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Balthazar Blake is beginning to wonder if the bar is stalking him. He cannot seem to turn around in Dave's underground study space / apprentice training area without finding another doorway. After going about his business five times, he's decided to see if there wasn't something urgent he was needed for.

It helps that he feels he could use a break. He hopes, fervently, that when the attack comes, Dave does not need to defend himself with plasma bolts. It will not end well, if Dave's current ability is any indicator.

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There's a faint ringing sound, like the jingle of far-away bells, and suddenly, Sunshine is in the middle of a snowstorm.

Pressure-displacement spell. It's a classic.

"Yes, but a lot happens every time you leave the bar, and you haven't changed your mind before."

She's not dressed for real cold, and the thick snow makes it hard to see. But she doesn't have to, and she hardly feels the chill.

"They killed my apprentice," she says, vehemently. "On his way to cover the morning baking shift for me."

"Oh Rae." The snowstorm is dissipated with a wave of his hand. In its place, warmth like from a thick woollen blanket, like taught a certain child how to do, in a time that's at least a decade distant for them both. He's striding across the circle, his coffee and cinnamon roll abandoned.
"You should have told me."

Rae shakes her head, pushing back her hair from her face and totally not wiping her eyes as she does so.

"I didn't want to talk about it," she mutters, voice thick. "That's why I had Terry with me. Paulie's wife suffered some kind of break down when SOF told her the news, and was in the hospital."

She shouldn't feel bad about crying. It's only natural, and not nearly as dramatic as what he did the last time he lost an apprentice.

Let's just say there's some sorts of hell the Spanish Inquisition just wasn't ready to face. That brought by a distraught master, for instance.

"I hope this isn't going to become a habit." He sighs, his hands firm on her shoulders. "I would have never allowed you to take that oath that night if you had said something. In a few days, perhaps, but not that night."

"I had asked him to cover my shift that morning," she says, head down. "Con and I went to... parlay with one of the vampire gangs, the night before. It took all night, but it went well. Really well."

First sign of hope in a while.

"The call about Paulie came about two hours after we'd gotten back."

The time for comparing what he does to her and Dave, and what she now wishes she could have done for Paulie, is definitely for another time. For now, he sighs, hoping that on some future day this guilt won't morph into resentment for what she's chosen.

For now, he presses a kiss against the crown of her head, a gesture he's known since childhood - as from a master to apprentice, or a lord to vassal. You can take the man out of the middle ages, but it never quite works in the reverse.
"That's quite enough training for today."

This guilt won't morph into resentment. It is already morphing into a desire to make sure that one day in the future, no one would have to experience such a loss. At least not at the hands and teeth of a vampire.

Rae knows this master and apprentice thing essentially means the master has the last word, but still. She can't help but ask, "Just a little while longer?"

He gives her a narrow-eyed look - with Dave, the answer would be a firm, repeated no, and he'd be sent packing. However, with Dave, the boy is so easily distractable into his science projects or school or his so-called love life that getting him to stop is rarely the problem.

He's fairly sure that a firm no here will lead to easy submittance here, and him finding her wearing herself out practicing on her own later. And he has a duty to make sure she doesn't actually kill herself (or even seriously maim herself) in training. Not when he can prevent it, anyway.

"A little while longer. But that means no attempts on your own." He reminds her, firmly.

She blinks at him, startled, mouth opening to say some flustered denial... but it's true, isn't it?

But to make sure, Rae asks, trying to keep incredulity out of her tone, "None at all? What if it's forever until we're both here again at the same time?"

"Perhaps that would have been true, before." He allows, but there's a steel glint in his eyes. "But I am your master, Rae Seddon. I will always come for you."

It's dramatic, yes, and had the situation been different, Rae might have laughed.

As things stand, the sentiment is actually rather comforting, at a time when not much else is.

"Thank you, Balthazar."

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