<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbgyjauXhO1CEQQmnGiDe8O0jXLFBLToZgKysWmzMC_63iTaLkxPcPie5lUa77LKvxDJc&amp;usqp=CAU)</div><br/><strong> Tuesday afternoon, library stacks  </strong><br/>She was being ignored… which was exactly what Alundra had wanted, right? Right. But she was baffled on so very many levels. It seemed like the thing was going to pick a fight, then just… stopped. Went back to doing things with her book and giggles. Which seemed to be waving pictures of… magical frogs around in the air? What? Was this what… Normal people were like? The ones not raised by a shifting pack of two legged sentient wolves, always hungry, always prowling and hunting for weakness? Would Alundra herself be like that, if she had been raised by… family, people who wanted her, even just stability? Cutesy and silly, playing with comics and laughing and talking to herself? Just…. Incomprehensible. Did cotton candy hair feel safe because of her powers? Was that what was going on? Had to be, right?<br/><br/>But… it was hard to deny that the redhead was starting to feel distinctly out of place, awkward. Was she the asshole here, the one in the wrong? It was a kind of uncomfortable Alundra was unused to feeling in a life full of discomfort.  Her feet shuffled, resetting the posture out of fighting stance to something softer… She was lost, and it wasn’t pleasant. Clutching book to thin chest, she turned, escaping, retreating from the completely not understood scene. She’d think about it, but alone as always.<br/><br/><br/><hr/><hr/><br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://talenthouse-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/c_limit,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_1280,w_1280/v1394344352/user-176900/profile/s5fj9nehxxvvwxqihgyx.jpg)</div><br/><strong> Introduction to Arcane Theory </strong><br/>Class, another day with the beautiful, young looking professor. Who was completely, entirely not the least bit young, in ways that were hard to think about. How many students had she taught? How many people had seduced her, how many had caught her eye and been seduced?  Could Merryweather read teenagers like books or postcards, even complex ones like herself? How small they must seem to her…  Well, that was a signal to stop daydreaming and settle into her preferred corner chair, away from people as much as possible. Her defensive tendencies clear even in just choice of basic classroom seating.  The young redhead’s gaze drifted over the crowd…  Not at all the least impressed with Ziggy-stuck a fork in the lightsocket look. Hairspray was inflammable after all. If the hair was bigger than the legs, compensating perhaps… Though in truth the mineralogy knowledge was impressive. But quickly blown by adding the venereal disease and drug banter. Ugh, boys. So predictable.<br/><br/>Kylie…. Kylie on the other hand was deeply dangerous. That kind of beauty seemed highly untrustworthy to the, well, kinda paranoid Alundra… Artificial and as clearly warning as the red hour glass on certain arachnoids. The girl was pretty, but the constant fixing up of the look seemed a calculated system to continually draw attention to herself. A mirror let one see all those behind her, and people flocked to the attractive and confident. What would minor royalty to do grasp and hold such a position? It didn’t escape her attention that the flirting was indiscriminate, party favors and alliance building. At least the appropriately haired girl for the gloomy school chose to talk about pleasant topics in the discussion, instead of drugs and, well, dicks.<br/><br/>But she could pass time between inane comments by reading the board, scanning the long long list and making notes of the things that interested her the most.  Spider webs, pyrite, fireworks. Sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal. Diamond and graphite, milk and arsenic.  The girl had… doubts about ‘horn’ being the most expensive part of the bull. After all, there were smaller things that only came on half the cows that males were likely to pay more for. And in that same area, there was a distinct type of ‘horn’ that came one per male cow. In general chopping up animals for parts was not Alundra’s favorite thing about the world, but some exceptions did slip through to approval.<br/><br/>But most of her focus kept drifting back to the notes she’d made earlier, before class.<br/><br/><em>Clouds of thunder, shafts of light.<br/>Come and sup with me tonight.<br/>Waters three have I for tea.<br/>Brew a tempest now for me!</em><br/><br/>The spell beautiful and kind and wonderful Merryweather had shown her after last class. Alunda deeply wanted to impress the professor, and had been tasked with coming up with her own spell for her custom hurricane in a flask fire extinguisher.<em>Two rhymes, first and second, then third and fourth. First line is a metaphor for the storm, second tells when to create the effect. Third lists the ingredients, fourth is the command, the driving force of the incantation…</em>Her pencil scratched out a couple of words here and there, thoughts drifting across the page in no particular order. Fire… Pyre. Flood… mud, blood, stunned. Water, cauter, blotter… Hrm. Constructing poetry to constraints was harder than it seemed.<br/>