Paschal: Unit for Academic Pressure (Emy!!)

Paschalis de Santis

Every so often, the de Santis family patriarch felt the need to arrange special family gatherings that accomplished absolutely nothing of importance besides, occasionally, the initiation of yet another intra-family feud. Last time, it was the minute de Santis Cevio branch (consisting of four people and a goat in total) against the much larger de Santis Mendrisio branch (numbering more than forty), over some inane incident that Paschalis could barely remember, most likely centered on the goat. This year, it was the Lugano branch against the Sondrio branch over in Italy.

As a matter of principle, Paschalis was firm on the fact that all of it was absolutely none of his business, especially since the Lugano branch was also the main branch that he felt mild (extreme, blindly passionate) contempt for. Everybody knew this, few respected it, so now he was busy burning all the evidence that he had ever received any kind of summons to take part in the stupidity. Ignoring the letters, he found, never worked, because somebody in the Lugano branch had actually taken the time to craft the paper into this monstrous creation that multiplied when left unattended for more than fifteen minutes after being delivered. Unfortunately, this particular letter had been delivered while he had been teaching.

The inside of Paschalis's office was currently a disaster, a hellish wonderland of stiff white paper written on in Italian cursive with dark blue ink. Somebody, too, had "cleverly" decided to craft the ink this year into a truly infernal demon that was now running rivers over everything. It was as if they were actively trying to get him to hate them a thousand times more than he already did and as he shoved an armful of duplicated letters into a cheerily burning fire pit that his eldest brother had thoughtfully given to him one year, he was strongly debating whether or not it would be worth getting revenge over. ("Now nobody will ask what the fire extinguisher is for," Durante had joked. If only he knew.)

As he worked to get the situation under control, there was a knock on the door and then a familiar, somewhat hesitant voice. Oh. Wonderful. Although, he supposed that he could not really turn a student away right now since it was his office hours period.

Opening the door, he looked at the student standing outside, with a bland expression. "I am theoretically available now, yes," Paschalis said in a tone just as bland, indicating at the mess behind him with a sharp nod. Most notable in the room was probably the blazing fire and the extinguisher a little ways from it. "If you would to talk, I would have to ask you to excuse me as I handle this at the same time."

Paschalis de de Santis

His only acknowledgement of Lei's slip of tongue was a blank stare. Perhaps on somebody with more emotion, it would have counted as a glare. On Paschalis, it only meant that he was taking five extra seconds to silently convey that yes, he heard you and no, he did not particularly care for it, nor did he care enough to actually vocalize anything in response. But then his eyes snapped back to the job at hand and as he turned back to it, he pushed the door open just enough for Lei to enter.

"Thank you," he said in a tone which conveyed no such sentiment in the least. With one of the duplicated letters in his hand and the ink running down his wrist, he continued. "Everything that looks like this letter goes into the fire. Anything else that does not look like this most likely has some degree of importance. Avoid those." Behind him, the mess of papers suddenly expanded, cascading off of his already overflowing desk.

Paschalis pursed his lips for a moment in annoyance before explaining, "They are crafted to multiple when not exposed to human contact. The ink is also likely to stain." At least the school would be paying for the damages and not himself.

With that, he tossed another handful of papers into the flames.

Paschalis de Santis

"The Academy, at times, likes to write its more important documents on enchanted paper to prevent accidents." And as if to challenge that fact, as he lifted another armful of paper off of the corner of his desk, Paschalis found that the evaluations he had been working on before class were now ruined. Coincidentally, they had been all for Lei's class as well. Those, he simply scraped off his desk and into the trash can, saying matter of factly, "The Academy has substandard supply regulations."

The letters, of course, took the opportunity to clone themselves yet again, just as it was becoming safe to say that the situation was under control. With a strong tinge of annoyance, he wondered if he set the room on fire and write the loss as an act of God, He Who Works In Mysterious Ways And Sometimes Decides To Send Paschalis Enchanted Letters Via Family Members Held In Mild To Moderate Contempt.

A sudden blast of cold caused him to move back quickly as a stack of the letters next to him were iced over. Among many other things. The mess on his desk now looked like an ice cream machine threw up all over it, with bits of large ice crystals peppering it. Lei's cursing immediately identified himself as the culprit behind it.

"Well," Paschalis deadpanned after a moment, observing the situation. His gaze fell on the now frozen over fire. "That's new." The ice had actually accomplished to do what the letters hadn't -which, besides wrecking his office even more, was that it had pique his curiosity.

The ink that had been dripping everywhere was now frozen into little streams radiating out from a very large, iced over puddle. However, as the ink was magically crafted, by all accounts, it shouldn't have done that. Maybe its viscosity would have decreased, but it should not have become completely solid. His reservations about the main de Santis branch aside, they did in fact have competent crafters. The fact that the fire was also frozen, that was even more interesting.

"Your control is quite poor for your age group and years of awareness of your power," the man remarked, inspecting the frozen fire further. Not that it was anything that Lei probably hadn't already heard before. It really is something of a feat, isn't it?

"Tell me how you did this."

Paschalis de Santis

Contrary to what Lei might have believed, Paschalis was not angry, nor was he especially annoyed. True annoyance was purely reserved for issues such as requests from asinine family members, not for what he dealt with on a daily basis, which was to metaphorically slap some sense into overpowered kids who drew far too heavily off of emotion for anybody's safety.

The man followed Lei to the hall. "Emotions are the primary reason for most powers going out of control," he drawled, leaning against the door frame. "Negative emotions are of course the ones that tend to bring out the biggest accidental bursts. But that wasn't what I was asking you."

Paschalis jerked a finger towards the inside of his office. "You iced a fire. It would be an understatement for me to say that's an unusual feat. Moreover, you've managed to freeze over ink that is more or less thirty percent magic by design, which is also supposed to be resistant towards that sort of thing."

"A person could do a lot of damage with a power like yours," he continued. "I don't suppose you know how it actually works?"

Pascalis de Santis

Plucking the scroll out of Lei's hands, Paschalis looked over it and was not at all surprised to find that it was totally unintelligible to him. "Knowing how something works in theory does not equate to actual skill with doing it," he said crisply. Carefully unrolling the scroll with one hand and re-rolling it with the other, he continued scanning through until he came across the pictures.

"You could simply be too powerful," Paschalis said. Since he most definitely wasn't one to say things just to make people feel better, this was merely the conveying of what seemed to be a likely truth. "I have no idea how crucial movement is to your village's magic but I know for a fact that your powers don't seem to be utterly dependent on movement, if what happened in the office is any indication."

"Usually with elemental powers, all movement is either an outright placebo or for the sake of fine tuning control. In the case of the latter, every movement is representative of some sort of mental push or pull on magic. In your case, it might be that you're getting zero response from your magic because you're putting in the same effort that an average person would need to have their magic respond. If you are above the average, however, that average amount of effort would be inadequate. It may be that you need something more than just movement and theory to make your power move for you."