Sonder became a great and terrible sorceress in the eyes of the mage.
A being of power that dwarfed his own.
His own was considerable, or so he had always thought.
The people in the village feared and respected him, which was fitting.
One swift motion of his inscripted stick and they'd rue any rude words they said behind his back.
But this was completely different.
This sorceress didn't fear him, not even a little.
No matter his reputation or the habits of the villagers, no matter the shallow respect that came from knowing he could curse crops or animate a chair to chase a child through the square, she didn't care.
He swallowed.
The staff she held glowed with a bright light, humming with restrained violence she could unleash at any moment.
The air around her felt dense, like standing too close to a storm cloud before lightning struck. The magic was not wild but thoroughly controlled. That frightened him.
Controlled power was always the most dangerous.
"You're serious," the mage said.
She didn't answer immediately. She watched him with only two eyes, which felt unusual to him.
Whatever words she had in mind, she sharpened them first.
"I was serious when I knocked on your door," she said. "I was serious when I asked politely. And I am still serious now."
The house creaked around them, and the mage looked around anxiously.
He looked at the broken furniture and bent kitchenware, and felt the first real pang of regret.
Even if his house survived, he had still made a mess he would have to deal with.
He adjusted his grip on the metal stick, then thought better of it and lowered it just a fraction.
"You could have left," he muttered.
"You could have talked," Sonder replied. "You chose to throw plates."
For the first time in a while, the mage looked at the world without a sort of haze around him. He was simply unsure of what he was doing, and what he had already done.
"What do you want?" he asked at last.
It wasn't a dismissive question, not anymore.
The sorceress before the mage let out a slow breath, and the pressure in the room eased just a fraction, enough that the walls stopped groaning and threatening to collapse. Her staff's glow dimmed just a touch.
"I want answers," she said. "I want you to tell me about any strange happenings in the past several weeks, maybe even a few months."
She tilted her head, just a little. "And I want them without furniture flying at my head."
Then the mage huffed a short, humorless laugh.
"You could have said that."
"I did," she said. "Several times."
The mage couldn't remember that. He grimaced, rubbing one of his temples with two fingers.
"…Sit," he said, gesturing stiffly toward the chair he had earlier tried to weaponize.