Elise opened the door to her cramped little shop with dramatic gusto and a loud "Ta' da!". She knew her small corner of the world here was unimpressive but she was proud of it none the less. She expected Willow to be unmoved by the dim cluttered room before her but when she looked back the timid Willow's eyes were full of wonder. As they entered she barely put one foot outside Elise's shadow but her head turned back and forth as she studied every curious object in view. It felt wrong for Elise to invite someone in like this, to allow them to become a resident of her little shelter from the rest of the world. However, the idea of leaving the child to fend for herself rankled Elise more than she'd like to admit.

Willow had shoulder-length black hair, frightened green eyes and an innocent unblemished face that stood in stark contrast to Elise's extensive scars. She didn't look like she belonged in the room where she now stood. Elise cleared her throat.

"This is the shop floor. Customers come in here sit down with me and argue their cases for being given worse focuses. Behind the counter is all the workbenches where the channels for the wands and staves are actually burnt. Upstairs is the bedroom, kitchen and winter storage. If you're staying here that's where you'll sleep. Though I have no spare bed at the moment, I'll need to arrange something for you. At the bottom of the stair is a hatch that leads to the basement. You're not to go into the basement without me. I have a bunch of stuff down there that can be dangerous if you don't know what it is. That's about it. It's not a big place really."

She gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table in the customer area.

"Anyway take a seat I do believe it's question time,"

Willow dutifully took the indicted seat and Elise sat across from her.

Willow's voice came out in a mumbled whisper as she fidgeted nervously "I don't know what I can tell you. There's not much to me. I-"

"I think you've misunderstood. I'm a complete stranger who has offered you an apprenticeship and taken you into my home. Don't you have questions for me? I'd have thousands if I was in your position. What is it that you want to know about me?"

The child opened her mouth to speak but shut it again without saying a word. Slowly and hesitantly she shook her head.

"Nothing? You really have no questions? You were pretty talkative before. If you're worried about saying something that'll upset me don't worry I won't get offended,"

The words came out slowly "Why, why did you let them get away? Why didn't you give them to the guards? They were bad people,"

"Ah that, your first moment of culture shock. Things might be a little different down here in the lows compared to the area near the plaza. The guard activities get a lot less daylight for one. Getting caught by them without coin to bribe your way out of it can lead you to jail and they love to invent reasons to arrest you. Some of the stories I've heard emerge from their cells are horrifying and worse I've no reason to doubt them. Seems they have a lot of self-righteous sadists on the payroll who feel the legally ascribed punishments are insufficient. To put it simply no one in the lows wants to involve the guards in anything, and calling the guards on someone else is kinda taboo down here. There's very little you can do to merit the kind of punishment the guards often dish out,"

It slowly dawned on Elise as she watched Willow's face whiten and her grip on the chair's armrests tighten that perhaps telling the frightened child that had just been through an unpleasant experience that many of the people she expected to protect her were torturing those they captured might not have been the best idea. The conversation, as much as it could be called one, lapsed into an awkward silence. A full minute passed without a word.

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm not a very comforting person. I've really never needed to be,"

"It's alright, it's fine," Willow replied quietly.

"Alright then do you have any other questions about me? Hopefully, ones I'll be able to give cheerier answers to?"

"Do you think I can do it? Be a focus maker I mean. I know nothing about it,"

"Excellent, I won't have to unteach you any bad habits then. And a thinner line means more control, more precision and that's way more important than power when it comes to this kind of work. That thing that you think makes you a failure makes you an asset in this little shop of mine. Figuring out channel layouts might give you some trouble but it's also the most enjoyable part of the job. I frequently draw out channel layouts just for fun,"

Once Elise started talking about focuses and channelling it was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly she was full of childlike enthusiasm.

"Oh hold on, wait a second, I have an idea!"

Elise hopped up from the table, grabbed a bundle of blank paper, a quill and a small bottle of ink before dumping them on the table and started to draw. Elise did not consider herself skilled at dealing with social situations but she was skilled at focus crafting and at times like this perhaps one skill would do for the other. Besides giving your new apprentice a focus you made for them seemed like the kind of thing that would be a tradition. If it wasn't a tradition it ought to be. Something to help her learn and maybe give her a bit of confidence. A wand would be too long, best go for something smaller. There was no rule against having other wooden objects be focuses. A ring would be best. Compact, always available, often underestimated, perfect size. What spells? Normally she'd ask the client but she suspected Willow would undersell herself and ask only for the most basic of spells. Illusion. Illusion spells were considered very advanced magic but the magic consumed by producing light was small. The difficulty lay in control. You either had preset illusions burned into your focus or you custom designed the illusion on the fly, innate casting almost the entire spell. Naturally, something with so many variables would require a complicated and interconnected spell pattern to achieve even simple results. Trying to innately cast all that taxed the concentrations of even the greatest masters. But there were workarounds, burning in a reference library of realistic textures and let the caster reference the textures with the innately cast portions of the spell pattern could help let the caster make convincing illusions easier as they'd just have to define the shapes. Illusions would help her learn control and help build confidence. It would require practice from her but so would everything else worth doing.

With glee, Elise began drafting the channel layout barely aware of how transfixed Willow was as she watched this process. Everything else faded into the background except the quill, the paper and the problems stopping this ring from being capable of everything Elise wanted it to be. As always the joy of beating those problems and inventing ways around them was blissful.

Elise was woken from her trance-like drafting work by an impatient knock on the door.

"Every damn time," she growled.