[M] What Once Was Lost [Namingtoohard & Ashen]

[Namingtoohard]

A satisfied smile turned up the corners of Natalie’s mouth when Luuk finally gave in, making the decision to reply with her sudden – and clearly unexpected - request. A soft chuckle slipped from her lips at the surprisingly forceful denial that followed, but she refrained from commenting any further. Instead, the woman-turned-teacher chose to count her blessings and focus, now that she had been given the very thing that she had asked for.

With her hands positioned beneath his, Natalie began her examination. She cast her gaze over both of his hands to begin with, making note of any obvious wrinkles, callouses, or scars that were immediately visible to the naked eye. Once she was done, Natalie would release one of his hands, so that she might gently run her fingertips over the palm of the other. She hummed thoughtfully to herself for a moment, before turning Luuk’s hand over, so that she might see what sort of condition his fingernails were in. Without even realising it, she had begun to lean forward in her chair slightly as she poured over the details, much as she would suss out the history of an object for her work.

The evidence clearly corroborated Luuk’s story. These were far from the hands of a labourer, but neither were they the soft and well-maintained hands of someone who was just a little too pampered. Of course, she could have guessed as much just from what she knew of him already. That was only the beginning of her assessment, though. Did the untrimmed nails mean that he was too busy to care about them, or did he simply not care? Every little detail held several possibilities, all of them intriguing in their own way.

Natalie offered up a quick thanks to Luuk, before withdrawing her own hands, signalling that her examination was over. She folded them on the desk in front of her, seemingly satisfied, as her mind returned to the topic on hand, following on with the information that Luuk had just offered her.

“That would be wonderful. I’d love to see what sort conclusions you were able to draw from the information I provided you, as limited as it was. More for personal curiosity than because it has any sort of relevance to today’s lesson, though” she answered – a not-so-subtle way of directing the conversation back to the matter at hand. “There’s nothing wrong with doing your writing electronically, per se. Its more that penmanship is very important to our work. A steady hand works wonders, and those who spend all their time typing tend to be less…practiced. Maybe we’ll get in some calligraphy practice at some point, just to be safe.”

She made no mention of the inspection she had just conducted, and any insight she might have gleamed from it. Would Luuk be willing to let it go, or would he insist on her sharing her thoughts?

[Ashen]

Natalie was studying his hands, taking note of details Luuk couldn't even guess at. He had no idea what it was for, exactly; his hands were not dirty, so what more could Natalie be looking for? Her touch tickled his palm but he remained still, not wanting to ruin the awkward level of concentration she had. Finally, when she finished, she only thanked him, adding nothing more to follow such a serious inspection. Luuk hesitated, uncomfortable. What did she think? Was she reconsidering everything? Did she think, from some whispers of his palms, that he was no longer worthy of their magic?

And just like that, the subject was changed. Luuk chewed on his lip, overthinking. He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened to his notes. Multitudes of notes scattered across the screen; Luuk had forgotten about most of them, about project rubrics and test study guides. He still had notes from college, even some from high school. "I keep meaning to go through these," he mumbled to himself. He opened his most recent, a several-pages-long note sheet on his project. "A lot of this is from before we met," he explained. "At the end is the stuff after that. Here." He scrolled down for several moments. When he finally got to the bottom, he realized how little he had here. "I got excited and went straight to writing most of it," he said, a boyish blush crossing his cheeks. He handed his phone to Natalie anyway.

He also set his notebook down so that she could look at his penmanship. It was nothing spectacular, he thought, but it was legible to him, and he recalled some substitute teacher or another at one point complimenting his penmanship. "I've never done calligraphy," he admitted. "I don't think I'd be good at it... But if you think it would help?" Luuk tried to remember learning cursive, tilting all his letters against whatever felt natural. Would it be like that? He shrugged his shoulders. "I can understand needing a steady hand, but..." He jerked his, unasked questions still tingling on his palm. "What... did you see? Was it bad? You can't just stare at someone's hands like that and not comment. I mean, I guess you could, but..."

He was tripping over his words again. Luuk straightened, sitting taller. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Natalie's hands, wondering how they differed from his. "Sorry, I guess I'm paranoid. You just... you exposed me to this new world I know nothing about, and I'm just afraid I'll be... not worthy, or something. Is that stupid?" He chuckled softly. "Yeah, I'm stupid," he said before she could even answer. "Never mind me. If you think I should work on my steadiness, then I can do that, easy."

[Namingtoohard]

Natalie waited rather patiently as her companion pulled out his phone and started going through it, presumably in search of the project notes that he had offered to let her read. An amused smile graced her features at the idle comments he made about needing to clean up, and Natalie couldn’t help but throw a glance around the rest of her apartment. It seemed that they had more in common than just the magic they shared, then. When he offered it to her, Natalie was quick to accept the phone, and promptly began to read.

Truth be told, Natale would have preferred just about any other medium over a phone. She could put her personal preferences aside momentarily for something like this, though. The woman began to read quietly, pausing only to scroll further through his notes whenever it proved necessary. Natalie would pause briefly at Luuk’s admission to glance at him, a soft chuckle slipping from her lips, before she turned her attention back to his work once more.

Natalie would forget the phone momentarily when Luuk decided to push his notebook towards her, so that she might cast an eye over his writing. She paid little enough attention to the pages’ contents, and more to the quality of his writing itself. The woman hummed thoughtfully to herself for a moment as she contemplated what she was seeing, and was rather quick about coming to a conclusion this time. She turned her attention back to Luuk good and proper, pushing the notebook back over towards him with her free hand. She kept his phone held in the other, but it rested against the wooden surface of the table idly, momentarily pushed from the forefront of her mind by the latest turn in their discussion.

“Well. I don’t need to look at your hands to know that you’re a bit nervous about this whole thing” she answered in an attempt to lighten the mood, a soft chuckle slipping from her lips. Once it had faded, her demeanour became a little more serious, and she would continue.

“Your nails aren’t particularly well cared for, which suggests to me that you’re either busy enough that you don’t normally get to worry about them, or you simply don’t care about personal hygiene. Given what I know of you so far, though, I somehow doubt it’s the latter” she started, her tone conversational. “You have your fair share of wrinkles and callouses too. Nowhere near as much as anyone who does day labour, but enough to prove that you’ve done your fair share of hard work. All information that corroborates your earlier story” she finished.

“I do think you could use some practice for your penmanship, but your skills are sufficient enough for us to begin. Either way, I should probably set you up with some basic equipment before sending you home today. Remind me if I forget. For now, though, I think we might be getting a little sidetracked. Like we’re filling up on bread and forgetting the main course” she answered. Despite her words, or perhaps to prove her point, Natalie would glance back at the phone again, presumably picking up where she had just left off a few moments earlier.

[Ashen]

When Natalie joked, Luuk opened his mouth to protest. I’m not nervous, he wanted to say, but he knew Natalie would see through his fib. Of course he was; how could anyone not be? He had been waiting for this without even realizing he’d been waiting for it. The apprentice mage had no idea how easily he could ruin all of this.

After having his hands criticized, Luuk awkwardly tried to half-hide them. He’d write a reminder later to find some hand sanitizer somewhere, some better soaps and a not-dulled nail clipper. Would he have to buy lotion? How did he even shop for that? But he was getting ahead of himself, so he dismissed the thoughts for now. At any rate, he was glad Natalie saw him for the overworked student he was, or the overachieving one he never quite meant to be but always seemed to fall into. “I’ll work on that, yeah,” he mumbled, thankful she at least didn’t think him a total slob.

Luuk returned his attention to his phone, still opened to the scattered notes about his paper he’d saved. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I was going to bring it to you—I mean, well, I did bring it to you, yesterday, when I came here, I thought I had finished it, but then you showed me I had more to add.” Absently he wondered whether Natalie would even want him to add something so taboo. Her warnings from the previous day crept back to him. If his paper fell into the wrong hands—if the wrong person found out about his magic, what would happen to him? To Natalie? I’ll be ambiguous, he decided, knowing he wouldn’t be satisfied with not mentioning it at all.

“I don’t want to spoil any of it,” he continued. “I mean, more than the notes already spoil. I’ll let you read it for yourself when I’m formally finished. It’s due Friday, so either way, you’re not going to be waiting long.” Saying the due date aloud suddenly made things more real. How many hours had he poured into this paper, how much emotion, all for it to become just a grade, a diploma? “But,” he said, trying to refocus, “I promise you’ll get to read it.”

Something else caught his attention, however. “You said you wanted to send me with equipment?” Mentally, he was already guessing at what sorts of pencils or brushes she might have been referring to. “Is this like homework? What kinds of things did you mean?”

[Namingtoohard]

Natalie hesitated in her scrolling briefly when Luuk mentioned that his work wasn’t necessarily complete anymore. If the information she had provided him at their last meeting meant that there was more he wanted to add, and the notes he had brought her last time – and likely the ones that she was reading right now – were likely incomplete….and given what they had discussed last time, she couldn’t help but find the notion a tad alarming. She had warned him off going public with this sort of information, though. He had enough sense to avoid exposing them so soon, surely.

“If that’s the case, then I don’t think there’s much point in me going through the rest of these now. I’ve seen enough to whet my appetite, so I’ll avoid spoiling any more and just wait until Friday to see the finished project” Natalie answered. She reached out across the desk to hand Luuk his phone back, though she hesitated briefly as he reached out to accept. “Just be careful” she added simply when Luuk reached out to accept it, before withdrawing her hand. Hopefully that gentle reminder would be enough.

She pushed the thought aside as the discussion turned to that of equipment, and Natalie quickly gave Luuk a small nod of confirmation. Given the demonstrations that she had given him, she doubted much of this information would come as a surprise, but even so, she was quick to answer.

“I wouldn’t call it homework per se. More just a collection of calligraphy pens and brushes, along with some ink and paint. Stuff that you can use to practice…and to start doing your own work with, eventually, when you’re a little more experienced” she said. The woman cast a glance around the rest of her apartment, as if searching for something. “Most of my sets have seen some level of use, but I’m certain I have a few pieces around that I can afford to spare. Ones still new enough to serve. You’ll doubtless develop your own preferences in time, but until then…” she said, before giving something akin to a casual shrug.

“In any case, I think we’ve gotten a little too side-tracked. Discussion is all well and good, and these are all important issues, but everything else is irrelevant until you’ve learned how to actually do this. The basics at the very least” she answered. With a quick gesture, she tried to draw Luuk’s attention back to the table, and the things that lay on it. She quickly pushed the open pot of paint and the brush that she had just used a few moments before towards him, her mind clearly made up.

“Like I said, we’ll start with something simple. Start with the circle, just like last time we met, and I’ll walk you through the rest, one step at a time.

[Ashen]

Luuk looked back on the objects in front of him, tools long forgotten within the context of their conversation. Had he even sipped at his tea? He couldn't remember, but now he was embarrassed at how full the mug was. He didn't want to seem ungrateful, so he grabbed for it and took a long sip. He'd sidetracked the conversation long enough; he was god at that. Now it was actually time to do this, to mimic Natalie and reclaim this power he was just as excited about as he was terrified.

The various pens laid out for him were suddenly intimidating. He'd been using pens all his life, scribbling notes and doodles into too many books, but now, they seemed different. Luuk picked up a pen with a sharp edge. Was this used for calligraphy? He poked the tip of the pen with his finger, not even flinching at the sharp touch it returned. There was a danger in this tool not quite present in the others, and for some reason, he was drawn to that. He juggled the pen between his fingers. "Just a circle," he reminded himself.

His line was shaky, fine ink running too easily over cracked hands. His circle was more elliptical, stretching further towards his thumb than the rest of his fingers. He hesitated, wondering if he should retry it. Maybe it didn't even look so bad and he was paranoid. "How's that?" he prompted, motioning his hand towards her. He had pressed too hard; ink was beginning to bleed from his line to the crevices of his skin. "Is now too late to mention I have never used a pen like this?" A soft laughter filled the air for only a few moments. This was his pen, he knew; none of the other tools Natalie brought seemed adequate. If all of this was new anyway, what did it matter if he was using a new tool, too?

Luuk looked back to the spoon on the table, the spoon that had been a fork before their discussion had distracted them from Natalie's magic. The curve of the tool, the width; it was so different from the fork it had been, yet so small. She had been showing him something simple so that he could gain confidence about his own skills, but even this easy transformation seemed daunting. "Will I be turning it back into a fork?" he asked, motioning a chin to the utensil. What a cool party trick, he thought, but he then remembered Natalie's warning, the dark side of their secret, and he straightened. Balancing his pen loosely between his fingers, he looked back up at Natalie. "Now what?"

[Namingtoohard]

Natalie did her best to remain silent as Luuk went about his task, going through the early motions of the transformation that she had asked him to attempt. She didn’t remain quiet because she had nothing to say, but rather because she wanted to avoid distracting him. To avoid the risk of interrupting his focus and accidentally foiling his efforts. When her student went so far as to show him his attempts, Natalie was quick to comply, leaning forward in her seat slightly so as to get a better view.

The results were…mediocre, at best. The circle was much sloppier than Natalie normally would have liked, and had Luuk been further into his training, she likely would have demanded that he redo it. It was technically close enough to serve, though, and he was using an unfamiliar tool, so Natalie quickly decided that she could afford to be a little more understanding. Just this once, she’d give him something akin to a free pass.

“You certainly wouldn’t win any awards, but its serviceable for our purposes today” she concluded rather simply. There were several simple pointers that she could give him, but Natalie chose to held her tongue, lest they get side-tracked, or he insist on redoing it. Those could come later, once Luuk had been given his first taste.

Natalie responded to his question about their transformation with a simple nod, before she rose from her seat. She stepped around the table casually, moving to stand behind Luuk. With one hand resting on the back of his chair, she’d lean over him slightly, looking at his work from over his shoulder. In that instant, she was reminded of a high school teacher, who was silently observing a student’s answers during a test. Unlike an official teacher, however, she wasn’t prevented from giving him instruction.

“Now, imagine that the timeline of this spoon was represented by an invisible line, drawn right through the middle of the circle. The point where they connect at the top is when the object began to take shape, and the point at the bottom is the current moment in time” Natalie said. Whilst she spoke, Natalie ran a single finger across the middle of Luuk’s palm, tracing out the supposed path this invisible line was supposed to take.

“Now, to transform this spoon back into a fork, we need to change something very early on in the object’s history, so the alteration we make is going to take place right at the start of the line, near the top. Like so”

This time, Natalie traced a slightly different path across the middle of Luuk’s palm. She started right at the top again, with a small section of line that continued downwards, much as the first one had. Then she’d introduce a sharp diagonal tilt, veering the line off to the left slightly, before continuing downwards in a line that ran parallel to the first. Like the first, it would end where it met the bottom of the circle, just slightly to the left of where the first one had ended.

“Now, paint the second line on your hand. I’ll double check it, and then you’ll apply it to the spoon” Natalie finished. She’d pull her hand back, out of Luuk’s way, before straightening up again. The pseudo-teacher would be happy to demonstrate again or offer more advice should her student need it, but the next part was up to Luuk.

[Ashen]

Natalie validated his circle, though Luuk knew he'd have to acquire a steadier hand. His future circles would be perfect, he promised himself. With Natalie's approval, Luuk started to feel like maybe he could do this. She explained the circle, talking about the spoon's timeline displayed now in his palm. Luuk wondered about the logic of all this, about the studies that must have been published about this, and how interested he was in reading them. It was a shame the world had been rid of such literature that must have existed at one point. He wondered if there would ever come a time where he could write about this ability he had, if people would ever look to him to teach them about this thing he knew next to nothing about.

As Natalie spoke, Luuk was already collecting questions to ask her. Did everything have a timeline? Could he alter the history of anything he wanted with enough practice? Did this magic work on people? Just what kind of power did his people possess?

Now was not the time for philosophy, so Luuk dismissed his curiosities and refocused on what Natalie was telling him. He looked at his circle and tried to imagine an entire life being drawn with just a single line. The metal this spoon-fork had been molded from, the flame that had shaped it, the food it had touched, the shelves and drawers it had seen. Without knowing any of it, Luuk wondered how he'd be able to see into this object's history and rewrite the laws of time and memory. But he trusted Natalie, and he trusted in this gift his parents had passed down to him.

Luuk took his pen and drew new lines into his hand. He traced the shapes Natalie had made, trying his best to keep things neat and steady. When he finished, he set the pen down and watched the ink drip, blurring some of his lines. Luuk moved to fix it, to wipe away bleeding ink with his pinky, but he stopped himself. The lines were mostly intact, and the parts where they strayed remained inside the circle. Wiping them would only smear them, ruining the whole thing. As long as his mistakes didn't interfere with his actual magic, he figured exactness wasn't required quite yet.

He set the pen down and looked over his hand again. "Like that?" he asked, turning to look at her. The way she stood over him, watching his work, reminded him of a hopeful teacher. In that way, she looked like Dr. V, his beloved history professor, and he was amused at the comparison. How would Dr. V react if he saw him now, fiddling with magic, defying the history he'd spent his whole university career studying? He let the smirk fall from his lips and turned his attention back to the spoon. With his unmarked hand he grabbed it and wrapped his fingers around it. "So now I'd just... hold it like this, right?" he asked, but he soon set it down again and scolded himself for jumping ahead. "I'm sorry, what should I do next?"

[Namingtoohard]

Natalie remained patient as her new student set about following the instructions that she had set out, painting out the same invisible line that she had demonstrated just a few moments earlier. She continued to hover for the time being, watching over Luuk’s shoulder whilst he worked through the simple instructions that she had given. Watching and appraising, and trying to do so without any more serious judgement. Did Luuk currently feel as nervous as she had, once upon a time, with her own teachers observing her work in such a manner? Now there was an amusing thought/ Had they tried so hard to be impartial then? Had they found it funny in the same way Natalie currently did? She had to stop herself from chuckling, lest she distract Luuk from his work.

A small frown wrinkled Natalie’s features at the sight of the ink drips that had followed. Even if they weren’t severe enough to impact the magic itself, she couldn’t say that she approved of the messiness. It wasn’t really Luuk’s fault, but even so. Perhaps she should have chosen a different medium for them to work with. Foresight was always twenty twenty, however. Natalie simply dismissed the thought for now, deeming it a lesson learned for next time.

Natalie did chuckle a little at the questions that followed, even as Luuk picked up the spoon. Both his enthusiasm and his attempts at restraint were endearing, after a fashion. The excitement spoke well about his willingness to learn, and the apology showed some level of self-awareness. He could be quite good at this, she thought….provided he had – or developed – the self-control necessary to avoid jumping the gun whilst actually working.

“That’s more or less it. You already have a rough idea as to how this last part goes, after our last meeting. So go ahead and apply your circle whenever you are ready” Natalie answered, trying to sound casual about what remained of the whole ordeal. The teacher took that as her cue to stroll back around to her side of the table, where she retook her seat. Much like the first time, Natalie folded both of her palms on the table in front of her whilst she sat. Natalie would wait and watch whilst Luuk did his thing, applying the sigil to the spoon. There would be no surprises here. They had already proved that he was capable doing what she had asked, and Natalie’s view of his work had left her confident that it would succeed.

Once the transformation was complete, Natalie would allow Luuk a brief moment to absorb the reality of what he had just done. To express his amazement, or celebrate his success, or however else he chose to react to the magic that he had just performed. Once he was settled again, and ready to proceed, she would continue.

“ If we were working with objects larger than cutlery, and a more complicated sigil, then I’d tell you to apply it as evenly as you can, to avoid accidentally distorting any of the lines. With something as small as a fork, though, there’s not much you can do…and very little can go wrong with such a simple circle” Natalie offered once he was done. Just a small detail for him to keep in mind in future, once they progressed to more ambitious projects.

“The rest of this lesson will likely just be practicing the foundations, now. Most people seem to think it sufficient to practice until they get things right, but we don’t have the luxury of being so relaxed. We practice until we never get them wrong” Natalie added, a slightly mischievous smile flickering across her features. They’d soon find out if Luuk remained quite so enthusiastic after he had practiced the same few basic elements a few dozen times over.

[Ashen]

Natalie was trusting him. As she took her seat, Luuk stared down at his hand. It was time to prove that the first time hadn't been a fluke. Logically, he knew it couldn't have been. After all, how could he have accidentally performed magic? But a part of him, however small, still wondered if he'd be able to turn this spoon into something else. He tried pushing his thoughts aside, concentrating at the task in hand, and believing in himself and in Natalie's instruction.

And just like that, he was staring at a fork. Luuk only stared in awe at it for several moments, studying the way the tines bent the slightest bit. Those holes hadn't been there before; he had done that. He uncurled his fingers around the utensil and traced it with his free hand, feeling the spikes that made it a fork. "I did it," he breathed, and a prideful smile met his lips. It wasn't perfect, and he could have done without all the securities and doubt, but he had done it. Once again, his parents' gift had come through after all.

It took him a few minutes to calm down. He just stared at his creation, his mind at war. So much of him wanted to not believe in what he had done. It didn't make any sense; he'd been learning science since before he could remember. But so much of him wanted to continue, to barrel straight through every task Natalie gave him until he could perform magic as flawlessly as she--perhaps even better. The thought brought an amused smile to his lips. After reminding himself that he'd need to continue, he set the fork down and turned his attention back to his teacher.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I've been in school for how long now? I'm good at practicing things longer than I need to." He picked up the fountain pen again and poked it at his palm. He started drawing small circles, one on top of the other, practicing the symmetry of them. "Do you have any stories?" he asked absently. "Back before you were as practiced as you are now. Did you ever try something that backfired?" He was trying to keep the conversation going, but he also wanted to know more about his teacher. Knowing that she might have made mistakes long ago gave him hope that he would get this right eventually.