open RP: Wednesday holds office hours. Because it's Wednesday.

[callmewednesday]

It was his day. Why not?

The professor of Ancient Runes stuck a ragged half-sheet of parchment on his office door. It read:

Come on in, the water's fine.

He left the door ajar, to underscore the point. Inside the office, he sat with his Kiss Me, I'm Half-Veela! mug half-full of whiskey, and desultorily leafed through Ted Andersson's thoughts

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[my_soul_itches]

Megan had spent the time since her arrival more than a little confused. The Institute hadn't held classes regularly because of attacks by religious fanatics, demons, and evil mutants. What was Hogwarts' excuse?

It was purely by accident that she zoomed by Wednesday's office, trying yet again to memorize the castle's layout. (Because you never knew when your place of learning would be attacked. And this place was magic, so that had to be like a billion more built-in enemies right there.) She hadn't met any of the teachers here yet to her knowledge, so she decided to flutter on in. But she knocked first. It was only polite.

"Hello?" She checked the sign on the door and found the name. "Mister Wednesday?"

[callmewednesday]

He'd been sure not to obscure the plaque on his door when he'd tacked up the parchment message.

Closing his book with a playing card to mark the page, he rose and answered the door in person, so sociable was he today. "That's what they call me. What can I call you?"

[my_soul_itches]

"Megan. Megan Gwynn." Her codename was for business only, she figured. Plus it would be kind of ridiculous to ask a teacher who wasn't an X-man to call her "Pixie."

"So I'm kind of new here and I was wondering, what exactly are ancient runes and how are they magic? I mean, I figured that they're old and all, being ancient. But can you use them to cast spells or anything?"

[callmewednesday]

"A good question, if plainly put. There's the short answer and then there's the true answer. Which would you like? The true answer will take a while to tell, so you might want to sit down for that." He moved aside from the door and held it open so that she could enter.

The interior of his office remained as unimpressive as the day he'd taken up its occupation. A superannuated armchair, sprung at the seams, awaited Pixie; Wednesday resumed his seat in the creaky wooden wheeled thing behind the desk.

"How ancient is ancient, in your estimation?"

[swap_minds4fun]

"Says who?" Mentok stood at the door, gesturing to the sign about the water. "It may be fine for you but who knows, could be toxic for the rest of us."

[callmewednesday]

Wednesday snorted. "You're literal-minded for a green man."

[swap_minds4fun]

"Nope, just an instigator. Still have to cause trouble somehow and this way is legal."

[callmewednesday]

"Some kind of compulsion, I dare say. Well, come on in and sit a spell, Mr. Greenjeans."

[400_years_young]

"The top half or the bottom half?" John asked. He had lived for four centuries, and his jokes had been old the day he had started telling them.

[callmewednesday]

"Why only half?"

Wednesday wasn't letting on whether or not he got the joke, let alone whether he thought it was funny.

[400_years_young]

"Well, your mug only describes you as half," John pointed out. He really didn't care if Wednesday got the joke or not. This was just as good a topic as any. "It doesn't say anything about greater than half, or half due to rounding. So maybe you should be in the market for a more accurate mug."

[callmewednesday]

"My other mug describes me as Chudley Cannons. Therefore, one might deduce that the half of me that is veela is the half that is not Chudley Cannons -- if one defines a man by his coffee mug slogans. Have you ever had the fortune of meeting a veela, by the by?"

Or meeting the Chudley Cannons?

[wrinklesintime]

Meg Murry had been meaning to contact the ancient runes professor, given the fact that she was actually good at that subject. Unfortunately, she'd recently experienced some sort of complication involving tesseracts, or maybe just her mun's forgetful nature, and hadn't actually done anything about making said contact.

Now, though, here she was, standing hesitantly in the doorway. She knocked lightly against the doorframe, straightened her glasses, and called, "Professor? Do you have a minute?"