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Post by ppbonbon on Jun 14, 2012 0:25:31 GMT -5
While Sunday mornings were usually spent in bed with a paper and coffee for members of the academic elite, Ayane preferred to use her leisurely time in a more constructive environment. So as her colleagues opened their eyes to greet the morning, stretching from slumber, she had already grazed the first level of the Academy library, prowling for new finds. It was a little habit of hers—one of many that this fantastically boring woman had accumulated through her years serving on the faculty as a teacher. Mostly, she found her position tedious and offensive, instructing hoards after hoards of bratty children who could care less about the fine intricacies of mathematical physics. Science is a brilliant field, factual, concise, and unadulterated with opposing interpretations. That’s what she loved about her field, which she spent numerous evenings stretching into nights researching. The lost beauty of this fantasy world was lost on lower minds, she noted. For group after group of students opted out of her classes, and only the bravest and most naïve chose to remain. She didn’t mind. No point in teaching those who couldn’t appreciate true scholar.
She dodged into an aisle on the second floor, inspecting the research section. Shelves of intimidating leather bound books decorated the wooden homes, smelling of years of hard spent labor. Although her main interests lay in her own field of applied mathematics and physics, she liked branching out horizontally amidst her own practiced skills. Which included math, calculus, chemistry, and economics at times. It was a waste of talent to dabble solely in one field when potential lay dormant in so many other places. Ayane tucked a strand of hair over her ear, adjusting her square-rimmed glasses neatly. Her amber eyes, flickering with interest, glazed over rows of neat books printed with numbered labels. Calculus… something she had studied for many awhile, but yet to fully grasp its intricacies. She did take the course, in its rudimentary and higher level forms in college, but chose to pursue a field in physics instead, which held infinitely more potential in her head. Her slender fingers rose to glide over the spines of the books as she walked at a slow pace further down the tall aisle. When interest piqued her, she removed a red imitation leather bound book and opened it to a seemingly random page.
Bringing a black ballpoint pen to her lips, she nibbled at the back end thoughtfully, examining the pages and letting the numbers dance out at her. Immersed in academics and furrowed in concentration, Ayane let go some of the carefully concocted seriousness in her normal stoic posture and expression. In fact, she looked happy and thoughtful in his deliberations as she stood reading. This was a departure of her normal demeanor, of course. A demeanor that gained infamy for its unforgiving, polite, but intensely serious tendencies. She chewed at her writing pen, eyes glinting with careless devotion.
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[/font][/color] word count: 490 tagged: Thomas (stark) notes: shortest post ever omg [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify] |
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Post by THOMAS LULA ROTH on Jun 14, 2012 22:43:03 GMT -5
 Jaw set firmly, Thomas's glare bored holes into the brunette who stood in front of him, pouring coffee into a paper cup. She must have felt him and looked up, her eyes wide like a doe caught grazing. "I'm on your side, Tommy, you shouldn't glower like that," she advised, tilting her head in a condescing way. He rarely felt the rise to violence, but his sister brought out the lovely part of him that wanted to snap her neck. Farrah stood a few inches shorter than him, but she enjoyed proving that she could bring him down by sheer force of will. Lovely family reunions those made. He scoffed, looking over his shoulder before moving in closer to the woman. It was either her, or the ex-girlfriend who was making a similar show of ignoring him and pretending she didn't notice they were sharing the same space. The staff lounge felt too small, suffocating. Thomas was trapped between two forces of evil, pushing in on both sides. The god awful coincidence of him having to work with the two women who he hated most was like the fates' way of punishing him for being such a dick to teachers in the past. Is this what he deserved, this cruel and unusual punishment?
The worst thing was that Farrah seemed to enjoy this. She didn't even look at the woman sitting in the chair with a Cosmo. Instead, she held out the coffee. "Buck up, sport," she said sardonically, and he had half a mind to whack the thing out of her hand. Control, you're good at that. It came in handy when dealing with his asshole of a sister. She frowned when he didn't make a move, shrugging her shoulders before speaking up at an inappropriate level. "So how's Darla? That chick you met over break? She had a huge rack, didn't she?" He didn't look to see if his ex had a reaction to this, because she shouldn't. It's been years, she was just haunting him like a vengeful poltergeist with unfinished business. But Hanna was probably over it, sleeping with some other douche bag ex-con. He wondered if she was cheating on him, too. "I'm leaving forever," Thomas deadpanned, picking up his bag from the table and almost flipping the bird to his sister as she waved her fingers at him. He wondered if she'd have the balls to go over and actually talk to the woman. He wouldn't put it beneath her.
As usual when he needed sanctuary, he headed to the library. It was quiet, peaceful. Or usually, unless he came on the day when some students decided that they were going to go throwing fireballs at each other. That rarely happened to him, and when it did he took care of it summarily. His powers bent to his will as easily as a stem of a flower. The section most important to him seemed to be occupied, which made him balk. Blink. But then he decided that he shouldn't be too surprised, instead he should be proud. "Hello there, didn't expect anyone to be around," he said, approaching with his bad under his arm. Thomas hated those awkward situations when he had to be around someone for a period of time without speaking, standing in a book store while hovering around someone thumbing through books you wanted to look at. "Do you teach math or did you just lose some unfortunate bet?" She certainly looked like a teacher. He managed to tell them apart from the college students he taught.
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Post by ppbonbon on Jun 15, 2012 0:18:54 GMT -5
The smell of coffee dangling in the air broke her bubble of concentration. She was clasped to its bitter scent before she even heard the voice of a man ring out beside her, snapping her awake from absorbed meditation. Ayane flinched, feeling him infiltrate rather thoughtlessly into her academic stupor. She turned her head to look at him, and a few heads shorter, she had to arch her gaze upward to inspect the fellow. It was no stranger, she realized then. Professor Thomas Roth from the calculus department at the university. Famous for his outlandish brusqueness and his intrepid arguments with various noted elite at the academy, he seems to be more celebrated for his uncontested good looks and classy swagger than he was for the academia itself. Ayane chose to recognize him for his accomplishments in the field of mathematics, however. She looked at him in respect instead, discarding the unnecessary back-story of his personal life from her understanding of him. As far as she was concerned, a man's professional exploits were much more noteworthy than whatever baggage settled beneath. Rumors of an ex-girlfriend at the academy, gossip about his love-life, and other random tidbits about the man floated indiscriminately from ear to ear, and eventually landed upon Ayane too. She brushed this useless stuff off, for hearsay had little place in a haven of scholarly thought.
He spoke to her effortlessly, and beckoned to wonder what she was doing, wandering the aisles of the calculus section. She blinked, not understanding his last statement, sarcasm slipping from her shoddy grasp like rocket science upon a kindergartener. Abstract comments that required creative thought never graced Ayane’s understanding, despite her brilliance in other fields of know. She blinked a couple of times, lips pursed in curious bafflement. At last, she opened her mouth to respond in a polite yet sweet tone of voice, ”No, I don’t… I don’t know of this bet you are referring to, but I am a teacher in mathematics if that is what you were asking.” The woman spoke with faltered grace, one eyebrow raised in childish naiveté. She collected herself, one hand still clutched to a leather book. ”Mathematical physics, actually.” She corrected, her eyes still dancing with awe in his presence. The book on calculus in her grasp seemed wholly out of context. ”Oh but,” she raised the book up, ”I have been looking at Goldbach’s conjecture along with Riemann’s hypotheses in hopes of better searching for a solution to those unsolved problems. I was actually reading on Hilbert’s problems here, you see.” Ayane stated, propping up the book mildly. Her eyes gazed upward in an expectant stare. The next remark that escaped her lips was tactless and unintentionally offensive, but it was uttered with the same politeness as before, so it somehow seemed like a side-stepped insult instead. ”How are your classes, Professor Roth? Doubtless you deal with undergraduates with much less poise than a mathematical physics student. How do you maintain your patience?”
The air rung with the archaic ruminations of this mathematical physics teacher. She had not said the remark in malevolence, but only truly curious in the difference of skill-levels between classes of dissimilar fields. She assumed mathematical physics, a field more hidden and esoteric, would appeal less to the common scholar. Thus, making that wild connection, she decided that calculus would probably require much less talent or intelligence. Her childish excitement contrasted starkly with the haughtiness of her words. Ayane, meeting an academic that was not a history, art, or useless music teacher, livened with a spirit of excitement. Her golden amber eyes flickered, lips dancing in a smile, watching his every slight inflection.
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[/font][/color] word count: 601 tagged: Thomas (stark) notes: excuse her cluelessness [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify] |
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Post by THOMAS LULA ROTH on Jun 18, 2012 18:34:04 GMT -5
Thomas waited for a response, watching curiously as she blinked, and he could practically see the cogs turn in her brain. Maybe the bet joke was coming on a little too strong, and he scratched behind his ear, his lips flickering into an amused smile. When she responded so sweetly, saying she did not know of any bet, he wondered if she was simply messing with him. "Kind of a joke," he started off lowly, before quickly adding, "So mathematical physics, then. It's astounding someone your age has an interest in such a field." He held up a hand, realizing moments after how that may have sounded. "I'm just assuming you're on the younger side." He did not know much about her at all. Or rather, he knew nothing about her. Not that he spent his time as a recluse shut up in a dark room with Call of Duty on his screen and old takeout boxes littering his floor. He liked to get out, and he ha friend's to keep up with, people to discuss taxes over a cup of coffee. Or as it was with Logan, the texture of testicles.
The amusement certainly could not be veiled as he dipped his head in light acknowledgement of the words, surprised at the things coming from her little mouth. One would think she was a sixty-year-old man in an earth tone sweater trapped in a young girl's body. "Do you hope to solve those problems? Quite the lofty goal there." A few of those problems had been resolved, and he wondered if she was confident in her abilities or came into possession of too much free time. Or crazy. He gazed down at the book as if thinking about something that greatly entertained him, looking up when she spoke again, his eyebrows knitting together to form a bridge across his forehead. "Ah, so you know of me?" he questioned before he considered her inquiry. This one was certainly strange, he'd give her that much. "Are you suggesting my students are more unruly than yours, Ms..." Tom trailed off to wait for clarification on her name.
[sorry for the shortness, ipod post!]
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Post by ppbonbon on Jun 30, 2012 3:52:04 GMT -5
A lofty goal? Perhaps. Ayane didn't place her judgment on things being achievable or not. She had a simpler measuring stick for deigning what she put her eyes on. Has anyone done it before? Her lips curled upward in thought, toying with the idea that a vast mysterious part of the universe has its unsolved mysteries and that she would play a role in untying part of the mystique. Ayane pinned the tall professor before her as rational and probably out for something similar. No otherwise clear-minded individual spends early Sunday mornings roaming the library for intellectual stimulation. She caught the last line of his trail of words with a polite smile. ”Wellesley-Forbes. Ayane, Wellesley Forbes.”
[/color] She uttered the mouthful with a tinge of enigma, as not many would associate a member of that dynastic clan to house a short and unassuming woman such as herself. The name was famous, but the face was not. ”I’m sure your students are just as unruly as mine.”[/color] She had no inclination to protect her group of spoiled kids either. Even those who willingly chose to take mathematical physics, Ayane deigned them too arrogant to truly digest the art. It was her field—her beloved profession, and she had high standards for those who infiltrated it, even students. This stringent starkness and academic code with which she abided by was what made Ayane such a revered and secretly respected teacher. ”And I certainly do know of you,”[/color] the woman added with unmatched poise and humility in her demeanor. She laced her fingers together in front of her and stood with tall shoulders. Actually, she knew a little too much about the professor from helplessly being tormented by the vapid gossip that floats around teacher lounges. Though Ayane listens, she seldom hears. The weird tidbits of information doubtlessly become twisted in her mind when it ruminates for too long. At least with useless things—things like rumors and gossip. ”Oh,[/color] she quipped, her eyes blinking wide. “I heard from some faculty recently that you are engaged with a Ms. Watkins? A congratulations is in order.” The woman stated matter-of-factly but with all the dignified respect that was in order. The only remaining coherent wires in her brain would otherwise tell her that she’d heard wrong—that no, the Hanna Watkins woman she’d just referred to is a blight of the tongue. But of course, Ayane didn’t recognize her erroneous words, and merely blithely blinked with smiling eyes. "- - - - - - - - - - - - - C U T M E H E R E[/font][/color] word count: ahflahd lazy tagged: Thomas (stark) notes: holy moly sorry didn't know what to do [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify] |
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Post by THOMAS LULA ROTH on Jul 3, 2012 2:37:48 GMT -5
The woman stated her very impressive name, and he supposed that he should begin referring to her as Ayane now, an interesting name that certainly did not follow his own nomenclature. Or Ms. Wellesley-Forbes, whichever was preferable. He seemed to be caught in a train of thought for a moment before he noted, "The name is familiar. How would I know it?" It was a question of if she was native to the Hollow and if he would know any of her relatives. He knew quite a few people, he wasn't a complete recluse despite his students most likely thinking that he sat at home all day writing out equations for them to suffer through. They believed him to be a sadist, and sometimes he believed he was. His lips pulled into a smirk at her words, however. She was an interesting sort of woman, all poise and certainty and just the right amount of assurance. Rarely found these days. "I can't say I'm fond of high schoolers, I have to say." He didn't speak to his students on a regular basis as is, keeping a very professional distance from them. Sometimes he had kids stop by for questions, but he never had a chat over tea with them. That did not seem like a very appropriate thing, even if he had adult-aged pupils.
Thomas snorted, put his hands in his pockets. The way she said it made it seem as if she did not care much for the goings-on in the Academy, and he couldn't say that he disagreed with her. He was no gossip. "I am still debating whether or not I should take that as a good thing or a bad thing." Not that it mattered since he paid little mind to what others said of him, or of others for that matter. He imagined that his sister liked to spread untrue words about him, especially to his ex, and then it was a whisper down the lane game that ended up with him in a tutu on top of somebody's roof. The truth could be far less entertaining, so he understood the need for exaggeration. His expression fell considerable at her words, and he shook his head. What an awkward conundrum. Ah well, he dealt with worse. "I would like to thank you, but unfortunately I fear you are misinformed. We uh...broke off the engagement. It wasn't working out." How could he state the truth to a stranger? "I caught her in bed with my ex-con best friend." That was not something he could say in polite company. "You do hear strange things, don't you? Do you mind if I ask you what may be a personal question?" He was always a gentleman. That could be considered a lie, though. It depended on the purpose.
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