"Gesture"

Vignette: "Gesture," originally written December 15, 2016.

"Gesture"
Three glowing lilies rising up out of a small blue pond ringed by a circle of stone.

Image: "Isometric Water Lilly" by Sephiroth-Art

Eze chewed his lower lip in concentration, every atom in his body focused on the tiny disc of light at his cross-legged feet. He narrowed his eyes cautiously, lines wrinkling across his forehead as he pushed that rigid focus into a physical manifestation within the centre of the conjuration plate itself: a pinprick of light sputtered into existence for just a moment, like a magnesium flare freshly lit. The spark flung copies of itself around the disc wildly and he held his breath in his chest lest even the act of respiration disrupt the process.

He watched with growing nervousness as the iridescent glints of energy cycled up and down the rainbow before finally settling on a hundred various shades of vibrant turquoise. He risked reaching out to touch the stone rim of the disc, driving his will into its rippling nucleus as his mind told the flicks how to reorient themselves as he desired. Slowly, as if the light were shards of metal and he was scraping a magnet across the surface, he commanded the energy at his feet into a rough sketch of the flower he remembered seeing earlier that morning.

Eze hadn't quite intended to be nosy, at least consciously, but when something seemed to catch Branden's interest he couldn't help but be interested in it in turn. He shyly peered over the other student's shoulder at the book in his lap, and his attention was arrested by the alluring blossom painstakingly drawn on its vellum pages.

"That looks very beautiful," Eze croaked, nerves making his voice sound quiet and ineffectual even in his own ears.

Branden looked up and smiled broadly, flashing white, neatly positioned teeth in greeting. If it had been an expression on anyone Eze wasn't so infatuated with, that physical embodiment of perfection might have made him nauseated.

"It's a caeruleum orchid," Branden said, thumping his finger against the bestiary. "They're all extinct now, unfortunately, but they were very popular when they still existed a few centuries ago — that's part of why you can't find any these days; the strain was over-farmed for dye and the population could no longer support reproduction."

Eze had little understanding of the words coming out of Branden's mouth, but he continued staring happily anyway. That had given him the idea for his current experiment, though: Branden seemed to like the flower, so Eze purloined a book on conjuration as well as the original bestiary from the Library and had gotten it in his head that if he managed to enchant one of the vanished plants into being it would summarily impress Branden and send him head over heels to the same degree that Eze already was.

That was the aspiration, at least.

Unfortunately, as soon as Eze began letting his mind wander, the skeleton of the conjuring began to waver and shake. "No, no!" he begged under his breath, gripping the disc harder and trying to reassert his willpower over the magic rapidly disintegrating in front of him. It was too late, however, and the coloured flint vanished in a puff of gentle brightness; the disc's surface returned to its inert, grey state and Eze stared down at it with abject disappointment.

"That was pretty, whatever it was going to be," said a voice behind his back. Eze whirled around with embarrassment, contorting his torso to hide the remains of the spell until he realised the speaker was his dormmate, Ceith. The older boy closed the door to their room, tossed his knapsack on his own bed and flopped gracelessly onto the furniture beside it. "What was it for?"

"A wasted gesture," Eze replied, disconsolate.

"Ah, I see," Ceith nodded with an air of sage understanding. "This is something involving Branden."

Eze rolled his eyes and pushed the disc away, taking a moment to arch his back and stretch his stiff legs. "The flower doesn't exist anymore, or something, so I was trying to make one." He gestured to the drawing of it on the open book at his left. "He really liked it."

"So you were going to give it to him as a gift, and he'd then see you in a brand new light and fall senselessly in love with you, yes?" Ceith gently teased.

Eze blushed hotly. "Don't mock me, please," he glowered, staring at his shoes.

The other boy's expression softened and he sat up on his bed. "Why don't you just tell him how you feel?" he asked gently.

"Some of us aren't as confident as you are," Eze mumbled in reply.

Both youths stared at the stone floor of their dorm room in awkward silence for several moments before Ceith cleared his throat. "Would you like some help with the spell, then? Conjurings are trickier if you're trying to recall the base image without a physical example, and two people can hold a sketch stable for longer."

Eze looked over at his dormmate in surprise before a small smile spread across his lips. "That would be nice, thank you."

Ceith nodded, pushing himself off of the bed and landing opposite Eze on the ground. He arranged his lanky limbs in a more comfortable configuration before looking down at the conjuration disc that waited halfway between the pair of friends.

"Right, then — let's get started."

  Comments: