Author’s Notes: This is just a random, slashy/yaoirific piece I wrote, involving a couple of Mages. This is taking place in virtually the same world as "Iron Mage" but is basically just an offshoot... it CAN be taken at just face value, but it’s MEANT to be slightly slashy. No, nothing explicit, or anything like that. Just slashy, random stuff that I wrote while my muse was on vacation in Hawaii.

So anyway, enjoy... and please review, I beg you!

Garnet allowed the seven students to leave. They’d done enough work today; first learning how to open their minds to another person – a mortal one – then how to guide the intruder to a certain part of their minds. Not all of them had gotten it, though that didn’t worry him in the least. It was a difficult lesson.

He looked up and saw that Ruby was still standing there.

Ruby Mage, probably the one who caught on fastest of all his current students, and undisputedly the most powerful; Ruby was the sole Gem-Mage. All of his classmates were Animalia.

Ruby was also known to dislike romance, and was infamous for telling one of his friends that "nobody’s worth tumbling who isn’t a Mage, and there’s fair few of them who’re even halfway to acceptable." All the while giving said friend’s current love interest a very pointed look. Garnet had been forced to intervene in that particular dispute – before the girl could magically separate Ruby from his heart. Literally.

So when Ruby came to his teacher for no apparent reason, it was wise for Garnet to stay alert.

"Yes?" he asked. "Do you need something?"

Ruby shook his head and proceeded to sit on the table Garnet had been using as a desk.

"Not really, no," he answered, then seemed to think for a moment before amending, "Well, yes. I just want to work on what you taught us, because I’m not sure I understand it."

Garnet raised an eyebrow. "You sure? We’re going to be working on it again tomorrow, and you seemed to be getting it."

Ruby coughed. "That’s just by looking at our auras. Doesn’t necessarily mean I’m actually getting it; it’s hard to tell if you’re opening your mind to someone when there’s nobody on the receiving end of the connection."

Garnet could understand where that logic was coming from, so he agreed. No one would ever catch him unwilling to teach a student.

Garnet lightly switched his seat from the chair to the table so that he could sit next to Ruby.

"All right," he said, "is there anything you’re not understanding, or do you just want to try this with a real person?"

"Just a real person, I think," Ruby replied thoughtfully. "But keep at least light shields up; I don’t want to absolutely destroy my teacher’s mind." There was a slight smile accompanying his statement.

Garnet nodded, carefully holding out his hand and waiting for Ruby to adopt the mindset necessary for this particular exercise.

After a moment, Ruby reached out, barely touching Garnet’s fingertips, and let down his shields.

And was completely overwhelmed by swirling currents of thought, of feeling, from Garnet’s mind, buffeted and spun until he no longer knew which way was "up," completely lost.

For a moment, he washed up on the "shore" of a mental "beach" that started to pull him in. Yet the roiling sea grabbed him away, pulling him into relative safety.

After a time, the raging currents slowed to gentle eddies, and, unable to hold himself separate, let go. Of conscious identity, of part of his individuality – all gone, in an eyeblink, when he merged with Garnet for that split-second before his teacher managed to yank Ruby back into his own body, breaking both mental and physical contact.

And in the far backs of both their minds, something stirred; a something that had lain dormant until then, resting as mere potential and nothing more... a something that had been waiting, not nearly as long for Ruby as for Garnet, for that other mind to meet – and meld – and know.