The young man slams the door on his departure, and though the doctor does not lift his head, he winces at the noise.

Venat, somewhere by the window, breaks silence. Your Ffamran, not perceiving, thinks you mad.

Cid is still writing, the words jumbling together in his rushed, angular handwriting. "And mad I will be, if not able to put this all to parchment. Surely you /saw/ that magnificent reaction! I don't know that I've ever seen magicite torque like that, and so quickly." In his haste, his pen skips and spots, but he doesn't pause to blot. "So much gleaned in the past days, so much progress!"

Venat hovers in the sunlight, mostly imperceptible but for the way the heavy window-hangings are two shades paler where she shimmers. (She. He is but a hume; he cannot withhold pronouns forever, though he may recognize their failings. Venat is puzzled, but accepting.)

Still she speaks of the boy. I would not have his presence mar our work. It seems that his misjudgment troubles you.

He lays down his pen at last, tips his head to work the knots from his shoulders. That should do it, report enough for now. Belatedly he notices the smear of ink along the side of his hand, and he tuts at it. He'd only just whitened this pair of gloves, too! But yes, back to the matter at hand: Ffamran. More specifically, his most recent tantrum. He sighs. "Perhaps at first, it may have. But what father is not shunned by his adolescent son? Do not trouble yourself about it, my friend."

I recognize that trouble as my own. He /feels/ her words rather than hearing them: pure voice with no taint of rushing air or flapping flesh to shape the sound. There is curiosity in her words, and he /feels/ that, too, or such another sense he has no name for. She always makes him feel thus, his five senses insufficient to absorb her. Venat's voice does not vary in pitch, or intonation, but Cid wonders if he imagines the sudden quietness. I am pariah, too, outcast foresworn-- not welcome in the country of my birth.

Cid raises an eyebrow, chuckling at the shadow that is now by his shoulder. Comparison. Not what he was expecting; will she ever cease to surprise him? "Was that compassion? Or perhaps-- regret?"

I am incapable of either one. Definitely ironic, now, the slant of her words. Venat shifts into the visible spectrum, sparkle and shadow, /seen/ in a way that has little to do with refracted light. As you, of anyone, have cause to know.

"Indeed-- I might have thought we humes were having an effect on you at last! Though it would seem that even the Occuria are not immune to a family spat, now and then."

He recognizes the entite-brightness of those eyes, the Occurian equivalent of laughter. It is a welcome sight. We do not live in passion, as you humes; our fire and our feeling more remote. We lack a beating heart to toll our days, but even so, our grudges run full deep.

Not compassion or regret, of course, but something there is that stirs in her voice, and Cid finds his blood moving the quicker for it. There is a /sameness/, to her sense-- an acknowledgement of similarity. A solidarity and a challenge, all at once. It thrills him. He's sitting up a bit straighter, pulling his glasses down his nose to better look at her. "Yes, yes. I imagine so. All the more" (flattering, he wants to say; invigorating) "remarkable that you have thrown your hand in with us! We must seem insignificant to you, surely, we humes with our pitiful" (desires) "goals, and wars, and heartaches."

Presented with the opportunity, I would abandon Gerun thrice again. Her intensity is riveting; she is thrumming with invisible energy that his eyes want to interpret as color, or brightness, or motion, though in truth it is none of these things. We should not rule this world, who do not bleed, or weep, or crave the feel of sunshine on our skin.

Cid watches wordlessly, as she speaks. That Venat is not /corporeal/ has taken the most getting used to. She is /close/ now, in a way that humes cannot be-- overlapping, mingling space, ignoring hume proprieties of edge and skin and privacy. There is no proper preposition for the way she hovers near him: before; beside; without; within.

It is... not unpleasant, the sensation.

It is, he has decided, oddly preferable to being alone. He has never been one to mind solitude, finding it all the better for concentration and accomplishment. Lately, however, he finds himself craving this peculiar /closeness/. This sensation of dimensions beyond his ken, hovering just out of comprehension's reach. The /other/ness of her voice, sounding in his ears alone: moving electrical currents in his brain, perhaps, direct communication pure and sacrosanct.

Still she speaks: And so we must not fail in our attempt. Endeavor and delivery must succeed, and history belong to man alone.

He is humbled and exalted, all in one. What other scientist has ever been blessed with such a boon, or burdened with such a charge? One man's familial spat is an inconsequential thing, held in comparison with the fate of all humanity. He straightens his glasses, meets those marvelous, alien eyes. "Believe you me: all that I can do for our cause, I will certainly do. Now, shall we run the magicite experiment again?"

There is no better word for it: Venat /twinkles/. Nearer than any star, impossibly more difficult to classify. We shall. I pray you, doctor, lead the way.

Also, speaking of poetry.
Have a double dactyl, for which there is no excuse!

Antsily pantsily
Noah fon Ronsenburg
always maneuvers to
get what he wanth.

Effecting overhauls
nomenclaturial,
now all his buddies will
call him Gabranth.