#behold: the sketched piece of art and a text draft from the .odt document on my laptop

[paskuda-lynx]

Now, that was a problem.

"The long-forgotten roof balcony somewhere at the quietest part of the castle was the perfect place to spend some time without prying eyes. The perfect place for, say, covered rebellion meet up. But there's the nuance. It would be the perfect place, if the Titan-damned emperor's nephew didn't came to exactly the same idea about it miraculosly at the same date as them. As if he's actually suspecting something and is trying to oversee treason. But that's probably too much credit for him. He's hardly the improvising type, that obedient little prince. Still, the balcony was occupied, and maybe there were spying bugs (and possibly the snarkiest of the castle's vivarium) being planted right now, so Head Witch Darius decided to work proactively and outspy the emperor's spy first by sending through the closed doors the tiniest abomination he could manage without losing direct control over it's sight and motions. ...the Golden Guard was standing by the balcony rim and staring in the evening sky. Otherwhise than that he was doing absolutely nothing. Not that was enough for dropping vigilanse, though, even if it seemed that no spying bugs ot spells were planted yet. And indeed, a few minutes later he finally turned away from the rim. Only to sit down cross-legged on the cobbled floor, the artificial staff being placed at hand nearby. The cobbled floor in question was very dusty. Gross. Meanwhile the Guard took of his helmet, and that was slightly more gross, because the face underneath was unmistakebly beaten up. The right cheek was swollen, with black eye as the icing of the cake. Alright, it's not like he was concerned or anything, but Darius still thought that the injury was intriguing, due to it location and size. One could guess that it came somewhere from endless scout training (and any witch or demon knows that scout training sessions in the Emperor's coven are not mild at all), but even while punching your opponent in the face is not something new, it's considered weird - kind of unprofessional - to strike straight in the eye. Even then, how do you exactly punch a scout in the eye when they are masked? The mask issue remains with conjecture that the bruise was gifted from some criminal on the mission, too. So, the funny conclusion - had the Golden Guard, while unhelmeted, no less, irked someone in the castle to the state of fist-shaking rage and finally faced the consequences of his own arrogance? The beaten up in question wasn't giving any hints about personality of the one who did it, though. He just gingerly touched his cheek, and then suddenly pulled off one of his gloves and turned it inside out while reaching with the other hand for his staff. "I wonder if this counts as excessive use of magic." And here was the irony: "Well, no one will see that anyways, so..."

The Guard tightened the hand on the staff in concentration while it glowed in red, and soon it conjured small cubes of ice in the glove. As always with artificial magic, without a spell circle, or any circling motion at all.

It was honestly weird to watch. Were there any restrictions on the amount of spent spells in this thing? Probably, if there was an implication of "excessive use of magic".

…Actually this information could be quite in handy if the rebels would clash with the Emperor's right hand someday. Hopefully not. But still. Maybe this whole spying thing had a point after all, because before this moment all what Darius had got was some skygasing and then a weird black eye on weared-out teenage face, which wasn't a lot. Although he must admit, he was intrigued. This was very much not his mentor, the predecessor certainly outgamed the descendant, but it was interesting to watch the youngster in his normal behavior without the bratty antics and formal etiquet - a rare sight indeed. Besides, it wasn't difficult to keep control on one small abomination while attending the paperwork in his private quarters, so it's not like he's wasting a lot of energy.

The iced glove was pressed on the bruise for a few minutes, and, when it was probably too cold to keep, was put into crook of the shoulder inside the white cape. The Guard layed his cheekbone on top of it with an almost blissfull expression. Huh. The swelling must be pretty painfull, if such reaction. The probably dirty glove on the face was still a disgusting sight, but at least it was turned inside out, so Darius must give him at least that, if not the credit for creativity about the whole makeshifted compress thing."