"Lotta schools used to punish people for being left handed....did the hair dungeon actually do anything to the hair?"

"Huh!  I never heard that one.  And I don't think it did anything to 'em, it's just.  Everyone in that dungeon had long hair.  Shortest I saw was past shoulder-length."  She starts to touch a point on Overcoat's shoulder to mark the shortest length, and then thinks better of it.  She taps her own collarbone instead.

"That is strange. My mother knows people her age who were forced to switch hands in school though even then it was becoming out of date."

"I never had that problem.  And then I manifested and it almost doesn't matter which hand I use anymore.  Kinda funny, when you think about it."

"Well it's thankfully not common to punish kids these days. I didn't notice much change, except the general dexterity improvement, but I suppose right handed people have less reason to try to use the opposite hand."

"Yeah, the whole world is designed for our benefit, right?  Why mess with a good thing?"

"Just one of those things you don't really think about..."

Oh, there's a few things I'm not thinking about right now.  "Yeah.  Little invisible mysteries."

"Sometimes it's only invisible because you're not looking...." she shakes her head, "Do you want to tell another or would you rather hear a college story?"

“I’d like a college story!”  She squirms downward, until her ear is resting on Overcoat’s solar plexus.

She has a story about a drunk college student trying to microwave ramen at two in the morning, and misreading the package, overcooking it, and setting off the smoke alarms. (Luckily it was spring and not winter).

"For a while telling this story was a form of punishment, but he tells it himself now."

Okay, that one's pretty funny.  "It's like Stockholm syndrome.  Or he still feels soooo guilty, even years later."

"I think everyone involved is over it by now. It's just one of those things that happened in college. Though I have not canvased the whole dorm for their opinions."

"Well, you'll have to check next reunion.  See how everyone's taken it."

"I think it'd be a little silly to still be holding a grudge after fifteen years. Closer to twenty now."

"I mean, there was that one guy that everyone in Oxford had to swear to never forgive for four hundred years.  I don't remember what he even did."

"What, the entire town?"

She looks up the Wikipedia page.  "No, the university in England.  Looks like to graduate from Oxford, you had to swear 'not to be reconciled' with Henry Symeonis.  It was a 550-year grudge and by the time they abolished the requirement, they'd forgotten who he was and what he'd done.  I guess it'd make it easy not to forgive him, if he'd been dead the past five hundred years..."

"At that point I'm not sure it counts as a grudge..."

"But we've got an example to use, you can make your kids promise not to forgive the guy who burnt ramen at 2 AM!  If it's good enough for Oxford, it's good enough for Overcoat."

"My kids would just roll their eyes."

Sinkhole assumes an expression of dignity and great gravitas.  "The historical record does not relate whether or not the graduates of Oxford were rolling their eyes when they made their promises."

Heh heh heh.

(Some part of her brain is screaming at her for having fun when she's supposed to be working, but she's successfully ignoring it for now, besides they're doing a guiding break right now)

God, it's so nice being able to actually talk to people while guiding them.  Maybe Pinion's wasn't so bad, after all.  I only saw her at her worst...

"My turn again?  Or do I get to get some more lore?"

"Your turn I think."