fandomhighdorms | The Deck [Friday afternoon]

It was nice enough out that Rapunzel couldn't bear to be indoors any longer (could you blame her, all things considered?) and had decided to pad down to the outside-sitting-area she'd spotted. She spent awhile brushing her hair before she did so, and set it in a gleaming pile around her as she perched in a chair on the deck with her sketchbook.

Since she'd arrived, she'd been doodling little drawings of things she'd seen around town -- some of the people she'd met, a few of the more interesting foodstuffs (carefully labeled so she wouldn't forget their names), and she really wanted to spend some time out in the park with those pink birds, at some point, since they seemed to hold still long enough that she'd be able to get something nice down on paper.

For right now, though, she pulled her knees up and set her sketchbook on them, and carefully began drawing a much more familiar bird in a nearby tree -- a robin. She'd seen them before, of course, up on her windowsill in her tower, but it was refreshing to do it outside, still.

She'd probably be here for awhile, sketching that robin as long as he held still, along with any doodles that struck her interest.

[open deck is open, omg!]

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"My mother is probably worried sick," she said, her face dropping into her hands in an expression of total and immediate regret. "I don't even know how to get a letter to her."

She had a sudden thought that she might go back and Mother wouldn't even be alive anymore, without her hair to help her, but Rapunzel banished that quickly. She'd end up in a puddle of tears here if she wasn't careful.

She looked up, and added, "But...I'm making the best of it. Maybe she'll figure out where I am soon?" And make her come home, she was sure, so...Rapunzel's feelings on that were mixed, at best. "Can you write to your family, at least? That's got to help with homesickness."

"I have considered it, but I'm not sure letters could be delivered that far in space and time. Perhaps we both should inquire at the post office."

The changes in her mood had happened rapidly, and Ichabod hadn't even had time to become concerned that she would burst into tears.

"I have to confess I am a little curious about the new inventions called computers. Have you come across them yet?"

"Nuh uh!" she said, eyes wide. And she was back to curious again, her worries about her mother firmly out of her mind. "Are they like those things people keep holding up to their face and talking into?"

She hadn't figured out what those were called yet, either. Rapunzel had much to learn, it seemed.

"I'm not sure, but I've been told they can be small enough to keep in your pocket and at the same time you can access all the knowledge in the world. And appearantly people use them to look at images of cats." They shared the excitement over this, it seemed. Ichabod reminded himself that he had to find one.

"Miss Bowen mentioned that they are to be found in the library."

"Like the Wikipedia!" Rapunzel exclaimed with a nod. "A boy showed me that on my first day, using one of those...pocket computers? It's a thing that will tell you the answer to any question you ask it." She frowned, and confessed, "I thought it was magic."

"I prefer to think that there is another explanation than magic," Ichabod said, "But this Wikipedia sounds like the same thing. Did he tell you where he had found his 'pocket computer'?"

She shook her head. "But I want one, too! Or at least to spend some time looking at it," she said eagerly.

Rapunzel paused briefly, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I'm sure it's not magic, now that I'm thinking about it?" she offered. "But I don't see why it couldn't be. I mean, I'm betting it's science, and I just don't know all the pieces to put the puzzle together yet, but...I've seen stranger things than a magic pocket device that tells you all the answers."

Ichabod had had an interesting conversation with miss Bowen on the subject of magic, so he had thought about it more in the past few days than he ever had before.

"I don't deny that there are mysteries in this universe that we don't understand, but I prefer to think the mystery in most cases can be solved by further scientific study." He looked at Rapunzel, noting her expression. "There are many different kinds of strange, and I would certainly not to claim to have every answer."

"I think," Rapunzel decided, "that most of the magic I've seen probably has a scientific explanation." Like genetics, in her case. She had her thoughts about it, anyway. "But my mother's a witch, so I probably have more exposure to magic than most people, and...it's not science, what she does. At least, she would be reeeeeeally insulted if I tried to call it that. But I like the idea that everything does have an explanation -- I think that saying something's magic and leaving it there is really lazy, you know?"

Which was why when she felt more comfortable here, she'd be doing research to try to figure out her hair. Mother had limited that area of study, and redirected every conversation that would have led to an answer about why it did what it did.

"I think that was what I wanted to say too," he replied, smiling a little. "So, your mother is a witch? Have you inherited her talents, or is that something that you need to learn for yourself?"

Miss Bowen had told him that she had been born with her magic but that she also had had to study to develop it.

"Oh, no, I'm boring," she said, self-consciously tucking her hair behind an ear. "I don't do magic at all." She just was magical, inherently. See, it wasn't a lie. "I stick to studying and painting and cooking and other normal stuff like that. I'm gonna guess magic isn't a thing where you're from?" It was a hunch.

Her response surprised him a little, but Ichabod just answered her question: "Not a thing, no." He added: "But I wouldn't call studying or painting boring. I confess to being quite fond of studying myself."

[bedtime!]

"Me too! I just mean it's more boring than, you know, being a witch." Or so she'd been told, repeatedly. "I...there's so much to learn here, you know? I feel like I need to spend a whole week in that library and I still won't have learned how everything here works, really."

[your bedtime coincided perfectly with when i left work! sleep well!]

The Deck [Friday afternoon]

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