I made up my own magic rules, since the canon didn't give me any.  :p


It was almost noon, and Luc still hadn't completed the finishing touches on Sarah's staff.  Time was running out.  She would return any moment from her practice session.  He'd sent her away specifically for this purpose; if he had to find another excuse to postpone her studies, she might begin to wonder.

He narrowed his eyes at the crystal and scowled.  It glinted back innocently.  The rune at its center remained dead and unresponsive.  His research was conclusive enough, it was the right kind of crystal, and the spell wasn't much different than the incantations used to maintain spells in the tower, but the rune refused to work.

One more time.  He glanced at the water clock.  Once more, and then it would be time for Sarah to leave the practice chamber to return to the study, and she would sense anything else he might try.  Everything was worked out.  A modification here, a twist in the energy there...  The trickle of magic he called upon wasn't even enough to make his rune glow, but the gate rune at the center of the crystal reacted just as it did earlier, with an odd flickering pulse that echoed Leknaat's rune.  He rarely noticed her magic signature now that he was so accustomed to it, hadn't even considered it a potential problem until now.

Luc twisted the spell a little bit and changed his inflection.  The rune stopped pulsing.  His spell didn't dissolve upon completion this time - a definite improvement - and a quick mental probe assured him it wouldn't fall apart.  Good.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway beyond the door.  He scrambled up from his spot on the floor and spun around, staff hidden behind him.  Sarah's expression shifted from neutrality to puzzlement when she entered and saw him standing there like an idiot, but she knew better than to say anything.  She closed the door first, then approached, his staff held tightly as she offered it to him.

"I'm still not used to using these," she began almost inaudibly,"and- I think the focus cracked-"

"Leave it on the table."  Luc watched her flinch and do as he asked, mentally kicking himself.  Idiot.  Sarah was sensitive to a fault when she made mistakes, and he usually knew better than to snap at her, but-  How in hell did she crack the focus?  What was she doing? He opened his mouth to ask, closed it again when she looked up.  "Ah..."

It didn't seem right to snap at her.  She looked contrite, and of course she would.  She always wore that expression when he was annoyed at something.

He tightened his grip on her new staff and averted his gaze.  Fine, he wouldn't yell at her, but that still left him with a broken focus and a gift he didn't know how to give.  Should he just hand it over, or wrap it in something, or leave it in her room so she'd find it later?  No one celebrated birthdays or holidays on the Isle.  Between the three of them, they'd managed to forget every occasion since Sarah's arrival.

"Don't worry about the focus," he said when the silence seemed too long.  He'd have her construct a new one later to make up for it.  Then, twisting his hand around the staff still held behind him, Luc gave up on wondering and held it out to her.  "Here."  He didn't know what else to say.

Sarah looked surprised and hesitated until he shoved it into her hands.  Her reluctance melted as she examined it and her lips steadily curved up, until the smile lit up her face and she hugged the staff to her chest.  The crystal at the top of the staff was dark, but she must have noticed the rune at the center; he doubted she would be so happy about an ordinary gift.

Luc shifted on his feet and looked away.  "Well..."  He waved his hand at the bookshelves, and snuck a glance at Sarah before he hurried past her to grab his staff.  "You should study.  We'll practice later."

"Yes, Master Luc."  Her skirt swirled at the corner of his vision, but then she paused and turned back, and rested her hand on his arm.  "Thank you."

He nodded, and resisted the impulse to look at her.  But when he sensed that she turned around again, he gave up on pretending to examine his staff and watched her pause at a bookshelf through the fringe of his hair.

Luc wanted to say more, but it was hard to talk to her when she smiled like that.  It almost hurt.  He couldn't breathe when she did that.  She seemed to understand, but Sarah was understanding about everything.  He still didn't know what to think about that.


(For Chibisophia.)