Office Hours

[edomedpeddler]

Despite the things going on, Kusuriyuri knew his duty as a professor. He opened his office door, placing a small sign just outside stating his office was open and to please remove shoes as it was entered

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[i_am_harkonnen]

Sure, he'd claimed he was going to spend the next few days in bed due to an overly strenuous couple of days, but, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen wasn't the sort to enjoy looking at the same rather dull and disappointing walls for that long. Reading material passed the time, as well as attempting to make small objects move and hover with ever improving results, but, things got dull anyway. He wasn't used to spending lengthy amounts of time alone. So, despite feeling stiff and unpleasant, he had hauled himself out of his new sheets, which he had to admit were of exceptional quality, made himself presentable, and went to see a bit more of the castle.

Floating down a corridor he had not seen before, he noticed an open office, with a sign indicating a professor was actually in there, doing something. Considering his growing interest in the organizational affairs of the school, this did seem like something to do for a short while. He determined that the request to remove shoes did not apply to him, considering his feet were not actually touching the ground. Of course, it wouldn't have applied to him even if they were, at least in his mind. But they weren't.

He was mildly surprised to see the professor sitting behind a low table, instead of at a desk. But, he smiled politely in greeting. "I hope you understand if I do not bother to remove my shoes. Your floor isn't going to suffer for it."

[edomedpeddler]

Kusuriyuri looked up at the student then down at his feet, his eyebrows rising slightly as he noticed they were not in contact with the floor. "It is that tatami do not hold up well under shoes," he said, gesturing at the floor coverings. "If the shoes will not be in contact with the floor, then this one does not see that it should matter."

He tilted his head slightly before bowing where he sat. "This is our first meeting. This one is called Kusuriyuri."

[i_am_harkonnen]

The shoes he was wearing weren't actually any more substantial than the slippers by the door, just heavily embroidered and made of black velvet. Complicated shoes weren't of much importance when you didn't walk anywhere. "One of the inconvenient things about null-grav fields is that some procedures become slightly more difficult." It wasn't the easiest thing to take off shoes when floating.

The man was rather odd looking, but he'd already seen stranger, and spoke oddly, but, it was probably one of those cultural nuances. Considering the amount of them in the Imperium, one learned to just interpret strange nuances as well as possible. The strangest thing about 'this one' wasn't his appearance. It was that he was speaking of himself in a nameless third person variant implying a position of bonded subservience. He felt rather sure that this was one of those situations where a completely different cultural nuance took on a form that could be easily misinterpreted, and so approached him under the assumption that he wasn't a slave. Slaves were perfectly viable teachers if properly trained, however, so perhaps he was in for a pleasant surprise. All the servants he'd seen so far were hideous. But he didn't hope too much.

"I am the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. I've not been here long." He recalled that A had mentioned this man has one of his professors. "It is good to make your acquaintance, I have heard of you from your student A. You teach a subject called Divination, I believe."

[edomedpeddler]

"That is so," Kusuriyuri said. "This one is a medicine peddler," he said, allowing the translation charm to translate kusuri-uri to its English equivalent. "In the place where he is from, it is common that peddlers practice many arts, divination and exorcism among them. The Hat requested that this one take the position so that he might exorcise one called Kojiro. However, Kojiro is not mononoke, therefore this one has no ability to exorcise him. He does, however, see the need to fulfill the rest of his appointed role." From him, this is quite a speech, however the translation charm rendered the word 'baron' into 'daimyo' and as such, the Baron would expect such an explanation.

[i_am_harkonnen]

Vladimir shifted slightly in his suspensors, attempting to properly interpret Kusuriyuri's rather indirect form of communication. 'Medicine peddler' made some sense, but, the rest was somewhat cryptic. Divination was fortune-telling, that much he did know, and considered it a rather silly idea, but wasn't going to be so rude as to mention this. And apparently the hat gave him a job he couldn't actually do- but he could respect the fact that he took advantage of the opportunity to make use of it anyway.

"So do you enjoy the job? It seems like professors are relatively rare here- it is good to see someone performing a necessary organizational role."

[edomedpeddler]

Kusuriyuri thought a moment. "This one enjoys his duty, yes. It affords him the opportunity to learn and to teach, giving him purpose here."

He poured himself some tea. "Would you care for some? It is genmai cha."

[i_am_harkonnen]

Vladimir had no idea what 'genmai cha' was, but, it did smell pleasant. "Ah yes, purpose- I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Ending up stuck in a strange school without an obvious job does make one consider the topic. And I'll certainly try some, thank you."

He contemplated the table, wondering exactly what he supposed to do. Sit on a cushion on the floor, apparently. Probably not so uncomfortable as sitting in the garden, but, he glanced around, looking for something slightly easier to deal with. Naturally, there wasn't anything, and so he maneuvered himself near the table and pressed something on one of the subtle bulges beneath his robes, reducing the strength of the suspensors and allowing him to actually sit down. He managed it somewhat uncomfortably, briefly cursing his decision to leave his bed, but, decided it wasn't nearly so bad as the garden. He could put up with it for a time, as he was interested in speaking to Kusuriyuri.

"So how does one go about teaching the subject of Divination? That's fortune-telling, right?"

[edomedpeddler]

Kusuriyuri poured tea and placed it in front of the Baron. "Fortune-telling is only the most superficial form of divination," he said His tone was still soft but began taking on the quality of 'lecture' rather than 'conversation.' "In it's full form, divination is to seek and understand the truth, about the self and about the world. Divination may reveal more of the past, of the present, of the future or none of these. It may only open the mind to that which is there."

[i_am_harkonnen]

"Prescience?" The Baron squinted curiously at Kusuriyuri. He didn't look a damn thing like a Guildsman. Not that anyone ever saw the advanced ones, but, his eyes lacked the tell-tale traces of heavy spice usage. He spoke strangely enough to fit in, probably, and maybe prescience was actually what he was talking about. "Where I come from, there is an organization that claims to be able to see future events. I'd say they sometimes can, as, they are effective at what they do. They use it to enable space travel. They call it prescience."

Large amounts of spice could encourage prescience in individuals in whom it was already a latent trait. This was one of the qualities the Spacing Guild looked for in their candidate selection. He of course had never experienced prescience. Sure, he had strange dreams now and again, especially after a heavier spice treatment, but sensibly ignored them. ((He's the granddad of Paul Atreides. It's pretty safe to assume he's got some latent prescience. Just he doesn't use it, being unaware of it.))

He took out his poison snooper and ran it over the cup, showing up negative of course. Despite no signs of poison being a common threat in this new culture, old habits didn't fade easily. The tea did smell good, and, he was pleasantly surprised when he tried it. "It's good, thank you."

[edomedpeddler]

"Saa," Kusuriyuri murmured. "This one has developed a knowing of truth from his need to know it. Mononoke can only be exorcised when their Truth, Form, and Regret are known. Those who wish may develop a similar knowing, though there is a need for time for it to grow into a full knowing. This one is unaware of this knowledge being used to travel through space, however." Though, he did use the knowledge to travel between worlds in order to fight the mononoke.

He bowed slightly at the comment on the tea. "You're welcome. This one is fond of tea. Kurama keeps him supplied." To those who knew him or were sensitive enough to the subtle nuances of his voice, they'd hear the fondness for Kurama in the saying of his name. To most, though, it would sound simply conversational.

[i_am_harkonnen]

He sipped the tea, and listened very carefully at Kusuriyuri. He couldn't have been saying what it sounded like he was saying, that he was a Truthsayer. He was pretty, but he was evidently male, and, Truthsayers were females. Very, very irritating ones. The idea of male Bene Gesserits didn't seem so awful at least. The playing field might be somewhat equalized. He had no idea what a mononoke was, and wasn't sure that asking was terribly wise, or if he'd just be told something mostly incomprehensible, that possibly shouldn't exist.

"I'm not sure if it's the same knowledge or not that is used by the Spacing Guild. They won't exist for thousands of years." He did seem to recall that history indicated an early link between the Spacing Guild and Bene Gesserit, which would be interesting consider, but it was far before the times of both.

"I've met Professor Kurama, he seems quite respectable." Vladimir had mostly enjoyed his recent conversation with Kurama, as it was informative, although he really hadn't needed to hear about the bureaucratic structure of Hell. He was trying not to think about that subject too much, as it created an unpleasant metaphysical dichotomy in his brain. "And, considering the talent of his student A, it is understandable that he'd supply a quality tea."

[edomedpeddler]

"A is very eager to learn. This one teaches him of medicine and Kurama teaches him of plants." That those lessons also included counseling and gentle guidance toward independence was unnecessary to mention. "He is this one's first student. It has been a most pleasant experience, to have a student."

[i_am_harkonnen]

"Ah, yes, he'd mentioned he was learning about medicine as well. Very useful, that. He's a very bright young man, and extremely well-mannered. Good material. Apparently you've done well with him." Vladimir adjusted himself, attempting to become more comfortable and mostly failing. He contemplated a question that he'd been wondering about for a few days- it seemed like this man might have a few answers.

"I do have some concerns about him." He tapped one-handedly on the side of the table with the fingers of an unmoving hand, in a repetitive, unconscious pattern, as he tried to figure out the best way to phrase them. "It seems that something, hrm, seriously unpleasant has happened to the boy in the past. I'm not sure if it was psychological, physical, or both. He appears very repairable, provided no one screws him up again, but whatever it was had to be inflicted by someone." A displayed certain behavior patterns that reminded him very much of people who'd been through the torture chambers and come out alive. He'd seen it first hand enough to recognize it, having sent many people there himself. Those were generally bad prospects, however, and it was their best use. A seemed to have talents that were worthwhile to cultivate, and Vladimir hated when things went to waste.

"He seems to be putting forth an effort towards recovering from whatever this trauma was, which is good to see. He assisted me with some matters lately and did extremely well. But I'd like to be certain that he is not subjected to whatever caused this behavior again. It sounds like whatever this was, it may have been before he was at Hogwarts, but it seems like pressing him for the information could damage his recovery." He was curious to know if Kusuriyuri might think any of its source was still present here.

[edomedpeddler]

"He was ill used," Kusuriyuri said, using the most ambiguous phrase his language allowed him. "That one was here. When he first met this one, he wished to learn of poisons and revenge. This one pledged to teach him such when he understood the consequences of his desires." Which has, at this point, become moot, but the promise remains.

He frowned slightly. "His training before was also highly focused on a single, unobtainable goal. It was there he and the other were brought together. Here, he has been given both the opportunity to select his path and to obtain some measure of retribution." A could be very blood-thirsty when provoked to it, even still.

"His recovery has focused on teaching him, listening to him and giving him opportunity and place to be."

[i_am_harkonnen]

He listened thoughtfully, finding Kusuriyuri's explanation to be somewhat at odds with A's apparent nature, which wasn't a front. If what he was being told was true, A's state appeared more delicate than he'd realized. "That something unpleasant happened to him is without doubt but. . . do you think that he's actually capable of understanding the subtleties of things like poisons and revenge? I don't think that he is. He might think that he is, but. . . the revenge of children is not a mature thing. It generally just leads to consequences, for them. They've got understand bigger pictures before they learn how it all really works. An ideal revenge should finish the story. It's a cold, dispassionate process. You learn this extremely well in interplanetary politics."

There were few art forms more exquisitely developed in the Imperium than revenge. It was the sort of thing that Great Houses like his own were willing to spend as long as it took on to do properly- ten thousand years, for his family's biggest vendetta. But it would be perfect. Real revenge required nothing short of elimination. Else you just had to do it again. He couldn't quite see A eliminating an entire organization or family.

"But, it sounds like you have been taking the right approach so far- it seems like he was badly programmed according to your implications, and his own. So it's probably good that he's here. From his basically helpful nature, one that seems to take a natural concern in the welfare of things, he's been put on a path that would suit him well by yourself and Professor Kurama. The care he takes with his plants is evident, he's dedicated, and his helpful nature would suit medicine well. It would be better than him getting himself in a worse situation. So it probably would not be wise to help teach him about planning a revenge unless you intend to teach it properly." He didn't think anyone who wasn't involved in politics could manage this. Something temporarily sufficient, perhaps, but, not perfect. And perfect was the only option for vengeance.

[edomedpeddler]

"Deshi is learning to dance upon the tsunami," Kusuriyuri said, unconsciously using his preferred term for A. "He is learning to read the ripples of his actions. It is a long process, but he is earnest in his studies." He paused a moment. "At first, he believed he must predict all, but that is beyond even this one." He considered the actual question. "This one believes he is capable of learning, yes. He has learned much, grown much. He did not know of the outside when this one met him."

Kusuriyuri sipped his tea. "He is at the point where he understands defense, the need for it. He has learned of the consequences of revenge and is not yet ready to fulfill it. But, the cause for such a request has been removed for now. For now, we focus on what is most important."