Having left young Horation with the nurses at the infirmary, along with stern instructions not to let anyone in to see him, Professor Moore and Triston set out for a walk. The professor had "borrowed" an umbrella from the Teacher's Lounge, one that he privately thought belonged to Professor Dallium, and the gardens seemed as good a place as any for an evening stroll.

He found himself walking instinctively toward the east gardens, a place where he had had many a thoughtful moment in his youth. The school was still bouncing with the St. Grumble's celebration, but the gardens were, as usual, quiet and peaceful, along with the usual maddening sense that something was watching them.

"I don't see how you handle it," he said presently to her, his voice sounding muffled against the gentle backdrop of raindrops. "People being rude and pushy around you all the time. I make of myself a recluse to avoid it, but you don't have that luxury. Does it drive you mad?"

The gardens were so peaceful except for another, more alien, feeling that also seemed to emanate from them. It kept Triston on her toes, and more then once she glanced backwards, only to see nothing but air and rain. When this happened she simply clutched the "borrowed" umbrella tighter and tried to focus on the nicer aspects of the area. She was ultimately glad that Harper chose to converse rather then simply walk around in silence.



"Er... Not really, I don't think." She spoke without looking directly at professor Moore, apparently fascinated by the empty space to his right. " I mean, I certainly don't like it, but I figure its just better for me to try and forget when they act that way, because it happens so often. When someone is kind, I do my best to remember that...It makes things a little easier."

"People really should be more polite to you, you know. Imagine their faces when you end up turning the world upside down with all sorts of cures and inventions and things." Triston said with a smile, not doubting he would be successful for even a second.

He chuckled, amused at the thought.

"I used to think I would do great things," he said wistfully. "I find that most peoples' expectations dwindle as they age, but mine have only gotten worse. I should be content now to finish my research and become tenured, but..."

He shrugged, unable to put into words the pressure he was putting himself through, and why.

"I just...well, to be frank, I never used to see all of the..." He gesticulated in the air. "The conditions passives lived in. I think it more people saw, if they knew what it was like...well, that's one way of enacting change. But I'm dreadful with people. I can only approach it like a scientific problem. And I think that's why I keep coming up short, every time."

Triston nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. "That's probably one part of it, but I don't think just seeing the conditions would change anybody's opinion. To disregard life so fully, they cant see us as people." She shook her head as she spoke. "Because of your research, you had to interact with us, and I think maybe that sorta...changed how you saw passives...Because it made you see us." Triston looked at Harper, afraid of offending him with what she was saying.

"I think you're right...about coming up short because of the way you view the problem...I'm not smart," Triston said self depreciatively. "and I don't think about things the way you do, so I cant understand exactly what you mean, but...People are really different from science. They're always changing, and they're stubborn, and they can be cruel. Trying to solve a scientific problem, trying to convince one person, and trying to convince people are areas worlds apart."

It was awfully refreshing to have someone be honest to him for once - well, the sort of honesty that is helpful rather than specifically attuned to offend. Professor Moore nodded thoughtfully.

"Perhaps I need to conduct more interviews than tests," he mused. "The diablerie's cause is eluding me. If I discovered how it makes a person feel, well...emotionally, I mean, what they think of while it happens..."

He trailed off, having the same problem of not wanting to offend Triston by trivializing her diablerie's effect.

"But it's going to take more than that," he said finally. "A lifetime of believing one thing...it's difficult to change that around. It was easier for me. I never had many strong opinions to begin with. Academics, they're easy to convince with the right data...but the rest of the galdori population, well...you know how they can be, about change."

Suddenly, he wished very much that he could apologize on behalf of his people. It was a strange feeling. He had never felt the urge to apologize before; this was the way things were, and it wasn't his fault. These circumstances had been set in motion long before he was born. But it felt sometimes as though he was doing Triston a personal wrong.

Triston twirled the umbrella around absent mindedly as Harper talked, concentrating very hard on what was being said. "Well, whether they want change or not, it'll still come. Nothing stays the same way forever, and if galdori cant adapt, the rug will get pulled out from under them." She said this with a quiet certainty, umbrella still twirling in her grasp.

"Mona think about things right?" She asked, jumping back into the diablerie part of the conversation. "And diableries always go off, with no brailing or anything? Why are the mona ok with diableries?"

"I don't know," said Harper honestly. "It's possible that the diablerie is caused by something more powerful than the mona, some force we can't perceive. I've long given up on deciphering the intentions of the mona, Triston. They have an agenda that we mortals could never understand."

The unkempt gardens were lit by the occasional lamp-post, maintained by the silent hordes of gardeners that came and went as mysteriously as the seasons. Harper knew that they tried to keep the east gardens in check, but it seemed fruitless; when cut down, the vines grew back in a matter of days, and when trimmed the hedges merely flourished with wild abandon the next morning. The wildflowers choked and sabotaged any intentional flowers that were planted. Even spells had no real, lasting effect in keeping the place orderly; there seemed to be a deeper magic on the place, something ancient and patient.

"You know, these gardens were here before the school," he said to her as they walked along the edge of the pond, which was jumping with starflies and small fish. "They were originally an attraction for the galdori of old. People worshiped here...before they build the Church of the Moon, that is. They say the magic on this place isn't an Everspell at all. It's some sort of ancient magic, the kind we lost in the War of the Book. That's why it can't be broken."

Triston did her best to wrap her brain around this, trying hard to think of anything that could be more powerful then the mona. She was drawing blanks until-



It was as though a light had switched on in her head, but it was a fairly dim kind of light. The sort that barely lit up the room it was in, and Triston struggled to see through it. "So, there's another magic, more powerful then the mona?"

Inwardly, she imagined looking down, and seeing the blood of the world coursing beneath her feet. It seemed to her that Vita had its own brand of magic, but this was more of a feeling then a conscious thought. "Everspells don't really last forever, do they? Was the spell cast on Estua an actual everspell, or the ancient magic, and could...could it eventually wear off?" Triston asked curiously, the steady drum of raindrops almost drowning out her voice.

((sorry for quotey post))

((sorry, wrote a post in reply to this and...mysteriously it isn't here? must have gone all pear-shaped on me at the last minute))

Professor Moore thought deeply about her first question.

"The mona's own will," he replied, "is stronger than ours. We can only make requests of them, but their own agenda, well...that is something that we can never understand. Not fully, I mean. A few visionaries have claimed to reach enlightenment, but there's no way to check, you know?"

He shrugged. "The spell that closed Estua...that wasn't the ancient magic. It was an Everspell, the first one ever cast. It's fallible. I mean, technically, no Everspell has ever failed...but I read the book on the spell that closed Estua, I mean cover-to-cover, and I counted holes. It could be broken, in theory."

They had reached the rose-bushes, and Professor Moore looked out across the tops of the hedges. He had once gotten lost in this maze. It had been terrifying; he'd wandered for hours, lost and scratched by the thorns. But it had been exhilarating, too, in a way.

"Everything in my world is a theory," he said aloud, a thought that he had not thoroughly reviewed for content and merit; it slipped out when his mind was occupied. "Nothing is certain. It's all conjecture and statistics and graphic charts. I cannot help but wish for a world of faith, where I know things simply because I was born knowing them, never questioning. I feel restless, having nothing but more questions each way I turn."

"You'd be a very bad confisalto dancer, then. Hard to trust someone only in theory." Triston joked, though a hint of seriousness could be seen in her face. She really missed dancing.

"Blind faith isn't any better, you know? Nothing is good in extremes. Anyway," She sighed. "that's what science is, isn't it? Gives you a few answers, only to make more questions. Its a never ending cycle of discovery." Triston shrugged a little, the water that had caught onto her dress dripped off or was soaked into the cheap fabric. "Be happy you get to be a part of it."

Perhaps confused by the mention of confisalto, or intrigued by the statements that followed, Professor Moore opened his mouth to speak, but was at that moment interrupted by a piercing scream that echoed across the flowerbeds. It was a young woman's voice, and it sounded panicked.

With an alarmed glance back at Triston, Professor Moore at once broke into a run, heading into the labyrinth towards the source of the noise. "Come on," he urged her, hoping that it was not too late to help the girl, whoever she was.