nexus_sages | (no subject)

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A young man sits on one of the many couches in the Forum, and sighs at a notebook in his hands. The page is full of scribbled-out text, pages and pages of it. The pages are dog-eared and a bit ragged, indicating he's been using this notebook for a while.

"How can it be this hard to think of a good name for a secret identity?"

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"There aren't many magic-users where I'm from, but it's not unheard of. It's a bit more common in Mom's home universe."

"An intriguing genealogy, to be sure," Shade-Seeker muses. "It is from your mother, then, that your knack for flying comes?"

"Oh, no, that's from my dad," Jon says, shaking his head. "He just does that naturally."

"Naturally? He flies without magic or, I presume, wings, and this is natural? My fascination grows."

"Yeah. It's a Kryptonian thing; I can't really explain how it works."

"No? A pity. My curiosity must remain unsatisfied, it seems." He pauses, then asks, "Kryptonian--is that a tribal distinction, racial, something else? As I reconsider our discussion, it seems possible that your remarks might have consciously distanced you from the humans you resemble--at least, to the extent of my ability to distinguish."

"Different species," Jon explains. "I'm only half, but apparently it's enough to get some of the perks."

"Different species, capable of joint reproduction? Interesting." He pauses, then shakes his head a little. "I apologize. Academic curiosity has prompted me to inquire more deeply than is polite."

"It's okay," Jon says with a small smile. "I get the whole curiosity thing."

The smile is answered with one that might be relieved (it's hard for some people to read those reptilian features). "I am pleased, then, not to have given offense in excess."

"I don't get offended easily. Besides, you never know stuff unless you ask."

That prompts a wide grin. "The spirit of the scholar! It is well-said!"

"I'm still a student, it's habit," he says with a smile.

"I think that if we live well, we are always still students."

"Well yeah, in an abstract sense, sure. But I meant I'm still in school."

"Ah. As, in a sense, am I. May I ask what you study?"

"I'm going to a trade school to become a certified mechanic," Jon says, although he doesn't know if that'll mean anything to Shade-Seeker.

Shade-Seeker is quiet for a moment, processing that answer with visible care. "Do I correctly infer that a 'trade school' is an institution which instructs its students in a specific trade, as might an apprenticeship? And that a 'mechanic' is one who is knowledgeable on the subject of machines?"

"That's pretty much exactly right, on both counts," Jon says with a nod.

"Intriguing. Most professions are learned through direct apprenticeship, where I am from. Magic is optionally different, with the Arcane College, but even there early students are considered apprentices, albeit to the guild as a whole."

"It's not unheard of in my part of Earth," Jon says with a nod. "In most cases there are way more students than there are teachers, so a good quality apprenticeship is really hard to come by. A master with many students can't give them all his full attention, and so on."

"Ah, now that is certainly true," he agrees. "I must give such a model consideration, going forward."

"You plan to become a magic teacher? Or that's just what you have to do when you master the skill?"

"Circumstance has made me the Archmage of the Mages' Guild rather sooner than I expected--which is to say, ever," he admits. Scaly white fingers brush carefully over the fabric of his clothes. "My robe of office."

"Oh, well, congratulations then. Sounds like it's a big responsibility." Jon doesn't know what an Archmage is, but it sounds important, and he can infer from context that it's some kind of leadership position.