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."