Chapter Text
You're out foraging. The town is close by and has everything you could possibly need. But you like taking mist wet walks across the moors and finding little pockets of berries, a tree laden with apples, an enclave of mushrooms behind some rocks. It's nice. It's why you chose such an isolated little meadow to build your cottage.
The food is plenty. The animals are friendly. The town is far enough away that you can ignore them but also head over whenever you'd like. For house calls, for little odd jobs. Not that there are ever many injuries in the town, as peaceful as it is.
It's idyllic, strolling the daffodils and the little brooke running through the mossy fields, knowing you have a warm home to get back to.
You're not ignorant of how lucky you are. How rare it is to lead such a peaceful life. You worked hard to get here though, a thought never far from your mind.
On this particular day, a thick trove of rosemary catches your eye. An odd find, unusual for the area, definitely worth taking a couple bunches. You crouch and take out your knife.
A low crackling hum rises somewhere behind you and you whirl, preparing for a fight. It sounds like a weapon charging up, the kind from foreign lands, they're banned here, who would -
A light. Violet and cerulean, flickering and glowing. It seems unstable but not malicious in nature. Definitely some sort of amateur level communicative magic...
The runes swirling around the edge are familiar but slightly different than the ones you use.
You ignore the urge to approach and take a couple of cautious steps back.
It gets bigger, roughly oval shaped, the center swirling and taking on a clearer image. A...scrying spell perhaps? A message?
A man.
Chestnut hair crowns a pale and papery face, with purple pits under those magma eyes. Your heart thuds with knowing sadness - illness is easy to spot for someone like you. He's practically skin and bone.
He can't see you; his eyes slide over you glassily, focused on something out of view. Something shining bright, casting blue over his sickly complexion.
"Hello?" you call, curious now.
The window seems to be stabilising, the details clearer. But still he does not perceive you. It must be one way. The white light of the misted fields of Niole don't shine through into the dark of his...tools everywhere, papers, a chalkboard...a lab of some sort perhaps?
It's been a long time since you've seen tech like this, clothes like his. A far cry from the simple rural corner of the world you've chosen to hide away in. His seems so advanced and yet he looks like he's at death's door.
"Agh...oh, for goodness sake!" he yells suddenly, swiping papers to the ground.
He sighs softly and struggles to his knees to pick them up almost immediately.
His accent is strange and gives you little to no insight into where he might be casting from. You move closer and peer down at what you can. Diagrams, equations. All very logical and mathematical. Clinical. Lacking the warmth that flows through the core of most magics. He's thinking like a scientist. Which you suppose he must be going by what you can see.
As it properly hits you that he has no idea what he's doing, you realise it may be rude to observe him like this. You're about to turn and pick up your bag and walk away, when he starts hacking, coughing violently into his fist.
You reach forward out of habit, struck by the urge to touch, to take away whatever pain he's in, your instincts demand it, your magic crackles blackly over your fingertips -
But you probably shouldn't touch this poorly constructed window made by a complete stranger in an unfamiliar place. And even if you did, you may not necessarily get through to him. It could just incinerate you. The runes are shaky, like they were written in a bad translator rather than by someone who really speaks the language of magic. Too dangerous. So you force your hand to still by your side and just focus on watching him put himself back together.
The handkerchief in his fist comes away bloodied darkly. He looks back at whatever he's working on, still out of view even when you lean forward. He stares at it for a long time, like if his thick, arched brows pull together disapprovingly enough then it'll do what he wants it to.
What is he trying to do anyway? The diagrams strewn around him seem to discuss the runes like they're pieces of a machine, that can learn and adapt. It's smart, really smart. Beyond your scope to be honest, in terms of the science of it. But for the magic side of things you can see he's stumbling around several big break throughs.
He has no idea he's already got at least this scrying spell, since it's been cast backwards and one way. He looks so sad, so frustrated. You wish you could just let him know he's at least made progress, even if it's not working properly.
He looks at the object like it's his saving grace, like it's all that stands between him and desolation. Dangerous, pinning that much hope on as fickle a force as magic.
Your manners tell you again that you ought to leave, to let him get on with it. Especially since it seems you can't make contact without risking touching the window.
But... it's so dangerous. Has he done this before? Accidentally sending out a feeler across the world to places he doesn't even know are here?
What if he does it again?
What if he scrys somewhere more dangerous, and someone less polite picks up the proverbial phone?
You don't even know who he is but watching him leaning on the desk, agonising over his papers, you feel power surge helplessly to your fingertips again.
But this is why you moved here. This is why you stopped travelling.
You can't put out every fire.
You take another hesitant dragging step away.
But.
You can't just leave him like this.
"Alright," you relent aloud, even though he can't hear you. "The least I can do is keep you from getting yourself killed by scrying hell itself, you...blundering fool."
Blundering genius is more like it though. He's already scrawling away, delicate script mapping out ideas for further tests.
"Mm...could work," he whispers, so quiet you almost miss it.
It's the least I can do, you repeat to yourself.
It's been a while since you did any spells other than Anae but it only takes a few seconds to put together a basic grounding spell. You glance about the floor for - this one will do. A smooth pale gray rock about the size of your palm.
Muttered ancient words and a little concentration and then the scrying window is tethered to the rock like a balloon to a weight.
Now you can at least take him home in a way, keep an eye on him while you try to figure out how to keep him safe. Or contact him and explain that he's been accidentally reaching out and waving a big red flag at whoever happens to be there when he scrys.
Hopefully the tethering spell will do its job though, opening up the window wherever this rock is from now on, rather than any random spot in existence. Scrying windows are almost always temporary, dependent on the caster's skill level, intentions, everything. He could flicker out at any moment, never to be seen again. But at least he's safe for now.
You'll admit you're also curious about his work. Putting science and magic together the way he's doing...could lead to some incredible innovations. Or disasters.
"Come on, Eyebrows. You'll be safe with me," you whisper pointlessly, as you start the walk back to your cottage, the window held carefully above the rock in your hand and the rosemary laying forgotten on the floor.