Savaross doesn't take infants when he goes out looking for apprentices; the years when they will need care and be unable to make themselves useful are a nuisance. But seeking apprentices is not the only reason he leaves the tower, and it is unwise to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He carries the babe away from the burning wreckage of the now-dead witch's abode and hands her over to the care of the older apprentices on childminding duty.
And the next he thinks of her as more than a nuisance, she’s grown up into a waifish five-year-old. Meticulous, but timid. She cries when she sees bruises on the older apprentices. Not the kind of apprentice he would consider promising.
He does not, no.
But he will do his best to teach her regardless, and she will learn that it is best for her if he succeeds.
She’s bright, at least. Doesn’t need reminding of things she’s told. She’s memorized the usual haunts of the other apprentices, and has a natural talent for not being found. She’s punctual. She never talks back.
It seems like she’s trying to make the world ignore her entirely.
This is a good strategy for avoiding harm at all times except when actually in a lesson.
He is sitting behind a desk, looking expectant and critical, when she arrives.
She stands at attention, with the perfect posture expected of her, and waits to be asked a question or given an order.
"Today begin your real lessons; those on magic. The first thing any warlock must learn is how to gather the power they will use to shape the world."
She nods sharply to show she’s attending to the lesson.
She is given instructions on how to meditate in order to perceive the magical fabric of the world around her, and the basic technique for tearing a piece off.
She closes her eyes, and focuses.
She sees it almost instantly, but -
tear?
It didn’t do anything to deserve that, but the lesson...
She hesitates.
He waits.
She - tugs.
It doesn’t come.
He is still waiting. He doesn't actually expect her to have found the pattern quite yet.
She doesn’t know that.
Her gaze flicks to the head of his cane, just for an instant.
... if she’s going to do this she had better do it properly.
Mentally, she puts pins in all along the edge of her range - this technique is so sloppy, who does this to the world? - no time for that, she has to do this quickly, Savaross is waiting -
She’s not fast enough.
"Today, if you please."
The interruption makes her drop a pin.
Back up two, another five now, quickly -
She has the perimeter in her head -
She hesitates again.
"Now."
She puts a pin in.
(Stealing, part of her whispers.)
He hits her.
She falls over, one hand slapping against the stone floor.
... she sits herself back up.
She has to get this right now. She knows what happens to apprentices who don’t perform.
She puts in the pins as fast as she can, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-leven-twelf-
And then she rips.
... she makes a mess of it. Only half her range, coiled up around her like a serpent of fire, all tattered and ragged and sharp -
This isn’t good enough, is it.
"There, see? I knew you could do it if you were properly motivated."
She takes a breath.
This is an opportunity. If that was good enough, then she can do better. She needs to make an impression. She knows apprentices who do well are treated better.
She looks deferentially at Savaross’ feet.
“May I speak?”
"Alright."
“I can do better than that. The - this technique, it’s -“
She tries to find a way to phrase it that doesn’t sound like a challenge.
“- It’s imprecise. I want better control. I don’t know if that’s a refinement of this technique or a more advanced one, but if you have a more advanced one that will let me cut out what I want to then I want to learn it.”
She focuses again, and the mess she left behind snaps back into her mind’s eye.
She drives a group of three pins in along a ragged edge, and rips.
It snaps away neatly.
(Easier, now. Is that practice, less pins, the existing damage, or that this is a kindness, not a cruelty...? Who knows.)
"Fine control will come with practice."
She nods.
(At some point, she started breathing faster than she should be. She takes a moment to deliberately slow it.)
... Pins, rip.
That’s the last of the mess gone.
- the power she’s stolen doesn’t want to stay, but she hangs on grimly. She isn’t wounding the world more than she has to today.
"Now do it again."
She checks her range again - yes, empty.
She takes a single deliberate step to the left.
She rips power from the air that’s newly in her range, once, twice, thrice, keeping it to smaller areas she knows she can cut precisely.
- she can’t hold all this. Part of it twists -
She clamps down on it, hard, and grits her teeth. It stays.
“- what happens if it gets away from me?”
"--It hasn't yet? No, it hasn't. Impressive. It will flow back into ambient energy."
She ri-
It jars what she’s holding, and she loses it all.
She sighs disgustedly.
The magic flows back into the places it left behind. It's not exactly the same as it was before; it's a lot less settled, and if she feels for it she can still tell where the borders of notmagic used to be.
... interesting.
She tries to rip it all again before it can settle back in.
It comes more easily this time.
So then...
She looks at Savaross.
“How do I - do something with it?”
- then she bites her tongue.
“Sir. I’m sorry, my curiosity got the better of me.”
She air-rips again, more carefully now that she’s approaching where she lost it the first time.
"Understandable."
He rips a piece out of the air himself and shows her how to direct it to produce a force against an object.
So she - twists it like this - and then lets it go?
Precisely.
She tests it against the provided rock. It jumps, as expected.
She checks the magical background again. Did she use that air up, or...?