"Why do you want to become a magician, Miss Blan?"
Lillet Blan looked at Master Freixenet in surprise. Of all the things she'd expected to be asked in this, her initial interview with the head of the Royal House of Magic, personal philosophical questions weren't among them. Maybe they should have been. After all, it had been Professor Gammel who had arranged for her to become a Royal Magician. Master Freixenet knew the student from her records, the history of the Philosopher's Stone incident from the Crown report, but had never so much as exchanged a letter with Lillet directly.
Searching questions were part and parcel of the whole affair.
"Well," Lillet began, shifting in her seat. The chair was pleasant enough, with a curved wooden back and a velvet seat-cushion, but Lillet still felt uncomfortable under the old magician's gaze. "My family has a farm in the district south of the capital, and I have two younger brothers. Neither one of them has magical potential, so we wanted to be able to send them to school. That way, they can train for a better-paying career, even earn their way to university. That takes money, though, money that a yeoman farmer doesn't have, but since I do have magical ability, that means that I have a lot of opportunities to use that talent to find work that pays enough to give them that first start."
Master Freixenet shook his head slowly. He reminded Lillet a lot of Professor Gammel, filling the classic image of a wizard as an old man with a long, flowing, white beard, but he took things in a different direction. Where Gammel was tall, imposing, and wore rich robes that made him look more like a powerful Court minister of a couple of hundred years ago, Freixenet was rail-thin, almost withered, skin bronzed like old wood stretched tightly over his bones. His robes bore cabalistic signs and were festooned with charms, the beard beneath his hooked nose fell past waist-length but was scraggly rather than rich and flowing, and he wore a floppy steeple hat with a wife brim that cast his face in shadow, only emphasizing the burning intensity of his eyes.
Where Professor Gammel presented himself as the magician as the holder of knowledge, Master Freixenet was the keeper of secrets.
By contrast, or simply because of his position as a Palace administrator, Master Freixenet's office could have belonged to any minister, nobleman, or wealthy man of office. There was a laden bookcase, but none of the spines screamed out as being grimoires full of eldritch lore; there was a tapestry depicting a battle with knights and archers on the east wall; and the room was dominated by a huge showpiece of a desk more suitable for the Chamberlain or the Exchequer's office. A row of little ornaments ran along the edge: a pen set more for appearance than use, a brass-cased clock, a polished marble paperweight, and a sculpture that looked like a miniature fountain, with a flat-bottomed bowl of water capped by a leaping fish, the whole thing done in a dull gray stone like granite.
"You mistake my point, I think," the old magician said, slowly stroking his beard. "That is a reason for you to accept this job. It is not a reason why you would seek to become a magician in the first place."
Lillet blinked.
"It isn't? But that's what I was hoping for when I went to the Magic Academy. If I've been lucky enough to be born with a skill, shouldn't I use it to help myself and my family? It would be pretty irresponsible otherwise."
The old man sighed, and shook his head again.
"That is all well and good, indeed a responsible attitude for a young woman at the Magical Society deciding whether to accept further training or an apprenticeship. But!" He held up one finger, long and spindly with knuckles made prominent by the tight-stretched skin so it resembled a chitinous spider's leg. "I doubt that was your prime concern when you were a little girl, and you first discovered that you had the potential for magic. Many people are afraid of such potential. Even those who do not believe it is somehow 'evil' often do no more than to learn control over their senses and stop with that. But you did not. You chose to explore your gifts, and I am curious as to why. What led you to embrace magic rather than fear it?"
"Oh, I see what you mean." Lillet tapped her fingertip against the corner of her mouth, thinking. It was hard to put it exactly into words. "I…" she began, then broke off, dissatisfied. "It's hard to properly phrase…"
"Take as much time as you need, Miss Blan. For an important question, it's much better to get the answers correct."
She did wait for a bit, thinking it over, and after a couple of minutes she managed to come up with an answer.
"Color."
Even with the shadow cast by his hat-brim, Lillet could see the old magician's bushy eyebrows rise.
"I'm intrigued. What do you mean by that?"
"Well…it works better if I show you."
"All right. Go ahead."
Lillet nodded, then sketched a design in mid-air with her fingertip. It was a magical Rune, and lines of brilliant green light followed the passes of her hand as she did. She was actually showing off a little by doing it without her wand and vertically, but…well, that was part of the point. For a moment it shone with a brilliant surge, and as the Rune's emerald radiance washed across Master Freixenet's desk it wrought a change. The stone fish's outline seemed to ripple, and as it did it became more defined, its scales more distinct, spines in its fins standing out. Gills flared to reveal red within, and the dull hue of the rock deepened to silver, then shimmered with varied shades, and a miniature rainbow trout wriggled off its perch to splash into water, where it swam vigorously in circles.
Smiling, Lillet sat back in her chair.
"Once I learned that there were things in the world beyond what I knew in my own life as I'd lived it that far, I knew that I wouldn't be happy unless I tried to go see them for myself. For some people it's art, for others travel, and yet others can find it within the pages of a book. For me, it's magic, and I wasn't going to turn away from all the wonderful and exciting things that it could help me to discover."
Master Freixenet chuckled then, smiling broadly.
"I look forward to seeing what new shades you find here in the Royal House of Magic."
~X X X~
A/N: This story was done for the "First Year, Royal House of Magic" challenge at Exiled to the Couch; the prompt was "Gray" (or rather, "Grey," because the prompter is Canadian). I think I've mentioned this before, but Master Freixenet's appearance is based directly upon the sorcerer model from one of Vanillaware's other games, Odin Sphere.