advice goes both ways;; tag; nimah

[Ai]

Sharpe was pacing back and forth across the faculty lounge as he waited rather impatiently for Nimah to arrive. The physics professor was not pleased that he had been made the second-in-command at this school, but he was thorougly aware that the angel would need as much solid help and advice as she could get.

His legs were starting to get sore, so he sat down in one of the high-backed black chairs. With a brief wave of his hand, the nearest chair turned to face the one he was sitting in. He smirked slightly and focused, pushing the chair a safe distance away. Nimah could sit there. If and when she arrived, that was.

He tapped his fingers on the table. It was still three and a half minutes before Nimah was supposed to arrive, but as usual, Sharpe had been horribly early. He couldn't help it; since there had been problems with some of the students last semester, he had been constantly uneasy.

A slight noise in the corridor distracted his thoughts and he looked up. Sure enough, it was the Headmistress and the one with whom he'd requested to have a chat.

[Silver]

"Oh - shoot!" Nimah quietly muttered as she gathered herself up, books were teetering uneasily in her arms as she tried to quicken her pace along the corridor to the teacher's lounge.

She knew she was going to be late. She just knew it. She hated being late for anything, tea, breakfast, meetings. And she especailly hated being late when the person she was having the meeting with was Professor Sharpe. She didn't dislike him as a person or a teacher. She simply became uneasy whenever he was around. She was aware he held some kind of minor grudge against her for being over-looked for the position of Head of the school, but that wasn't her fault!

She thought she was completely underqualified, and was openly very, very thankful that the other teachers helped her as much as they could. But she was learning, and just wished other teachers, Professor Sharpe especially would recognise that.

Nimah squeaked as she bumped into a wall and ultimately dropped one of her books. She managed to scoop it up in a wing as she continued moving and slotted it back, haphazardly in to her arms. She turned a corner pushing the door open to the lobby and practically fell into the room.

"I'm late - I'm sorry!" Nimah apologised, picking herself up and trying to compose herself.

[Ai]

Sharpe maintained his nearly perfect composure and only a slight twitch of the corner of his mouth would have betrayed him and said otherwise. It made him uneasy that he was in the presence of an angel, almost as though he should confess his sins or something. That thought was pushed away as quickly as it had arrived. Especially a sin involving Nimah.

Little did the angel know this, but Sharpe had been the one who originally nominated her for the position of Headmistress. No one knew this, except for Frick, in whom Sharpe confided. He would be around to give his advice - knowing Nimah, she'd probably listen - and merely the position of a professor would allow him to keep a lower profile, something he always preferred doing. He ran a long hand through already thinning hair and he shifted himself into a more comfortable sitting position.

When Nimah finally entered, nearly dropped one of her books, but managed to pick it up with her wing just before it hit the ground, he extended a hand. He didn't have to use his hands to aid his telekinesis; he simply preferred to and it made channeling his powers easier. The books floated upwards and drifted towards the table, landing in a neat stack off to the side. If Sharpe had felt particularly irksome then, he would have glanced at the titles or even opened one of them up.

"Only by less than a minute." Sharpe's voice was held even. At the moment, he was not sure whether he was cross or not; only time would tell. "Simply to chide you for being late is not the reason I asked to speak with you today." He removed a newspaper clipping from his shirt pocket. "Read this and tell me what you think." As soon as he saw the headline in the morning paper, he went through the entire school and collected every single newspaper; thankfully he had woken up early enough to get away with doing this. Before any of the students saw this, the professors needed to discuss it and hopefully decide what to do about it.

To summarize the article, there had been a recent string of violence relating to meta-human affairs throughout the United States and parts of Canada. The latest hate crime took place in San Francisco, California, which had been known as a city of tolerance for as long as Sharpe was aware. People were targeting metas and others who simply didn't fit into regular society and using the age-old excuse of "they're dangerous" to provide a rationale for robbing, raping, threatening and even killing them.

To the defence of the rest of the world, there had been multiple attacks on prominent members of society. In one case, a meta-human male - now incarcerated for life - had raped and killed a young Senator. However, no one knew who - or what - was behind the last attacks.

[Silver]

"Less than a minute?" Nimah repeated, rather breathlessly and still trying to gain some form of composure. It was so undignified. Rushing into a room with books falling everywhere and being generally haphazard. "Well, that's good then. I was worried you may have been waiting a while." She tried to smile and quickly darted to the table, setting down the other books in her arms in a neat pile. She set a small stash of papers beside the books. "I lost track of time. I had some papers to mark, and a rather long letter from a parent that was just saying the same thing over and over, I became quite confused by it a-"

Nimah stopped, realising she was babbling. Sharpe seemed happy to ignore this as the reason she'd stopped was because he had started talking again, and his tone gave Nimah cause for concern. Especially when it concerned the neewspaper. Nimah had made a point about newspaper's being readily availiable for the students who wanted to keep up-to-date on the goings-on in the world outside of Kosaka. Some students preferred to read the news, rather than have it bombarded at them via a television. Some teachers too. Nimah was one of them.

Taking the clipping with rather nimble fingers, Nimah leaned against the table, beginning to read the article. She read it once, and then again, trying to take in the details. She wasn't sure what disturbed her more, meta-humans being attacked, or meta-humans attacking humans. Neither scenario was especially pleasant to be true, but the meta-human's being attacked scenario was tipping the scales. Especially as the excuse being used was one Nimah had heard used once too often.

Being nearly a millenium old, Nimah knew that history always had a habit of repeating itself. And it seemed it was coming around again. The mass population killing off what they did not know and therefore did not trust.

"Thank you." Nimah said after a few minutes, "for removing the papers... I wouldn't want the students to get wind of this. Its rather distressing." She sighed and left the clipping on the table as she ran her fingers back through her hair. "As to what I think... aside from it being extremely worrying, I think its rather sick. But to be expected of the human race... it is their nature to harm what they fear, unfortunate as that truth is."

Nimah paused. She rubbed her lower left arm with a slight uneasiness. "Kosaka's becoming much busier, isn't it? The students... if these hate attacks continue and come here, they won't be safe. But we can't bar humans from an entire island. They need to learn to intergrate with meta-humans, as much as meta-humans need to learn to intergrate with them." Lifting her fingers to rub her forehead, Nimah directed her gaze to Sharpe, "what do you suggest?"

[Ai]

'Less than a minute.' This time, Sharpe sent the words telepathically to Nimah's mind, not wanting to draw any attention to the teacher's lounge from students who might be passing by. "We can discuss the letter from the parent later, but the news is a more pressing issue." His voice was lowered and as he sat forward in the chair, he rubbed a hand up against his left temple area.

The school was becoming much busier. Even though the campus had only opened up last year, there were several students who had come to seek refuge at Kosaka this year and quite a few young teachers, as well. Sharpe had only gotten to know a few of the teachers in the early days of the school; much of it was unfamiliar territory for all of them.

"Successful integration will be very difficult to achieve." Ever the pessimist around the group of professors, Sharpe had also been known for providing a voice of realism. He pushed his glasses up further on his face and closer to his eyes.

"There are humans currently living on Kosaka." He knew this was a fact; many were people who ran small shops downtown, but the workers tended to be sympathetic to the meta-human causes and at least one he had talked to was actually a meta-human. "Perhaps slight integration with others who live on the island would be an appropriate place to start." However, Sharpe was uneasy about this and he was fairly sure that Nimah would pick up on that; the Angel was one of the few people who could read into his emotions fairly well.

He extended his hand and the paper floated back towards him. His dark eyes scanned the paper once again, this time more carefully than before. Though he had read it several times, this time he picked up an important piece of information he had not seen before: a name he could have sworn he'd heard before in his life.

"damn." His voice was quiet as he breathed out that word; he had gotten used to swearing under his breath on the rare occasion he did use foul language. He set the paper down on the table and pointed to a paragraph down below. "It seems as though they know who is responsible for this." His voice was dark as he spoke; he was making every attempt to hold in his purely intense and honest hatred towards a large portion of the human race.

[Silver]

Nimah half-smiled at Sharpe's telepathetic message. Only weakly though as she now didn't feel much in the mood for smiling. Which she believed was only natural, considering what she'd just read. As she viewed the other teacher she could tell ths was weighing on his mind as well. It should have been weighing on the minds of all the teachers... if they had seen the slipping too. If not, then it would be something that would have to be mentioned when the meeting was called later in the day.

When he spoke, Nimah nearly fell off her perch on the table. She had gone into something of a trance, her mind completely blank, and unable to really think. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, she knew he was correct. Intergration was always a difficult process. No matter what the species. And it wasn't made easier when the two species were thinking that one was more dangerous than the other.

"There will always be people in the world, even in the smallest of communities that will be against intergration and change. People who will fight us every step of the way and then some." Nimah expressed, slipping her hands back into her pockets. "I agree that intergration needs to be achieved, but its a difficult process. Even if the students were successfully intergrated here there's no promise that they'll welcomed in larger communities and cities."

Slipping one hand across her forehead, Nimah soothed herself with a long breath. She couldn't quell the headache that was threatening to come on, but she could at least try and delay it. "But we all have to start somewhere, and we won't know how intergration will go until we try. Though I am more inclined to suggest the older students and ourselves are the first to be open to this... it would be cruel to make the younger students go out into a world that is not ready for them."

She was silent for a moment, and flinched quietly as Sharpe swore. It was a side effect of being an Angel. She couldn't swear. The worst she could do was exclaim 'oh bother!' and just about get away with it. But she forgot his indescrepancy almost instantly when he mentioned that the article gave clue as to who was responsible. She crossed the room and looked over his shoulder. "Who? And where?"

[Ai]

Sharpe measured Nimah's reaction carefully to his swearing. He hardly ever swore - at least, aloud - but on the occasion that his mouth decided to turn foul on him, it was interesting to see how people responded. However, he could have kicked himself quite hard in the shins right then. Right now was no such time to think about this; there was a more desperate problem on their hands and a problem involving one such politician Sharpe had encountered previously. Many times.

A hand reached up to the side of his head and he could feel an odd headache coming on. This was the second time this week that this had come to pass; last time all he could do was take some medicine, lie down in his quarters and hope that it would go away without any further implications. This would not be a good thing if he had to teach classes later that day or meet with the other teachers. Slowly, he breathed in and out a few times and then let his hand drop to the table.

"A name I recognize very well is mentioned in the paper." When Nimah stood up, Sharpe's eyes did not follow her around the room, a clear sign he was feeling ill. There was slight hesitation in his voice that was typically not present. "A local politician from the San Francisco area, Tetsuya Takahashi, is most likely responsible. And the officials do not think he is working alone; I am apt to agree with them." One of his hands pushed the article away and he paused for a very long moment, deeply immersed in his own thoughts and trying to rid himself of the headache he was experiencing without any success whatsoever.

Sharpe should have known Takahashi was part of this somehow. When the other youth had apologized to Sharpe after being assigned detention in high school, most teachers believed he was truly repentant, but Sharpe - like usual - had remained his skeptical self. Surely they had promised to remain on civil terms with one another in public, but it was just that: barely civil. One of his hands reached into the pocket of the jacket he was wearing and extracted an old chess piece carved from wood and loosing its paint. The black king. Takahashi had the white one in his possession. This could only lead to checkmate... or stalemate, but Sharpe did not want to think about that right then.

The professor dare not use his powers lest his head start to hurt more, so he extended his hand to pick the piece back up. He could hear the clock ticking off the seconds in the corridor just outside. Slowly, he turned his chair to face Nimah.

"There is something else the article does not mention." Sharpe lowered his voice so that it was even quieter than it normally was, quite an accomplishment for even him. "Like most of those here, he is a meta-human." There was a pause and he told Nimah most of what his encounters with Takahashi had been in the past, including their detention sessions while in high school and what became of that. It provided an explanation to why he had chosen to persue an independent project focusing on the ethical issues specifically relating to meta-humans and especially those with telepathic and/or empathetic powers.


((OOC: Most of this background is in Sharpe's profile, but if you have any questions about Tetsuya, please feel free to ask. He's an NPC over at the old site. Also, this is why Sharpe has the chess piece and brings it out during the general staff meeting. I hope that explains things a little better so it doesn't just appear random or like he's blowing Nimah off later.))