Disclaimer: I don't own either IPs. Please don't sue... or use SQFA on me. I don't have rez.

Within this tale, lies a place of not meant to be seen by mortal minds. A place where the deepest, darkest of eldritch creations are born and die in the twisting nethers of insanity. It is a realm where rationality and logic perish in the darkness, existences snuffed out before they can even form. No mere mortal can pass these barriers without forever scarring their immortal soul. Take this warning, foolish soul and cease your advance. But if you wish to continue, know that there is no turning back from this world of broken gods and men. A world where dreams and nightmare twine, their fetich offspring whose thirst for souls can never be quenched. A world of-

Making Magick

A strong, beautiful, sacred familiar.

That's what she said she'd get. Louise de la Valliere, third scion of the noble Valliere family had promised to astound her peers and silence her critics (of which all of the former were also the latter) in the coming of age ceremony for all mages. No more explosions for her. No more failures for her schoolyard nemesis to taunt her with. The only way left for her now was up and up to glorious dominance over her rivals. She'd show them all.

Which is exactly what she did. At least once the smoke of her latest spellcasting cleared.

Everyone, it was admitted, was equally shocked and astounded at the results of her spell.

Not because she'd gotten a strong, beautiful and sacred familiar like she had said. Because there certainly wasn't one, unless it was invisible, intangible, and generally not willing to bother itself with mere nobility.

Not because of the explosion, because that had been certainly expected.

Not because of the crater, because of the aforementioned and expected explosion. Albeit it was certainly larger than her more common attempts at magical ditch digging.

It wasn't because of the presence of anything in fact.

Rather, it was an absence.

And not the absence of a familiar either, for more than one spiteful student had openly speculated on the possibility of this exact outcome.

The absence of one Louise de la Valliere to be exact.

A diminutive pinkette who had last been seen standing exactly where the crater was centered on. And a pair of smoking shoes just the right size to fit a vertically challenged seventeen year old.

Everyone was in agreement, at least, once they were able to talk about it.

Louise had certainly managed to impress them all.

For the last time, some morbidly joked.

Louise was feeling distinctly cheated. And frightened, very much so. But like any self respecting noble that she had been brought up to be, she'd focused instead on the cheated sensation, banishing her fears with indignant cries of "What's this? What's this? This is not my spell! My spell was supposed to bring me a familiar! A strong and powerful one at that!"

What came out instead was "What's going on? Who are you?"

She was most certainly not quaking in her sho- her socks, a tiny part of her mind interjected, noting the distinct and inexplicable lack of well made leather coverings over her feet.

This wasn't how summoning a familiar was supposed to go. Unless the spirits guiding the ritual had a twisted sense of humour in deciding to send her an entire classroom (the blackboard, desks and chairs were obvious), complete with robed and hooded students and a very pale faced man with black robes that was probably the teacher. But who was most certainly also not her teacher.

It was a testament to her confused state of mind that she directed her next words to the probable teacher without much thought. "You're not professor Colbert."

The black robed man seemed to take that as a cue to introduce himself, striking a pose as he spoke up, "Of course not, for I am Vlad, the wise and handsome senior instructor of Alderheim University, and most definitely not a vampire"

Louise stared.

There was a panic, for a little while. They were all mages, yes, brought up on tales of glory and terrible power that was the birthright of nobility. But they were also younglings, barely past their childhood years and with the few rare exceptions, unblooded. The end of life was something for commoners and villains in their histories to experience. Not one of their own, no matter how big a failure she was.

But there was also grim understanding. Least of all in the eyes of the teacher who had been supervising them.

The crater was sealed off for investigation, and a search party called forth, clutching to the straws of hope that maybe the obvious was wrong. That maybe the evidence before them was leading them to the wrong conclusions. Maybe she ran away. Maybe the stress had finally been too much and she had escaped in the only way she knew how-

No, not that way.

The other way.

The obvious way was something none of them wanted to contemplate.

So they searched. Teams of teachers on horseback while a volunteer student with her newly bonded wind dragon scanned from the skies until the sun dipped beneath the horizon and the stars dotted the night.

But they never found anything. No noble in disgrace making tracks for some bolthole to disappear to. No trace of the missing Valliere scion.

Only the crater she had left behind, and a still smoking pair of shoes that no one wanted to touch.

"Send me back!" Louise all but screamed at the pale faced definitely-not-a-vampire Vlad, and heavily bearded mage who everyone insisted was headmaster Bjorn. It had been an absolutely infuriating three minutes getting answers out of Vlad who kept trying to talk over her head, but Louise was cloaked in righteous outrage and to the obvious surprise of the pale teacher, didn't stay silent about her demands. What she had manage to put together wasn't very comforting. She was on the continent of Midgard, in the Alderheim Academy of Magic. There had been an accident too. Something about her summoning spell mixing with theirs, summon 'plot device' or something like that.

But that was just the small details in the light of the greater problem.

Like how she wasn't supposed to be even here. The familiar summoning spell wasn't supposed to work like this! Even she couldn't have messed up her spellwork that badly! No no no, it just couldn't be. She couldn't accept the idea that she'd blasted herself into some strange new land. It had to be these mages fault, somehow.

"I am Louise de la Valliere, and I demand you send me back!"

"Home is important. After all, that is where the beard is." the headmaster said, nodding his head sagely, "but you do not have one. It is better that you stay here until you know where it is."

Louise drew herself up, trying to summon all the outrage she could fit into her tiny frame. How dare he try to detain her! How dare he- wait, what?

"Beard?" She couldn't stop herself from asking incredulously. "I don't have a beard! I just want to go home!"

The supposed headmaster shrugged. "Home is anywhere, but Midgard is what we have. I do not know this Helkaginia you speak of." He paused, stroking his bushy chin hair, "Beard thinks maybe little pink one much too tired and confused."

"I am not confused!" she protested. There had been some magic. It had obviously gone wrong. She was clearly lost in some strange land. She wanted to go home. What was confusing about that? Unspoken was the tiny fear that maybe she couldn't go back. Maybe this was it for her, trapped in this strange land for the rest of her life, cut off from everyone she knew and loved. "Send me home!"

The headmaster shrugged. "Maybe when 'go home' spell is researched. It still isn't working properly and turns students into chickens half the time. But beard thinks maybe you are here for reason." He looked at her with sudden intensity. "Beard thinks that maybe spell worked right. Maybe the plot device is you."

"What?"

"Or maybe not. Plot device spell is tricky sometimes, and gets useless talking swords once in a while. Crowbar once even."

"... you're insane." Louise was a member of high nobility. That meant aside from her not so successful magical schooling, she had years of etiquette training drummed into her. There were rules that governed ones behaviour when dealing with members of the nobility, and even if she were in some strange, never heard before land, there were still rules to follow. All that went out the window as she openly gaped at the man who claimed to be headmaster. "This has got to be a joke."

"It is no joke!" The man proclaimed, waggling his chin. "For the crowbar was once used to save the world, by the strange orange suited man who dispensed righteous butt kicking against great evil! Maybe you will do the same one day, hmm? But if you want to go home, we can do that, as soon as we get the 'go home' spell working properly. But first you can stay here until you get there. Maybe learn our magic too."

"Learn... your magic?" Louise perked up at that offer, latching onto it as the sole lifeline against the rest of the insanity. This was no Tristain Academy, surely the standards of this place were not anywhere up to their mark. But maybe, just maybe, they could find out what was wrong with her? Maybe she could learn proper magic that was useful, magic that didn't blow up in her face? If she could... if she could do that, the she could go home with her head held high. It almost made up for the fact that she had been all but kidnapped to this strange and unfamiliar land.

"Of course," the headmaster affirmed, "Even beard knows that Alderheim is for learning magic," He paused, rummaging around in with his robes before extracting something lumpy and yellow which he held aloft triumphantly.

"And cheese."

"-it is to my greatest regret that duty requires I inform you that-"

Osmond paused in the middle of writing the letter to lean back in his chair, letting out a long sigh as he did so. Writing missives was normally his secretary's job while he dictated the content, but this wasn't the sort of thing he could entrust to her. It was far too important and personal a matter.

Blast and damn, who would have thought he would have to write something like this in his twilight retirement? The worst he would have been expected to write about in these waning years was some student or another just not doing well enough in their studies to remain in the Academy. Not that one of them had died under suspicious circumstances during his auspices. He'd delayed coming to that conclusion as long as he could, but his time had run out. Three days of fruitless searching, even with the help of some old friends in the capital who had arrived on dragon-back the first night.

Yet even with their help, they had failed to turn up a trace of the missing girl or alternative explanation for her disappearance. He was too old for regrets now, but he couldn't help but feel that maybe he should have done something to prevent the outcome. But how could they have foreseen it? Despite the girl's ineptitude, her magical failures had never been anything but harmless. All flash and thunder, but nothing that so much as left a scratch on anyone. For something as benign as familiar summoning, the worst anyone could have expected was simple failure, not an ignomious death.

He would have to make it a matter of official inquiry, hence the letter he dreaded writing to the Valliere family and one slightly less dreaded to the Crown. He had little doubt that before long, the Academy would play host to two separate lines of inquiry, and the subsequent fiasco as royal investigators squared off with the Valliere family's own.

Osmond had seen more years than most, and would likely see many more, but a principal shouldn't have to outlive his students blast it.

He could only hope that somehow, wherever the young Miss Valliere had found herself, she would have a happier time there than she did here.

Louise was not having a happy time.

This could be explained as a consequence of having been whisked away three days ago by means yet unknown; because 'magic gone wrong' was a terribly vague explanation, to a strange land she'd never heard off before, with nary a hope in sight of going home soon.

However, that wasn't it. Well, not entirely.

It could be the fact that her accommodations ever since the beginning of her stay here were less richly appointed than her old one back in Tristain Academy. The Alderheim University was clearly not as well to do as her old Alma mater, being smaller and having less luxurious amenities. But she could live with that, as while they were simpler, they were not so bad as to be intolerable.

So that wasn't it.

It could also have been something to do with the fact that she was in a magical academy that seemed to be staffed by teachers who ranged from apparently normal (some of the junior instructors), audaciously suspicious (Vlad, whom she was starting to suspect might just be a little vampiric despite his denials), and outright insane. At one point in her stay here, she had actually heard the beardma- the principal insist 'in every beard, there is a headmaster', promptly before trying to feed his chin hair a block of cheese.

But predictably... that wasn't it either.

Louise had learned very early on in her stay here to simply tune out the more outrageous meanderings and insanities of the assorted instructors of magic, if only to retain what remained of her peace of mind. Her first nightmare of bushy faced vampiric cheese had been more than enough incentive for her to take up the self preservative practices of selective ignorance.

What she couldn't ignore however, was their magic system.

"There's no lightning element!" She insisted exasperatedly to herself, thrusting the book in her hand back onto the desk with a thump. "Everyone knows that lighting is a triple stacked wind element. And what in Brimir's holy name is the arcane element?"

Learn their magic, the headmaster had offered, and she had taken him up on it. She came expecting new methods, new ideas in the field of magic and alchemy that at the very least she could take back with her. But the fundamentals of magic, those would be the same after all. Earth, water, wind, fire, and the lost element of void, the pentagon of magic.

Except everything the book talked about ran on the assumption of an octagon. An octagon of magic that had only the barest connection to the elements. Oh, four of the five were there. But the rest... whoever heard of the steam element? Or something as simple sounding yet perplexing as the shield element? And healing magic that existed independently of the element of water?

The only thing that seemed familiar to her was the passages that talked about stacking and combining the elements. That had lasted only until the second paragraph where it claimed combinations of up to six elements were possible. Hexagonal magic! It was impossible, square mages were so rare as to be counted on one hand in most nations, and no one higher existed. Yet this book made it sound like hexagonal stacking was something anyone could do. To a student of the Brimiric faith and magic, the claims were so ludicrous as to be completely impossible.

But the blasted book didn't even tell her how any of their spells was achieved. It was all well and good to talk about the elements, but what was 'A-S-F' supposed to mean? Was that an aria? Acronyms for something else? Did she need a ritual circle? It didn't say. Just 'A-S-F' for a spell of quickening, and that was it.

She wanted to throw the infuriatingly vague book out the window, or bang her head against the table in frustration. She only refrained from doing either because she had tried both earlier in a fit of temper, with equally unproductive results. The book had been enchanted to teleport back into the castle confines, the very table it had been sitting in fact, the moment it left it. It was proof at least, that no matter what impossible claims this Academy made about their magic, it was nothing to scoff at. And though the table had no such protection against abuse, she now sported a bruise on her forehead which served as a deterrent against future head banging attempts.

She sighed, closing the book with more force than she would have normally.

Maybe she would have better luck later with her study group.

Vlad had selected them for her from the better performing students, claiming that she "would need all the help she could get to learn the basics". Strangely the definitely-not-a-vampire hadn't supplied her with their names, or at least, real ones. She couldn't imagine what sort of loving parents would name their children 'Mister Black', 'Mister Red' and various assorted colours based on the hue of their robes.

Inadvertently, she shuddered. She hoped it was just some temporary quirk, and not a sign of his habit of referring to any and all students. She had enough disparaging nicknames already.

She definitely didn't want to be known as "Miss Pink" on top of that.

Being a second year student of the Tristain Academy of Magic, Louise was more than aware just what a study group was. That knowledge however, was mostly theoretical. The inevitable intrigues and rivalries between the noble families meant that the choices of study partners were often limited to already established cliques. Combined with her own lackluster results in practical magic, it was a fortunate thing that she was a diligent student in her own right and had a sharp enough mind to do well academically on her own. Still, she had a fairly good idea what a study group would be like. There would be the sharing knowledge as they went over their studies, some advice on how to better understand theories, maybe even gossip if they were comfortable enough with each other's presence. That was what it would be like.

"Iieer?"

This wasn't it.

Louise shot a confounded glare at the black robed mage, unimaginatively named Mr Black, who was one of the quartet she'd been assigned to. The man... well she thought it was a man behind the hood but she couldn't be sure, was currently offering her a somewhat charred sausage on a stick. It was his fourth attempt in as many minutes, which coincided with the times she had loudly expressed her frustration. It could have been in a bun at least and... where in the Founders name did that thought come from? She hastily stamped down on it, noticing with more than a little heat that two of her other study partners, Red and Yellow, were elbowing each other in the ribs.

"I don't want any sausages." She replied as evenly as she was able to, though her left eyebrow was starting to twitch with impatience. Vlad had told her group was comprised of honour students, the best of the current year in magical mastery. Looking at the sort of crestfallen slump to Black's shoulders, she was starting to think Vlad was playing a joke on her. "I just want to understand the magic this university teaches."

"Durber fere?" Yellow asked with a shrug of his shoulders.

Another thing she wanted to understand to a lesser extant was how she was able to even make heads or tails of the utter gibberish they were speaking. It bore no resemblance to any language she was familiar with (and she had at least a passing familiarity of most of them), and nobody else in the Alderheim she'd come across had even spoken in that utter incomprehensibility. In fact, they each seemed to have their own brand of gobbledygook. For all they had spoken, and it wasn't very much since the session had started, she should have incapable of understanding one word of it. Yet somehow, she did.

Sort of.

'Durber fere' from Yellow for example, seemed to carry the flavour of, "what's to understand?"

At least that was just about the only interpretation that seemed to pop up in her head after a few moments of puzzling it out.

Or maybe her mind was just making it all up after finally giving up the fight to making sense of this place. She was starting to put some credence on the latter theory.

But the mage did have a point. The books she had studied so far were straightforward enough when it came to just the magical theory. Visualize the element or combinations thereof that you wanted to use for the spell, focus your willpower into forming the elemental projections and deciding their direction. Some elemental combinations were incompatible while others were complementary. Simple enough.

Except...

"None of this makes sense." She thumped the book labelled 'The Do's and for gods sakes Don'ts of Magick' to emphasize her point. "What does this mean when it says 'don't cross the streams'? A mage shouldn't be able to mix their magic with someone else's spell. It's just not done."

"And what's this about the healing magic? Where I come from, healing is the province of water magic. It commands the elements within the body, knitting wounds and such like. But the book talks about healing as if it was an element of its own. How is that even possible? And what in the name of all that is holy is HP? Hit points? There's no explanation."

It was all nonsense to her when the book started talking about magical rejuvenation. Where was the talk of blood flow, of knowing the internal intricacies of the human body if one were to successfully heal another? One didn't point healing magic at a wounded person without at least knowing where everything was supposed to go. Why, if you didn't know how the body worked and tried anyway, the results would likely be fatal. With the way the book was written, it seemed the author considered that particular knowledge to be practically superfluous!

Red and Yellow traded looks, and then turned back to her.

"Niier." They both said with a shrug as if to say that was how it was done and thinking on it too hard wouldn't go anywhere.

"Nurhuh!" Black interjected with a raised sausage on a stick. Two actually. Somehow, he had acquired another. And at some point, set the both of them on fire. Louise boggled as the student mage, with an air of great importance, put the two burning sausages together.

The results were instantaneous.

"Aaaaaarrhhh!" the black robed student screamed, running around and flailing his burning hands in the air.

In between her sudden horror at the flaming spectacle and the rapid backpedalling to avoid being hit by said fiery digits, a tiny voice in Louise resolved never to eat the sausages made in this land, ever.

Two scorched books, some panicked screaming, much flailing, an irate librarian and a bucket of sand later, Louise found herself witnessing a live demonstration of Alderheim magical principles at work as Red procured a four foot long staff during the commotion from Founder only knew where, and pointed it's gnarled end at her still-on-fire study partner.

There was no aria, not even a short one word chant necessary in the simplest of magics. Just a glob of water that suddenly sprang into existence in front of the mage before it shot forward as a short spray of liquid, dousing the flames and shrouding Black in a tiny fog bank. Another off hand gesture, so quick she nearly missed it, and a softly pulsing ball of green light manifested itself above the staff tip before shooting out as a solid beam of light that was most definitely nothing like any healing magic she'd ever seen.

"Nurbur," Yellow gestured with an open palm at Louise's open mouthed shock as the burns on Black's hands all but vanished in that short lived burst of magic. Black emphasized the point by wiggling his now unburnt fingers. Their magic worked. No other explanation needed.

Had she not been so surprised, Louise would have shot up, an objection ready on her lips. As it was, she was still frozen stock still in her surprise when Red thrust the staff at her from across the table with a brief "frum."

There was no mistaking the gesture from the red robed mage.

"What?" Louise managed to squeak out once she had regained control of her tongue. "You want me to try it out? But I barely even know the principles behind your magical system!" Unvoiced was her rather dismal record with actual magical practice so far. Even if and when she had worked it out, she'd much rather try her first attempt at Alderheim magic in some secluded place. Not that she had any intentions of failing of course. Just in case. Certainly not out here in public where everyone could see.

"I couldn't awk-" her protest was cut short by staff being tossed at her, her hands instinctively coming up to catch it awkwardly.

"Frum."

Louise shot an incredulous stare at the red hooded mage. Despite being unable to make out his face from inside the shadow of the hood, which was odd now that she thought about it since it wasn't that dark, something told her that he was being serious.

"You have to be joking," she protested, waving the staff the quartet. "I've only been here four days and learning your magic for one of them! You can't seriously be expecting me to just cast a spell just like that." Even a prodigy like her mother had needed days and days of training before she could successfully call upon her own magic. New and strange magical systems or not, even they couldn't avoid that particular requirement, couldn't they? To think that she'd be able to conjure up a flame, a fireball even, why, she'd have to be like the... have to be...

It was at that point that she noticed the twin spheres of crackling orange flame circling the staff in her hands.

"Ahhum!"

Louise vaguely heard the words, though in the wonder that suffused her mind, she neither registered the speaker, nor deciphered the meaning behind them.

"Is that... my magic?" She asked no one in particular, reaching out with a hand, foolishly in hindsight, to touch at one of the balls of fire. There was the sensation of warm heat as her fingers neared it, but not as hot as she had imagined it should be. It seemed almost impossible. She'd barely even felt the drain on her willpower, so faint as to be practically non-existent. And yet there it was, serenely floating in the air, softly crackling with the promise of power. It was magic. Her magic, she realized with increasing excitement. And it hadn't exploded. An honest to Founder fireball that didn't blow up in her face.

"I did it..." she whispered. "I did it." she exclaimed, as if the first utterance just hadn't been strong enough, and incidentally getting an annoyed hiss from the librarian.

She jumped up triumphantly, waving the staff in her hands in the direction of her new-found friends. "I did it!"

The twin burning spheres promptly joined together and became a roaring tongue of fire, bathing Yellow in their flames.

Louise instantly paled as the sudden human torch jumped up, hoarsely screaming as he flailed about in pain. Oh Founder, what had she done? She hadn't meant for that. Stupid Zero! Her first success, and she was killing the people who'd helped her. Stupid, worthless worm! But even in her panicked state, a part of her retained enough clarity of mind to cut through her panic and think up a solution. Magic. Yellow was on fire. Her fault. But she could fix it. She had magic. She just needed water. Orbs of liquid sprang into existence.

Yellow continued howling like the souls of the damned. She concentrated.

Lots of water.

Louise had expected a gush of water when she directed the spell, a torrent powerful enough to douse the flames that were consuming her study partner.

She just hadn't realized how fast it would have been going. Or how much a lot of water really was.

It wasn't a short lived jet of water, like Red had demonstrated earlier. It was a frothing wall of raging liquid, roaring from staff tip like a never-ending waterfall going the wrong way with all the speed and energy of a cannon ball. The moving wall struck the flailing figure of Yellow and enveloped the student, immediately dousing the flames but also tearing him off his feet in a flailing mass of roaring water and limbs.

"Waaargbllleaaahhh!"

The staff dropped from her fingers a heartbeat later, ending the jet of water as suddenly as it began. But the remainder of the stream continued it's headlong rush. She heard the distinctive sound of glass shattering and the rapidly fading voice of Yellow. There was, maybe, something that sounded rather like a very faint thud.

Clapping her hands over her mouth, Louise rushed to the shattered window, heedless of the the soaked floor and the broken furniture. Down below on the courtyard, the figure of Yellow lay spread eagled, framed by a halo of broken glass and splintered wood. He twitched.

"Hurm furm" Red shrugged as he came alongside, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. She'd get the hang of it, he seemed to say, even as Louise looked on at the destruction she had caused in utter horror.

"Neiberee." Black interjected.

Eventually.

Louise ran down the stairs, cursing every second it took for her to reach the destination. Tears blurred her sight, rolling heedlessly down her cheeks as she raced on uncaring.

Stupid Louise. Stupid little zero. Magic was the power of creation. No matter how benign the spell you intended, you never threw it about without a care for where it ended up. A simple, basic rule of safety that every mage was drilled in the moment they picked up a wand. Everyone should know and follow that rule by heart. Everyone but her.

But it had been so... so easy.

For so many agonizing years, she had been bereft of even a single successful spell, countless tutors and her hardest attempts leaving her in the shattered remnants of dreams and her local surroundings. Not even a tiny little mage light would spring forth when she called it, only the failures of a broken spell.

Not this magic, no. Not this power. It was eager, subservient, it practically gushed out of her at the slightest intent to call it forth. In a matter of mere days with the most cursory of learning, and on her first try to boot, she was calling forth powerful magic like a true mage, as easily as snapping her fingers. Easier even. It had taken no more effort than the twitch of a finger, and as unconsciously too, for the magic of Alderheim to respond to her. It had been incredible, overwhelming, so full of possibility that had previously been denied her.

But the first thing she had done with it...

Stupid, stupid, stupid Louise. Even her successes were marked with failure and horror.

Her eyes blurred with frantic tears as she continued running, finally bursting out of the door to the university courtyard.

Yellow was there, lying in a halo of shattered glass and steaming water. His robes were scorched and what she could see of his hands, the only exposed bits of flesh outside his robes, was a ruined mass of burns. He had been twitching, when she had seen him from the library tower. But now.

Now he was still and unmoving, limbs bent at unnatural angles. Not even the slight movement of the chest that followed breathing.

She shuddered inwardly, recoiling from the horrible sight. No. No no no no. She couldn't have caused this. She couldn't accept it. She... no. Fingers tightened around the loaned stave, bringing it closer to her as she began to focus her willpower into what she had learned.

Orbs of gentle green light manifested and began to orbit her as she turned her thoughts towards the strange Alderheim way of healing, the spheres of magical energy flowing into the tip of the stave. She focused her thoughts on healing, of undoing the damage she had done. The spheres vanished, and a stream of green light shot out from her staff, striking the body of Yellow as the air itself sang with crystalline chimes in the presence of healing energies. An aura of light engulfed his fallen frame, the magics at work.

He wasn't dead, she told herself. She hadn't ki-ki- killed him. The burns would heal. The cuts would close. He would breathe again. She tried to pour more power into the magic, struggling against the horrid conclusion. Yellow would be alright. He would be healed and recover from her terrible mistake. She would make this right. She had to.

"...Ier?"

"Oh please please please, don't be dead."

"...ier?"

"Don't be- huh?"

"Adeebar!"

Louise started, her concentration breaking as the spell collapsed on her, the beam of healing energies vanishing as abruptly as water in a furnace. That voice, it was familiar. She stared at the unmoving body of Yellow. It had sounded like... hope began to flare in her heart as she stared at his-

"Neiberim rez."

The voice was behind her.

Louise whirled about, but there was nobody there, just the empty courtyard stairs. But then who had spoken?

"Neeber rez ni?"

Her composure cracked. Louise took an uncertain step back from the unmoving body of Yellow, all sorts of horrible realizations running through her in that exact instance. No. No no no.

"Rez!"

She very nearly shrieked as something brushed against her shoulder. But it was Red, casually sauntering past her her, another stave in his hand. He turned his head back towards her, face hidden by the shadows of his cowl. She shrank back from the hood, imagining all sorts of accusations concealed within. Disgust and hatred at what she had done. Rightful anger, and deadly spells would follow. And she would-

"Neiberim rez."

Wait, what? Her mouth dropped open.

"Ahum!"

"Bring... bring him back?" she managed to croak out. But... but-

Red snapped his fingers, making a wordless sound of understanding. A crackling sphere of lighting exploded around his raised hand. A green orb soon followed. She cringed as Red raised his arm, casting a guilty look at Yellow's unmoving body.

There was sudden light.

A loud pop.

And just as suddenly Yellow was there, literally rising from the ground with his arms outstretched as he bathed in an aura of light. And then the light went out, the sound stopped as gravity reasserted itself and Yellow landed on his feet, looking all the world as if he hadn't been scorched by fires and thrown out a window only moments ago.

If anything, Louise felt her mouth drop even further. But... but... her eyes darted to where Yellow had lain. The body was still there, still- it was fading. Unravelling at the seams like a person made out of mist until nothing remained. She looked back at the... the mage before her. She thought of that voice, speaking beside her ear when its owner was supposed to be... dead.

"Rez." the yellow garbed mage said while brushing down his robes, as if that explained everything. Red simply held up two fingers.

"Tvier hlutr." He emphasized. Two elements. The fingers snapped.

"Heegr."

Simple.

Louise huddled in the corner of her room, arms wrapped around her knees as she softly rocked back and forth, eyes tightly shut.

She was dreaming. No. She was having a nightmare. Yes, yes. She wasn't in this... this farcical insane world. Her magic didn't send her here. No no no no. Little Louise was a failure, her spells never worked. She couldn't be here. Her summoning spell must have blown up in her face and knocked her out. She was in a coma. Or the explosion had broken her mind. Maybe she was dreaming she was insane. Or both. It was the only explanation. Nothing else could. Nothing else did.

The litany of denials went through her mind without pause. Yet they couldn't keep the memories from leaking into her consciousness.

She shook her head viciously, trying to banish them from her thoughts. All it did was make them more vivid. The phantom smell of smoke filled her nostrils, and crackle of remembered fire heated her face. She had killed someone. Not a friend. Not family. Certainly no one she had any particular attachments to. But still, she had ended the life of someone who had done nothing more than simply be there when she had finally cast a working spell. She felt sick. It was unforgivable, her success resulting in greater catastrophe than her worst failures.

And then right before her eyes... and then her crime was undone.

She keened softly. Death was final, it couldn't be healed, couldn't be reversed. But there were stories from her childhood, of dark necromancy that only the elves were rumoured to be capable of. Ancient, terrible magic, terrible for the blasphemy inflicted upon the natural order. And terrible for the beings that returned, maddened and crazed creatures that no natural being could be. She had always dismissed those tales as nothing more than silly superstition and fear mongering.

But to see it performed before her eyes. To witness mortality so easily cast aside with just two elements. TWO! To see the man she had accidentally killed so cavalierly brush of his death as if it were no more troubling than a stumble. But worse of all, nobody seemed bothered about it. Not that she'd killed her fellow student, not that he'd been brought back, none of it. Not the students, not the teachers, not even Yellow himself. Nobody cared.

It was terrifying, it was horrific, it... it made sense.

The sudden realization chilled her to the bone. All that bizarre leaps of logic, when she could find any logic at all, all that insanity that she took for simple idiocy. The absolute lack of concern about dying. There was a twisted logic binding the evidence before her and those precautionary tales of her childhood. She thought of her supposed classmates. She thought of not-a-vampire Vlad. She thought of the beardm- headmaster who had very nearly driven her insane with his nonsense.

They weren't just odd. They were all stark raving mad, every single one of them. Crazier than... than... than anything she could think up to compare it with.

The other realization struck a moment later. She was the only one who wasn't mad, she hadn't died. She hadn't been brought back as some maddened undead horror.

The only one.

In a university full of insane mages.

She shuddered, feeling more isolated than anything like before. She was trapped in this insane land, surrounded by equally insane mages, their insanity matched only by their incredible command of magic. Was this what she wanted? Would she... would she become like them? Some insane caricature of a noble driven mad by the power they wielded?

It couldn't be true. Nothing like that could be true.

But what if-

"Vladaree?"

Everything is alright?

Louise snapped her eyes open. She very nearly shrieked, scooting backwards on her hands and legs, only to bump against the unyielding wall. The memories she had been trying to suppress so desperately leaped to the forefront. She hadn't even heard the door open, much less his footfalls. There was a stave in his hand, glowing faintly with magic.

It couldn't be him. It wasn't possible! But the treacherous remembrances whispered their rebuttals. Oh yes, it was definitely true, she had seen it herself. There was no denying what had transpired, and what now stood before her. All those tales of vengeful ghosts and maddened undead seeking revenge flooded her mind. Whatever thoughts she had of defending herself were drowned by the sheer terror of what she faced and the fact that her own stave was well out of reach. This was it, her thoughts gibbered, the pretense was over. She was going to-

"Ierr... dabaroo?"

A sausage was proffered in her direction.

Louise stared.

"Frum," Yellow offered, giving the foodstuff in his hand an encouraging shake.

It took a second verbal nudge from the robed mage before her mental functions managed to wrap themselves around what he had been saying, and a slightly more exasperated third attempt for her to respond to it. With a trepidation reserved only for the most venomous reptiles, Louise reached out for the sausage with a trembling hand. It was only after she closed her fingers around it that she suddenly remembered the fate of the last sausage she'd seen.

…

After a few heartbeats, Louise very slowly cracked open an eye. Contrary to her expectations, the sausage in her hand hadn't exploded. Black's fate wouldn't be hers yet it seemed. But then why was Yellow-

Her stomach chose to growl at that moment, reminding her that she'd missed dinner.

"Neiber" Yellow explained helpfully, tapping a hand against his midsection in an obvious message before turning around and exiting her room before she could even get a word in edgewise.

Leaving her with a somewhat greasy looking sausage.

There were days when all the signs indicated that things would not go well. Waking up still in her day clothes, feeling considerably greasy and thoroughly bedraggled, a half eaten sausage inexplicably clutched in her hand, with only a fragmented recollection of the previous day wasn't an absolute guarantee, but for Louise, it was certainly foreboding. Especially since the last thing she remembered of the day before was taking a bite out of that very sausage.

At the very least, neither she nor the sausage had exploded, so that had to count for something, right?

That particular thought had lasted for a while as she washed and dressed up. At least, until she caught sight of the borrowed stave leaning against the wall of her dorm room, way the simple wooden focus glinting in the daylight as if mocking her. She hunched over, and despite the warm sun through the window, shivered. She still felt sick over what she had done, and more than a little frightened by the revelations of what had followed immediately after. No, not just frightened, more like terrified.

Not even guilt from causing the death of a classmate could overshadow the horror she should have felt on learning how little dying actually meant amongst these mages.

But... Yellow hadn't seemed any stranger, any more bloodthirsty or broken than he had been when she had first met him. Even if she could ignore the terrifying implications of what had been done, accident or not, how could anyone just brush that off? If her fellow mage had been filled with rage and anger, demanding the satisfaction of revenge or justice, she could have understood, accepted it even. It was her fault all of this had happened. But Yellow hadn't been any of that.

He had actually been concerned about her.

She... she didn't know how to take that. Was this a product of madness, some kind of sickness of the mind that must surely have followed such a traumatic experience? How could Ye- anyone be so nonchalant about that and still be concerned about people? Or was it just a sign of how little anyone cared about, about, her train of thought sputtered out and ground to a halt, all logic unable to continue in the face of the mounting paradoxes.

Her thoughts were still a jumbled mass of confusion when suddenly her door noisily burst open, disgorging a trio of colourful robed figures. The brightly coloured robes of Yellow figured prominently among their number. A finger was pointed in her direction.

"Deeber!"

"Wh-what's the meaning of-," Louise's protest cut off in a startled squawk as a pair of hands latched onto her arms, rooting her to the spot. Another student hustled up with a large heap of unidentifiable cloth in his hands. Before she could do more than blink, the mage threw the cloth over her head and everything went black.

For one heart stopping moment, Louise couldn't do anything. She just stood there in the sudden darkness and settling weight of cloth, rooted on the spot as a dozen different terrors shot through her heart. But before the thoughts could do more than coalesce, the darkness was pulled away and her arms released, revealing her room and two of the robed mages taking a step back from her.

Louise blinked, finally realizing them for her previous study partners, Red and Black.

And then something plopped on her head.

Yellow stepped into her peripheral vision, turning her around with a quick shove until she was facing a mirror on the wall.

"Neeber ree do neeb"

Look the look, he seemed to say.

Louise felt her eyes going to the reflected vision and blinked again.

Somehow, in the space of a few seconds, she had been put in robes. Not the dowdy brown robes that the majority of students and faculty wore, though it bore a similar cut. Some cloth-maker had decided in a fit of madness to dye the entire ensemble in excessive amounts of of bright pink. The collar of the robes were upturned, a semicircle of cloth reaching up well past her ears, almost up to her forehead actually. Instead of falling down, it stayed upright in a fashion that spoke of a stiff internal lining. A brief flash of embarrassment ran through her before she realized that her old clothes were still on underneath it all. But on her head was a hat.

It was the among the most ridiculous hats she had ever seen in her life. Including the one that had been shaped like a purple lizard she had seen at a town festival once.

The hat was a circular construction, with a stiff brim that was wider than her shoulders. Between her oversized collar and hat, it blocked out almost all light, leaving her reflected face seemingly shrouded in murky shadows. That alone by itself wouldn't have been too bad, she thought after a moment. It added a sense of mystery to her appearance. If not for the centerpiece. Instead of a low hemisphere like a sensible, if overly large sun hat, the crown was a a ridiculously tall cone almost as long as her forearm. It easily added another foot to her height, somehow making her seem smaller than she already was.

She hated it immediately.

But just as she was about to reach up and tear it off her head, she noticed all three of the mages nodding. Red even went so far as to lift his hand, giving her a thumbs up.

"Neeber ree magicka!"

She only had time to gape before Black and Yellow grabbed her arms, pulling her out of the room in a sudden rush as Red snatched up her borrowed stave and throwing it to Black.

"Wh-what's going on!" She practically bellowed as she tried not to trip and smack the ground as the two ran on.

"Derebe magicka fri" Yellow said amiably without even slowing pace. Magical practice classes.

"Ahum!" Black chimed in from the other side, calling up a small ball of fire with his free hand... and promptly setting the limb on fire.

Louise suddenly felt very afraid.

Contrary to her initial fears, the class on magical practice was turning out to be quite normal for a change, and was decidedly devoid of the expected chaos and impromptu spontaneous combustion.

The students who had arrived before them were an orderly bunch, most of them wearing the same dull brown robes she'd seen the others wearing around the academy. The sole exception, a blue garbed student she hadn't seen before, had waved them over. With six multicoloured balls of magical energy swirling around the outstretched limb, each one of a clearly unique element. She had shuddered inwardly at the sight. A single stack of the flame element was bad enough when miscast, she didn't want to imagine what would have happened if all six had gone off.

But there hadn't been any magical mishap, and she soon found herself sitting in the same row as Blue, as he was known, and her impromptu escorts. That they were singularly the most colourful of the gathered students struck her as somewhat odd, especially with all the muted browns of everyone else. But it was only a passing thought as the professor came into the hall shortly after and classes began in earnest.

For the most part, it was a mundane and sensible affair. The instructor would demonstrate a single simple elemental spell, expounding on its varied uses before asking one student or another to emulate his example. It was almost like how the Tristain academy conducted magical practice, really.

Though with a lot more snoring, she noted with some annoyance.

For what was supposed to be capable students, the three mages who comprised her erstwhile study group had fallen asleep shortly after classes began. Only Blue seemed to be awake, though he paid as much attention to the class as the other three. Instead of sleeping, the blue garbed mage was more concerned with the various tiny orbs of magical power circling his arm which he seemed to be arranging into an increasingly varied number of patterns. Louise noted with a small amount of concern that fire and lightning figuring prominently among them, even if Blue seemed more competent about handling such things than Black. Unlike any self respecting professor of the Tristain Academy however, the teacher seemed content to ignore the laxity the four displayed in his class. Still, it was something mostly ordinary and for a little while, she found her thoughts drifting back to the events of the day before.

Until the teacher changed topics.

"You all have experience with most of the elementary and basic combination of spells," the robed man said with a bored sounding tone, waggling his fingers where a ball of fire flitted for emphasis, "that any mage can perform. But it is time to demonstrate your proficiency in the finer arts of magick. Today you will tested on your ability to call up a simple one that is suitable for your level, haste."

Blue perked his head at that, lifting a hand in a swirl of fire, lightning and healing orbs.

In hindsight, that should probably have been her first warning sign that things were about to go downhill.

"Vareemer skotjr magicka," Blue proclaimed, his gibberish simultaneously as incomprehensible to her ears as the other three, yet understandable in a fashion. "Ahum."

He was going to volunteer, though there was something about his tone that didn't seem to sit right with her.

Louise was starting to get a certain feeling in the back of her spine. It was an unpleasant feeling, alien, yet familiar somehow, as if she had been on the receiving end of such feelings before. Perhaps... no, she refused to think that way. She knew practically nothing about Blue, and it would be hypocritical of her to unfairly judge another person in that manner when she had hated it so much. Anyway, with all the spell patterns he had been creating earlier, Blue certainly seemed a lot more competent than Black when it came to magical aptitude. Not to mention that no one seemed to be particularly bothered about it either, so she was quite sure that it was nothing more than unfounded nerves. Besides, it was a spell of quickening, not a fireball or anything like that. How could that possibly go…

No. She was not having that thought. No no no no.

Blue lifted his hand, the spheres of elemental power swirling away from his hand and going around his body. Louise could practically feel the power crackling in the air as shimmers of light began to play about his body.

"Vaneemer dabeeb skotjr," he proclaimed, the spheres coalescing into a single ball of white light as a tingle of worry ran down her spine. Not quickening? With a satisfied nod, Blue waved his hand.

"Bsod."

The light flared. Her hair stood on end. There was a sound, an alien trill unlike anything she had ever before experienced. And then there was something beside her, a flash of blue light that stole her attention. A pane of blue. Unfamiliar white script. A soul chilling glimpse into otherness. A reality she couldn't comprehend. And then it was gone, shrinking into oblivion.

Black yelped, succumbing to gravity with a thud as his chair vanished.

Louise tried to press back in her chair as much as she could, her eyes darting between the muttering form of Black and where his chair had been a moment only seconds ago.

"Dukker reem ne magicka" Blue nodded to himself, "neeber blar gluggr neem re bani"

Despite the chills running through her spine, she had to blink at that. And not just at the incredible claim that Blue had only just devised that... thing his spell had created. He called it screens of death?

"Ahum!" Black shook his fist from underneath the table, the outrage clear in his voice. She could sympathize. What if it had been her chair that had been sucked into that whatever... what if it had been her?

"Ier..." Blue admitted with a shrug. "Drepa gefa illr"

It wasn't as if his magic could be aimed?

Louise very nearly fainted.

Black responded rather differently. She was certain she wouldn't have jumped out from under the table and punched Blue in the face. The blue garbed mage fell to the floor, rolling with the impact. But the former quickly gave chase, bringing his stave down to bear on Blue.

…

Where had that come from? But before she could even spend another thought on that, Blue's hands flashed, reaching over into the shadowed corner of the classroom before improbably extracting a sword out of the darkness.

"Deeber!" Blue challenged from the floor, pinned down by the stave even as the point of his sword was pointed at Black's neck, "Nu bi!"

Louise looked frantically at the teacher, hoping that he would put a stop to this insanity. But the man was simply covering his face with his hands, not even bothering to look at the duo.

"Ier..." Yellow spoke up from beside her, "neeber ree vig?"

She must have looked like a fish with her mouth open like that, a tiny voice whispered inside her head. But she couldn't help it, even if she couldn't have heard that right. Had Yellow really just compared Black to a barking dog? Was he-

With an enraged yell, magic flared around Black's stave and the question became academic as Yellow was blasted back a dozen paces, trailing smoke and tiny arcs of lightning.

Silence reigned for all of a heartbeat.

Yellow groaned.

A chair fell down.

"Nikker re svefn?" Red muttered sleepily, waving a stave in his hand. "Laeti."

Couldn't he sleep? It was noisy.

The teacher walked out through the back door.

Louise felt her jaw drop.

Some students jumped up, a few carrying staves, others with hefty books that suddenly looked no less lethal. One whirled a string of sausages about like a whip. A fireball leaped from the outstretched hands of Blue, but his aim was off, missing Black by a wide margin. A brown robed student ignited, lightning crackling wildly from his palms as the human torch ran screaming about. People were struck by lightning, more spells were cast. A great deal more students entered the fray. The air hummed as streams of magical energy crisscrossed the air. One of them crossed another. Wet, pulping explosions followed.

Louise bravely flung herself under her desk. A small boulder cannoned by just past where her head had been.

Someone screamed in terror, and she only realized belatedly that it was her doing the screaming.

'OhlordohlordImgoingtodie' She huddled as close to the floor as she could, her face wet with something warm and iron-stink. Somehow, the stave Red had lent her the day before was lying on the floor within reach. She clutched it close, trying to think of something, anything from all her lessons that would let her get out of this intact.

But just as the thought of flight crossed her mind, something landed on her desk with a thump, filling the air with smoke and the crackle of flames. Before she could even flinch, water roared, a frothy column of raging liquid slamming into her desk and sweeping her out from underneath in a tangle of limbs and panicked gurgling.

It only lasted a few seconds, but when wave passed and Louise could see again, she was out in the open. Surrounded by destructive magic and angry mages. With swords. And fireballs. And things she didn't even have names for.

Headed in her general direction.

She shrieked, clutching the staff close to her, never seeing the glint of yellow light suffusing the focus. Her lineage for a way out, a shield, a barrier, anything!

Lightning cracked.

And harmlessly arced around a shimmering golden dome that suddenly surrounded her. The air hummed with a strange endless thrum, muting all other sounds from beyond the barrier.

Louise blinked, the muted battlefield affording her a moment of auditory peace incongruent with what her eyes were seeing. Beyond the shimmering globe of light, deadly spells lashed out, mages died and exploded. A ball of fire sizzled through the air detonating against her barrier with a fury of a firestorm. Yet the protective shield held, turning aside blade and spell with equal ease.

She was... safe? She started to stand up, looking to the stave and almost daring not to think the thoughts even as the battle raged beyond. Was this... was this her magic too? It was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Nothing of the Brimiric magic would be capable of producing a barrier of light.

A beam of humming arcane energy, encased by crackling arcs of of lightning lanced out, striking her shield... and bounced back the way it came, blasting the casting mage into unidentifiable chunks.

Her dinner the day before threatened to make a bid for freedom as she clamped a hand over her mouth. It was horrible, senseless slaughter of their peers. How could they do this? They were killing themselves, murdering each other for no reason she could think of. It was an insanity she couldn't even begin to understand. But... but at least she was safe inside this dome, right?

The humming stopped at that exact moment, the protective light fading into nothingness.

A boulder caromed by, striking the top of her hat and nearly knocking it off.

Louise dove for the ground with a shriek.

'Think protective thoughts.' The litany ran through her head as she focused on the staff with all her might. 'Think protective thoughts.'

It was night, and Louise was alone in her room, trying very hard not to scream. Her robes were bedraggled, her hair a mess, the hat which she thought so silly now irreversibly bent at an angle that left the cone hanging down her back. Yet she didn't give a mouldy ecu about her appearances.

She had survived magical practice.

Correction, that tiny little piece of her fading sanity squeaked.

She was the only survivor. Barely.

The protective dome she had managed to conjure had been destroyed no less than six times in the ensuing battle. The only reason why it hadn't collapsed the seventh time was because there was no one left to throw any spells her way. The entire class had murdered themselves in an orgy of senseless violence, the last being Red who stepped on a conjured crystalline globe. The last she had seen of him then was his screaming figure, trailing smoke and flames as he was launched out through the windows at impossible speeds. Louise had never before seen a battlefield in her life, but she was sure that if she did, it would resemble the classroom at the end.

And then, only then did the teacher return. She wanted to berate the useless mage then, for letting all of that pointless bloodshed happen. But all she had managed to achieve was a pitiful little mewl of despair.

If the teacher had heard her, he gave no sign, simply giving her a light nod of acknowledgement before raising his staff and letting power crackle through it. It had only lasted a few moments, but she had felt her breath hitch then, dreaded expectation filling her as she watched what would follow. Scorch marks faded, flames were put out, and the bodies, what were still recognizably bodies, vanished. And then they were there.

Red. Blue, even Yellow and Black who had been exploded into a hazy red mist only minutes ago. The students. They were all there, as large as life and not dead as they sat back on their chairs.

Only for the lunch bell to ring, and a stampede of slippered feet to mark the mass exodus from the classroom.

Still within her protective shield, Louise alternated between relief, shock and pure horror so quickly that she was sure she was going mad.

And then.

And then...

The teacher spoke her doom.

"Magical practice continues tomorrow."

Of the many skills that Louise had cultivated over her short life, none had been honed so keenly as the powers of denial and hope. Denial had allowed her to persevere in the face of overwhelming evidence of her magical deficiency, and against all the taunts her classmates had thrown her way. She only needed to study a little harder, put a bit more effort, and the world would be her oyster. Hope helped preserve her dreams of finally turning the tables on her tormentors and proving her magical worth, insulating against the cruel slings and bows of life. Especially when they were loaded with failed spells.

For seven years, ever since she'd first picked up a wand, they had been her mainstays.

Five days after her arrival in this land, hope had curled up in some dark and lonesome alley while denial was considering a career in alcoholism.

"There's no place like home," she repeated to herself, trying not to shudder as she hid under her bed. "There's no place like home."

A/N: This little production was the result of spacebattle's resident tentacle making an interesting suggestion that I took up. A lot of random snippets showcasing various such instances took place, and before long, Making Magick took form. I rather hope you all like it.