ArchivedLogs:Obligations

Obligations
Dramatis Personae Isra, Xavier
In Absentia	2015-04-15 "So then, do you want me to choose a side?"
Location <XS> Headmaster's Office - B1
Quietly elegant, the headmaster's office is as old-fashioned as the headmaster himself. The large wooden desk is the centerpiece of the room, the guest's chair a high-backed dark wood one. The walls are painted in rich dark colours, a sole impressionist painting hanging on the wall. The hardwood floors are polished, the floor kept carefully neat and tidy, the room perpetually immaculately organized. It is quiet in the headmaster's office, this evening. But it often is. There is very low classical music playing. The scent of tea filling the air from a pot and two cups on the desk. Xavier himself is at his desk, waiting. Expectant! This is a Scheduled Meeting, after all. Even if he only requested it earlier this week. Isra sweeps in and closes the door behind her gently, her thoughts still lingering on the tail end of the Astronomy Club meeting. The voluminous skirt of the white tunic dress she wears conceal enough of her legs to lend her the illusion of gliding along as she moves. Her skin color of the week looks soft and tame by her standards--a soft cherry-blossom pink with fine white and red dots for contouring. Her horns, talons, and wings, though, look quite festive in bright red highlighted with fine threads of gold. She has her laptop bag slung over one shoulder, and a bit of white bandaging on her tail. "Good evening, Professor." She inclines her head and rests a hand on the back of the chair facing her host, trying to decide how best she might fit into it. Xavier's head inclines slightly, his eyes skating down along the colourful body art even as his thoughts briefly skate along the surface of Isra's. "Good evening, Ms. al-Jazari." His hand tips out towards the chair. Quiet. Inviting! "Would you care for some tea?" Isra arches one bare eyebrow ridge at him. << Really? >> Dryly unimpressed. She has had a long day. Still, she does sit, perching on the edge of the seat with her tail curled around her and wings folded down over her shoulders like a crimson cape. "Thank you." This as she lifts the teacup. "You wished to see me?" "I did." Xavier leans forward, curling his fingers around his own tea cup. He pulls it close, lifting it, though he doesn't drink it yet. "How are you doing lately? You have had some absences, recently." "Well enough, thank you. Yourself?" Isra does sip the tea, daintily--her long-fingers and heavy talons dwarf the cup. "I took a personal day last week." Her thoughts snap inevitably to Ion, convulsing in her arms, every jerk of his feverish body sending a shock through her. "I cannot recall if I have had others this semester--not since my lover's last court date, assuredly." A flash of anger here, formless and raw, pressed back down before it has a chance to find direction. "Do you object?" "To taking a personal day? Assuredly not." Xavier's eyes meet Isra's steadily. "When your personal life has edged into the world of terrorism, though, that starts to become a problem at this institution." The same eyebrow ridge arches again. "I see." Both of Isra's vocal chords engage this time, lending the words an ominous depth. "How much of a problem? I imagine you have thought this through enough to know now whether we've actually got anything to discuss." She takes another sip of the tea, ears swiveling back. "So then, do you want me to choose a side, or just leave?" << I think we both know it amounts to the same thing. >> "What I want seems rather irrelevant, here. It is your choices that will define your life." Xavier still holds his teacup steady. Still holds Isra's gaze steady. "In an ideal world I would rather none of us have to choose sides when we are all part of the same struggle. In the world we live in -- I have a school full of children under my care, and an obligation to them." Isra smiles a joyless smile, though no less sharp for all that. "I admire what you do here." She sets down the teacup. "But I have an obligation to the children, too--one that I cannot fulfill here." So saying, she rises. "Thank you for the tea. I shall have a letter of resignation on your desk by tomorrow morning, and my lesson plans to Hank by the weekend." Her wings unfurl to a loose, relaxed position, like the petals of a flower blooming. "Anything else?" There's another small nod of acknowledgment from Xavier. "Thank you. You will be missed. Though perhaps..." For a moment he trails off, his eyes lowering to the cup. There's a brief flutter -- barely there, unintrusive, a ghost of passing mental imagery. A tiny blue sharkpup in flowery sundress and stompy boots, tucked up into the fold of a large crimson wing. "No. That will be all. Take care, Ms. al-Jazari." "I will miss being here." Isra's ears press flat against her scalp and bright green eyes fix unblinking on her soon-to-be former employer. She knows what he's implying and doesn't like it in the least. In her mental echo of the same image, her wing wraps tighter around B. << We can't protect them. >> The thought comes through in her clear alto, without bitterness or uncertainty. "Take care, Professor." With that, she glides to the door and lets herself out, head held high and wings trailing behind her like red banners.