2013.09.28 - I'm a Deity and I'll Cry If I Want To

A day after meeting divine judgment head on, Doctor Strange picks up the phone and dials Amy's number--

Nah, just kidding; after using the Orb of Agamotto to home in on her unique essence, he sends his spirit forth to seek her out. Fortunately for any semblance of normalcy the princess might want to maintain, the Sorceror Supreme's astral form is invisible to all but her as it flies through an internet cafe's window and comes to rest above the Princess of Gemworld's terminal. The spectral sorceror is attired in a perfect recreation of his usual billowing tunic and flowing red cloak.

"I hope that I haven't disturbed you from anything important," he grimly says, voice distant and reverberant as if he were speaking from the inside of a cave. It's like a greeting. After adopting a levitating lotus posture, he adds, "but I'm afraid that we need to begin assessing our other options, as soon as possible; I'm sure that you understand."

Princess Amethyst's unique essence is in a place plainly called CYBER CAFE. She is sitting at a booth with a sandwich and a cup of coffee that's like half cream. Because this is definitely too undignified for a princess, she is currently not Princess Amethyst, but rather Amy Winston. Amy Winston wears too much eyeliner and definitely drinks bad coffee in internet cafes.

Amy chokes on her sandwich when glowing blue Doctor Strange comes floating into the room. She splutters and coughs, gripping the table with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. "--ugh! Wow, what? Ummm." The teen wipes tears from her eyes.

She looks around. There's like no one in here. It's an internet cafe in 2013. There's no shame in talking to a not-ghost. "Yeah, doc, I've been looking stuff up." She straightens up in her chair, intimidated by Strange's perfect lotus posture. "Can I, um, meet you somewhere? In person? This is a little freaky."

After a quick glance around at the empty booths and bored attendant, the Doctor replies, "I suppose that a more secluded location would be preferable, besides," as he touches ghostly fingers to a ghostly amulet, which splits open to shed very real motes of golden light. The Eye within locks onto Amy's, conjuring mental images of a particular spooky building in Greenwich Village.

"I'll make sure that Wong has cup of tea ready for you," he adds, glancing at Amy's coffee cup. "If you've come across anything useful in your research, feel free to bring it." The transfer of information is brief, and once it's over, the amulet slides shut, dousing the eerie lights dancing in the air. Rather than wait around once it's complete, he gives the girl a small nod, then flees the cafe as swiftly as his will can carry him.

Soon enough, once his spirit has returned to his body, Stephen's eyes snap open; he is seated at a desk, which has been overtaken by scrolls, tomes and manuscripts, most of which consist of some combination of archaic script and uncomfortably detailed renditions of demons and their handiwork. Sighing, he massages his temple with one hand while using the other to begin putting his research into some semblance of order.

Amy leans back in her chair, sure that the Eye of Agamotto isn't doing anything evil but weirded out by it all the same. She nods mutely as Strange continues and remains silent until he is almost certainly gone.

"Dude..." she murmurs, rubbing her eyes.

Forty minutes later (traffic blew and the taxi driver insisted on taking a shortcut that was the opposite of a shortcut), the front door of the Sanctum Sanctorum is beset by a terrible knocking. It is the knocking of a teenaged girl that is also a princess demigoddess, which is probably the worst person to invite over if you have any kind of self-consciousness about how you live.

She does not look like much. Same jacket, same boots, maybe same jeans, different shirt at least. It's got a stencil of a black cat on it. Halloween is so close.

"Good morning," a bald, middle-aged man coolly says after opening the Sanctum's doors. He's dressed in a loose-sleeved, double-breasted green tunic and flowing pants, each accented with gold and black embroidery around the cuffs. After offering the princess a polite bow, he ushers her in, continuing, "The Doctor is in his study, and has asked that you meet him there. It isn't far; just come along, right this way..."

And then - assuming that Amy obliges in following the stern-faced manservant - Wong will lead her through the mundane - if well-furnished - foyer and into the Sanctum proper. The foyer leads straight into a hallway, but that hall is studded with doors and intersections leading to other parts of the manor--none of which Wong even looks at. At least one of those intersecting hallways seems to twist sharply downwards after about ten feet; it's tough to tell what might lie past the curve. Paintings of distant - if Earthly - locales and long-dead men and women line the walls, and the occasional vase or ornate weapon or phylactery can also be seen in cases, or on shelves or podiums.

It is, all in all, a deceptively brief walk down a lengthy corridor, and it ends at Strange's study, which is already open. Shelves upon shelves of ancient wisdom and artifacts of varying degrees of power line its walls, reaching nearly to the ceiling all around, except for where they might block the large, circular window that looks out over Bleeker Street below. The Doctor himself is briskly tracing his index finger across one of the many scrolls littering his desk, which is situated in front of one of the shelves; a couple of armchairs, as well as a couch are also set up in various places around the room.

Amy nods to weird manservant. She's assuming it's manservant and not, like, Strange's boyfriend. It is the Village, though. To be safe, she doesn't say anything and acts very polite.

The teen can't help but gawk, though. As she follows Wong, Amy often pauses and hurries to catch up, or spins around as she walks to get a look at everything. She doesn't touch anything, though. Manners.

Amy nods and smiles to her guide, proceeding into the study alone. She shrugs the strap of her bag off her shoulder, letting it slide down her arm and into her hand so that she can sling it onto a nearby couch.

"Doc! You're, like--you're okay, right?" she runs the last few steps, moving around the desk and wrapping her arms around Strange's shoulders for an awkward standing-to-seated hug. Her neck is looking a lot better than expected, but the skin is still scabbed and bruised in spots.

As Amy continues on into the study, Wong silently takes his leave to see to the promised tea. The Doctor, meanwhile, continues reading, but that doesn't stop him from trying to allay her concerns by murmuring, "Quite alright; astral travel is gen--" before he's interrupted by the unexpected hug. There's a moment of stiffness, but once the oddness of being embraced by a teenaged princess/goddess passes, he briefly returns the hug with the arm he was using to scan the parchment.

Upon pulling away, he waves a hand over the document. Most of it is dominated by a series of pictures focused around a--being with a ball of fire where its head should be and its battle with a group of armored warriors, and glyphs detailing their struggle surround the images. "I've been considering--alternatives," he begins, uncertainty evident in his voice, "as I mentioned; other potential allies who might also be threatened, should Eclipso go free." His hand lowers, then, and he leans back to get a better look at the princess; his expression darkens when he catches the bruising around her neck, and then, lowering his eyes, he murmurs, "You're recovering quickly; that's very good news."

Amy puts a hand on the back of Strange's chair, straightening up to look over his shoulder at the scroll. Despite the grimness of their situation, she smiles and seems generally perky about this whole maybe end of the world business.

When Strange comments on her bruising, she turns her head, raising a hand to turn up the collar of her jacket. It doesn't do much. "Oh, um, yeah. I got to practice my healing spells, right? Those always come in handy..."

She frowns, letting the silence hang for a moment. "We're in pretty serious, huh? I mean, I kind of thought that once I found you, this was over with." Amy looks back to Strange and frowns apologetically. "Sorry. It's nothing against you, just, like, I didn't know it was this bad. I probably got really lucky the first time with Eclipso. He didn't expect, um, what I could do."

"Perhaps fortune will favor us twice, and he will still be unprepared for you when the time comes," Strange suggests with a smile as grim as the story detailed upon his scroll; there was, apparently, plenty of fire and damnation to go around on the day that battle was fought. "We'll still want to prepare for the alternative, of course."

That scroll is nudged aside to sit near several others; the mountain of research materials has been divided by medium for now, making it only marginally more reasonable to deal with. After letting out a slow breath, he meets the princess' eyes and continues, "I'd like to consider opening a dialogue with some of the powers of Hell; they are, on average, far more open to negotiation than their counterparts." He watches - and tenses - for the first sign of disapproval, even as he makes the suggestion; if he only had himself to consider, it would be an easy one - he has made plenty of deals with devils, in his time, after all - but there's a fresh wound across a young goddess' throat to remind him otherwise.

"Only barely less prone to retaliatory incursions, granted, but most would be harder pressed to send legions of vengeful foot soldiers after us than our celestial friends."

Amy takes a step back, away from the desk and its offered depiction of flaming heads and ancient battles that almost certainly had dire outcomes. She shrugs her shoulders up, crossing her arms and letting her jacket engulf her.

Her frown stays slight as Strange broaches the subject of Hell and her attention wanders to a bookshelf and then to the floor. When he begins to finish his case, her immediate response is to begin chewing her lower lip. Her hand reaches up, not for her neck, but the turquoise and amethyst necklace she wears.

"Okay," Amy says suddenly, looking up and locking eyes with Strange. "Okay, sure. Citrina made deals with demons to make Gemworld back in her day. Why shouldn't we? Gemworld turned out better than Earth, if you ask anyone who lives there. I need to ask you something, though."

She turns away again, this time looking up toward the ceiling. It is a particularly nice ceiling, but Amy just has a problem with facing things head on. "I don't want fortune to favor me anymore. I can't rely on being an exiled princess, or my dad being a god. Did you do something before you got into this, doc? Something normal?"

The Doctor's ceiling is covered with esoteric patterns and diagrams, many of which intersect, and some of which shed just enough light to keep the study comfortably illuminated--although there are a few reading lamps positioned around the study, just in case.

He doesn't relax much when she agrees, but her explanation does draw a soft noise of understanding. The specifics of Gemworld's history are, by and large, a mystery to him; any other time, the idea of revisiting a functional society constructed at least in part with demonic powers would be a fascinating proposition.

Both eyebrows arch when the princess finally asks her question, and after turning his seat to face her more fully, he replies, "Of course; I was a doctor," with a small, sad smile. Standing, he tugs one orange and black glove off, and after closing the distance between himself and Amy, he reaches past her side side so that she can get a glimpse at the many scars criss-crossing his hand, if she so chooses.

"An arrogant one--until the universe saw fit to humble me. There was a car accident, and my hands were injured; I could barely hold a pencil afterward, much less a scalpel." After lowering his hand to his side and stepping away, he finishes, "I spent years wandering in an enraged fog, until fate finally brought me to the teacher who set me down the path I walk today." His ungloved hand sweeps around the arcane collection surrounding them as he finishes the story; a box on one of the shelves actually begins rattling vigorously in place when his gesture passes it by--until the Doctor shoots it a stern glare, after which it settles.

Amy falls silent, perhaps finding the ceiling unexpectedly way more interesting than intended. She makes a surprised noise when Strange's hand enters her field of view. There are no patterns or diagrams to be seen in the doctor's hand, but the teen is fascinated by it all the same.

Only when Strange lowers his hand does she turn around. Her mouth is slightly agape, and though the story has elicited a definite reaction, her expression is difficult to read--somewhere between wariness and admiration. It's a confusing combination that doesn't look good on anyone.

A box rattles. The princess shuts her mouth with a click of her jaw. After it's clear that there's nothing horrifying jumping out of that thing in the near future, Amy replies in a softer voice: "So, um, I have to admit, I started calling you doc kinda as a private joke because I didn't think you were a real doctor. Sorry."

She rolls her eyes, uncrossing her arms and shaking them out as if she could physically brush off a mood. "Anyway, um, I need that, doc--uh, Strange. Doctor Strange. I need something like that. Can you--would you--teach me? If there is going to be a 'when the time comes,' I want to be ready for it because of me."

"Quite alright," the Doctor assures, smiling faintly as his attention shifts from the unruly box back to the princess. "I've simply found a larger practice to serve."

As Amy shakes herself free of her ill mood, the Doctor's smile fades, until he's regarding her question with the same sort of grim, determined expression he held while poring over his infernal research. He also seems to be wandering away by the time the subject of instruction is truly broached; in fact, when she gives him her justification, he's studying his shelves rather than her, his gloved fingers running gently across the spines of his collection.

"What would you have me teach you, exactly?" he wonders after a few moments of silence. Right afterwards, he draws his hand back from a thick, leatherbound tome, and the tome responds by working its way free from the shelf and bobbing on invisible puppet strings; with a flick of his wrist, he sends it floating in Amy's direction, and then, finally, he faces her again. The book's title - 'Supreme Tales, Vol. 1' - is stamped across the cover and spine in gold lettering. "A way to deal with Eclipso's threat once and for all? More?" he continues, tone hovering somewhere between prosecutory and inquisitive. "How far do you really wish to walk down the path that the circumstances of your birth has set you on?"

The book - assuming that Amy opens it up - consists entirely of stories featuring demons, gods, wizards, and worse; they're all told via sequential, colourfully illustrated and narrated panels, some of which gleam or move a little under inspection. There are tales of triumph and wonderful new vistas, but many of the rest are, like the scroll with the flame-headed demon and the unfortunate knights, less than inspiring.

Not only is it quite possibly the world's oldest graphic novel, it's probably the fanciest, too.

This is not the simple agreement Amy was hoping for. She thinks she knows this song and dance and goes about performing the steps: she sets her jaw and slouches over so her hair obscures her face. No one messes with Freaky Amy. She preferred Spooky Amy or even Creepy Amy, but she was Freaky Amy at her last two schools.

Freaky Amy doesn't answer anything that even remotely sounds like a rhetorical question. She waits and watches, playing with the safety pins set into the cuff of her jacket. The book floats wantingly in front of her and she ignores it, waiting for Strange to turn around. When he's looking at her, she takes it and flips through the pages, careful to keep her expression unimpressed.

A magic comic book is still novel. She is assuming it's some artifact of Strange's because she's never heard of Supreme Tales.

"So is this the part where you trap me in some word game that proves I'm not ready or something?" she says with all the force of announcing another day of mild weather. She turns away, locating the closest couch and falling down onto it in a way that's sure to ruin the springs.

"This is it for me, doc. This is all I've ever had. I've never had any friends. I've never done anything normal." Strange is prosecutory, so Amy is mad. Mad is a good answer to anything. She doesn't shout, but she's the kind of conversationalist that eavesdroppers love. "The 'circumstances of my birth' have decided my entire life. They're going to decide what I do no matter what you say. Don't stand there and tell me I have a choice."

"No," the Doctor succinctly replies. If his stern expression and relaxed(if firmly upright) posture are anything to go on, he is unmoved by Sullen Amy's indignation; it's the sort of calculated patience one might expect of a parent.

Or a teacher.

"This is the part where you decide how far you wish to go; there are seven billion souls that simply don't have the time for us to play games, Amy." As he returns to the desk to fetch his discarded glove, he gestures towards the book with his other hand, continuing, "That is the story of every Sorceror Supreme who came before me; whether or not that path will ever intersect with your own, it's as fine a roadmap as any to the kinds of things that this life may hold for you, should you choose to accept it." He takes a moment to pull his glove back on, and then after momentarily massaging that hand, steps around the desk to close in on Amy.

"You are a goddess; in time, a queen, whose kingdom will echo a thousand years into the future, should you choose to accept it. And you are a child, who has scarcely had the opportunity to be one; if any being that has ever lived has had the power to determine her own fate, it is you." By the time he stops in front of Amy's couch to stand over it, his cloak has shifted enough to obscure nearly all of him, leaving just his head uncovered. "If all that you want is to stand against Eclipso again, before claiming a life free from the madness of this one, I can teach you how. If this is truly the kind of life that you wish to live, then it's within my power to teach you how to survive it--and if you would rather flee from all of this, to be a girl, rather than a goddess, then I could teach you that, as well. If I am to be your teacher, I must know what lessons you wish for me to impart."

If there was a lever in front of Amy Winston right now that she could pull and save seven billion souls, she would pull it and feel nothing.

If she could read through every panel of this dire comic book before answering Strange's question, it would have as much pull on her answer as Archie.

This man, though, this scarred old man who listened to her stories about some ridiculous place called Gemworld with a patient smile, who clutched his chest and choked when angels came to kill him, who gave Amy a cool throne chair for her dumb witch's circle, who once had a life and now had a doomed title and a cape that made him look like Dracula, this old man makes her cry.

Amy does not sob. Her cheeks redden and her eyes water, but she does not cry in a way her mother would refer to as unbecoming. She clenches her teeth together and turns her head, clumsily wiping at her face with her baggy, coarse jacket sleeve.

Strange is not terrifying. It is not actually anything he is saying. It is the decision. Frustration can be the cruelest councilor.

"Seven billion, huh," she says, her affected monotone done in by a waver in her voice that she can't shake. "That's a lot. I guess that fire head guy looks pretty tough, too."

As the red-faced girl tries to disguise her teary-eyed frustration, Strange lowers his own eyes and turns away, slightly. Everyone deserves a little privacy in their low moments, even magical girls with the world on their shoulders. His own expression betrays no small amount of sadness - and guilt, because really, what man his age wants to make a teenager cry? - as his sternly set features soften.

"He's positively dreadful," the Doctor gently confirms as one hand slips free of the cloak to rest on her shoulder; he crouches, too, so as not to loom quite so large over her. "But I don't tell - or show - you these things to frighten or dishearten you into a decision; you've seen enough fearsome things in your time that I would be a fool to try. I only want you to understand - really, truly understand - what manner of darkness lies ahead on this path, and the the stakes that you'll be fighting for should you choose to continue along it." A warm, if sad smile is given as he squeezes the girl's shoulder.

"And more importantly, that you needn't walk it blindly."

"I'm not sad, okay?" Amy snaps, recoiling from Strange's touch. There's not much room for her to recoil, seated as awkwardly as she is on the couch, but it's a valiant effort all the same.

She looks fiercely up to Strange despite the redness of her eyes. While the Doctor may have left the safety of his cloak, she has retreated into her jacket. "I'm just pissed off! I--"

Amy's voice catches in her throat. She rolls her eyes again--habit--and purses her lips. "Wow. I had this whole asking to be your student thing planned out in my head. I'm usually pretty good with plans."

She wiggles up from the half-laying position she was forced to adopt to evade Strange's hand, sitting up straight and wiping her eyes more thoroughly. "So, um, is that a yes?"

The hand is withdrawn as soon as Amy recoils, and soon it's hidden beneath the cloak again; this certainly isn't the first time that the Doctor has been confronted with the anger and frustration of a vulnerable other, but rarely has he felt so directly responsible for those feelings. He keeps his head bowed and listens as she works her way through her feelings, until--

"Yes," he quickly affirms, head lifting so that he can meet her eyes. "Of course." The front of his cloak rustles briefly, but rather than reach out again, he stands and takes a step back from the couch. "Whatever it is that you decide you need to know about this world that you've been born into, I will gladly teach you."

Amy continues wiping at her eyes. It is a treacherous and difficult business, but she has soon erased most of the evidence.

She folds her hands into her lap, clears her throat, and leans forward as she returns Strange's attention. After his answer, the teen nods and looks at the floor.

Silence is only momentarily her response. Amy stands, her movements more fragile than her athletic figure would suggest. Embarrassment can cut through the most stalwart of shields and always leaves nagging wounds.

"Thank you, Doctor Strange. I really mean that. You're spending a lot of effort on me."

"You're quite welcome, but you needn't thank me," Strange gently replies, sticking a hand out in a self-effacing 'stop' gesture. "To deny a soul in need would be a betrayal of my mission--and you've proven to be a bright and capable pupil thus far, besides. You've the potential to do great things--things that will live on well beyond you; it will be an honor to ensure that you realize it."

He turns to head back to the shelves, then, murmuring words and phrases in various languages and gesturing as he goes; bits of his collection slide themselves free from their homes and begin drifting towards the princess.

"There will, of course, be some homework," he warns with the smallest of smiles as it closes in on Amy. "There are many systems of magic beyond Gemworld's borders; these materials should serve as a primer on some of them."

The books loom closer. Most other teens, especially ones getting ready to head off to college as Amy should be, would die on the spot. Strange has her cold: she just smiles and halfheartedly suppresses a laugh.

She gestures. A purple-white disc of light springs into the air next to her, serving as a ready surface for the incoming homework.

"I'll start tonight," she promises. "It'll, um, be a good break from worrying about this Eclipso thing all the time. I mean, I should still be worrying about it, but..."

Amy inhales slowly, reading the titles on the spines facing her. "Why do you keep saying that I'll do things that live beyond me? Do you, um, know something I don't?"

"I--" Strange glances over his shoulder, then turns the rest of the way around with a quiet chuckle and a shake of his head. "No--it's pure conjecture, drawn from the combination of your unique birth and the continuing health of your house in whatever future that Legion you spoke of comes from. Forgive me; my language can get--colorful, at times, in the service of a point."

True to the Doctor's promise, maybe seventy percent of the books are the esoteric equivalent to 101-level overviews: Sumerian treatises on summoning etiquette, scrolls on Atlantean divinatory practices, an encyclopedia from and on Faerie, and so on; the rest are focused rather more firmly on the mission ahead, such as codexes detailing all manner of hells and the demons that dwell within them, first-hand accounts from sorcerors and laypeople who have encountered such influences, and even a pre-biblical text with references to Eclipso.

"I would, that said, be surprised if you managed to pass from this world without leaving any traces of yourself."

"It's weird to think that I'm going to be important," Amy admits, wandering away from her book pile. There's too many interesting things in the study to just look at Strange all day.

She traces the edges of shelves with a fingertip, never getting too close to anything important looking. "Not just famous, but important. It's, um, kind of intimidating. When I first went to Gemworld, my mom started lecturing me about how to behave in front of my subjects. Like, I have subjects now."

Amy stops in front of a painting. "I keep thinking about how I should act. What would be appropriate."

With characteristic suddenness, the teen whirls around to face Strange. "Can I stay here? I'm staying at the Legion HQ right now, but it's sort of weird. I, um," Amy averts her eyes. "I don't want to go back to Gemworld right now."

The Doctor takes a step back towards the center of the study as Amy explores its shelves. A few of the items of the items - be they books, scrolls, or other artifacts - react to the girl's proximity by shuddering, or lighting up, or emanating music, or any one of a handful of other things that science would say they oughtn't. He keeps a watchful eye on her the whole time, just in case; there isn't anything truly dangerous on the shelves, but a lot of it is old, and irreplaceable.

"There are many helpful--" he begins to offer in reply to her worries of rulership before being ambushed by what follows. His jaw hangs open momentarily as he considers the question and its asker, and even after it closes, the answer isn't immediate.

He still looks pretty unambiguously shocked, though, with his wide, incredulous eyes.

"You understand, of course," he quietly begins after mulling it over for a few long seconds, "that my Sanctum is hardly a bastion of normalcy." He lets that thought hang on its own for a moment, and then--

"Yes," he decides, nodding once. "As long as Gemworld won't suffer in your absence."

"Hahaha!"

Amy covers her mouth with both hands, partially doubled over. "Oh, wow, did not expect that."

A ship in a bottle is starting to get really rowdy behind her, so the teen moves away from the bookshelves, sitting on the arm of the same couch. "Ahh, sorry--um, you're right. My mother, Graciel, and my aunt, Mordiel, are running House Amethyst. My mother is still technically Lady Amethyst, and Mordiel was Lady Amethyst for a long time. They don't have the blood power," at that, she briefly looks down at her hands, "but most of the other houses fell in line after Eclipso."

She taps her fingers as she enumerates: "Garnet, Turquoise, Ruby, Diamond, Onyx, Topaz, Citrine, Moonstone are either allied with or swear subservience to Amethyst. Opal, Sardonyx, Emerald, and Sapphire are still in opposition. Aquamarine abstains because that dude likes camping out on his island. He's kind of creepy, his wife is younger than me."

Amy grins, clearly pleased despite the momentary remembrance that Lord Aquamarine is the worst. "I'm used to this stuff, doc. You've been to Gemworld, before. And, um, you get it. The Legion still sees me as some ancient hero. It's weird."

The Doctor makes a face at the mention of Aquamarine's wife, and tries to disguise it somewhat by heading back to his desk. "I never had cause to delve too deeply into Gemworld's politics; they sound--complex." Once he's seated again, he suggests, "You may not want to delay your next visit for too long--even if it's brief. Just to ensure that you're never too far from your allies and enemies' thoughts. Until then, though, if you'd like a vacation from being treated like a princess or a legend, I'll do my best to provide it."

A finger-flick sends a quill pen and a piece of parchment floating in Amy's direction, and then he sets about trying to tidy his workspace a little. Which mostly seems to entail putting piles of things on top of other piles of things and pushing them all to the edges.

"If there's anything that you need to facilitate it, Wong will do his best to provide." Beat. "Just don't interrupt his meditations."

Amy bobs her head in agreement, though she doesn't look especially thrilled. "That's a good idea. I just don't know how I want to face my mom, especially after I learned... stuff."

She catches the parchment and quill, looking quizzically from them to Strange. "Is this to sign the lease or something?

She considers, then interjects before Strange has a chance to properly respond: "Wong is, um, your butler?"

"Wong is my aide," Strange replies with a smile and a gentle tone, "and my sensei; that" he looks up and gestures at the parchment and quill "is so that you can make him a list of necessities. He keeps the Sanctum stocked and orderly; I'm very fortunate to have his help."

After a pause, he drops his eyes back to his work and murmurs, "I just tend not to think him as a butler." After pushing a wobbly stack of papers over to hang out with a bunch of scrolls, he offers, "Having some time - and space - apart from your troubles will be a good way to gain some clarity and insight on them; perhaps you'll have found the right words for your mother when it's time to see her again."

"No, no, it's cool," Amy hurriedly replies, waving her hands. "I get it. I'm probably, um, a little messed up from hanging out in ye olde Gemworlde. I'll just call him Wong."

Ye Olde Gemworlde or not, Amy pauses to consider at the parchment. Writing down her shopping list for someone else to buy is a little off-putting. She stands.

"You're right, doc. It's how this kind of thing usually works out." The teen turns to leave the study, the floating disc of books hovering after her. She stops at the door, drumming her fingers on its frame. Before she leaves, Amy glances over her shoulder, "I'll try to think of you as more than just my teacher, too. I'm not just a princess or a goddess. No one should just be one thing."

She prods the disc out of the door, shutting it once it's clear.