• Closed • Academic Licence?

[Faith Augustin]

25th Vhalar, 717

"Good morning," Faith said with a smile to the both of them. The three of them were studying together and had been put into a group for their final assessment. They had to prepare a group presentation on what they had learned, taking on the role of an Immortal each. Faith wasn't entirely sure how she felt about it as a task, she had to be honest, it seemed rather.... irreverent for her liking, but then she was aware of her own tendency to take things a little too seriously.

They needed somewhere to work where they could have space, not be disturbed and also be able to make noise and so on. Since the library wasn't an option, Faith had offered her office. She worked here as a professor of medicine and had a nice office in the science section of the building. There were books lining one wall, the majority of which were books on medicine, disease, that kind of thing but on the low table in the middle of the armchairs in the office, there were a selection of about ten which she'd brought over from the library. On the other wall there were maps. Maps of Scalvoris, of Idalos, of Rynmere and Viden. Each map was very detailed and had, above it, a place for her to hang one of the many, many overlays which were in tubes, carefully stacked and meticulously labelled. The one she was working on currently was a map of Desnind, it seemed and there were bits of paper with questions written on them stuck on the wall next to it.

Whilst it was usual convention to have professors identified by their surname, Faith's door named her as "Professor Faith", which might seem odd to those who didn't know her circumstances. When they got there, though, probably the most obvious thing was the fact that Faith was no longer hiding her pregnancy. She had been pregnant when they had gone to Immortals' Tongue, although they weren't telling people then. Now, her dress did not and frankly probably could not hide the small bump. "I hope this is acceptable as a space?" Faith said, ushering the two of them to the low and overstuffed armchairs which was where she usually held tutorials and small group seminars.

"I've brought all the books from the reading list over from the library. But I suppose we need to make a decision on which Immortals we're going to be, and what sort of scenario we want to be portraying?" Silver eyes were very serious when she asked that question. "I thought about maybe taking it in turns to be Immortals, with the other two of us 'interviewing' the other, or being three Immortals sitting and discussing something specific ... or.. I don't know, really." The young human smiled at them both and gave a vaguely helpless gesture.

[Tio Silver]

Tio was exactly the kind of person that lessons involving acting had been made for. Whilst they weren't exactly the most efficient method of teaching they were certainly more engaging than staring at the pages of a book all day, and for people with short attention spans like him if something wasn't engaging then they wouldn't pay attention to it at all. Perhaps the entire reason why a task like this had been set to university level students was because Tio spent almost all of the time in the few lectures he turned up to doodling in his textbook or testing new ways to cheat at tests on his fellow classmates, and the only way the professor could forsee to avoid another plagiarism inquiry was to set a task that he would actually try to do properly.

Whatever the reason for it, Tio was looking forward to this presentation. He loved being up on stage almost as much as he enjoyed sneaking around places he shouldn't be, so work like this was far more appealing than writing an essay would have been. If there was a problem to be found with this situation it was that after their trip to the shrine of Fei, Tio had done a bit of research on the Immortal Faith was marked by, Famula, and had found out that she really didn't like necromancers such as himself. In fact by her god's doctrine Faith was supposed to kill him on the spot if she ever found out what he was. Luckily Tio was a pretty damn good liar and put quite a bit of effort into keeping his identity as a magician hidden anyway, so he didn't imagine he'd have much trouble avoiding her suspicion.

With his usual bubbly enthusiasm Tio, clad in his Taelis identity, burst through the doors of Faith's office, a wide grin plastered on his face. He hadn't known Faith's last name and so had burst into four other office's in the same manner on the way here, which had startled a number of the other medicine professors, but she and Arlo didn't need to know that. "Morning all! Are we all having a wonderful day?" He proclaimed cheerfully. His grin increased by another couple of watts as he noticed Faith's bump. "Oh Faith, congratulations! Who's the lucky guy?" Considering what he'd seen at the murder mystery party last season he could guess that it was Professor Augustin, but as he'd attended that party as his usual self then that was information Taelis shouldn't be privy to.

"This office will do nicely." He replied to Faith's question, relaxing into one of the armchairs. After she'd said her piece, Tio picked up one of the books on the table an skimmed through it. "I'm of the mind that we'd be best off acting out a scene from a period of history we've learnt about as closely as possible, keep it simple and sweet you know? As for scene's that involve three Immortals... there's the creation of the Avriel and Sev'ryn races? Or we could do how the original Ithecal became the Raskithecal if one of us plays a representative of the Ithecal race?

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[Arlo Creede]

"Oh, hey, look there you're pregnant," Arlo observed with a grin once he found Faith's office and she opened the door to let him in. Let no one ever say that he wasn't observing, though they might rightly say that he might lack some tact. Besides, she probably didn't need him to tell her. "Congratulations." She had a great office, he told her as he explored the small space and waited for them all to get started. He was particularly interested in the shelves of books and the maps on the wall. "You teach medicine, right?" he asked Faith, sure that he remembered correctly. "Why the maps?"

Whichever the case, her office would work just fine as a place to work, so far as he was concerned. When Taelis arrived, Arlo smiled and gave a salute of welcome, two fingers to the brim of his hat would suffice. The man struck him as...what was it? Chronically enthusiastic and cheerful. If he was being honest, it was a little unnerving. Then again, there was Lyova. He ought to be used to that sort of thing by now.

So how would they go about it? Arlo took one of the chairs, listened to Faith's and Taelis's suggested, then nodded. He could do that, he figured. He'd never actually taken part in any sort of play, or even thought about acting as a craft. But there was nothing at all wrong with his imagination. It was definitely a more interesting prospect than preparing some sort of dull report on paper. "I like the three Immortals at once idea," he said. Then thinking longer on it he added, "The history of the Sev'ryn is interesting. I could go for that. It involves more than three Immortals though. I guess we'd have plenty to pick from."

[Faith Augustin]

25th Vhalar, 717

Arlo's entrance and his exclamation caused a smile on Faith's face. "So it seems, yes," she replied when he informed her that she was pregnant. "Thank you, we're very pleased." Taelis was a few trill behind him and noticed the same thing. Faith motioned with her hand further down the corridor. "Padraig. Professor Augustin, if we're going to be formal." Her eyes lit with the smile on her face as she spoke about him. "We're getting married soon, he's a professor of physics." She was more than proud of him and it showed. However, Arlo asked about the maps and Faith glanced over to them.

"Medicine, yes." Faith looked at the map of Desnind with a frown and then back to the human who seemed to be much the same age as her. "I believe that studying the patterns of illness and disease will give us clues. When I studied the Rot," she'd cured it, in fact. It had been considered incurable, but she had not been prepared to accept that. "I found that it's more prevalent in Sev'ryn than any other race. Lightbane had always been thought to be caused by an insect bite, but careful study of the incidence and spread meant that I realised it is in fact an allergic reaction to a particular kind of tree." She smiled and shrugged slightly, gesturing towards the maps. "Mineral deposits in the ground, changes in the air. Trees, plants, soil type, insects. They're all relevant."

Then, with a glance at the pair of them she gave a rather sheepish grin. "My apologies. I get passionate." Sitting with them, she listened to the two of them and nodded. "I'd be happy with that. The creation of the Sev'ryn, then." It was fairly typical of Faith that she identified the books which would help them and started to make some notes.

"So, who would you like to be? We have Moseke, Lissira, Ymiden or Ashan if I recall correctly." She looked between the two of them and shrugged slightly. "I have no strong feelings, either way. I suppose we could conform to genders and you two be Ymiden and Ashan and I'll be either Moseke or Lissira." Faith was a very disciplined individual, but the slight wrinkle of distaste was evident when she said the word Lissira. She kept quiet on it though. Then, of course, there was the next questions. "And what should the three of them be talking about?"

That, she supposed, depended on which Immortals they were playing.

[Tio Silver]

Just as Faith became passionate on the subject of medicine, so to did Tio become more and more passionate at the subject of acting. This was the best way to test how much knowledge someone had; by making them speak and show it, not write in down in a book! If all coursework was more like this then Tio would have graduated with letters in a hundred different subjects long ago.

"Since we're all agreed on the Sev'ryn creation story, then the next step is to divide the play up into acts." He declared, scooting closer to the edge of his seat. "I would suggest that three acts would be enough. Act one could be about Moseke and Lisarra growing apart over the humans Moseke loved, and ends with Lisarra killing them all. Act two could be about Moseke consulting with the other Immortals to find a way to resurrect them, and ending with her doing so. Then act three would be about her noticing the changes rebirth had on her people and declaring them a new race. Going by that division Moseke and Ymiden can be a part of every scene, so if you two want to take the roles of the main characters that's fine with me. I'm pretty handy at quick costume changes, so I can change between playing Lisarra in act 1, Ashan in act 2 and a Sev'ryn in act 3."

He paused, and a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Come to think of it isn't the creation of those little forest fairy people... what were they called again, Tunwii?... linked in with the Sev'ryn's creation story as well? We could make act 2 about Ymiden creating them to console Moseke, change the old act 2 to act three, and address the changes that overcome the Sev'ryn in a bit less detail at the end? I feel like that might give Arlo more to do as Ymiden than just stand around and agree with Moseke."

If the other two agreed with his plan of action then Tio would hop to his feet and make to go over to a clear space. "You know I'm a firm believer that improvising first and planning around it later is the best way to work, so how about we do a bit of devising? If we improvise the scenes now to get a feel for it first we can see what we like, what we don't, and work out the technicalities afterwards."

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[Arlo Creede]

"Physics? You mean like gravity?" Arlo asked when Faith revealed the name of the man she was marrying. Even though so much of what Arlo did, whether it was pulling off some acrobatic, hunting for game or setting a trap in the wilderness might be considered some sort of...physics thing...Gravity. That was the extent of what he knew. And it was only a word to describe things falling, sticking to the ground and not floating away without good reason.

That was a good idea though, he said aloud. Mapping out diseases, or instances of them on maps. Not anything he'd ever used a map for, but it was probably useful for a healer like her. As a thought aside, he thought it might not hurt him to pick up a little more know how, healing wise. As much time as he spent in the wilds, miles away from any proper healer, a little more knowledge in a pinch could only be a good thing.

But they got down to the business of what they were all there for, and it appeared that Taelis liked to talk. A lot. "The little tree people?" Arlo asked, glancing up from the book he'd pulled into his lap. Frowning, trying to bring the proper word to mind, he frowned and tried, "Tunawa, or something like that." Alright, so Ymiden. "Summer, dawn, rebirth, forgiveness. I can do that," he said. "And I think it's right we include the Tunawa." Improvising. That worked for him. "I guess it all starts with Moseke then, and Lisarra then," he said, looking Faith's way.

[Faith Augustin]

25th Vhalar, 717

"Yes, that's right," Faith said when Arlo asked her about physics. Gravity. "Padraig specialises in astrophysics, or the study of the science of the stars." She gave a slight smile to the young man and admitted. "I'm afraid I understand only about one fifth of it. He is very clever." But then, after discussions of gravity and maps, they got on to the reason for them being here. Taelis started talking about acts and scenes and Faith felt a wave of nausea wash over her. With people watching? Oh that didn't sound fun, not at all. Nope.

And she was going to play Moseke? Faith gave a slight, nervous smile. "I sincerely hope that she does not disapprove" Faith considered that it was a very sincere hope indeed. "We are going to Desnind later this season." Faith sighed slightly and raised an eyebrow. "It is where Moseke lives. I sincerely hope that there is no offence taken." Glancing down at her hands, she looked at the slight green leaf tattoos on her palms, part of the mark of Moseke's blessing on her.

So, three acts and the pair of them seemed quite happy with that. It sounded frankly terrifying to her, but she wasn't going to be showing herself up and running away. Besides, this was her office, they could just find her here again tomorrow. So, she nodded. "Lisirra," she corrected as first Taelis and then Arlo pronounced the name wrong. "How.. accurate do you think we need to be in terms of the portrayal of the Immortals?" Faith wondered, looking between them. "I've met Moseke and Lissira but I could only really speak to Moseke's personality and just a little of that." Faith gave a slight, rather wry grin as she considered that she could talk about Lisirra's temper and combat ability, but kept quiet on that. "Moseke is very gentle, very kind. But very strong, too, determined. I don't think I can be like that." She gave a smile and sent a prayer to the Immortal in the hope that She would forgive Her servant. "But I'll try."

Faith, it had to be said, was a very clever woman in many things. However, when it came time to improvise any kind of performance, she was completely out of her depth. "I am.. so we don't have a script? When my owner and I practiced his play, he gave me a script." She frowned and considered just how to do this. It took a moment and then she stood up and turned to Arlo, gesturing to Tio at the appropriate time. "Hello, Ymiden," she said. "I'm just disagreeing with Lissira here about the humans. Would you like some tea?"

Medicine, cooking, many and varied were Faith's talents. Improvisation, it seemed, was not one of them.

[Tio Silver]

Tio gave a dismissive wave with his hand. "Don't worry, I'm sure Moseke will be fine with you playing her." He said jovially to Faith. "I mean it's not like you're going to portray her as some crazy psycho right? I can't say I know much about her personally, but she comes across in her stories as a fairly chilled out god, so as long as you're not mocking her I doubt she'd have a problem with it. Heck, if you play her well enough she might even be flattered."

Still, the fact that Faith had actually met Lisarr- no, Lisirra and Moseke was pretty impressive. Meeting an Immortal once was a rare and life changing experience it itself, but to meet a number of them was a clear sign that something about you interested them. Tio had only met two Immortal's so far, and his second meeting hadn't exactly turned out well for him in the grand scheme of things. Faith didn't seem to be suffering from any curses like he was, but then again given that she was more inclined to be respectful to the Immortals she probably got along with them better than he could. Still, her question about accuracy in character portrayal betrayed her lack of familiarity with acting. "Accuracy? Don't worry about a little thing like that! The key to theatre is to entertain, even in shows designed to be informative. You don't need to tailor every little action around what the real Moseke would do, just... keep it in mind as a reference. What's most important is that your lines engage with the audience, even if they aren't entirely accurate. I know that from an academic perspective it doesn't sound entirely credible, but just think of it as exaggerating a story a little to keep people interested."

As the others stood up and got ready to act, Tio took a quick few second to get into character. He didn't know much about Lisirra's personality, but from his expedition to the Immortal's Tongue he knew what she was capable of, and what she stood for according to the Sev'ryn. In his mind, Lisirra was like poison given form; ruthless, wrathful and utterly deadly, and as the character he wished to show came to life in his head he closed his eyes so that the other two wouldn't see the amber glow that overtook them and called upon the power of the mark upon his back, changing the muscles in his throat to make his voice into that of a woman's. The vocal change wasn't so pronounced that it couldn't be explained away as a good bit of voice acting, but when Tio spoke his lines it really would sound utterly different from his normal voice and unmistakably female.

When Faith finished her lines he too turned to Arlo and smiled, though his was thin and sinister in the way that someone who was furious but was trying to hide it would smile. "Yes, dear Ymiden, come sit with us. Surely you can help me talk some sense into my sister? Did you know that those humans are back again, trampling though our forests like they own the place! The nerve of them! This is our world, and there they are trashing the place with their filthy little settlements! I don't know what you see in them Moseke; like rats they'll bite your hand if you try to feed them, and like rats they need to be dealt with before they infest the place!"

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[Arlo Creede]

Arlo had never considered himself to be much of an actor, or an actor at all come to think of it. But it didn't stop him from feeling fairly confident that he could pull it off with some degree of seeming believable. After all, he was a pretty good storyteller and often shifted briefly from narratives to a pro...or antagonist perspective and dialogue, then back again. Added to that, youth and nature combined to ensure that the young man had plenty of confidence to spare. So while the three of them discussed how they'd go about acting out their ideas, he leafed through one of the books on the table to reacquaint himself with Ymiden. He'd read it before, but now he was studying the details more closely.

It seemed to him that Ymiden, given his background and disposition, was something of a tragic figure. Or had been at some point before seeming to make himself right by become friendly with Moseke. Resentment, jealousy, self-loathing and doubt, even...Arlo tended to suspect, guilty of...What was it? Not matricide or patricide or regicide..."Is there such a thing as sistercide or siblingcide?" he wondered aloud. Also, given all that together, maybe something of a putz, in Arlo's humble opinion.

No matter. He knew enough now to think he could pull off the Immortal fairly well. He sat forward on the edge of his chair, as if he and Moseke were having an intimate chat, and when Faith slipped into his role, so did Arlo. He kept on Cassion's hat though, because he appreciated the irony of playing one Immortal while wearing the trappings of another. "Really?" he said, glancing at Taelis who'd adopted the role of Lissira. Frowning then, he turned back to Moseke. "Certainly. One lump, not two," he added. Somehow he'd decided that Ymiden didn't necessarily have a sweet tooth.

But when Taelis actually spoke, Arlo did a double take at the nature of his voice. That was a little unnerving and it made him wonder if the man was something a little different than he appeared to be on the surface. The thought caused a trill's glitch in the carrying on of his own role, but quick enough and he was back. "Oh, I don't know Lissira," he said, deciding that in this case Ymiden might adopt the role of devil's advocate, as a way to achieve some harmony of thinking between the other two Immortals. "Every creature has it's purpose, does it not? And what would the world, our creation be without them. Pretty damned boring, I'd say."

"Balance maybe is the thing...Remembering the warmth of Summer and knowing that eventually it'll come round again, makes the ice and snow of Winter easier to bare. That sort of rebirth starts in Spring, like forgiveness come after some seemingly unpardonable sin." Arlo was pleased with that line and felt sort of clever for having thought of it. It was Ymiden in a nutshell. "So the humans get a little out of hand now and again. They multiply and as their numbers grow they put up stone houses and cut down trees and push at the edges of the forests. Maybe I've got an idea though," he said, looking back to Faith in the role of Moseke.

He was supposed to be consoling his friend after all, and the forest was sort of her thing. "Balance is the thing really in my opinion. Owls and hawks keep the rat population in check," he said, referring to Lissira's analogy. "Except we don't want giant owls and hawks snatching up humans for their next meal. Something you might appreciate, my friend. Something or someone, a new addition to the forests for instance, to encourage balance. Hmmm," he said, reaching up and placing a fingertip on his chin as if he was deep in thought and imagining a new creation intended to intrigue and delight his closest friend. An effort to set up, maybe, the creation of the strange little tree people in the next act.

[Faith Augustin]

Tio's philosophy on the nature of acting caused a single eyebrow to raise slightly on Faith's face. "That sounds a little too fly by the seat of your pants for my liking. It is a weakness, I understand, I should be more flexible." But this was an assignment for their qualification, it wasn't two men and a pregnant woman meeting up to play a round of 'laugh at the abysmal acting of the pregnant woman'. Come to think of it, that was unlikely to ever catch on as a game. She understood the whole philosophy, but she couldn't really adhere to it. Moseke had given her the greatest of gifts, after all. Plus, what if Moseke thought it was irreverent? Faith wracked her memory for every movement, every facial expression and, in a way, it was here that the blessing of Vri really tripped her up. She remembered it all and so she tried to do it, and think about what Moseke would say and do.

Still, she had to try. So the earnest young woman concentrated far, far too hard to be able to do any justice to this and she looked rather surprised when Tio sounded like he did. Would it be helpful, Faith wondered, if she pointed out that Lisirra didn't sound like that? No, probably not, but really. Were they going to have to do this in front of people? She couldn't do that and she hoped that this pair knew that. "Sororicide, I believe." Faith said and frowned, them nodded. "Yes. Sororicide. It's in that book, third one across on the second shelf. Page ninety six in the case study example." She looked back at Arlo and smiled.

But then, they were talking and Ymiden was asking about lumps.But then, she thought, she was being Moseke. "One lump, of course." Did Immortals drink tea? Would Moseke? These were important details, things which made a difference. Arlo then put forward an idea about balance and Faith considered what she was supposed to do now. Was that act one over with? When an act had been over with when she practiced with Tristan he had shouted "SCENE!" at the very top of his voice. He'd enjoyed it, she knew.

Faith looked between them and then realised that they were both looking at her. "What?" Faith was feeling that question completely, truly not wanting to seem stupid but very much feeling it. Although, she realised that maybe it was still salvageable. "What is your idea Ymiden. And Lisirra, stop being so dramatic. You've been the same since we were children. Sit down and drink your tea." Quite delighted with herself for that little snipped Faith beamed at them and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I'm really not very good at this. Are you sure we don't need a script?" She looked at them and said the thing that she hated most about this. "I really don't want to fail."