Melania
Mel heard her TA, Gretchen, cough, possibly choking on her coffee, before she’d even looked up at Clint who was sitting in the front row. “I...I mean Dr. LaVeau…sorry...sorry, Doctor. LaVeau. I forgot.” The Freshman quickly corrected as Mel’s eyes raised to pin him, her face still looking down at her notes on the lectern that her laptop was perched on.
They’d been in the middle of a lecture on her excavation in Peru that had been with Devlin McCormick and Danforth Jones decades in the past when Clint had interjected. He was young, he was eager, and he often tried Mel’s patience. Part of that was that he seemed to have an innate sense of picking up on the truths about things hidden in plain sight, whether they be about aliens or the supernatural. Once he did get a hold of one of those, he was hard to get off of that topic. Something told her that he would one day be working for her, or alongside her.
“Better, Clint.” A smirk formed on her face as she stepped from behind the lectern and over in front of the table that was up on the riser that she was on. There were almost 100 students in her lecture and she knew them almost all by name because this lecture class actually wanted to be there. They had discussions and were interactive, and she knew that if she tried to swing the discussion back where it had been going that they’d all be wondering why she didn’t answer Clint’s question. Sliding to sit on the table, she crossed her feet at the ankles and let her high heel clad feet swing slightly. “And yes, I did catch that episode last night. Although I don’t believe that everything unexplained or unknown is,” she brought her hands up in dramatic fashion and leaned forward, “***ALIENS!***” The class all laughed at the slight crazed expression on her face and the way she duplicated Giorgio Tsoukalos’ mannerisms as she said it. Mel chuckled as she sat upright and looked around the class again. “Okay, so seriously, you know I do watch those and I also happen to enjoy a good binge on everyone’s favorite hot nerd: Josh Gates. Folklore and mythos all have some basis in reality but that doesn’t mean that everything is aliens, ghosts, or some supernatural creature. There are real world explanations for many things that the people who came up with those mythos just did not understand. However,” she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, placing her hands on either side of her thighs to hold prop herself up as she faced her class, “there are things that are unexplained. And there are jellyfish, which I firmly believe are examples of alien life.”
From there the discussion returned to the show that Clint had mentioned and Mel’s thoughts on it. Areas she agreed, areas she disagreed, and her own personal observations having been to the site as both a tourist and a professional. She engaged the class, challenged them, and in some cases flat out disagreed and pointed out areas where their logic and facts were flawed and wrong. There were many areas where she admitted there was not evidence and that answers could not be found. Could it be aliens? Maybe. Could it just be that modern man was looking at things with minds that were over complicating it? Also possible. It was hard to go back into the past and look through the eyes of those who lived then and know what exactly they were seeing and why they thought things should be done a certain way or how they necessarily did them. At the end of time, she left them with a few thoughts and a promise that next time they WERE going to get through the lecture that they had skipped out on this time before sliding off and stretching her long denim clad legs and watching her students prepare to head out.
After telling Gretchen she’d see her in her office later in the day, Mel headed back to the lectern to shut down her laptop and get things packed up to head back out into the frey of the symposium attendees and try to make it back to her office in one piece. She might once more take the back halls and tunnels after hearing her students talk about their experiences. Just as she had deposited her laptop into her messenger bag she saw a gentleman making his way to the front that she knew wasn’t one of her students, too old, but seemed to have something on his mind.
“Dr. Melania LaVeau. Is there something I can help you with?” She greeted him with an intrigued smile before he made it to the front of the lecture hall.
Tristan
He finished walking down the aisle and stood just out of handshake range. “Just plain Tristan Beck. I hope you don’t mind that I snuck in and listened. I have a special place in my heart for anything Extraterrestrial.” There was an awkward few minutes while he worked up the nerve to continue. Since she outranked him in the education department, he decided to treat her like he would the principal of the high school he taught at. “From one teacher to another, I liked the way you handled the kid that asked the question. I was just about to head up to the Astronomy symposium upstairs, but …” He shrugged. “I like Aliens.” He blurted it out, much like someone might say they like mustard on their hot dogs.
Her laugh made him smile. “Have you ever found anything in your research that made you pause and wonder if perhaps something or someone from a more complex universe had a hand in its creation? The Nazca lines? The Incan Calendar? Okapi’s?” At her blank stare he grinned. “You know. Giraffe’s only relative? Looks like someone took a zebra and crossed it with said giraffe.” That earned him another soft chuckle.
His phone pinged with an incoming message. He looked down and his spirits sank. ~Tris, where are you? Dr. Marks is about to talk and you’re not here. Hurry up, there’s not many seats left and I’m thirsty!~
“Well, I gotta run. Apparently I’m not important enough to hold up a lecture on the possibility of planets that revolve around black holes. I just wanted to thank you. I enjoyed the lecture greatly.” He didn’t hold out his hand for her to shake. It was rude and stupid but he just couldn’t do it, so he smiled again and nodded as he turned away.
Melania
“Nice to meet you *just Tristan Beck*.” Mel was almost chuckling as she called out to the intriguing gentleman as he started to head back toward the main aisle out of the lecture hall. “You didn’t let me answer though,” she paused as he looked back but continued to walk. So she did have his attention. Interesting. “Yes, I have. I am a woman of science but I do believe we are not alone in the universe. Aliens, spirits, paranormal, supernatural, I not only believe...I have seen proof. Enjoy your lecture, but if you want to talk more, I’m one building over,” she pointed in the direction that the building her office was in was located. “Third floor. If you can’t find it, ask where the Voodoo Princess Archaeologist is located. I’m kinda famous over there.” She gave him a wink and saw his brows slightly draw together and that made her laugh again. “You better hurry. I’ve heard it’s a madhouse out there.” She gave him a bright smile as he headed out. Shaking her head, she turned back and slung her messenger back up and over, crosswise over her body. Deciding that she wasn’t wanting to brave the horde of symposium attendees and LSU students out in the atrium, she took the back door out of the lecture hall that would lead down to the tunnels that connected the buildings underground and were accessible only to faculty and staff. One of the perks of the jobs, quick exits.
A few minutes later and she was up on the third floor and in her office, a new pot of Blue Mountain coffee started and her feet propped up on her trash can under her desk as she booted her laptop up to see what new and interesting excuses her students would have for wanting to turn in assignments late. Behind her lining the built-in shelves were the many books on archaeology, history, and other various topics she found of interest along with various artifacts that she had legally collected over the years. Some of what was on the shelves were painstaking reproductions of artifacts that she had discovered that had been respectfully turned over to the proper authorities, but which she wanted to commemorate discoveries that held significance. There were days that she would look at many of them fondly.
About an hour after she had arrived back in her office, she received a Zoom call from a colleague who was doing an excavation with a team in Israel. Mel pulled back her long, wavy, dark brown hair in a high ponytail to keep it out of her face at the beginning of the call. As normal, she frequently gestured with her hands as she talked. Her silver toned rings caught the light and the colors of the items in the room as her fingers flexed and moved. A few of the rings had stones in them that coordinated with what she had on. This day it was pink jasper and lapis, matching the creamy pink of her sweater and the dark blue of her jeans. On her right thumb was a teardrop shaped amber ring that was made from a piece she had personally found and was mounted in a setting that appeared antique. It was the most elegant piece that she had on, and one that she wore daily. Rarely did she wear gold, and seldom gemstones of any kind unless attending a formal function.
She had just ended the call and refilled her “Forensic Anthropologist: I’d find you much more interesting if you were dead.” coffee mug when there was a knock on the door. “Come in, but you better have chocolate with you!” Mel teasingly called as she spun her purple and yellow LSU Secretlab gaming chair back around. “OH! Oops, sorry, I thought you were a student.” Mel laughed when she saw who it was. “Come on in, no chocolate required as an offering this time.”