeks. For one thing, Yin Luang was holding her familiar - currently a naked, blue-haired girl - against him. Secondly, his pants were very very tight.

With a sigh Yin Luang stepped quickly over to Tabitha and used his free hand to fling her across his shoulder before hopping off the edge of the roof and down to a balcony, an action that prevented Tabitha from wrestling her way loose in favour of clinging to the one thing between her and the hard, hard ground. The man then casually jumped to the next balcony and lifted one foot towards the latch before remembering that he was wearing boots.

"I take it you can manage entrance," he observed, setting Tabitha upright and then trying to do the same with Irkyuu, who clung tighter. "Irkyuu, I'll play with you in the morning," he promised. "However, right now there's someone else who needs me."

Sulkily, the dragon-girl released her hold on him and watched Tabitha unlatch the tall glass doors to enter Kirche's bedroom. Sneakily, Irkyuu turned away and watched Yin Luang descend to the ground in with a somersault and then creep to one of the windows. She jumped off the balcony onto the grass, apparently unheeded by her master, and attempting the same elaborate descent as the man. This was not entirely successful as she landed face first on the ground. "Kyui!" she whimpered, holding her nose which stung as a result of the poor landing.

Scrambling to her feet she followed Yin Luang to a side door and stood on tiptoes to look in through the door's window. the room within was dark except for where the light of the moons streamed through the window, but the curious familiar did not realise that she had sillouhetted herself as she squinted, trying to make out the inside. She could see a bed, and someone lying upon it, her hand pressed against her chest.

Then Yin Luang moved into the light, sitting on the bed and drawing the pink-haired woman into his lap where he cradled her gently. Irkyuu's eyes went wide. Was this...? Kyui! She ducked her head and then poked her head up above the windowsill again. When she looked, Yin Luang's eyes met hers with shocking anger and the dragon-girl yelped nervously and ran off over the grass. Little Monkey could be scary.

Inside the room, Yin Luang drew his arms closer around Cattelya and muttered to himself as he tried to recall the principles of treating diseases in those not blessed with his supernatural vigor.

[LadyTevar]

How sweet.