A Lesson Well Learned

Viconia flicked her pen up the slight slope of the wide stone bench, then let it roll back down.  Every few minutes she’d glance up to the front of the lecture hall, just to make sure Master Mizzrym’s notes matched his lecture.  She wasn’t necessarily not listening, she just knew the spell this lecture hinged on and didn’t really need to hear someone repeat all the caveats and extra notes to remember.  Master Mizzrym's fun patterns of speech and dry jokes only got him so far.

Master Mizzrym cleared his throat, and Viconia glanced up fully, noting that he was scanning the rows of the lecture hall and tapping his thumb along each manicured fingernail of his raised hand.  Viconia thought Master Mizzrym was very much like her father, ostentatious and gaudy, but deeply entertaining.  That didn’t mean she was going to keep her attention solely on him.

"Apprentice Despana," he finally announced, making eye contact with Viconia.  His deep red eyes bored into her, and she immediately knew he'd noticed her inattentiveness.  Viconia suppressed a groan and stood up.

"Yes, Master Mizzrym?" she replied, folding her hands behind her back.

"Perhaps you could demonstrate this spell for the class," Mizzrym smiled in a way that looked more than a little vindictive.

Viconia nodded and scanned the students around her, most avoiding eye contact.  That didn't surprise her.  Viconia Despana was a female drow, where most all of her classmates were male.  At least half of them thought she had invaded a space they considered very much their own.  All of them considered her terrifying, whether they knew her or not.  She wouldn't torment the poor souls trying to avoid eye contact.  The mocking ones with the gall to smirk at an archmage's daughter, however.  They needed to learn a lesson.

Eventually, Viconia's eyes settled on one of the smirking boys in the front row, one that looked unsettlingly like Master Mizzrym's miniature.  His white hair glittered with ruby-studded hairpins, his robes a lower quality mimic of a pair Master Mizzrym had worn two days before, matched with a slightly off-kilter imitation of his eye-makeup from that same day.  Viconia smiled back at the apprentice, tossing her long ash blonde hair over her shoulder.

That one would do.

Rocking back on her heels, Viconia began forming the gestures she'd learned long before she'd set foot in Sorcere, letting the incantation roll easily off her tongue.  Her focus settled on the smirking apprentice, boring into him but keeping her head just level enough that he wouldn't notice.  Her hairpin, the unsleeping eye wrought in white gold and clipped just above her ear, thrummed with power, fortifying her spell, or at least Viconia's hold over it.

She had learned the spell on an iron golem, an apprentice barely at her father's eyeline would be child's play.

Viconia ended the last pass by flicking her left hand up.  She folded her right hand behind her back.  A little showy but Master Mizzrym was showy.  The least she could do was return the favor.

The apprentice lifted out of his seat, flailing and hollering as he rose. Viconia couldn't feel him resisting, or at least not hard enough to notice.  It occurred to her that, in the sparse bits of lecture she'd paid any mind to, Master Mizzrym hadn't mentioned the spell could be resisted.  The poor boy either had no idea he could stop her, or didn’t have the wherewithal to do so.

She pushed the apprentice towards the space in front of the lectern, then tried to push him towards the door.  Her wrist flicked just a hair too fast, and the apprentice went flying.  Viconia winced and dispelled the magic, but the poor boy still slid, sprawling, across the stone floor.  He was lucky to halt, relatively unhurt, on the other side of the room.

Master Mizzrym watched the whole demonstration with a mildly impressed expression, or Viconia thought so.  His mouth twitched a little when the apprentice flew across the room, fighting a grin.

The poor apprentice scrambled to his feet, face flushed and mouth puckered.  Viconia quickly hid her smile with one hand.  His robes and hair were in mild disarray, and the boy looked from Master Mizzrym to Viconia as if he expected the Master to do something.

"Very impressive, Apprentice Despana," Master Mizzrym praised, a slight hint to his voice to indicate he was struggling to keep his composure.  "In the future, perhaps using both hands to control a heavier object is preferable…so is not using your fellow apprentices as hapless victims."

"Yes, Master Mizzrym," Viconia gave a shallow bow.  "Thank you."

"You may be seated," Master Mizzrym said with a nod, "you too, Apprentice Thaezyr."

"But–" the boy began, a petulant whine to his tone.

"Now, Apprentice Thaezyr."

Thaezyr flushed even darker and hurried to his seat.  He made sure to shoot Viconia a particularly nasty glare as he sat.  Viconia smiled back and settled once more in her seat.

"Apprentice Despana and Apprentice Thaezyr also demonstrated a key aspect of Telekinesis," Master Mizzrym went on, setting back into his usual pace.  "The spell can be applied to living creatures and inert objects.  Thusly, a living creature is capable of resisting…"

Viconia leaned forwards on her elbows, flicking her pen up the desk once more.  Bored yet again, she let her mind wander off to her father's last letter.  It had been a whole month since anything new had arrived from Ust Natha, but Archmage Despana was a busy man with eight daughters and two sons.  He couldn't spend all his time focused on Viconia.  She'd see him soon enough anyway.  She was due to graduate soon and once she did, she was headed straight home.  She had not a lingering glimmer of interest in staying in Menzoberranzan, especially not in the branch family's tiny compound, far from her father, brothers, and sisters.

Viconia glanced down at Apprentice Thaezyr, and found the boy was still glaring at her, intermittently, as the lecture went on.  Viconia grinned.

Cute.