Dorm Mother

After all the hype for how stern as well as scary the dorm mother was, he expected an older woman with a bun hairstyle and most likely glasses. Instead, the dorm mother didn't look old enough to be anyone's mother. If she was even twenty he'd be surprised. Her face was gentle with dark auburn hair and though she was scowling her light brown eyes were more kind than scary. Her plain dress couldn't hide a very feminine figure that overall made her look like a princess in disguise than a scary dorm mother.

"I moved in today." D's raspy voice shocked her briefly but she continued to close in on him.

Once she stood before him she looked him up and down. "Then you must be the big shots apprentice. Don't expect me to give you any special treatment."

"Ok." D turned and headed towards his door considering their conversation done.

Rachel was more than a bit flabbergasted. While she often complained about how men viewed her as just a pretty face she hadn't expected to be basically be ignored even by a boy so young. Internally she was actually angry at herself for even caring. She prided herself on making her way relying on her hard work. She refused to rely on her family and nor her good looks, even her role as dorm mother was part of her work ethics. Since they wouldn't accept a nineteen-year-old as a professor regardless of how well she had performed academically she'd brokered a deal to work as the dorm mother to prove her dedication. As soon as she turned twenty they would allow her to take a proper role as a professor.

She knew they were just humoring her and expecting to find a reason to say she wasn't mature enough. So for the entire time, she'd been a dorm mother she had made sure to be as strict as possible, doing everything by the books. That was why this boy showing up and doing things outside the norm annoyed her so much, not the fact that he didn't react to her at all. Like he was talking to a stump. Definitely not.

Following him to the side door she continued as if he hadn't simply walked off from her. "Let me go over the dorm rules. You must keep your dorm clean. You're mother's not here to clean up after you so don't even think about being spoiled."

"I've never even met my mother."

Rachel's routine speech was thrown off by his matter of a fact comment but she managed to recompose herself and continue. "Curfew is one hour after sunset. If you aren't in your room by then expect it to reflect in your grades." D had made it to the side door and was opening it as she continued. "No girls are allowed in the boy's dorm under any circumstances. No exceptions."

D stepped into his room and closed the door right in her face. She barely managed to keep from walking into it. When she tried to open the door she found it latched and banged on the door demanding he open it.

When D opened the door she glared at him annoyed that he seemed as stone-faced as before. "What?" His raspy voice grated on her nerves.

"How dare you slam the door in my face? I could have you punished for that and school has yet to even start!" She huffed.

"You said no girls allowed." D started shutting the door and she slapped her hand against it.

"I don't count!"

"Sorry, I thought you were a girl." He started opening the door which caused her face to flush with embarrassment and outrage.

"I am a girl!" The door started to close again. "But I'm the dorm mother so I'm the one exception."

"You said no exceptions." The door continued to close pushing her back despite leaning in with her full weight.

"Fine, there is one exception! No girls allowed under any circumstances except me."

D finally showed a reaction by sighing and letting go of the door causing her to stumble into the room. Once she was inside he closed the door back behind her and went straight to his pack to check his wards.

'This little bastard! I've never dealt with such a rude child before. Didn't his parents teach him any manners?' Rachel was about to start back into her speech on the rules when a circle of light appeared around the backpack sitting on the floor. It rose up expanding into a wall of text before shattering and dissolving. "You can do magic?"

The excitement in her voice annoyed her as she normally prided herself on her composure but the boy kept throwing her off. The Second Gelian Academy was one of the most prestigious schools not only in the kingdom but within many kingdoms. Magic was taught to senior students who meet the requirements but she'd never seen a boy so young doing anything as complex as she'd just seen. She had heard he was the apprentice of the new professor of Combat Applications of Magic but considering his age she never expected him to actually know magic.

"Anyone can do magic." D parroted one of the phrases Larian had preached to him endlessly during their trip.

"Yes but no." Rachel was annoyed by the boy's attitude. It was true that anyone could in theory use magic. They just needed to know the right words in the old tongue. The problem was that each word had to be enunciated perfectly to get the right effect. Tone, inflection, even emotional levels when speaking the words were key to get the desired effect. The most basic spells were just two words but saying them perfectly was difficult and even the simple act of lighting a candle was a five-word spell. On top of that, the grammatical and syntax rules for spells changed with the number of words. Even if one didn't want to know how or why a spell worked and simply wanted to repeat the needed words it was such a challenge to always do them perfectly few could perform spells. Most people just relied on magical tools if they could afford them or did without choosing to avoid the risks and burdens of learning magic.

What she'd seen the boy do looked to be far more complex than any spell she'd ever studied. She'd never even seen a spell like it. D just shrugged at her response not really caring. After checking that none of his belongings had been bothered he pulled out his spell quill and started creating a more permanent ward.

"You're making a ward?" Again the excitement in her voice annoyed her as she realized what she was seeing, but she couldn't help it. Ward magic was a rare field of magic. Since it couldn't be quickly prepared and most of it was localized it wasn't often seen in action like spells. A mage could ready a spell and unleash it when needed in advance. A ward could be placed in advance but it was limited to a specific location. So even if they were used in combat one rarely saw them cast. On top of that, they were considered far more difficult to prepare.

"Yeah." D was already scratching out his chicken scratch like writing in the air.

"What ward are you making?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Just a concussive ward with a sound alarm should anyone mess with my stuff. My last one Larian made me weaken too much, Someone might have managed to stay conscious after the blast. I'm just redoing the kinetic energy levels and adding a parameter to allow me access so I don't have to take down the ward every time I need something." Talking so much hurt D's throat but he'd discovered a second topic besides food he liked discussing. While all the talk of spells hadn't made much sense something about wards had clicked.

"That sounds really complex. You can do that?" Rachel looked a little concerned, using magic without a solid understanding could be dangerous.

"It's easy. I use the same template for all my defensive wards. See this line holds the formula and takes the imputed data for the wards circle. Its size doesn't matter for the effect it is just used to give reference to focus points. But this size is normally best. I'm familiar with its values and if it is too small or too big it can get difficult to calculate the variables." He scratched out another line. "This gives the location of the focal point of the spell effect in relation to the circle. And this one gives the shape and size of the effect. See, I just need a sphere so we use the basic formula for four times pi times radius squared. If you do this you can adjust the sphere if you need to later by just changing the variable for radius." Rachel's head was already starting to hurt, she never liked mathematics much. It was why she became a language teacher.

"Now we just need to tell it how much energy and what type we want to store in that sphere. I'm just storing basic kinetic energy and releasing it unshaped out of the sphere so it's not concentrated into a cutting force or anything. Last time he made me lower it way down so this time I'm upping the amount to at least half what I wanted. Now we…"

Rachel cut him off. "Ok, I think that is enough. You're starting to make my head spin."

Larian would have loved to be there to witness the slight blush that tinted D's face. He'd gotten carried away explaining the ward's construction. Other than Larian, D had probably never spoken so many words to another person.

"Well, I guess I'll leave you to your magic." Rachel had forgotten her earlier outrage or even why she'd originally followed the boy in. Her head was spinning with the various formulas and numbers he'd been scratching out in mid-air. "Just behave and don't cause any trouble." Rachel headed out of the room leaving by the inner door. Once she closed it D let out a sigh releasing all the built-up stress from being around someone else. Quickly he turned back to his work and started editing back the previous lines altering them to his original design. Multiplying the forces and adding the needed lines to shape them into something that would make sure any would-be thief would never have a second chance to steal from him. He did begrudgingly add in the extra parameters to give an extreme sense of danger to anyone about to trigger his trap, Larian said it was good to let someone who might accidentally trigger them keep from setting them off. Only a determined thief would continue after the wave of terror the ward would send out in warning.