Her familiar was fighting, and with his abilities he might have prevailed against the elf. As it was, the elf had managed to get away long enough to do something and reinforcements had started showing up.
Even so her familiar was doing pretty darn well considering they were ELVES and he was fighting five of them at the time.
Then her familiar raised his hands above his head, formed a sphere of energy too bright to look at, and shouted out an attack phrase.
She only had a moment to realize she was too exposed, but then - this particular loop was a bust anyway.
Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière woke with a start in her bed.
"Here we go again," groaned the pink-haired girl, moving to her window and looking out. "Now. To see if I can make it turn out differently this time. Well, more differently than usual."
Tabitha was seated and reading when someone short blocked her sunlight. She moved a little to the side. The shadow followed her a moment later.
Louise looked around the courtyard, before focusing on her. "Tabitha. I know."
Tabitha blinked.
"I know about your mother, about your mission, that you're Charlotte Helene Orléans de Gallia, and a number of other things," said Louise. "I even know how to make the antidote for your mother's condition. Meet me in the clock tower in fifteen minutes and we'll talk there. Guiche will be here in another five minutes and I don't want him to hear about this yet."
Tabitha blinked as Louise went confidently stalking off.
Five minutes later, Guiche entered the courtyard and began working on love poems. Tabitha closed her book, frowned slightly, and went to meet Louise.
"Right on time," said Louise cheerfully.
"How?" asked Tabitha.
"This is going to sound completely insane," said Louise. "So I asked future-you how I could convince past-you that I was telling the truth. She told me this..."
Tabitha's eyes widened quite a bit when she heard what Louise had to say.
"Now," said Louise. "Since I've got your attention. Something happened awhile back, and I'm sort of stuck in a time loop."
"A 'time loop'?" asked Tabitha.
"This is the day of the Springtime Summoning Ritual," said Louise. "You almost always get Irukukũ, though you usually call her Sylphid."
"Sylphid?" asked Tabitha, still trying to cope with all this.
"Rhyme dragon," said Louise. "Most of you get the same familiars time after time. Kirsch gets a salamander, Montmorency gets a frog, and so on."
"Then if they get those familiars , I'll be able to confirm your story," said Tabitha.
"Right," said Louise. "Though sometimes someone will get something else. I remember one loop where Guiche got a highlands ram and Montmorency got an otter on another loop. Or the time Kirsch got a giant black widow spider the size of my head."
"A... spider?" asked Tabitha.
"Yeah, just the once - but that was more than enough," said Louise, shuddering at the memory.
"Ah," said Tabitha.
"Anyway, I summon a human. Usually." Louise seemed to consider something for a few moments. "In each case they claim to come from entirely different worlds. In some cases they would have to. The loop seems to depend entirely on how long the summons lasts. If I die or my familiar dies, I wake up in bed on this very morning."
"Why are you telling me this?" asked Tabitha.
"Because I need help," admitted Louise, sounding very reluctant to admit this. "The furthest I've managed to go was when we rescued you from being forced to drink the same poison they gave your mother. I figure to break the loop I have to get past that one fight."
"You said... there's an antidote?" asked Tabitha, not asking which fight. Details could come later.
"Yeah, the third or fourth loop - I got a familiar who knew something about medicine," said Louise. "I remember the recipe he came up with. The tears of a greater water spirit is actually the hardest one to come by."
"So mostly the same, but with a few differences," mused Tabitha out loud.
"Look, after the ceremony, look me up, we'll talk more when you've seen more evidence I'm not just crazy," said Louise, walking away and flipping her hair over her shoulder.
Things were going pretty much the way that Louise had indicated. In fact, every time Tabitha looked over at Louise, she'd mouth the type of familiar a particular student would get when the student had just begun. So far only one had been wrong, and Louise had looked both pleased and surprised by that.
It was Phillipe, and he'd gotten a bulldog when Louise had indicated "dachshund" instead.
At least she thought Louise had mouthed the word "dachshund" - it wasn't very easy to read lips across half a courtyard without being obvious about it.
Finally it was Tabitha's turn and there were various appreciative noises as her dragon appeared. So, Louise was either able to predict the future with startling accuracy or her story was correct and she HAD lived this day multiple times.
Tabitha nodded to Louise, their eyes briefly meeting, and Tabitha saw a faint smile appear on Louise's face.
When finished getting acquainted with her new familiar, and cautioning her about revealing too much of her true nature, it had come to Louise's turn.
Tabitha noticed some nervousness from Louise, and recalled the shorter girl stating that the one thing that changed in every one of her "time loops" was the familiar she summoned.
Tabitha watched in curiosity, as Louise summoned forth:
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(Posted Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:42)
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