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Eventually Annie goes home for the day. Her mother lives a long but doable walk from campus, but Annie makes the trip by tricycle for speed and safety, or bus when the ice is too bad to allow riding. This is a trike day.
She tells her mother as straightforwardly as she can what has happened.
Her mother wants to meet the boy, but accepts that this should probably wait until the situation with Zevaia changes one way or another.
A few hours after Annie gets home, she gets a call from the Dean's office. There are results in; she can go hear them at the office. Apparently they're not supposed to release them over the phone for some obscure reason of policy.
Coat goes back on Annie, Annie goes back on trike, trike goes back on campus.
keep_busy
touchedinthehead
Aldaras is already there and waiting. He's trying not to pace. Again. He's outside of the Dean's office, and he smiles a little when he sees Annie.
"Hey."
"Hey."
touchedinthehead
"Not over the phone. I've been waiting for you, so I didn't get guilt tripped. Because this is obviously important information."
keep_busy
"Wow, I didn't even think of that - that applies even if I'm on my way?"
touchedinthehead
He nods. "If I'm not making the best effort I can to tell you - yup."
keep_busy
"So basically you'd have to go running flat-out hoping to catch me a minute sooner. Artifacts. Dang." She shakes her head and goes inside with him.
The receptionist recognizes them when they enter. "Aldaras, Annabelline, hello. The Dean's looked over the necklace - I'm afraid we don't know yet if it will restore someone who is already cut. What we do know now is that it does not choose people at random - it uses some compatibility measure. The details were too fuzzy to produce anything more about that."
"That's all?" asks Annie.
"I'm afraid it's a very time-consuming process. If you've learned anything more about the effects yourselves he'll be able to skip to more useful information sooner."
The receptionist recognizes them when they enter. "Aldaras, Annabelline, hello. The Dean's looked over the necklace - I'm afraid we don't know yet if it will restore someone who is already cut. What we do know now is that it does not choose people at random - it uses some compatibility measure. The details were too fuzzy to produce anything more about that."
"That's all?" asks Annie.
"I'm afraid it's a very time-consuming process. If you've learned anything more about the effects yourselves he'll be able to skip to more useful information sooner."
touchedinthehead
"... We should get me within ten feet of a mindreader. It obviously blocks the knife, I'm wondering if it blocks people from hearing my head, too."
keep_busy
"How miserable are you going to be if I decline to be anywhere near the mindreader when you find that out?"
touchedinthehead
"Depends, are you going to be in the same room so I can immediately tell you, while you're still outside of the mindreader's range? Because that would work fine."
keep_busy
"They make me nervous enough that I'd rather be farther away than that if you aren't going to be guilt-tripped about it."
touchedinthehead
"Okay." His voice softens, a little. "Then you don't have to be there, I just need to know where you'll be so I can tell you."
touchedinthehead
"Do you want to be in an entirely different building from the mindreader?"
keep_busy
"For preference, yes. I know the safe radius, there's just a part of my brain that's always afraid they'll chase me and I can't really run."
touchedinthehead
"You can be in an entirely different building," he says, soothingly.
keep_busy
"Your apartment's closer than my house, I could park there," she suggests.
touchedinthehead
"Sure. And I know my own phone number and it'll take a bit to get a mindreader - somewhere anyway."
keep_busy
"Sure. Do you want to walk me there or do you have a spare key so I can trike over myself?"
touchedinthehead
Aldaras searches through his pockets, and produces a spare key. Annie-ward, it goes. If she wanted to steal from him, he's pretty sure she's got an easier method already. Considering the circumstances.
"No throwing parties while I'm gone," he deadpans.
"No throwing parties while I'm gone," he deadpans.
keep_busy
"There go all my plans," she smirks, and she pockets the key and trikes off to his place.
There it is, his place! The apartment is in the same condition it was before.
If she wants, she can probably snoop a bit.
If she wants, she can probably snoop a bit.
keep_busy
She doesn't go snooping, just flops onto the nearest thing-to-sit-on to the phone and pulls out her book.
And soon enough:
Ring, ring.
Ring, ring.