Lunas stuttered and shook his head, pulling the black box Bai'el had called a flame prism out from his pocket. He could see it much more clearly now that it was in his hands, it's dilapidated edges appearing as if it had eaten away at itself. The jagged edges pulsated like it was hungry, and he didn't ponder the "blood drinker" description Enzo the shopkeeper had given it.
Once she saw it, the Shepherd told Lunas to watch his step as the room began to writhe. From the stacks of books around her to those loosely piled on the floor, red shifted beneath the wax. The long hair danced along the pages like a snake, at times slinking through the channels they left in the wax like a parasite being pulled. It was like the strands were growing familiar with the pages, and with the path they took, as they moved fast and faster until they barely reached halfway down the Shepherd's upper arms. They still writhed among the black hairs, shaking and flicking off bits of wax across the room.
A cooled drop of wax hit Lunas in the nose as the Shepherd rose stiffly and cracked her back. She dodged the books and landmines of dripped wax as she navigated to Lunas, carefully standing before him as she took him in properly, unhindered by her desk and easel.
Her hair reached and shoved everything off the desk behind her as she sat on it, and looked on expectantly, "Well? Are you going to start with the damn thing or just stand there?"
"I don't know how, it didn't come with instructions," he shrugged as he held the box.
"Give me your hand," she ordered as she grabbed his palm without asking, "Now hold the box against your palm and guide your ether into it."
He did, expecting nothing but perhaps a small light show of ether, but as soon as he felt it stop pulling ether from his soul, his scream echoed around the room. A long spike had burst out from the box, piercing through his palm as the Shepherd's hands gripped the box tightly against the wound.
He screamed for her to let go, but instead of letting go or even responding a lock of red hair stretched down her arm and around his hand, squeezing even more white blood out. The pool upon the floor was a pale shimmering white, but the Shepherd was only shocked by it's vibrance for a moment before her hair began to unwrap from his hands.
Lunas shuddered as the spike in the prism retracted, pulling all the blood that sat pooled in his palm and kept dripping from the wound into it. After a few shaky breaths, the cube began to grow strange engraved spires from it's upper corners. The engravings shifted an writhed like they were still being carved, but they started shaking after stretching down to it's lower edges.
With a screech like some critter being slowly crushed, the lower corners of the flame prism grew white cracks which pulsed with every whistling sound. They grew, spreading faster than the engravings could create channels for the blazing blood to flow out and around it.
The Shepherd wrapped her flowing hair around the flame prism, allowing the excess to flow up the long strands. They burnt for a few breaths before her hair began wrapping tightly around the blazing sections. After a moment, they were gone, and the flames around the prism had died down to a pale glow surrounding it.
The momentary inferno in the room brought several students and teachers to the door, knocking and asking if everything was alright.
"Lord Shepherd, do you need assistance?" a voice shakily shouted from beyond, only to be shut up by a thick lock of hair creeping under the door and whipping his feet out from under him. No more voices came, and no more knocks echoed through the Shepherds office.
The Shepherd's gaze passed over every facet of the cracked flame prism, shifting it between her hands for a moment before looking at it disdainfully. She dropped it, pulling a gasp from Lunas's lungs as it shattered into a cloud of dust upon impact with the floor.
"Either your fire is too close to true ether, or it's too transient to measure with this class of flame prism. Regardless of whether it's the former or the latter, you should keep this to yourself. I already know, but I am bound by the Shepherds' Oath."
Lunas was still shocked from the hole in his palm, and he could barely hear her through his pulse pounding between his ears. She broke that distraction in a moment, pouring a short bottle of red and black liquid on his palm. The pain fell away like the tide, and he could see the potion of some sort solidifying into thin threads coated in bone and muscles within the wound.
The Shepherd put a hand on his shoulder as he watched the wound close, feeling his heartbeat calm with her superior senses. She turned him towards her, looking into his eyes and warning him, "Don't tell anyone how your fire works when it's used, and don't let it consume you."
She pulled away like she never touched the ground, almost flowing into her chair behind her desk. "Now go, and grab a few books on to control a fire. There's not much here than can help you outside of basic ether manipulation, but that just means you must focus on them until the rest may be useful."
Lunas had no clue how to react other than to prepare himself to battle with these books and their shelves of enemies.