You shake your head to rid yourself of the unwelcome memory, and clear your throat loud enough to break through the conversation. Only because you were looking for it were you able to catch the flash of panic on Panoramia's face before she excused herself from her fellow workers to come over to you. "Magister!" she says with aggressive cheerfulness. "The soil here has had a harsh time of it - I believe it would have hosted greenskin fungi for a few generations until it was exhausted. They can overcome that, but they have an easier time of it underground, and of course there's no shortage of caves here, so once the soil gave out it was abandoned." You say nothing, and Panoramia wipes her hands absently on her robes, where the fading of its colour suggests that she had done so and then had to scrub the stain out innumerable times in the past. "The Halflings don't have the Rhythm of Rhya, but they've got something called Phineas' Footsteps which is a child's skipping rhyme that dictates almost the exact same rotation. Isn't that interesting?"
"Sleep well?" you ask.
"Oh." To her credit, she doesn't even try to lie.
"Grey Order, remember. We see all, we know all."
"Magister, I'm sorry, but-"
"But there was a battle and you couldn't just lie there and sleep while your little friends might have been bleeding and dying?" She's staring at you, and you have to keep yourself from laughing. It's easy for people to suspect you can read minds if what they're thinking is so obvious. "Panoramia. Druid name, right?"
"Yes, Magister."
"Parents Jade College as well?"
"Yes. Ma teaches now, Da's Perpetual." Perpetuals were Apprentices-in-Perpetuity, those who had some magic but lacked either the power, the desire, or the aptitude to attempt to reach full Magisterial status, many finding comfortable roles in the Colleges as servants or secretaries or assistants or librarians. Or, apparently, as spouses.
"So you grow up knowing you'll probably be magical, you got taught all the little tricks right from the start, you know to take your time and most Ghyran spells are happy to let you..." To Panoramia, magic was not a terrifying curse that appeared one day without warning and upended the life she thought she knew. It had been a constant her entire life, and even before her ability to touch and shape Ghyran had sprouted she had likely been surrounded by it and had known it intimately before her first spell. And Ghyran itself was very easy to let your guard down around. It encouraged life and growth, it thrived in happy little groves full of trees and animals and birdsong and flowers, it sprouted like a tree and flowed like a river. "I understand why you had to be there. But I told you to sleep for a reason. What's your worst?"
"What?" But she knows what you meant. It was a common game among young wizards. What's your worst miscast? "My, um, my hand, it cramped up into a sort of claw shape. I couldn't move it for..." she pauses as she sees the look you give her. "For about three minutes..."
"I summoned a daemon," you say, and you're grimly pleased at the expression on her face. "At the age of sixteen. Wisdom's Asp. It followed me from the other side of mirrors and it wanted so very much to wrap itself around me and bury its thorns into my skin. It stalked me for seven years until I managed to trap it." She stares at you in horror. "Don't you worry about that - they like Ulgu and Ghur and Hysh. No, mishandled Ghyran calls to Rotwyrms, giant insubstantial daemon-maggots that hunger for flesh." You look away, so Panoramia's horror doesn't dissuade you. "Just last month at Und-Uzgar, my shadow came to life and crushed to death the creature closest to me, which I'm very glad was a Skaven rather than any of my compatriots." You see her look down, and you follow her gaze to your shadow, which as always is flitting around obeying its own desires instead of the angle of the sunlight. "Yes, it's been like that ever since. Despite that, I consider myself lucky. During the Battle of Drakenhof, a Magister of the Light Order named Jovi Sunscryer fumbled something he was trying to do and exploded into flames of pure Hysh. Needless to say, he died. So did most of those unlucky enough to be living in that district. Are you starting to see my point?"
You turn to face her again, and eventually she remembers to reply. "Yes, Magister."
"I'm glad. If you really must be there, get one of your new friends to teach you the bow. Because if you keep casting when you shouldn't be casting, it won't just be you that suffers, it will be everyone around you. Understood?"
"Yes, Magister."
"Good. Off you go." She flees, and you sigh. You had to channel a bit of your Master- of your former Master for that, but if you ever met whoever taught Panoramia you won't need anyone's example to be properly scolding. Anyone that reaches Journeyman without being absolutely terrified of the consequences of mishandled magic hasn't been taught properly.
You hope the Jades weren't stupid enough to have let her be Apprentice to her own mother.
