March 1st, 1891 - Department of Mysteries

The ceiling of the space room was an image of the moon as it was now, up close - Emilia had amplified the image in her telescope, and was rather pleased to be sitting in her chair, taking notes on the moon's craters and shape. She wanted to know what it was made of; she'd sampled moon rock before, but it wasn't the same as getting a sample from the moon, she thought.

She was dwelling on the inaccessibility of this when she heard her door open and glanced behind her to see Miss Scamander stepping in. Miss Scamander was one of the more enjoyable of the other Unspeakables, and Emilia was happy to have her.

"Look at the moon," Emilia said, with a pleased smile at the ceiling. "You want to talk about time, days on her are nearly thirty of our days." Emilia had never dabbled extensively in time magic, beyond her measurements of the planets and her investigation of them - she could not figure out why planets spun at different speeds, but was intrigued by it.

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Marlena Scamander Elladora Black

  

As a rule Marlena hated gossip. It led to incessant chatter, unnecessary distractions and she saw absolutely no advantage in knowing who had been seen with who in the park – she also didn’t like to listen on the off-chance that Begonia would come up but that was by-the-by. On this occasion though she was treating her information less as gossip and more as a kind of intel and it felt far more passable to be seeking out one of her colleagues to pass along what she knew.

And it wasn’t really gossip if she was doing it so Emilia wouldn’t be caught off-guard by somebody else telling her, was it? Merlin, why couldn’t they just talk about the moon? It was considerably easier and didn’t leave her feeling awkward.

“It’s beautiful,” Lena replied sincerely, frowning as she closed the door behind her and pulled a seat towards Emilia. “Is everything…well? With you, I mean?”

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

Emilia frowned faintly; she was not sure that she and Marlena had ever talked about their personal lives, which likely meant that there was something afoot, although she truly had no idea what. "Yes, I think so," she said, eyeing Miss Scamander, "Why do you ask?"

Because there had to be a reason Marlena was asking, and Emilia was not sure she'd like the answer.

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Oh fuck this was a bad idea. She had barely said anything at all and it was already awkward. This was what came of trying to be decent.

"I heard about the boxing match and I wasn't sure whether you knew."

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

Emilia frowned. "What boxing match?"

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"It hasn't happened yet but," Lena grimaced. "I heard that Moony was one of the names involved."

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

Emilia snapped to actual attention; her spine straightened in her seat. "My Moony?" she said, although it was a silly way to phrase the question.

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If there were then Marlena would have definitely avoided this conversation, but she couldn’t in good conscience fool herself into letting the other woman walk around deaf to the mutters.

“Yes,” she admitted with a grimace. “I definitely heard Christopher Moony mentioned.”

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

"Jesus Christ," Emilia muttered, unable to stop herself. What had her husband gotten himself into now? She pushed herself away from her telescope and turned towards Marlena. "Can you tell me everything you've heard? Please."

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Lena nodded emphatically, slightly heartbroken by the tone of her colleagues voice as she asked her with a 'please'. The 'please' made it so much worse.

"I haven't heard much. But it's happening in a few weeks from what I can gather...and there's quite a lot of money changing hands."

  

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

Emilia frowned. So Kit was boxing now, publicly, and he had not told her — although the jury was out on whether or not he had ever expected her to know. It was good that Miss Scamander had told her, though, because otherwise she may not have been able to keep up the ruse that Kit still lived with her.

"Thank you," Emilia said quietly.

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Marlena nodded by way of response. She didn't understand relationships really - and sometimes she doubted whether she ever would - but she had gathered enough from the rumours that the Moony marriage was especially unusual for a variety of reasons and she had not wanted any ignorance on her colleagues part to make things worse.

She genuinely liked Emilia, admired her too, and it pained her more than she had expected to hear her so despondent now. She had been so happy before when she had been talking about...what was it? Oh yes, the moon. Ironically enough.

"So...erm...what are you working on again? Something to do with lunar days?"

Distraction, that was what they needed. And perhaps some tea.

  

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022

Emilia straightened at Marlena's question, and smiled. "Right, lunar days," Emilia said, "It takes the moon nearly thirty days to orbit earth, but — the side of the moon that's dark? It's always dark." Far side of the moon, and all that — Emilia could not figure out what was there for the life of her, although she was sure that it had some craters, like the side she could see did.

"One of my ongoing research questions is — whether that sort of thing, the lunar days et cetera, would impact the passage of time for organic life. Hard to figure out how to test it, though." Going to the moon was an impossible feat, and recreating those circumstances on Earth also seemed near-impossible, especially as Emilia did not want to test these things on herself.

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"I might have a few ideas," Lena volunteered eagerly, on far more comfortable terra firma when it came to potentially visiting the moon than she was when it came to grown-up relationships.

  

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022