5 July, 1893 — Celebration of Newtonian Physics

Alasdair had a busy week, and he'd been half-considering giving this event a pass as a result. He was in the middle of moving from one host's house to another, which was always something of an ordeal, and he had been engaged to provide some interesting charmwork for an event tomorrow night. He had no particular interest in science or physics, and had only been invited in the first place because he'd assisted with the spellwork on the hostesses' 'gravity ball.' As he'd been packing things up yesterday, however, he'd had a change of heart — literally. Merida had sent him a box of bonbons that weekend, and he'd been eating them yesterday mostly so that he didn't have to move them, and as he sifted through his things he'd been overcome by the creeping feeling that his life was missing something. No, not something — someone.

So he was here because they might be, as simple as that. Alasdair had no idea whether they would be, because he honestly didn't know a thing about them, but if there was even the slightest chance he wasn't inclined to pass it by. It was either this or write them a letter out of the blue, which was too desperate. That said, if this didn't work, he'd probably do it — what was his present situation if not desperate?

He had been here twenty minutes and dodged one dance already. He could get away with that, because women couldn't come right out and ask for a dance and he had just pretended not to notice what she was hinting at, but it was a departure from his usual behavior at a ball. He was mildly concerned that someone might take note of him acting strangely, but on the other hand what could he do? He had no desire to waste his time and attention dancing with someone else when it might mean a delay of several minutes in being able to find them, if they arrived. But he should probably make at least an effort to be himself in the meantime, he supposed — so he slid into a conversation and offered a smile at the nearest person, as though he had been paying any attention to what they were saying.

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OPEN with special invitations to Hermia Bonaccord, Alexander Echelon, or both <3
if multiple characters, no post order

  

Alexander knew next to nothing about physics. In fact, he had thought this was a different event altogether. He did find it all rather interesting though despite not understanding most of what he was being told about. It was serving as a nice distraction from the odd feelings that had been bubbling up within him the past few days.

There was a "gravity ball" which drew the blonds interest. He moved closer to it, visibly surprised when he hit the radius of the charmed objects effects. Oh! Well, this was fun. What would happen if he got closer?

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An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and Hermia was in motion. When she received her invitation, Hermia's usual reluctance for social events was overridden by the academic nature of the evening. Of course, she had read snippets of Newton, though she found his Latin laborious and his prose pretentious, but who could deny his mind? For a muggle, he was so exceedingly clever, it ached to know he never saw true magic. Hermia had been deep in a review of this Newton when her maid delivered her an unexpected gift. Hermia wasn't certain why Clementine sent her chocolates, of all things, but the gesture was cherished all the same.

Hermia forgot all about the candies until a last glance around her rooms before heading to the physics celebration. Hermia primly enjoyed two before slipping on her gloves, allowing the familiar rush of fondness that always accompanied her thoughts of her dearest friend. Except the rush didn't end, and it certainly wasn't for Clementine. Hermia felt. She felt everything. It was too warm; her skin felt too tight. Worst of all was this strange pull she felt. The tension eased as she arrived at her destination, but barely, as if something - or someone - was calling her. She needed to follow this horrid pull, this force to its terminus. Escaping her brother was effortless at this point, especially when there were muggle curiosities to investigate, and Hermia found herself disappearing into the crowd. She wandered, doing her best to maintain some sense of calm on her face until she turned and saw him.

If there were gods or deities, it was here. He was fire, Apollo, the sun itself and he was smiling at her! Perhaps it was his radiance, but Hermia felt a stinging in her eyes she couldn't clear away. She blinked quickly, needing another glimpse of the sun. Somewhere, in the rational center of her brain, she recognized him from months ago. She had seen him once before in the Flint Library, where she promptly fled the scene after recognizing she was shut in a library with a strange man. Now her reputation-saving action seemed preposterous. How had she ever left his sight? She found her smile matching his because there was nothing for joy flooding her heart at this moment, physics and muggles be damned.

Her lips moved, but the words kept catching. Her brain was a flood of declarations and questions in a myriad of languages and nothing was working until, finally, "Your, you're here."

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Lady is a genius

Thread Log

The way the young woman looked at him and seemed to struggle to find words had Alasdair thinking that he'd made a misstep, though how he could have done so just by entering the conversation was hard to imagine. Maybe it was the smile that was inappropriate, if she had been talking to someone about something particularly morbid or dour? Only she didn't seem to be talking to anyone, he realized belatedly. He'd thought that he'd been sliding into the edge of an ongoing circle of conversation, but now he was face to face with just her, and the rest of what he had presumed to be the group was moving on. Well, this was a touch awkward. He had no particular desire to talk to her — probably not in general, since she didn't look like she was in a position to be offering him a guest room to stay in any time soon, but certainly not tonight. He might have entertained it for a few minutes, just to keep up some semblance of normalcy, except at that moment he spotted the person he'd been looking for all evening. He was here — and halfway across the room at the gravity ball, which would have made the most perfect opening for a conversation. Alasdair could imagine it now, walking up and discussing the curious object for a minute or two before he casually dropped in that he had cast the charmwork for it. He would be impressed. It would open them up to talking about all sorts of things, and from there...

But first he had to disentangle himself from the gawping young woman he'd just accidentally started a conversation with. "Er, yes," he said, because even had he been devoting full brain power to this conversation (he was not) he wasn't sure what answer he could have had to something like that. "I didn't mean to interrupt you," he continued in a hurry, hoping to make this as quick as possible so that he could catch his quarry before he lost interest in the ball. "I mistook you for someone else. So sorry."

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The blond had lingered by the ball a while longer but others wanted a look at it as well. He figured he would return later to figure out what the things purpose was. His attention shifted to the tracks along the wall. He began idly following the path of one of the large marbles. Was this physics? Which part of it made it so?

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"Wait, please." Hermia's hand shot forward before she could think better of it, her brain regaining some semblance of control just in time to avoid grabbing the stunning gentleman by the arm. "I - forgive me. I did not mean to be rash." His last words stung to the core. Couldn't he feel the pull the way she did? How were his eyes anywhere but her? She felt nearly whole in his presence, so close to complete. "We have met before, sir, but I confess I do not know your name." It was too forward, too rash, but she didn't regret the words as she spoke them. She would know this man.

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Lady is a genius

Thread Log

Not only had the conversation failed to evaporate as he might have wished, it had gotten... weird. She'd nearly grabbed his arm, and there was probably a lot of missing context to sniff out there, except that he didn't have the time. The man he was planning to go introduce himself to was meandering on, and in a second he'd be too far away from the gravity ball for it to still be an appropriate entry to the conversation... and Alasdair could not let on that he'd been watching him from afar. That would have seemed far too desperate. He may have been new to this particular pursuit but it was not the first time he'd tried to seduce someone; he knew which fatal missteps to avoid.

He was thinking about new suitably suave ways to start the conversation once he made it across the room, not about the young woman in front of him, else he might have had a second thought about providing his name after the uncommon way she asked it. He was mostly on autopilot here, though, while his brain and his heart were three steps ahead, so he offered her the same charming smile he used when being introduced to people the normal way. "Alasdair Greyback, at your service. Now if you'd excuse me a moment —"

Whether they had met before or not (he didn't remember immediately and was disinclined to devote any energy to trying harder), he'd already made it clear he started this conversation by mistake, and now he'd clearly signaled his intended departure. That just about wrapped it up, didn't it?

"— there's someone I simply must greet," he concluded, and began to walk past her and towards the blond by the far wall. If the woman had any reaction to his brusque ending of the conversation, he didn't notice — but then, unless she physically tackled him to prevent his leaving, he probably wouldn't have noticed. His eyes were set on the other man. He did have the presence of mind at least to maintain an appropriate pace as he wound his way across the ballroom, so that he didn't attract too much attention from anyone else, but he was keen not to lose too much time. He hadn't managed to think of another suitably suave way to start off the conversation, but fortunately by the time he arrived the man hadn't drifted too far from the gravity ball for it to be odd for Dare to bring it up.

"What did you think of the gravity orb?" he asked, slightly breathless — half because he had hurried across the ballroom, half because this man took his breath away.

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Alexander was so focused on watching the way the pulleys and such of the tracks operated that he hadn't noticed the mans approach. He seemed a little out of breath but Alexander didn't dwell too much on that. He looked back over at the gravity orb and smiled at the taller man. "It is pretty fascinating. I must confess that I do not know much of physics." He did know it was mainly a muggle thing so at least this time he was unlikely to be the only one without a clue here for once.

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Dare laughed. He often laughed at the things people said, and usually it was just to be genial and make them feel as though they were good conversationalists, but he found this genuinely amusing. Something told him that he would have found most things Echelon said amusing.

"I don't understand most of it either," he admitted. This was perhaps for lack of interest rather than for lack of aptitude, but since he'd never taken any pains to try and learn about it he couldn't have said for sure. "And I'm the one who did the charm work on the ball."

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Alexander wasn't sure why the other was laughing but at this point in his life, he was used to this sort of thing happening. People could be odd. (It did not occur to him that people were either laughing at his dimness or on a lighter note, thought he was in jest.) He smiled when the other confessed that he also did not understand most of it but then went on to speak of how they had created the gravity ball. "Understood enough to create the ball though, I see," he said teasingly. "Did it take a lot of work?"

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His smile stirred something in Alasdair that he didn't think he'd felt in a long time — maybe ever. God, he was so lonely. Lonely until he'd made his way over to Alexander Echelon, that was — now he just needed to ensure he was never parted from his side again.

"Oh, I've always been good at charms," he said, as though this were nothing in particular to be proud of, though of course the whole time he was hoping that Echelon was impressed. He would have conjured up ten more illusions on the spot if he'd thought it would make the difference in Echelon being impressed or not. "And the hostess described exactly what it was meant to do, so it was just the execution. Making people feel something instead of merely seeing something can be tricky," he continued, "But if you've crossed that bridge it's not terribly difficult to make people feel heavier. Do you like charms?" he asked, aware that he had been talking about himself too much and that people were generally more charmed (no pun intended) by people who got them to talk about themselves. They'd been in adjacent years in school, but Alasdair didn't remember anything particular about Echelon's Hogwarts classes — he had, unfortunately, never realized it would be important, though now he was kicking himself for not having latched on to every detail he could about the man from the first moment they'd met.

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"Better than I am, by the looks of it," Alexander said in praise. Partially he was being polite but it was something that he found impressive. He took a moment to consider it when he was asked if he liked Charms. "I suppose I do, they certainly make life easier and are very handy." Charms also came easier for him than Transfiguration. At least, it wasn't something he had gotten Trolls in at any rate like some other classes he could probably name. "What is your favourite charm?"

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This question excited him so much Dare had to hold himself back from bouncing on the balls of his feet with glee. It wasn't that he was necessarily that enthused about charmwork, but rather that this was the perfect opening; it was the sort of thing he always looked for when he was flirting with women. Maybe a little different, because he would have to be careful not to come on too strong. Being melodramatically interested in a woman could always be laughed off as a charming joke, but the same in this situation might scare Echelon off, which of course was the last thing he wanted. Even knowing that, though, it was hard to temper all of the wild thoughts of what he could conjure to impress and flatter the other gentleman.

With a quick smile, he reached over Echelon's shoulder and plucked one of the silver marbles out of the contraption on the wall. He pulled his wand and tossed it up into the air, then with a charm sent a beam of light through it that exploded into a rainbow of dancing colors in every direction. The lights faded as he caught the ball, which he then offered to Echelon. "What do you think?"

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Wow, this man really does love charms, Alexander couldn't help but think to himself. How admirable to be so passionate! At least that was how he was deciphering the current expression on the other mans face.

He watched as Greyback - for it was Alasdair Greyback, he had eventually realized - plucked a marble from the wall. He watched in curiosity as Greyback then pulled out his wand and tossed the ball into the air. His mouth formed an 'o' of awe. He took the marble from the other man and gave it a lookover. "That was very impressive. I have never seen anything like it. You do things like that all the time?"

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The expression of shock on Echelon's face was priceless; if Alasdair could have photographed and framed it he would have hung it on his wall forever. Or stashed it in his suitcases, rather, since he didn't exactly have walls of his own on which to decorate. Which was a lovely mental segue into what he had been hoping to drive the conversation towards, and what Echelon had just given him an opening for...

"I spend a lot of time as a house guest," he explained with a grin. "It's a nice way to repay a host, to entertain this way."

Now hopefully Echelon would be thinking ah, I'd like to see more of it; I'll invite him to stay for a bit.

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"A house guest? So if you stay over, you will do other amazing things like that?" Alexander asked, his curiosity piqued. Would grandmama like that? Then again, sometimes she opted to stay at one of the other estates or was out on social calls. "What other things might you do?"

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