It's Life, My Dear

[Cedric Braddock]

It was no secret that Cedric supported the idea of the Enclave. A school for the magically inclined, where mages could practice freely and actually learn the art of their craft. Cedric would feel foolish not supporting something like that. Fortunately, his opinion and loyalty had earned him quite a few perks. The favorite was that his alchemy lab was all together large, well equipped, and Chevalier free. It had long become obvious that the only true threat Cedric posed was to the Enclave's coin purse with his constant need for supplies. The alchemist had eventually been granted extra room simply to grow most of the materials he needed in order to cut down on cost.

It wasn't exactly easy to say no to Cedric Braddock.

At this point, he had his own thriving personal garden with enough variation and vegetation to drive most alchemists to drooling. It was a necessity for the different potions, salves, and other helpful (or harmful) brews that Cedric whipped up. Though from time to time he still needed to buy from outside his garden. There was only so much he could harvest on his own, much as he would hate to admit. Still, he made do and created a number of wonderful things in us lab.

Although at the moment he was exasperated. This was the fourth time his mix had created a plume of purple smoke.

"Well that wasn't right." He coughed and fanned the smoke away. The solution thus far was eluding him, but he was determined to figure it out if it took all day. Which, knowing Cedric, could very well be the case. But a knock on his lab door diverted his attention. A few seconds passed before he remembered he was going to have a visitor. In a few steps he reached the entrance and put on a charming smile. Even if purple residue currently covered his face like ash. "Ah! You must be the young mage I was getting today. Well come in! Don't mind the smell, I was just making something." He said offhandedly before going back to his spot and disposing of the failed substance. "Please shut the door. Oh and while you're at it, please grab me some tomocan leaves. They're in that shelf right there." He indicated by pointing. "Purple leaves with a smooth edge and a teardrop shape. I'll need about...Let's say five."

[Grayson Sawyer]

It wasn't rare that she was called upon to assist a senior mage in whatever task. She had been doing it for years. What was rare was that it was with Master Braddock. Although the Enclave was above such trivial things as celebrity, to Grayson, Cedric Braddock was one.

She took extra care to get hair out of her face in a simple braid and hurried off to the alchemist's lab.

Upon entering, she was instructed to get an ingredient off the shelves and without a word, she did so, quietly placing the amount he needed on the table close to him. She wrinkled her nose as the smell coming off him was slightly unpleasant, coughing a little behind her sleeve. "You've...got dirt on your face." She mentioned with a sheepish grin.

[Cedric Braddock]

Cedric's new volunteer proved to be a smart one, because she did exactly as he said. He smiled in satisfaction, but at the moment he was busy cleaning out his tools in order to start again. He turned towards Grayson and then crossed his eyes with a frown to see his nose. Indeed, the last puff had covered his face. He wiped a line of the stuff off his nose and observed his nose purple finger. Then, without a word but with a smile, he wiped it down Grayson's nose. "Well now so do you! So we're even." He teased, chuckling before going back to work in a flurry of movement.

"So tell me, young mage, what's your name and specialty?" He asked as he put the leaves Grayson retrieved into a flask filled with water. He then put that over a small fire, and turned back to Grayson. "Wait, wait, let me guess the second one." With swift hands, he lifted one of Grayson's arms and pushed back the sleeves a bit. At the sight of the scars, he hummed and nodded, patting her limb before meeting her eyes with another smile. "Definitely Life." Then he dropped her arm and was off scrounging in the shelves. "Tell me what you know about life. Also, get me a few red oak twigs. That shelf. It'll be labeled since all the twigs look practically the same." He indicated with a free hand. "Just grab a handful."

[Grayson Sawyer]

Wrinkling her nose when the purple stuff was swiped over her nose, Grayson chuckled lightly, moving out of the alchemist's way so he could continue his work. His question brought her back to the present but before she could answer, the older mage pulled her arm and consequently revealed her scars which caused her cheeks to burn bright and hot.

She hurriedly pulled her sleeves down and went to grab the twigs as per requested. As she mulled over his initial question, she couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly embarrassed by how embarrassed she was of her scars and that with one move, Cedric had revealed her weakness.

"I'm sure you know more about it than I, Master Braddock." She responded politely before handing over the twigs, wiping the dirt off her nose as she did so.

[Cedric Braddock]

It would have been hard to miss those bright red cheeks, or the embarrassment they signaled. Cedric made no comment on them as he was too busy with everything else, including taking the twigs. "Well I know I know more, but what's important here is what you know." He emphasized as he started snapping the twigs and putting them into a bowl. Once he'd gotten enough of them, he started to smash them down. "Judging by your arms, you, at the very least, know about the drawbacks and limitations." He glanced over and gave her a smirk. "And that's nothing get get red in the face for around here. Believe me, I've my own set of scars from pushing it too far." Once the twigs had been pulverized into minuscule crumbs, he set the bowl aside and flew off to get something else.

"Something I'm sure you've realized by now is that magic is a trade. In order to heal, you expend energy. In other words, you heal and then get tired." He explained, coming back with a jar full of some sort of yellowish liquid. "But what I have learned through experience is that the mage does not necessarily need to do all of the energy transfer." Again he was off, grabbing a handful of some sort of berry. He pointed at Grayson with his free hand, then gestured to a shelf. "That shelf. I need two of the flowers that look like an angry red burst. You'll know what I mean. They're hard to miss." Then he was back to his spot with a new bowl, mashing up the berries. "Do you know why it is so rare for a mage to specialize in Life magic? Why it's probably the rarest of all?"

[Grayson Sawyer]

Grayson's eyes followed Cedric as he moved about his room much as one would expect from someone who knew it inside and out. It was the subtle pivots and steps to the left to avoid surfaces that made her watch him curiously. When he spoke, Grayson looked up and shook her head slightly, not used to being easily read. Though she shouldn't have really been surprised, considering they were all...special.

She nodded quietly, glad he was doing all the talking. She wanted to maintain it as such but unfortunately, she ran out of luck when he once again asked her questions.

Handing over the flowers, she shook her head and waited for him to answer his own question, something she figured that he was wont to do.

[Cedric Braddock]

The fact she remained silent and had still not given her name was not lost of Cedric. Though in part it was his fault for talking so much. Not that he would ever really notice. Still, he smiled as he accepted the flowers and started plucking the petals. At least it looked like she was listening. "Well, my silent little helper, that's because Life magic is the base for all the other specialties of magic! All of them are connected to the school of Life. So really, my quiet apprentice, you've got every other school at your finger tips, and you didn't even realize it." As he explained, he continued to work, staying to his station for now.

"A great example of this is whenever you heal. Like I said, magic is a trade. When you heal, you grow tired. If we didn't have to give something, then every soldier would have a healer strapped to their backs constantly healing." He chuckled at the imagery as he added the petals to the destroyed berries. "But what most don't realize, or don't choose to acknowledge, is that the exhaustion you feel is actually self applied decay." He looked back at Grayson with a small smile. "The irony of the situation is that the outlawed schools are the most closely related to the most revered and cherished one. For Entropy is just reversed Life, and Necromancy is just a different, more twisted form of Life magic. So when you heal, you decay yourself in order to make the trade."