Liliana's Office, Thursday

[deathsmajesty]

Even with only a fraction of the simulation she'd had planned, Liliana thought the class had gone well and was quite pleased with how everything had turned out. Perhaps she'd teach a class on the Ravnican Guilds and use that simulation again some day.

She'd brought the elven lyre to the school, figuring she could stop by the shop after classes to place it back in the window. Even though it wasn't a harp proper, it felt more like the ones she'd grown up with than the large standing harp she'd used in class yesterday. Perhaps the aesthetic, perhaps something as simple as the size. Her mother had used a standing harp when she played, but Liliana and Allegra had been taught on lap harps growing up.

Idly she began to play again, something easy and slow, looking over her notes for next week when they would - sadly - leave zombies behind and start discussing vampires. What should she do for a capstone on that section? Perhaps a real trip to Innistrad to talk to Olivia Voldaren or Runo Stromkirk? Hmm, probably not. She couldn't run the risk of an overzealous fledgling eating one of her students. Maybe she could invite Sorin Markov to give a lecture. That idea made her laugh out loud. Perhaps Eric?

...She was studiously ignoring the existence of the other vampire on the island. She would talk to Sorin Markov for a full day before she'd allow that one to come talk in her classroom.

Comments

[chef_chocobro]

When Ignis arrived at the door to Liliana's office with the expected offering of a lunch at would no doubt be ignored until they cut it dangerously close to the time he had to leave to prepare for his class, he paused for a moment much, much longer than the usual pause to slip off his glasses and fold them into his pocket for safekeeping. Because he caught the strains of music coming from behind it and wanted to just listen for a while, imagining that, just like on Monday, it would no doubt cease once he walked into the room.

But it did have him thinking, about how it might be received if he were to suggest that, on occasion, they swapped the book that Liliana would sometimes read for him with an instrument for her to play instead...

But then he did knock,to let her know he had arrived, just a mere fleeting second before pushing open the door to step inside.

"Liliana," no need to pose it as a probing question for position this time. "Might I interest you in a bit of a break?"

[deathsmajesty]

But darling, they didn't have any instruments! She was planning on returning this one to the store today, obviously. Unless, of course, she had a good reason not to.

As he'd predicted, Liliana's hand went flat on the strings as soon as the door opened, silencing their song. "A break sounds delightful, my darling," she said, offering him a soft smile. Which then got upgraded to a small chuckle as she added, "I need to stop imagining asking Sorin Markov to tea."

[chef_chocobro]

Ahh,but if that lyre truly was destined to return to the shelves of the Emporium, then it was hardly the only lyre availavle in the multiverse. Perhaps he might merely have to find another, especially with her clearly so taken with it these days...

"Sorin Markov?" Ignis asked, and, with the door now quite secure behind him, he moved to join her and to set their lunch on the desk for now. "The vampire you all too recently 'team up with'"--behold! A rare instance of subtle finger quotes being utilized to sarcastic effect!--"after your last traipse through the Blind Eternities? Whatever could have reduced you to such a state as that, darling?"

[deathsmajesty]

It wasn't that she was taken with it, there had just been a very convoluted series of circumstances that had led to her having it with her today. Honest.

"Ugh," Liliana said, wrinkling her nose. "Gaia that mak could suck the joy out of hunting angels for sport."

Yes, she knew she'd brought him up, but still. Some things bore repeating.

"I'm trying to figure out things that I would do before I allowed that vampire--" Ignis knew the one "--into my classroom to talk to my students. So far 'extended conversation with Sorin' and kissing Avacyn have both made the list, though I will admit that spite is a primary motivation in both. Take that away and I'd have to rethink my options."

[chef_chocobro]

There was the slightest of hesitations, because he knew that 'Ignis states the obvious' was not a feature that had turned out in his benefit, in the past, but at least this might at least open up some perspective to the conundrum at hand, perhaps...

"Have you considered Eric at all?" he asked, and then his head tilted as he mused along this line of thought a little further. "And I trust your friend Olivia has also been dismissed. I can only imagine her...intensity," yes, he'd only met the woman once, but she'd left quite an impression, and not the ones he'd suspected she'd have liked to have left on him, "would be difficult to rein in in this particular setting..."

[deathsmajesty]

And, indeed, Liliana did deliver him a tart look because obviously she had considered Eric, but that wasn't the point of the minigame thought exercise. That was to pin down how much she disliked that other vampire, but weighing her existence against other people she disliked. Intensely.

It was good to have a precise accounting of where people existed on your hate-o-meter. Then you knew in which order to sacrifice them should the need arise.

Still, tart look aside, her answer was fangless. "And if I decide that I do want a vampire to come in and lead the capstone class, Eric would be my choice," she said. "I considered Olivia - and Runo, of course - but neither of them are Planeswalkers, so I would have to bring the class to Innistrad--" She bet he loved that idea, "--or program them into the Danger Shop, in which case they would simply be parroting my words back to the class and I could have saved us all the trouble of saying them directly."

[chef_chocobro]

There was a frown and a grunt to bolster that Liliana's assumption on whar he thought of the idea of a field trip was, indeed, correct.

"And while carting the entire class off to Innistrad would no doubt be highly educational," he drawled, "it would be the very textbook definition of 'a liability.'"

[deathsmajesty]

"And they can't know about planar portals," Liliana said. "No one from my Multiverse can know. I'm almost certain that knowledge is precisely why Nicol Bolas sent me here. He doesn't need me to run this tiny outpost shop in the middle of nowhere. Even if I sold every bit of merchandise as I got it in, he wouldn't even notice."

He was something like thirty-thousand years old. That was a lot of time for a dragon to accumulate a horde.

"But access to the only working planar portal in the Multiverse? The value for that would be incalculable, and so is the damage he could cause."

And this, kids, is what we call 'dramatic irony.' Thanks Rashmi.