fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

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Fourth Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

Wes was having a... strange day. For one thing, he still had a few globs of pie filling in his hair from his Badass class earlier, and he was still annoyed at the way his Science of Deduction teacher had criticized his "tiny brain." So he retreated to the common room to decompress. Showering might have been a better choice, but sitting in the common room with a stack of books seemed more appealing. So he did.

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Not a great grasp, and feeling self-conscious about it, to boot - it wasn't helping him endeavour to stretch his sentences any longer to practice. (Reserves would probably change that, though; but that wouldn't be until next week)

"Cultural appreciation and Unconventional Tactics," he said, tripping repeatedly over 'appreciation' and 'unconventional', and sounding like a complete North-Western European over the whole thing. That, though, he didn't care about. "What was pie-throwing class?"

Damn, he sucked at this communication thing. He resolved to speak more slowly, which probably wouldn't be all that helpful. "The class was 'How to Be a Badass,'" he answered. "Your classes sound very interesting." In every word, distinct syllables were about five seconds apart. Way to go, Wes.

There was a relatively telling silence on Dolf's part.

"I'm not stupid," he pointed out.

Lightly.

How was it that a guy who spoke as many languages as Wes did couldn't manage to talk to someone who didn't speak English very well?

"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that you were!" Wes exclaimed. Damn, he was awful at this. "I'm terribly sorry." He thought on this for a bit, then had an idea. "Er... I'm quite proficient in a number of other languages," he suggested. "Is there a language you'd be more comfortable speaking?"

Dolf watched him splutter in bemusement, and rubbed at his hair. He wasn't sure whether to feel outraged or just slightly annoyed, and he was a little terse, even for his current standards, as he said. "Dietsch. Dutch, some French, German-- old Italian?"

He had no idea what to call it, but by the end of it he was at least making some attempt to accomodate Wesley's English.

He spoke a fair deal of languages, himself.

Aaaargh. Wesley was just King of Bad Impressions today.

"Dutch is fine," he offered, in Dutch.

Dolf looked surprised, which at least mitigated the bad impression somewhat. He hadn't actually heard his own language in any form but the tinny automated voice across the phone, and it actually took him a second to adjust.

"I've been gone for several months," he replied, slipping back into his mother tongue with a little more difficulty than he'd expected, but it quickly righted itself. "I didn't exactly have a lot of time or chances to work on my English."

Given the opportunity to actually express himself, he found that he kept on talking. "But I can actually understand you pretty well most of the time. It's just-- modern day languages. They're a little different. I didn't think it'd take this long to get used to it again."

Shut up, he told himself, firmly.

Oh, thank goodness for the five-languages-a-year requirement at the Watchers' Academy.

Relieved that he had managed to at least stop acting like an ignorant twit, Wes sympathized in Dutch, "Oh, I quite know what you mean. I've rarely been in countries where I haven't known the language, but I've certainly been in places where I've had trouble identifying with the locals in some way. And I certainly understand the difficulties inherent in learning a language."

Then he added, "I do apologize for coming across as condescending. I certainly don't think you're stupid."

"It's probably better not to start assuming that if you meet someone who has trouble speaking the language," Dolf said, still a little warily. Not that he was generally that terrified of oversharing, though there had been certain things he hadn't been able to bring up over the past few months, but he'd felt handicapped enough as of late.

"I used to be better at English than this," he added. "But I don't really know what I'm doing."

Maybe a little bit too oversharing for his own comfort zone, after all. He was going to blame his current sudden and paralyzing feeling of exhausted relief.

"Yes, well, I'll be sure to remember that for next time," Wes replied. "I'm usually quite careful in that regard; I certainly don't want to offend people." With a laugh, he suggested, "It's possible that the pie to the head caused a slight deterioration in my logical reasoning."

Having progressed on to flushing a little red at his own babbling, Dolf merely smiled and nodded for a moment. He tried, and failed, to wrestle the appalled blush back where it had come from.

"I think coming here might be a weight on everyone's logical reasoning," he said at last, "Everything seems so strange."

"Quite true," Wesley agreed. "Well, interdimensional convergence points often are."

Okay, that took some racking his brains for the proper Dutch words. Probably he was not very successful.

"That is to say, places with an excess of people from different dimensions and realities tend to be a bit confusing, to say the least," he elaborated. He was pretty sure his initial Dutch had been way off, so he thought he might as well repeat it to make sure it made sense.

Dolf frowned. "Is that what this is?" he said. "It sounds a little like nonsense. People keep talking to me about magic, too. I keep thinking it's some kind of faith."

Oh, yikes. He wouldn't've gone there had he known Dolf didn't already know this stuff.

"No, no, it's quite real in certain dimensions," he clarified. "For example, my dimension has quite a bit of magic which is very real, as well as the presence of mythical creatures such as demons and vampires."

One end of Dolf's mouth went up despite his say so. "That's just stuff out of fairytales," he said, then faltered. "...Right?"

Try as he might, he couldn't completely rid himself of several months' worth of experience with faith in the supernatural.

"In your world, it might very well be," Wesley said gently. Argh. There was a speech that he had to memorize when he was younger, a really candid explanation of vampires and demons and stuff that he had been taught should be the first thing he should ever tell a Slayer. He couldn't for the life of him remember it, though. So he decided to wing it. "Because almost every student here comes from a different reality, each person is accustomed to different perspectives on what is real and what is, as you say, fairy tales. No one belief is wrong or right, but each is tailored specifically to the individual's experience in his or her home dimension."

Wow. That was probably even better than the Slayer speech. He was pretty proud of that, actually. Kind of smug, even.

"So what you're trying to tell me is that everything is real?" Dolf said, hesitantly. It was a frightening thought, and he felt a little closer to ten than twenty all of a sudden.

But, then again, was there anyone outside of Doctor Simiak's circle who truly believed time travel was possible?

"So... tell me. Has anyone gone back in time, where you're from?"

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it, yes," he admitted. Aw, man, did he scare him? He was always scaring people. He attempted damage control: "It's not meant to be - to be alarming, however, because your own reality is likely exactly as you perceive it, without the 'fairy tale stuff,' as you put it."

"Back in time? I don't believe so," he said hesitantly. "I certainly haven't."

"I have," Dolf said, cautiously. "I went back to the thirteenth century. Is that 'fairy tale stuff' to you?"

"Somewhat, yes," he admitted. "I mean, there's a great deal of speculation as to when time travel will eventually be made possible, and what it will entail, but for the most part it's quite a mystery. What was it like?"

"Harsh," he admitted. "Everyone was always hungry and cold. There was no one to rely on but ourselves, and almost everyone was disinterested. It was strange, at first. But so is this."

Wes had been to a fair number of inhospitable dimensions himself, so he could kind of relate. Which raised the question, "If you don't mind my asking, why were you there?" he asked.

...

Dolf flushed red again, and it was a little brighter this time. "I wanted to see the knights jousting at Montgivray," he admitted, "And my father has a friend who had a prototype time machine, so I thought I'd try to convince him to let me test it."

He was... trying to make that sound less stupidly reckless than it had been.

Oh, Wesley didn't think it was stupidly reckless at all. Actually, he thought it was just about the coolest thing he'd ever heard.

"Fascinating," he breathed. "Truly. I'm rather a fan of swordsmanship myself, so I can understand the urge to see it during its prime. Did you enjoy the jousts, at least?"

Well, at least that meant he didn't need to get terribly defensive about it.

"Actually, there was an error," Dolf continued, relaxing, the red fading quickly from his skin. "I wound up in Speyers, not Montgivray. I do know how to swing a sword around now, though. A little. I'm not a fighter."

Fourth Floor Common Room, Friday Afternoon

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