ArchivedLogs:Philosophical Disagreement

Philosophical Disagreement
Dramatis Personae Isra, Shane
In Absentia	2015-04-17 "Tell me the disagreement was that he's a pompous fuck."
Location <XS> Isra's Room - FL3
Clean and spartan, this room appears even more spacious than even the average staff accommodations. What furniture it does contain has been pushed against the walls or into corners. Framed prints of galaxies and nebulae adorn the walls, but no other decorations are evident. A sizeable computer tower sits beneath the desk, hooked up to several high-end peripherals and three LCD monitors on rotating bases. Outside the day has grown gloomier from a promising dawn. The gathering clouds have not affected the pleasant springlike temperatures, though as the morning wears on it looks more and more like rain. The windows shows all this unobstructed because Isra has taken down the thick blackout curtains and bundled them away in one of the neat stack of file boxes sitting by the door. She has left her desktop computer and wall art for last. She sits on her bare bed, tablet balanced in her lap and stylus poised over a checklist. Beneath a gray wrap tunic and matching wrap skirt, her skin shows a beautiful pale pink even in the troubled mid-morning light. She keeps her wings folded primly at her back, their bright red membranes matching the horns that spiral back from her temples and the talons that tip all thirty digits. Shane doesn't knock. That would be polite, certainly, but instead he just opens the door, BARGES in. His arms cross over his chest, rumpling at his pinstripe vest. His forehead rumples too, in a deep frown. "Taylor said you were /packing/." It sounds kind of accusatory. Probably more petulant than he'd like. Isra gives no visible sign of surprise at either Shane's appearance or his line of not-exactly-questioning. She looks up from her tablet, face placid but eyes faintly red around the edges. "I have tendered my resignation, effective today. I meant to find you and B after your classes." For all that, she does not seem particularly bothered at his appearance, class notwithstanding. Shane's gills flutter, whispering softly against the starchy collar of his dress shirt. His jaw tightens at this response, arms clenching harder around his chest. "I know this place is going to be infinitely shittier after I'm gone," he finally answers, /thumping/ the door closed behind him and stomping over to drop down and sit on the mattress beside Isra, "but you could have fucking waited till after graduation." Isra sets her tablet aside and unfurls one massive wing to wrap around Shane. "I should have liked to stay, but Professor and I had...a serious disagreement. Though..." Her ears press back, low and miserable. "Perhaps I do not wholly disagree with him, after all. Nevertheless, I assure you I will attend the commencement ceremony." "Tell me the disagreement was that he's a pompous fuck." Shane leans into the curl of Isra's wing, gills still fluttering rapidly. "Or," he suggests, brightening slightly, "that he's really hidebound in his ideas about astronomy." After this, though, he just exhales. Heavily. "I hate this place." And, "What are you going to do?" "Our disagreement is fundamentally a philosophical one--about how mutants fit into the world. We diverge very, very significantly on that point." Isra cracks a smile at the second suggestion, thin but enough to show teeth. "I do not know his ideas about astronomy, but I imagine that, if he remains true to form, he must have rather hidebound ones." Her tail twitches rapidly, and she turns toward the naked window, eyes squinting reflexively against the daylight, overcast notwithstanding. "Finish editing my thesis, for one. Maybe get around to starting my own journal, if no one else will publish it. Do some tutoring. Build /more/ telescopes." This last with a wry twist or her lips, though past behavior would not suggest that she means it at all in jest. "And you?" Bright green eyes look down at him, their pupils constricted to tiny pinpricks. "How /do/ mutants fit into the world?" Shane tips his head up, huge eyes fixing on Isra curiously. The question puts a small uncomfortable tension in him. "I think my dads would be happy if I went to college. I got in..." He shrugs a shoulder. Also uncomfortably. "I told Pa and Flicker I wanted to join the X-Men." "I don't think that one viewpoint on that suffices." Isra's reply comes out soft, only her higher, alto voice engaging. "I believe that mutants must look after one another, and we must fight for our rights--even violently. But above all I believe you have to find your own answer to that question, and on that point perhaps even the Professor would agree." She cants her head at him, ears pricking forward. "Juilliard?" The wing wrapped around him squeezes a little tighter. "I hope you realize that your fathers would want you to do as /you/ desire far more than they want you to attend college." Her wing clasps him tighter still. "And, though I imagine they did not receive that last revelation with great pleasure, I expect they will support you all the same." Then, after a beat. "/Do you/ want to go to college? "The X-folk are kind of violent..." Shane shrugs a shoulder, chewing briefly at his lip. "I don't think you're /wrong/, anyway. This world sure isn't going to /give/ us anything we don't fight for. That's why I want to join. Like, Flicker's all stressed about med school because --" He shakes his head firmly. "Everybody just spends so much time fighting for us. Seems like about my time." He nods at the college question. "Juilliard. And I /want/ to. I just." He leans harder against Isra. "Congratulations." Isra's lower vocal chords engage, giving her voice more volume and depth. Her wing--the one not cradling a small sharkpup--mantles as though buoyed up on a breeze. "I would have doubted their admissions board's judgement had they decided otherwise." She runs her head over his head lightly. "I cannot speak for Flicker or your father, but I, at least, don't want you to /have/ to fight. Yet there /is/ so much to fight for, and, as with college, you must decide for yourself." Scarlet talons scratch at the back of his head. Then, much softer, "And, as with college, it may not be so straightforward as knowing what you want." "I know what I /want/. I also know that getting in isn't really the issue, you know? Everyone keeps acting like getting /accepted/ is -- getting accepted. I got /accepted/ to the Youth Symphony and that doesn't mean shit, you know?" Shane shakes his head. "I want to play violin. I'd /like/ to go to school for it but I don't /need/ school for it. I /don't/ want to spend four years getting spat on every time I have a performance and having all my shit vandalized and getting death threats and attacked in the halls and constantly having everyone try to run me out of school, you know? There's fights I want to fight. There's fights I'm /glad/ to fight. I don't want to start hating this one thing I actually goddamn /love/ because I /know/ it's going to be fighting through hell for it every fucking day." His gills flutter, his head bonking up against Isra's side. "... {sorry,}" he mutters in low Vietnamese. "/You're/ the one lost your job and now I'm fucking -- complaining at -- fff." "I know," Isra says, low, barely audible. "I have fought that fight, too, remember? And lost it." She tilts her head, her horns gleaming glossy red. "That doesn't mean you haven't got a right to your own anger. Nor does it mean you must chose that fight. I will say, however, that my last year at Columbia did not teach me to hate astronomy." She flashes a fangy smile. "Just people." Possibly she does not mean this in seriousness. "At any rate, I do want to hear your concerns, even if I haven't any real advice to offer. Only do consider that you can give college a try without any obligation to finish." Shane nods, cheek rubbing up against the crimson wing around him. "Are you mad?" he wonders. "About here, I mean. The school. The Professor." Isra considers this for a while, and when she does reply she starts signing it before she speaks. "Not really." Something in her tone suggests a faint touch of surprise. "Sad? Yes, but not angry." A low, low chuckle rumbles through her. "I have invested all my anger elsewhere and have none to spare for him. Still, I look forward to Fight Club tonight just a little more than usual. Will you attend?" Shane curls his arm around Isra, squeezing gently. Then a little more fiercely. His teeth bare in a sharp grin up at her. "I don't know. Can we fight you?" Isra's wing wraps in tight around Shane, the talons tipping some of its phalanges digging into his skin. Her grin mirrors his--less toothy, but still sharp. "By all means."