ORDER ONLY: Private Message to Professor Sinistra

[alt_evelyn]

Professor --

I've finished that set of calculations you passed along to double-check, and managed to get through the last of the Solstice-related readings just now. I know you've quite a lot to work through with all the new material, is there anything I can do to help you sort it out?

I'm so very glad the meeting went as well as it did.

Comments

[alt_sinistra]

You remain a tremendous help.

I do have some more for you, or will in about half an hour. I'm now certain what they did, it's figuring out how to undo it that's going to be the challenge. But if you work on the calculations, I can dig into the theory.

You know, he pointed something out. That one of the privileges of being an apprentice is not needing to use titles in private. If you'd prefer to call me something less formal, you'd be welcome to.

And he was so pleased, the little we talked about it, that he'd at least met you properly. Though the Guild lectures last year seem so very long ago now.

[alt_evelyn]

Oh! He remembered me! That's so very kind.

And as far as the title, well, I suppose Ich respektiere Sie eine Menge. Ich weiß, Sie Ungezwungenheit vorzuziehen finden. Ich werde mein Bestes tun, um einen Kompromiss zu finden.

[alt_sinistra]

You were rather enthusiastic (if also very polite) at him about his pet comet. It is the sort of thing people tend to remember.

I won't push. But - Alde explained to me, once, it's not the title that shows respect, not when you know someone. It's how you listen and what you do with what you talk about, and all that.

Been thinking about that a lot recently, the difference between ordering and requiring on the one hand, and trusting and doing things together on the other.

[alt_evelyn]

I suppose it is different, what we're doing, than what we would've done if there weren't all these big problems that needed solving.

More like a collaboration. Of sorts.

[alt_sinistra]

Well, in the ordinary way of things, you'd still be calling me Professor, yes.

But I wasn't all that much older in years when I apprenticed. And rather a lot younger in my sense of self, or my sense of the world than you are.

And Alde was quite insistent I call her Alde and not other more formal things, at least in private, because she felt very strongly that it was a collaboration, it was about becoming peers. Even if she was a great deal older than I was and had vastly more experience and knowledge.

I'm nowhere near what she knew (I mean, yes, I'm good at what I do, and false modesty's a waste of time), but there's rather a lot I couldn't have done this year without you. Some of it's much faster for your work, but some of it - some of the Octoboros work - I don't think I'd ever have managed.

And that's without the other things. Having a reason to keep going, keep getting out of bed. Keeping up with your curiousity. Having you looking at things differently than how I do, and that pushing me to keep questioning and investigating.

[alt_evelyn]

Oh.

That's quite lovely of you to say.

Thank you.

Coming here, leaving so many things and people behind, I think I would've gone spare if I hadn't had work to do. Real, useful work.

[alt_sinistra]

You're not the only one. Likely part of why we suit.

I used to drive Alcor completely up a wall. (That's my predecessor, and all right, it did take me years to stop calling him Professor, so I should be patient with you.)

He was a snake, but very differently than Alde was, and it took him forever to figure out how to convince me to do what he wanted without me getting stubborn about it. One of the first times he tried to talk to me, he insulted my family sort of by accident, and you can guess how that went over, though I was so very polite.

It's not that I mind teaching here. And there's no denying it's useful, so long as I keep focused on the practical parts, the locational magics and navigation and apparition by coordinates. But it's not the same. Even helping out with other bits.

But the wards are a really useful thing, and you and Jeremy and Cecilia got so much of the Octoboros work, and at least I think now I'll be able to crack the earlier wards eventually. Some day. Real, useful work, that will make a huge difference when the time comes.