"It actually feels more normal than the gardens," he observes, slightly surprised at his own observation. Just sitting in this place like a diner, vaguely reminiscent of dingy after-hours coffee shops and brighter, hipper teahouses, seems real in a way that endless hallways and worry over airlocking and jump drives can't. The gardens are fine, he supposes, but the permanent summery weather irks him. A fork happens. The pie is pretty good. Severus makes a 'hm' noise, which apparently means whomever bakes these may live.
Charles is slightly surprised by Severus' observation too, and wisely, doesn't call attention to that fact. A faint smile of agreement, is all, and a pause to gain verdict on pie, before he sets about forking into his own. Hm is echoed.
Content to just eat for a second in company, withdrawing into himself. Sugar and short pastry and fruit and dairy are all unlikely sensations, as is normalcy. There is the ghost of an instinct to fill the silence in talking shop, of the things he's seen and observed, but also just--
Diners are familiar, expansive gardens, less so. He sometimes wishes he could lose himself in the oxygen gardens but they never quite manage to fool him - they're nothing like what he can find in the UK, and certainly not the Forest.
Thinking about the Forbidden Forest means thinking about Hogwarts. Severus frowns sharply at his pie, but only briefly.
There's a neat half left of the cinnamon, and it's offered for Severus to try with a slight nudge of plate as Charles eyes another, unusually orange without being pumpkin. He claims it for himself.
"There's a rather lovely landscape I'd pull up for myself. A beach. The rocky sort, rather than sandy. Grey, and cold. Or looked it. Felt familiar, anyway. Small chance I won't be doing so again for some time."
Teeny tiny absolutely won't be chance. There's a raise of eyebrows in silent inquiry, either a and you? or why?
He'll try the cinnamon pie. Maybe there'll be a banana variation somewhere on the table. That would be great.
"Mm." Severus thinks about the implications of fake scenery vs the hallway rooms; he hadn't linked the two in his head before. Possibly because he hasn't spent more time in one other than to establish what they were and then write them off as uncomfortably unnatural.
"Someone mentioned them. Not sure I understand the appeal." He's not going to say Nathan wants him to go ... hiking in the Himalayas. Or whatever. He feels uncomfortable about people wanting to spend time with him still; Charles he's grown more or less accustomed to, grudgingly, but he can't help being suspicious and doubtful overall.
"I sort of relate it to being in a gallery, I suppose. Looking at paintings, being transported to somewhere or some time beautiful, if not very convincingly."
But what they'd been through had been convincing. Sand speckled on his hands, the frost creeping over window panes, the afternoon sunlight adrift through his sitting room curtains. "Take it for what it is. Why?"
He shrugs one shoulder, indicating nothing more curious than someone having mentioned it. But also: "It seems like we're aboard something brilliant that's been re-appropriated into something awful. The holdovers of innocence are disconcerting."
Thanks for tanking the mood, Severus. He eats more pie, and tries not to dwell on... anything. He was perhaps too invested in the recon missions; he's still pissed off. He will be for some time.
"I think that's exactly what it is," Charles agrees, gently. "And I take back what I said about it not being about survival, by the way."
Because fuck.
He is also unconvinced about pie with actual oranges in it, returning to cinnamon. The shiny black-bruise quality of his nails is inspected, briefly -- he barely even remembers doing that to himself -- before he says, "You don't drink. Hence the invitation of pie and a smoke. Speaking of--"
Cigarettes accepted with a 'cheers', Charles extracting one and leaving the rest, as is only polite with finite resources, sliding it back across. It is set filter-end between his teeth as he hunts a depleting matchbook out of his pocket.
He leaves it on the table; he'd offer a light, but he's got one hand flat against the table where he's leaning on his forearm, tucked near his chest, the other busy with a fork. And maybe he doesn't feel like bothering summoning a flame.
"It quoted the Aeneid." Smiley. 'Smiley', including quotes. Severus hates that stupid name. "I was always more about practice than history, and never managed to memorize the whole thing." A slight shrug, again. "But I remember highlights - the Trojan horse seems unkindly relevant."
(If he's going to tank the mood might as well do it in style.)
"There's a passage I could never forget. Aeneas's father speaks to him about prophecy, and of leaving the underworld. 'There are two gates of Sleep, one said to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease. The other all white ivory agleam without flaw. And yet false dreams are sent through this one, by the ghosts to the upper world.'"
Matchbook discovered, flame summoned the old fashioned way. There's a slight crease around the nose as he judges the flavour and harshness of it, tentative on first breath, bolder on second as he flicks flame extinguished. Hopefully the Pie Hole is a smoking establishment, even when it's on a space ship.
He's listening, though, even if he is reeled only a little reluctantly into the conversation.
"The classics are devoted to debating what these stories were even for. Propaganda. Cautionary tales. How does it read to a wizard?"
There's nothing disparaging in that. It's a genuine curiousity, that they would have a different point of view, what with all things mythical apparently being real.
"Embellished history," is the simple answer. "Varying degrees of embellishment, anyway. The mysticism is usually pretty spot-on when it comes to ritual, it's the," Severus makes a vague hand gesture, "running about with spears and swords bits that tend to be inaccurate. Dealings with the underworld are debatable. Most ghosts haven't experienced the whole process so they can't report back about it."
Severus probably doesn't think he said anything especially funny. Charles laughs anyway. It'd be impossible not to believe in some sort of semblance of ghosts, having seen something like that here, but where the Tranquility is horrifying, Snape's world is whimsical.
If somewhat whimsically horrifying, too. "That's a lot less boring than our takes on things, and I know a few professors it'd shut up. I suppose Smiley's one for the classics, then. For some, anyway, I doubt everyone on the ship has an Ancient Rome."
Yes, he isn't taking this conversation super seriously.
"Professor Binns." Fork goes in pie. It makes a soft clink noise against the bottom of the plate. "Could make anything boring. Even ancient Roman mysticism. No one even remembers when he died, he's been teaching History of Magic as a ghost since before I was a bloody student."
If you're not going to take this seriously, Charles, you get to hear more about Hogwarts. Suffer.
"My peers kindly pointed out the chair they think he died in. So the story goes it took them ages to notice, because the staff room has very nicely constructed freshening charms in it. And he was teaching every day, anyway."
"One day, you're going to tell me something about your school, and I'm going to not believe you, and you'll have been pulling my leg, and that'll be the end of it."
The critical points of his claim is emphasised with a fork gesture, careful though he is not to dislodge too much pie debris in the process. But there's a smile nested at the corner of his mouth, even though that looks like it hurts to do, given the various shades and placements of certain blooms of bruising.
"Although if you told me that my professor in neuropsychology was probably from beyond the grave, I might've believed you. You'd think he knew Thomas Willis personally, going by how he graded us."
A crooked smile. Still more student than teacher, at least when relating to his own field.
"It is only through extreme whimsy that we stay sane through all else."
Like Dementors.
"Give me your shoe."
This other slice of pie over here better be banana related. Or else he's going to be disappointed. And also confused because it doesn't smell citrusy and what the hell else could it be. "Was he the one who kept dissecting brains?"
"You say that like the man had a compulsion. But yes, actually"
Charles is totally already untying his shoe as he says that, words coming slightly pressed as his teeth keep cigarette in place while his hands are occupied. There's a wince at the various aches and twinges that any kind of movement in general bring about, before he offers the item over.
With a hint of amusement, of really. "What did I do to deserve this?" Whether he means that in a good way or a bad way is anyone's gue no he totally means it in a good way.
Accept it. Like you made him accept pie. Severus takes the shoe but has a moment of 'ugh shoes on table', apparently, because he scoots a pie plate away and sets said shoe onto a napkin. He has to get his wand out for this, which he does, and with one elbow resting on the table, Severus begins tracing complicated patterns in the air. After a moment of that he says something that might be Latin but also might be older than that (it's always a gamble, with Wizarding UK magic).
Charles's shoe shudders like it's got a cold. Then it scrunches inward. It turns white. A grey stripe of hair sprouts all along top of it; laces zip into its mass and vanish at the same time as something long and thin shoots up from one side. The whole thing shudders again and in a blink--
As the initial transformations begin, there's something slightly too profoundly weird about the whole thing, Charles leaning right back in his chair, absently (and carefully) crushing the end of unfinished cigarette on the edge of the table with only a glance to break.
But all at once, it's a moving creature, one that doesn't seem particularly frightened to have gone from a shoe to a lemur. Sprouted tail is poised and articulate, and Charles' brow only crinkles in disbelief when it sends a sharp look his way. Elbows on the table, his chin sinks into his palms, a crooked smile returning.
Experimentally, he pushes one of the plates over to it. The lemur reaches to pick up some pie crust to investigate.
The lemur is perfectly content to be a lemur, having no memory of being a shoe and having no brain function high enough to question its sudden and inexplicable existence. Its huge eyes take in the surroundings, Charles and Severus, but most of all: pie. It decides it needs to sit half on the pie, actually, while it nibbles. Okay.
Severus leans back and successfully does not laugh. He's tempted.
"I don't completely know how lemurs act," he drawls. "I think it's probably going to end up an sedately idealized cat-monkey."
Charles isn't laughing either, but only because it would come out as giggling, and he's managed to press this down to just a grin, heedless of bruises and other complaints. Otherwise completely enraptured by this impossible thing, although not enough to miss that.
"Well it can't be a shoe anymore. That'd just be wrong. Can I touch it?"
Sedately idealised monkey-cat seems like it could be up for pettings, so Charles does exactly that, sort of gently patpatting before delivering a stroke down its spine as if he would with Alex's cat. (Charles is more of a dog person, but he can adapt.)
"Though I suppose the spellwork will-- degrade? After a time."
Severus is not going to pet the lemur, but not because he worries for his fingers - it's perfectly nice, if a bit curious about Charles now - it's just that he's not a cat person or a dog person. He's an 'Oh my god it's shedding, get it the fuck away from me' person.
"Yes, it will. Transfiguration isn't always meant to be permanent, and the more disparate one thing is from the other, the more it will 'want' to turn back. Creating mimicry of life like this is incredibly complicated. After a few hours it'll start wanting to be a shoe very much. Probably sit on your feet, maybe look a little leathery. Then it'll just be a shoe again."
Charles is content, chin in palm, other hand giving the lemur something to focus on. No biting appears to be happening, just grabbing, and staring at him a bit stupidly, and then yawning, displaying pink mouth.
Heehee.
"Essentially I'm petting an animated shoe, then. But its a very adorable shoe. Yes you are. Does Hogwarts have an ethics class?" he asks, presently. It doesn't sound very critical. Lemurs > ethics.
"Not on its own. But we teach students the ethics of using magic and living life in the magical community as they're taught spells and history." ... It takes better with some people than others. Says the Death Eater.
"It's a small community. The whole--" absent gesture, which briefly distracts the lemur, "Moral character thing is supposed to be fostered by peers and mentors."
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Content to just eat for a second in company, withdrawing into himself. Sugar and short pastry and fruit and dairy are all unlikely sensations, as is normalcy. There is the ghost of an instinct to fill the silence in talking shop, of the things he's seen and observed, but also just--
--pie. Later, science-side-of-Xenogen.
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Thinking about the Forbidden Forest means thinking about Hogwarts. Severus frowns sharply at his pie, but only briefly.
Silence is tolerable.
"Have you ever used one of the holodecks?"
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There's a neat half left of the cinnamon, and it's offered for Severus to try with a slight nudge of plate as Charles eyes another, unusually orange without being pumpkin. He claims it for himself.
"There's a rather lovely landscape I'd pull up for myself. A beach. The rocky sort, rather than sandy. Grey, and cold. Or looked it. Felt familiar, anyway. Small chance I won't be doing so again for some time."
Teeny tiny absolutely won't be chance. There's a raise of eyebrows in silent inquiry, either a and you? or why?
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"Mm." Severus thinks about the implications of fake scenery vs the hallway rooms; he hadn't linked the two in his head before. Possibly because he hasn't spent more time in one other than to establish what they were and then write them off as uncomfortably unnatural.
"Someone mentioned them. Not sure I understand the appeal." He's not going to say Nathan wants him to go ... hiking in the Himalayas. Or whatever. He feels uncomfortable about people wanting to spend time with him still; Charles he's grown more or less accustomed to, grudgingly, but he can't help being suspicious and doubtful overall.
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But what they'd been through had been convincing. Sand speckled on his hands, the frost creeping over window panes, the afternoon sunlight adrift through his sitting room curtains. "Take it for what it is. Why?"
Charles prods at pie. Suspiciously citrusy.
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Thanks for tanking the mood, Severus. He eats more pie, and tries not to dwell on... anything. He was perhaps too invested in the recon missions; he's still pissed off. He will be for some time.
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Because fuck.
He is also unconvinced about pie with actual oranges in it, returning to cinnamon. The shiny black-bruise quality of his nails is inspected, briefly -- he barely even remembers doing that to himself -- before he says, "You don't drink. Hence the invitation of pie and a smoke. Speaking of--"
It's your fault for tanking the mood, Severus.
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"Do you read Latin at all?"
This is topical. Honest.
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"A little."
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"It quoted the Aeneid." Smiley. 'Smiley', including quotes. Severus hates that stupid name. "I was always more about practice than history, and never managed to memorize the whole thing." A slight shrug, again. "But I remember highlights - the Trojan horse seems unkindly relevant."
(If he's going to tank the mood might as well do it in style.)
"There's a passage I could never forget. Aeneas's father speaks to him about prophecy, and of leaving the underworld. 'There are two gates of Sleep, one said to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease. The other all white ivory agleam without flaw. And yet false dreams are sent through this one, by the ghosts to the upper world.'"
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He's listening, though, even if he is reeled only a little reluctantly into the conversation.
"The classics are devoted to debating what these stories were even for. Propaganda. Cautionary tales. How does it read to a wizard?"
There's nothing disparaging in that. It's a genuine curiousity, that they would have a different point of view, what with all things mythical apparently being real.
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If somewhat whimsically horrifying, too. "That's a lot less boring than our takes on things, and I know a few professors it'd shut up. I suppose Smiley's one for the classics, then. For some, anyway, I doubt everyone on the ship has an Ancient Rome."
Yes, he isn't taking this conversation super seriously.
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If you're not going to take this seriously, Charles, you get to hear more about Hogwarts. Suffer.
"My peers kindly pointed out the chair they think he died in. So the story goes it took them ages to notice, because the staff room has very nicely constructed freshening charms in it. And he was teaching every day, anyway."
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The critical points of his claim is emphasised with a fork gesture, careful though he is not to dislodge too much pie debris in the process. But there's a smile nested at the corner of his mouth, even though that looks like it hurts to do, given the various shades and placements of certain blooms of bruising.
"Although if you told me that my professor in neuropsychology was probably from beyond the grave, I might've believed you. You'd think he knew Thomas Willis personally, going by how he graded us."
A crooked smile. Still more student than teacher, at least when relating to his own field.
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Like Dementors.
"Give me your shoe."
This other slice of pie over here better be banana related. Or else he's going to be disappointed. And also confused because it doesn't smell citrusy and what the hell else could it be. "Was he the one who kept dissecting brains?"
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Charles is totally already untying his shoe as he says that, words coming slightly pressed as his teeth keep cigarette in place while his hands are occupied. There's a wince at the various aches and twinges that any kind of movement in general bring about, before he offers the item over.
With a hint of amusement, of really. "What did I do to deserve this?" Whether he means that in a good way or a bad way is anyone's gue no he totally means it in a good way.
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Accept it. Like you made him accept pie. Severus takes the shoe but has a moment of 'ugh shoes on table', apparently, because he scoots a pie plate away and sets said shoe onto a napkin. He has to get his wand out for this, which he does, and with one elbow resting on the table, Severus begins tracing complicated patterns in the air. After a moment of that he says something that might be Latin but also might be older than that (it's always a gamble, with Wizarding UK magic).
Charles's shoe shudders like it's got a cold. Then it scrunches inward. It turns white. A grey stripe of hair sprouts all along top of it; laces zip into its mass and vanish at the same time as something long and thin shoots up from one side. The whole thing shudders again and in a blink--
There's a lemur on the table.
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As the initial transformations begin, there's something slightly too profoundly weird about the whole thing, Charles leaning right back in his chair, absently (and carefully) crushing the end of unfinished cigarette on the edge of the table with only a glance to break.
But all at once, it's a moving creature, one that doesn't seem particularly frightened to have gone from a shoe to a lemur. Sprouted tail is poised and articulate, and Charles' brow only crinkles in disbelief when it sends a sharp look his way. Elbows on the table, his chin sinks into his palms, a crooked smile returning.
Experimentally, he pushes one of the plates over to it. The lemur reaches to pick up some pie crust to investigate.
"Lookatitslittlehands Severus."
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Severus leans back and successfully does not laugh. He's tempted.
"I don't completely know how lemurs act," he drawls. "I think it's probably going to end up an sedately idealized cat-monkey."
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"Well it can't be a shoe anymore. That'd just be wrong. Can I touch it?"
Sedately idealised monkey-cat seems like it could be up for pettings, so Charles does exactly that, sort of gently patpatting before delivering a stroke down its spine as if he would with Alex's cat. (Charles is more of a dog person, but he can adapt.)
"Though I suppose the spellwork will-- degrade? After a time."
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"Yes, it will. Transfiguration isn't always meant to be permanent, and the more disparate one thing is from the other, the more it will 'want' to turn back. Creating mimicry of life like this is incredibly complicated. After a few hours it'll start wanting to be a shoe very much. Probably sit on your feet, maybe look a little leathery. Then it'll just be a shoe again."
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Heehee.
"Essentially I'm petting an animated shoe, then. But its a very adorable shoe. Yes you are. Does Hogwarts have an ethics class?" he asks, presently. It doesn't sound very critical. Lemurs > ethics.
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"It's a small community. The whole--" absent gesture, which briefly distracts the lemur, "Moral character thing is supposed to be fostered by peers and mentors."
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