Vox (IC)

[Aoiroo]

The booth was a good bit in the back and Etain sat there with her nose in a book. It was a dusty brown book with the words Terram et Ignem embedded on the cover. She was reading mostly to quell her boredom, though a school book might of been more approrpiate she was less than adiment to open her textbooks as usual. Pulling out her cell phone she looked for a few seconds, the arrival time for either party would be soon, though she showed up early she wished she hadn't because it was rather unlikely that Quentin would ever be late for anything. Marcus, she couldn't be sure, the book she skimmed had some traveling runes but it was unlikely he'd be so bold.

[Supercape]

Quentin set up his bicycle next to the Library and took a look at his watch. Good timing he realised. The ride had been of moderate length, and he was sweating lightly from the exertion. Fortunately his quantum-lattice costume never showed any sweat patches, and remained resolutely pristine in the shape of a fine Tweed Jacket, bow tie, and shirt.

He wandered into the Library feeling right at home. The library had always been his friend, right since childhood, and he had insisted on a rather antiquated form of one in the Lab. It always suited him - the silence, contemplation, and learning.

He spied Etain and gave her a friendly wave, making sure he didn't raise his voice when he spoke to her.

"

He had grown accustomed to speaking in Latin to Etain. Mainly because her mastery of it was so good, that he felt he could brush up on his own rather rusty skill in the language.

[Aoiroo]

Turning towards him she met him with a broad smile,

""

Standing up she moved quietly to give him a light hug before moving back to her spot pulling her skirt up a bit as she slid into the booth so it would not snag. On the table there were several books, most of which had Latin titles, but some of them were in English and identified as dictionary and translation books suggested by the person behind the desk.

"

[Supercape]

"" replied Quentin, scratching his chin in a contemplative manner. "" he winked.

"

[GranspearZX]

Marcus always thought that using magic for mundane things was... well, cheating. It wasn't that he didn't think about it, of course, but lately he'd had a lot on his mind--too much to consider screwing around with rune compositions and spell matrices. Six months ago, he didn't even know what those were, but, slowly but surely, he was getting to a point where he could talk about his ability without sounding like a complete moron.

Today, he had a library date. Not really a date in the traditional sense, but Etain had asked him to meet with her there. Traveling in the rather unforgiving February cold was bad enough, but he was bundled up pretty well--it was either that, or get there in his bear form, which just wasn't going to happen. He shook himself out a bit as he stepped into the library, pulling off his gloves as he walked inside. He spotted her instantly, heading over to the booth she'd chosen.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late... I'd have been here sooner but... ah, never mind." He kept his voice down--this was a library, after all...

[Aoiroo]

""

When the bell rang and a large clump of clothing put on an even larger form shuffled through the door she smiled and slid out of the booth once more. She met his glance quickly,

"Marcus, satis recte dico, ohh opps."

She let out a light laugh,

"It is fine, my friend here to help just came."

Moving back to the booth she slid over and made room for him to sit as well.

"This is Professor Quill, he speaks Latin too and is very dependable."

[GranspearZX]

Marcus blinked a few times at Professor Quill as he sat down, smiling politely. He didn't seem to be bothered by being addressed in Latin; he knew a phrase or two, but nothing that would actually allow him to understand what Etain had said, let alone respond. If nothing else, he was surprised that she was still thinking about him enough that she'd recruited someone to help him. Once upon a time, he might've tried to salvage his pride by pretending to be offended, but he'd learned not to reject a helping hand.

"Nice to meet you, Professor." He smiled as he sat down, slipping off his jacket and gloves.

[Supercape]

Quentin blinked hard, and took Marcus' hand almost in a daze. "Well I never..." he muttered, before shaking his head from the cobwebs. Of course, whilst he knew Marcus pretty well from his training session in the Lab, that was as Supercape. Now, he was just plain old Professor Quill.

"Err.. yes... well, delighted to meet you, my dear fellow. And Etain here is really the whizz at Latin. As far as I can tell, the best in the world, eh?" he smiled at Etain "I'm a bit rusty, haven't used it since my days in Cambridge, but Etain here keeps me on my toes. She only called me in because I have a bit more experience in the teaching game."

[Aoiroo]

"You flatter to much, my Latin is only good because it has to be. It is not as dead a tongue as people think, that makes it useful when dealing with things that fall a bit out of standard school teaching. Though I was surprised to find there is a course at school, you can only start after summer and it goes all..."

She stopped for a second as she turned to look at Marcus, this time getting a good look at him because he was closer. Examining him she looked around the head,

"Marcus, are you okay?"

She leaned forward only stopping when she was only a few inches from his face,

"Did someone, umm,"

She leaned back into her chair as she tapped her fingers to try and think of the right arrangement of words,

"Mess with your head?"

[GranspearZX]

Marcus barely breathed as Etain leaned in on him. He hadn't seen her in a while, so he'd forgotten all about the whole personal space thing. It took him a minute to realize that she wasn't just looking at him, at least not in the traditional sense. All he could do was give a nervous smile in response to her question.

"Huh? N-no! I mean..." He cleared his throat, realizing his tone had risen a bit in volume as he answered. "No, nothing like that... I'm fine," he replied, lying through his teeth. He really wasn't 'fine'... not even a little bit. He was certain there were wild rumors flying around around school about what had happened. Still, for someone who could see magic, the effect that the Pennsylvania incident had on both him and the Beast rune had to be pretty obvious. There was an odd synergy between him and it that hadn't been there before. Between that and the journey into his own mindscape, he had quite a bit on his mind. He frowned a little bit at the thought of someone reading his mind to find that out.

Damn mind readers. It was like hearing it twice in his own head; both he and the Beast Rune agreed.

"...so. Cambridge, huh? That's pretty impressive..."

[Supercape]

"Ah yes, fond memories. Taught there for a while till they booted me out, the back stabbing crusty academics at the top. I was merely proposing the quantum relationship between fractal observation due to parabolic psychic entanglement at m-dimensional level. If you take the Planck constant and trans-differentiate the pi-metrics of the..."

He looked at the blank faces (not) following his speech.

"*Ahem* Anyway, I had some radical idea's they didn't like. So here I am in Freedom City, where I enjoy much more...errr... Freedom!" he beamed.

[Aoiroo]

Etain wanted to push the subject, but it was clear whatever had happened wasn't still in effect. Still she tapped her fingers quietly,

She let out a sigh when the subject switched to Quentin who was clearly quite passionate about what he was saying, though he really lost her after the insult to his former boss,

"Sounds sad, but I am glad. If you still were there and not here we would not of met."

She paused as her mind wandered to her own circumstances with that sentence but cut it off,

"Now, I have got lots of books here."

She pointed down at the piles,

"Though, I do not know which might be best. I was taught English by mouth, not by word. It was hard I arrived but now I know word too, but not how one would teach by it."

[Supercape]

"Well, its all a matter of mnemomics, really. And maximising your studying potential. For instance, do not study for longer than an hour without a break, and dont study for more than four hours a day - at least outside of last minute cramming... which we have all done!" he winked, remembering late nights at his school and at university.

"Repetition is the key, and consolidation... the studies have shown..." he started drawing some fairly simple diagrams on memory decay and recall and how to maximise long term memory usage.

[GranspearZX]

She can tell.

It was in the back of his mind as he sat there, fading in and out of the conversation. Marcus was unusually reserved, but he was at least trying to be otherwise. He certainly wasn't going to sit in his room and sulk about it for the rest of his life. He didn't think there was any real way Etain could tell what had happened to him, but somehow, he suspected otherwise--Beast Rune intuition, perhaps. The same one he'd ignored before, and that dismissal brought him to where he was at the present.

He might've been okay if Professor Quinn hadn't started rambling; the diagrams actually gave him a little bit of a headache looking at them.

"Wow. Um... huh." He was starting to feel dizzy and inexplicably frustrated; it had nothing to do with the Beast Rune directly. He was just having trouble concentrating. He unstrapped his book from his shoulder and put it down in front of him.

[Aoiroo]

Etain looked at the diagrams and nodded politely. She didn't exactly get everything, but they made some sense to her and most of them simply just projected the idea that practice made perfect. Though Quentin didn't seem the type to make an arguement that simple. Corbin seemed a bit out of it. This Etain observed quietly with the observation of his altered aura. She hadn't ever had someone try to control her, at least not in that sense and it seemed very unpleasant. The stain of the magic was probably not the only side effect of such an experience. Though through the haze he seemed to produce the book his mother gave him which got her attention instantly,

"You brought it. That is good."

Looking at Quentin she switched to Latin to make sure she was more clear,

""

Switching back she turned to Marcus,

"I know it is important, could my friend look at your book?"

[GranspearZX]

"Sure, no problem..."

There was something definitely different about Marcus; if nothing else, whatever limiters the Beast Rune still had on it were significantly diminished. Marcus's war wasn't with his magic. It was with his own sense of pride and realization of his own weakness. The line between himself and the rune were even more blurred than when he'd met Etain. God only knew what that would do to him in the long run.

He had no idea what Etain said to Professor Quinn; he could pick out words, but not enough to have a clue what they were saying. Still, Etain had been nothing but trustworthy. Marcus didn't have a reason to think otherwise. He turned the green and gold-trimmed tome around and pushed it towards Quentin. "I've been able to pick some stuff out on my own and practice with it... I think I get the idea of how this is supposed to work." He had a lot of help from other mystics, of course, but he felt he needed to do more on his own. He felt like something of a stray in the magical community, picking up scraps of knowledge from whoever would throw them. Marcus realized just how overly dramatic that analogy sounded even in his head, but sometimes...

"I managed to work an invisibility spell out of it once. It worked... sort of."

[Aoiroo]

Etain gave Marcus a smile, however out of it he seemed, it was great to know he was practicing.

"That is good, concealing is good practice because it cannot go too bad with beginner's mistakes. It was one of the first things I learned myself."

In fact it was probably the first, though she couldn't fool her mother regardless, or herself for that matter when she looked into the mirror so it was pretty hard for her to figure out when it worked at all at first.

[GranspearZX]

Marcus smiled faintly. It was a little bit forced; things HAD gone badly after that. "Yes, well... It was sort of a trial by fire thing. Next time I know what to do. And what not to do." Despite the fallout from that day, he'd learned that being invisible didn't mean much if you just stood in the same place... or if your mind was wide open. Already he was working on something to fix that little shortcoming--the Shield Rune pendant was certainly going to help. He couldn't help but think that it wouldn't have happened if he'd just worn the thing that day...

[Aoiroo]

Looking over she glanced at the stain of the mind magic unconciously before turning away,

"It is good that you were not badly hurt at least. Some people cause lots of damage without intending or knowing with magic to themselves and others. Sometimes to those who know it, it is hard to remind that it is neither a toy nor a fix all thing and should be practiced seriously and while entirely informed."

Pulling some books off the stack she set them down on the table,

"These I brought with me, they are from Ms. Robin's shop, I have already read them and they are very nice. They are in English, and have an overview of magical history, you do not exactly need to read it, but it is useful for a reference. There are no spells in it, or at least complete spells but it does mention some origin and use."

[Supercape]

"Magic eh?" commented Quentin, scrutinising Marcus and mentally putting the last few minutes conversation into context. He held onto his tweed Jacket lapels and wheezed out.

"Can't help you much there, my boy. All a load of mumbo jumbo if you ask me. Can't argue with the effects, of course. It certainly produces results. Quite how it does that is beyond me. I'm sure one day Science will crack it and it will be some new dimension or what not. Mental powers or something. Sentient energy or the like. For now, its all double dutch!" he laughed - not too loud - they were in a library after all.

[GranspearZX]

"You'd be... surprised at how much actual math is involved. At least, that's how it is with me. My mother's style of magic tended to draw from natural stuff, as far as I can tell. I've been able to reproduce a little bit of it, but it's had some... unusual effects."

From the little bit he tried, his right arm was starting to show signs of his elemental experimentation. It wasn't physically different, but there was definitely a weak magical presence there... running along the same lines as his blood stream. He realized he could probably go on for hours about magical theory, not entirely unlike Professor Quinn... that did worry him a little bit.

God. I could be turning into one of those bookworm types.

[Supercape]

"Maths?" exclaimed Quentin "In Magic?" he looked rather shocked. "Yes, to be honest, I am rather surprised. I had no idea! I thought it was just hocus pocus mumbo jumbo acadabra stuff. Clearly it took something special to use - and its beyond me - but I didn't know a mastery of maths was part of it. "

He gave Etain a smile. "Perhaps there is hope for me yet, eh? although I doubt it. Most of my mind is taken up with...er...other stuff..I..er...do..." he coughed, remembering Marcus was unaware of his identity as Supercape.

[Aoiroo]

"You mean the work you do with quantum physics?"

Etain smiled quietly as she produced a piece of paper from her sleeve which was actually a small print out of an article featuring him standing at a podium.

"I read a bit, what you talk about, it does sound similar. There is a lot of work put into doing even simple things since it is not possible to get something for nothing."

Waving her hand she produced an apple, and set it on the desk,

"My magic is a way around that rule. The fruit can be bit, and tasted, but it will not fill an empty stomach. It does not change something like most magic does, at least not in the physical sense and can be dispelled if examined too closely."

[Supercape]

Quentin almost burst out laughing. Instead he just smiled and chuckled.

"Reminds me a lot of this!" he said with a flourish, as reached into his pocket and produced a cube of quantum material. It was a precise cube, semi-transparent, and floated in the air, completely oblivious to gravity. It has a crystal like quality to it.

"Quantum material, produced by Supercape. Like your apple, if you examine it to carefully, it completely disappears!" He gazed at intently "So by just studying it, examining it, and working out exactly what it is, like a scientist..."

*Poof*

"It vanishes!"

[GranspearZX]

"Well, it's not REQUIRED, but it helps..." He traced a circle on the table with his finger. "A circle, for instance, can help focus a spell. It's a lot like any form of energy like that... You have to understand how it flows before you can actually do anything with it. From there, you can use a lot of different techniques; different geometric shapes and formulas can alter the flow and change the properties of... er..."

Marcus realized he was babbling, and quickly brought himself back under control. It was strange how spouting magical theory took his mind off of everything else.

"...at any rate. The problem I have is that I can't really use any of the 'active' stuff, not without understanding some of the vocabulary... Figured it might be important."