Magic Under Construction: TOMU 2-10
Apr. 28th, 2011 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinStarted: 4/28/2011
Status: In Progress
Last updated: 1:00, 4/29
Word Count: ~2500
Hours Writing: 3
[3 hours in.]
After the class ended I spent a little time practicing unshrinking the mocked copy of my staff so I knew how to hold it while it enlarged without tripping over it or thwacking myself in the head with it or something. It was easy enough to do when I had my feet planted and was focused entirely on what was in my hands... it would take a little more practice to be able to do it in the heat of the moment.
Despite my whole "I never left" worldly and wise routine, I did feel pretty accomplished at having made it through the first day of classes without anything dire or completely embarrassing happening. I guess it was probably a sign of how far I had come in a year that I didn't consider my performance in class to be a failure.
Yeah, I'd lost my first fight but so had half of the class. I'd stumbled, but I'd also impressed Coach Callahan... and I'd done that by doing what I needed to do. That felt like an achievement.
I was in a bit of a celebratory mood when I headed for dinner. I kind of took the long way around to the Archimedes Center, since I forgot that we had agreed to eat there until I was coming up to the entrance to the student union. Even though I shouldn't have had far to go at all, the others were all there ahead of me.
Again, it was kind of astounding for me to realize how little I cared about that. Taking a wrong turn or overlooking something had always made me feel like a big awkward failure in the past, and considering how absent-minded I can be that meant I had pretty much always felt like a big awkward failure. Now it happened and I just sort of enjoyed the stroll about campus.
The fact that no one seemed to mind or consider me to be late helped, too. The Archimedes Center was something like a museum combined with an elaborate lounge... it was meant to be educational but its designers had been wise enough to realize that students would learn more from it if there were plenty of reasons to spend time there. One day into the new semester, more students seemed to be passing through to see what it was all about than actually looking at any of the exhibits. If that was all there was to it, most of them would never come back.
Amaranth was among those who were actually interested in the displays, in particular a botanical arrangement of small flowering trees, and some kinds of fungus and moss growing on rocks shaded by the trees.
"Hi, baby," she said. "You have a good first day?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "How was yours?"
"Good," she said. "Busy... I may have taken on too much. This early in the semester it's hard to say, but some of my classes seem like they'll be pretty demanding."
"You shouldn't try to compete with your toy, Amy," Steff said, appearing right next to us. "That's not a good look on anyone."
"I'm not competing," Amaranth said. "I just saw a bunch of classes that I was interested in, and they all fit into my schedule. Anyway, I think I'll be able to manage. it's really only one more full-sized class than I took the past two semesters and then one hour a week of Dwarvish poetry."
"Oh, yes," Steff said. "Roses are red, violets are none of your business. Back the fuck off or I'll break your fingers. How do I love you? Who wants to know?"
"Dwarves don't write many poems about flowers," Amaranth said. "It's really more about recording practical information. Anyway, I wanted to take the Elvish poetry survey, but... well..."
"Surely you do not doubt the ability of our resident Elvish poetry expert to remain impartial in her grading?" Dee asked.
"I couldn't say that she would treat me unfairly," Amaranth said. "But it seems like taking one of Professor Ariadne's classes might seem a little... unnecessarily antagonistic?"
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves.
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus, but they very much stood as worlds apart. I'd actually managed to see the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
The Arch's dining area took up about a quarter of the ground floor. It seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified.
"Elven kids don't get to join grown-up society until they turn a hundred," Steff said. "It seems pretty awesome for the first decade or so but then you run out of stuff to do. Some of them end up joining human society, since they're technically adults under Imperial law
"Dwarves aren't anything like that," Hazel said. "Andy had to work for a living for better than eleven years before they'd let him come here. Dwarves don't get anything for free. They owe their clan service for every year they're raised. Not a bad system, to my mind. Let kids be kids, let grown-ups be grown-ups, and in between they get plenty of time to find out how the world really works while their noses are to the grindstone."
"Would you really want to do more than a decade of hard labor before you got to do anything you wanted with your life?" I asked.
"Can't say how it would have suited me, since it didn't happen," Hazel said. "But, I mean, it seems like a better way of making sure everyone goes out into the world with her head screwed on straight than what most kinds of folks do. If Andy and I ever do have a kid... and we have given it a fair amount of thought, since last year... I'm not sure I'd mind raising them the dwarven way. At twenty-eight, he'd be just grown-up anyway."
"Really personal question," Ian said.
"Ask it," Hazel said.
"What would happen if you two had a girl?" Ian asked. "A little half-dwarven girl. Would he go all grrr-smash on her when she grows up?"
"Well... that's one of the reasons we're still thinking," Hazel said. "Neither one of us would mind a boy, but so far as I know there isn't any way to work that out in advance."
"There isn't," I said.
"Doesn't dating a dwarf get awkward when you're rooming with a kobold?" Ian asked her. "Or two kobolds, I guess."
"Closer to one and a half," Hazel said. "Granted Shiel's just a bitty slip of a thing of to begin with, but Nae's downright, what do you call it, diminutive. And quiet, too... I could almost forget she was there."
"Did you say Nae?" Amaranth said.
Nae... that was why the tiny kobold had seemed familiar. I'd never actually seen her when she wasn't wearing something like a full-body hood, but her size was pretty distinctive.
"How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
"Twenty-one credit hours might have been too many," she said.
"Why did you take so many?" I asked.
[2.5 hours in. Did some rewriting and rearranging.]
After the class ended I spent a little time practicing unshrinking the mocked copy of my staff so I knew how to hold it while it enlarged without tripping over it or thwacking myself in the head with it or something. It was easy enough to do when I had my feet planted and was focused entirely on what was in my hands... it would take a little more practice to be able to do it in the heat of the moment.
Despite my whole "I never left" worldly and wise routine, I did feel pretty accomplished at having made it through the first day of classes without anything dire or completely embarrassing happening. I guess it was probably a sign of how far I had come in a year that I didn't consider my performance in class to be a failure.
Yeah, I'd lost my first fight but so had half of the class. I'd stumbled, but I'd also impressed Coach Callahan... and I'd done that by doing what I needed to do. That felt like an achievement.
I was in a bit of a celebratory mood when I headed for dinner. I kind of took the long way around to the Archimedes Center, since I forgot that we had agreed to eat there until I was coming up to the entrance to the student union. Even though I shouldn't have had far to go at all, the others were all there ahead of me.
Again, it was kind of astounding for me to realize how little I cared about that. Taking a wrong turn or overlooking something had always made me feel like a big awkward failure in the past, and considering how absent-minded I can be that meant I had pretty much always felt like a big awkward failure. Now it happened and I just sort of enjoyed the stroll about campus.
[]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves.
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified.
"Elven kids don't get to join grown-up society until they turn a hundred," Steff said. "It seems pretty awesome for the first decade or so but then you run out of stuff to do. Some of them end up joining human society, since they're technically adults under Imperial law
"Dwarves aren't anything like that," Hazel said. "Andy had to work for a living for better than eleven years before they'd let him come here. Dwarves don't get anything for free. They owe their clan service for every year they're raised. Not a bad system, to my mind. Let kids be kids, let grown-ups be grown-ups, and in between they get plenty of time to find out how the world really works while their noses are to the grindstone."
"Would you really want to do more than a decade of hard labor before you got to do anything you wanted with your life?" I asked.
"Can't say how it would have suited me, since it didn't happen," Hazel said. "But, I mean, it seems like a better way of making sure everyone goes out into the world with her head screwed on straight than what most kinds of folks do. If Andy and I ever do have a kid... and we have given it a fair amount of thought, since last year... I'm not sure I'd mind raising them the dwarven way. At twenty-eight, he'd be just grown-up anyway."
"Really personal question," Ian said.
"Ask it," Hazel said.
"What would happen if you two had a girl?" Ian asked. "A little half-dwarven girl. Would he go all grrr-smash on her when she grows up?"
"Well... that's one of the reasons we're still thinking," Hazel said. "Neither one of us would mind a boy, but so far as I know there isn't any way to work that out in advance."
"There isn't," I said.
"Doesn't dating a dwarf get awkward when you're rooming with a kobold?" Ian asked her. "Or two kobolds, I guess."
"Closer to one and a half," Hazel said. "Granted Shiel's just a bitty slip of a thing of to begin with, but Nae's downright, what do you call it, diminutive. And quiet, too... I could almost forget she was there."
"Did you say Nae?" Amaranth said.
Nae... that was why the tiny kobold had seemed familiar. I'd never actually seen her when she wasn't wearing something like a full-body hood, but her size was pretty distinctive.
"How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
[1.5 hours in. Only a little progress right now; ran into external distractions.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values
[]
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified. "How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
[1 hour in. Opening part from the first half hour is a bit of a mess, but rather than spending half an hour untangling it I decided to jump into the chapter proper.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values
[]
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely.
[0.5 hours in.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values
Status: In Progress
Last updated: 1:00, 4/29
Word Count: ~2500
Hours Writing: 3
[3 hours in.]
After the class ended I spent a little time practicing unshrinking the mocked copy of my staff so I knew how to hold it while it enlarged without tripping over it or thwacking myself in the head with it or something. It was easy enough to do when I had my feet planted and was focused entirely on what was in my hands... it would take a little more practice to be able to do it in the heat of the moment.
Despite my whole "I never left" worldly and wise routine, I did feel pretty accomplished at having made it through the first day of classes without anything dire or completely embarrassing happening. I guess it was probably a sign of how far I had come in a year that I didn't consider my performance in class to be a failure.
Yeah, I'd lost my first fight but so had half of the class. I'd stumbled, but I'd also impressed Coach Callahan... and I'd done that by doing what I needed to do. That felt like an achievement.
I was in a bit of a celebratory mood when I headed for dinner. I kind of took the long way around to the Archimedes Center, since I forgot that we had agreed to eat there until I was coming up to the entrance to the student union. Even though I shouldn't have had far to go at all, the others were all there ahead of me.
Again, it was kind of astounding for me to realize how little I cared about that. Taking a wrong turn or overlooking something had always made me feel like a big awkward failure in the past, and considering how absent-minded I can be that meant I had pretty much always felt like a big awkward failure. Now it happened and I just sort of enjoyed the stroll about campus.
The fact that no one seemed to mind or consider me to be late helped, too. The Archimedes Center was something like a museum combined with an elaborate lounge... it was meant to be educational but its designers had been wise enough to realize that students would learn more from it if there were plenty of reasons to spend time there. One day into the new semester, more students seemed to be passing through to see what it was all about than actually looking at any of the exhibits. If that was all there was to it, most of them would never come back.
Amaranth was among those who were actually interested in the displays, in particular a botanical arrangement of small flowering trees, and some kinds of fungus and moss growing on rocks shaded by the trees.
"Hi, baby," she said. "You have a good first day?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "How was yours?"
"Good," she said. "Busy... I may have taken on too much. This early in the semester it's hard to say, but some of my classes seem like they'll be pretty demanding."
"You shouldn't try to compete with your toy, Amy," Steff said, appearing right next to us. "That's not a good look on anyone."
"I'm not competing," Amaranth said. "I just saw a bunch of classes that I was interested in, and they all fit into my schedule. Anyway, I think I'll be able to manage. it's really only one more full-sized class than I took the past two semesters and then one hour a week of Dwarvish poetry."
"Oh, yes," Steff said. "Roses are red, violets are none of your business. Back the fuck off or I'll break your fingers. How do I love you? Who wants to know?"
"Dwarves don't write many poems about flowers," Amaranth said. "It's really more about recording practical information. Anyway, I wanted to take the Elvish poetry survey, but... well..."
"Surely you do not doubt the ability of our resident Elvish poetry expert to remain impartial in her grading?" Dee asked.
"I couldn't say that she would treat me unfairly," Amaranth said. "But it seems like taking one of Professor Ariadne's classes might seem a little... unnecessarily antagonistic?"
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves.
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus, but they very much stood as worlds apart. I'd actually managed to see the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
The Arch's dining area took up about a quarter of the ground floor. It seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified.
"Elven kids don't get to join grown-up society until they turn a hundred," Steff said. "It seems pretty awesome for the first decade or so but then you run out of stuff to do. Some of them end up joining human society, since they're technically adults under Imperial law
"Dwarves aren't anything like that," Hazel said. "Andy had to work for a living for better than eleven years before they'd let him come here. Dwarves don't get anything for free. They owe their clan service for every year they're raised. Not a bad system, to my mind. Let kids be kids, let grown-ups be grown-ups, and in between they get plenty of time to find out how the world really works while their noses are to the grindstone."
"Would you really want to do more than a decade of hard labor before you got to do anything you wanted with your life?" I asked.
"Can't say how it would have suited me, since it didn't happen," Hazel said. "But, I mean, it seems like a better way of making sure everyone goes out into the world with her head screwed on straight than what most kinds of folks do. If Andy and I ever do have a kid... and we have given it a fair amount of thought, since last year... I'm not sure I'd mind raising them the dwarven way. At twenty-eight, he'd be just grown-up anyway."
"Really personal question," Ian said.
"Ask it," Hazel said.
"What would happen if you two had a girl?" Ian asked. "A little half-dwarven girl. Would he go all grrr-smash on her when she grows up?"
"Well... that's one of the reasons we're still thinking," Hazel said. "Neither one of us would mind a boy, but so far as I know there isn't any way to work that out in advance."
"There isn't," I said.
"Doesn't dating a dwarf get awkward when you're rooming with a kobold?" Ian asked her. "Or two kobolds, I guess."
"Closer to one and a half," Hazel said. "Granted Shiel's just a bitty slip of a thing of to begin with, but Nae's downright, what do you call it, diminutive. And quiet, too... I could almost forget she was there."
"Did you say Nae?" Amaranth said.
Nae... that was why the tiny kobold had seemed familiar. I'd never actually seen her when she wasn't wearing something like a full-body hood, but her size was pretty distinctive.
"How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
"Twenty-one credit hours might have been too many," she said.
"Why did you take so many?" I asked.
[2.5 hours in. Did some rewriting and rearranging.]
After the class ended I spent a little time practicing unshrinking the mocked copy of my staff so I knew how to hold it while it enlarged without tripping over it or thwacking myself in the head with it or something. It was easy enough to do when I had my feet planted and was focused entirely on what was in my hands... it would take a little more practice to be able to do it in the heat of the moment.
Despite my whole "I never left" worldly and wise routine, I did feel pretty accomplished at having made it through the first day of classes without anything dire or completely embarrassing happening. I guess it was probably a sign of how far I had come in a year that I didn't consider my performance in class to be a failure.
Yeah, I'd lost my first fight but so had half of the class. I'd stumbled, but I'd also impressed Coach Callahan... and I'd done that by doing what I needed to do. That felt like an achievement.
I was in a bit of a celebratory mood when I headed for dinner. I kind of took the long way around to the Archimedes Center, since I forgot that we had agreed to eat there until I was coming up to the entrance to the student union. Even though I shouldn't have had far to go at all, the others were all there ahead of me.
Again, it was kind of astounding for me to realize how little I cared about that. Taking a wrong turn or overlooking something had always made me feel like a big awkward failure in the past, and considering how absent-minded I can be that meant I had pretty much always felt like a big awkward failure. Now it happened and I just sort of enjoyed the stroll about campus.
[]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves.
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified.
"Elven kids don't get to join grown-up society until they turn a hundred," Steff said. "It seems pretty awesome for the first decade or so but then you run out of stuff to do. Some of them end up joining human society, since they're technically adults under Imperial law
"Dwarves aren't anything like that," Hazel said. "Andy had to work for a living for better than eleven years before they'd let him come here. Dwarves don't get anything for free. They owe their clan service for every year they're raised. Not a bad system, to my mind. Let kids be kids, let grown-ups be grown-ups, and in between they get plenty of time to find out how the world really works while their noses are to the grindstone."
"Would you really want to do more than a decade of hard labor before you got to do anything you wanted with your life?" I asked.
"Can't say how it would have suited me, since it didn't happen," Hazel said. "But, I mean, it seems like a better way of making sure everyone goes out into the world with her head screwed on straight than what most kinds of folks do. If Andy and I ever do have a kid... and we have given it a fair amount of thought, since last year... I'm not sure I'd mind raising them the dwarven way. At twenty-eight, he'd be just grown-up anyway."
"Really personal question," Ian said.
"Ask it," Hazel said.
"What would happen if you two had a girl?" Ian asked. "A little half-dwarven girl. Would he go all grrr-smash on her when she grows up?"
"Well... that's one of the reasons we're still thinking," Hazel said. "Neither one of us would mind a boy, but so far as I know there isn't any way to work that out in advance."
"There isn't," I said.
"Doesn't dating a dwarf get awkward when you're rooming with a kobold?" Ian asked her. "Or two kobolds, I guess."
"Closer to one and a half," Hazel said. "Granted Shiel's just a bitty slip of a thing of to begin with, but Nae's downright, what do you call it, diminutive. And quiet, too... I could almost forget she was there."
"Did you say Nae?" Amaranth said.
Nae... that was why the tiny kobold had seemed familiar. I'd never actually seen her when she wasn't wearing something like a full-body hood, but her size was pretty distinctive.
"How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
[1.5 hours in. Only a little progress right now; ran into external distractions.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values
[]
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
I didn't want to be too conspicuous about looking around, but I didn't have to be... a group of five elven girls was lounging around just outside the low wall around the dining area, glaring daggers at our group. They were wearing gowns of gossamer-light material in the style that Steff's more generously cut dress imitated. Two of them had scarves over their mouths, and one had a lacy veil over her whole face.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely. Our audience, which could hear every word we were saying, was not as good at controlling its reaction... they all looked a mixture of revolted and embarrassed.
"Let's not give them any further satisfaction," Amaranth said.
"They don't look too satisfied to me," Ian said.
"I meant let's talk about something else," Amaranth clarified. "How was your first day of classes, baby?"
"Good," I said. "I really think I'm going to like both of my classes... both of my classroom classes, I mean."
"Don't go thinking your melee class isn't a 'real' class," Amaranth said.
"I'm taking it seriously," I said."I'm just... if I think of it in terms of whether or not I like it, I don't like it, so I'd rather not. I'm in it. I'm committed to it. I think I've made a pretty good start."
"How did it go?" she asked.
Trying to describe it was awkward, as Amaranth liked violence even less than I did. She'd managed to get an exemption from both the weapon-carrying requirement and the class requirement on moral grounds, and that wasn't easy. Her status as a nymph probably helped her there... Mother Khaele was one of the more active deities in the mortal sphere, and she considered nymphs and their male counterparts to be under her protection. Being the goddess of nature meant there was no shortage of reasons to avoid pissing her off.
[1 hour in. Opening part from the first half hour is a bit of a mess, but rather than spending half an hour untangling it I decided to jump into the chapter proper.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values
[]
The Arch's dining hall seemed more like a restaurant than a cafeteria, at least compared to the one in the student union. It was still buffet style, but more of the food was self-service, kept in heated or cooled trays on islands in the middle of the seating area. The line of counters in front of the prep area were only for made-to-order stuff, which had been added to the menu as a solution to the problem of students with more specialized diet needs.
Goblinoids and reptilians had problems with milk and its products. So, for that matter, did a lot of mammalian humanoids. Some races preferred food that was quite a bit more or less cooked than local human cooking methods traditionally left it. Vegetarians... whether by nature, divine edict, or inclination... also found themselves with a lot more options at the Arch.
"Would anybody have any objection to eating here more often?" Amaranth asked. She had a grilled eggplant sandwich, with bread that had been certified vegan... she tended to avoid baked goods on principle because you couldn't tell looking at them if any milk or eggs had gone into them.
"I confess I find myself conflicted on that score," Dee said. "The food here is certainly more palatable, and it is easier to avoid troublesome grains... I do believe the stated goal of fostering a welcoming atmosphere for all, while laudable, has not been met."
I had somewhat naively wondered if the reason she'd pulled her cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face was just because the more open construction left her feeling exposed. Now I realized what I... what most of us... had overlooked. I was so used to seeing Dee and Steff hanging out together that it had never occurred to me how uncomfortable she might be in a place where surface elves gathered, or a place that was... in part... a monument to surface elves and their culture.
"Yeah, I'm not really digging that part of the scenery myself," Steff said. "I mean, there are reasons I lived in Harlowe and not Treehome, even before I met Viktor, you know?" She put her hands under her breasts and gave them a little shake, saying something else about how the bouncing bits didn't help the bouncing bits helping the bouncing...
"Close your mouth, baby, your sandwich is falling out," Amaranth said.
"I wish I could break her that way," Ian said.
"I wish I could break her the other way," Steff said.
I must have been blushing madly as []
"I'm sorry, I guess I was staring a little bit," I said.
"Oh, honey, you weren't doing that, believe me," Steff said.
"There's nothing wrong with honest and open appreciation of your lover's physical form," Amaranth said. "Anyway... I guess I wouldn't want to make you two have to choose between being uncomfortable and dining with us."
"Ah, fuck those bitches right in their vaginas," Steff said, which was a bit like accusing a gnome's mother of having sex wearing shoes on a boat. Even in mixed-sex relationships, elves avoided procreative intercourse as a way of managing their immortal population. "If they're going to glare, that means they're uncomfortable, and if they're uncomfortable they can leave."
"For the present time, I am inclined to agree," Dee said. "I may find that my resolve weakens as my desire to eat in peace grows, but for now I say let them scowl as they will. We are as welcome here as they are."
"You know what would really give them something to scowl at?" Steff asked.
"No, but I greatly fear that I am about to learn," Dee said.
"If you and I just started making out in the middle of the room," Steff said.
Dee gave this suggestion the response she thought it deserved, which is to say that she ignored it completely.
[0.5 hours in.]
I've never been a huge fan of architecture in general. That's not to say that I turned my nose up at it or anything... it wasn't like I went around going, ugh, another building or anything. I just didn't really notice it all that much. The buildings on campus mostly ranged from what I thought of as big, blocky institutional-style... like Harlowe Hall... to a slightly more modern and sleek institutional-style, like the student union and Weyland Hall, where Ian had lived the year before.
The Archimedes Center was noticeably different. It was more like something you'd find in a zoo or museum that just got a bunch of money for building modern, exciting exhibits than anything that screamed "I belong on a school campus." It was a circular building with a dome on top. The whole thing had been devised as a marriage of elven and dwarven building methods and sensibilities.
The walls were made out of stone and the dome was made out of wood... of great big twisting tree limbs as thick as trunks that had been grown in place. The "timbers" that supported the dome on the inside were made of stone carved by dwarven crafters, and the stone blocks that made up the wall were held in place not with mortar but with a kind of vine that the elves used for joining things... when put under pressure it released a sticky sap which then hardened even as the vine remained alive and continued to produce tiny white blossoms and leaves..
The Arch functioned more as a sort of embassy in "human territory" than anything else. Elves and dwarves both maintained their own lodgings near campus. I'd seen the more public parts of the dwarven one, and even that had involved a private invitation and a blindfolded trip through secret passages beneath the school.
There were probably more elves and dwarves attending MU than all other races of non-humans combined, though most of those were graduate students... their own educational traditions were recognized as being thorough enough to produce the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, and for those who wanted more advanced accreditation or specialized training the few years []
Elves in particular had a lot of time to kill. An elf's lifespan is potentially infinite... elves have the "live until something kills you" style of immortality. Even though they mature physically and mentally at about the same rate as humans, elves aren't considered full adults until they've lived for a century.
Dwarven students usually were in the opposite situation. Young dwarves owed their clans one year of work for every year spent raising them. Any dwarf enrolled in a university would have spent over a decade of not only having adult responsibilities but likely doing more intense labor than an elf would do in centuries.
[]
For all their differences, the animosity between elves and dwarves was a little overblown. That's not to say that they were naturally the best of friends or anything, but it wasn't like they were competing for the same land or resources. There was a rivalry there, and a lot of ancient insults, and even in modern times there was friction caused by differing values