Eureka!
Sara ben Ishak paced quickly around her apartment, unable to focus on any one thing for more than a moment, her thoughts constantly returning to her patent. A few months ago she had moved into the ground floor of an apartment building in one of the lower-middle class neighborhoods of Valencia. She wore simple a simple outfit of a white linen t-shirt and pants, and her fiery red hair was tied back behind her head. She peered anxiously at her cheap watch and checked the peephole on her door several times, waiting for Hayden Severt to arrive so she could share her news with someone. She needed more friends in Valencia, she realized.
A knock was eventually heard on the door to her apartment, as he stood outside and waited. He wore a pair of jeans, as with a white dress shirt and a grey sweater above it, to cover him from the growing winds outside.
Sara dashed to the door and opened it quickly, grinning when she say Hayden standing there. “Come in, come in.” Her apartment wasn’t particularly large, or well decorated, and they now stood an average-sized living room. To the right was a kitchen, separated by half wall with built in shelves lined with books. To the left was a hallway with three closed doors. “Welcome,” she said, visibly excited. “Can I get you anything?”
He entered the apartment and looked around, letting his eyes skim over the living room and towards the hallway, smiling, almost laughing as he saw her excitement. “Whatever you have is fine.”
“Sure,” she went over to the kitchen and pulled two bottles of water from the fridge, throwing one over the wall to him. “Aren’t you going to ask why I wanted you to come over?”
“If you insist.” He said as he went over to the couch and sat down. “So, why did you invite me over to this lovely little apartment?” He asked as he looked towards her in the kitchen.
“Because I finished it!” She beamed. “I finished it, and it works! It’s not quite what I had in mind when I started out, but now that it’s finished I know it’s going to be huge. The magical lattice was the easy part, developing the mathematics, it all derives from theories that were already out there, but…” she began to ramble on about the scientific and mathematical details of magic involved, leaning across the wall. She looked in Hayden’s direction, but seemed to lose focus somewhat as she got deeper into her explanation.
“Congratulations!” He said as he stood up and walked over to the door opening to kitchen, leaning up against the wall as he began to chuckle, motioning with his hand for her to take a break. “All of that is great, but, I have no idea what you just said.” He said as his chuckle turned into a laughter.
“That’s ok, the point is that it works and that it’s great, and I had to tell someone.” She laughed. “Now I just need to decide what to do with it, that’s the easy part, right?”
“If only, now comes the fun part involving capital, where people get very touchy.” He said in cheer. “What are your options?” He asked curiously.
“Well,” she said, resting her chin in her hand, “I could sell the patent, easy money to fund my next project, but then who knows what will happen to it. I could take the money I have from investors already and look to build a business around it, though I didn’t exactly go to business school. Or I could try to leverage it into a job offer somewhere, only then I’d have less control over what I want to research and how I want to go about it.” Her lips curved into a slight frown and she sipped her water. “It’s a tough choice.”
He nodded as she spoke, listening to her ideas. “Yes, I heard a rumour that you managed to gather investors, apparently being very persuasive, do I dare ask?” He said in jest. “But as for ideas, if you want to start a business, a proper one to reach out, you will need more money.” He stood and thought for some time. “500 million should be able to do it. Selling it wouldn't be bad if you more research you want to carry out, but then you will lose control of this invention, which you may later regret. I would however advise against working for someone else.” He looked at her with a smile. “Would be a waste of talent.”
She laughed again. “That was largely the same thought I had had. We’ll see I suppose, I’m to happy to give the options any sober thought right now.” She turned to him. “What about you? What have you been up to?”
“Not much, we have made some progress on the caffeine drug. But other than that I have done fairly little, my income increased with a few hundred million if that counts.” He said as he chuckled and shook his head. “For once the politicians helped me. But other than that, well I visited Louiza and Isabella last weekend.”
"Helped by the very people you hate, how that must have hurt your pride," Sara joked, standing up and heading into the living room to sit on the couch. "How are the ladies Cortez?"
“It hurts deeply, into the soul, now I have to pretend that I like them for appearance sake.” He said in jest. “They are good, Isabella is happy and growing quickly, Louiza found herself a new boyfriend, some lovely lad from parliament, son of some larger baron somewhere.” He said, a slight annoyance in his tone.
She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, fighting down a yawn as the adrenaline began to recede and the last few sleepless nights caught up to her. "She had to move on eventually, if only to satisfy her father." She smiled in an attempt to brighten the mood. "It's good to hear that Isabella is doing well. Does she understand yet what it means for her father to view hundreds of millions as a minor windfall?" She chuckled.
“She will in fifteen years, when she wants dresses, shoes and a nice car.” He said with a laugh. “I thank you for trying, but it's not her moving on that peeves me, she has been with others before.” He said as he looked at her hand and sighed. “Its that this is official, meaning that she will spend the coming Tirva at home with her father, mother and so forth, meaning that I won't see Isabella that week, or actually the whole vacation.”
"Ah," Sara said, at a loss for how to respond. "I'm sorry to hear that Hayden."
Hayden shrugged. “That's life I suppose.” He opened the water bottle and began drinking. “What about you, any brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews and so on?”
She shook her head. "Only child. I've got some cousins on my father’s side down in Lucena and my mother's side, but they're up in Iboure. My entire youth was pretty much just spent following Louiza around."
“No offense, but that sounds pretty dull in the long run.” He said before going into the living room and sitting on the couch. “So how was it being an only child, I assume a lot of attention and presents.”
She laughed. "Perhaps you could say that. My father was busy with his position at court, and my mother managing my grandfather's company in the region. But when we could get away they doted on me. We had a manor on the lake an hour or so outside the count's estate that we would go to from time to time, and obviously they made sure I got a wonderful education."
“Sounds like a lovely place to retreat to.” He said, looking up and down at her. “I cant blame them for having doted you, and I guess an education is a must in our social class.” He paused for a moment. “You however got a rather.” He got a grin. “In depth education compared to most.” He leaned back. “Its interesting, until a few years ago, I hadn't actually really celebrated Tirva, not properly anyway.”
"I am not most girls," She grinned back. "But I have to imagine my parents did not expect my education to follow the course it did." She chuckled. "You didn't celebrate? Why not? Tirva are some of my fondest memories."
“What do you buy the man who has everything? or the family for that matter.” He shrugged and drank a bit of water. “It just ended after my parents died, my grandfather never really bothered afterwards.” He looked down. “I started exchanging presents with Louiza a decade or so ago, and I have been more involved now with Isabella, but I never actually held a Tirva’s eve, the dining and so forth, exchange of gifts and the like. There was only really my grandfather and me, and he was often away during the eve, leaving me and Henry.”
"Sorry, Henry?" She raised an eyebrow curiously.
“My bad, my butler.” He replied.
"Oh." Sara failed to fully stifle a laugh. "I'm sorry that just seems like such a cliché." She shook her head playfully. "Well, if you can't spend the holiday with Isabella perhaps you could celebrate with me and my family? Assuming you don't have other plans of course," She added quickly.
He smiled. “I would love to but.” He looked at her for a moment. “Its really not needed, I don't wish to intrude on you and your family.”
“It wouldn’t be an imposition.” She waved a hand dismissively. “My parents would be thrilled to meet you. You’ll have to learn how to dance though.”
He laughed. “Is that so important?” He asked curiously.
“Not really, but it will be a party, and I can’t have you making me look bad.” She smiled, throwing her now empty water bottle towards the trashcan in the corner of the room, nudging it ever so slightly with her magic to make it go it. She was shocked to find how much energy it seemed to take, causing her eyelids to droop for a moment.
“Thats cheating.” He said with a slight chuckle before leaning back against the couch, resting his head on his hand as he looked at her. “Afraid I will make you look bad, huh?” He said jokingly. “Perhaps you will simply need to teach me.”
“I think you may need a professional, but I’d be willing to try, and we do have a few months.” She nodded. “But yes, as you may have noticed at your gala, or when we went to that club, I am the very picture of grace when dancing. If you’re no good at it it will reflect poorly on me.”
“I noticed, you were very graceful when you moved your body.” He said as he looked into her eyes. “But yes, we can't have it reflecting poorly on you, so we must simply practice extra hard.” He said returning the smirk.
“Fair enough I suppose. You’ll like it though, even if you don’t get good at dancing, mother’s parties are always interesting, and Lucena is beautiful during the winter.” She leaned back into the couch, tilting her head back towards the ceiling and letting out a relaxed sigh. The back of her mind was saying that it might be rude to fall asleep while she had a guest over, but the rest was simply tired.
He looked at her for a bit of time without talk. “Spending the day with you would be more than enough to have an enjoyable Tirvi worth the ones I missed.”
“I hope so,” Sara murmured as her eyelids slowly began to drift closed. “Everyone should be able to enjoy the holidays.”
He frowned, before taking a cushion and lying at one of the edges of the couch using it as a pillow. “Come here and lay down, you neck will hurt if you sleep like that.” He said sweetly.
Sara mumbled something that sounded like “Ok” and laid down her brain already dead to the outside world, resting her head on the cushion. “‘anks,” she yawned before finally letting sleep take her.
