A Familiar Void

Chapter 3

Louise was awoken by the sound of her door opening. The mage sat up, rubbing her eyes as she wondered if she had overslept again. Turning to the door she saw Bug closing the door behind it as it entered her room, before turning around.

She stared into its 'eyes', the sockets showed nothing but black.

"Bug?" She called out groggily "Did you," she yawned "Did you leave the room?"

It didn't answer, instead going back to the hay stack by her bed. It reached into its cloak, pulling out the piece of paper she had given it and the quill. It began to scribble into the paper once more

"Did leave my room Bug?" She asked again, her annoyance at its silence waking her up a bit. It turned to her and gave a nod, this made her frown "You shouldn't be going out on your own, you're my Familiar."

It tilted its head.

She looked down at where it was sitting "What did you even do, leaving out so late in the night?" For a moment a thought came to her.

'It wasn't trying to find a way to escape was it?' Fear mixed with anger 'It was already acting rebellious last night, but that couldn't mean that it was going to...'

It turned the paper in its hands, showing the map that it had drawn yesterday, and to her surprise the contents of it was already larger than the one it had shown her last night.

Fully awake, Louise's eyes widened "Bug, did you spend the whole night exploring the school?" She looked out the window after it nodded. Dawn was just starting to break, meaning it spend well over six hours just going around the school all so that it could complete its map.

Turning back to her Familiar, it scratched the parchment with precision. Despite the stumps that it had for hands it showed remarkable dexterity as it expanded the map.

A smile grew on her lips, a Familiar that could write and draw. She'd like to see Zerbst try to say that her stupid fire lizard was better when her own was a literate cartographer.

She sighed as another thought came to mind 'What would a mage need a cartographer for?'.

She thought about it in silence as her Familiar continued to draw.

After a while, the sun's rays were starting to peek through her window and at that moment her Familiar had finished adding things to its map. It turned to the window, black sockets staring out into the sun.

"Are you done?" Louise asked.

It turned its head back to her, and nodded.

She reached out, "Let me see it." It stood up from the hay stack, heading towards her bed and giving her the map. After that it walked past her to stand by her window.

Looking at the map she was impressed, even if a mage didn't have need for a cartographer she figured that letting it have it as a hobby wouldn't be so bad.

She noticed more details on the map, the courtyard had what looked like small trees dotting the edges of the circle and the gate, the room before it had that fountain she'd see Zerbst flirt with her boy toy of the day, she even noticed that one room had what look like a chicken thigh. A grimace grew on her face when she noticed another smaller drawing of a rat near, what she can only assume, was the kitchen.