Set the trials{Eli}

[Mayu Yoshiko]

December 7, 2010 -- 2:57PM

Mayu Yoshiko wasn't a stranger in the library, in fact she would be seen here after school quite frequently. Ever since she first came to the school she could be found at the library which was a long time ago. Now Mayu had been in the library since one today, having convinced the teacher to sign her an all class pass to continue the research. This should have been plenty of time to locate the knowledge on the Salem Witch hunting, but the library seemed to hate her that day. It had taken her the sum total of two hours to locate even one book on the subject, which lacked the specifics she needed.

She sighed into the current dusty tomb that had held her interest for only a few moments before she gave up. Her deep brown hair fell over the black head of a large cat lying in her jean covered legs. The cat itself wasn't so much a cat as it was a student, her brother to be in fact who was simply practicing his talent. Just as it wasn't a cat so much as it was a panther. This earned her a couple of odd glances as she shoved him away. Mayu resigned herself to the dreaded task of speaking to the know-it-all of the library; Eli.

Without pausing to look at her brother she moved silently towards the door, shyly sensing if he had anyone else in the room before knocking. "Hello? I could use some help, if your free." Mayu kept her voice as quiet as her footsteps before peeking a head through the open door. She figured he wouldn't recognize her since few people did, no matter how many times they saw her face. It seemed as if she wasn't a telepath, but rather a girl who was invisible.

[Eli Morrison]

Eli was reading. This wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that he was reading about pregnancy and prenatal care. Yes, his best friend's pregnancy was freaking him out, and more than just a little bit. She was well into her fifth month, and showing, and probably pretty annoyed that Eli was always hovering around her and worrying. She wasn't traveling as a recruiter any more, but she was still coming in to work, and on top of that, they'd been eating dinner together more often. So we was worrying about her, and didn't notice right away that someone was knocking. He heard her voice though.

Something that the students didn't seem to realize about Eli was that he knew all of them. He knew their faces. He also knew their birthdays, their dorm room number, and every book they had taken out of the library. With his perfect recall, he could connect their faces to the names on the school ID cards they used to check out books.

There were rumors that he knew everything. And they were pretty much true.

Eli looked up from his book and gave a small smile to the girl at the door. "Come on in, Mayu. What do you need?" He waved her into the cramped, little office, made note of his page, and closed the book.

But as he looked around, he realized that the room was so cramped with books, there wasn't anywhere for the student to sit down. "Oh, sorry, one second." The librarian stood and cleared off the chair across the desk from him. (And realized exactly how much taller he was than Mayu. He didn't know how tall she was, but he guessed there was more than a foot of difference between them. It was so strange that he wasn't the same size as the students any more.)

[Mayu Yoshiko]

The small office's clutter didn't bother Mayu as she was used to many things being thrown around everywhere, thanks to her family's lack of cleanliness. She took to everything he did with a small smile, very careful not to let her surprise show at his use of her name. "Thank you, Mr. Morrison but that isn't necessary. I only came for information." Mayu smiled at his generosity but didn't take the seat offered to her once it was clean.

As she walked into the room a slight jingling sound could be heard, similar to the sound of stones hitting stone. The culprit was easy to see once she moved under the artificial light, a thin silver chain circled her head each link having a tiny crystal placed on it. This was something she had spent all night making, rather then researching for the paper. Mayu was quite proud of the circlet, each amethyst was place onto it with extra care. Though some may think the amethyst was an impure crystal, she loved it's supposed head-clearing properties.

"I've been searching through the library for the past two hours and have come up blank. The books are either simply not there, lacking in knowledge, or are not in. Mr. Morrison, what do you know about the Salem Witch Trials?" May laughed lightly, knowing that subtly was definitely not a talent she possessed. Yet sometimes, not beating around the bush would be the best option in the world. This could keep away the small talk that sometimes would rush into a conversation.

Like 'how about this weather?'. Such a horrible little sentence.

[Eli Morrison]

Eli could be a neat man, if he really wanted to, but he didn't have much of an interest in it. He lived alone (Well, with a dog, and so long as her spot on the bed and the couch were always clear, she didn't mind the books her flatmate kept everywhere.) and didn't have the irritating neatnik habit that some of the other staff members of Hammel had. And his office was another extension of himself. As he was not capable of forgetting where he put anything, Eli just put things anywhere.

It also didn't particularly bother him when Mayu elected not to sit down. He went back to his chair behind the desk, on the other hand. When Eli had been a student, nothing intimidated him quite as much as someone towering over him. So he left the chair--and the offer to sit--open, and just continued to smile.

"I've been searching through the library for the past two hours and have come up blank. The books are either simply not there, lacking in knowledge, or are not in. Mr. Morrison, what do you know about the Salem Witch Trials?"

He chuckled. He had to. In general, he was a better judge of what was in and around the Hammel library than the actual computer system. "What's this for? Harrington's English class or Brookner's History?" It had happened the year before; both teachers had assigned reports on the same topic at the same time, and all the books had been checked out at the same time, screwing over students who were late to the game. "I know quite a bit about them. Are you looking for more on the actual facts, or on the literature about it?" In his opinion, the literature was more interesting. The facts were just that people took advantage of an imagined difference to persecute those against whom they already held grudges.

Nothing that couldn't be seen happening in any high school in the US.

[Mayu Yoshiko]

Mayu smiled shyly, ducking her head down so she didn't look the librarian in the eye. It was a habit of hers to do this whenever she wanted to think; since it was just like her to believe that a person's eyes really were the gateways to their soul. Such an odd little girl; which just might explain why she was studying the Salem Witch Trials before the actual project was even assigned-to get ahead of the crowd of course. Well, that's what she'd tell anyone who asked anyway.

"Actually, Mr. Morrison, it's neither. My brother told me what to expect so I figured I'd get ahead and do the research now.. Unfortunately it'd seem like everyone else got that same idea this week. And I have Brookner, whom I think is saving that project for a bit or at least another couple days.." She offered him another smiled and looked back up, still carefully avoiding eye contact. As subtle as she could so May wouldn't appear rude, and you could tell why subtly wasn't her strong suite.

Without smiling this time which made her feel much better since she no longer had to hurt her face, May continued on with her speech-or talking at least. "I find literature much more interesting, but somehow I think Brookner would prefer the facts. I'd be fine with whatever you can provide though, Mr. Morrison." Now she did take the chair that was offered, sitting precociously on the edge so as to take as little space as she possibly could. Mayu reached into the bag strapped by her side and pulled out a notebook, quickly followed by a pin, so she might be able to take notes on his words; she was known to have an ‘in one ear and out the other’ quality.

[Eli Morrison]

When Mayu ducked her head, Eli looked away, instantly uncomfortable. He knew that not every person used lack of eye contact as a defense mechanism, but that was why he had avoided meeting anyone's eyes for years after starting Hammel. Avoidance behaviors was a touchy subject with him, naturally.

"Sorry for the noise," Eli thought, as clearly and slowly as he could. When he'd been a student, young telepaths had complained that his thoughts were too loud, as he couldn't stop his computer-like thinking. Usually, the speed of his thought processes blurred everything into a dull hum, but when he was startled by something--Mayu not meeting his eyes, in this case--then several thousand more thoughts rushed into his head, overloading the processes into more of a roar. He took a moment to try and focus his thoughts, then looked at her, and waited for her to continue.

The librarian nodded to himself as she explained her situation, and he pulled out a legal pad and a pen from his desk. "Well, Brookner doesn't like using me as a real 'source', so I can give you background and point you in the right direction, but you shouldn't quote me." As he spoke, he was scribbling out a series of web addresses in his cramped-but-legible handwriting. "Here are some online journal articles by reputable scholars. The first two I give out to everyone, but the next three I'm not going to tell anyone else about. So you might want to focus on them, since less people will be using them." He added a sixth and seventh to the list and pushed them across the desk to her. "They didn't actually happen in Salem Town, but in Salem Village. Fourteen women and five men were hanged and one man was crushed to death when he refused to enter a plea. More people confessed, in hopes that if they implicated others, they could be spared punishment. Is there anything specific you want to know?" He could go on, but he didn't want to overload the girl with too much.

[Mayu Yoshiko]

Mayu offered him a smile, it was nice of him. To consider her ability like that. It was unusual for someone to be able to tame their thoughts around her. But to be honest she hadn't even been paying attention to his mind- until the 'shouting' had begun. Mental shouting because it wasn't actual shouting, you know. That would have been odd if Eli had started shouting for no reason. Now that she thought about it... That would be a sight to see. Eli losing his temper. Yes please.

Hold on, back to earth (or at least back to Hammel). "It is alright, Mr. Morrison. I'm rather used to the loud minds, if you have met my brother you'd understand." she settled back into the chair, copying the words he wrote down onto her paper with her neat, typewriter worthy, letters. Much easier to read. It made her life a whole lot easier when she was researching in the dead of night- kept her from having to read some god awful handwriting.

"Well sir, weren't there tests of witches? The 'lighter then a duck' method or where they would drown the woman?"" Mayu asked this in a quiet voice, not wanting to be wrong. Being wrong was not something she ever wanted to be. Telepaths should be able to avoid mistakes, even if they don't know what the frick their talking about. "Or is that just the movies?"

[Eli Morrison]

Eli didn't lose his temper.

Eli rarely lost his temper. He was mild-mannered to a fault, and sometimes didn't understand how people got so emotional over things that he could only manage to look at logically. Of course, he did have the few things that really pushed his buttons, but even then he managed to stay calm, even if his words switched to thinly-veiled insults.

"I have met Antosha, yes." He was aware that the boy wasn't literally the girl's brother. Actually, he might have even been annoyed by the shifter, if he wasn't just a milder version of Vincent. Eli could take Verax's harassment (sexual and otherwise) and anyone after that was easy to ignore.

"It wasn't just women, Mayu. That's important to understand. Yes, it was mostly women who were accused, but men were as well. There was a sink-or-swim method of testing, yes, but the more common tests were searching for the Devil's Mark and making them recite the Lord's Prayer. Supposedly, if they were capable of saying the prayer without stumbling, then they could not be witches. However, one of the men accused was able to say it, and then one of the girls accusing claimed she saw the devil whispering the words into his ear, and he was hanged anyway." The librarian leaned back in his chair, recalling the information with ease and rephrasing it as he spoke, translating from the academic language he had read. "The Devil's Mark was another test that was hard to pass, since there was no standard to compare marks to. Any odd freckle, birth mark, or blemish could be considered the mark. And weighing the same as a duck is both the wrong location and time period, as well as being completely made up in the seventies. I think that was just because the word 'duck' is funny.'" He smiled and paused there, and waited for her to catch up with her notes.