be discreet

[msmage]

It's not much later, in Isabella's room, that she asks:

"So... is Alex really a dom?"

Comments

[mrmage]

"What do you mean?"

[eclipsi]

"You might like, I don't know, reading people's letters or old newspapers or things like that, primary source stuff."

[mrmage]

"Oh." Pause. "Yeah, actually, that could be fun. If a bit time-consuming, what with my wanting to be a healer. And doesn't post-cognition basically cover that more neatly anyway?"

[eclipsi]

"Only if you get a lot of range. You can start calling yourself a postcog if you can get five seconds; most people don't go past a year or two."

[mrmage]

"Hmm, fair enough. I suppose most psions don't luck out and start dating a nice mage that will make them immortal so they can learn all these things eventually."

[eclipsi]

"It's true." Smooch.

[mrmage]

Kisss!

And food! And thoughtful chewing. "May I ask a question that may be a bit... I dunno, rude?"

[eclipsi]

"You may."

[mrmage]

"It's, uh... When we met, you said you joined school to network with other eclipsed and stuff, but I don't... see you doing much of that?"

[eclipsi]

"I'm not making a lot of friends, but I'm making a lot of acquaintances and accumulating plenty of contact information and notes on who's specializing in what."

[mrmage]

"Oh. Huh. I suppose that'd work."

[eclipsi]

"I'm not trying to find people with whom to take over the world. Besides you. I'm trying to find people who I can email in ten years and go 'hey! Myeisha! How far did you get on fire element stuff? I found a think tank that needs some help and your time would be tax-deductible'."

[mrmage]

"Yeah. That hadn't occurred to me, the... just making acquaintances thing. Anyway, what would a think tank do with a fire elemental?"

[eclipsi]

"Experiments with fire, I assume. I don't have a specific idea for that one."

[mrmage]

"And is she? Working with fire?"

[eclipsi]

"General elementalism, all four."

[mrmage]

"Huh. Is there a reason to do those four specific elements instead of, like, wood and metal too, or whatever?"

[eclipsi]

"They're classics? I haven't asked her about wood and metal, I know they're done but they're not considered a form of elementalism in the West."

[mrmage]

"It sounds a bit arbitrary, they're not even really elements, they're just... stuff."

[eclipsi]

"Well, they're not chemical elements, no. They do represent most of the not-alive-or-previously-alive stuff you can run into walking around in a pre-tech era though."

[mrmage]

"Yeah but... can't elementalism be subsumed by something else that's more general? I mean I'm not even sure how I'd go about doing stuff like that, everything I've ever done was to living things, most of it to my body."

[eclipsi]

"I mean, people specialize different amounts. It's kind of arbitrary that there is a popular amount for 'earth, air, fire, and water' and not a popular amount for 'magnetism, radioactive metals, grass, and mollusks' but she's not going to learn slower by specializing, she will learn fewer things faster."

[mrmage]

"...mollusks," he snorts.

[eclipsi]

"Mollusks!"

[mrmage]

"That might be about the most useless thing one could specialize on."