Magicka Corrupted

[Gifted]

"Course not." Natalia nodded, looking around. She was intrigued, and not the least bit frightened by being surrounded by so many probable Black Mages. She took in the specatcle and actually seemed curious about what everyone else was doing.

[Raven]

The few people who noticed them called familiar greetings, and Red waved. One young man even called that it was great to see him again. Red smiled, as though proud of the little safe haven.

[Gifted]

Natalia grinned at her friend. "So you're pretty important around here, huh?"

[Raven]

Red glanced at her. "Yes," he said earnestly. "I'm one of the five people who organize this movement."

[Gifted]

"That's awesome, you know. You're awesome." She told him.

[Raven]

Red looked embarrassed. "Thank you. This cause is incredibly important to me."

[Gifted]

"It shows." Natalia grinned.

[Raven]

"Anyway, we haven't talked much in regards to specifics, so I thought this would be a good opportunity," Red added. He led her to a closed off area, which was fairly small, though it had enough room for both of them to sit and talk.

[Gifted]

"Yeah I'm good for it. Haven't really gotten to help much yet."

[Raven]

"Most of your help will be out of public eye for now. We can't afford to have attention drawn to the school." Red gazed at her for a moment. "I want you to tell me why you're interested in helping the cause."

[Gifted]

"I thought you knew that." Natalia said. "I wanna help people, and I don't believe in hating something because the fucking establishment tells you to. If there's an actual way for people to be treated a bit more fairly, and stop those fuckers in power from putting people through hell for something they were born with, or because they wanna fuckin' learn something. I mean the whole stigma is probably just a long haul con so the government can have a monopoly on Black Magic anyway. Take it away from regular people, only teach it to the loyal stooges, now the government has another weapon they can scare people into compliance with."

[Raven]

Red nodded, his eyes on her for a long moment. "Any reason can be a good one. Mine is more personal." He looked around the small room. "The first time we met, I told you about my accident, but it wasn't the whole truth." His expression darkened as though it was hard to think about.

[Gifted]

"What happened?" Natalia asked.

[Raven]

"When I was in my eighth year studying magic, my father found out about my affinity. He was terrified, I suppose. So was I before long, he beat me." Red paused for a moment and lifted his shirt to show her a ragged scar that went up from his stomach past the bottom of his rib cage. "I've been told I wouldn't have much of a scar if I'd gone to see a cleric who was better trained and not horribly injured, but I couldn't risk anyone asking my father questions. He'd done this, but if he told anyone why..." Red let his shirt fall. "I would have been the one locked up, or worse. Luckily I was studying healing magic, or it probably would have killed me. As it was, my magic wasn't strong enough, or cast well enough, and the wound kept reopening. So it became a scar from an embarrassing accident that I made worse by not telling anyone about it until much later."

[Gifted]

"Fuck, man. That's heavy." Natalia wasn't great at showing sympathy, mostly because she didn't want it to come off as pity.