Professor Widogast is halfway through explaining why the runes for this particular evocation spell need to be drawn very, very carefully when an arcane flash emits a small elven figure into the empty space above his office couch, collapsing into the cushions with barely a word, only a muffled groan. The student sitting in front of him nearly jumps out of her chair.
The lines in Widogast’s face only wrinkle as he sits up and frowns. “Are you alright, schatz? Do you need anything?”
The student—who had been nodding silently along to his explanation, having come narrowly close to blowing herself up earlier in the week—blinks at the man who has just appeared in Widogast’s office and received such an unsurprised response, one laden with a term of endearment, no less.
“No, no, I’m fine,” the elf replies, voice faint with exhaustion. Though she can’t see much of his face, he seems to be young, his skin a darkened brown more common on the Menagerie Coast, though his accent is unfamiliar, and she mirrors her professor’s frown trying to place it. This doesn’t seem to be alarming to her distinguished professor, so she tries to match his stoicism.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Widogast asks, with more intention, and the elf moves enough to shake his head. She sees a flash of violet in his eyes, which is far more uncommon in the Menagerie Coast.
“No, narrowly so. I simply needed to make an expedient exit.” His voice is fainter still, and she blinks again—he seems to be half-asleep already.
He buries his head into a cushion, and Widogast nods. “Alright. Well, I’m going to finish up with Aleya, if that’s alright.”
He mumbles an affirmative, and his breath is already steady and slow by the time the sound fades.
Aleya glances sideways at him, committing elements of his appearance to memory—his modest but fashionable clothing, a brimmed hat that obscures much of his sleeping face, a significant quantity of silver jewelry, and a large ring gleaming with small arcane runes adorning his left ring finger.
She knows runes well—this is not the first time she has found herself in a professor’s office, working out how to make her rather unwieldy drawing skills form the shapes of them in ways that will not get her killed in the process of casting. She can’t quite places these particular glyphs, as small as they are, but they seem at least somewhat familiar.
When she turns back, Widogast is peering keenly at her with a crooked smile. “A friend. Pay him no mind.”
She nods, but leans forward, and tries to keep her voice as low as she can while still allowing the aging man to hear her. “Elves don’t sleep.”
“They can, especially if they are tremendously tired,” he answers at the same volume, and taps the side of his nose. “Let’s finish with these runes, ja?”
It takes another twenty minutes before he is satisfied with her penmanship, and she packs her spellbook and her texts back into her bag. “Thank you, sir,” she nods, slipping out of the door.
She hangs at the threshold of the door as it closes behind her, and hears the creak of the professor’s chair as he stands.
“Oh, merely a friend?” the elf’s voice asks, and she can’t tell if that’s humor in his voice.
“One of these days you are going to give a student a heart attack, and I am going to have too much paperwork to do.”
“Well, next time I will ask the Empire’s spies to give me an hour before they turn me over to the king.”
“And yet here you are in the office of a Rexxentrum mage, associated with the crown.”
The glyphs on the ring click in her mind. Illusion magic. Her jaw drops, and she shuffles away as quietly as possible, but she isn't quite out of eavesdropping range.
“Darling, as much as I enjoy the verbal sparring, I am quite exhausted. Are you joining me for a nap, or no?”