Room 216, Tuesday evening

[voiceoverdue]

So class today had been a bit dull, what with it just being unknowable cryptography; I mean, Tuesday, right? Not terribly unexpected. Cecil had livened it up a bit by making his message to the future all about the wonders of Carlos.

Which meant that now he was pretty darn homesick. So he'd just be lying about, polishing his bloodstone circle and trying not to sigh too loudly.



[open door and post!]

Comments

[voiceoverdue]

Cecil blinked up at her. "Oh! Hi." He shrugged and smiled a little. "Just a bit homesick and boyfriend-sick," he confided.

[pulseof_life]

She smiled back at him.

"I hear that homesickness goes away with time," Yeul offered. "And perhaps a letter or a call to your boyfriend might help the other?"

Though she didn't really know about that, being inexperienced in that aspect of life.

[voiceoverdue]

"I...um...well." Cecil bit his lip and blushed. "He sort of...It's complicated."

Things got that way when you were suddenly far younger than you had been.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry." He scrambled up and cleared the books off a chair. "Hi; I'm Cecil."

[pulseof_life]

"I am Yeul," she said, watching his scramble curiously. "One of Sholeh's friends. Why are you apologizing?"

[voiceoverdue]

"I'm not being a very good host, am I?" He set the books on the edge of the desk. "You can sit if you want. Were you looking for Sholeh? She's not in right now."

In case that wasn't obvious from the fact she wasn't visible.

[pulseof_life]

"I think you are doing fine," Yeul said lightly but stepped inside the room to make her way to the chair. She had a bit of a limp, though it did not seem to bother her. "Thank you. I had meant to ask Sholeh if she wished to go for a walk with me, but it is not a bad thing to meet her roommate either."

[voiceoverdue]

"I'm not sure when she'll be back," Cecil said apologetically. "But you can wait if you like. Or I could walk with you?" he offered. "If you just wanted company."


[sp for a bit as I close up and head home]

[pulseof_life]

"That's very kind of you," Yeul said, tilting her head slightly. "If you would like to walk, I would be amendable to your company."

[Sounds good!]

[voiceoverdue]

"Sure!" Cecil shrugged sheepishly. "I could probably use the distraction and the exercise. I haven't been going out much because of this awful humidity."

He was from a desert, okay? He could swear he was swelling up with all the water in the air.

[pulseof_life]

"Is it much dryer where you're from?" she asked, standing and making her way to the door. "I do not find the weather does not seem unusual to many people here."

At least, not the normal weather.

[voiceoverdue]

Sadly, the live-things-falling-from-the-sky weather was probably more normal to Cecil than the humidity was.

"Much," Cecil lamented as he followed her. "I live in a desert. All this water in the air is weird and really uncomfortable."

[pulseof_life]

"It will pass," she offered, wanting to reassure him. "Autumn is coming and it will cool off then."

[voiceoverdue]

"Oh, I hope so. What about you? Where are you from?"

[pulseof_life]

"Oh, from a different world entirely," Yeul said smiling as she headed down the stairs. "It is called Gran Pulse and is very different from here."

[voiceoverdue]

"Nifty!" Cecil eyed her. "Were you very homesick at first, too?"

[pulseof_life]

"No," she said quietly. "I will go back to my world eventually and so saw no point in missing it while I was away."

[voiceoverdue]

"That sounds very sensible." Cecil shrugged and smiled at her. "I'm generally pretty good at being sensible, but I don't seem to be able to quite manage it right now."

[pulseof_life]

"I have much practice at being sensible," she said, smiling back. "You will surely get better as you age."

[voiceoverdue]

"A little," he acknowledged after he thought about it for a moment. "But I'm actually already thirty-six. Or forty-two. Or fourteen; it all depends on how you count."

He knew he was older than a lot of the other students, but he hadn't read Yeul's info.

[pulseof_life]

And her info went back far enough that reading it would take some time!

"Is there really such a difference to those ages?" she wondered, completely unfazed by his revelation. "Do you stop learning once you hit a certain age? If you are thirty-six or forty-two or fourteen, there's still time to learn, isn't there?"

[voiceoverdue]

"Oh, of course!" Cecil beamed. "There's always time to learn. But I already have aged a bit. Why; how old are you?"

That was probably rude to ask, wasn't it? Cecil didn't have much concept of things you didn't ask, unless there were municipal rules handed down.

[pulseof_life]

And Yeul did not mind answering questions, no matter how rude some people might find them, so it worked out well enough.

"I am about fifteen in this life," she said thoughtfully. "But in total years, I am afraid I do not know exactly. It is hard to keep track."

[voiceoverdue]

"You've had more than one life?" Cecil asked curiously.

[pulseof_life]

"I have," she said agreeably. "I am afraid that is a peculiarity of mine."

[voiceoverdue]

"You must have seen a lot of stuff." Cecil thought about everything he'd seen on the subway, eons of good and bad things that it took years just to process. "Are you okay?"

[pulseof_life]

Yeul tilted her head curiously. "How would you define 'okay'?"

[voiceoverdue]

"Able to adequately function and mostly more happy than sad?" Cecil clarified.

[pulseof_life]

"I believe so, in that case," she said, nodding. "I am generally content and function well enough."

Unless it came to mortal peril or fear of any sort. Yeul didn't really have a sense of self-preservation any longer."

[voiceoverdue]

"That's good." Cecil smiled at her. "You seem nice, so I'd hate for you not to be okay."

[pulseof_life]

"Thank you," she said simply. "Though I wonder, would it be alright for someone who was not-nice to be less okay?"

[voiceoverdue]

"Well, of course!" Cecil shrugged. "If they're not being nice, it serves them right if they're not okay. Besides, them being not okay probably means more nice people are okay."

[pulseof_life]

"That is a curious line of thought," she said, smiling slightly. "Has it been true, in your experience?"

[voiceoverdue]

"Usually." Cecil nodded. "Well, unless the not-nice person is in a position of authority. Then unless you can get them out of it, they tend to just make everyone else miserable, too."

[pulseof_life]

"Do you ever think that some of them may be not-nice because of their lives?" she asked curiously. "Or are they just not-nice for no reason?"

[voiceoverdue]

"A little of both," Cecil answered. "But a hard life's no excuse to not be nice. Not that nice people can't do mean things sometimes - I mean, don't we all? - but just as a life philosophy."