The Ritual
Evangeline had made her home on the ship at the Chateau d'If; not the dismal island fortress to which the name properly belonged but the private rooms of the author who had made it famous. Most important to the reclusive mage was the out-of-the-way location far from the most densely-populated parts of the city, but the history and style of the building appealed to her as well. It had a cute, compact appearance not unlike that of her residence on the Mahora grounds which, while in every way inappropriate to her fearsome reputation still suited her tastes just as well as the grand and imposing castles she had once raised.
But now the picturesque grounds were marred by the terrible light of her magic, flickering weirdly as it arced to and fro, and the air was filled with the strange keening wail of densely-accumulated magical power. And above that there was one more blatantly sinister sound: the recognizably human screams of the subject of the great spell, her luckless apprentice, Negi. The site of the ritual was no less alien; master and apprentice were both suspended in air above the great circle she had formed, Negi in his agonies and Evangeline in deep concentration.
She'd had ample time to consider her approach while the boy recovered to a state she thought sufficient to withstand the rigors she had most definitely intended to put him through, but she would not simply be implementing a preexisting design. She was dealing with a living system, in more senses than one, and though she was intimately familiar with the theory behind Magia Erebea she had never intended it for use by a human, or indeed anyone other than herself, and its expression in Negi was not something she understood in detail. She would still have to think on her feet, as it were... in fact, it would be as great a challenge as anything she'd done in decades, she expected. For that, the chance to revisit her greatest work, she could almost thank Negi.
[Though this is supposed to be somewhat out-of-the-way anyone who wants to come complain about Eva's less-than-stellar bedside manner/nuking small children is welcome]
But now the picturesque grounds were marred by the terrible light of her magic, flickering weirdly as it arced to and fro, and the air was filled with the strange keening wail of densely-accumulated magical power. And above that there was one more blatantly sinister sound: the recognizably human screams of the subject of the great spell, her luckless apprentice, Negi. The site of the ritual was no less alien; master and apprentice were both suspended in air above the great circle she had formed, Negi in his agonies and Evangeline in deep concentration.
She'd had ample time to consider her approach while the boy recovered to a state she thought sufficient to withstand the rigors she had most definitely intended to put him through, but she would not simply be implementing a preexisting design. She was dealing with a living system, in more senses than one, and though she was intimately familiar with the theory behind Magia Erebea she had never intended it for use by a human, or indeed anyone other than herself, and its expression in Negi was not something she understood in detail. She would still have to think on her feet, as it were... in fact, it would be as great a challenge as anything she'd done in decades, she expected. For that, the chance to revisit her greatest work, she could almost thank Negi.
[Though this is supposed to be somewhat out-of-the-way anyone who wants to come complain about Eva's less-than-stellar bedside manner/nuking small children is welcome]