The first time the boy breaks into the vessel's study, it's a few months into his education, and Lahabrea has as good as dared him to. The boy had mentioned the kind of lock that the door has set into it, after all, during one of the occasional meals they share. For entertainment, largely, as the boy's wit and recounted antics continue to amuse him.
Either way, the boy had agreed to demonstrate his new knowledge, albeit with unusual hesitation and stolen glances at Lahabrea.Â
(How easy it is, for Lahabrea to miss the boy's fear of losing his regard and support. How very real, the consequences of such would be for someone like him.)
Regardless, the boy does as he is bid, and is visibly relieved at Lahabrea's approving nod.Â
By their next meeting, the lock has been replaced by the house's stewards. To Lahabrea's mild surprise, though, it's with a comically furrowed brow that the boy informs him that the new version is hardly better. And, well, that won't do. There's paperwork in here that would be troublesome were it to fall into the hands of certain Sharlayan political rivals.Â
Lahabrea places a weak barrier ward upon the office, one that could be easily justified as being something a sundered mage could cast, and calls it a day.Â
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Upon the boy's next visit to his office, Lahabrea notices but disregards a once more furrowed brow. The boy has an entire life going on, after all.Â
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It's six months later that the boy, grinning triumphant and vicious and only a little nervous, awaits Lahabrea inside his study. This is only notable because Lahabrea has not disabled the ward, and yet the boy is inside his study before he is.Â
So, too, can Lahabrea tell that the ward has not been down for long. A scant few minutes, at most, leaving the bare minimum of a hole in his security. The intent and care in the act is obvious, even as the boy stands here waiting for him, a pup loyally bringing a bone back to the hand that feeds him.Â
Lahabrea, still answering to Louisoix, merely raises an eyebrow, and doesn't try in the least to hide his amused smirk.Â
Lahabrea could make the next ward a proper one. By his standards, not by what these Sharlayans and their pitiful, limited knowlege consider the norm. He could make it impenetrable, lethal to any mortal hands poking into where they shouldn't be.Â
For now, the boy is amusing, a rare gleam in this dull world. Growth is as ascending a flight of stairs. If any one step becomes too steep, the individual will struggle, will find themselves either deeming it impossible, or hurt themselves trying to scale the sheer wall.Â
Lahabrea already knows what type the boy is. Knows that type all too well. If he falls and breaks his neck from the effort… Besides disappointment, is that not an act of indolence on Lahabrea's part? Letting a tool break, when it is still yet useful?Â
Lahabrea does not wish to answer that self-imposed question. Instead, he begins sketching on a nearby pad of paper, the base of yet another ward taking shape.Â
(Years down the line, Nabriales attempts to come pester him late one night. Attempts, because the holder of a seat upon Amaurot's Convocation of Fourteen fries his mortal vessel upon the ward like an insect upon an Allagan containment field. Inside, Lahabrea stares in lofty disappointment, because the current ward is five layers deep, and the night prior, the boy had slipped past four of them, tested the fifth, and retreated as uneventfully as he had come.)
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