Photogenic
The First Chapter of Brier's Three: Raining Academics. Read about the nerds!
“Ms. Urgent makes seven students that have had to be rushed to the infirmary this year and it isn’t even the end of May!” Sloan huffed.
Sitting at the long meeting table with a few teachers and other staff members, including, Casper, Percy, Georgia, Calvin, a few other healers, the administrator of the hunters and huntress, the housemaster and housemistress over the dormitory, and of course Indigo.
“This has never happened before who can these kids just lose their abilities to perform magic or alchemy,” Percy scoffed.
“Granted this isn’t lasting,” one of the healers mentioned, “Thankfully they are regaining their abilities after a few days.”
“Urgent is different, however,” Sloan hummed with a nod, “She was carried into the infirmary by Mr. Couri, the other students were able to enter the infirmary on their own.”
“That’s assuming Ms. Urgent is a part of this group, she appears to be exhausted,” another healer added
“Appears,” Georgia repeated with bitterness in her voice, “she could very well be a part of this group we just don’t know yet because she’s still unconscious, maybe whatever is going on is affecting her differently.”
“She is fae,” Sloan mentioned quietly, “all of the other students are human.”
“See!” Georgia exclaimed loudly, “Mallory is fae!”
“Ms. Nozadze, please we are just—”
“Mallory is my apprentice!” Georgia shouted, “I have seen how she treats herself! She doesn’t push herself to exhaustion! Mal is an athlete! She takes care of her body and is more concerned about her health than I am about my own! She would just pass out because of exhaustion, I know that!”
Everyone in the room is silent before Calvin looks at Indigo, her hands clasped in front of her as if she praying to the goddess her forehead resting against her fists as she sits at the head of the oblong table, “Angel?” her husband asked curiously, “I know you’re thinking.”
“She will come down, not in a plague or famine, Mother Goddess will come down in curse man will a purge of all mankind of his power,” Indigo recited, “Bridgehid will one day curse all man for their corruptions only gift back the magic and whimsy when she sees that man himself has repented in full.”
“The Goddess’s Canvass Deliberate?” Georgia commented.
“It does sound similar to what we are currently experiencing,” Calvin muttered, holding his chin.
“It could be mere coincidence,” Sloan shrugged, “Remarking of religious hymns to the masses to explain what is happening to their children will only spark fear and create extremely religious and non-worshipers.”
“What if someone is taking the gospel to heart,” Percy remarked, “and doing this to the students because of some wrongdoing that the school has committed against us.”
Everyone fell silent once more. The idea that someone was purposefully doing this to innocent students didn’t sit right, especially when it seemed to be in the name of the saint over the island. No that didn’t sit right with anyone.
Indigo sighed, “It is normal for magical energy and power to ebb and flow when one is young and training, but not like this.”
“And that’s not normal for alchemists at all,” Sloan added
“Start with those who are extremely religious or those who have studied theology,” Indigo instructed, “Am going to assume everyone in this room does not have a hand in anything if this truly is some kind of repentance. If it turns out that no one within the college is involved, there is nothing we can do outside the college gates.”
Everyone lets out a sound of agreement while nodding, “Keep in mind this is not a witch hunt, we are merely investigating what is happening to our students,” she added, before sighing once more, “You are dismissed.”
On cue, everyone involved left except for Calvin, “Tell me what you really are thinking,” he muttered as she crossed her arms and led her head on her forearm, “Everyone is gone.”
“Why does something go wrong when our kids get enrolled?” She vented, “With Rowan, it was finding out about Duke’s experiments, with Aurora it was the theft of the sacred tools, which we never solved, now with Alexandria and Finnegan it’s only getting worse! It’s like we are throwing them into danger!”
“Maybe we are some kind of bad luck magnet,” Calvin said with a light chuckle.
Indigo groaned, “Don’t say that! This is our children we are talking about!”
“I’m sorry, Angel,” Calvin sighed with a soft smile across his lips, “But these are our children, nothing is going to happen to them.”
“Calvin, they are just like anyone else.”
“No, they are like everyone else, Indigo,” Calvin sighed, getting out of his chair, and making Indigo straighten up, her gaze following him as he walked around her, “They are our children. Aurora is becoming a fantastic healer and she’s only 18, Alexandria is at the top of their class and proficient at the mage craft—”
“The fact that they are so powerful does frighten me a bit,” Indigo remarked, turning her chair to look at him as he stood by the window.
Calvin chuckled, before looking at the window, seeing their son crouched near a small pond feeding ducks, “and Finnegan, your son—”
“My son.”
“Your son is becoming a fine young man,” Calvin replied, “He is becoming a great mage thanks to you, and he’s becoming quite the protector.”
Indigo sighed, “He also worries me.”
“How do you think I feel?” Calvin joked, “You all worry me!”
Outside next to one of the ponds on the expansive Bridgehid campus, Finnegan is still feeding the ducks, making sure one of his mother’s many loves in the world is happy and healthy. He doesn’t hear the camera shutters, he doesn’t realize that there is a very tall lanky guy taking pictures of him from afar, as he has never figured out his mother’s sixth sense of knowing when she is being watched and when people are around her. So, he doesn’t realize that his photographer friend inches ever closer, continuing to take pictures of him.
“Has anyone ever told you, you are tremendously photogenic~”
He jumped at the sound of the voice, honeyed, masculine, and light, hitting the center of his eardrums while also being on his level. Looking at the source Finnegan is met with deep buttercup yellow eyes and an ivory face, brown hair dipping into the photographer's face.
“Hi, I’m Bonnie,” the photographer said.
“… Finnigan.”
Bonnie smirked, camera in hand as he continued to stare at Finnigan in the crouched position, “How did you get that scar on the corner of your lip?” he asked, reaching to touch Finnegan’s face attempting to touch his scar before Finnegan grabbed his wrist halting his Bonnie’s movements.
“You’re too close,” Finnegan stated before letting go of Bonnie’s wrist before he stood up.
Focusing back on the ducks, he can still feel Bonnie behind him, hearing the shuttering of his camera, “Do you like ducks?” the photographer asked.
“Not necessarily,” Finnegan muttered.
Bonnie hummed continuing to take pictures, “So who’s making you feed the ducks?”
“No one makes me,” Finnegan scoffed, “Maman likes ducks, so I feed the ducks.”
“I am assuming that maman is mother?”
Finnegan hummed softly, nodding, before standing. His gaze once again met Bonnie however he was at eye level with the dirty blonde’s chest. He is extremely tall, which caught Finnegan off-guard, after taking in his height the mage boy walked away.
“Hey, wait!” Bonnie called following behind him.
“I have to get to class!” Finnegan huffed.
The two boys walked down the stone paths around the outside of the school building, “There aren’t a lot of classes during the summer, what class do have at noon?”
“It’s a magical weapons training class,” Finnegan answered, before turning to look at Bonnie then swiftly turning away and walking faster, “Why the hell am I even talking to you!”
“Oh, you’re going to a weapons class?! Perfect, I was asked to take pictures of the summer classes for the school’s website.”
Finnegan rolled his eyes as it became more obvious that he wasn’t going to be left alone. Even once on the weapons field, even with the students on the turf with him, the instructing of his educator, and the thoughtful gaze of his father he could still feel Bonnie’s camera lens on him as if he could hear the shuttering of the camera itself. The fact that Bonnie was there, watching him specially, sat in the back of his brain eat away at him, causing him to make mistake after mistake.
“Finnegan?” Calvin called as his son packed up his things at the end of class.
“You should really have some kind of grip on the training spears if we keep using them we’ll start getting—” Finnegan turned to face his father while speaking only to stop when his face placed his large hand on his forehead, “Papa?”
“Are you okay? Do you feel alright?”
Finnegan clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, “I’m fine,” he scoffed pulling his father’s hand off his forehead, “Just… being stupid.”
“You’re allowed to make mistakes, son,” Calvin remarked, “There is no need to be perfect.”
Finnegan gave his father a small smile, “I know but…” he paused seeing Bonnie over Calvin’s shoulder still taking pictures, “Papa, I have to go!”
The mage boy grabbed his things before racing inside with a quick “Love you, see you at home!” thrown at his father.
Racing down the halls of the college with his school bag hitting his side as he did everything to get away from the tall boy with a camera, finding his way in front of his mother’s office door, before swinging the large doors open.
“Finnegan?” Indigo asked concerned, seeing her son out of breath and disheveled in her office doorway.
“MAMAN! I need you to kill someone!”
Her office was devoid of anyone but herself and the cat familiars apart of their family, who were cuddled up on one of the chairs in front of her desk.
“Miel, I would do anything for you, but can you tell me what’s going on?” Indigo inquired.
Finnegan stepped into her office before sighing and beginning to explain what had happened in the past couple of hours, “There is this boy with a stupid camera, he says he taking pictures of the school and the summer class, but I know he is taking pictures of me! He-he-he’s weird! Asking me questions and following me around! He’s even taking pictures of me and dad just having a conversation! GRAH! I need him to leave me alone!”
Indigo snickered, before Finnegan stared at her with an intense gaze making her clear her throat, “What’s his name bébé,” she asked.
“Bonnie,” Finnegan answered as his snow-white cat familiar nudged his hand for pets, “I don’t know his last name.”
“Bonnie Olsen-Nielsen,” Indigo read aloud looking at the file on said student on her computer, “He’s a senior, he moved here in the spring and started on campus, he is in the media club.”
Finnegan groaned, “Can’t you do something about this Maman?!”
“Miel…”
“Maman!”
“It is odd that he is taking pictures of you, but have you asked him to stop?” she pondered, “and not in your little passive-aggressive way that keeps you from making friends, have you actually asked him to stop?”
Finnegan thought for a moment, “… No…”
“Ask him to stop, and if he doesn’t come back to me.”
“Okay, Maman…”
Finnegan hung his head while leaving Indigo’s office waving goodbye, with his familiar following him, and leaving his mother with a pitiful, “I love you.”
Surprised, that he was able to get off campus without running into Bonnie or feeling his presence taking pictures of him while he walked home. Everything was grand until he reached home and saw that lanky photographer in his parent's yard taking pictures of the plants lining the side of the house.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
Bonnie turned to a look at Finnegan seeing the rage on his face before pointing to the cottage, “You live here?” the senior asked.
“Yes! Why the fuck are you here?!” Finnegan shouted, “What the hell did you do?! Figure out where I live and come to my fucking house?!”
Bonnie looked at him confused before he continued, “my goddess, why won’t leave me alone! Why are you even taken pictures of me anyway!? I get be that interesting a subject to follow me to my own home and continue to take pictures of me!”
“Now hold one—”
Finnegan let out a villainous chuckle, “Oh and the taking pictures of me with my dad! That’s just fucking creepy! I’ve never understood what the obsession with camera is! It’s all so creepy, do you really—”
“I wasn’t taking pictures of you and your dad!” Bonnie exclaimed with a shocked expression.
“Quoi?” Finnegan asked quietly, his face becoming hot as Bonnie welling handed over his camera.
“Take it, look for yourself,” the photographer said before Finnegan took the camera apprehensively, “I was taking pictures of the college’s architecture. You and your father may have been in the photo, but I didn’t take them like that on purpose.”
Finnegan looked through the camera roll seeing the images of the college’s beautiful dark sculpting of Queen Anne architecture, he and his father cut off from the frame, “I do admit my actions are often creepy, and I was taking pictures of you without permission earlier, but I didn’t take picture of you and your father.”
Finnegan sighed, flipping through more of the camera roll and seeing pictures of the plants on the side of the house, “I also didn’t know that you lived here,” Bonnie added, “I was just on my way to see my mom at the church, then here this beautiful house cover in all this foliage, I got all little too excited and just started taking pictures.”
The mage boy sighed sulking over to the pouch steps hanging his and resting his arms vertically against his knees, forehead resting on his forearms like he is praying, “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“I apologize for being creepy,” Bonnie chuckled.
“I’m sorry for calling you creepy,” Finnegan groaned.
Bonnie chuckled again before leaving, “I got attacked.” The mage boy called as the photographer descended the stone path leading up to the cottage.
“Mhm?” Bonnie hummed, looking back at the boy on the porch.
“My grandparents had taken everyone to one of the cabins near the edge of the forest,” Finnegan began before Bonnie approached the porch to listen to the story about to be told, “I don’t remember how but Alex and I got too close to the forest and something reached out of the woods. Papa did save me, but I was already bleeding.”
“Your dad sees rather intimidating; I can’t imagine being that creature that attacked you made it out alive.” Bonnie chuckled, sitting next to Finnegan.
The mage boy let out a laugh, “Believe me, my dad is only intimidating in appearance… unless he has a sword in his hand… or you try to hurt maman.”
Bonnie smiled before handing over his camera once again showing Finnegan a picture of himself and a man with a similar appearance, “My father died in April. I think the reason I am obsessed with photography is because of him,” the senior explained, “He told me: “If you find something beautiful don’t hastate to take a photo,” he said that’s how he met my mom and even though they didn’t stay together long all the pictures he took of her were worth it. So, again, apologize for taking pictures of you without your permission,” Boonie flips through his camera roll before showing Finnegan a picture of the young mage in his weapons class, “but like I said, you are very photogenic.”
Finnegan smiled, his cheeks becoming flushed, “It’s good,” he muttered.
“Can I put it on the school’s website?”
“Sure,” Finnegan shrugged.
“Ya’ know,” Bonnie remarked, standing up from his seat next to Finnegan and looking upon the picture he selected, “You look like a prince like this.”
“What does that make you the court jester?”
Bonnie laughed walking down the stone backward, “Does that mean I’m your court jester?”
“It depends on how you jest,” Finnegan joked.
“Then the next time we shall me I shall aim to entertain,” Bonnie relayed with a bow, “Sweet Prince~”
Finnegan laughed, “Go visit your mom, creep.”
“Until next time, Finnegan.”
“Goodnight Bonnie.”