March 20, 1890 - DOM Offices

era-appropriate ableism in Emilia's posts

The time diversion had tinkered with some of her experiments, but she had finally readjusted them. This had been delayed because she had taken a long time to ensure that the time issue had not thrown off any planets or stars, but had re-verified all of their patterns and submitted the DoM paperwork. All that was to say that things were normal, things were fine, and so she could quite cheerfully spend her day playing with orbits.

The door to the space room was closed; she had only left it to get another coffee. EJ preferred the days where everyone did their own thing and they talked about their experiments in the break room. It meant that everything was as it should be. She was on her way back to the space room when she ran into Mr. Mulciber - or, didn't, but she heard the sound of wheels on the floor and stopped short early.

EJ did not know what to make of the wheelchair; and so she preferred to pretend that it did not exist. It seemed like the kinder thing to do.

"Good morning, Mr. Mulciber," she said, "I was planning to suspend gravity in the space room today."

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Ernest Mulciber

  

Ernest usually had no cause to take notice of Emilia Moony, which was exactly the way he liked his Unspeakables. She was an old hand in the department, and was typically reliable when she was not dealing with some sort of Family Issue (pregnancy and kidnapped husbands both being included under that very wide umbrella). Her area of expertise did not overlap much with his, most of the time, which meant that he had spent the majority of his career as an Unspeakable not dealing with her. The fact that she had not yet discovered a way to use her work to create any Ministry-wide disasters meant that he could largely continue that tradition in his role as Assistant Head, which suited him just fine. He preferred to spend most of his day tinkering with time, anyway — or, since his return to work in January, at surreptitiously becoming an expert in the anatomy of a human male's spine.

Her announcement caught him a little off guard, however, because he wasn't sure why she was telling him. He hadn't been headed to the space room, but perhaps she'd thought he was and was trying to warn him off? He was still self-conscious of the blasted chair, and therefore was quick to jump to conclusions which put it at the center. Was she afraid, perhaps, that he would come to check on her and go floating out of his seat? That he would go spinning off helplessly and there would have to be someone sent in to fetch him and return him to his crutch before gravity could be safely restored?

The fact that it was quite a plausible scenario only made the possibility that she had been considering it more annoying. "Oh?" he remarked a little archly, though he tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible. "For what purpose?"

OOC: Emilia could not be as ableist as Ernest if she was actively trying, so.

The following 1 user Likes Ernest Mulciber's post:1 user Likes Ernest Mulciber's post
   Emilia Moony

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Emilia was also not used to being asked about the purpose for her experiments; she submitted reports on time, was reliably on call when the department broke something, and had never, actually, broken something herself. So this interaction was already out of the realm of the normal

"Routine experiment," EJ explained in her most neutral tone,"I'm testing the impacts of gravity on various magical objects - an invisibility cloak, remembrall, and a foeglass, for today."

Space was one of few dimensions that magic could not influence, no matter how much Emilia studied it - but gravity, gravity she could play with. And if she could understand some more about gravity and atmospheric pressure and other things that depended on the planet, then she could learn more about how much bearing Earth itself had on their ability to conduct magic.

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Her explanation was perfectly reasonable, and it was possible that she hadn't been thinking about his new disability when she'd informed him of it. Perhaps she was only trying to be polite — but even then, was she being polite now because she felt he needed some sort of pity? That a kind word from her might bolster his spirits, or something?

If he hadn't been so self-conscious about the wheelchair, this would have been the end of their interaction — but without the wheelchair this interaction might never have happened in the first place, and that frustrated him to no end. He wanted to prove that he was just as capable as before — to himself more than to her — and so he was hesitant to let it go so easily.

"Interesting," he said, though it obviously didn't interest him in the same way it interested her. "Perhaps I'll get a time-turner and join you, if you don't mind the imposition."

  

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Emilia had a bad feeling about the wheelchair and Mr. Mulciber's body. If the chair started floating in the suspended gravity, and Mr. Mulciber also started floating, then she would have to get him back in the chair. This seemed like something that would be painfully awkward for both of them.

Although of course she couldn't say so. He was her boss, technically, and Emilia preferred life in the department when the purists she worked with didn't pay much attention to her.

"Not at all," she said, "Although it may take me a bit to get the gravity right, so you'd want to come after that."

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Now that he'd decided to go in while the gravity was suspended, nothing was going to stop him. If he needed to lash himself to the chair like some sort of asylum patient being strapped down to a bed, that was what he would do, damn it — though hopefully in at least a slightly more dignified manner.

"Why is that?" he challenged, eyebrow raised. It was needlessly antagonistic to ask, of course, because they both knew. A part of him was certain that she wouldn't say it out loud, and another part was hoping that she would, just so he would have the opportunity to snap at her. Not as though anything that was frustrating him about this situation was really her fault, but — any haven in a storm, as the saying went.

  

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This was going to stretch the limits of her diplomacy. She was schooling her expression in as flat an affect as possible; maybe they would get lucky, Lestrange would blow something up, and she would be released from this interaction. She doubted it.

"Well, I can't imagine watching me tinker with spells is the most interesting thing happening here today," Emilia said.

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That was a thin excuse, but was at least a valid one, on the surface of things. Ernest couldn't argue with it, at any rate, and it didn't give him a chance to jab at her over anything she'd said or even implied. He could have asked another baiting question, but he shouldn't do that. Arguing with his subordinates over inconsequential matters wasn't in his job description, and having to tiptoe around his new disability wasn't in theirs.

"Very well, then," he snapped. He was far from satisfied with the interaction, but forced himself to begin wheeling away. He needed to go solve the problem of how to manage the chair in zero gravity, anyway, and hopefully that would prove enough of a distraction to put him in a better mood by the time he returned to the space room.

  

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Emilia waited until she could no longer see Mr. Mulciber's chair before she sighed. She'd made it through their interaction, but not entirely unscathed. She took a sip of her coffee and headed off towards the space room; she was going to have to get things set up, in case Mr. Mulciber did decide to come visit her.

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