2 | Tell Me What Can I Give, If All My Work is Bleak and Abstracted?

abstract number (n.): a number used without application to things.

This was what time was like, according to the poets: like a river; like an endless stream; like something that drifted along, an inevitable motion like the passing of sand between the narrow bend of an hourglass.

Camille liked to think otherwise. There were such useful measures for time that were already invented: seconds, hours, days. Perhaps the most conspicuous of all would be the passing of seasons, because as every season came and went, it brought such radical, unmistakable changes. Observe –

Winter to spring: a white satin blanket of snow transformed into a lush field of flowers. Death to life.

Summer to autumn: all that radiant heat captured in red leaves that later fell. Erwin popping in for a visit, only for him to leave on an expedition in the next week.

Her breath fogged over her carriage's window.

Then she sighed. Maybe a concession would be made to the poets, then, if they spoke of the passing of time. After all, she'd spent that summer in her mother's workshop in what felt like an uninterrupted haze: all those hours working on her final requirements and helping out in the workshop.

The repair work had been simple and repetitive; there were only so many known ways one could array a set of gears in a clock to make it tell the time, and the occasional unusual clock that proved to be more complicated had given her and her mother a decent amount of enjoyment.

But when they were satisfied that all the clocks ticked the same and her mother tinkered on the automatons, Camille was left alone with her university work. And so she repeated the endless motion of innovation: she drafted her clockwork, and had her gears cast; she put together the first version of her clock, then the next, the next, and the next. The plans always shifted. There was always room for improvement. Sometimes she wrote to her professors for advice; they always wrote back with more questions about when her project would be completed.

For all her classmates liked to complain that it was too harsh of Pascal College to impose that their final project be clock-making, Camille had never spoken against it, having grown up around clocks. They were as familiar to her as the equations predicting the clockwork's motion, the signs and differentials that made up how smooth each gear fitted and moved in concert with another.

The hardest thing had always been laboring under the weight of expectation.

Her carriage rolled to a stop. She got up with her leather satchel – her father's gift when she first entered university five years ago – and pressed a hand to her neck, holding her scarf in place against a cool breeze. Autumn inside Wall Sina was nothing compared to winter, but evidently she'd miscalculated how cold it'd be on her first day back to Wodan University since moving out in the summer.

No matter – she was only here to collect her final marks and confirmation of her graduation, anyway. After asking the carriage driver to wait, she began the walk to Pascal College.

Autumn had come to Wodan only as much as the university administrators let it: beautiful maple trees, with their brilliant red leaves, were interspersed with birch trees; the hedges were trimmed to perfection, the lawns cut to the centimeter. The floors had been waxed, and even the colonnades were scrubbed. The students – the heirs of aristocrats or wealthy businessmen – moved in parades of the latest fashions, now that it was the end of the year and none of the professors would be scolding them for wearing such richly dyed clothes.

Camille moved forward, weaving in and out of the crowd. Eventually, Pascal College's stone facade came into view; she made a beeline for Professor Laplace's office, knowing he'd have her marks ready. She waved hi to a few of the secretaries she passed by – none of them stopped her for a conversation, which surprised her, considering the secretaries always loved to stop and chat for a few minutes in the halls.

She knocked on the door at the end of the corridor. "Professor Laplace?"

"Come in!"

The door opened to his cavernous office – an octagonal room from a converted bell tower, though Laplace retained the stained glass windows, which painted the stone walls in shades of rose and purple. Bookshelves surrounded them and his regular desk sat square in the middle, though Laplace himself was bent over his drafting table, which sat directly underneath a pair of opened windows.

"Professor?" Camille put her satchel down on a seat.

The older man's head shot up. Seeing her, he crooked a finger with a smile. "Camille! Such great timing. Come here, I was just reviewing your drawing of the clock you submitted to the college committee. I see you really did go through with using that layered gear train we discussed. Well done."

She came to stand beside him, confirming that he was indeed still looking over her clock plans. Much had changed since that time Erwin glimpsed it: iteration had found her making and remaking a smaller and more efficient clock that used a fourth of the original amount of gears she'd began with. "It fit the clock. Where is it, now?"

Her professor laughed. "It's sitting on the dean's desk as we speak. I believe he's still entranced by its simplicity. To think that a few of your classmates submitted some pendulum monstrosities."

Camille raised a brow. "But they would be more accurate." Which was, of course, the point of clocks: to tell the time, to measure those small distances at which the world moved forward. She'd bit the bullet by building a mantel-clock made of a minimal gear train, sacrificing accuracy for simplicity.

"And predictable. Don't be modest, I know you were rightly gambling your ingenuity to put you over your classmates," Laplace added. "Sit, I have something I want to share with you. I also noticed that your clock you didn't use any of the titanium I gifted you. Does that mean you've figured out what you're going to do with them?"

Vividly, she remembered the scenes from Erwin's most recent visit. Two years that they hadn't seen nor spoken to each other, and he'd decided to show up out of the blue just as she was about to finish university. In retrospect she should've anticipated it: though his visits began when they'd only been children, he'd always come and gone as he pleased.

Months passed, seasons passed, and years passed until Camille could count the number of times she'd seen him within the last eight years on her hands.

Erwin. She'd never missed much during her time away from the clock shop. Not much except him, it seemed.

He'd even brought a subordinate with him, last time. A subordinate and as always, a problem he needed her or her mother's help fixing. And she'd always liked the problems he brought her.

"Camille?"

She blinked. Laplace was sitting at his desk now, hand still gesturing for her to take a seat.

"Forgive me," Camille quirked a smile, sitting in the chair opposite the one she placed her satchel. She also didn't forget that the gift of those titanium rods had been more than generous of Laplace: gold and the finest silk meant nothing compared to titanium in the hands of an engineer. "Your question dislodged a fond memory."

"Such curious words!" Laplace chuckled. "I could never understand how that worked, I only know that you and your mother have long memories."

"It must be… thirty? Thirty-four times I've explained it now?" She chuckled. She mimicked the voice he'd always used in every single one of their after-hours chats in his office: "'Camille, explain it again. Another time! I don't seem to be comprehending. Imagine an amphitheater…'"

"…'with a discrete amount of information on each row of seats, with more information the more you descend.' But the practice eludes, as it always does."

Camille shrugged. Like she said: they'd been through this, more or less, thirty-five times. Her mother's method of memorizing things wasn't meant for everyone. Not that it ever stopped men like Laplace from asking about it. "You said you had something to share with me?"

"Ah, yes! That," Laplace peered at her over his fingers. "Pascal College is in need of some teaching staff; the college committee sent out a call for nominations, and I thought of reaching out to you, my dear, as the best student I've ever had."

"I—" Teaching? She'd never even thought about the possibility of being able to stay longer in the college. "I'm honored you thought of me, but I haven't even taken the exam."

Laplace's smile widened. "Which is why it's good that the new hires would begin next spring to offset some of the other college staff leaving the university, no? Though there's no such thing as overplanning in our profession."

That was even bigger news. "Who's leaving?"

"In our department? Beeckman," Laplace responded. His brows knit momentarily. "Dreadful business, that. His mother is still sick from some plague that was brought in from Maria. Perhaps you've already noticed he's been teaching less classes? He'll be leaving for good in the winter to take care of her."

Camille couldn't imagine giving up a position in Pascal College, much less Wodan University. More than Wodan being the most prestigious center of learning in the three walls, it must've come with more than its fair share of special dispensations, the least of which could be a residence permit inside Wall Sina.

"That's unfortunate. I always enjoyed his classes." She shook her head. "He struck me as more… melancholy, this last year, but I didn't know it was because of that."

"Unfortunate for him, true, but it presents an opportunity for you, Camille." Laplace tilted his head, eyes shining.

Camille laughed without much humor. There were more gender-balanced colleges in Wodan to be sure, but Pascal College had never even had a female student. All the teaching staff were male; the only women she'd ever met here were the secretaries. When she first started, she'd had to board in neighboring Sophia College since Pascal never had reason to build more than one dorm. "I've already been accommodated this far, I don't know how much more of the college's generosity I'm willing to take."

"Nonsense! I've always been of the opinion that Kircher's decision to sponsor your entry to the college was sound. It is now a growing opinion, not just in the engineering department, that you would be a valuable addition to our ranks. Just think of all the things someone of your caliber could do with the university's resources at their disposal – we take government and private contracts all the time here, as you know."

Laplace said nothing more, allowing her to stew in stunned silence.

She felt her limbs growing heavy, her shoulders slackening.

She was good, true. But it was never more than in studying at the university that Camille felt her brilliance was being routinely overestimated.

The sound of bells tolling the hour filled the office from the open windows. Laplace got up with a wistful smile, taking in the sounds of the bell tower's chimes. Camille knew the notes by heart: it was a tune her mother liked to hum to, when she worked on automatons at the workshop.

"Your mother was a brilliant woman, and every day I regret that she felt too old to study formally at Pascal," Laplace said with a sigh that Camille thought was laced with nostalgia. Too much nostalgia, in her mind. "But I'm glad she sent you in her stead, and we could correct some of the wrongs in this world. Please think of the offer, Camille. If nothing else, think of it as a way to give back to the college, or to correct more wrongs in this world. I have your marks already, in that envelope on my desk. Take the one below it too, it's my formal endorsement if you decide to apply for the position."

The air in the hall felt even colder than when she'd first arrived, if that was possible.

Was this why none of the secretaries had said nothing more than hi? To not spoil the surprise of being offered a position at one of Wodan's best colleges? Granted it was probably only as a teaching assistant, but the possibility of being hired permanently was more than enough for any ambitious person looking to get ahead in their profession.

Camille frowned. That probably explained it. That whole conversation had lasted longer than she thought, and now she'd have to hurry in paying Pastor Kircher a visit – hopefully her carriage driver wouldn't charge her extra for the wait.

"So what did Laplace tell you?" She looked ahead, finding one of her classmates. Jeremia Beintman, the son of a rubber magnate – and much as he was a pretty rich boy, Camille had to admit he looked sharp in the tweed suit he wore today. Such a welcome contrast to the monotonous black and white clothes they were mandated to wear during classes.

Camille smoothed her face over with a teasing smile, putting away her letters in her satchel and clicking the thing shut. "Looking to compete again, are you? We're graduating already, there's no point."

Jeremia had watched the action with a tsk. "Of course they passed you. I heard Laplace let you use his epicyclic gear train in your clock."

"Help him work out another gear train and maybe he'd let you use it in your daddy's factories," Camille winked. "Come on, I know they passed you too."

He decided to walk with her downstairs, which Camille didn't mind. Jeremia had been the first of her classmates to look past her gender and went straight to how well she did in class. "Where are you headed off to in such a hurry?"

"Ignace College," She replied. It was all the way on the other side of the university – Kircher had taught and stayed at an assortment of colleges, but he'd once told her he liked staying in Ignace where the maples grew the thickest.

Jeremia took this with a nod. Everyone in her class knew that she'd been sponsored by Pastor Kircher. It was, after all, why a person of her socioeconomic standing and gender had even been allowed in Pascal College. "Paying a visit to your benefactor? Any plans after?"

A passing secretary stopped the two of them as they descended the stairwell. "Were you looking for Pastor Kircher, Camille?"

"I was," Camille blinked. "Is he on leave again?"

The secretary gave a sorry smile. "I'm afraid so. He told me you might come looking for him. I can write you when he's back, though." Then she grinned – "Got the news yet from Professor Laplace?"

Camille made sure to mirror her enthusiasm – it was very sweet that the secretaries all seemed to be happy for her. Perhaps they were sick of constantly being surrounded by men. "I did. I said I'd think about it."

She felt Jeremia's eyes dig into her as the secretary squeezed her shoulder. "We're looking forward to it!"

She slowed down as she and Jeremia later exited the steps. "What was that about?"

Camille smirked, playing on his paranoid impulse. She knew he'd always been jealous and suspicious of the friendship she shared with Laplace, despite the cool exterior he tried to project. Innocently, she said, "Nothing much. I said I'd think about redoing the window fittings on the college."

"Get real, Camille," He ran a hand through his slicked back auburn hair. Camille knew for a fact that he sometimes liked to tousle it on purpose. Nevertheless she was drawn to the way he seemed to blend in with the autumnal scene of Pascal College in the fall. The red-gold of his hair; his bright amber eyes; the rich earthy threads of his suit. "What do windows have to do with engineering?"

"A lot," She fibbed with a smile. Since Pastor Kircher was on vacation again, she decided to begin the walk back to her carriage at a more leisurely pace. "Who says I can't make a better hinge for all these rusty damn windows?"

A laugh slipped from his lips. "You're right about that. Pinnacle of learning, my ass. This building has to be as old as the walls."

"Ah but you have to admit, nobody else has got Pascal beat."

When Jeremia noticed they were headed to the cul-de-sac where all the carriages waited in Wodan, he asked, "Leaving so soon?"

He sounded disappointed but not too disappointed. He had a disinterested persona to protect, after all. "I was thinking we could get lunch together somewhere outside the university."

"Lunch in Mitras?" Camille cried. "Take my leg too while you're at it."

Her friend – of a sort – rolled his eyes. They'd really never spent time together outside of class. "I know you're good for it, Leto. Would you be complaining if I said I'd pay for it?"

"Too late to be picking my brain over an assignment, Beintman," She hummed. She spotted her carriage in the distance. The ease with which she brushed him off was trained: these rich types always forgot not everybody came from money or illustrious lineages the way they did.

When they got to her carriage, the driver didn't seem annoyed yet, which was a plus. She raised a hand at Jeremia, a foot already on the carriage step, her other hand lifting her skirt. "See you in graduation."

"What if I said I just wanted to get to know you more?"

That stopped her. She leveled a look over her shoulder, locking eyes with her sort-of-friend. Five years they'd gone to school together and he'd never given her the slightest indication he cared that way. Curiosity flared within her, and she twisted her lips in a smirk. "Some other day, some other way, then."

"Fine. As you say. Until graduation."

He came forward and grasped the hand she'd raised in parting, holding her steady while she boarded her carriage. She said nothing more as she looked at him through the carriage glass – though it was clear the words on his lips were goodbye. She offered him only the ghost of a smile, before her carriage jerked forward and Jeremia Beintman receded into the distance.

Nobody needed to know about Laplace's offer just yet. Not even handsome classmates who doubled as the most indolent of gentlemen. Never mind that they always only seemed to be after her brain. What had he been planning to do? Offer her a position in his father's factories? Junior engineer, perhaps?

She sank into her seat with a sigh.

When she got off the carriage in Belcastle she spotted another carriage parked outside the house. Paying the driver the amount they'd promised on that morning, Camille smoothed the scarf she still had tied around her neck. Who could it be?

Not some wealthy bastard, evidently, as it didn't have the gilt frame that was all the rage in Wall Sina those days.

Nobody was manning the shopfront either. She passed through the backdoor. Lotta was the first to greet her home. "Welcome home Camille, was your trip to school successful?"

She smiled. She could never be upset when Lotta looked at her like that. "Yes it was, thanks. It seems I'm graduating after all."

"Congratulations!" The older woman led her to the sitting room, where Erwin and her mother sat. Camille blinked in disbelief at the sight of his bushy brows and blue eyes, the same ones from her childhood, except now he was much, much taller and older. "Look, Camille's home! She said she was finished with school for good."

She wouldn't say for good, considering she'd been offered a position, but her misgivings were drowned out by Erwin's smile. "Well done Cammy, I knew it was only a matter of time."

She felt her face go warm at the nickname he'd given her as a child. He hadn't called her that in a long time. "You know, Eyebrows, it feels like every other time we've met since you entered the military, I've always congratulated you for a promotion."

That caught him off guard, which only emboldened her. "What is it now? Lance Corporal Eyebrows?"

"Interesting that you remember all those times we met," Erwin tried nonchalantly sipping his tea. "But not my rank."

Camille snatched her own cup of tea off the table. The memory technique wasn't her particular favorite when it came to conversational topics, but she did always enjoy prodding Erwin and his obsession with it. "It's not an eidetic memory that remembers everything at a single glance, Erwin. It's a memory technique to remember what you want to remember. You'd think you'd have gotten that from all those times you asked me to teach you how to do it."

"Lieutenant," Her mother said from her seat across Erwin. "If the papers at the time were right, and you haven't gotten promoted again."

She wasn't at all shocked that her mother scanned the news for details about Erwin. She'd been more devastated than Camille when Erwin had first told them his intentions of enlisting in the military.

"Lieutenant Erwin Smith," Camille hummed, remembering their last conversation about titles. She pretended to think for a moment, before grinning at him. "It sounds nice."

Now he started to flush. Camille considered this a victory. She decided to regroup for now – the skirt she'd worn to Wodan was awfully tight – besides, she needed a bit of time to herself if she wanted to devise some other ways to embarrass him. Erwin had always been too observant for his own good. "I'll be upstairs for a minute, put some things I brought from the college away."

"Levi's upstairs," came her mother's voice from behind her. "He brought his ODM gear like you told him to."

"A month and a half late I see," She replied, casting a sideways glance at Erwin. "Do you never get time off?"

She had her answer in Erwin's eye bags and tired smile. She just mirrored it; she'd only been joking.

Maybe she'd see him more if they had more free time, anyway.

Her shoes tapped against the hardwood stairs her father had built. It was somewhat of a difficulty to maneuver in her skirt and heels, but end of the year or not, Wodan still expected their students to dress in a proper manner. The stairs in Pascal College weren't half so narrow, at least.

Levi was sitting where he'd sat the last time he'd been there. An empty teacup and the same bag that contained his gear were before him. His eyes moved from the window to gaze at her standing at the foot of the stairs.

"Hello," She said with a smile. "It's nice to see you again. I'm glad I didn't get you killed."

Her heels made a steady click as she approached him at the end of the room. She extended the hand holding the tea she'd snatched downstairs. "Want another?"

The man took the cup by its rim, which she carefully made no comment about. She put her satchel down on the workbench, observing the way his needlepoint eyes took her in before looking outside the window again.

As she fingered the end of the cheap cotton scarf she'd tied around her neck, she felt a bit silly. She'd only been trying to copy what some more elegant woman she'd seen in Sina was wearing by tying the scarf around her neck like that. Now Levi was party to that, if the way his eyes had momentarily stopped around her neck had been any indication.

"It's faster," Levi spoke beside her.

She pulled a stool out from beneath the bench. She crossed her legs as she sat, unable to help the smile that split her face at his words. "What's faster?"

"The gear," His eyes glanced at the bag in between them. "It's slight, but it's faster, every time I shoot my hooks or retract them. I noticed."

And that was the way civilization was built, wasn't it? Those tiny improvements, one by one, slowly inching technology forward. Most people took that slow, continuous innovation for granted. But the walls hadn't been built in a day. To say that she was thrilled that he noticed wouldn't do justice to the way her heart had soared.

Should she tell him? He was already looking at her expectantly. She obliged him. "I might've switched out a few bolts. They're a new kind with a movable head – I had some that fit government dimensions. It helps the coils wind smoother. Faster, in other words."

She licked her lips. "I'm surprised you noticed." They were nothing at all like the titanium rods she gifted him; they'd been bolts of the cheapest aluminum alloy – they only edged out the previous bolts in how efficient they were at transferring energy.

"Better than being dead." He said, clearly unamused by her earlier comment.

Camille resisted the urge to stick her tongue out. "I hope it didn't… throw you off or anything."

"No," Levi said curtly. "Not much."

Even the smallest improvements in the ODM gear's mechanism could produce noticeable effects when they sailed about in the sky at such top speeds. She smirked. "Now, if only the royal government would bother with these kinds of incremental improvements in the ODM plans."

He scoffed as he drank his tea, eyes never leaving the view of the mountains outside their window.

"I'm glad I'm even able to look at your gear a second time," She said. She reached for the bag in between them, hands already going for the zipper. "I know… it isn't easy out there. I have no idea what it's like, but I know survival in the Corps is rare."

She'd stopped reading the papers for news about Erwin and the Survey Corps a long time ago. Relief that his name wasn't in the list of the deceased was always overshadowed by the calculations that inevitably ran in her head – if this many people died now, what was the probability Erwin would die on the next expedition? How much smaller was the Survey Corps, what was the attrition rate for soldiers who survived successive expeditions?

It was the reason why she never particularly tried to remember his rank. It felt like courting death, when he was in the Corps. She'd always done her best to forget the thing entirely.

Levi was silent. Not that Camille blamed him; he was in the Corps too. It was a heavy topic.

She slightly regretted bringing it up to begin with. When her hands alighted on his ODM gear's cool aluminum barrel, however, she sighed. Now here was a beautiful piece of engineering. If only all the public was privy to it.

It was spotless, too. Judging from its outward state, Levi seemed to be a stickler for cleanliness. She put down the barrel and began rolling the sleeves of her blouse up.

"You're not putting anything over that?"

She looked to see Levi gazing at her. Or, more likely, how white her blouse was.

She shrugged, untying the scarf from her neck and folding it neatly against the bench. Her mother had drilled it into her early on that disorganization was the enemy of any kind of work. "You seemed to take my advice about cleaning the inside to heart. And you saw what happened last time; it's not that much work."

She felt his eyes follow her around the workshop as she gathered her tools. She knew the place of each and every single thing she needed by heart. Beginning with a small jar to hold all the loosened screws, she began taking the barrel apart.

"Why're you up here alone? Everyone's downstairs."

"I was waiting."

It wasn't much of an answer. He could've waited downstairs. Perhaps he preferred the solitude – her mother and Erwin always had much to discuss. "Sorry to keep you. Hopefully it wasn't long; I wasn't expecting a visit – I just arrived from Mitras myself."

His eyes continued to follow her hands. That was the first thing she'd noticed about him the last time – his eyes that were as sharp as the needle on her compass that she used for drafting; a steely gunmetal gray.

The next had been his height. It seemed at odds with the fact that he was in the Survey Corps, yet the state of his gear – used and abused but cleaned immaculate – had more than quashed any doubts she had because of how short he was.

The last had been his standoffishness. Which he made a point to remind her of again and again, it seemed. "What was a brat like you doing in the capital?"

He must've waited a long while if he wanted to know. The insult made a laugh bubble out of her lips. "I was being offered a teaching position at my university."

Ah.

She glanced at Levi. He had a slim black brow raised. That was another thing – he had close cropped black hair that tended to fall in his eyes. Combined with the sharp way he watched everything and his abrasiveness, he struck her as mysterious. Maybe he was the type to keep secrets. "You? Teach this? You're nothing but a kid."

"I'd be teaching other kids," Camille argued for the sake of it. Wryly, though, she actually found herself agreeing with him. She only turned twenty that spring. "Most of the students would be my age."

"They let any idiot teach in your school?"

"Maybe not anyone," The barrel came apart in her hands. She silently admired how much whiter the inside seemed – he'd obviously cleaned it as well. Camille smoothed a light finger over all the moving parts; the mechanism connecting the handles to the barrel, the winding mechanism that she'd fixed for him. She could see the faintest sliver of the titanium rods she'd installed, underneath all the metal wire.

She smiled at the memory of Professor Laplace gifting her the rods after she finished her fourth year; she hadn't really known what to do with such an extravagant gift, until Levi had shown up with his broken gear last summer. By then it hadn't even been a matter of choice – only that she knew he was missing parts, and the rods Laplace had given her seemed like the best fit. A Scout like Levi deserved nothing less. "I went to the best school in the walls. I agree with you, though. Not sure why they'd want me teaching."

When everything seemed in order, she looked up at him. "Looks like everything held up. Not surprising, but it's always good to double check if your repair ended up killing someone. Have you gotten into any trouble for it yet?"

It was a moment before Levi shook his head. Camille didn't know what to make of it.

"I… see," She felt her forehead creasing. Levi would tell her if she was about to get arrested for fixing his gear, right? At the very least, Erwin would. "Do you… have any complaints?"

"No."

His prompt and decisive answer made joy bloom in her chest. A dangerous and highly personal piece of equipment like the ODM gear required great amounts of trust on the part of the user every time they used it. It was like hearing him say he trusted her – insofar as repairs went, anyway.

"Come back any time. My mother and I have been fixing ODM gear as long as Erwin's been in the Corps," Camille twirled a lock of her blonde hair with a grin, suddenly knowing how she'd make Erwin blush again. "I'd prefer you anyway, Levi. You're twice as rough on the equipment but Erwin isn't even half as clean."

She was rewarded with a single nod of his head, which she chuckled at. She got up. "Come on, let's go get something to eat downstairs."

Notes:

thank you to everyone who left me kind words on the first chapter! i wasn't expecting a lot of people to show interest - so i'm very thankful to everyone who took a few extra minutes to tell me they were interested. updating a couple of hours early just for that.

(1) the deal with titanium is that while it's heavier than aluminum, it's inherently stronger too, so it would require a less amount vs. some aluminum alloys. the bolts with the movable heads are based in reality too - though they're obviously not called that in technical terms.

(2) there's already a levi fic on this archive (and a really freaking good one at that, i highly recommend it) with a heroine who does have a photographic and/or eidetic memory: lavenderjacquard's the performer. i just wanted to make the disclaimer in my notes that i'm aware someone else has done a (good, imo) spin on this.

anywho, see y'all in the next chapter! thanks again for reading, as always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome.