Lessons in Advanced Door-Opening [for Amelia Ronsam rogueinladysclothing]

[conjuredskies]

It’s been some while since they made their informal arrangement, but Felix hasn’t at all forgotten the light-footed rogue or the dance he promised her. A pact is a pact, no matter how many duties – foreseen and otherwise – have demanded his attention.

For that matter he and Verity haven’t been meeting for Geography Club quite so regularly, and the smells when he steps through the door of the Fox and Crosier make him regret that fiercely. Alchemy study may have to be relocated whenever possible. He scrapes some of the snow from his boots and leather armor, then strolls up to the desk chicken to ask after Amelia.

Comments

[conjuredskies]

"Now that would have been a crime. Lucky for us that you evaded detection!"

Amelia is a generous - not to mention tactful - teacher. Felix will keep trying: he's really doing his best not to break them.

"Oh, certainly. But then, my family was on the lookout for it. All my father's family were some kind of mages. Mostly Legion battlemages. Less magic on my mother's side, but... oh, not another one. This is more delicate than dissecting torchbugs."

[rogueinladysclothing]

"Lucky for everyone, really." Had she not become the rogue she is, she would never had made her family noble. She tries not to let her smile fade at that thought, but she doesn't fully succeed.

Amelia's also been in Felix's position. The first few hours of practice are always the hardest. It only gets easier from there.

She laughs softly and quickly replaces the broken pick. "That's why there are so many available," she teases. But then back to the questions! "So, magic tends to be a patriarchal thing in your family, then? Not too many lady mages?"

[conjuredskies]

Felix nods slightly, eyes on the lock. "Sometimes we need people who know when to- let's say 'bend' the rules."

Her guess does get him to glance at her in surprise. "Far from it. My female ancestors were just the same. Aunt Arvenna - my father's sister - was a battle-mage in the Eighth Legion. And I happen to be named for Great-aunt Felicia, who I... think was a legate with the Fifteenth." Okay, okay he hasn't broken this one yet. Nice and easy does it...

[rogueinladysclothing]

There's nothing she can add to that without coming across as an ungrateful, spoiled child, so she's going to focus on Felix's story instead.

"Wow, that's rather impressive. Does your world have so many people in it that your army can support that many regiments at once?" She's used to her world feeling small compared to the many Earths she's heard of, but she is thoroughly impressed if Felix's world is that big, too.

He's almost got that lock open. Just another few seconds and he'll have it...

[conjuredskies]

"The Empire's a big place." Even nowadays. "Not all of the old legions are still active, but there've been more than twenty at different times." Almost snapped the pick there, but he's carefully, gently...

Click!

Felix blinks, peering into the lock hopefully. "Was that it? did that work?"

[rogueinladysclothing]

"Twenty regiments at a single time?" Well, she certainly feels tiny and insignificant right now.

The click gets a surprised blink from Amelia. Carefully, she releases her hold on the pick and turns the door handle - and the door opens. She turns to Felix with a bright smile. "Well done! Now, let's try that a few more times to make sure you've got it down." He can sulk while she locks the door again.

[conjuredskies]

"Well, when needed." Not that they aren't needed now. But the ten or so legions they can still field are recruiting hard just to get up to strength. For all the rumors about another two or three being raised, Felix hasn't heard anything sure.

He smiles with obvious surprise as well as pleasure- and a sigh when she sends him right back to work. He starts again, hoping his success wasn't all luck. "Of course."

"And what about your homeland? I've still met few people in the Nexus who come from a realm so like mine."

[rogueinladysclothing]

"That's still more people than my country could manage for regimens. Maybe across the entire world, sure, but I don't know all places in the world well enough to say for sure." She's likely giving her world too little credit, but it is obviously still smaller than his.

Sorry, Felix, but Amelia is firmly of the 'practice makes perfect' teaching camp. She'll leave her hands near his for now, though, to guide him if necessary.

The question changes the air about her to one of unspoken sadness. "What about my world? Is there something specific you want to know?" It may not be effective in such close quarters, but she's trying to keep her easy going manner and smile up for him. Being away from home so long after she left obviously hurts, though.

[conjuredskies]

He'll be glad of her help. It's a little embarrassing how quickly he can get stuck again after that taste of success.

"I'm just curious about what kind of place it might be. How far the similarities with my home might go. Are there great forests, fog-shrouded swamps, snowy mountains? What are the people like? I'm not very specific at all, I fear." He seems oblivious to her shift in mood for the moment, perhaps because he's so intent on the picks. Oh no, now he's not sure the curved bit is in the right place at all...

[rogueinladysclothing]

Another broken pick isn't a problem. They have plenty of spares and all the time they need. It's not like Amelia has anything else going on these days.

"There are some large forests and mountains, but I'm afraid I don't know what a swamp is." If only she knew the lack of climate differences from region to region caused the relatively boring weather patterns on her world she might understand why there are no swamps on her world. Maybe someday she'll understand. "The people of my world are pragmatic, humble, and usually very homely. They know nothing of magic but old tales that no one is certain are true." She pauses, a small sigh escaping her. "I know better, as do my friends back home, but... I'm not sure any of us really understand what we've seen."

None of this is easy for her. Speaking of her world, her friends, reminds her of all the things left undone when she arrived in the Nexus. Even worse, of all the things she never knew she wanted to do that are no longer an option here.

This time, it appears it's going to be Amelia's fault for breaking the pick.

[conjuredskies]

He can't help the startled look for a moment - she's never heard of a swamp? Well, lucky her, perhaps - they're not the most charming of landscapes. But it's the matter of magic that captures his attention.

"Oh? Might I ask-" He winces at the breaking of the pick, assuming it to be the fault of his wandering attention. At least, unless Amelia's hands are shaking noticeably against his. "There I go again, sorry."

[rogueinladysclothing]

The shaking, while subtle, is definitely noticeable. She withdraws her hands quickly. "Sorry. I... That was my fault. I'm sorry."

Deep breaths, Amelia. Your world is still there. There's still a chance of getting home. Even if you've been here a very long time, and Spring is coming...

"I didn't mean to derail you. Or cut off your questions. Please, continue." Slowly, she raises her hands again and nods for him to start again. Distractions are good, and she will use her current teaching position to her advantage if she must.

[conjuredskies]

"Oh, there's nothing to apologize for." He blinks at her despite the quick reassurance. If she wants to keep going, he'll take the new pick and start again, but he's paying an awful lot more attention to the rogue by his side.

"I only meant to ask what sort of magic you'd encountered," he says carefully. "Perhaps I might be able to shed some light on what you saw..."

[rogueinladysclothing]

Amelia's gaze stays fixed on the work in front of them as she speaks. "I know what I saw, but I don't understand its place in my world, or how anyone brought something like it about in my world." She hesitates, but she doesn't sigh. This is obviously not an easy topic for her and is one that largely shaped her view of magic before she arrived in the Nexus.

"It was a demon. It stood nearly 7 feet tall, with a face like the helmet of an armored warrior, but it made entirely of bone and with holes where the eyes should have been. It had the body of a strong, fit soldier, but it was covered with bone-like armor and some kind of... red, molten ooze poured out from any wounds we inflicted. And when my friends and I killed it, it erupted in a spray of more of that same ooze." No matter how many times she tells others about that monster, she still shudders when she thinks of it. Today is no exception.

"Such things shouldn't exist in my world. I have no idea how or why it came to be."

[conjuredskies]

He's distracted from the lock, but in some measure that actually helps: he can't overthink it, so he's working more by feel, as he's meant to.

"That sounds... not unlike some constructs or daedra summoned by practitioners in my world. If I may ask... when you say demon, is that a particular sort of being in the tales of your world, or a general description?"

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's an unexpected side-effect of the conversation they're having, but one Amelia wouldn't object to if she realized it was going on.

She gives a half-hearted shrug. "It's the only word I have for what I saw. Perhaps it's not right, but my world doesn't have constructs or daedra. 'Monster' is a generally accepted term for what I fought, but it was more than a simple, mindless brute. It had at least some amount of a mind, and that's why I call it a demon."

[conjuredskies]

"That's fair. I just wanted to make sure we were reading from the same page, so to speak." He nods. (In Felix's view, there is no correct way to use the word 'demon', but that is a whole other pet peeve that he can't reasonably apply to other worlds and tongues.)

"The ooze that came from its wounds - was it hot? Fiery? Did it speak?"

[rogueinladysclothing]

Best to leave talking of pet peeves for another day. Amelia's worked up enough as it is.

"It was hot and molten, like liquid metal when it's been heated by a blacksmith, and it burned where it was in contact with the skin long enough." She has a few small scars to prove that. "It didn't speak, but it anticipated movements, listened to our calls to each other and changed directions of attacks based on them. Until we really angered it, that is, at which point we prayed for enough strength to make it through and fought with all we had against the raging brute." There's one large scar to remind her of that part of the fight, too.

[conjuredskies]

He nods, understanding that all too well. "It took a great deal of nerve to stand and fight something so... unknown to you. The adventurers of my world- well, they've heard tales of such otherworldly foes, if nothing else."

He tests carefully with the pick, still finding questions to ask in the meantime. "So, ah, the bone armor it wore - did it look like something constructed? Or grown?"

[rogueinladysclothing]

"I don't envy them that." She likes her simple world with its lack of magic. Or, rather, she liked it. After this incident, she can't claim the same simplicity she once did.

It's getting harder to suppress the shaking of her hands as she continues to answer his questions. "Grown, I think. It was as if... the armor was a part of it, not something separate." How are the details so fuzzy already? For months on end she had seen it every time she closed her eyes.

...had the year and a half since the incident really passed so quickly?

[conjuredskies]

"It has its charms, I assure you..." But a mage would say that, wouldn't he?

Noticing the shaking, he sets the delicate picks aside and catches her hands gently, studying her face with concern. "I'm sorry, Amelia. I didn't mean to distress you. It's often hard on a person to recall such things - I should have remembered."

[rogueinladysclothing]

That whole 'physical contact for comfort' thing is still something she doesn't understand. She jumps at the sudden contact and intakes a breath sharply. There's a fleeting moment of terror until she's able to process what's going on. Felix isn't going to hurt her. She knows that. They may not know each other very well, but if her friends trust him, then she should, too.

That said, they aren't that close and she's not a physical person when the topic isn't violence. She carefully pulls her hands back with a soft sigh. "No, it's all right. You were curious and I respect that. I'm the same way, after all." There's a small smile for him here, but it's a sad one. "It's difficult to speak of anything related to my home, though. I've been away for so long and it... rather hurts."

Damnit, Amelia, don't you dare start crying in front of Felix. Wipe your eyes and be done with it. There's nothing nonchalant about the movement, of course, but hopefully it's not enough to cause a scene with him.

[conjuredskies]

Okay, touching was a mistake, if not a tad presumptuous. He withdraws when she does, inclining his head.

"I understand. I get quite homesick when I start speaking of Cyrodiil." It would be ten times worse if he were trapped here. But Amelia clearly doesn't want to make a scene... "Perhaps we should speak of something else while we finish our lesson, and then go for lunch."

[rogueinladysclothing]

Many people in the Nexus are from some version of Earth, in which frequent contact is completely normal. It's not a terrible assumption to make, but it's one that most people don't make twice with Amelia.

She wants to lie, to say she's all right, but there's little point if he's offering to change the subject. "Thank you, I appreciate that." With a deep breath and a quick nod toward the door, she gets in place to begin their lessons again.

"So," she says after a moment, "I'm sure you don't want to talk about it, but what could possibly draw a legionnaire to the art of lock picking?"

[conjuredskies]

Felix himself is particularly tactile for Tamriel, but he's used to there being strict rules about what's allowed within different relationships. He's not used to people being as wary as Amelia is, but he takes the message that she doesn't consider him close enough for that, and adjusts accordingly.

He may be able to coax more out of her later, but trust needs to be earned.

"Well, that's simple enough. I'm sure you can imagine how many locks we have around our barracks and forts. Somebody needs to test them... or at least work out better ways of defending them." That answer is smooth and easy and really incomplete.