Saraf Parisi twirled his pencil between his fingers, scowling at the paper in front of him - he didn't understand the importance of theoretical work, magic functioned as a currency - if you had magic you were set, practical magic was all mattered in the long run. However, his father made it clear a Parisi had to excel at everything, even non-magical endeavors. So, all of the boring, and dear GOD were they boring, hypotheticals and engineering formulas were necessary... a Parisi excelled at everything, even the dumb shit.

He set the pencil down and shoved the paper away from him; he couldn't be bothered- it might be easier to just hire someone to do it for him, but he knew his father would somehow find out. Saraf had no idea how he did it, but the elder Parisi always seemed to know everything about Saraf's life. It was creepy as hell.

He supposed there was no harm in taking a short break. He glanced around the school library and satisfied no one was paying particular attention to him, Saraf rolled his sleeve up to his elbow and began doodling golden spirals and flowers that coiled aimlessly up and down and around his forearm. The color suited his olive complexion... though every color did if he thought about it. It wasn't arrogance if it was the truth, right?

"Saraf?" A baritone voice cut through his musing.

He nearly jumped out of his skin and hurriedly yanked his sleeve down. "Professor Nogoyev, sorry uh... I was in the middle of..."

The older man smiled wryly, "yes?"

Schooling his features into an aloof expression, Saraf straightened his back and looked at his teacher. "Nothing... what can I do for you, Professor?"

"About our conversation last week regarding your grades... I found you a tutor; she's one of my best students- and she needs your help too."

'Oh, of course, she does.' Saraf thought sardonically. Everyone needed a Parisi's help.

"She's brilliant; her magical theory work surpasses anything I've seen at her age. But she has her heart set on practical magic, I figured..."

"Quid pro quo," Saraf said, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah, sure, I can try, but it's not like she's suddenly going to be able to conjure fire and move TVs with her mind just because I teach her how to use a wand... if she hasn't got the talent, it'll be pointless."

Professor Nogoyev sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I tried telling her that, but she just wouldn't hear it - try anyway, Saraf. See if you can work with what she has."

Saraf grunted and leaned back in his chair. "Who is this chick, anyway?"

The Professor looked stunned; he had probably forgotten he was supposed to tell Saraf these things - for such a supposedly smart guy he was quite the scatterbrain. "Right, right... her name is Margerie. Margerie Krietz."

"Krietz, seriously?" Saraf scoffed.

A Krietz had to have an ulterior motive when dealing with a Parisi; the two families were in a serious of battles of both the legal and corporate variety.

"Are you sure she's not just faking it? I wouldn't put it past a Krietz girl to try feigning incompetence to try to pull a quick one."

"Oh believe me." the Professor said, his voice laced with irritation. "She's not. She really does need your help, just as you're not faking your most recent theoretical applications test score."

"Yeah, yeah, sure..." Saraf didn't feel like discussing this matter further. "Okay, give me her contact info. I'll have someone arrange a session or something..."

Taking the piece of paper offered to him, he looked over the details. Saraf read the name again, and his lips quirked up, Margerie huh? As if there were ever a blander white girl name in the entire world. This would not be fun.

The Professor left shortly after that with some half-baked excuse; Saraf began drumming his fingers on the table impatiently. What the hell was he supposed to teach a girl who couldn't use magic? It wasn't like she had a seal on her talent or something... If she did she wouldn't be so adamant about being taught magic, she'd just... have the seal removed, right? That was how seals worked after all, wasn't it? Like hell, if he knew.

He let out an aggravated sigh, took out the soul tracker, and rolled his sleeve up again. He didn't know why he had such a penchant for drawing flowers, but he liked the way they looked - especially when they weren't filled in all the way with color. He preferred to take a more stylistic approach, but he figured whoever his soul mate was would understand and appreciate it. He hoped he had just one; multiple soul mates would be complicated, to say the least-- and he could already imagine the slander he'd get in the media.

Not for the first time, he wondered if his father and mother might have been soul mates. They had gotten along and seemed to love each other, but that didn't mean a thing. Finding your soul mate was uncommon, to be together with your soul mate even less so. His father was so hard to read, and ever since his mom died he'd pretty much closed himself off to the world. There hadn't been much in the way of genuine affection between father and son for a few years now; Saraf would have been lying if he said he didn't genuinely miss being close to his father.

Setting his jaw, he pulled the soul tracker away from his arm and set it down, picking up the pencil and resuming the assignment. Might as well get this over with.