"Unfortunately, my research area's feral patterns, not summoning," you say. "I need you to help me with that work."
Gabriel hunches his shoulders. "But, sir—"
"You can't expect me to give up my own research. This will give you a chance to support ongoing work and, patterns willing, get your name on several good papers."
"Oh," Gabriel says. "Okay." His shoulders don't relax, though.
You stand. "With that settled, shall we get to work?"
Gabriel leaps to his feet as if his chair had become searingly hot. "Okay. Uh, what do you want to do?"
That's a Good Question
You consider jumping straight into research, but you need time to plan how to integrate Gabriel into that research now that you know what you're doing.
What you can do is try to find ways for Gabriel to have more positive department interactions. As Dr. Eze and Darcy made clear last week, Gabriel's reputation in the department isn't great. That'll make it harder for him to ask for help from other pattern magic students, department staff, and professors.
"Have you been part of many department activities?" you ask while you coax your desktop computer awake.
"I've done some?" Gabriel would be a lot more believable without that question mark at the end of his statement.
"I'd like you to interact more with people in the department." Your computer finally wakes up. You pull up the department's calendar from the internal website.
"Is that, uh, I mean, shouldn't I focus on classes and research?"
"There's more to being a practitioner than that." You look through the calendar. "Colloquiums don't start until next month…aha!" You gesture Gabriel to join you on your side of the desk.
He looks at the event you're pointing to on the screen. "Cookies?"
"Cookies."
Cookies