fandomhigh | Library, Sunday

Face nodded and clapped his hand the laptop. "I am," he said.

Cassandra nodded. She grabbed a chair with one hand and dragged it over to where Face was sitting, then sat down.

It was all very purposeful, both in intention and execution. That would be why the chair was not deposited that close to Face. "This is it?"

Face nodded and turned the laptop so its screen was facing Cassandra. "Yeah, or at least one kind," he explained. "It's more mobile than the one I use to check books in, and I figured you'd appreciate a physical input over a touchscreen."

Cassandra tilted her head. "What is the difference?" she asked.

"Well with this you mostly control it with actual keys. You get physical feedback when you press them." He tapped at the keyboard a few times before digging around in his pocket for the phone they used for comms here and offered it to her. "While with this, there's sensors in the glass, so you just swipe or press the pictures."

He suspected one of these options was going to seem closer to magic than the other.

Cassandra frowned down at it, though she was grateful for the distraction. (She hadn't quite managed to look at Face, more at his computer and his desk and now his phone.)

"Strange," she said. "Is it an enchantment?"

Face was taking advantage of the fact she wasn't looking at him to look at Cassandra a bit more than strictly necessary.

"Well, it's technology, but it might as well be enchanted for all that I can explain it," he said apologetically. "I use computers because there's lots around where I come from, but I don't know them the way a slicer would."

"Your slicers, they make these computers," she said slowly. "But it is not enchanted with lyrium. It is... a device, such as the dwarves build. Am I correct?"

"Kind of, they make certain arts, but to do that they need to know whole the whole thing works." The hardware/software distinction was a tricksy one.

He nodded, despite not being entirely sure what lyrium was. "Yeah, it's a device."

"I see," Cassandra said.

She passed the phone back to Face. "Show me."

"The phone or the laptop?" He was kind of distracted, okay?

Sigh. Now she had to look up and look him in the face.

His terrible, frustrating, very handsome face. "The computer," she prompted.

"Right, so..." Face launched into a brief overview of how to actually use the computer and how to do things like check that it was connected to a network, since even though he'd known how to use a computer, he'd still had to learn the interfaces they used here.

Soon enough however, they were on a fanfiction. The good one. "...and this is the section for our book series. Any questions so far?"

"Does it become less irritating to stare at the screen?" Cassandra asked. "It gets very bright."

She could follow the rest easily enough, if simply because Face explained it as someone who was new to the systems himself. But the brightness was irritating.

"There should be a way to change those settings," Face said, looking for and finding the toggle. "Here we go, you just need to fiddle with this until it's more comfortable for you. It's also a good idea to look at something else for a while if you feel like you've been staring too long."

"All right," Cassandra said dubiously.

And now there was a problem: in order to read the actual text of the fanfiction Face had produced, she had to drag her chair in slightly closer. Which she did. Very, very carefully. "So this is the text you spoke of?"

Don't pay attention to Face. Do not.

"Pretty much, yeah," Face said. "It's just a case of looking through the summaries until you find something that sounds interesting and hoping the author is good enough to pull it off."

...not dirty.

"I see," Cassandra said. Though she did not quite. Not yet. "And you enjoy this particular piece?"

"Some of them," Face said pointing to part of the screen. "They write in a very similar tone and style to the books, while she writes a lot of 'what if they weren't separated right then?' stories, though her style is more...explicit." Cassandra was not the only one who was a bit pink around the cheeks today.

He jabbed at another name. "Avoid anything by him, he makes the shield-maiden all swoony and passive as she waits to be rescued, it's kind of creepy."

"Ugh," Cassandra said, succinctly. "She is not a victim to be rescued. She rescues not simply herself, but many others in the tale. Did he not read the books?"

"If he did, the point went sailing over his head."

"Why is it sometimes so difficult for men to believe that women can take care of themselves?" Cassandra complained.

Though really, her world was considerably better at gender equality in some areas; she'd just never run into the worse stuff on Earth before.

"Because some men are very stupid," Face said. "On the bright side, they usually end up regretting it."

"Our shield-maiden would certainly be happy to bash his face in with her shield," Cassandra said.

She sighed a dreamy sigh of epic shield-maidens which one could only aspire to be.

"That's be something to see."

Face sighed too. But not so much for fictional shield-maidens.

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