#why did allura choose abjuration?

[utilitycaster]

between the Fantasy High Live unpacking of why someone with emotionally abusive parents who favored them might have complicated feelings about abjuration and everything on the last episode of Critical Role, it’s been a very good week for wizards

[writersblockisabitch]

Why Wizards Live in Towers

It was not because wizards felt they stood above it all. That the goings-on of the people below on the streets were far too menial and of no interest to them. Quite the opposite in fact. From above, they could see all the people going about their daily lives, and it reminded them of what was important.

At least, that’s why Allura lived in her tower. Maybe some other wizards just enjoyed feeling untouchable high up in the sky. And sure, it was nice to be able to toss a Firebolt out of the window and not hurt anybody when the minutiae of magic got too irritating.

But in all truth, Allura enjoyed watching the people while she worked, it reminded her of why she was doing all of this. Of why she was bending the very fabric of the universe to her will.

Abjuration wasn’t a popular subject at the Lyceum.

Sure, they all agreed it had it’s uses. Mage Armor was a practical way to boost defense. But other than one or two spells, most wizards tended to choose something flashier as their specialty. Like evocation or conjuration. To be a sword, rather than a shield.

Allura took a sip of her tea and looked out the window, down at the meandering pace of the people below.

By design, towers were lonely too. Solitary structures, the highest point for miles around. Circular stairs winding up to small, circular rooms typically filled with books. Not really much space for people to live between all the steps and books.

Maybe that was also a reason wizard’s tended to live in towers. Allura certainly wasn’t a stranger to loneliness herself.

Growing up as the only child of busy parents, Allura’s only company as a young girl had been her magic books.

She remembered sitting on the bolts of fabrics in the back of her parents’ drapery shop, drawing arcane symbols on the back of discarded patterns. Hoarding gold and silver thread to use as components.

If her parents noticed her thievery, they had never mentioned it. But knowing her mother, it would have been mentioned, so she must have been a stealthy six-year-old.

Truly, all she had in common with her parents was her love of fine clothing and her coloring. Apart from those, nothing had really stuck.

Her coloring was genetic, blonde hair from her mother and blue eyes from her father and none of them had really had any say in it. The clothing thing might have as well been genetic, her parents growing from simple drapers to the tailor’s of the emperor during her formative years would instill anyone with a sense of fashion that would never leave.

Allura had found that magic tended to attract the lonely and the broken. Ultimate power to the powerless. The power to protect yourself. The power to fight. To stop people from walking all over you. To stop them from ignoring you...

It was also why magic tended to corrupt.

It was tempting. To use magic to get even with everyone who had wronged you. To forge yourself a sword.

Maybe it was best, that wizards lived in towers.

It was where they were comfortable, alone, between their books. And also where others were safest from them.

The cup clattered on the saucer when she set it down.

People were still milling around on the square below her tower. More than used to her presence above the city.

The door to her study burst open, excited feet clattering on the hardwood floor.

“Mom! Look what I can do!” her son yelled. The air shimmering around him with magical power as he cast a Shield spell.

Allura smiled, catching Aiden in her arms and pulling him into her lap.

“I’m so proud of you, honey! You finally figured it out!”

“It was the fingers like you said!” Aiden said, mimicking his earlier hand motions.

Allura kissed his forehead, hugging him tightly.

“Now you have figured this one out, I have another spell for your spellbook. How does Mage Armor sound?”

Aiden beamed. “Really?! I gotta tell mama!”

“Aiden, honey...” Allura called out after him, but her son was already gone.

Not long after, she heard a baby’s cries and Kima’s yell.

Allura chuckled to herself. Kima had been busy putting baby Maia to bed, and by the sounds of it, Aiden had interrupted that.

“Your son,” Kima started, bouncing their daughter on her hip. “is turning my hair gray. And I’m only sixty-eight! Far too young for this.”

Allura got up from her seat in the windowsill, taking a grumpy Maia from her wife’s arms, swaying her in her arms.

“I did quite think he was our son.”

“Oh, he is. Except when he pulls those magic shenanigans when Maia is nearly asleep, then he is your son. He got that magic from you, Allie,” Kima grumped, before plopping herself down on the windowsill, picking up Allura’s tea and finishing it in one gulp.

“He learned it himself, actually,” Allura smiled, sitting down next to Kima, Maia already dosing off in her arms.

Kima sighed, resting her head against Allura’s shoulder. “You truly are magic, you know that? Getting her to fall asleep like that.”

“What my magic is telling me right now, is that we have a little spy,” Allura said, looking right at the sparkling green eyes and messy black curls of Aiden, peeking around the door.

“I’m sorry for waking Maia up,” he whispered, looking remorsefully at his now sleeping sister.

“It’s alright, buddy. You didn’t mean to,” Kima said, waving Aiden over.

He carefully picked his way across the floor, avoiding all the creaky bits to nestle himself in between his moms. Making sure not to wake Maia again.

Allura smiled, hugging her little, make-shift family closer. Maybe some wizards lived in towers because they thought they were better, or dangerous, or because they were lonely. But some wizards lived in towers because that’s where their families lived.