“Tell me how you did it! Those white flames! The heat of them was incredible! Did you use conjuration magic? No, that’s not possible. It looked just like it, though. Maybe it’s because you can carve runes and imbue them so fast? Is that something you learned, or is it some family inherited trait or something? Did you also make that talisman that made the barrier thing? And what was that pattern on the case? Can you show me how you made runes run in a continuous loop like that? How could you—?”

“Whoa, hold on,” Aldric protested, his hands held up in front of himself. The girl’s eyes sparkled like stars as she rattled off one question after another in a never-ending river of curiosity. The previously timid and soft-spoken teenager was nowhere to be found. “You can’t just... look, just forget about what happened today, alright? Whoever your next professor is will probably do a better job—”

“NO!” the girl screamed, her desperately excited face now inches from Aldric’s. “Please, just tell me how you did it. I spent my whole life wanting to learn magic, and now I finally have the chance of a lifetime. You did things I never even dreamed of being possible. You can’t just leave and never tell me. I’ve worked so hard to come here, left behind my whole life and family for this opportunity. I’m going to learn anything and everything I can before I graduate! No matter how hard I have to work, I just want to learn all that I can. Please...”

Aldric just stared stupidly, not knowing what to say. When he’d seen her in his class today, he’d never imagined the scared girl from earlier could be this excited or passionate. As she stared him down from mere inches away, she compelled Aldric to ask, “Why is this so important to you?”

“Because... because...” Aldric watched as several answers tried to come out of her mouth at once, like horse carts piling up on a crowded street, all of them trying to be the first one out. Then the dam finally burst, her words thick with honesty and hope.

“Because I love magic more than anything else!”

Her resounding shout echoed off the walls of his office in the ensuing quiet. It made his ears ring a bit, but Aldric paid it no mind. He felt like a memory had just punched him in the gut. He could imagine an image of his own younger face superimposed on this girl’s, giving almost the exact same answer to a very similar question.