Magic if you squint

Graeme had never expected that he would be teaching magic to a bunch of youngsters, but then, there was no way he could have anticipated anything about his current living situation. Europa this was not. Somewhere, distant and untouchable, was his true home, and there were times when he woke in the morning — hungover and dazed — that he stared blearily at the sky and wondered where all the dirigibles were.

He soon remembered, of course.

And the remembering was almost enough to send him back to bed with his good friend Jack Daniels.

This particular morning had been going reasonably well, however. He had managed to avoid a hangover, and thus was feeling a lot less miserable than he often did when he rolled out of bed and made his way to campus. The classroom was empty when he arrived and he enjoyed the quiet while it lasted. Settling at his desk, he idly started going through paperwork and syllabi to help focus his mind for the day ahead.

Soon enough, footsteps heralded the arrival of students, and a contemplative hum rumbled from his throat. These kids were well-disciplined, and he could respect that. One gloved hand raised to smooth over his salt-and-paprika hair, he glanced up to survey the current turnout.
Good, good. All seemed well--

Shit.

As soon as his grey-green gaze landed upon a youth seated distant from all the rest, it hit him like a bag of bricks. Graeme immediately did a subtle double-take. It was uncanny. He was lucky he hadn't brought coffee with him, certainly he would have choked on it...And it was unfortunate that he had the kind of work ethic that ensured he wouldn't drink on the job; he certainly had a craving right about now.

Breathe in, breathe out. His posture immediately straightened and tensed just slightly. He had long ago developed the habit of throwing around an air of confidence or battle-readiness whenever he was feeling the opposite, and it certainly held true. Slowly, he stood, back pin-straight and stance strong.

He refused to lose it in front of a bunch of kids half his age or younger, and so he bit back the emotion, jaw set.

"Good morning," Graeme managed smoothly as he removed his gloves to take up some chalk. As he turned his back to the class, he started drawing ᚻ (halgaz; hail) on the chalkboard, he continued to speak: "We will begin shortly."

Yeah, if he focused on drawing examples, he wouldn't have to turn around and look at that ghost again.

@Thoth

Once he finished writing out the lesson plan's phrase of power on the board — a safe, benign example of what it would take to manifest about a tumbler glass' worth of ice — Graeme nodded to himself and pivoted back to the room. A quick glance to the clock told him it was about time to begin, and so he scanned over the gathered students again...Only to hesitate. He was still there, and that didn't make any sense at all. Sure, spectres of the past came rather regularly to visit the vet, but they all tended to dissipate if he ignored them long enough.

Not today, apparently.

After a beat or so of awkward silence, Graeme cleared his throat gently and began, "Today we'll be covering the construction and use of phrases of power..."

He knew he started the lecture, but it was like he was a spectator in his own body. Yes, he was there, he was going through the motions — but his heart wasn't in it. No, the majority of him was hiding behind the act of teaching to stare at and process this doppelganger of his fallen comrade, his dead lover. It seemed to matter little whether he was looking at the youth or directing his attention elsewhere; the ghost continued existing and even appeared to be taking notes.

This was truly taking Graeme off guard, so much so he had to restrain a self-deprecating chuckle.

He had been able to handle the trenches, the bombings, the magic — but now? Now every little thing made his heart race.

Pathetic.

Absently, he rubbed the sun wheels scarred into the backs of his hands — the contact caused them to tingle and burn. Sometimes the discomfort allowed him to focus better. He was, after all, resigned to getting through his class today. This was not the time to get caught up in his own mind; once certain thought processes began they would be impossible to stop, so he had to nip them in the bud.

"Right," he breathed out, managing to keep his voice steady. "Are there any questions on what we've covered so far?"

That...

That was unprecedented.

He was speaking. Now, that in itself would not have been so remarkable, but the fact that other students glanced towards the Carter-look-alike meant that they could see and hear him as well. Thus any notion of the youth being a figment of his imagination melted away, leaving him with...well, with more anxiety, honestly. Somehow, the reality of the male made everything more intense.

Idly, Graeme rubbed at his beard and focused on his breathing.

Despite this cruel twist of fate, he was still alive, he was still safe — though that was hard to truly believe with the growing anxiety and jolt of fight or flight instincts. There were no bullets overhead; it was not a cold, winter day in the trenches. Carter had died long ago. There was nothing he could do now to change that.

Nothing, he tried to tell himself, even if a mirror image of his comrade was staring back at him. If his vision unfocused enough, he could almost see the bullet hole in the youth's temple.

Focus.

"The order is very important. Think about constructing a phrase of power like you would a sentence in english. You could switch up the order of words, but the resulting meaning would change entirely and worst case it would produce a sentence that meant nothing at all."

It was a small miracle he got that out without stumbling, and Graeme was thankful for it.

Turning towards the chalkboard, he continued, "The runes themselves are extremely important as well. Take this phrase here. If we cross out this rune here," He struck out the rune for 'hail', "That effectively nullifies this phrase of power since it defines what we are trying to do, namely summon some ice. The spell would become inoperable. Now," He erased the hail rune and re-wrote it, then struck out another rune in the phrase, "If we destroy this rune, the results could be unpredictable since it helps define the size and scope of what we are trying to do. So the ice summoned could be smaller or larger than desired."

Inhaling slowly, he glanced back to the student/ghost, "Does that answer your question?"

The seconds that were ticking by did nothing to lessen the bile clawing its way up his throat. Every time he glanced at the youth, flashes of his past surged to the front of his mind.

It was a cold winter's day in the trenches, they had just had a conversation moments earlier — the last words said to him were, It'll be okay, Graeme. It clearly had not been okay then, seconds later, when his lover's form crumpled to the earth abruptly. And it wasn't okay now, confronted with this impossibility before him.

The problem with being stuck in a different reality is logic like "maybe he's part of Carter's family" didn't really work. He had no explanation, and for some reason, that made him angry. It was a dangerous thing to combine with his anxiety and fear, and it was all he could do to shove the emotions down behind his practiced facade and hope it'd hold together until he got home.

"Yes. So writing something quick to shoot off, say, a fireball, is fine. But if you're trying to maintain something for a long duration, say a barrier or ward, then you're going to want something sturdier for your foundation. Stone's a popular choice."

Professor Creighton.

It was so strange to hear it in a voice so similar to Carter's, and a wry sort of rue crept over him. What if they had survived the war, what if they had been able to retire together, what if, what if, what if. The questions were scalding and the fact that any chance to figure them out was gone forever only made him more frustrated. This living, breathing, walking figment constantly threw what ifs in his face.

Graeme didn't like being the kind of person to judge someone for how they looked, but it was a struggle not to in this case. A stranger with his beloved's face, voice and physicality? How could he not judge that?

It hurt.

Again he absently rubbed at the sun wheels on the backs of his hands.

"You're welcome. Now, if there are no further questions, we'll wrap it up there. Consult your runic dictionary and practice some simple phrases before we meet for next lecture."

Today's lecture was quick and dirty, yes, but...He really wanted to clear the room. It felt much too crowded despite the fact that it was only himself and a small number of students —

It was difficult to breathe.

ooc: feel free to have havoc stick around for, idk, one on one tutoring or something!!