Thread: Blood Ties  [Arberus x Temara]

RE Blood Ties The sun never seemed to stay up long enough. It was already starting to set by the time his rounds through the library were done- as usual he skimmed and read as necessary through several while there, and only took the most archaic or volumous and directly relevant books out to pour over further and etch notes down from into his books. He'd rented a lab out from the school, and change the lock out to keep the janitors from bumbling in. Not that he much feared espionage at the moment, but caution had been beaten into him. There were reasons he did not work too long in the labs after dark his schoolwork was among them. Skylar was in entry level classes again, and a new university, but he'd settled in over the summer and gotten himself a head start. It was difficult to get the proper respect in the medical field without a PHD, but he'd left that until last. The man had no intentions of setting himself up as just another subject to some established doctor or firm. He had to make less usual contacts, to establish himself. If he came out into the field flying, with a good starting plan- and as an independent, so he wouldn't have to sully his dealings with his damned father or doting mother- it would draw a lot more of the attention he wanted his way. Attention he'd need if he desired funding or the chance to meet and work with ground breaking idea men. And he did so desire that funding and those ideas. Not that any of the classes for a bachelor's in mechanical engineering had a heavy front load of work, or had begun in truth yet, but he would be loath to fail to absorb a single fact with the potential to give him a breakthrough somewhere because he had neglected his usual attention to the classes. And with his personal research and less traditionally academic studies heaped atop his usual 18 hour courseload, failing to get a head start could mean a slip somewhere. A very pointed and productive mindset wasted on his roommate. The boy was studying business, possibly sports team management. The ones who weren't the paragons who managed to play professionally all their youthful lives seemed determined to do one of the two, or to pursue physical therapy. Skylar already had a medical masters, but the differing perspective and details going into a physical therapy degree would have been a welcomed thing to bring into idle talk. Instead, he was pursuing a bachelors in business, which Skylar already had, and getting an early start on alcoholism, which Skylar had no desire for, and while it had been a small bit of fun to learn some of the ins and outs of his mind and practice polite conversation, he had contributed nothing that made Skylar anything but glad to have heard he'd be out late, perhaps all night, partying again. Unless he came back too drunk to hold his stomach, anyway. The sun had winked the rest of the way out before he was satisfied, and put the books away. The clubs were woefully dead with classes not yet begun, and the pressures of occult study had taken up time he might normally have spent letting himself go to a local club, or bar, or any place to get a more varied and lively source of human contact. He hardly shut himself in to become some sort of a bookworm, but time was a more precious commodity than ever. He could hardly justify doing it as often as he had used to. Or perhaps he might. The textbooks seemed painfully straightforward and the logic was hardly as taxing to conquer as the memorization and interrelated processes of medicine. It was similar in some ways, but much, much simpler. Even the mathematics courses seemed perfectly manageable. Am I really going to bed wishing for a simple time sink again? It had been a while since he'd felt the need for any such thing. But maybe he did need a new distraction. Laid against to club hoping, despite the great appeal of it's most obvious advantages, he rather hoped he could locate a school of riding or fencing somewhere in the vicinity. Hell, he might consider taking up golf- it was useful for a businessman in this day and age, even if it seemed rather droll to him. Skylar ended the night as usual. He sorted his side of the room methodically into order wherever chaos had sprung up, and stripped, this time to his skin, enjoying the lack of a roommate alternating between gawking and demanding he put more on while pointedly averting his eyes. Then, the lights went off, and he stretched loosened the body, relaxed, cleared the processes going through his mind so they could properly ferment in sleep, rather than being laid together in frantic chance like a child's block set. And finally, he let himself focus on just one candle, boring into the tiny blip of light with his eyes until the meditation helped him seal all the doors he wanted safely sealed while he slept. Lucid dreaming was a wonderful skill, but sometimes there were voices, memories, he simply had no desire to expose himself to in sleep. With or without the skill, it felt vulnerable. He allowed a small fluttering of elation in his gut as the hot wax dripped onto his hand, while he extinguished the light with his other. There was pain, certainly, but it seemed so silly to discount every other tiny detail screaming of life in the thing simply out of malice toward pain. Once you learned to accept the lessons and complexity in it, a small bit of pain began to acquire a rather pleasant flavor. Skylar laid himself into bed, smiled as he stretched out comfortably onto his back, and closed his eyes.