Afternoon at the Museum

[ohgoodgrief]

Who: Yang... and you!
What: It's time for a field trip to the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, France. The afternoon is in the museum. But Yang took everyone at like 10 AM as an excuse to get out and see Paris.
Where: Paris! And at the Army Museum.
When: February 25
Notes: The following prompts are if you want to interact with Yang directly! Otherwise, please feel free to use this as an excuse to do threads in Paris! Yang's taking basically anyone -- heck, even other teachers, TA's, and RA's -- because he really just wanted an easy field trip after grading all the papers and despairing over the fact he might have made his courses too hard.

A. WE'RE ABOUT TO HAVE PARIS RIGHT NOW

[The helicopters have landed at Charles de Gaulle airport, everyone has bused into the city center, and it's now about 11:00 in the morning. They aren't supposed to be at the museum until two. Thus, standing in front of the crowd, Wen-li Yang...

...is due to give a speech.]

So, Paris! It's a pretty big deal.

[Hm, what else is important...]

Meet at the Army Museum at 2! And try to not get in too much trouble. Have fun!

[He'll hang around for a second in case anyone has questions.]

B. AND NOW: OLD STUFF!

[At about 1:57 PM, Yang comes running up with a sandwich still in his mouth and a paper cup with tea in it in hand. He skids to a stop in front of the museum's steps, looks around, and... peers at the people waiting for him.

Then, sheepishly, he waves.

The museum is much too big to do a guided tour. However, unlike the free roam period in Paris, Yang is actually a good source of information here. He roams between the different groups of students, answering questions, providing historical detail, and showing that he isn't actually terrible at his job all of the time.

He'd be easy to approach during any of this.]

Comments

[transfusionem]

[What about her?

That's a good question. Her life before all of this - maybe it hadn't been great, maybe parts of it had sucked, but she was on her way to getting out of all that. She was doing good.

And now...]

I wish this had never happened.

[It feels like a failure to admit it. She wants to be okay with it, wants to act like she's not upset and it's not a big deal, but she just...can't.]

[ohgoodgrief]

...There's nothing wrong with that. It's not a weakness to admit that you wanted things to turn out differently.

[Yang's not, really, sure of this. It's far out of his field of experience. He only knew vampires were theoretically possible as of, roughly, last fall.

He sighs, then looks up.]

I don't think this world is very fair. We're learning that the idea of the planet we're sold, since we were young, is a lie -- that things that shouldn't be real, shouldn't be possible, are. It changes lives. Yours more than mine. But, I think...

[He falls quiet again, for a second.]

...It's your life. It's okay to wish it never happened. Now that it has, though, you get to decide what it means for you and who you should be. No one, definitely not us teachers, gets to tell you that.

[transfusionem]

...It still feels bad to admit.

[It's honest, at the very least.

She feels a little embarrassed having this conversation. She shouldn't be bothering anyone, least of all a teacher, with something as trivial as this. It should just be trivial.

Her life change, sure, but...who cares? It happens to tons of people. She's not the first person to get turned into a vampire.]

But...thank you, Professor. You didn't have to talk to me about all of this.

[ohgoodgrief]

If we never admitted things we might want to keep to ourselves, I think it'd be harder to deal with them.

[There's a small smile on Yang's face, when he says that. Then, he shakes his head.]

No need to thank me. I don't mind talking about it. And if you do need to talk to someone... I'm happy to.

[It's the important part of being a teacher, as far as Yang's concerned.]

[transfusionem]

[She goes quiet for a moment, thinking it over. She doesn't want to bother him with it, but if he's offering to talk isn't it ruder to just ignore it?

She's not sure. She hates that she's not sure, but she tries to tamp down on that feeling.]

Okay.

[She manages to bite back another "thank you", but she does manage a small smile back at him.

While she does in some ways feel worse, she also feels better.]

I'll keep that in mind.

[ohgoodgrief]

[It's a little hard for Yang to gauge how effective of a response he had. He thinks he did okay. He hopes he did okay.

Teaching is hard.

He smiles, though, and looks at the group.]

You ready to rejoin the others? If not, we can stay put for a bit and let them appreciate a little more.

[transfusionem]

[It's okay, you're doing your best.

Adelaide nods, as if trying to hype herself up, before looking over at the group.]

I think I'm ready.

[A pause.]

And thanks, again, even though I know you said I didn't have to...

[ohgoodgrief]

[Don't have to, Yang thinks, but should do. That's his job as a teacher. More than that, really. He should be helping them be the best they can.

He smiles down at her, before there's a slight nod.]

Let's walk back over together, then.

[Less awkward that way, he thinks. He's the teacher. He commands more attention, sometimes. Especially given the lecturing.]

[transfusionem]

[She nods, falling in step beside him. She's going to have a lot of thinking to do after this, but for now...

For now she'll just focus on her time here.]