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Post by VALKYRIE on Jul 30, 2016 3:13:12 GMT
 Class is winding down and Thalia hasn't gotten to tell anyone they're wrong. It makes her sad, even though the professor had made it clear that telling people they were wrong wasn't exactly the point of a Socratic seminar. She's decided she doesn't like Socratic seminars.
The clock ticks down. Some members of the class remain quiet in their seats even as the discussion picks up some last moment heat, and the professor zooms in on them with laser focus. No mercy.
"Mrs. Velos," he asks, staring at someone in the back row and Thalia whips her head around so fast it nearly comes off. Has she--what--how long has she been there? Has she been here the whole class? Has she been here the whole semester?
The professor keeps talking while realization hits Thalia like a freight truck.
"What do you think of Mr. Christensen's view of the text?"
physis
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Post by physis on Jul 30, 2016 4:16:04 GMT
 Glasses and a baseball cap had been her only friends all semester. Just ten more minutes, and they would have gotten back to their regularly scheduled lectures. Why it chooses to fail her now, right before the bell, Sophia will never know.
She forces herself to look him in the eye as a matter of respect. She had been reading in the car the day before. She knows the answer, and hopefully some mumbling will cause the professor to lose interest quickly.
"He wrote that the treaty was faulty. Christensen believed that a land settlement would be dishonorable to those who died in the war."
It had been a near word-for-word recital from the footnotes. The professor doesn't look impressed.
"I know what Mr. Christensen thinks, I have been studying this interpretation for twenty years, Mrs. Velos." One of the students in the front laughs.
Sophia chances a glance at the clock behind him. Five minutes. Five minutes isn't enough to save her. She tries to read him, figure out what he wants.
"He's right, of course." Her words sound flaky, even to herself. She's listened to a lot of terrific salesmen and pitches in Oricon, and none of them sounded the way that she does now. "Christensen is a loyal patriot, and he is a very well traveled correspondent. Surely he would know what the men want."
VALKYRIE
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Post by VALKYRIE on Jul 30, 2016 5:06:32 GMT
Thalia opened her mouth to cut in--it seemed cruel to leave Sophia there to flounder--but than an unnamed off-screen NPC cut in and started undercutting the idea of Christensen as a loyal patriot until time was up and the professor looked thoroughly disgruntled. It was weird how that happened and I didn't have to write any dialogue about this fictional text at 1 am in the morning 'cause I love myself.
Thalia gathered her sparse supplies together and bounded up the stairs to the back of the lecture hall to see Sophia. Unlike her, Thalia had never bothered to hide her identity. It was pointless when she wasn't willing to change her hair color. Her classmates had gotten over it with relative ease and a few autographs, at least to her understanding. One girl had even come up to her after class to say she felt safer on campus because Thalia was there, and she wasn't even going to touch the thoughts that had welled up in the wake of her statement with a ten-foot pole.
"Sophia!" Her smile flagged a little when she remembered the last time they had seen each other, but only for a moment. Thalia looked over her shoulder for a moment and the smile slid off her face, expression freezing into an ice-cold glare that threatened death to anyone who approached the two of them. For once, her reputation was useful. Two boys who had been headed their way froze and turned around immediately.
Thalia looked back at Sophia, beaming once more.
"There's no fancy champagne here, but I think if we brought some it would improve discussions."
physis
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Post by physis on Jul 30, 2016 5:34:03 GMT
There's no pretending that Thalia didn't come from the same classroom. She's usually one of the louder students.
"...you saw that." She blushes up to her hairline. It wasn't the first time that someone had accused her of having not a single original opinion. It just wasn't supposed to hurt so much. She underestimated the power of a crowd. Sophia stares at the tile floor as if it owed her money. Or a good cry.
At that moment, her bag splits open. It was hardly surprising; it was a regular canvas bag. What was surprising was the sheer number of books crammed in it. She only had nine hours of class, but Sophia had obviously purchased every single book on the reading list. Heavy tomes of literature and diagrams hit the floor, drawing a new wave of witnesses.
She had an e-reader, true. But within her frigid heart also lived a vivid dream of going to school with real books and a pencilcase full of gel pens and tiny fruit erasers.
VALKYRIE
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Jul 30, 2016 17:55:58 GMT
Post by VALKYRIE on Jul 30, 2016 17:55:58 GMT
"We could do a drinking game," Thalia says. "Every time the professor is an asshole or someone else says something dumb, we take a sip."
The words weren't even out of her mouth before the bag split open, spilling its contents onto the floor. Thalia watched them hit the tile, and then realized she should do something. Her new capabilities weren't instinct yet. That was less of a problem in the classroom than at work, but it still would have been useful here.
Very carefully, all the books lifted themselves off the floor and assembled themselves into neat formation inside the ruins of the canvas bag where it still hung loosely from Sophia's grip. They stayed in place as if the bag was still whole. They were probably a little too still, honestly, but Thalia was proud of herself regardless.
"I don't know if they'll stay like that once you leave my line of sight," she said thoughtfully, considering the problem. "I know I should be able to do it, but I don't know if I can. Do you have another class to get to?"
physis
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Jul 30, 2016 18:39:31 GMT
Post by physis on Jul 30, 2016 18:39:31 GMT
Sophia knows an invitation when she hears one.
"I'm sober now." She protests instinctively. Letting Thalia in feels a little traitorous to herself (or someone else). Thalia, who had seen more of her than any other person alive (or dead).
Sophia had been sober for a night. Then she went back to the house, and her circumstances remained where she left them. Where is the time that heals?
After Thalia rearranges the contents of her bag, Sophia realizes that she's being uncharitable. "No, I... the car should be coming soon. You don't need to exert yourself."
The Audi and its driver are already waiting in front of the building. The elderly man nods at his employer. "I hope you had a good day, Sophia." A smile, just for Thalia. This is all terribly exciting for a grandfatherly figure who usually watched Sophia walk out alone. "Hello, Valkyrie. Is there anyplace I can take you both?"
Sophia isn't about to object, but she thinks that Percy had definately overstepped his bounds. He knows it too. She places her bookbag in the trunk. She then looks to Thalia without any trace of annoyance. "Do you have class in a different building?"
VALKYRIE
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