"Cool. I'm doing history and scientific literacy this quarter to get rid of them ASAP, plus math because it's fun and econ because I don't know anything about it."

"I should probably take econ at some point. Scientific literacy class is a bit of a joke if you're already a nerd, fair warning. Well, not entirely."

"Yeah I figured, but mandatory, so I'm doing it now."

"I get why there are mandatory classes, well rounded individuals and so on and so on, but it's still kind of annoying, isn't it?"

Apparently the cute dom's nervousness mostly evaporates when flirting is not going on.

So it seems.

"It's much, much better than regular high school."

"Heh. No doubt about that. You would not believe how petulant my brother was when I Eclipsed. Well, maybe you would, siblings are siblings."

"My siblings mostly did not care. They think it's weird. What's your brother like?"

"He's going to law school. So, guess. Lawyer jokes aside, he's got high expectations for everyone and everything, which is kind of both good and bad?"

"Older brother, then," she guesses. "Yeah that makes sense. Both my siblings are much younger."

"I hear the younger sibling experience is entirely different than the older sibling experience."

"I think so. I didn't live with my siblings until I left bootcamp, though, I lived with my mom before and they're my father's."

Terry shrugs. "So, tell me, miss 'math is fun', do you like science fiction?"

"Yeah! I particularly like stuff that explores how eclipses would work on other planets but it's so hard for it to be done right."

"Give me a good recommendation? Personally, I really like realistic-ish space colonization stuff. There's this one series about colonizing the moons of Jupiter-" He names it. "They just dodged the question and said eclipses don't happen off of Earth."

"Oh I have one about colonization and about an eclipse happening in a completely unexpected way, it's," she names it, "it's just one book but it's really clever. I can't tell you what happens because it's a really good twist—unless you don't mind?"

"I think I'd better read it myself, with that description. I'll be sure to check it out, thanks."

"I also really like books that involve meeting other species with other kinds of eclipses and how they've influenced their societies and all that."

"Who says other sentient species necessarily get magic, anyway? It's a good way to handwave FTL, I admit."

"Well we don't know but given that that's the most salient difference between us and chimps it sounds reasonable. But there's a thought, maybe other moons don't care about sapience. The weirdest thing though is the birthday thing."

"I've heard it suggested it's a developmental thing. But then there would be some variance."

"It's probably some deistic creator with person-centric views," she says half-jokingly.

"I'm not all that into philosophy per se. There's a joke - Physics, is stuff made of stuff? Philosophy, is stuff, stuff? Engineering, cool stuff: How can we make it cooler? I like engineering, given the choices."

She giggles and flutters her eyelashes at him. "I can see what you mean."

"A- ah, heh, yeah." And here comes that awkwardness again. Terry is not a very good dom, apparently.

Terry is an adorable dom.

...but Sadde isn't that mean. "I like the philosophy conversations but in practice I won't let them stop me from really using the resources I'm given. The only one I feel really iffy about is precognition but if I frame it as making sure people end up with the right set of memories..."