Well, he can strongly recommend a more proactive approach if he likes. Tassairen knows what he's about. He practices twice as much as usual; he studies; he thinks of clever tricks and practices those if they work.

Many of his clever tricks work! When he keeps up with the increased workload Savaross increases it again.

He keeps up with that one too, barely. This also leaves him with much less time to interact with the other children, who consequently get fewer chances to bother him.

Well, there are some circumstances under which he'll have to interact with them, and most of them are leaving him alone more now that he's around less, but Dessert=>Stairs girl seems to be getting more aggressive.

There is a certain amount of aggression he will tolerate. Up to her if she exceeds that limit.

Probably eventually; she's slowly escalating.

He'd better be ready, then.

He catches a squirrel and does some experiments. The squirrel makes interesting noises before it dies. He burns the body and dumps the bones out a window.

At his next lesson Savarosse has a squirrel in a cage for some reason. He doesn't comment on it at all but at the end he informs Tassairen that he has earned dessert.

He grins.

The first experiment having been so well received, he does several more over the next few days.

This gets decreasing but nonzero returns dessert-wise.

For once in his life, dessert is not the most important thing, although he certainly appreciates the encouragement. And the tastiness.

He turns seven. He celebrates by catching a bird. The bird dies disappointingly fast, so he catches another one.

Savaross has a new technique for him to learn. It is called: "you can get more power from ripping it from living things than thin air." Of course, this has the side effect of killing the thing you're ripping from.

What a good technique!

Savaross is so pleased that he is taking to it so readily. Most of the apprentices, he has to wait until they're a bit older.

He starts pulling power from the small animals he experiments on and storing it. They can teach him valuable lessons about creative uses of telekinesis and fire, and give him an extra supply of power in case of future need.

Savarosse gives no indication that he has any idea that Tassairen is doing this like he somehow found out about the small animals in the first place.

Well, then maybe it's not as impressive as it feels like. That's fine.

He burns and freezes and disrupts his squirrels - the chaos effect does some pretty amazing things to a living creature. He cuts them and bludgeons them and pulls them apart.

He thinks of something, and practices until he thinks he's got it right - magic that just induces pain and doesn't do any real damage. For completeness's sake he inverts it to see what that does, and it turns out to blind and deafen as well as numb, which is useful in its own way although he wishes he could separate out the different effects. He works on that. Blind and deaf and in agony is a good way for someone who crosses him to be.

A few days later Savaross leaves the tower for a little while; he leaves strict instructions for how everyone is to behave while he's gone, and if they do not follow them he has very, very explicit descriptions of the consequences.

Well, that gives him all kinds of interesting ideas.

He behaves perfectly the whole time.

Good.

When Savaross returns, it's with a skeletal drakelet curled around his shoulders.

...oooooooooooooooooh. Tassairen is jealous. He wants one of those now.

It vanishes after a few days, uncommented-upon.

Well. Now he has a side project. In addition to learning how to crush his enemies, he wants to learn how to animate a skeleton like that.

It takes him a while before he starts getting anywhere, and another while before he manages to get a squirrel skeleton to scamper up a wall before falling apart again. This is insufficient but promising.

...Savaross is impressed! Have a dessert.

He is ever so smug about this dessert!

Three weeks later, he has a skeletal squirrel friend that is stable enough to perch on his shoulder and stay balanced without him having to stop and fix it every two minutes. He keeps it on his shoulder the rest of the day.