Dorm roof, around noon

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

So, having been called on being a 'sunshiney' overly-helpful knowitall twice in 48 hours, Dinah felt like she had to actually think about what Ino and Arthur had accused her of. Before a third person told her off for trying to help. After a lot of wrangling, back-and-forthing, mental list-making, and consideration, Dinah decided that:

Ino could weirdly blame Dinah for not being psychic enough to anticipate her finding out about Triela's medical condition, and then getting upset about it. But if she wanted to throw a screaming tantrum, or glare every chance she got? Dinah didn't have to show up for it. Arthur, on the other hand, was kinda right. Half of what Dinah had said to him had been aimed at what she'd thought was his arrogant attitude about what Morgana could do. But Morgana could look out for herself, and hadn't asked for Dinah's back-up. She owed Morgana an apology for trying to speak for her if it ever came up. Maybe she owed Arthur an apology for assuming, and the insults, but she thought the PMS comment that inspired them canceled that out. Anybody else she'd helped or tried to help lately, it was going okay for them, and it wasn't like she was the only one helping them out. Or like they were going to depend on her. The new kids would find their feet in a week or so, and then everyone could progress to jumping off buildings with her. If they wanted to.

Or, try to airwalk like Karla had taught her, like she was right now. Shoes over by the door, eyes shut, humming to try and concentrate.

Comments

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Quiiiite a bit, actually. Between her feet (cold) and the roof (rough!) and her balance (not so hot) and the telekinesis (iffy), Dinah's concentration was mostly on her own body. She'd heard the door again, but not wanted to break this attempt... almost... had it....

She almost walked into Jack before she heard someone breathing, and opened her eyes again, arms out at her sides, looking like a little kid trying to play airplane. "Jack!" Argh. "Hi!"

[bitten_notshy]

"Hi," he greeted, laughing. "What on earth was that? You look like you're pretending to be a bird."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah put her hands over her face, then had to laugh, rolling her eyes a little before letting them drop to grin at Jack through the blush. "I was trying to air-walk. It's this thing Karla showed me, with focusing really hard, and pushing at the roof through my feet-- I did it once before? But it's just not working today."

[bitten_notshy]

"You walk on air," Jack repeated. "I shouldn't be surprised, given Karla let me ride a unicorn, but it's still..." he shook his head. It wasn't unfathomable, just beyond the magic he'd seen done in public.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Once," Dinah repeated, then cocked her head, trying to remember. "I didn't tell you I have telekinesis, did I? Um, I can move things with my mind. I just can't seem to move myself. Too many things to focus on at once." She grinned at his expression. "The magicians where you're from-- wait, you have those, right? They don't fly?"

[bitten_notshy]

"You move things with your mind," Jack repeated, in the tone of one who'd heard 72 remarkable things today, so what was a 73rd? "I ... do nothing out of the norm."

Well. Nothing anyone who hadn't spent a decade appenticed to a thousand-year-old detective couldn't do, but Jack preferred to show, not to tell.

"And no, I don't think sorcerers fly. You'd have to ask Professor Garrett; she's studied the field, and I've only dabbled."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Couple other things too," Dinah said, sticking her hands in her pockets, a little self-conscious at his reaction. "Tony really likes Professor Garrett, he's said he learned a lot in her class. You dabble?" Dinah hadn't known you could really do that. "How do you dabble?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I read about it if someone hands me a book about it," Jack quickly clarified. "I don't try to do it myself. Unless your family is magical, most people in my world would only learn magic if they went to university to be a sorcerer."

It felt odd, explaining that; it was like explaining the grass was green and cows gave milk.

"And Professor Garrett is an extraordinary woman."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Ohhh. So you can learn it? I mean. It's not something where they pick you out and say, 'kid, you've got talent, you can go far'?" Dinah grinned. "That's kinda cool, that you can do that. And she is?" she checked, eyebrows going up. "Is she famous back home, where you're from?"

[bitten_notshy]

"It's like fencing or speaking Greek," Jack explained. "Anyone can learn it, some people have more of a knack than others, and a lot of people aren't ever in a situation where they'll learn. Like the Buffyverse! How did you learn to move things with your mind?"

He shrugged about the DCI. "She's in a very small field, and she's very good at her job. She's not famous the way the queen or a film star is famous, but most people who care about such things recognize her name."

Not that people necessarily knew her name because of her work instead of any scandal, of course, but that would be ungentlemanly to mention.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Aha! "Well, that was mostly an accident-- I was mad at my sister, and thinking how much I wanted to throw something at her, and it just went zinging across the room," Dinah admitted. "And hunh, cool. Kind of like the experts who write books on crime back home, I guess. We do get some really good teachers here." And thinking about what she'd heard about Captain Hammer from others, she added dryly, "And a few really wacky ones."

[bitten_notshy]

"I don't have any wacky ones just yet," Jack said pensively. "My flight instructor -- Master Skywalker -- looked as if he wanted to break heads open, but I got the impression he was angry about something specific. He's not always like that."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"One of my friends really admires him? She knows his family from back home, I guess. But I know other people who are really intimidated by him," Dinah said, thinking about it. "Otherwise, no really wacky ones this semester. Ms. Mode is intimidating too, and I'm not sure I agree with her much," Tweety. Sigh. "But she does seem to know what she's talking about. How is the flight course?" She's probably never going to fly unless she figures it out herself, but the idea is intriguing.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack shrugged a little. "Completely new to me. I'm always impressed when I manage to stay aloft, but my reflexes don't seem to be too bad." If he did say so himself. "I like it. Which classes are you in?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Cool! Besides TeeVee, I've got Terrain. We had to dig snow shelters yesterday." Dinah shuddered at the memory, then grinned. "And Criminal Justice tomorrow, which is awesome. We're investigating a real murder that happened, the professor just changed the details a bit."

[bitten_notshy]

"I wanted criminal justice, but I was already at four classes," Jack said, distinctly perking up. "it's worth taking? What kind of skills is he teaching?"

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Ooo! Okay, so, last week was evidence gathering. Both at the crime scene, and the victim's house. And this week he hinted we'd be examining the evidence bit by bit. Fingerprints and blood and everything." Dinah bounced again, not quite achieving air-walking by sheer enthusiasm, but close. "Professor Gibbs is NCIS, that's the criminal investigators for our Navy around the country. He got us crime scene kits for examining everything separately and to take photographs."

[bitten_notshy]

"fingerprints," Jack repeated happily. "We've been wanting to try that. It's brand new technology -- they have it in New Amsterdam."

Sometimes he really did feel 127.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"He made us do it old-school, with ink, so you'll get that part," Dinah told him. "We had to take our own in case we screw up and accidentally touch anything, and then have to eliminate them. I'm... kinda hoping I don't do that. He's pretty intense." She grinned at Jack in crime-investigation solidarity. "I guess you can learn the other side of it from Professor Garrett, hunh? Science plus magic?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I think the kits I've heard about use lamp black," Jack said -- not by way of correction, merely as a note. "And perhaps? Garrett's class this term is just on magic, not on her detective work."

More the pity, for Jack.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Hunh. Interesting," Dinah said, making a mental note of that. "Still, there really are a lot of cool classes. I wanted to take Rangering, as well as Terrain, but figured I could take it next semester. And I'll probably have to take the SAT prep class, since I have to take those in the Fall. A class on tests in the summer, bleah."