A Familiar Void

Chapter 4

Louise, like many mages, liked to learn. She liked to learn about magic, spells, and when she had time she would brush up on Noble Etiquette because in the future when she'd be wed, she would need to act as a proper Wife at the same time as a Noble. And even though most of what she'd learn was because it would help her status as a Noble and a mage, she enjoyed learning nonetheless.

It was why she and her sisters often had tutors that helped her in lessons, to add just a bit more knowledge to their repertoire. Not all of them were good, if Louise had to be honest she'd even say that some of the tutors that she'd had were complete and utter rubbish and she questioned how they even got their job in the first place.

Some people would say that she'd be shifting the blame to the tutors, when it was her that was doing bad. But so what? She had a right to complain about who taught her, she had the right to grumble about not understanding what was being taught. After all, it wasn't as if it was something unique since she'd hear her sisters loudly complaining about how bad a tutor was as well.

Now though, looking bad at the many bad words she's said behind a tutor's bad and to their face, all the insults and shouts that she threw at them. She would be all too willing to take them all back.

Because as Bug failed to write down its name for the third time in a row despite instructions, Louise was beginning to realise that teaching someone wasn't as easy as she thought.

"No Bug," Louise barely held back a growl as she pointed at the big 'BUG' that she written on the top of the piece of paper that they were writing on with her quill. "Just write your name," She said in an exasperated tone.

Her Familiar looked at the words, looked at her, looked at the previous failed attempts. It didn't do anything at first, simply staring at its name written in big letters. It raised the quill in its hand.

And drew the exact same symbols as last time, meaning that it was total gibberish to her. Bug looked up from his 'writing', and then pointed at it with its own quill.

Louise looked at the symbols, and the three other symbols that littered the page. She let out a groan, dropping her face in her hands before she finally laid her head down onto the table.

'I know it'd be too easy,' Louise thought to herself. Her eyes went from the paper that Bug was using, to the other open scrolls that had more advance words and even sentences that were strewn about the table. All of them had the same effect.

At first she thought that it be fine to start with "I am Bug, Familiar to Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere." After all, it would need to be recognised as her Familiar. What if it got lost somewhere and it refused to speak like it had been stubbornly doing with her? She need it to be able to get back to her, so it being able to identify itself in her language was a necessity.

Only it just kept making those gibberish symbols, over and over again. At first she let it, of course that was probably its language so it was just trying to get the feel of its written language to hers.

But Bug just didn't seem to want, or at the very least not able, to write in her language.

Even when she went from "I am Bug, Familiar to Louise." To even simpler sentences like "I am Louise's Familiar" before going even simpler ones "I am Bug" until she reached just single words. And when it couldn't even write "Louise" she thought that it could at least write Bug in her written language.