*almost immediately, a message is delivered back*
Professor:
As you come from the Desert, though you have lived among us for many years now, you may not be acquainted yet with the Britannian spirit. We are inquisitive people by nature and there is no price that is worth more than Truth. If you do not share our curiosity and sense of devotion to Truth and the superiority of Honesty over the other Virtues and of Moonglow over the other cities, perhaps we may find another Professor of Antiquities who does.
-The Dean of the Lycaeum
"Damn them. Damn them to the Abyss." Professor Ad-Din tossed the message from the Dean onto his desk angrily. The Lycaeum always wrote its correspondence on heavy paper, sometimes even on parchment, and Theresa could swear she heard it "thud" as it hit the desk. They were at home. She had read the message before showing it to her Yusef. She always read his messages.
"Perhaps we should take him up on that," Theresa murmured. She was as-frustrated as he was. She worked with her lover now, and she had seen the goings-on at the Lycaeum up close.
"And what would we do then, my love. What would we use for money? Join my brother on his ship and hunt pirates? Dig up treasure?" Theresa knew Yusef. These words were not sarcastic, though, to another, they might have appeared that way. Yusef's frustration had been building since the new curriculum had been put into effect, since the Lycaeum took upon itself to openly declare that Honesty and Moonglow were superior to the other Virtues, and the other Cities.
"Perhaps you could tutor. Perhaps you could teach in Britain someplace. There are other places."
"I know my love. But then...."
"Someone else, someone besides you, someone greedy and Prideful perhaps, would take up where Callie left off."
"They would want to find a way to make money from this...."
"They would. You are.....You are more Britannian than they, my love. In spirit, in devotion to Virtue."
"Let us marry," Yusef blurted out.
Theresa started. "We are already engaged, my love."
"No....I mean now. Today. Let us go find someone to marry us. Let us marry before.....Before the world flies apart, in one way or another. Before anyone else starves, before anyone else riots, before anyone else tries to burn down the libraries, before any more pieces of the infernal machine are erupted in our world."
"But.....But I haven't even met your parents yet!"
"Bah!" Yusef went to the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a drink. Theresa noted it was the same thing she drank; the bottle was nearly empty after Yusef poured his glass. She had been drinking a lot of it since her imprisonment by the Mysterious Knights. "I am not so sure you want to meet them. My parents, I mean."
Yusef drank, and the conversation stopped for awhile. Both stood, not looking at each other, but lost as many strong couples are in one another's thoughts, not their own. Without looking at him, Theresa walked across the room. She walked with such exquisite delicateness that it looked more like floating than walking, her light-colored hair falling just so over her face. She slid into Yusef's arms and he embrace her.
"I love you," they whispered together.
"Stay at the Lycaeum," whispered Theresa. "Stay and fight. Do what they want. Investigate the nexuses. Your brother can teach you how to walk unseen. You can slip past the creatures, and study the nexuses up close. If there is anything to find, you will find it. If not, then we will know there is nothing to find, nothing to discover, at least not yet."
"And if the creatures find me? If they reveal me?"
She kissed his lips softly. "You will have me nearby. I know enough magic to make myself invisible, to heal you, to cast
Corp Por. You will have me and we will have this." They were across the room from where Yusef kept his sword, hanging on the wall. They were across the room from it but somehow Theresa reached out, and took it, and strapped it to Yusef's waist. Yusef stared at her.
"How did you...."
Theresa ignored him. "We will fight, and we will win, or we will escape more or less unscathed." She kissed him again. "But that's tomorrow."
"And tonight?"
She smiled.