Grieving over, back to work! [Idés, Gwyn]

The week had been entirely too long. And though he woke up with a throbbing hangover and a heavy feeling in his stomach of impending doom, he had forced himself out of bed at the crack of dawn to get ready for the day. He had important work to attend to, after all. And after a shower, two cups of coffee, and a cigarette he felt alive enough to get going.

He was probably the one of the first people there that morning. The campus center was almost dead, except for the occasional student coming home from their night jobs. The poor things. A thick morning fog hung over the grounds, making it a weird dreamlike haze. He scanned himself inside the building and hurried through the halls.

He found the laboratory in the state of disarray it had been abandoned in, almost an entire week ago. Papers had been strewn about and the spherical zeals he had been experimenting on had long since been corrupted. The zeals had been of the power-boosting variety, the kind that already had a shaky legality around it. The experiment, had it proven successful, could have been a game changer. In theory, it should have made even humans capable of advanced spells. A sigh fell from his lips as he inspected the broken shards of steel. All magic remnants within them were long gone. He picked up a bucket and started the process of cleaning the mess. He gathered the broken shards into the bucket, pausing as he noticed the perfect sphere of an unbroken zeal, all the way in the back of the development chamber.

He picked it up. Holding it in the palm of his hand he could feel the unstable energy within crackling menacingly. By all means, it should have cracked and burned out like the rest had, but not this one. It made him curious and nervous to figure out what the hell kind of magic it would produce in practice. How had it not broken its vessel? And could the result possibly be recreated? The thought that the thing might explode had crossed his mind many times, which was what was holding him off from just giving it a try. Blowing up the university on his first day back seemed a bit excessive.

He fished out his reading glasses from his pant-pocket, and got to work plucking books off the shelf that might be relevant. And thus, he had spent most of his morning wracking his brain and searching through books in the attempt to find evidence of a similar zeal. It had proven unfruitful, however. If such a thing had been created before, it was most likely classified information. He had never felt this kind of energy emitted from a simple zeal before.

He placed it in a safe, where it couldn’t be tampered with or disturbed, until he found some answer as to whether that thing was safe to use or not. The hours went by with him scribbling notes, looking up answers, and trying to create a list over which banned books might hold some information that could be valuable. And that was how he was seated by his desk with his head buried in a pile of books and his reading glasses nestled on the bridge of his nose, when the time reached noon. The mess remained long forgotten.

Even after practicing all week by herself, Gwyn’s classes had still been fruitless, failure after failure and snickering classmates behind her back. Not that she had any success by herself to begin with during the past week. It was really starting to get on her nerves, the continuing failing that she kept experiencing, the gossiping behind her back and right in her face, people avoiding her thinking that she was some sort of freak. So it was a real good thing that the campus was open again. Which meant that Idés was in his lab again, which meant she would get to see him again after a long week, which meant coffee and venting. She really needed to vent, a lot. But before she went to the lab she had one stop to make: the best coffee shop on campus. It's where Gwyn got their daily coffees, ever since they started to become some sort of friends. Black for him, white chocolate mocha with soy for her with a lemon muffin on the side because besides the venting she had to do, she also thought she deserved some emotional eating. Maybe her period was coming up, so she should check her tracker when she gets home tonight. Gwyn often wondered that if she should miss one of their daily coffees, he would miss it too? She doubted it, since she often found Idés engrossed in whatever he was working on that day, but she knew he appreciated it when she brought in coffees. It was some sort of make up gift for making him always listen to whatever she had to get out that day.

With the coffees in one hand and her keycord in the other she entered the lab at the front door of the building. Humming to herself she walked through the hallway until she reached Idés’ lab. She sneaked a peek through the windows, finding him how she had expected him to find. Utterly engrossed and devastatingly handsome. Her heart sped up and her breath caught in her throat. How could someone make reading glasses so damn sexy was beyond her. She gave herself a moment more to watch him before she entered the lab.

‘’Good afternoon Des!’’ She said cheeringly before she dropped her bags on the chair next to the door and walked over to Idés, handing him his black coffee. ‘’As black and hot as they come like always, so don’t go drinking like a dehydrated man or you will burn yourself.’’ Gwyn sing-songed to him before turning around with her own coffee and getting rid of her coat which she placed over her bags instead of hanging it on the rack that hung onto the wall. Gwyn quickly did her hair into a bun, grabbed her lab coat and put it on.

‘’So what are we working on today?’’ She started, but before he could even reply to her Gwyn had already started her rantings for the week, she just couldn’t keep it in for a moment longer.
‘’I swear I am so, so, so fed up with my powers being a little shit whenever I want to conjure them up. It’s like I am working with a mule, but this mule only made an appearance once and then just yeeted itself somewhere where no one can find him.’’ Gwyn took a sip of her mocha and took a chair next to Idés before she sat down and resumed, ‘’Like I know I am some weird case but it could not have been a fluke.. Or could it? Maybe they had the wrong person but those damn tests did confirm me as a warlock.. Can you believe they still didn’t figure out which kind of warlock I am though? Isn’t that just so…’’ She tried to think about the right word for a few moments to best describe the whole thing, but came up with none, ‘’ anyway, I have been on campus every day the past week and every day I went to another location at the training grounds in hope to just conjure something, or at least get a feeling but you can already guess what that got me! Absolutely nothing!’’ She took another sip and sighed. It just wasn’t fair, the fact that her power was a bitch and that Idés was even more handsome up close. ‘’Well, me trying to conjure magic did land me a bruise on my head. Forgot I had been sitting underneath one of those hanging planks in the greenery… Talking about the greenery, a woman came by when I was there. Hadn’t seen her before but I don’t think she was a student based on her outfit at first. She told me she was one of those royal Godia’s and she came to ask questions about the late crown prince. Told her I knew nothing, because honestly who does besides the woman who found him. Got a feeling that I will be seeing her again on campus though.. I don’t know..’’ Gwyn tapped the lid of her cup against her lip a few times before shaking her head.
‘’Sorry I really had to get that out but going back to my first question, what are we working on today? Last week you took a look at some zeals right?’’ She smiled softly at him, waiting for him to explain to her what he had been up to today.

Idés nearly had a heart attack when Gwen ripped him out of his train of thought. He caught sight of the watch on the wall and almost had to do a double take, had it really been almost an entire’s day's work?

“Ah, hello Gwen,” he answered, just about to answer her question when she continued on speaking. He let the girl ramble, leaning back in his chair and taking a big sip off his cover - wincing when he immediately burned himself, despite the warning. He placed the coffee back onto the table. He took off his reading glasses as he listened to her talk about her grievances with her powers, nodding understandingly, despite only half-way listening. Though she was a whirlwind whenever she got to the lab, Gwen offered a welcome break into Idés’ work life. He often got so engrossed in his work he forgot both time and place. The days she wasn’t here, he would often work from early morning until late evening, with not as much as a meal or a glass of water in between. It seemed he needed the reminder that regular life still was going on outside. He dared take another sip of his coffee.

He nearly spit it out again at the mention of Godia. Of course they would be around university grounds, considering the location of the crime scene, but why would they possibly be questioning Gwen? Immediate red flags raised in his head. The resources he was providing to the EFA, they couldn’t possibly know about that, could they? Much of the things produced and researched in the lab wasn’t exactly legal - but as a scholarly institution they had other privileges, so it couldn’t be that. Could it? Or was there something in Gwen’s background he was missing?

Different scenarios started rushing through his head - most of them ended with him in jail - and he almost missed her questioning of today's work. He looked at her dumbfounded for a split moment as he processed the question. To question further about the Godia and risk waking suspicion or simply get on with work? The latter was the safest bet, no doubt about it. He couldn’t risk his work or relation to the EFA, and the less people who knew the exact details of that, the better. Curiosity won in the end.

“Yes, yes, we’ll get to that, but uh,” He cleared his throat, composing himself once again as he placed the cup back on the table. “The Godia, any reason she’d come looking for you specifically? What did she question you about?”

Even though she had been rambling without shame, muttering a quiet I told you so when he burned himself on his coffee, she had noticed the slight wince after taking a sip of coffee when she had mentioned the Godia. That’s odd. Was it that unusual for Godia going around asking questions? Surely they’d go around campus asking anyone they came across if they knew something, but before last week she had never seen one on campus before. Gwyn did find it a bit odd that this particular girl went into the greenery, but that might have just been because she had been making some noise.
 
Idés not immediately talking about work struck her as odd too, he even looked at loss for words for a moment there. Usually when she asked him that question he would start explaining and sometimes use terms she didn’t know which led to her interrupting sometimes to ask for clarification about what a specific term meant but not at that moment. Gwyn raised an eyebrow and softly bit on her lip while thinking about how to reply to him. Was it just her or did he seem a little off? He wasn’t his usual self, he almost seemed a little bit nervous or worried? Was he worried about her? Her heart did a few loops in her chest at the thought of that.

‘’Well, I don’t think she came for me like she was actively looking for me in the greenery. She might have just walked past and heard the ruckus I was causing when I bumped into the plank, then walked in to check what was making the noise and then found me rubbing the sore spot on my head.’’ Taking a sip of the coffee Gwyn recapped her encounter carefully, trying to remember something she might have missed before. She hadn’t immediately recognized the woman as Godia, but rather had just stared at her before asking who she was and if Gwyn could help her, since she had the feeling the woman had been staring at her too.

‘’I asked her if I could help her because she didn’t look like she came here often. Then she just asked me where I had been the day before they found his body, the crown prince’s that is. Explaining she was some sort of royal guard investigating his murder. Told her I had been at my lectures from morning until the afternoon, followed by some alone practice at the training grounds before I went to help you out.’’ She shrugged, her story didn’t seem all that suspicious to her, but rather quite innocent. ‘’And when we were finished I just went to run a quick errand at the grocery store and then went home for a sad salad meal. She did ask me if someone could testify that I had been on the training grounds, but I told her no because I prefer to train when no one is around and if I had seen someone suspicious or strange after I left the lab, though.’’ To which she had honestly replied that everyone treated her like the plague and that she didn’t know everybody on campus.

‘’You think she was looking for me specifically? What if her investigation was just a ruse and she is actually looking for faulty warlocks?!’’ Her mind started conjuring doom scenarios and Gwyn jumped from her seat and started pacing. ‘’They couldn’t do that, could they? It’s like murdering their own people, right? But what if I have been on their radar since the day after that party? Do you think they spied on me and saw me failing? Has there ever been a faulty warlock before or did they get rid of them before anyone ever heard of them?’’ She turned to Idés, hoping that he would put her mind to rest and assure her they weren’t after her because she was faulty. ''Actually I wouldn't be suprised if they did hunt faulty warlocks.. Overhead some people today who said it's a shame the killer went for the crown prince while they could also have purged this world from weak and faulty warlocks or warlocks who aren't from pure blood. Might as well just called me out personally by my name.'' She laughed a mirtless laugh and sat down again, coffee still in her hand but the desire to finish it totally gone. It baffled her how cruel people could be in this society, making her long once more for her old life.

He winced internally. He really hadn’t meant to send her into a frenzy. But at least it sounded like he hadn’t been compromised or found out - so far, so good. Although, he had a feeling that the Godia would be coming to question him as well, eventually. But he could deal with that when the time came. For now, he had to fix that sad frown on her face, it made him feel immensely guilty.

“Now, I’m sure that isn’t what they were doing, Gwen,” he started, choosing his next words carefully. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been extra anxious after the murder, that’s all. Let’s just say I’m not a fan of extra law-enforcement around my workspace.”

The part about the cruelty wasn’t entirely untrue, though. The government was notoriously cruel about a lot of things, he witnessed it often with his own eyes in the ERA. The stigma and the elitism was only too real in a way that made his blood boil, but he wasn’t about to go on a rant about such things at a moment like this. It was unlikely that they would strike down someone like Gwen, though - at least not yet, depending on the future political developments. But he didn’t let that anxiety show.

“You’re not faulty Gwen, I promise you that you’ll have everything figured out soon. The Godia won’t come to take you away for no reason.” He gave her a reassuring smile, and gave her shoulder a slight squeeze. “It was probably just standard procedure to ask all students on campus. People are just trying to mess with you, don’t listen to them.”

At his explanation she nodded, it was not unusual to feel anxious. He studied zeals and she was pretty sure some of them weren’t fully legal but it was all for the sake of science! Maybe one day Idés would find a zeal that could help her channel her powers so that they would finally manifest at her will. That was something she had to ask later.

‘’But why does it feel so? It’s been months Des, months! I have yet to feel anything inside of me that would remotely feel like magic, any magic! Might as well get rid of it, or me.’’ She felt tears gathering in her eyes, her frustrations reaching their max. She tilted her face upwards and looked at the ceiling, in hopes that her tears would just go away but when he squeezed her shoulder a few did escape. She placed her coffee cup on the desk and quickly wiped them away. She knew they had been seen by Idés so there was no need to deny that they had fallen.

‘’It’s just been so…’’ Again she bit her lip as she searched for the right words, ‘’I am so fed up with feeling like a failure, of feeling like a freak and having people gossip about me behind my back. The worst thing is that the more often you hear it, the more you start to believe it. I just cannot shut those whispers out anymore. They haunt me during class, during my self practice sessions, when I eat and when I sleep.’’ A few more tears had escaped before Gwyn stood up and walked towards the chair where she had dumped her bags on. She dug around a bit for the paper bag which contained her muffin, she needed that right now. Gwyn opened up the bag and took the muffin out, tearing a piece off it before stuffing it in her mouth.

‘’I’m sorry for all the tears and the dramatics. I did not come here for a crying session. My period might just be around the corner.’’ She lifted her muffin to emphasize. Sitting down on her chair again she shredded another part of her muffin before popping it into her mouth. ‘’Alright enough talking, tell me what to do so you can finish before dinner.’’ She put the rest of her muffin aside and turned towards Idés. The last bit of moist gathered at her eyes she wiped away, taking care not to smudge her makeup and make herself look like an ugly panda.

He frowned in mild panic when Gwen started crying. It wasn’t the first time a student had cried in front of him - that was to be expected, studying was stressful - but that didn’t make it less awkward to deal with. And this was different, as he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somewhat his fault, somehow. He didn’t quite know what to make of her bringing up her period either, as it really just sounded like an excuse for a perfectly normal reason to be upset. But what did he know of such things?

Needless to say, he was happy to move on from the subject. He could stress about the Godia later. He shot her one last reassuring smile, before clearing his throat and gathering his papers to get a recap of what he had been working on. “Yes, let’s get to work,” he spoke.

“As you told yourself, it’s been quite a week. Unfortunately, most of the zeals broke from over-exposure, but this one is intact, and I’m trying to figure out why.” He got to his feet and moved over to where he had stored the zeal in question. He carefully got the pitch black orb out of the safe. “It’s quite curious. It’s received a much higher dosage than what should be possible with this material,” he explained. “It’s buzzing with energy, though I fear it might be too unstable to use. I’ll need to do some tests.”

He took it back to the table, so that she could see it closer. “You can try touching it, but be careful. I’m not quite sure exactly what it’s capable of just yet.”

Gwyn concentrated on her papers Idés had before him, quickly reading a few phrases here and there while Idés started explaining things. It had really been some sort of a setback when campus had been closed for a week. Most of the zeals that had been lost because they had just been laying on the desks. That must have been weeks worth of hard work from Idés. However when he said that one zeal was still intact, her interest piqued. She looked up from the papers in front of them and frowned.

‘’How is that even possible, when the others have broken?’’ She watched as Idés walked over to the safe and carefully picked a black orb out of it. Gwyn frowned even more as she stared at the orb, it looked as if it was sucking the light out of the room. She could feel the energy radiating off it, how much magic did that thing even contain?

‘’Quite curious indeed.’’ Gwyn agreed as she kept on watching the orb. ‘’How do we know it won’t just explode any moment now before you can run the tests?’’ She eyed it suspiciously as it was brought closer to her. When Idés suggested her touching the zeal, she raised her eyebrow and looked at him as if he had grown a second head. He had never before offered for her to touch a zeal, not even with the other ones which were now lost. She didn’t immediately reach out to touch it, but rather just stared at it thinking whether or not it would be wise.

‘’Are you sure I can? I don’t want to break the last zeal you have at hands now.’’ The thought of the zeal breaking under her touch made her feel cold, who knows what would happen when all that magic was suddenly let loose without an anchor or something else to channel the magic into. Gwyn took a few deep breaths and carefully brought her hand towards the zeal. Licking her sudden dry lips she watched her fingers getting closer and when her finger was just a hair's breadth away she felt a strong zap of energy. It didn’t really hurt but it shocked her enough that she quickly withdrew her hand and held it close to her chest. ‘’I think it’s not wise for me to touch it.’’ She muttered softly as she looked at her finger. That zap of energy had been the most she had felt in a while. ‘’What kind of tests are you thinking of with that zeal?’’ Gwyn went looking for the paper that stated how much energy had been injected into the zeal and where it had originally come from, trying to busy herself a bit and ignore the powersource that was so near her and the underlying feeling of nausea that started to form. She quickly eyed her muffin, it couldn't come from that could it?

A swear left Idés’ lips at the sudden buzz emitted by the orb, practically feeling the sudden release of pend up energy. A part of him was curious about what would happen if someone else were to touch it - and his suspicion of the nature of energy release had indeed been confirmed. The thing could simultaneously both have destructive and revolutionizing characteristics, that much was certain. Which gave him an inkling of an idea that probably shouldn’t be voiced out loud just yet. A rush of excitement rustled through him at the possibilities this could present.

“That’s just the question, isn’t it? Where to begin,” he said as he turned the orb in his hand, before turning to put it back into safe confinement. “It’s definitely a powerful energy-source, which could be extremely beneficial if we found a safe way to harvest it. But first, I think it is wise to figure out the exact conditions that even make this possible to begin with.”

If the zeal could be recreated, it would be easier to work into something actually useful. That was, if the orb wasn’t confiscated before that could be achieved. It went without saying that such a thing shouldn’t fall into the hands of the government. He had to find a better way to store it but this had to do, for now.

He closed the door to the safe before turning back to face Gwen. “Is your finger okay?”

Gwyn kept her focus on the papers before her as Idés put the zeal back into its safe, taking the heavy feeling it had around with away and suddenly Gwyn felt like she could breathe easier. She tried to think along with Idés, even though that wasn’t always easy since the man had years more of knowledge and experience but it never hurt to try to come up with ideas. Maybe she’d even inspire him to come up with a brilliant idea of his own.

‘’If you got a hold of an empty zeal, do you think you’d be able to transfer the energy safely and harvest it that way? Maybe a bigger zeal so it can handle the amount of energy?’’ She suggested as she looked up to Idés as he returned to the desk. ‘’Maybe we can read back on some old research and see if anything similar has happened before.’’ That way they could also rule out methods that might have failed and broken the zeal. Gwyn stood up and went to the file cabinet in Idés’ office and started looking for older research that could relate to their current situation.

‘’Do you think we might need to search the old archives for cases similar to this?’’ Gwyn opted as she went through all the drawers but didn’t find any file that was remotely relatable to the current situation. While she was scanning the files, she was so focused that she half missed Idés’ question. ‘’Hmm, sorry?’’ She began as she turned around and the actual question had gotten through to her.

‘’Oh, my finger is fine. Thanks.’’ She refrained from looking at it in case Idés might think she was telling a lie. The fact that she still was feeling nausea she also held to herself. She probably just had a too big of a sugar intake and this was her body telling her that she should refrain from any more sugar for the next few hours. ‘’If we need to go down to the archives, I'll go. You can stay in here and work some more. I can even get us some dinner if you want that.’’ Gwyn suggested, an offhand excuse to spend some more time with Idés today after not seeing him all week.

He considered the idea of transferring the energy. “It might be possible to transfer, but then the density of particles would decrease dramatically. I’m afraid it would also even out the power within, making it more akin to a normal boost in power, in terms of stability. The pressure must be making it work like it does..”

He took a swig off the coffee that had long since gone cold. “The archives would definitely be a start, yes,” he nodded, although he had a feeling that whatever was written on such a result would have been long since classified, as the case was with many obscure zeals. “We might need to get permission from the school board if such a document exists, though. Which could take a while.” Not to mention the fact that he didn’t want to announce his new finding to the board, that answered directly to the government. At least not until he understood the zeal better. Maybe he could break in and get it himself, if that was the case? “Let me handle that, if it is.”

The idea of food seemed tempting. Now that he thought it over, did he even eat breakfast this morning? He was certainly starting to feel the gnawing edge of hunger, though he hadn’t noticed it till now. But he couldn’t take off just yet, he had a feeling he would be working until quite late. “Dinner would be nice. Though don’t feel forced to stay just cause I am, I’m sure you have studying to catch up on as well.”

Gwyn listened intently when Idés explained his theory of transferring the power to another zeal, and the way he explained it made sense to Gwyn as to why it would lessen its power that way. Ah yes, the school board. That bunch of elite family warlocks that got her here somehow. She totally forgot about them. So Gwyn just nodded, at least she had given him the suggestion to research old zeal files in the archive. ‘’Hopefully those pompous geezers will grant you permission quickly when you file for access.’’ Gwyn said to Idés as she closed the lowermost drawer of the file cabinet, having found nothing that could help them out at this very moment. She stood up and stretched her body, trying to get rid of the tiredness that started to creep up from the day and walked back to the desk.

‘’You sure? If you gave me a list with keywords I could go down there and search, wouldn’t that be more sufficient?’’ She countered but somehow she already knew Idés would end up doing it himself while she was in class but she still left like offering to share the workload. She looked him straight in the eye for a moment. A small smile formed on her lips when he agreed to having takeout. Gwyn grabbed her phone out of the pocket of her trousers and selected an app that showed what kind of restaurants were in the area.

‘’What do you fancy eating? Ydisian? Tolanian? Sysenian? That one Sysenian restaurant we got food from last week was quite tasty though! I especially loved that kisir salad they had with the köfte. Or do we want Kamisian? I haven’t had that in a while either!’’ Gwyn started with the types of foreign cuisine that were most popular in Ilomar. She honest to Iosta could not live without takeout restaurants. It wasn’t like she couldn’t cook but living with roommates her kitchen was often in use and the fridge was always full with other people’s groceries. Some places where she frequently got her takeout even started to recognize her and made small talk with her whenever she came by. That was equal parts of nice and mortifying. They must be thinking that she was a disaster in the kitchen if she came by so often.

‘’I’ll go ahead and get towards downtown,’’ Gwyn started to get up, her focus still on her phone, as she went for her coat and bags, ‘’in the meanwhile you can think about what you want to eat. Just send me a text.’’ She shot Idés a smile before she shrugged off her lab coat, hung it on the hanger and then quickly put on her jacket. ‘’Seeya in a flash!’’ She said to him before she grabbed her bags and left Idés’ lab for her hunt for food. It would take her around half an hour to get to downtown Ilomar from IUC so while Idés thought about what he wanted to eat, she could travel there by bus.

"See you," he spoke, before downing the rest of his cold cofee. Then, placing the reading glasses back on his nose, he got back to the work he had had to abandon earlier - a dangerous thing to be sure, as he almost forgot to send a text to Gwyn.

What to eat? A eternal struggle for a man like Idés, to whom food often was often just a task to get overwith to get on with the next beat of his day.

He got out his phone and wrote:
"Whatev. u want is fine.  
- Idés"

He turned to continue his work, before remembering something.

"Ps. we've run out of the EZPEC-cleaner. can u get some from the market on the way?"

He send the second text, before transferring some money for the food and cleaner - a sum which was probably a tad bit too large than what was actually needed to cover the expense.

Gwyn was waiting at the bus stop for the shuttle bus towards downtown Ilomar when she got Idés’ texts, the first one saying that she could choose dinner for the both of them. The second a request to pick up some supplies, typical. Maybe she could make him a supply chart of some sort, so that he would know to either buy or order before he ran out.


Putting her phone away as the shuttle bus arrived she got out her student card and showed it to the driver. That was a nice perk of being a student, the shuttle bus to and from campus was free for anyone attending. She hoped it would also work when she was done, so she could sneak in the occasional free ride whenever she needed it. Taking a seat at the back of the bus, she got her earbuds case out of her bag and placed her earbuds into her ear. Connecting them to her phone, she decided to listen to the latest album of one of her favorite artists, again. It came out last week and Gwyn had lost count of how many times she had listened to the whole thing. Just the vibe of the album, a romantic one, spoke to her in a way that her daydreams became even more vivid. She turned the volume up a bit and started staring out of the window. Vaguely aware of the passing buildings but more stuck into a new fantasy that was currently unfolding in her mind. It was easy to guess what it was about.

When the bus had reached the downtown district, far too quickly because things just had gotten more cozy in her new fantasy, Gwyn got off and walked towards the strip where the best takeout restaurants were. Since Idés left the choice to her she needed a few minutes to ponder on what to get for them. Food came first, cleaning supplies came second even though it was way more logic to get the cleaning supplies first and food second. She had faith in the wrapping skills of the restaurants so the food would keep warm.

‘’Alright then, eenie meenie miney mo..’’ Gwyn muttered while closing her eyes pointing in the direction of all the restaurants. If she couldn’t make a decision with her eyes open, she’d do it with her eyes closed. Reopening her eyes, she saw that her pointy finger had landed in between the Sysenian takeout place and the new Kamisian restaurant.. For Iosta’s sake, why?

‘’Since the kisir salad and köfte were so good, I’ll just get that for me and some Kamisian fried rice for Idés.’’ Gwyn decided. Around half an hour later Gwyn went to another bus stop where the bus towards the market would stop, with two bags of extra thickly wrapped takeout boxes. It took her another 40 minutes to get the cleaner from the market – she decided to buy extras just in case – because of the stupid traffic jams. She slightly started  to worry about their food getting cold, so instead of getting on the bus, which would take forever, she decided to take a taxi back to campus, all the way to the labs because she wasn’t going to walk from the entrance all the way to the labs. That would take forever too. It might just cost her half a fortune but it was more of a waste to let the food go cold. Going to the sidewalk that was just past the market, Gwyn hauled the first cab she saw and gave him the instructions to go to the university labs. Taking a quick photo of the driver’s taxi license that was plastered against the back of the passenger seat, she sent it to Idés so he firstly knew she was on her way back and secondly if she would get kidnapped he would have the prime suspect at hand. Thankfully the traffic towards IUC wasn’t as bad as it was towards the city so it didn’t take that long for the taxi to drop her off. She paid the driver before she got out and wished him a good evening. Quickly checking the time on her phone, she saw that it had been past dinner time and that meant she had been away longer than she intended to. Not that Idés would notice his hunger until she walked in with the bags. Gwyn hastened her way towards the lab and started talking as soon as she opened up the door and saw Idés bent over his desk.

‘’If you know what is good for you, you will put those papers away this instance and eat your dinner before it is cold Idés Chapmann.’’ Gwyn placed the takeaway bags on the desk next to his papers and pushed the bag containing the Kamisian food towards him. ‘’Kamisian fried rice, sour cucumber salad and some steamed pork dumplings for you,’’ – taking of her coat and quickly walking back and forth to the chair next to the door so she could dump her coat on it – Gwyn opened the other bag and happily inhaled all the spiced aromas that floated up,  ‘’delicious köfte, kisir salad and pita bread with extra tzatziki for me.’’ She sighed happily, grabbing the various boxes out of the bag and laying them out before her. ‘’Bon appetit, Idés.’’ Was all she said before she dug into her food, barely suppressing a moan.

Idés nearly had a heart attack - for the third time that day - once she entered the room. It seemed she had a knack for sneaking up on him. It was a common occurance that she showed up out of nowhere, though that was probably also on Idés for being unaware of his surroundings.

He looked up and removed his reading glasses with a smile. "Sounds delicious." He put his glasses and papers aside before grabbing his food right as his belly decided to announce its hunger. "And not a moment to late. I was getting a bit peckish." Both a joke and an understatement, the hunger was gnawing at him at this point.

He leaned back in his chair as he took a bite off his food, savouring for a moment. He made a mental note to himself that he needed a better system around his meals. It seemed he tried to make a mental note of that on the daily. Maybe he also needed a better note system. He made a mental note of that as well, while he was at it.

He took a look at the clock over the doors, raising his eyebrows as he realized the time. "It's getting quite late, isn't it? Do you have classes tomorrow?" He hated to think he was wasting Gwyn's time, that could probably better be used studying, training, or getting to know other students. Who in their right mind wanted to spend all their precious freetime with some boring professor, after all?

There were a few times in life when Gwyn didn’t utter a word: when she was asleep – as far as she knew, no one ever commented on her sleep talking –, during her favorite movies, when she was reading a new book and lastly when she was eating. Good food deserved all her love and attention and speaking while eating felt like blasphemy. She took her time eating, too. Taking a bit of the pita, smearing a thick layer of tzatziki on it, next placing a köfte on it and then folding the pita over the köfte and shove it into her mouth. Of Course she took a bite of kisir salad here and there – it was too delicious to be ignored – but that was mainly how she ate her whole meal, with her hands too. She was thankful the lady behind the cash register had given her extra napkins because Gwyn needed them. Maybe the next time she went to that place she would ask them to teach her how to make this stuff, so that when she finally started cooking again, she could make this for herself every day. Just searching for a kisir recipe online wouldn’t do, she had to have that one. It was perfection on a plate, and you could hear angels sing whenever you took a bite.

So when Gwyn was nearly done with her food, she felt a little sad. Maybe she should have eaten a little slower so she would have been able to savor the moment longer.
At Idés’ comment about the time, Gwyn looked up to the clock mounted on the wall  above the door. Was it already this late? Time had flown by extra fast today, it seemed. Was it because she hadn’t seen Idés all week and she was enjoying being with him even more than usual? Did she have class tomorrow, she – darn it – did. Could she also spend her time at home practicing? She could, but she would rather not do that indoors where other people were. Besides that she had little homework, since most of the work she had to do was physical and not on papers.

‘’It feels a bit like you want to get rid of me, the person who got you food, Des.’’ Gwyn teased as she started to gather the various –now empty– boxes of food and put them all back in the bag, so she could throw those in the trash cans outside the building when she went home. ‘’I do have class tomorrow, but it’s not like I’ll barely sleep if I don’t go home now.’’ Aside from the occasional nightmare here and there, Gwyn slept pretty well.

‘’Neither do I have anyone to hang with, except you and maybe my fictional friends on the bookshelf.’’ Gwyn shrugged and turned fully to Idés. ‘’But if you need some alone time to brainstorm or whatever, you can just say so and I’ll get out of your hair.’’ She shrugged, hoping to come of as nonchalant while deep inside she hoped –prayed– that he would ask her not to go yet if she wanted to stay with him. She could already see him saying it in her fantasy and she felt her heart do a loop in her chest.

"It's up to you, really." He didn't want to throw Gwyn out exactly, but Idés really did need a few more hours to really get down to work. He also needed to figure out how to deal with the Godia situation, should they come out to question him. Not to mention he had to set over a new batch of Idhol Zeal to hand to Cassius the next time he went to the EFA, as this batch had been ruined and the last remaining one had little to give in terms of aid. He could only assume the poor guy would be running out soon enough.

Not to mention the fact that he needed to sneak into the forbidden archives eventually, and that first he would need to figure out what he was looking for exactly. The unstable Zeal was his first priority, he needed to strike while the iron was still hot and the Zeal was still active.

"I'll be staying late tonight and surely wont be fun company. Why don't you go home and get some rest?" Part of him realized that he hadn't actually given Gwyn any really assignments, once again. It wasn't an uncommon occurance at all - and had in fact been the reason his previous assistant had chosen to leave in the end, a few semesters back. And to be fair, it really had been a waste of the poor students time. "I promise I'll have some actual work for you to do tomorrow."

‘It’s really up to you’ didn’t sound like ‘please stay a bit longer’ at all. It sounded more like ‘just go but I don’t want to say that you should go because I am trying to be polite’. Trying not to feel disappointed and show it, Gwyn nodded to what Idés had been saying. Did the man just not understand that sitting next to him was already good enough for Gwyn? Surel, she had gotten more knowledge of science but she wasn’t a natural at it and still had to ask a lot of questions to Idés every now and then but even if she had some actual work to do or not, she just enjoyed spending time with him. Not that she’d tell him that anytime soon.

‘’Okay, then I’ll just pack up and leave you to it.’’ Gwyn said with a small –and quite fake– smile as she stood up and gathered all the trash. She didn’t really have any arguments so that she could stay a little longer, so she accepted her loss and hoped there was still some ice cream left at home. If anyone had eaten her ice cream, or if she ate it herself and forgot to buy a new pint, she’d go and cry in a corner of her room. Maybe she should just go to the convenience store on her way home, just to be sure that she had ice cream to eat.

‘’Anything that you want me to bring when I come tomorrow?’’ Gwyn asked Idés as she walked over to the chair and put on her coat. She made a mental note to bring some snacks with her for starters because she doubted that Idés would remind himself that he needed to eat lunch, or breakfast for that matter. Sometimes the fact that he got so absorbed in his work that he forgot to eat was a mystery to her, especially since he wasn’t as skinny as a twig. She waited a few seconds for him to answer and then gathered her bags and the trash she planned to throw out.

‘’See you tomorrow, Des. Sleep well.’’ She gave him a little wave before she left the lab and shortly after the building itself. Shoving the bags with takeout trash in the nearest trash bin, Gwyn let out a frustrated sign. ‘’Stupid oblivious man.’’ She muttered to herself, allowing herself one more glance at the laboratorium before she started to walk toward the convenience store for her well deserved pint of ice cream, yet to determine which flavor though. She might go with good ol’ macadamia brittle because it was supreme, or choose something new for a change. An hour later, Gwyn sat on her bed, in her favorite pair of sweatpants and an oversized shirt, watching a rerun of one of her favorite series while gorging on her pint of pecan brittle ice cream. Tomorrow is another day, she told herself, maybe tomorrow I’ll actually make some progress.