“I hope you've had a good night dear.” To most people, a breather would be something along the lines of taking things easy. Sitting down and partaking in a hobby of some sort, maybe even baking! Muur, however, had a rather different take on this, after spending a wonderful time with her girlfriend at breakfast, she returned to the Ossuary as quickly as she could so she could participate in thaumaturgic and theologic lessons. Then again, magic was her hobby and learning about the nitty gritty of various deities was great mental stimulation. In any case, just as she reached the classroom she ran into not just the matron that had welcomed her into the temple, but her roommate as well. “I was rather worried when you did not come to the canteen, or when Orliane said you'd not returned at all when I picked her up this morning.”
“Yeah, that job yesterday got very complicated really fast.” Muur said with a rueful chuckle, her fingers brushing by her broken horn in a nervous tic, “Ended up so exhausted my partner basically manhandled me to her room on the Quicksands rather than let me shuffle back here.”
The two elves reacted quite differently. One one hand, the matron slapped a hand over her mouth and gasped in shock, “Truly? How dreadful! So soon after that ghastly accident that placed you in the recovery ward?” On the other, her kid lost the air of teenage disinterest she'd worn up til now.
“Interesting times seem to plague me like that, at least the silver linings make it worth it.” Muur sighed softly, letting a bit of blood red Void Lightning dance between her fingers before feeding it into her amulet. “Gods willing, I can get some rest now and cultivate my magic and friendships away from life-or-death situations.”
Rather than spark like any metal would after being hit by lightning. The amulet drank the entirety of the small arc and thrummed with a small measure of power… Which was about the only thing in the unfolding scene that Muur could have expected.
At the moment she summoned the Void Lighting, the matron's face furrowed into something decidedly displeased. It wasn't aimed at the little show of magic, nor to the one that had cast it, but Muur had an inkling that someone was going to get a stern talking to.
“Orliane? Could you help your roommate with her wishes?” Her voice was as calm and kind as ever, but it had the same edge as her mother's own when she was less than pleased with someone's antics. Both her moms, really, previous life and current.
“Wha–? Uh, sure mom…” Orliane, on the other hand, had stared at the hand that had formed the red lightning like a fish. Her mouth gaping, and her eyes wide like saucers, “I'm going to my theological studies. I guess you can come with?”
“Heh, I can explain the theory of what I did later, but only if we got someone supervising to make sure I didn’t get things wrong in a way that could be dangerous for you to replicate. My aether’s a bit weird.” Muur chuckled, all too happy to get out of the way from the elezen matron.
Said woman had already left by then, leaving Muur alone and free to corrupt the poor teen. Speaking of, the girl's face scrunched up as it went through a dozen different emotions. Anywhere from giddy excitement to slightly disturbed, “Iiiii… don't think I should? Mom's got lots of stories from back when she was a lot more active, and the ones that have red lightning were the scariest ones.”
“Hah, fair nuff, I did mention supervision for a reason. I learned how to do it while dealing with something straight out of a horror story, and it can be pretty unruly. You’re taking what I’m pretty sure is the most naturally active and unstable element of the six and making it even more energetic.” Muur chuckled as the two of them began walking, “Wouldn’t be surprised if I’m told the only reason I’m going to get training with it here is because I already figured it out on my own and it is more dangerous to leave me flailing in the dark than wait until I got the usual years of training to be considered ready for it.”
“Considering what mom said about it, that sounds about right? Last story she told me about had a Voidsent that could dissolve people’s organs if they went too close…” Letting out an involuntary shiver, the teenager tried to regain her cool as she guided Muur through the catacombs, “But– uh. Yeah, whatever. So the theological lessons? They’re taught by this old wind bag. Super into doctrine and stuff. It’s not really meant to be starter stuff, so I dunno how much you’ll get out of it. But we had to study the Seven Hells for today.”
“I have been picking up bits and pieces just by proximity, especially when I root around in the library, I should be fine.” Muur said with a shrug, not mentioning her keen interest on the topic at hand. She’d like to know where that cultist’s soul would end up, if it wasn’t a Voidsent’s gullet.
[hr][/hr]
“Here’s the classroom.” Inscrutable as they were, Muur once again found herself in front of a room with no real clue on how to get back to it. Maybe she could ask someone to help her figure out the layout of the place?
At least the doors were distinct enough that she’d recognise them if she came across them again. Unlike a certain other underground labyrinth she’d gone through, people here clearly cared about what kept people out of a room. Not only was it a double door that bared the way, they were lacquered quite nicely and had ‘Hall of Learning’ etched into them.
Pushing them open, Orliane walked into what was more of a college amphitheater than a classroom. An oddly shaped one at that. While it kept the same tiered setup as other amphitheaters, the seats were arranged in an arc that overlooked a dais that was almost in the middle of the semicircle. Pulling Muur along, she sat down near the front, with the Au’Ra following suit.
The chairs, if you could call them that, weren't made of wood or metal. Instead, they'd been carved directly into the steps. Some cushioning was provided though, so it wasn't as if Muur had to sit on naked stone, and as it turned out? They were rather comfy, nowhere near enough to make them good for a nap, but for a multi-hour lecture? They were downright sinful. “I don't think the teacher'll miss you,” Orliane said as she pulled a few books out of a satchel, “So if he asks why you're here, just say my mom sent you. People tend not to question that because of how… Well, mom she is.”
“Hah, yeah, I can see how that’d go down.” Muur chuckled quietly, idly peering at the books. She, naturally, didn’t have any of her own. Woes and wonders of being a more direct sort of apprentice.
The tomes were all clearly religious treaties of some sort. Musings on the nature of the afterlife and the Twelves’ relationship with it from the looks of the titles. “We had to write two pages on a hell of our choice.” Orliane explained once she noticed Muur’s lingering stare, “I think most people did the Hell of Fire? It's the one the Twins have the most influence over, but I tried to write about the Seventh Hell. And I hate myself for it.”
“Pft. How bad?” Muur asked with a crooked grin.
“I don't wanna talk about it,” Despite saying that, the teenager kept going with a tired groan, “I had to look up tons of books, because everyone talks about it. But that's all: it's the worst place ever. Those that are there are the scum's scum. It toooootally exists, trust! There’s nothing concrete about it. Just a bunch of priests from all of the Twelves’ ranting about how if you're not virtuous enough, that's where you'll end up.” Pulling out a small sheet of parchment paper, she slid it towards Muur.
The entirety of it was covered in a dense and flowing script. It wasn't the sort of flowery cursive the missive of her ‘sponsor’ had been graced with. No, while this one couldn't be called ugly it lacked the flair and beauty of those letters. It was small, efficient and easy to read.
In other words? The perfect clerk's handwriting…
Now, if only she'd heard about line breaks, the report might have actually been legible. Muur’s inner editor was about to go rogue as she stared at unwieldy blocks of texts so thick they'd be serviceable bricks were they to suddenly jump into the third dimension. “At least the teach’ won't be able to say I didn't do enough research this time– uh? Why's your face all scrunched up like his whenever I hand over my homework?”
Just like that, the last bit of Muur’s self control left the building, “Your handwriting is good, but you need to give the text better readability. For starters, space between paragraph lines so the whole thing doesn’t melt into a giant blob of text. From there you may want to look into a few more advanced tricks like checking for sentence length, generally you want to vary them along a paragraph to keep the reading experience from becoming monotonous. Some stylistic choices aside, usually you’ll want to do with a mix of short and medium length sentences to set up before jumping into a lengthy one. There’s also the balance between going into run-on sentence territory and the sentences being stilted due to putting down periods where there should be a comma, but that’s a matter for another day aaaand I’m rambling, sorry. I worked as a literary editor for some time, so it’s just habit to review whatever I clap eyes on.”
Orliane blinked at the lizard as she rambled on about grammar and proper sentence etiquette. Then, slowly, carefully, she looked at her homework. She studied it, the way it was little more than a blob of amorphous text. How her paragraphs bled into each other, or how she had used every bit of available space to cram as many words onto the paper as she could.
And in so doing, she declared… “Sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”
“Don’t make me bring out the red ink.” Muur muttered.