Infirmary with Tavi

[balancingminds]

Charles is in the infirmary reading through medical journals on neural imagery and wondering how it might be used to improve Cerebro. In the waiting area, he's taken over a table which is at the right height for him and taking notes.

Its quieter in here and he'd feel odd bringing these modern journals back home and the library upstairs has a few too many memories.

Comments

[balancingminds]

Charles jots down a few notes on the pad he has. Tavi's thoughts are intriguing as that woman clearly has different strengths,

"That's helpful. I study genetics and at another point, I'd love to learn more about what decides who has what abilities. Yes, a person has to want help to begin with and then there are numerous other layers. The sense that they don't deserve it or if they're too deep in pain, they don't believe anything can change for a few examples. Prejudice can get in the way of who will help who. I wish it wasn't true but that element of humanity always seems to exist."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi smiles a little wryly. "Generally speaking, furycraft strength or element may be heavily influenced by family history, but the rest is fairly randomized chance. You might find genetic information, but I suspect there's too much chance involved. Not terribly interesting, if perplexing."

Yet.

And, actually, it always was, just not genetically.

But that's his secret.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair--through it, now that it's finally not quite Legion-short. "Not just humanity. Of people, I suppose, although there are probably computer residents who might have opinions on that word." Enzo is a good friend, even though they've sort of drifted lately. "Or robots."

If Tavi is a little concerned with identifiers, well, not that long ago his people regarded Marat as near-human but barbarians and the Canim as unlikely to have genuine intelligence, to say nothing of their estimation of Icemen. He has work to do to change that.

[balancingminds]

He nods in agreement, "Yes, thank you for that correction. Genetics does have an element of chance in it but I see, furycrafting follows its own rules. Humanity is only a starting place and doesn't fit everywhere."

[student_of_impossibility]

"Sorry," Tavi apologizes. "I hope it's not condescending. It's kind of my area, though, or one of them."

The thought of more of an expert than they know and I wonder if any of them even read it flash past.

He smiles wryly. "There are any number of different starting places, where I come from. I'm hoping they're converging, now."

And this time it's a picture: she is clearly not human, and the baby. That he's mixed might be less obvious, but probably deduceable.

[balancingminds]

"No, I understand. I'm a teacher and know how important it is to make certain key ideas are agreed upon before moving forward,"

The image of the baby makes him smile and does explain a lot.

[student_of_impossibility]

That response--the 'agreed upon' part in particular--makes Tavi burst out into a full belly laugh. Another image, this time with a vague drone and a strong sense of boredom: a room full of what are obviously scholars, obviously angry at each other, and the back of a tall man, black hair heavily streaked with white (and dressed almost exactly like Tavi is now, in fact) watching and listening silently.

For all the amusement and annoyance at the image--though the annoyance more a memory, where the amusement is present--Charles may sense a faint, currently indefinable crack.

"The day you can get Aleran scholars to agree on anything, even when facts are shoved in their face at deafening volume," he says merrily, "it will probably signal another invasion of apocalyptic proportions."

[balancingminds]

Its oddly familiar and makes Charles miss Oxford,

"Scholars never agree on anything, but there are starting places. Its a little easier outside of academia."

[student_of_impossibility]

Tavi rolls his eyes expressively.

"It's worse when you're a student still and you have concrete proof they're wrong, or approaching the problem from the wrong angle. But because you're a student..."

He spreads his hands and shrugs, helplessly. Between the Romans and furycrafting and that thesis all the furycrafting theorists ignored, he spent his school years quite frustrated.

[balancingminds]

"Then you have to be polite and listen and wait for your turn to talk even though you know you're right,"

He's been there.