![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
9. Selkirk Rex
Sep. 23rd, 2013 11:27 pm[Jordan College
Professor Kheminevitch, perhaps in contrast to his esoteric theological studies and unavoidably muscovite origins, is distinctly not eccentric. He does not ramble at pigeons or turn up late to class wearing things backward, and the preserved specimens from his travels that decorate his office are all labeled in neat latin copperplate. He's enthusiastic and engaging as a lecturer but more organized than most professors by an order of magnitude. He has a reputation for being terribly difficult but unfailingly encouraging. His church attendance is impeccable, and he has no accent from his mother's homeland at all. His wasp daemon perches on his shoulder, yellow stripes and orange antenna sharp and clear against academic black, conscientiously visible to avoid the disconcerting impression that sometimes result from easily hidden insect daemons.
He walks the fine tightrope of fearless and thoughtful inquiry into the nature of God, and death, and beyond without ever offending the doctrinal custodians of the Magisterium. When they scrutinize him, he draws church representatives into discussions of Augustine and Melancthon with fierce and incisive faith; he makes it look easy. He is still, always, a bit of an outsider.
St. Josef's Hospice
In the Great Wen of back-allies, poorhouses, and thieves' dens marbled through the city, there are not nearly enough chymists to care for throngs of people living day in and day out through a miasma of ill health. Lev is not a scholar of medicine, but he can practice it enough to comfort the dying, and if he is a little more attentive, at that precarious moment when a man's daemon dissipates in gold sparks and his last breath shudders out - well. It does not detract from their comfort.
A nameless chapel
He attends services at Jordan rigorously, but sometimes - sometimes he needs a dark, quiet place, with stuffy air and lack of noble architecture, somewhere that feels rough when he kneels, where he can mutter a heretical muscovite prayer for the dead, the language guttural and jumbled, half-forgotten in his throat, Thecla buzzing softly in his hair.
His room
His quarters at the top of a high spire. It's a climb, but he likes the sharp, clear wind; it reminds him of other lands. It's not so late in the year that he feels the need to close the windows. Alone, he curls up with a book and a quill, his cat at his feet, and Thecla flies out, tiny and barely noticeable, to observe the city in ways he cannot. It's been nearly twenty years since he crossed through the dead land. She has long since forgiven him, and he no longer expects it to hurt when the whine of her wings grows too faint to hear.]
Professor Kheminevitch, perhaps in contrast to his esoteric theological studies and unavoidably muscovite origins, is distinctly not eccentric. He does not ramble at pigeons or turn up late to class wearing things backward, and the preserved specimens from his travels that decorate his office are all labeled in neat latin copperplate. He's enthusiastic and engaging as a lecturer but more organized than most professors by an order of magnitude. He has a reputation for being terribly difficult but unfailingly encouraging. His church attendance is impeccable, and he has no accent from his mother's homeland at all. His wasp daemon perches on his shoulder, yellow stripes and orange antenna sharp and clear against academic black, conscientiously visible to avoid the disconcerting impression that sometimes result from easily hidden insect daemons.
He walks the fine tightrope of fearless and thoughtful inquiry into the nature of God, and death, and beyond without ever offending the doctrinal custodians of the Magisterium. When they scrutinize him, he draws church representatives into discussions of Augustine and Melancthon with fierce and incisive faith; he makes it look easy. He is still, always, a bit of an outsider.
St. Josef's Hospice
In the Great Wen of back-allies, poorhouses, and thieves' dens marbled through the city, there are not nearly enough chymists to care for throngs of people living day in and day out through a miasma of ill health. Lev is not a scholar of medicine, but he can practice it enough to comfort the dying, and if he is a little more attentive, at that precarious moment when a man's daemon dissipates in gold sparks and his last breath shudders out - well. It does not detract from their comfort.
A nameless chapel
He attends services at Jordan rigorously, but sometimes - sometimes he needs a dark, quiet place, with stuffy air and lack of noble architecture, somewhere that feels rough when he kneels, where he can mutter a heretical muscovite prayer for the dead, the language guttural and jumbled, half-forgotten in his throat, Thecla buzzing softly in his hair.
His room
His quarters at the top of a high spire. It's a climb, but he likes the sharp, clear wind; it reminds him of other lands. It's not so late in the year that he feels the need to close the windows. Alone, he curls up with a book and a quill, his cat at his feet, and Thecla flies out, tiny and barely noticeable, to observe the city in ways he cannot. It's been nearly twenty years since he crossed through the dead land. She has long since forgiven him, and he no longer expects it to hurt when the whine of her wings grows too faint to hear.]
