Now that she had given her young student his first real task, Natalie was content to sit back and try to relax. For the time being, at the very least. She made no attempt to interrupt Luuk’s contemplative silence, perfectly happy to wait and see where his thoughts – and her teachings – led him. without any sort of external help. Natalie tried to maintain the same detached air of a teacher observing an exam, but her success was limited. There was no hiding the small, amused smile that turned up the corners of her mouth as he fished the key from his pocket, and ran his fingers over the lock itself.
Luuk’s first answer was the conclusion she had hoped he would draw, more or less. She couldn’t help but feel a hint of satisfaction at that. There was something gratifying about seeing a student absorb your words, and extract some sort of tangible benefit from them. The second answer he gave, however, was a little more surprising. Luuk dismissed the answer she had been expecting, and opted for something even more complex instead. The boy made a very good point, actually – she hadn’t considered the possibility of a master key bypassing any of the more subtle changes she had planned. Natalie tried to keep her expression under control, lest she give things away too readily. That little spark of extra creativity was a promising sign, however, and she found herself eager to see where his current line of reasoning led them.
When Luuk plucked a notebook from his bad and started to draw, Natalie let her curiosity get the better of her. She rose from her perch and moved as if to join him, so that she might cast a wandering eye over his designs. When it was offered to her, she took it readily, and spent a moment examining Luuk’s design. Truth be told, she didn’t know a great deal about warding locks. Not the full intricacies of how the internal mechanism worked, at the very least. But between Luuk’s rambling and the quick drawing he had presented her with, Natalie found the idea novel. Her mind raced as she tried to come up with the sigil he might use. She had a few ideas, but wouldn’t know for certain until she tested them herself…or watched Luuk do it. Now she had more than one reason to hope that his plan worked.
When Luuk began to work in earnest, Natalie lent him the benefit of her experience. She cast an eye over the designs as he worked, and found his choices rather similar to one of the possibilities she had found herself considering. When he was finished, Natalie thought herself as confident as she could be in an untested design.
“…I think that should do it. Go ahead and give it a try” Natalie offered, gesturing towards the door with one hand. She’d retreat to her previous spot atop one of the beds and settle back into her impromptu seat to watch, quite eager to see how this little experiment of his turned out. They had it close enough to avoid any real disasters, she thought, so there seemed little harm in letting him test out his creation.
When his attempt proved successful, just a few moments later, Natalie was nothing short of delighted. For just a moment, she was able to forget the bleak realities of their current situation, and made no attempt to hide it. The teacher let out a delighted giggle and clapped her hands once, before leaving them clasped together. It wasn’t every day that she got to learn a new trick, experienced as she was. Even more than that, it really did speak to the promise Luuk was showing. That alone wasn’t enough to justify her decision in endangering him, Natalie knew, but at least he would be able to make good use of his gift. It would be just a moment before she moved on to more tangible, more direct methods of praise.
“Oh, well done, Luuk! I’m rather impressed. If I’m being totally honest, I had only expected you to change the brand of lock, so that the old key no longer fit. You’ve gone well and truly beyond what I had imagined. We’ll make a master out of you yet!”
After a moment, Natalie would finally lower her hands. She seemed to relax a little, but the twinkle in her eyes lingered. She’d let the silence stretch again, giving them both a moment to take in Luuk’s new success, before she’d finally move on. His work wasn’t done yet, after all.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t celebrate too soon. You still need to make a key that matches your fancy new lock. It won’t do us any good if we’re trapped in here and need to change it back to get out, right? Still, after what you just managed, I don’t imagine it’ll be too difficult.”
She could have offered to do it herself, of course, but why deprive her student of another chance to practice? Besides, given that her knowledge of warded locks was much more dubious, Natalie wasn’t entirely confident that she could make a matching key. Better to leave this task to the expert, relatively speaking.
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