Class begins. It's fairly typical for the first day of a college course: this is what the class is about, this is the syllabus, this is how it's going to work, here's an introductory lecture.

Sid sporadically takes notes in a small, pocket-sized notebook. He looks faintly bored.

That makes sense this kind of thing is boring.

Class comes to an end and people start leaving. Sid hasn't identified anything else interesting around here, so if he's onto anything at all, it's probably her.

"Hey, Sapphire, what do you think is the most important thing in life?"

"Other people. They're what makes life meaningful and what keeps it interesting."

That's not the way he was expecting her to frame the question. Teaches him to have expectations.

"There are a lot of other people. Do you think any are more or less important? Or are there circumstances under which other people are more or less important?"

"That's a hard question. It's always easier to care about the people in front of you or who you know personally but I don't know if that makes them more important in any real sense. And when people are fighting with each other it's hard to really show concern for them both without it seeming fake. There's also only so much time in the day. I do think I see people who are actively hurting others as less important and that plays out in my actions. I wish I understood why people do it though. I feel like understanding is always the first step to showing people a better path."

"That why you're a psychology major?"

They start walking outside.

"It is, why wouldn't I want to study the discipline that's all about understanding people?"

"Because it's about understanding people in a very specific, and rather limited way. Because it focuses mainly on studying what can be measured, which at best is a rather narrow domain, and at worst causes researchers to force a difficult-to-measure reality into tidy, but misleading, metrics. Because psychology as a discipline is very far from properly understanding the human psyche, and what it does know might not do you much good."

"I don't know, I'm skeptical about the value of the whole thing. And when I want to understand people I usually just talk to them."

"I think that's mostly a critique of experimental psych. I got into this in hopes of being a therapist. I think that side of the field has less problems. As for how valuable the insights are, I think I've gotten at least as much from talking to classmates as in the actual curriculum but that's still an opportunity I wouldn't have had."

"Mm, therapy. I'm skeptical about that too, but your point is taken."

"I think a lot of the value people get out of college is being close to other people learning the same things as you. It's funny, they charge everyone so much money to be in the same place as each other."

"I think my understanding of therapy is that it's about safety. Your therapist is someone who you can rely on not to judge you and so you can feel safe showing them the parts of you that you hide from everyone else."

She sighs, "Maybe if the world was better people would feel safe enough to not need therapy for that."

She shakes her head and chuckles. "As for charging people for the privilege of being in the same space, I think that's true. The other major piece is really charging for prestige and credentials. For a piece of paper saying that some respected institution thinks you're competent."

"Oh, god forbid some respected institution think I'm competent."

She giggles, "I don't know you well enough to comment."

"It's sort of like... I want to be good at the things I care about, in a real way, and not in the fake way that, uh, respected institutions find legible. And I don't feel like making an effort to make myself legible when I don't have to."

"Why are you here then?"

"Oh, I'm not a student here. Did you know you can just walk onto campus and sit in the lecture halls?"

"Alright, that just makes my question more important to me. Why did you decide to audit a psychology class specifically when you have a low opinion of the discipline?"

"I thought it would be interesting to figure out what stuff they're teaching you, what academic psychologists consider the normal way of doing things."

And because he's been playing with bone casting lately and wants to figure out if it works.

That answer doesn't really make sense. "Do you do this often or is it just a coincidence that we ran into each other?" 

"Oh, I've snuck into a few classes before, when the mood strikes. Is it a coincidence? That's a much more complicated question."

That's slightly concerning. Ring can you set things up so that if we fall out of contact the Justice league knows something is wrong? She doesn't like being paranoid but she isn't really hiding her identity and she has set herself against powerful people. "How so?"

"Affirmative."

"I went looking for something interesting, and I got I feeling I'd find it here. So I came here, and I found you. And you're pretty interesting, or at least you could be."

"So maybe that doesn't count as coincidence, I'm not sure."

Do that. "Do you have feelings like that often?"