(no subject)
[ Closed narrative. Takes place sometime last week, because handwaving is bad for you and narrative is very, very good. :3 ]
Zell entered the boys' dormitory from a recent trip to the library with an armload of books, finding the room blissfully quiet aside from the snoring ensuing from the frame of one of those random, almost kind of alive paintings the Institute had all over. He settled the stack of books onto his bedside table, dropping the laptop case from his shoulder carefully onto the bed, before he flopped himself across the mattress as well. His head was throbbing and he hadn't the slightest idea why.
After a fitful attempt to nap off the pressure in his skull, taking to some impossibly uncomfortable cat-like bodily contort, he rolled himself onto his back and made a grab for the topmost book from the recently checked out stack. The Elemental Properties of Magic, boasted the cover, and the book looked very seriously important in the way all the magical books at the Institute did and the way the science books thoroughly didn't. Half hanging over the edge of the bed, in a way that caused the edge of the mattress to apply pressure to his spine, Zell opened the book for a browse.
Latin. A lot of it was Latin. Which was confusing for a guy who's primary language was Germanic, but he made a valiant effort at attempting to understand the pronunciation of certain words between flipping the pages and appreciating the vague illustrations. It looked like magic, as defined by this book, had a lot to do with wands and hand waving and the pronunciation of complex Latin words.
Accendere -- the italicized Latin caption beneath an illustration of a flame sparked a little understanding of the language, though he paused in the middle of flipping the page as an unbidden Latin word entered his mind. What did it mean? He allowed the page to fall back into its previous position, fingers resting against the thick paper of the illustration.
He felt...compelled, oddly, for the strangest of most irrational reasons, to pull at the drawing. It didn't make sense, logically, but in his head it sounded perfectly reasonable, what anyone would do in that situation, and he couldn't think of a rational argument against it. Instead, he ran his fingers down the page slowly, feeling the skin-to-parchment friction and watching with bated breath as it sparked tiny flames between flesh and page. Logically, that didn't make sense either, but there was something in his head that had almost been expecting it, rife with anticipation and excitement, and he was held, transfixed, staring at the page and the tiny little flames and feeling the fire from the tips of his fingers up his arm and tingling down his spine.
Until the flame jumped, broke whatever spell he'd been under, and caught the entire page on fire.
"Fuck!"
The book was snapped shut and he fell backwards off the bed into a graceful roll of his shoulder, springing up to plunge the whole text into the pitcher of water on his bedside table. The pitcher smoked angrily for a few seconds after the water inside had extinguished the flames and Zell just stared.
What the fuck was that?
He went to remove the book from the pitcher, but was stayed by the painting on the nearby wall mildly remarking from behind a yawn. "You've got a bit of red on you," the oil and canvas said before dropping back off to sleep. Zell stared, then glanced down, then around, then felt a warm trickle on his upper lip and reached up to gingerly touch the blood dripping from his nose.
"...fuck."