milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Charles has been taking advantage of the fact that time stops in Milliways to do work and learn more about the people who pass through here. There's such a variety to the minds and experiences that if he didn't have to finish his editing, he'd probably spend most of his time with his eyes closed and just listening.

As it is, one of his sections isn't going as he'd like and he keeps going back over a certain sentence until he's quite lost track of time.

When he finally gets it right, he looks up and realizes that took a while and allows himself a break, so he leans back in his chair and observes the Bar.

Tiny tag: Charles Xavier, Antinoos
OOC: If you approach him while he's working then he's not mentally listening except quite passively. After he's stopped working, he is actively listening to the conversations and minds around him. Feel free to interrupt him or wait until he's on a break. Please let me know what he'll encounter in your pup's mind. Thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I am. In Corus, at the palace."

The squire's uniform, she thinks. He must know something of the Code of Chivalry.

"I'm the prince's squire," Alanna explains anyway.

Not so guarded this time? meows Faithful.

She shrugs at the cat. This place remains free of Roger, and thus the answer is a happy yes.

He's read a great many books about chivalry and she does look like the illustrations,

"Congratulations. How were you chosen for such an honor?"

"I earned it, of course." Alanna eyes him for a moment. "The Prince chose me."

Even though you're so guarded, adds Faithful, a bit more insistent.

"What?" She pauses; looks up from the cat. "I mean... thank you. What's your trade?"

He doesn't look like he'd be any kind of soldier.

"May I ask out of how many other potential squires? I'm a scholar of the human body and how we came to be as we are,"

It's far more elegant phrasing than he'd normally use, but he feels a need to try and be a little more courtly. He's also been rereading The Once and future King. At her what, he looks at the cat, perhaps they're somehow speaking together.

"All the noble sons my age," she answers vaguely, waving her hand about in the air. "Geoffrey or Douglass were my closest competition."

But he'd chosen her. She'd said he should choose her and he did, after the Black City. It fills her with a fierce satisfaction.

"A scholar of the human body?" Briefly, she looks confused. "Or society?"

"I'm working on my degree on the body parts but I personal find society and how it connects with issues of the body just as key. I'm studying the idea that we as humans are constantly shifting and adapting and looking at what helps those changes be accepted as the next step,"

She probably wouldn't understand the science of it but the basic idea should make sense. If he can explain genetics to undergrads, he can explain it to someone with a medieval world view.

He might be surprised to sense how much she understands. She is, after all, a (reluctant) healer, and part of using her Gift on someone is healing from the inside out: each muscle, each ligament, each vein and nerve, knit back into place. Coupled with her very real familiarity with what traits society values and her good education... the principles of genetics are there, if not the same terminology.

"We are," she nods, expression blank even as interest radiates off her. "Could you tell me more? About society having an effect on the physical body."

"Yes, does your society have the idea of mutants or those who seem to be changing in an unexpected way? Sometimes it turns out to be positive and other times its so small its not even noticeable. That's what my work is looking at in particular. How are these changes reacted to and why are some accepted more easily than others,"

His hope is to be able to make it so that saying you're a mutant is always positive.

His explanation earns him a rare real smile. It's sensible, and Alanna likes people who are sensible.

"People tend not to accept what scares them," she notes. "Or what challenges their view of How Things Should Be." A quick shake of her head. "I don't think we have quite the same issues at home. It's more... societal change than biological that gets the conservatives mad."

An image from a history book Myles assigned her flashes through her mind. It's a Stormwing: all steel feathers and a human face.

"I've heard tales, though. Mutant creatures who were locked in the Divine Realms." Beat. "Are these mutants you speak of... related to the gods?"

The Stormwing is startling but then Charles thinks of Raven and its a little less so,

"Yes, how things should be is usually the biggest hurdle to any major change. I don't believe they are. Are the gods active in your world?"

A quick flash of something might reach Charles before she locks it down: A rainy night on a deserted road; a small campfire; the kitten on her shoulder, eyes bright, bright purple; and a tall, slim woman so beautiful to look upon and listen too that it physically hurts.

"I think so," is her wry response.

He takes a drink to cover his surprise at that image,

"I don't believe they are in my world. That's why I look at things through the lens of science."

A nod.

(It makes sense.)

"What sort of mutations are there?" To clarify: "In your world."

"All sorts of types from quite small ones like having two different colored eyes to more extreme ones such as telepathy,"

Which covers his own work and his own mutation all at once.

"Telepathy," Alanna frowns.

Faithful looks at her. There's nothing wrong with your ears, at least.

"That's..." She stops; looks at Charles. "How common is that?"

"Not terribly, I only know of at the most two people who have it,"

That's just in Milliways and those who identify as mutants so himself and Jean. He doesn't count others not from his world in that question.

Faithful licks a paw.

Alanna stays quiet and looks around, head swiveling from side to side, her heartbeat speeding up like she's about to engage in battle.

"I've heard there are ways to block them," she says, as nonchalantly as she can manage.

"Yes, there are, a number of techniques. I've found the most effective ones are highly personalized,"

Charles stays still and neutral, he'd like to tell her that she can trust him but doesn't see an opening.

Trust isn't exactly resonating at the moment. Alanna is wary. Very, very wary. It's habitual.

"They would be," she nods. After a moment, she adds, "I'd like to know how."

She knows ways. Roger has tried to pick at her mind several times before. It isn't anything she is prepared to admit, and there must be some benefit to hearing what Charles has to say.

He takes a sip of his drink as she already knows some solid techniques,

"The main idea is to be safe in your own head. I find metaphors useful as they make it possible to manipulate abstract ideas."

Safe in your own head is a concept Alanna fully supports. It angers her to no end that she might not be.

It's her very life.

She is stubborn, smart and wary; nothing about what she does next feels silly to her.

"An impregnable wall seems good. Or a trap."

Or a test.

What about you, she thinks really, really hard.

Faithful peers at Charles, curious.

I have multiple layers, some more permeable than others. I respect the defenses others erect.

He thinks at her before saying, "I began with walls as thick as I could make themas I wanted to keep everyone out of my head. Now I balance what I hear and my own thoughts and can shift my walls."

There's another long, drawn out silence during which Alanna and Faithful study him with equally unsettling purple gazes.

She can't read minds, wouldn't want to even if she could. Still, there's something in the space before he spoke that concerns her even before she processes his words.

And then,

"What you hear?" Low, raspy, dangerous.

Their gaze reminds him of Raven's unflinching yellow eyes and he holds it,

"Yes, what I hear. I'm a telepath."

Alanna's hand drops to her sword and it is halfway out of its sheath before she is completely aware of her actions.

"Did you read my mind, Sir?"