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Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Evening

Andrew sat down on a sofa with a stack of books and a stack of movies. He also had some microwavable popcorn and a box of hot chocolate.

It was going to be a fun evening full of dead languages and classic cinema. While he waited for his friend, he opened up a book and started to read, laughing often. Sure it was in Latin, but it was still a hoot.

[ooc: Andrew is here for Beauty, but the common room is open like they tend to be!]

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Beauty had made a quick stop at the stables after work, promising Greatheart that she'd spend more time with tomorrow to make up for the rush today, and then rushed back to her dorm room. A speedy shower and change of clothes, and then she grabbed her books and headed for the common room.

She couldn't decide whether she was more excited about the Latin tutoring or the movies. Just possibly, she was geeky enough for it to be the former.

"Hello, Andrew!" she said, sitting down on the couch near him and holding her books in her lap. "I hope I'm not late."

"No worries," Andrew said. "I just got here a few minutes ago myself."

He sat down his book and smiled at Beauty. "How was your day?"

"It was mostly quiet, with a brief interlude of caramel and coffee milkshake, courtesy of A.J.," she replied, with a smile. "It's my day at the post office. I did my civic duty by boring the cat with encyclopedia articles. And how was yours?"

Andrew laughed. "My day was pretty lame," he admitted. "Nothing really happened at work. No one brought me a caramel and coffee milkshake. Maybe I need to butter up A.J. next time I see him."

"I'm sorry, that wasn't very nice for no one to bring you anything," Beauty said, laughing as well. "I'll bring you one, if you can't sweet talk A.J. into it."

She laid her hand on the top of the stack of books she held. "I've been doing the exercises in this primer, and poor Greatheart has had to listen to them, but he hasn't complained overmuch so I'm hoping that means my pronunciation isn't too bad."

"Greatheart? Do you mean Blackheart?" Andrew couldn't imagine his little brother helping anyone with their studies.

"Oh...I'm sorry, you must be the only person in the whole town I haven't raved at over Greatheart. He's my horse. Who's Blackheart?"

Beauty thought that was a curious kind of name.

"Oh, your horse! Yeah, you mentioned that you had one, but I don't think I caught the name." Andrew felt a little silly. "I've never ridden a horse," he said. "Actually, I've never even touched a horse.

"Blackheart is my school assigned little sib. He's pretty awesome. He's a demon. From Hell." Saying that always made Andrew giggle a little.

"It seems like a lot of people here haven't," Beauty assured him. "I suppose you don't need them now as much as we do. In the past, I mean. That still seems so odd to say."

She raised her eyebrows at Andrew's giggle over Blackheart. Surely he wasn't serious about the demon part. "He's, um...a troublemaker?"

Andrew shrugged. "I don't think he's that big of a troublemaker, but honestly, I can't say. I think he's a sweetheart."

He looked over at the books she had brought and asked, "So are you working on basic diction? Grammar? Comprehension?"

Well, Beauty supposed she shouldn't dismiss the demon possibility out of hand, but she wasn't quite ready to believe it yet either.

She looked down at the books when Andrew did. "I had some basic lessons a few years ago, although my comprehension wasn't really up to snuff. So I thought I'd go back and start over with the very basics. Conjugations and declensions, and grammar."

Andrew nodded and pulled out a book from his stack. "This isn't a primer," he said, "but I found it really helpful when I was first working on the basics." He held it out for Beauty. "It's a collection of fairy tales translated into Latin. It's not quite as, um... thick as some of the passages you get in most Latin texts."

"Ohhhh..."

Excellent move, Andrew! Beauty took the book and flipped through it, smiling. "I'd much rather learn a language by reading something interesting than just reciting verbs over and over. Thank you! I promise I won't even write in the margins."

"If you're interested, I have a couple of scans of Ratman comics that someone took the time to translate into Latins as well. They're a riot."

He beamed.

Then he remembered when Beauty was from, "Oh, um. A scan is like a picture of something taken and put on a computer.

"Do you know about computers?"

Well, Beauty at least knew what a comic was, did that count?

"Um...no, I don't. I'm sorry, I'm really not doing very well learning about modern things. I started off nice and quick with the telephone and the alarm clock, but I'm afraid I've sort of slacked off since then. Although I think I ought to be able to count milkshakes. Also, today I did learn what the word 'aeronautics' means."

Knowing about comics counted for a lot in Andrew's world.

"It's cool," Andrew said reassuringly. "You spent your childhood learning things like how to ride a horse. I'm sure you can do all sorts of things I have no clue about."

Not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable, he decided to move the conversation to more neutral ground. "So I totally missed Professor Stinson's class last week. Did he discuss anything interesting?"

[ooc: SP for the journey home and a wee bit of shopping!]

Beauty laughed. "Probably nothing very interesting, though. Unless you're fascinated by the idea of chopping wood."

She made a bit of a face at the mention of that class. "We were supposed to give examples of ways to pretend you cared about someone you didn't like. I think a lot of the students objected to that idea. I'm not sure Professor Stinson and his class are thinking along the same lines a lot of the time."

[ooc: KK!]

"He definitely does things his own way. I can't fault him too much for it. I imagine you would have to have a pretty rough childhood to come out that messed up."

Andrew seemed to examen the cover of the book in his lap, "I mean, I hope to one day have half as much self-confidence as Professor Stinson."

Beauty hadn't actually thought about it that way. Maybe it wasn't so much that Professor Stinson was crazy, just that he had a skewed perspective on things. After all, didn't some of what she told people sound pretty strange?

Didn't some of what she hadn't told anyone sound pretty strange.

"You're right," she said softly. "You can't judge a person by the outside, if you don't know what he's got inside. And you can't expect to understand a person if you don't take the time to get to know him." She looked sideways at Andrew, frowning guiltily. "Very confident people make me nervous. And defensive, I suppose."

Oh, me too," Andrew agreed. "Well, maybe not defensive. Though I do tend to run away and then love them from afar. So I guess that could be a defensive reaction."

And just to clarify: "Not like I stalk them," he lied. "I mean, I just tend to admire people with power, er... I mean, with gobs of the self-confidence."

He botched that one.

Honestly? Andrew didn't strike Beauty as a dangerous sort of person. So the remark about power translated to her more as 'influence' than, well...power.

"I never had any friends other than my sisters before I came here," she said, figuring one private revelation called for another.

"You have sisters?" Andrew asked. "How many?"

"Two, both older than me." Beauty smiled ruefully. "And both of them are intelligent, witty, and beautiful, so you can imagine what it was like growing up with them. And I can't even really complain, because they're also kind and completely guileless. Hope is married and has twins, Grace is waiting for her fiance to return from sea. He's...lost, actually."

"Bummer," Andrew murmured. "It would suck being lost at sea." He took a moment to imagine it.

Coming back to reality, he commented, "I have one older brother, Tucker. I don't remember if I told you about him or not. He's a bit of goober, but admirable in his own ways. We, um, we don't talk much."

"I'm sorry. Do you not talk because you don't want to, or because it isn't possible?"

That was a situation Beauty was having to accustom herself too, and she could imagine how lonely Andrew must feel, not having contact with his family.

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Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Evening

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