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xp_logsAmanda finds herself in the uneviable position of trying to teach a skeptic about magic. Fortunately, there's a rescue.
Farouk blew meditatively on his tea, keeping his eyes on Amanda who demonstratively sat as far away from him as the tiny table would allow.
The girl seemed... tense, but that seemed to be the default mood for her.
Privately, Amahl blamed the coffee. She seemed intent on eradicating the last vestiges of blood from her caffeine stream - he hadn't seem the tempo of ingestion like that since the Hag hired the Hand and went after Alamut like the reincarnation of Ghenghis Khan with an acute case of hemorrhoids.
The telepath tapped the note pad before him thoughtfully, sizing up the young witch. He suppressed an incredulous chuckle - frankly unsure what puzzled him more, the speed with which he was acclimating to the entire ridiculous idea or the fact that he was still finding it insane.
You'd think he has seen enough to be have the mind open enough to accept practically anything by now. He squinted painedly and firmly resolved to do something suitably final and violent to the world at large if the little green men began to pop out from around the corners.
The girl was still studiously ignoring him. She'd been doing that a lot lately. He was beginning to wonder how long it would take to convince her that waiting him out was really not the best tack on dealing with the situation...
He cleared his throat meaningfully and resumed his query, ignoring both the pause that stretched for good 10 minutes and the mutinous look in Amanda's eyes.
"So, if I understand correctly - and I like to think that I do - the power sources vary with which practitioner and there is no standardization, even in a specific sect such as voodoo for example?"
Amanda repressed the urge to bash her head on the table. It wasn't so much she disliked Farouk that much - she was a little leery of him after the whole astral plane business, since who doesn't like being a conduit for the combined magical energy of dozens of magic users? - but he kept asking questions. Over and over again. It was getting to the point she was wondering if just hitting him over the head with a book on magical theory would have a better result. Percussive education, it could be a whole new trend.
The worst of it was that she was wasting valuable research time on this. The Church of Humanity was still picketing the Center, Angelo's friends were still attending - the two were a combination of coincidence she couldn't ignore, and here she was, stuck with Professor Pedant when she could be uncovering the link that would make a lovely anonymous tip and get the Church out of the picture.
"Forget standardization," she said, repeating what she was pretty sure she'd said several different ways already. "Magic doesn't stick to rules the same way science does. There's no logic to it, most of the time, since it's basically shaped by people's imaginations, not any outside forces. But yeah, the power source - and the way you can use it - is pretty much tied to individuals. Someone like Strange, for example, uses his own energies, and he needs a lot of structure, 'cause he's an orderly, structured sort. Tante, on the other hand, is a houdon, and her power comes from New Orleans and the swamp, and it's more the traditional voodoo type stuff, since that's what she was raised to."
Farouk nodded absently and jotted down the summary of the discussion. He sighed. Of all the people he had to end up with a punk girl with an anti-authority fetish. She could have majored in physics and still find a way to see it an an anarchical morass of wonderful lack of consistency. There was always logic to the structures built by people. Always.
He reined the thought in suddenly, warning himself sternly against getting stuck in preconceptions. Obviously this chit was not to be taken seriously, but so far she was the only availible resource he had access too. Ignoring her would be moronic.
He scratched his nose, thinking. Individualized systems of data procession... Hm. Perhaps he was not startung from scratch after all, in this. Any psi who did not come down with a severe case of God complexes and rampant megalomania, eventually ended up doing research in psychiatry, anthropology and sociology. People's minds were their own only to a degree. Everyone was conditioned by their cultural memes, for instance. If you wanted to manipulate people's minds, you needed to know which shapes to take and which buttons to push.
Surely it worked the same for magic.
Magic...
Farouk swore softly, vilely in Arabic, his face incongruously keeping up the bland mask of a kindly, studious smile, as he reached for the tea. He was actually trying to rationalize the structure of magic. The hungry presence deep inside his mind, buried and chained, stirred for a second and he shoved back at it ruthlessly and viciously, the shriek of pain calming his nerves.
He shook his head minutely, stirring his mind back to the issue at hand.
Magic.
Life never ceased to amaze him with its wonderful lack of limits on the ridiculous.
He urgently needed to find this Strange the girl was talking about. Surely a man with Ph.D would be the one to help him, really help him.
He glanced sideways at Amanda. On the other hand if it was him that trained her... The focus on practical application of her abilities was no doubt very efficient. Yes, there was no question she has been molded into the most effective hammer. But not every problem was a nail.
He tapped his notepad again.
It was going to take time, clearly.
Perhaps she was still upset about their first meeting. Perhaps she was put off by his sudden appearance. Just possibly the entire Madripoor business prejudiced her against him.
Personally he was still inclined to blame the caffeine.
In any case, so far she had proven.... cagey. Reticent in allowing him unsupervised run of the library and less than forthcoming when he pressed her personally on the details of thaumaturgical history and theory.
His eyes flickered toward her face again. The witch was muttering something under her breath as she glared at the Xerox of a drawing in front of her.
Time. This was going to take time and charm.
Lies, in other words.
It was good to be back in business.
He sighed and smiled gently. "Ms. Sefton - perhaps we can approach this a different way. I have often found that the quickest method of learning to swim is being thrown off a deep end. Am I correct in assuming that you are currently engaged in a somewhat pressing research project? Perhaps I may be of some assistance? Novice though I might be at the mechanics of your... erm, specialty, I do posses a certain degree of academic training that might prove useful."
And gain access to the literature. And get you talking.
But let's not fixate.
Amanda frowned. The Church of Humanity wasn't really a magic thing, it was more the spy-stuff, but it would be difficult to explain that. Even if he had woken up to an XF kill squad. Maybe there was some magic-related scut work she could palm off? "Well..." she began.
"Hey, Amanda, do you still have my Killers CD?" Mark asked, barging in unannounced to Amanda's apartment, as he often did. "In the mood for some Kill . . . oh." Well. That's a bit awkward.
On one hand, the appearance of the young mutant was welcome, since he probably interrupted the uncomfortable attempt by the witch to semi-politely tell him where Farouk could shove his offer of assistance. Maybe he should have dropped broader hints that he didn't really labor under the misapprehension that she was working for a think tank.
On the other hand the last time he saw the young man who jaw was currently descending rapidly toward the floor, he was engaged in a rather comprehensive attempt to excavate Trotsky's brain-matter with the wrong end of a a gun.
So there was that.
When in doubt, Amahl always believed, give them enough rope...
Glancing at Mark briefly he gave him a brief, nonchalant nod and turned back to Amanda. The girl's mood did not appear to have been improved.
"Oh, hey Mark. Sorry, in the middle of something... CDs're over there, if you want to go through 'em?" Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, Doctor Farouk, I know you'd rather get your hands on the books and do this for yourself, but they're not mine to give you access to, and some of the stuff in there's pretty sensitive. Not for untrained eyes, that sort of thing." Help me, help me, help me... she was broadcasting at Mark, in the vain hope he'd developed telepathy as a secondary mutation.
Amanda was clear enough in her tone. "Uh, do you have a minute? We
have that thing we have to do that Betsy wants. You know. That thing?"
Subtlety be damned.
"What thing? Oh, yeah, the thing..." Amanda sometimes wondered why people kept training her - there were days she was the world's worst junior spy. "Just as long as she doesn't have any cutlery on her?"
"Well, you know Betsy. Always with the pointy things." CD successfully retrieved, Mark nodded at the door. "And she gets pointier when we're late. The one piercing's enough for me. So."
As Mark glanced over at the door, it swung open and Wanda stepped in, keys in one hand, books in the other. Head down, eyes on the text in front of her, she managed to maneuver her way through the apartment without actually seeing anything. Or apparently noticing the crowd. "Amanda, do you have that report I asked you for the other day?"
When there was no answer, she paused and actually looked around, eyebrows skyrocketing as she took in the scene in front of her. "O...kay," she muttered, spotting her assistant possibly a moment away from ripping her hair out.
She looked over at Mark and the look on her face clearly said, "I probably should leave very quickly, shouldn't I?"
One met the most appalling people in his line of work, Farouk thought coolly as he took in the mute tableau before him. The uncomfortable silence stretched as he made a languid greeting gesture toward the newcomer.
Overall, his keen intellect and finely tuned instincts were telling him that Sefton did not quite get around to informing her nearest and dearest about her new... uh, about him.
Which could be interpreted any number of ways. Hopefully she was not maintaining an alibi for an eventuality that resulted in him going on a quest to reverse the sudden case of 'I'm a small hopping thing, ask me how.'
He smiled at Amanda blandly with a typically Gallic shrug. "By no means let me be a burden. I can wait here until you run your errands. From what I had been able to gather this Ms. Braddock is a truly formidable lady."
He quirked an eyebrow, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Or I suppose I could tag along and we could continue our conversation on the way. My offer of assistance is still open."
Amanda's eyes took on a slightly hunted look. "Ah, no, thanks, but we can pick this up. Here, try wrapping your brain around this while I'm gone." She grabbed one of the magical theory books from the pile and shoved it at him. "Here, this one's pretty meaty, and the engravings are kind of nifty." She was aware she was babbling, but escape beckoned and she needed out before the good Professor wound up on the wrong end of a practical powers demonstration. "Catch you in a bit, just entertain yourself and oh look, is that the time?" Amanda took Mark and Wanda by the arms, practically dragging them out with her. "Bye!"
The door's slam reverberated through the suddenly empty apartment, the still slightly shell-shocked looking faces of Wanda and Mark disappearing behind it, their footsteps echoing for a few seconds and then also fading.
Farouk stared at the door meditatively before glancing back at the book in front of him. Then his eyes flickered toward the shelves filled with other volumes and the rest of the apartment.
He stared at the door again.
His fingers began absently drumming a jaunty beat.
It was filled one's heart with strange lullaby of warmth and comfort, he thought pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and reaching for the pen. Indeed - very comforting to see such level of trust in the younger generation.
Farouk blew meditatively on his tea, keeping his eyes on Amanda who demonstratively sat as far away from him as the tiny table would allow.
The girl seemed... tense, but that seemed to be the default mood for her.
Privately, Amahl blamed the coffee. She seemed intent on eradicating the last vestiges of blood from her caffeine stream - he hadn't seem the tempo of ingestion like that since the Hag hired the Hand and went after Alamut like the reincarnation of Ghenghis Khan with an acute case of hemorrhoids.
The telepath tapped the note pad before him thoughtfully, sizing up the young witch. He suppressed an incredulous chuckle - frankly unsure what puzzled him more, the speed with which he was acclimating to the entire ridiculous idea or the fact that he was still finding it insane.
You'd think he has seen enough to be have the mind open enough to accept practically anything by now. He squinted painedly and firmly resolved to do something suitably final and violent to the world at large if the little green men began to pop out from around the corners.
The girl was still studiously ignoring him. She'd been doing that a lot lately. He was beginning to wonder how long it would take to convince her that waiting him out was really not the best tack on dealing with the situation...
He cleared his throat meaningfully and resumed his query, ignoring both the pause that stretched for good 10 minutes and the mutinous look in Amanda's eyes.
"So, if I understand correctly - and I like to think that I do - the power sources vary with which practitioner and there is no standardization, even in a specific sect such as voodoo for example?"
Amanda repressed the urge to bash her head on the table. It wasn't so much she disliked Farouk that much - she was a little leery of him after the whole astral plane business, since who doesn't like being a conduit for the combined magical energy of dozens of magic users? - but he kept asking questions. Over and over again. It was getting to the point she was wondering if just hitting him over the head with a book on magical theory would have a better result. Percussive education, it could be a whole new trend.
The worst of it was that she was wasting valuable research time on this. The Church of Humanity was still picketing the Center, Angelo's friends were still attending - the two were a combination of coincidence she couldn't ignore, and here she was, stuck with Professor Pedant when she could be uncovering the link that would make a lovely anonymous tip and get the Church out of the picture.
"Forget standardization," she said, repeating what she was pretty sure she'd said several different ways already. "Magic doesn't stick to rules the same way science does. There's no logic to it, most of the time, since it's basically shaped by people's imaginations, not any outside forces. But yeah, the power source - and the way you can use it - is pretty much tied to individuals. Someone like Strange, for example, uses his own energies, and he needs a lot of structure, 'cause he's an orderly, structured sort. Tante, on the other hand, is a houdon, and her power comes from New Orleans and the swamp, and it's more the traditional voodoo type stuff, since that's what she was raised to."
Farouk nodded absently and jotted down the summary of the discussion. He sighed. Of all the people he had to end up with a punk girl with an anti-authority fetish. She could have majored in physics and still find a way to see it an an anarchical morass of wonderful lack of consistency. There was always logic to the structures built by people. Always.
He reined the thought in suddenly, warning himself sternly against getting stuck in preconceptions. Obviously this chit was not to be taken seriously, but so far she was the only availible resource he had access too. Ignoring her would be moronic.
He scratched his nose, thinking. Individualized systems of data procession... Hm. Perhaps he was not startung from scratch after all, in this. Any psi who did not come down with a severe case of God complexes and rampant megalomania, eventually ended up doing research in psychiatry, anthropology and sociology. People's minds were their own only to a degree. Everyone was conditioned by their cultural memes, for instance. If you wanted to manipulate people's minds, you needed to know which shapes to take and which buttons to push.
Surely it worked the same for magic.
Magic...
Farouk swore softly, vilely in Arabic, his face incongruously keeping up the bland mask of a kindly, studious smile, as he reached for the tea. He was actually trying to rationalize the structure of magic. The hungry presence deep inside his mind, buried and chained, stirred for a second and he shoved back at it ruthlessly and viciously, the shriek of pain calming his nerves.
He shook his head minutely, stirring his mind back to the issue at hand.
Magic.
Life never ceased to amaze him with its wonderful lack of limits on the ridiculous.
He urgently needed to find this Strange the girl was talking about. Surely a man with Ph.D would be the one to help him, really help him.
He glanced sideways at Amanda. On the other hand if it was him that trained her... The focus on practical application of her abilities was no doubt very efficient. Yes, there was no question she has been molded into the most effective hammer. But not every problem was a nail.
He tapped his notepad again.
It was going to take time, clearly.
Perhaps she was still upset about their first meeting. Perhaps she was put off by his sudden appearance. Just possibly the entire Madripoor business prejudiced her against him.
Personally he was still inclined to blame the caffeine.
In any case, so far she had proven.... cagey. Reticent in allowing him unsupervised run of the library and less than forthcoming when he pressed her personally on the details of thaumaturgical history and theory.
His eyes flickered toward her face again. The witch was muttering something under her breath as she glared at the Xerox of a drawing in front of her.
Time. This was going to take time and charm.
Lies, in other words.
It was good to be back in business.
He sighed and smiled gently. "Ms. Sefton - perhaps we can approach this a different way. I have often found that the quickest method of learning to swim is being thrown off a deep end. Am I correct in assuming that you are currently engaged in a somewhat pressing research project? Perhaps I may be of some assistance? Novice though I might be at the mechanics of your... erm, specialty, I do posses a certain degree of academic training that might prove useful."
And gain access to the literature. And get you talking.
But let's not fixate.
Amanda frowned. The Church of Humanity wasn't really a magic thing, it was more the spy-stuff, but it would be difficult to explain that. Even if he had woken up to an XF kill squad. Maybe there was some magic-related scut work she could palm off? "Well..." she began.
"Hey, Amanda, do you still have my Killers CD?" Mark asked, barging in unannounced to Amanda's apartment, as he often did. "In the mood for some Kill . . . oh." Well. That's a bit awkward.
On one hand, the appearance of the young mutant was welcome, since he probably interrupted the uncomfortable attempt by the witch to semi-politely tell him where Farouk could shove his offer of assistance. Maybe he should have dropped broader hints that he didn't really labor under the misapprehension that she was working for a think tank.
On the other hand the last time he saw the young man who jaw was currently descending rapidly toward the floor, he was engaged in a rather comprehensive attempt to excavate Trotsky's brain-matter with the wrong end of a a gun.
So there was that.
When in doubt, Amahl always believed, give them enough rope...
Glancing at Mark briefly he gave him a brief, nonchalant nod and turned back to Amanda. The girl's mood did not appear to have been improved.
"Oh, hey Mark. Sorry, in the middle of something... CDs're over there, if you want to go through 'em?" Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, Doctor Farouk, I know you'd rather get your hands on the books and do this for yourself, but they're not mine to give you access to, and some of the stuff in there's pretty sensitive. Not for untrained eyes, that sort of thing." Help me, help me, help me... she was broadcasting at Mark, in the vain hope he'd developed telepathy as a secondary mutation.
Amanda was clear enough in her tone. "Uh, do you have a minute? We
have that thing we have to do that Betsy wants. You know. That thing?"
Subtlety be damned.
"What thing? Oh, yeah, the thing..." Amanda sometimes wondered why people kept training her - there were days she was the world's worst junior spy. "Just as long as she doesn't have any cutlery on her?"
"Well, you know Betsy. Always with the pointy things." CD successfully retrieved, Mark nodded at the door. "And she gets pointier when we're late. The one piercing's enough for me. So."
As Mark glanced over at the door, it swung open and Wanda stepped in, keys in one hand, books in the other. Head down, eyes on the text in front of her, she managed to maneuver her way through the apartment without actually seeing anything. Or apparently noticing the crowd. "Amanda, do you have that report I asked you for the other day?"
When there was no answer, she paused and actually looked around, eyebrows skyrocketing as she took in the scene in front of her. "O...kay," she muttered, spotting her assistant possibly a moment away from ripping her hair out.
She looked over at Mark and the look on her face clearly said, "I probably should leave very quickly, shouldn't I?"
One met the most appalling people in his line of work, Farouk thought coolly as he took in the mute tableau before him. The uncomfortable silence stretched as he made a languid greeting gesture toward the newcomer.
Overall, his keen intellect and finely tuned instincts were telling him that Sefton did not quite get around to informing her nearest and dearest about her new... uh, about him.
Which could be interpreted any number of ways. Hopefully she was not maintaining an alibi for an eventuality that resulted in him going on a quest to reverse the sudden case of 'I'm a small hopping thing, ask me how.'
He smiled at Amanda blandly with a typically Gallic shrug. "By no means let me be a burden. I can wait here until you run your errands. From what I had been able to gather this Ms. Braddock is a truly formidable lady."
He quirked an eyebrow, as if struck by a sudden thought. "Or I suppose I could tag along and we could continue our conversation on the way. My offer of assistance is still open."
Amanda's eyes took on a slightly hunted look. "Ah, no, thanks, but we can pick this up. Here, try wrapping your brain around this while I'm gone." She grabbed one of the magical theory books from the pile and shoved it at him. "Here, this one's pretty meaty, and the engravings are kind of nifty." She was aware she was babbling, but escape beckoned and she needed out before the good Professor wound up on the wrong end of a practical powers demonstration. "Catch you in a bit, just entertain yourself and oh look, is that the time?" Amanda took Mark and Wanda by the arms, practically dragging them out with her. "Bye!"
The door's slam reverberated through the suddenly empty apartment, the still slightly shell-shocked looking faces of Wanda and Mark disappearing behind it, their footsteps echoing for a few seconds and then also fading.
Farouk stared at the door meditatively before glancing back at the book in front of him. Then his eyes flickered toward the shelves filled with other volumes and the rest of the apartment.
He stared at the door again.
His fingers began absently drumming a jaunty beat.
It was filled one's heart with strange lullaby of warmth and comfort, he thought pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and reaching for the pen. Indeed - very comforting to see such level of trust in the younger generation.
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Date: 2008-02-28 10:48 am (UTC)Fuck the Soctratic methods, I've neglecting the value of fatal stabbings as an important teaching tool for too long.
There's only one response to this...
Date: 2008-02-28 11:37 pm (UTC)I'm reminded of Hisako in Astonishing X-Men, where she keeps messing up and saying "I'm never gonna be an X-Man". Right now, Amanda's in the whole "I'm never going to be a Trenchcoat" place.
Re: There's only one response to this...
Date: 2008-02-29 01:24 am (UTC)That's a great icon/post tie-in right there.