ataraxionlogs | o14. quasi closed.

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o14. quasi closed.

CHARACTERS: Charles Xavier + Caprica "Natasi" Six + Garrett Hawke; and others.
LOCATION: Probably there are trees.
WARNINGS: TBA.
SUMMARY: The sad story how we became lonely two legged creatures.
NOTES: A series of pre-planned threads and a general catch all for October, so please, if you want to do something, shout at me!

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[ This line of discussion would be a lot more fun for Ieza if it were able to leave more of an impression, if she were in a position to do more with it. As it is she's stuck lining up the terms she's given with the terms she already knows, trapped in the first stages of association, with a limited ability to produce genuinely new syntheses. What 'mutant' might mean is superceded by what she already knows it should mean, in her experience. That is, that it is derived from cantum - mutare, mutatum. ]

'Changing ability'? [ or maybe ] 'Ability to change'? [ or even ] 'Changed ability'?

[ That could describe just about any praxis. ]

What is the mechanism? [ That is, what is it behind its name, a name which could mean anything. We are all of us changing, all the time.

Well, most of us are.

Way to rub it in, Charles. ]

I observed his memories, [ she replies, icily self-satisfied that at least her answer will be a real answer, ] the ones most laden with emotion. The broadest leaves of his rose. It is an anamnetic praxis. More like examining the rings of a tree than asking a question in language. It is a consultation of the being's being as time and experience have shaped it.

[ Oh. Charles follows with about as much comprehension as she did as to mutant ability, which is to say, he has to fit words and concepts where they hadn't previously, and he doesn't even have the excuse for being dead. Just hungry and tired, mainly, but interest continues to niggle at him. He'd like to see it in practice.

Later. ]

I think I understand, but perhaps not completely. In the way that I'm not sure I can relate the mechanism of Erik's power to you very well. If it's of relevance, he won't hurt you. Not unless given reason.

[ That much doesn't feel too much like lying. ]

And in his right mind, obviously. But he can move metal, putting it simply. It's as easy to him as thought. Less about an ability to change, and more-- already changed from being completely human, into something more. What we call 'mutants'.

[ One day, he'll figure out why he doesn't always include himself right away in these conversations, especially when the truth comes out fairly easily when prodded. Habit, maybe. ]

[ Ieza is not sure what to make with the idea of someone being 'more' than human. In her hierarchy of being, the notion of 'humanity' is a wide one, encompassing many structures of class and caste distinction, but not designating any given category as essentially 'more' or 'less'; even the pseudo-magocracy of the Old Syl did not confer superhuman status on practitioners, even if it seemed a qualitative distinction. To ascend from the high rose-bearing rank of humanity would be to aspire to apotheosis- and nothing about what she saw in the bleeding, delirious Erik seemed particularly divine to her. ]

So he is the changed, the 'mutant', [ she says, trying as best she can to get her conceptual ducks in a row, ] and this power over metal is the ability, an ability that is - or is the result of - the change?

[ She wants to make comparisons, to link what she's seen and what she's been told to what she already knows. Metal is hybrid elemental - earth and fire - and she knows that the Schola had made experiments into the hybridizing of prime elements as a way to overcome both material parsimony and aggregate complexity problems. But a scholastic technique would still be identifiably a praxis as she understands it, however foreign.

No, she'll never make sense of it, not when all she can do is process the strange into a rough facsimile of the familiar. She is growing frustrated, something noticeable more in the tight loops of her mind than in the deathless stillness of her countenance, but just as acute as it would be in a living person. And frustration is a steep and narrow path to any knowledge. ]

I would be curious to learn more. [ She is curious, even, but even that curiosity is one-track, acquisitive without being assimilative. She is locked in an attitude of grasping, but can do little with what she gets hold of. ] But it will be of more value once my vitality is restored.

When can I expect to receive my request?

[ Her ponderous question gets a nod out of Charles, silent as her thoughts continue to struggle and settle, his own questing curiousity-- sort of rusted, honestly. Something like a year ago, he'd have been pinning her down with questions of his own, assisting in the drawing of comparison, but there have been a great deal of people coming and going since then, with their own worlds and their own rules.

Still. Maybe once all this fish business is sorted, and the imbalance of debt unpaid taken care of, and she isn't wearing a mask anymore. The notion of an institution stirs an old interest, unsettling the accumulation of apathetic dust.

His dog settles down to lie next to him, and he rests his hand on Lincoln's thick canine head. ]

I'll need to talk with-- people who're better at hunting than I am, to say the least, but I don't see why I can't have it arranged within the next couple of days. Will you be alright until then?

[ When the time comes, and if Charles is indeed as good as his word, Ieza will be amongst the most enthusiastic - if not necessarily the most agreeable - members of any scholarly society that forms in the wake of the Tranquility's crash. As she has been at pains to say, it is more than anything her wish to learn that drives the desire to regain her lost vitality.

The promise secured, the time frame established, Ieza-as-she-is senses little profit in tarrying. In a couple days, she will be a changed woman herself. And then Charles can enjoy the fruits of this exchange: the acquaintance a voraciously curious and extremely verbose young woman with penchant for what might charitably be called 'life science'.

For now, however, she rises from her kneel, already making for the tent's exit, her only words the assurance: ]

I will endure.

[ That's not the trouble. It hasn't been for some time. ]

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