"You sure you'll be okay?" Margarette asked for the umpteenth time. Sebastian nodded beside her. "If you're really sure..."
"Don't worry Margarette, I'll take care of Seb." Said Dorin.
They were standing in front of the entrance of the East Dormitory. Sebastian's bandaged right hand hangs from a sling around his neck. It was a good thing that only the tips of his left fingers got injured. Mar looked at Seb one last time and sighed.
"I'll see you guys tomorrow then," she said, turning around, "my training ends at 2 PM, I'll go to the Photography Club room as soon as I can. I'll keep in touch."
The two were left in silence. They made their way to their room, not saying a word. Dorin placed his bag inside his closet and changed into a shirt. Seb took his coat off and was about to climb up his bed when Dorin stopped him.
"Seb," he called to his roommate. "I want to apologize again for what happened." Seb nodded and proceeded to go up to his bunk bed. "Aren't you going to get something to eat?" Seb shook his head. "What about our photography assignment?"
Seb stared at him, then raised his right hand.
"I can help you..." offered Dorin, but the other shook his head once more. "There must be something I can do to make it up to you?" he asked.
Seb stared at him, got off the ladder leading to his bed and took his slate from the desk.
[You late kitchen] he wrote, then [I wait.]
"Okay, I'll talk to you later!" said Dorin as he left the room.
The Dorm Mistress gave Dorin an earful when he arrived. It was past 6 pm. She sent him to the kitchen in a hurry.
It was much later when he came back with a bag of leftovers for Seb. He had changed into a pair of striped pyjamas and had removed the sling on his arm. He was working on his camera.
"I brought back some food, you should eat something." Seb nodded in reply. Dorin watched as Seb arranged his negatives on the desk. "Have you chosen which ones to get printed?" he asked. The other nodded and pointed at 4 shots. "What about the assignment they gave us?"
Sebastian gave him a thumbs-up sign. He patted his camera and wrote; [help develop film.]
"Wha- what did you take pictures of?" asked Dorin, dumbstruck.
Seb pointed at the window.
Dorin went to the only window in the room, threw back the drapes and understood. They were on the third floor, and behind the dorm were the woods which lead to a dense forest. The moon was out with the stars in the night sky, glittering like a million diamonds along the Milky Way.
"And here I felt guilty for taking pictures of the old brick oven, thinking it's my fault you won't be able to pass any more photos tomorrow..."
[I’m fine.] Seb wrote.
Dorin watched as Seb wrote some more, his left hand clumsily holding the pen against his slate.
"Here, let me see that..." he said, taking the slate and pen from his friend.
He flipped the slate around, passed a hand on its surface, and wrote several symbols in the air above it. Then he started mumbling some discernable words.
A pentagram suddenly appeared before the slate, to Sebastian’s surprise, followed by a couple of other symbols floating in mid air and melting into the slate's surface. Lastly, Dorin faced him and touched the side of his face. Seb stepped back, staring at him wide-eyed, but the other held on, mumbling more words as another pentagram appeared before him and sank into the middle of his forehead.
‘What the hell did this nut job just do?!’ thought Sebastian as he pulled away.
"Oh, it works!" Dorin said, looking at the slate. "Here, as an apology for earlier." He handed the slate back to Seb who looked at him quizzically. Dorin grinned from ear to ear.
‘What the hell... if my head starts to blow up...’ thought Seb.
"Look at the slate!" Dorin insists with a laugh.
‘Don't tell me the slate's gonna blow – ‘
Seb looked at the slate, reading his own thoughts.
"Since it's my fault that you couldn't use your hands, I thought it best to connect your thoughts to your slate..."
[You're a fucking artificer?!] the thoughts magically appeared on the slate. [What the hell?! Is there nothing you can't do?!?]
"Actually, you can say I'm a jack of all trades..." Dorin scratched his head with a grin. "All I can do are simple spells and charms and small stuff like these... but I get addled when I try the bigger spells..."
[You call this simple-small stuff?] Seb thought, [Some magic charm students would give an arm and a leg to learn stuff like this! Maybe by 'big stuff' you mean cataclysmic spells!]
"I wouldn't say that, my mother could do spells like these with her eyes closed..." he paused for a bit, "Well, you know what I mean..."
[What’s more, how were you able to write runes and magic symbols in thin air?! That’s a skill that only top tier arch mages can accomplish!] he added, [And that haphazard spell earlier with the rifle, what the hell were you thinking? Does everything you touch blow up? If something doesn't work properly, you go ask someone for advice! Don't try to force your own way into something you hardly know about!] Seb's words crowded in the small slate and fixed itself to fit the writing area. They disappear as new thoughts enter his mind. [I can't believe I was actually trying to save you, had I known you were immune to injury, I would have just pulled Mar and ran the hell away from you!]
"Yes, I was alarmed myself when you suddenly put up that shield." Dorin looked at Seb seriously. The other was taken aback. He didn’t think Dorin noticed his attempt to shield him.
"Please don't do things like that in the future," he said. "Up to now, I still don't understand the reason behind such an action. Not to mention, that the shield hardly made it in time..." Seb stared at Dorin.