Inspiration

I stifled a yawn for the third time in the last minute. Sitting for five hours straight at a desk will mess with you that way. I really felt like I was on the brink of something, though. My off-hand joke to Kathy had sparked something in my mind. Something about containment runes. I had spent the entire morning pushing at it, going over designs. It was time I could have spent at other aspects of my job, but I had underlings. They could deal with it for a while.

The trash can was nearly full of balled up, discarded parchment. Each one represented at least ten minutes work with a wax candle and a stylus. I would have to make sure to incinerate the lot before I left. Ambient energy interactions are nothing to be careless about, especially when one's office is right above a charging reflex node.

I had lost count of how many times I'd written the traditional fifteen strokes over the years, stretching from undergrad all the way up to yesterday. It wasn't something anyone really looked at anymore. Some renowned so-and-so a hundred years back had “perfected” it so now it was gospel. Magic was like that in every field.

Of course, the people who thought it “perfect” had probably never had to draw five hundred of them in two hours using nothing but beeswax and sawdust. There had to be a better way, right? That's what I kept telling myself, pushing to the back of my mind the realization that many others smarter than I had thought similar thoughts over the years. Instead, I drew a fresh parchment off the stack, trickled some scarlet wax onto it, and begin to spread it into a neat circle with my stylus.

Ow! Damn it. I'd caught my finger in the hot wax. Proof I was way past my limit. I was not usually so sloppy. I yanked my hand back and shook it, flinging droplets onto the floor before the rest set along the side of my finger. That was clearly enough for the evening. I tossed the parchment into the bin with the others before going to get the broom to sweep up the mess.

Broom in hand, I stared down at the scattered wax with bleary eyes, giving it long enough to harden before I swept it. There was more on the floor than I'd expected. Probably cast off from my previous drafts when I'd thrown them out too quickly. Well, sweeping was sweeping. A few dozen more pieces of wax wouldn't make any difference.

Wait a second. Droplets. A few more dozen pieces. Something caught in the back of my head.

Holy hell. I had something.