The first couple of hours after classes on that particular 8th day were scripted quite the same way as every other 8th day of that year. Every student in her form attended Formal Supper directly after the last class on the last day of the work week, releasing as many moans and groans from their chests as possible before setting foot in the dining hall. I thought that clocking dinner would never end. Mira silently thanked Alioe for guiding the clocks and Hulali for his enduring mercy.

The worst thing about those dinners used to be the way faculty insisted on whispering lectures about her attire at her whenever it was her misfortune to sit near one. Most of them seemed to have accepted defeat over the course of her 4th year. That was when the new subject of impromptu meal-time professorship became "The Social Benefits of Conversing with Peers and Faculty During Formal Affairs, Especially If They Are Talking to You: A Primer." Even that was dropped from their curriculum due to lack of student interest. Mira wasn't quite sure when, but it eventually seemed that no one minded her silence so much anymore. Perhaps they finally discovered what she already knew: it was best to keep one's mouth closed when one had nothing favorable to say (in the presence of the headmistress).

As boring as those meals always were, Formal Supper wasn't the source of her chagrin: it was the gestalt of the whole week. The Cartographer's Convention was informative, as always, but the year's speakers might as well have been hollow corn husks so dry were they. Again as always, there hadn't been a wick for miles, let alone in sight. Lack of progress in her research always made her feel impatient, especially when she could find someone to blame for it. Regardless of all those misfortunes, she could at last exhale. The Convention had ended, Farcical Supper was over, and she was back in Brunnhold, briskly walking past the East Gardens on her way into Peregrin.

The young woman was still wearing the green school uniform and lugging her school bag. Most others whom she passed were mothers and a few fathers she recognized as teachers enjoying the moonlight from cozy porches with their children. There was a carriage every now and again, heading in the same direction as her. The walk from Doxeter to the Stacks was by no means short (and she by no means lacked shills), yet the thought of hailing one never crossed her mind. The physical exertion wasn't new for her; although, she did deem pinning her wild blonde hair up into a messy bun a dire necessity. Either way, there was no way she was spending another second cooped up with dull company.

Formal dinners were a strange Brunnhold tradition that had not, Tibby had always appreciated, caught on at the University in Mers. As a student, she had sat in fits of giggles at something her best friend, Alfie, had said that was rude and had to weather glances from her father too, sometimes stern but more often than not equally as playful as Alfie’s, trying to conceal a breadstick crammed up his nose making walrus impressions of the fat ancient Anaxi literature professor. Now as a teacher, she had found the affair rather an awkward one. Most students didn’t dare relax around teachers and those that did were the worst kind of suck ups.

But it was one thing, Tibby supposed, that one must get used to at Brunnhold. An evening of discomfort was little trade for a chance to teach again, a chance to meet new people without the stink of past mistakes on her back, it was a second chance in general.

And one Tibby did not intend to waste. She had decided almost the minute her marriage collapsed that she was not going to sit around moping, nothing but Christine and her gnarled face for company. No, Tibby was going to be the Tabitha she was before her marriage, that interesting, popular woman with beautiful girls hanging from her like diamonds around her neck.

Dressed in her elegant fashion, she paused under a streetlamp to light her cigarette. Her hair shined and seemed redder than usual, curled and slick and terribly modern, immaculate little heels and a poker straight red dress and jacket. The way her rouged lips curled around her cigarette so, she could have been an advert for the tobacco she smoked, high end classy stuff for the modern golly lady, the kind of woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it. Shame then, that when she turned her head just so, the pretty picture had a strange red smudge on it.

Tibby watched tendrils of smoke snake their way into the atmosphere and sighed, her eyes catching on stars. Those clichéd glittering rocks made her think, all too predictably, of Cleo- of nights out in Mers, sipping cocktails and listening to music, slow dancing in the night air when the temperature was cold enough that their breath rose in clouds, intermingling the way their tongues did when Cleo finally leaned in for a sweet, soft kiss.

But no matter. There were billions of bars in the stacks, orbits and galaxies of their own, a billion other women, a billion other stars. A billion and one more drinks to be had.

Spotting the flash of blonde hair, and the girl who belonged to it, a haphazardly put together little thing in a uniform that made her that little less visible to Tibby than a pretty girl without a uniform she tipped her chin in a smile of acknowledgment

The Tap.Tap.Tap. of her boots against the bricks was the only sound in her ears. It was common for her to become lost in her own little world, which spanned not too many inches away from any side of the epicenter: herself. This was particularly true when the people around her were boring. Her consciousness was a whale with a titanic mouth capable of consuming libraries of information, but it was forever famished for being such a picky eater. The mist that guarded her mind from too much botheration was slowly dispersing as the paces between herself and the Stacks decreased.

She hadn't quite awoken from her spell of self-absorption when the skinny tomato of a woman superimposed on the end of the block tilted her chin in Mira's direction. Touching two tawny fingers to her trademark purple goggles and lowering her head, she slumped into a quick-and-dirty bow out of mere habit toward galdori who were clearly not students. This she did with a brief glance and a grimace of exasperation that was all too visible. If the gods were truly just, she would succeed in walking straight past this person without any further assault on her general state of misanthropy.

As fortune would have it, she and the gods did not share the same definition of "justice." Had they, the protective film of psychic fog would have saved her from garnering enough visual input to give the vermilion lady a second thought from a mere glance. Her aloofly arched brows knitted as she performed a double-take, the tapping of her shoes on the dusty red sidewalk halting completely as she made it a triple-take. The harassed looking student stood directly in front of the advertisement for red dye, slowly shifting her body to join her yellow eyes in facing her. She even fussed over the few strands of hair still assaulting her face as if it would allow her to better see what she was gawking at.

After a few seconds of shameless staring, the impish young woman smiled an easy smile and said, "That blotch just about stunned me." The comment carried a bizarre tone of gratitude that sounded even more bizarrely sincere. "Is there a story behind it?" She asked, hoping that someone of interest had finally entered her life.

Tibby sucked on the end of her cigarette and let a thick serpent of smoke slither its way into the night air before her face spread into a wide smile and she laughed.

“Would you have me regale you with stories of adventures on the high seas and wrestles with savages and criminals to the point where I received a strange scar? Or perhaps locked away in some laboratory where nature and all we knew of magic and the mona were being tampered with, this mark a sign of the dark magic I have been cursed with?” Tibby’s eyes sparkled with good humor.

“I’m afraid not, my dear,” she said with a grin, inclining her head in the smallest of bows, “I did nothing more exciting or taxing than to be born. Birthmark.” She tapped her cheek.

“What happened after I was born is a slightly more exciting story- but frightfully inappropriate for a student, or so the school board likes to tell me. They tried to remove it, of course, my mother insisted. But healing spells never worked of course, nothing to heal you see or at least that’s how I view it. And it does make such a splendid conversation starter.” Finishing the cigarette she tossed it casually to the floor and ground it under foot.

“My name is Tabitha Gauchey, and as of very recently I teach ethics- I don’t recognize you from any of my classes, but I suppose Ethics isn’t the most popular of electives. At seventeen everyone wants to be a magister,” she gave a wicked little smile, “Student’s think it’s so important to take all these magic classes but they forget, ethics and the mona are inherently linked I’ll change that though. Who might you be, dear? And where are you headed? Out for some debauched night in the Stacks?”

Mira's smile settled down into a wry smirk. It seemed almost stupidly matter-of-fact that she was not expecting a story of epic adventure. It was outside the scope of her imagination that anyone who had lived such a life would ever wish to be stuck in a place like Brunnhold, where nothing exciting ever happened. While the idea that this woman, who was scarcely taller than herself, could wrestle anyone without having her neck snapped in two was terribly exciting, she wasn't so desperate for entertainment as to get her hopes that high.

The fact that the redhead was so tickled by those assumptions was amusing in and of itself. Learning the actual origins of the mark, on the other hand, wasn't amusing at all, and the messy-haired girl's expression grew wryer. She crossed her arms over her chest as she listened - listening to verbose people talk always filled her with some degree of impatience. What really kept her standing there, listening to this complete stranger go on, was the woman's coyness. Mira noticed that, for whatever reason, this Tabitha insisted on dropping small snatches of scandal into her words before quickly moving on to something mundane.

By the time she was done talking, Mira was staring at her with her head slightly tilted and with an equally lopsided, bemused grin. "Mira Delphinae." She answered tersely. "I have no idea. I just want to get away from my dormitory." In the wake of a moment and monosyllabic laugh, she said: "I get the feeling your nights are debauched no matter where you go."

It was a wonderfully precocious assumption of a teacher made by a student, and Tibby quite appreciated that. She had assumed that the timid little things, born and raised in the repressive society of Anaxas saw their teachers as simply the means to the ends of their success. They wanted to learn, to schmooze her hoping for a better grade but anything else was irrelevant. Thank Alioe for Mugroba, thought Tibby to herself, and not just for their liberal views on frontal nudity.

And yet, Tibby, who had to be careful now after the dreadful business in Mers scanned Mira’s voice for any hint of accusation about her nights of debauchery but found none. “I am a teacher!” said Tibby, pretending to be shocked and affronted though it had been a long long time since Tibby had been either, “not to mention a mature lady of considerable years- well, considerable when measured against impossibly young creatures such as yourself! But honestly, I couldn't possibly comment- that would be very inappropriate young lady."

She wasn’t sure if she sensed discomfort in the young woman, no one really wanted to spend time with their teacher but she still smiled, “Mira, that’s a lovely name.”

This time the slight young woman laughed in earnest, eyes shining with incredulity. Tabitha's mark suddenly reminded her of the inside of a flytrap, her pretenses the hairy death triggers. Mira found herself on the edge of being totally fascinated and being downright bored all over again. It was definitely a new experience. "Yes, I have no doubt it would be inappropriate," she assured with a mildly fatigued grin.

The question now was whether Mira would leave this tease to her own devices in her smoky cone of light, or if she would play the unsuspecting fly. Chancing it could lead to an even duller evening than she originally sought to escape, but it would also be a shame to forfeit an opportunity to talk to someone. She was often alone and liked it just fine, but it had been far too many weeks since the last time anyone in this place intrigued her even a tad.

"Hmm." She shrugged while looking pleased. Credit for how lovely her name was certainly didn't belong to her - it belonged to her mother. "I don't much care for 'Tabitha'," she returned frankly, "It reminds me of girls who smile sweetly after pulling other girls' pigtails. I think it suits you." Uncrossing her arms, she averted her gaze for the first time to adjust her schoolbag, its weight growing uncomfortable from the act of standing so still. "Listen," she resumed once done fussing over herself, sounding almost business-like, "It's obvious you crave attention, and I'm dying for some fun. Care to join me in the Stacks?"

“That,” Tibby puffed her cheeks out, a little surprised before continuing, “ is a very frank character assessment . And said with an alarming amount of conviction after a meeting of only five minutes at the most!”

Not altogether untrue though is it, Tibsy dear? So she had never been a shrinking violet, so she enjoyed causing a stir, she was a confident outgoing modern lady who regularly had a hundred people listening to her banging on about whatever she wanted really - craving, though, made it sound all pretty juvenile. Apart from the fact that she had the same fascination with sex and mammary glands as a seventeen year old boy, said a stray thought in her head which really should have been in Bastia with Cleo as it obviously belonged to her. But she never pulled anyone’s hair at school, never.

“Usually I like a weighty amount of evidence to support an assertion, if this were a class debate I would have to fail you. But since it’s not and I talk shop far too often I can offer you a cigarette instead of the F,” she held out the carton and slotted another between her own lips, striking a match in the evening air.

Tibby wondered how many more home truths that this blonde was going to try and deliver over the course of an evening. Plus she was fairly sure that there was some rule that could get broken going out with her students. It would be more fun of course, to get lost in a lovely champagne fizz with a mature woman who was pointedly not a student than to feel constantly as though she had to watch what she said and did and what she drank around a girl who couldn’t be more than eighteen.

She did what she always would do when confronted with a dilemma such as this one, asked herself what her father would do. The stacks were for students and teachers, the bars were communal and should a student and teacher happen to be in the same bar, polite conversation over a drink or two was permitted, had been for centuries at Brunnhold. Teaching didn’t stop outside of the classroom, her father reminded her, students appreciated guidance, sometimes needed help down the right path. Though Tibby wasn’t altogether sure what path Mira intended to go down at all.

Tibby narrowed her eyes at Mira, and smiled again. That, was a girl who used to play tricks on people as a child, not a thirty five year old woman, “What kind of fun do you mean? I mean as a teacher, I really can’t stand by and let you go on a killing spree and engage in some light arson- it’s in the contract I signed.”

She rolled her eyes with a bit of a smirk as she took the cigarette offered her and accepted the light. There was no need to go over the evidence in order to have it. Mira understood all too well the tricks people used to get others to notice and acknowledge them. After all, her father was a politician. People most often noticed Mira for the way she looked, the way she dressed, and her brash tongue. This redhead had a huge red sign on her face that said Look my way!, and she was dressed from head-to-toe in the flashiest of colors, standing in a spotlight to boot. It wasn't unreasonable to wager that Tabitha was a woman who was at least used to attention, if not seeking it out purposely.

Then again, vaguely referencing juicy stories without going into them was by far the oldest trick in any socialite's book. Either way, she didn't make a beeline from the dining hall just to get involved in an academic debate with a professor on a street corner, especially not with one she didn't have to answer to on the 21st. Not to mention Tabitha never actually denied Mira's assessment of her. She all but confirmed it in Mira's eyes. She took a deep drag from her own cigarette, momentarily looking off in the direction she was originally headed to avoid puffing smoke into the teacher's face.

"There go all my devious plans," she lamented ironically, "I suppose we'll have to settle for drinks."

“Hmm,” hummed Tibby around her cigarette. “Well if you like. But it’s been a very long time since I went out for a drink in the stacks, you might have to let me know where ‘s good.” She looked at the girl carefully, pushing her lips to one side. This wasn’t normal, wasn’t done, going out for drinks with a teacher. Tibby had never socialized out and about like she was tonight at Mers, not when she’d been a married lady with dinner to be eaten and a wife to be taken roughly on the carpet, so couldn’t really comment on the habits of her students. Mira was pretty enough, were it not for that uniform, and must have friends somewhere.

“Are you meeting people in the stacks?” she asked pleasantly, before starting to walk, inclining her head in such a way that suggested that she wanted Mira to join her.

“Celebrating another formal dinner out of the way? I hated those things when I was a student and I hate them now,” she smiled into her cigarette remembering fondly, “my father used to throw peas across the table at me, which my classmates always found hilarious, my father always found hilarious, basically anyone who wasn’t fifteen year old Tabitha Gauchey who was sometimes so mortified of breathing she might hold her breath.”

Glancing over at the girl she wondered if this were some status thing? Some assertion of maturity. Mira spoke in a terribly precocious way, but that was just Mugs sometimes. They had that ability to speak their words with such conviction that you could not help but feel younger, less experienced in their presence.

“I talk too much,” said Tibby cheerfully, “If we’re still keeping track of my failings. I talk too much and I crave attention and pull little girl’s pigtails. I wonder how much you charge- I can see this experience being somewhat psychologically purging.”

Mira's grin returned when the schoolteacher obliged. "Certainly!" She replied with enthusiasm. She quickly led them by a pace after falling into step with her, as was her manner. One of the few instances when Mira was willing to indulge anyone was when people she wanted as company had slower gaits then her own, which was to say everybody every time. "I'm not meeting anybody," she answered matter-of-factly. It would be a major task to even remember the last time she had arranged a rendez vous with another person; the girl was only ever social in sporadic bursts of curiosity in some other that were fated to die down in due time.

She responded to the mention of formal dinner with another long drag from her cigarette. What more could she say on the matter? Mira set the time to their Tap. Click. Tap. Clicking. over brick and cobble, beneath fiery glow and muted darkness, and through Tabitha's flitting voice. She looked pleased to hear of her father's mealtime harassment, mainly because she wished she could have been there. She would go on all sorts of killing sprees and mix herself up in all types of arson if it would make formal dinner more exciting to attend. I may have to start practicing Detonation, she thought with good humor.

Mira gave the slightly-taller woman a sideways glance, quirking a brow at this new insight into her character. The pair glanced at one another almost in sync, but it didn't occur to her to wonder what Tabitha might be thinking about her. That didn't really matter. She had been wondering if the older lady was still just as mortified inside her skin. There was no telling at that point. Her amused laughter brushed any such concern aside rather quickly, anyway. "You're funny, at least," she offered as she shook the ash from her cigarette, "And some little girls deserve to have their hair pulled."

"Well you know what children can be like," grinned Tibby, "Poking or pulling the hair of people they really actually quite like."

The term ‘thin ice’ suddenly struck Tibby as appropriate. Strange little Mugrobi girl with a very pretty laugh taking her out on the town. Strange little student with a pretty laugh taking her out on the town. There was a difference. A massive gaping great chasm of a difference, but Tibby knew all too well from past experience how gaping great chasms could look after a few drinks too many, like the tiniest of jumps which always sent Tibby catapulting over the edge.

“So Mira, you’ve not such much about yourself,” said Tibby confident enough to sound like she wasn’t , unbeknownst to the girl of course, on shaky ground. “Which year are you in?” How far are you away from graduating? Said something in her brain which was promptly and viciously chastised by more sensible parts.

“And what subject are you taking…oh,no, let me try and have a guess. Living magic? Or something Artistic maybe? I don’t know, Poetry maybe?”

That backside was pretty much poetry in motion. Tibby really was getting very annoyed at herself by this point.

Mira gave the woman an odd look before finishing off her cigarette.

She was the slightest bit surprised to hear the professor addressing her by her first name. They were both clearly acting a lot more familiar with one another than others might deem acceptable, which Ms. Delphinae didn't seem to mind. Having an adult defy simple, common conventions around her was still not something to which she was accustomed. She couldn't say she disliked being called by her name, of course.

"You're right." Was as all she said at first, her smile falsely sheepish, like a cheeky criminal after being found out. When one spent as much time by oneself as she did, she could not imagine why one would bother detailing oneself to others. She only ever sought others out once she'd had enough of herself, and she wasn't exactly dying for anyone to know anything in particular about her. Truth be told, she wasn't exactly sure how to talk about herself. "Well, it's the second 8th, and I was just fleeing from the dining hall - so this must be my 8th year," she responded, grateful for pointed questions she could answer despite the hint of impatience in her tone.

It was possible that part of her was just the smallest bit resistant to being probed for personal information, just not enough to outright deny any requests. It could explain why she had no close friends.

Mira smiled back earnestly at Tabitha for her playfulness. Having her guess instead could turn out to be entertaining, and it sparked a sudden curiosity for what this woman would associate her with. Her first guess produced a mixed reaction of trepidation and humor on the girl's freckled face. "Clocks, never!" She exclaimed with an incredulous chuckle, gesticulating with her hands to emphasize the utter impossibility. She was too flustered to bother discrediting her guess about the arts. "To be cooped up all day tending to the sick and wounded? Thank the gods for those who'll do it, but, Good Lady, I would simply die."

"My foci are physical and static magic," she informed her, failing to expound upon those choices any further. "I'm more interested in the world and personalities than I am in individual bodies." Apparently the best way to get Mira to talk about herself was by suggesting lunacies about her.

One of the worst, the very worst parts of being a teacher was this constant reminder of just how much older she was getting. Eighteen years old. The year Mira was born, Tibby was seventeen years old, doing just this, out on the town, trying to impress some pretty blonde thing from the 8th form. It was a depressing and embarrassing thought, and put an abrupt stop to any imaginings about the much much younger girl’s very pretty bottom.

“I’m not sure why I guessed living magic for you,” smiled Tibby at the girl’s (oh yes, she was definitely a girl) indignation as to being associated with such a subject. “Perhaps I saw some interest with the way bodies worked in you, but perhaps not. I’m an ethics teacher, I don’t think I’m very good at spotting any students other than my own.”

She felt the need to repeat that fact, that she was a teacher. And it might be wise to keep doing that all night, wiser still of course to simply turn and go home, to acknowledge that going out into the stacks with a pretty young girl in a Brunnhold uniform was all well and good when you were seventeen, but eighteen years on from that it was what?

Sad and pathetic, probably, according to Cleo. Sad, pervy woman who’d never grown up, never pulled her tastes from the gutter, all those scribbled dirty stories, that wicked novel. Just some faded old tin Lizzy pretending to be young when she imagined fucking something young and vibrant.

“Physical and Static? Well how very proactive of you. I was ethics myself, obviously. I never felt like I found the trick to really excelling at magic, I was always far better in the classroom than I was out on the field,” she smiled impishly, “So I have a grudging respect for anyone that does well at magical subjects. Although I did quite enjoy perceptive magic, it was the promise of learning a spell that could make someone momentarily fall in love with you that sparked me when I was a girl. They never did teach me, but then again, I found other ways to seduce people”

Squint and you may be mistaken that Tibby was flirting, but she wasn’t, she absolutely wasn’t.” Of course, I teach extensively on the ethics of altering a person’s mind and the horrible ethical implications of such infatuation spells so I’m very glad I never did learn.” She finished hurriedly with a laugh, a slightly nervous titter at that.

The Stacks had long since risen into view. Mira was happy when the attention-seeker made the conversation about herself again. Interesting galdori were in such short supply that she was more than willing and glad to hear one going on about herself. Potentially interesting, in any case, she thought, slowing down a tad as her boots hit the bridge. Looking at her now as she spoke, the freckly fly-on-the-wall half-grinned at the widening, prickly trap. She's doing it again.

"You're doing it again," she said, her tone ripe with humorous accusation. She was not so convinced the woman didn't know or even make a habit of casting infatuation based on her anxious tittering. Perhaps she truly didn't and was merely inept at discretion. Precocious as she was, her words still rode on the wave of utter ignorance about what the older woman was previously thinking about.

"How exactly do you seduce people, then?" She asked with a cheeky smirk, determined to hear about more than just ethics and birthmarks and formal dinners before the night was out.

“I always do it,” said Tibby with a smile, “Don’t want to give too much away too soon, knowledge has to be earned and worked for, all good teachers and authors know that.” That and I don’t want to lose my bloody job, not again.

It was why Tibby skittered and flittered over what Mira said, with that cheeky smile. It was disarming, Tibby who was at her best some predatory female fox, wet nose picking up scents here and there, jaws ready to snap had turned into some twitching rabbit.

“I teach ethics, not seduction tips Ms. Delphinae,” said Tibby, with considerable effort, as long as she had the marker down then there was no harm in it surely.

One had to find the line of course, the line between thoroughly modern, sexually liberated Mr. Tucker with his dirty books and responsible educator, socialble galdor and good wife Tabitha Tournous. Tibby Gauchey was somewhere in between, the teacher with her phallic objects and her colourful past. But was Tibby Gauchey the kind of woman who hit on her students? No she was not. Was she relaxed about sexuality and a down to earth educator? Yes that was more like it.

“I believe this is the part where I give you an inspiring speech and tell you to be yourself,” smiled Tabitha. “But in all seriousness, it depends entirely on the person. I’m no blithe pick up artist, I’ve admired every woman I’ve been with in some way or other, been confident enough in my own self, and utilized whatever I had in my arsenal. Be it an amusing story, a lingering touch or copious amounts of wine.”

They should really find somewhere to drink, though that wine comment set Tibby on edge again, was Mira feeling uncomfortable, Tibby wondered? It would be awful if she was, as Tibby had no desire to make her so, to be that one teacher who dropped pencils to look up skirts everyone always sniggered about.

“That sounds terrible!” said Tibby sheepishly, “Oh no, I sound so very sleazy. And I blame you entirely for it. No wonder I’m in desperate need of a strong drink.” And some adults, Tibby thought desperately.

She laughed and shook her head. "I knew you were doing it on purpose." Her skittish behavior was probably just an act as well. She had been quite apt in thinking of this woman as "coy" from the beginning. Her confession made her feel more at ease with her, more confident that she wasn't just wasting an evening.

Quirking a brow with a grimace, she clarified, "I'm not interested in tips for myself, Ms. Gauchey. I'm just interested in your character." The way she said her last name was pointed, a reaction in kind to the fact that she was suddenly 'Ms. Delphinae.' They were walking through the Stacks now, the towering, layered window lights creating an atmosphere of occult festivity. Glass staring down glass in the cramped streets, coupled with the rainbow awnings, cast a devious play of shine and shadows within the pockets of lamp absence. The small blonde released a seemingly random sigh. She was singularly fond of this place.

Mira laughed out loud and returned her attention to the woman at her side. She truly and honestly did just say that! "Nonsense," she retorted, struggling against her laughter, "Are you certain that isn't some of the debauchery you were hinting at earlier?" Her tone was mostly rhetorical, and she didn't offer much space for an answer either way. She was opening the door for her companion now, letting them into a ground level pub decorated in every vibrant shade of blue conceivable, dimly lit and tentatively animated. There was a healthy balance of folks inside: younger and older, families and cadres. It seemed reasonably tame for a wick-owned pub called The Pussycat Den.

Choosing a seat at the counter, she discarded her heavy school bag onto the ground beneath her stool. "So," she began suddenly, recalling some words that she was still quite curious about, "Are you an author as well?"

“Yes, of course, there are plenty of teachers who’ve published books on their particular subjects. It’s rare to find a professor who hasn’t really. I’ve had two on meta ethics and one on the differences of ethical systems AT and BT. And I make all my students buy them as recommended reading- goodness knows my salary isn’t large.” Said Tibby, well practiced in denying her affiliation to fiction, in particular one book of erotic fiction, she’d been lying about the damn thing for years and if she could lie so easily to her wife, the one person who supposedly knew her best then lying to strangers was no skin off her nose.

“The pussycat den?” said Tibby with a laugh, “It sounds like a brothel. Thank goodness we still have wicks in the stacks.” It must be some new creation, sometime within the last fifteen years new at any road, all bright blue and pulsating like some blood vein under the skin. But in such a public place, Tibby allowed herself to relax. Mira was still obviously a student, green uniform like a screeching, grating siren among all of this blue, that school bag stashed under the table- but this, despite it’s name, was no seedy bar, no place full of dark corners for dark misdeed. For that Tibby was very grateful.

“So, do you read a lot, Mira? Not dreadful textbooks of course, there’s only a handful of us that read those for fun. Though I may be guilty of that from time to time,” smiled Tibby, because she really was the biggest ethics nerd there was. “And I think I ought to buy us a drink. What’ll you have?”

She rolled her yellow eyes at Tabitha's answer, resting an elbow on the counter and propping her head up with it. How did any student arrive at their 8th year without knowing that nearly all professors are magisters if not published in some other capacity? Even the most empty-headed, foolhardy young galdori tended to know, if only after some futile quest to disprove the credentials of a professor they hated. One thing was certain: there was no use giving Ms. Gauchey the benefit of the doubt any longer. The woman was apt at playing dumb.

Before she could snap a retort at the meticulously dressed redhead, she found herself taken aback by her assessment of the place. Her slightly wide-eyed stare was broken by a half suppressed chuckle of knowing. "I'll have a dentis cobbler," she answered, by-passing her concern about books altogether, hoping to indulge her own need to share her knowledge while it was appropriate.

"I once thought this place must have been a tumble hut at some point in time," she started vaguely, the excitement in her voice muted by her hushed tone, "But it was actually a shelter for small strays. The previous owners were humans forced to sell the space after it was discovered that cats were being sold as meat to local restaurants. This was all quite some time ago, of course, and I'd wager no documentation of the incident exists. Something like that could hurt Brunnhold's reputation after all. The wicks that work here like to joke about it every now and then. It's really quite amazing how much you can pick up simply by learning tiny bits of Tek."

Straightening herself in her stool and returning her voice to an audible level, she beamed at her companion, looking more lively and enthused than she had all night. "I would love to write a book myself one day, perhaps even a revised history of Brunnhold using the growth of the Stacks as a framework. I've looked through the library a dozen times and haven't been able to find anything similar. I swear I could read all day, but the ones that interest me most aren't so readily available. I get most of my independent study materials and pleasure readings through catalogs."

That was more words in succession than she'd said all evening. She even forgot to tell her shady company to wise-up and share whether or not she'd written any novels.

A dentis cobbler, Tibby knew what kind of drink that was. Sweet and alcoholic, went down easy and the girls didn't know just how drunk she was getting. As if things weren't already awkward. Tibby motioned to the bar relaying Mira's drink order and her own, a blushing hingle- nothing too strong, or too oddly sweet and over the top. The barkeep went about making them and Tibby turned her attention back to her younger companion.

And listening, she tipped her head to the side fascinated by Mira's little history of the place. She'd never heard of such a place when she was a student at Brunnhold and it made her faintly ill to think that maybe one of the restaurants she'd eaten at as a girl had been serving up cat meats. And she was learned and interest in writing! Tibby smiled too, glad to find away in which maybe she could help the girl, to put the relationship between teacher and student back to where it should be.

"That's incredible! I would never have guessed that, what a strange little annecdote. I've heard a few words of tek in passing, but never enough to follow a conversation," she lied. The tribulations of Dionne, having a wick as a lead character demanded a large amount of research into wick culture, "You must have a very keen interest in wicks. Teach me some words," she smiled, leaning into her drink, and without thinking into Mira resting her head on her knuckles.

Mira accepted her drink from the wick and immediately sucked a copious amount of it into her mouth through the straw. She was always the slightest bit on edge when in the Stacks, where she mostly spent time doing her homework: that is to say observing wicks, patronizing wicks, drawing wicks, and eavesdropping on wicks' conversations. The little ethnographer was practiced enough so that she was never obvious about it, but her heart rate always increased by a couple beats nonetheless. Alcohol was a more than welcome guest in her system.

Mira's eyes shone with a renewed interest in Tabitha. The woman wasn't going to lecture her, apparently, and she was actually curious about her learning. That was more than Mira could even say about the faculty supervising her independent study, who approved of her choice of subject matter only grudgingly. "Really?" she asked, dumbfounded at her request for a moment and packing her tone with all the skepticism and confusion she felt. The need for rhetoric died rather quickly, and a conspiratorial smile blossomed in its place.

The smaller young woman leaned in closer herself, consciously for the sake of speaking in a hushed tone. It was impractical for her to let wicks overhear the things she knew about them. Trust of the galdori was in short supply among them, and she wasn't exactly keen on having any of them watch their words when she was around. "Well," she started, glancing at the tapestry-laden ceiling in search of which words to choose, "You and I are chips, which is to say women. We are also vroo - magic users. The bartender is also a vroo and a tsat because he doesn't wander, and you are a toft because you like to play games with your words."

She punctuated her explanation with another large dose of her cobbler, looking more and more pleased by the second.

Mira crossed the line from a strange little Mug, to an utterly adorable one as her eyes gleamed at the prospect of being able to talk about wicks. That little really?, the way she leaned in close, like she was wrapping her pretty lips around dirty words made Tibby smile wide, like some toothy shark, something predatory. It wasn’t her fault. It was more than twenty years of old habits behind her, refusing to die.

“Let me see if I have this right,” Tibby took a sip of her drink, “We’re chips, magic is vroo, and I am a toft.” A trickster, that alone made Tibby grin to herself. But it also made her want to put a hand lightly over Mira’s as she took a sip of drink, to tell her to slow it down, not to test Tibby so with wide eyes and liberal views.

Her father would not have this, never ever. Would never even be entertaining such a notion. What this must look like, student and teacher leaning in to each other in quiet conversation, the student being plied with dentis cobbler, the drink of choice for a cad attempting to render an unwitting woman ineffective.

“Tsats? You said. A wick who doesn’t travel about…what do you call ones that do? I always felt if I had been born a wick I would have been one of those. Life in a wick tribe, travelling from place to place on rarely more than a whim…sounds nice doesn’t it?”

She studied Mira again, felt an urge to run a hand through her hair and an ache in her chest that was two parts vodka, one part Tibby. “Whatever gave you such an interest in wicks? If you don’t mind me asking. It isn’t common.”

"That's right," she approved with a grinning nod, nearing the bottom of her glass and already too saucy to argue the proper usage of vroo. Dentis cobbler was her favorite drink because it had the best disguised alcohol flavor of all the mixed drinks, and she was not terribly fond of the taste of alcohol. Its effects, however, were too pleasant not to part-take in every now and again.

"Ah," she said, turning her attention back to Tabitha with what was almost a look of discomfort. "Spokes they're called... like the wick grimoire. It does sound nice, though. Very, very nice." The flushed girl was still as happy as a mapmaker at the Cartographer's Convention, but there was something foreign even to her in her tone. Was it bitterness? Or remorse? Perhaps envy? Longing? Her mildly inebriated brain couldn't decide just then.

Mira requested another cobbler before deferring to more of Tabitha's seemingly endless requests. If she couldn't figure the bothersome emotion out, she would simply drown it out. It was as simple as that. She was enjoying herself far too much to have anything spoil it. If the two had been discussing any other subject, and Mira were doing the bulk of the talking and explaining herself as she was now, the girl might have felt exhausted, perhaps even irritated at not getting anywhere in her quest to find out what sort of bogeymen Ms. Gauchey was hiding in her closet.

All she could gather thus far was that the woman must be a liberal of some sort, maybe even the bleeding heart variety that wished for all races to be treated equally and live amongst each other. Disagreeable as all that might be, she might have made a point of engaging one sooner if it meant she could have a conversation of value that centered around the topic that moved her most.

"Oh, I've always thought they were interesting," she explained, resting her head in her hand again, seated so her knees were aimed at Tabitha, "My jara is a politician, so he was always complaining about them - he made them sound like crows. Living all cooped up will make you love birds. I even have a whice now...." She paused to accept and taste her second drink. "Anyway... yes, I didn't start studying them formally until my 7th year. That's when I first read The tribulations of Dionne by Mr. Tucker. It was a big inspiration, and one of the best works of fiction out there, if you ask me...."

Her smile turned slightly devious at the mention of Mr. Tucker, knowing full-well how dangerous a subject the author was to inject into a conversation but feeling too drunk to care.

A politicians daughter? Tibby would never have guessed. She had none of the tact that Tibby associated with politicians, sharp toothed smiles and fingers crossed behind their backs. Perhaps she was rebelling with her talk of wicks and raising hell. The way she talked-of being kept in a cage- made Tibby think this was likely.

Tibby busied herself in her drink as the subject of Mr. Tucker came up. Of course she would have read that bloody book. When Ablie had first skimmed his eyes over that lovingly typed up final draft and exclaimed ‘You know Tibsy, this could be big news. This could be really big news,’ she hadn’t realized quite how big it would get. Bigger than the both of them, that was for sure, in that publishing house not thinking of the consequences and his bedroom too, not thinking about the damn consequences then either. Never bloody thinking. Who needed thoughts when there was fornication and dirty literature?

Mr Tucker and his book were like some monster Tibby had given birth to. She’d been proud, oh so proud of it, but it had grown and grown, twisted and enveloping her til she wasn’t sure who had created whom because she sure as hell wasn’t the same woman who had written that book. The tribulations of Dionne was like some engorged creature feasting on the spoils of Tibby’s old life. They kept burning it, and it kept coming back, passed between school children and kept under pillows. ‘This book is going to get you committed into some institution’ had been Cleo’s first comment. And Tabitha hadn’t understood what she meant at first. But maybe she did now.

“That’s not a book for school girls,” said Tibby quietly. But who had it been for? For Cleo? There was no personal dedication in the front cover, no ‘for my lovely wife’ or ‘for my father’ just a rather succinct ‘For your secrets, locked away’ as though Mr. Tucker had seen into Tibby’s future and was taunting her, telling her that secrets should stay locked away that self indulgent fantasies should be kept close and not unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. The more Tibby thought on it, the more she hated that man, but she could not help but love him at the same time.

“Easy on the cobblers now,” saidTibby smiling again, desperate to move the talk from that book. “I always think those are killers. You won’t feel much and then it will hit you like bash’s fury right in the face. And your father? Is he Anaxi or Mugroba based?”

"Oh, please," she pleaded with unmasked impatience (once her mouth was unoccupied by cobbler) and waving her hand dismissively, "This isn't my first time drinking, Tabi. It takes at least three of these to get me stupid. And certainly, parts of The tribulations venture into unorthodox territory, but you can't deny its educational value for someone who formally studies wick culture. That Tucker fellow didn't just out-do his contemporaries in terms of prose, but he also put a lot careful research into his work. He's a clocking genius, and I'd shake his hand, clocks, marry the old-timer if I could."

All but ignoring her question about her father, she drank more while looking miffed at the beverage. Mira was not a woman who was easily angered at all. Something about the professor's reaction didn't sit right with her. It was the fact that she led her on, got her to thinking she could express her fascination openly for once, perhaps even bond with someone over it, only to pull back and say she was too childish to appreciate or understand an elicit novel. She was 18, not 12.

"Well, Tabi, have you at least read it?" She demanded, setting her half-downed drink back on the counter, hoping to at least hear that she was being lectured on something the woman wasn't totally ignorant about.