Night Owl Books (An Arch Key Books) is empty of all customers and all custom and the only person present at this moment in time is M. Adam Gallowglass, dark of hair and forgettable of person, a scrawny and valiant chevalier of paper-and-ink, of pen-and-word, of Words, and he doesn't look at all like a young man who'd wrestle the language of angels into submission but one never knows about the pale ones, the ones so pale and so tired-looking, weary circles dark around his eyes like bruises, that they must not do anything except attempt mastery over --
Over everything; to master everything is to master one's self and to have power. get it?
He's the only one in today. He's got a pizza box on his desk, grease soaking through the cardboard but kept from papers or wood or anything by a little bulwark of paper towels from the backroom. He hasn't bothered with a plate; the pizza is still hot, cheese dripping toward freedom.
He does have a book open, but it's kept well away from the potential hazard of cheese and sauce and toppings and grease, splayed open with adept and careful and go ahead and call them sensitive fingers.
Something classical is playing over the store's sound system.
LucyThe weather turned, just as Lucy's phone kept telling her that it would. Still, it held off for so long from that first announcement that she was a little bit caught off guard by it. She doesn't mind the cold, she doesn't even mind the snow so much. But this snow is very wet, soaking through the fabric of her sweatshirt and dampening her hair. She'll have to get an umbrella, she thinks, but first.
First she just wants to stay out of the wet. So she makes her way down the street so slowly. Hopping, in a way, from the coffee shop where she played for a while, to the clothing boutique, to another boutique, and on and on. Finding shelter inside some strange new place, exploring it until she grows bored or her sweatshirt feels less unbearably soaked, then moving on to the next place.
She wasn't intending to find a bookstore when she spilled into Night Owl Books, bringing the frost, the chill, the cold touch of winter in with her. Does a chime above the door announce her presence? If so Lucy pauses in the doorway, looking up at it with the hint of a smile playing at the corners of a wide mouth painted dark-dark red. Then she's in, and she pauses inside the door to stamp out her boots. Stamp out her boots and be pushed forward, the door closing in with a thump against the tough guitar case she has strapped to her back. The nudge forces her forward a step, which she takes distractedly. There are so many books. But this clearly isn't Barnes & Noble. This isn't some fast food book chain, everything arranged for the easiest and quickest consumption. This is something else entirely.
Reaching up, Luch pushes back the hood of her sweatshirt, revealing a head of maroon-red hair. She runs her fingers through its length, shaking out some of the collected moisture. Only when she's as sure as she can be that she's not going to trail water through the store does she step off to investigate and explore.
Adam Gallowglass[Do I notice Awakenedness.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Lucy[do I??? -3 for Arcane]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 7) ( success x 2 )
LucyCold would enter with anyone today. It comes in with every opened door, wet and chilly and uncomfortable. But then the door closes and the heat inside the bookshop overwhelms it, snuffs out the cold, makes the place comfortable again.
This cold does not go away. It lingers. It clings to the figure what just walked, no, radiates from her because she is its source. Each step taken the frost spreads, winding and twisting its way between the bookshelves and the book stacks. Something with it, some other sense needles at Adam's skin. Something threading through him, binding him or trying to or seeming to try to. Stitching along his senses, pulling his attention with a tug like thread snapping.
Adam GallowglassLucy brings slush-snow chill in with her, brings frost-curling, gelicid (would that be accurate? Adam would know) ice crystals a promise of delicate cold-lacery in-and-out-needle-and-threading through the world, stitching his uncanny senses cannily in her direction.
It's more than just Spring dancing with Winter outside, what follows the young woman with hair like a banking fire, although Adam does not see its maroon and think fire becuase who would with Lucy? He thinks blood first or crayons.
Adam. Lucy notices him more sharply than most people ever do; those who are asleep. Notices the dark thatch of hair, the sleepless bruised eyes, the thrum of valiance under his skin, relentless; a flash of armor or of weaponry, imagine them against thorns or anything, as long as it's forward forever and ever.
Adam's mouth is full of hot cheese when the bells herald her arrival; the bells for Night Owl Books are old-fashioned and will always be old-fashioned, one being out of tune.
He swallows hastily; scorches his throat for his trouble. He wipes his mouth on a corner of paper napkin sets the pizza slice down and rounds his desk, "Afternoon, ma'am," says he, considering. "Can I help you?"
LucyLucy meanders, but her meandering is definitely taking her in the direction of Adam at his desk. It's not an intentional thing, what meandering ever is, really? Perhaps it is her resonance, threaded between them and drawing them closer. Perhaps it is his resonance, that valiance driving him toward a woman wandered in from the snow. A damsel, but in need? In distress? Time shall tell.
Wandering closer in an Adam-direction, Lucy glances over when she feels that boldness burning so near, and she blinks her bright green eyes. Was he so noticeable when she wandered inside? Those dark and shadowed eyes, a knight in a scholar's mien. She tips her head, studying him curiously and with that hint of a secretive, secretly amused smile.
"Afternoon," she says, and in her voice is a touch of laughter, the secret of her amusement beginning to spill despite herself. "Can you?" she asks. "I don't really know. I only came in to get out of the weather, but," she looks up at the shelves beside her. "I didn't realize this was a bookstore. Do you have much on mythology?"
Adam GallowglassThe young man doesn't respond to the touch of laughter or secret amusement with a secretly amused smile of his own or even with a suggestion of shared laughter. Lucy keeps her secrets, frost witch that she is, and Adam keeps his. He seems to be very serious, and his expression matches that solemnity; unconscious of its dignity, simply watchful, observant, waiting, until something she says touches a light to his eyes like gloaming combing shadows from a heath. A light to his eyes: the shadowless young man has no light in his eyes, but isn't light the easiest word we have to poetically short-hand animation. In this case, wry humor.
She's brought the weather with her. He doesn't say so. Witches are easily offended and while Adam is arrogant he is not (always, immediately) rude.
So: something she says touches his eyes with humor; he looks around at the bookshop, taking the whole of it in, and looks as if he's going to lean against a stack of books, maybe fold his arms to be comfortable. The air would usually smell of pages, that bookstore smell that's an offering and an altar to lay ideas upon, but right now it smells of pizza.
"Define 'much.' Do you want to find a myth you're already familiar with or something you've never heard before?"
A pause, and his eyebrows twitch. Mobile expression, even if he is serious and reserved as far as the canvas one paints him on goes. "What is the weather like? I haven't been outside since last night."
LucyAdam doesn't know this, but Adam could tell Lucy that she brought the weather in with her. That's not to say that she's not easily offended, but rather there are certain things that don't offend her. She did bring the cold in with her, after all. She brought with her a cold chill like what's outside, but that's the way she is. She would bring in cold with her in the middle of a sweltering, Indian summer, and she would notice it just the same. And she would be as helpless to prevent it then as she is now.
He doesn't say, though, and so Lucy doesn't feel the need to apologize for things that are beyond the realm of her control. Instead he gives her a choice for myths. Lucy's brows lift - they are also maroon, she is thorough when she adds the color to her hair, and careful, too - and she shifts her weight to face the man more directly.
"One I haven't heard before," she says, with an interest and wonder that suggests that's not a thing that happens much anymore. "A new creation myth maybe. I like learning how different cultures think the world was made."
As for the weather, she smiles and she shrugs. "Wet. I can't tell if it's snowing or if it's raining, or if it's both."
Adam Gallowglass[Let's roll Intelligence + Occult before Adam's player just picks a random myth wot is less known.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
Lucy[how does that compare to Lucy? C'mon, Luce, you're smart!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Adam GallowglassHe straightens from the bookshelf and beckons that she should follow him over to the shelves lining the wall, the windows where there are books on display. Those shelves are stuffed with the less unique (less rare, less precious, less antiquated) books on mythology. He runs his fingers along the spines (book-trees, slender-wood) until he finds one, illustrated and old with the smell of a public library, the spine a little abused, and he hands it to Lucy.
A Kayak Full of Ghosts is what it's called.
"Try that one," he tells her, assured; full of assurance. He knows more than half a dozen obscure creation myths, can think of them but which is best for this particular moment? His expression is poised on a certain kind of consideration, gaze gone distant and he rakes his fingers through his messy bird's hotel of a wild where the Hell is a comb when you need one fingers do not work dark hair.
"Page, ah, I do not remember. The Birth of Fog. Once upon a time Glutton Spirits used to steal dead bodies and take them home to eat. Nobody was safe in his grave in those days. At last an angakok - an Inuit sorcerer - named Puagssuaq allowed himself to be buried alive, the better to find out who or what was making off with his people. If the dead are not safe, he said, neither are the living.
"The Glutton Spirits see the fresh grave, dig him up, carry him back home. The Spirit had a wife and three children: all fat," Adam puffs out his cheeks like a pufferfish.
"The wife goes to get some firewood and then the children gather around Puagssuaq and pinch him and say, 'This human being is not dead, father. You can see how he moves when I pinch him.' But the Spirit says that's rubbish," look how a whisper of accent moves into Adam's voice on the word, something not American. "'He is just as dead as all the others. I would never bring home a live human being; disgusting.'"
"He pinched Puagssauq to make sure and was quite surprised when the angakok springs to his feet crying 'Earrth open up!'"
Adam smiles. "A hole opens up right where the Glutton Spirit and his children were standing; all fall, sucked down, never to be seen again, and the Earth closed over them. Puagssuaq is a thorough fellow and he went out to find the Spirit's wife and finds her finally with all that firewood. She's so fat," apologetic, his tone, "that she can't see well, her cheeks you know, and she mistakes him for her husband and says 'My love, soon I will have supper for you, my dearest one.'"
"Puagssuaq tries to stab her with his flensing knife but she's just so fat it's like pricking a walrus with a bone-needle. At last she figures out that it is not her husband. Tells our angakok that she would like to tear his heart out through his mouth. A chase ensues until a river, where upon Puagssuaq makes it across first and tells the river to overflow, so the wife cannot follow."
"'How can you get across, when I, a Glutton Spirit, cannot?' she yells at him.
"'I drank the water,' he tells her. 'Easy.'
"So she drank until there is a dry path over which she can walk and then," oh, Adam. He forgot about this part. He clears his throat, but continues, "Puagssuaq cries 'Ugh what is that thing sticking out of your vagina,' and when she bends to look her stomach bursts open from all that water. She drops dead and steam comes out of her and that steam turns to fog and becuase of that fog human beings are safe in their graves today."
He clears his throat again. "Did you know it?"
LucyLucy follows, pushing the sleeves of her sweatshirt up to reveal the long, pale slender planes of her forearms. Adam holds out a book to her, a book which Lucy accepts quietly. She runs her fingertips lightly over the cover, and then opens it up. Darts a glance up and at the bookseller, then down to the pages again, flipping through to find The Birth of Fog, but stops when Adam starts spinning the tale himself.
Lucy listens. Her hair is pulled over one shoulder, pressing against her cheek like a long, thick curtain, whatever curls she might have impressed into its ends long since melted out from the water. She listens to the story of the Inuit sorcerer, and she is quiet all throughout. Lucy, she can talk a person's ear off if it seems the thing to do, but Lucy also can be quiet. It is, more than anything else, her normal resting space. Quiet.
And intent. Bright green eyes fixed on the young man - not a looker, really, but not bad looking with his unkempt hair and his pale face like a book's pages. He seems like this place. He seems like the book he holds and the books he skimmed over and the books that surround him and oh, Lucy. She feels a pang of something that feels like envy. Because here stands a sentinel, a guardian of knowledge and learning, and how she wants to be a guardian of something, herself.
She pushes aside that pang, and she listens, and in listening she smiles some, and she looks shocked. When Adam clears his throat a shadow forms between her brows that resolves into a look of sympathy and wry amusement - for the story, for his momentary discomfort?
When he finishes, she shakes her head. "No, I didn't know that one. I like it, though. It makes sense, I think, fog protecting the spirits of the dead." For a moment her gaze goes distant, her voice goes wistful, as though for a moment she can see it. She can see the fog and the spirits of the dead inside of it. "Keeping them safe." A blink, and she shakes herself free of her thoughts as the hibernating bear shakes free of the layers of winter that have collected on its fur. Except, well for Lucy the sense of winter is always there, wrapped around her like an invisible cloak.
"You know a lot about mythology, I take it. What's your favorite myth?"
Adam Gallowglass"Do you think often of the spirits of the dead and protecting them?" he asks, and his tone (that whisper of an accent again) is enough that the question does not seem too intense or too knowing. They're both willworkers; certain questions are asked. He knows a lot about mythology: no false modesty for Adam. His eyebrows rise at what's your favorite myth and then fall and he hmms touching his chin, fingering it thoughtfully. Today his beard is neat and small, a slick of darkness. "My favourite myth. Hmm."
LucyShe nods at his question in a way that says of course before the words themselves come out of her mouth. "Of course. Well I mean, not of course, but yeah. Of course. I speak for the dead sometimes, when the spirits are loud enough and are insistent about their unfinished business. I haven't come across too many things in my time that want to eat them," she continues, finding the page about the birth of fog. Running her finger over the page, she says quietly, "Now I think I'll keep a weather eye out."
He considers her question in return, the question of what his favorite myth is, and Lucy looks back up at him, smiling that slight smile of hers. "Do you want to know mine?"
Adam GallowglassAh. He believes he has identified her tradition now and marked her as what she is. She could be an Orphan, too, but aren't most Orphans more cautious or unknowing about stating matter of factly what they do. Most Orphans speak for no one.
"From what I know of the dead, their greatest danger comes from a desire to devour themselves. Please." A beat; then a clarification. His hand has dropped from his chin. His smile is spare, but no less easy for all that. "Tell me yours."
Lucy"I don't think they really have any one greatest danger," says Lucy. "It varies from person to person and place to place. I just try to keep them from being transformed and help guide them on to other places." She isn't strong enough yet to banish them, but perhaps some day.
Tell me yours, he says, and don't think she hasn't noticed he still hasn't told his own. Lucy smiles at him, this impish, almost but not quite coy thing. It stretches her mouth wide and narrows her eyes and nearly but does not quite cause her nose to crinkle. But she is happy to give him some time to consider his answer. Seems he knows a lot of myths, after all.
"Mine should probably be the tale of Persephone, and I do really like it. A lot." Reaching up with her free hand, she adjusts the weight of the guitar case's strap on her shoulders. It's not that it's heavy. Lucy could go for hours and hours with her case on her back. No, one of the straps was resting on a fold in her sweatshirt, and that fold was digging into her shoulder like a thin but sturdy rope.
"The one I think is my favorite's about the Japanese festival of lanterns. Obon. See, Mokuren was a disciple of Buddha but he had these supernatural powers. He was able to see into the spirit world to his dead mom, and he saw that she was suffering. Distraut, he went to the Buddha, and he said, 'Buddha help my mom she's suffering!' She'd fallen into the realm of hungry ghosts, see. Well, the Buddha told him to make offerings to the other Buddhist monks who'd completed their summer retreat. Mokuren did this, and not only did he see his mom's release, he began to see her unselfish past, and all the sacrifices she'd made in her life for him. Mokuren was so happy for his mom's release and was so grateful for his kindness that he danced for joy. That dance became the Bon Odori, a time to remember and appreciate the sacrifices made by our ancestors."
Lucy has more reason than that to appreciate the festival of lanterns, but she does like that story best. It has all her favorite parts of dead dealings in it. Spirits released from torment, and appreciation of the past.
"Did you know that one?" she asks, curious.
Adam Gallowglass[Let's roll Intelligence + Academics since it's a new day!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Adam Gallowglass[Fine, Adam. WE GET IT YOU ARE SMART.]
Adam GallowglassThe bookshop clerk ( - the bookstore manager, if not the owner; owner's nephew, nepotism in action here in the shape of this vampire pale young man with the shock of unruly and unruled dark hair, those circles under his eyes, because relentless does not mean sleeps well) absorbs the reminder. He seems absorbant. Not quite like a sponge, but he soaks things in and keeps them locked up behind his eyes. There is no sense that he, shadowless Magician that he is, does not listen as well if not better (oh, better) than he speaks. His gaze is steady but it doesn't fix on her. Arrogant, but not without social graces, or maybe it helps him to listen if he isn't distracted by something pretty.
"I did," he says, and while he doesn't condescend, there's a certain of matter of fact arrogance under the surface. There's always a certain matter of fact arrogance under the surface; he interacts with the world by shaping it consciously, as she does, but not for a purpose that is outside himself, as she does. He smiles, too, and it touches his eyes, leavens their color into something rainwater.
"But I didn't know it as it is part of your arsenal of personal stories." Pause; a frown, troubles his brow. "So kindness, joy, remembrance, and dance? Are these why you like the story of Obon more than Persephone?"
There's a thorn of curiousity there; Lucy can see it.
Lucy"Yes, well." She closes the book she holds, lowers it to rest against the top of of her thigh. Her other arm moves to wrap cool fingers around her elbow. "It depends on what story about Persephone you hear. There's the famous one, which is sad. But there are others where she's queen of the underworld. Not Hades. Not anyone else. Those are neat stories."
There is a certain shade of arrogance to him, and whether Lucy has determined his Tradition or not, she doesn't mind it. People are people and when you yourself have a presence that shoos away all comers, you stop being choosy about the ones who don't mind hanging around. Even if she knows (thinks) it's only a matter of time before her chill and clammy presence drives the shopkeep away.
"Also, I've walked through lantern festivals. Have you? They're very cool. And," she adds, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile, "you haven't told me your favorite myth."
Adam Gallowglass"I haven't." He lets the answer stand for both questions.
He has never walked through lantern festivals, been surrounded by paper caging light. A festival of light would try to spin his shadow from him, spool it out across pavement or grass or pavilion, and there would be nothing. He has never walked through lantern festivals, disguising himself amongst the shadows there.
He hasn't told Lucy his favourite myth. The reminder causes him to grimace, but it is a good-natured grimace, his gaze going upward as people's gazes do when they try to see something that's inside their head, when they try to pull a dream or a thought out've the ether and into reality. Just a moment, and then his eyes drop back to Lucy, and he is never sheepish but he is rueful.
"And I don't know it. If I was to answer you right now, keeping in mind that my answer might, erm, very well change, I will say my favourite myth is an English fireside tale, more folk than myth so perhaps, erm, it should not count, about the son of a smuggler who during a bad flood found himself lost with water streaming everywhere. The hare who lives in the moon came to him and offered him a deal: he could give the hare the last berries from his pack and live for seven years and understand all the languages in the world, at the end of which time he'd come back to the rock he was stranded on and expire; he could kill the hare and make a bag of its skin and for the next seven by seven years he would be fruitful in all endeavours that had to do with the earth, would marry a girl to his liking and have strong happy sons and beautiful happy daughters, but he would die in agony at the end of that time; or he could wait to drown."
"He gave the hare the last berries from his pack and he survived the flood and he traveled the world, knowing what it is all things were saying to one another and how to speak to the things. He became a great magician and, as he could speak all languages, he learnt how to command fire and how to judge kings and see them as they were truly written. He learnt how to judge himself, too, but he could not settle, because his death came nearer every day and he knew when it would be."
"That myth, I like. If I were to choose a more traditional myth," a pause, frowning, attentive, eyebrows rising like he has mischief tucked beneath but it isn't quite loosed. "I like stories of men and invention. Perhaps Odysseus and the Cyclops."
Lucy[oh yeah the main reason i looked back was to see if lucy noticed the shadow thing. alertness!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
LucyHe hasn't been to a lantern festival. He hasn't been to a festival of lights, where shadows are cast long and distorted, a place where he might stand out for that which he lacks. Lucy doesn't know about that, not yet, but soon.
Soon, as it turns out, is very soon. Adam grimaces and Lucy smiles, tipping her head. When his gaze goes up, hers goes down. Not over him, her eyes do not travel down over the fabric of his clothes to guess at what's beneath (he's a boy, there's no guessing necessary), just down. And it's when her gaze goes down that she notices.
There on the floor, cast by the lights of the shop, is Lucy's shadow. It is faint, it is immensely blurred around the edges, but it is there. Attached to Adam's feet is...nothing. Nothing distorts the colors of the tiles, nothing darkens them. Lucy's brows come together as she frowns at that.
Adam's eyes drop back to Lucy and she does not jerk her head up or try to pretend that she was not staring at the floor at his feet. Her gaze lifts more slowly, but it does return to his face. Which she studies. Someone intently even. While he prefaces his tale by telling her his answer might change. Her expression relaxes and she listens while she watches him, but there is definitely something more weighted in her look now. There is a purpose to it. At some point while he is telling the tale of the smuggler's son Lucy's hand releases her elbow and it lifts so that she can...poke...Adam's shoulder. Not hard, but with just enough pressure to determine if he is, erm, corporeal or not. No, there really is a boy there. There is the feel of muscle and bone beneath fabric she has to fight not to rub to assure herself of its texture. Adam is real. Well, Adam is solid. Not a ghost of a shopkeep who died with a box of pizza nearby, a ghostly box that is his meal forever and into the ends of time.
Lucy blinks, eyes widening before they refocus on Adam and she reasserts her attention to his tale. This myth that may or may not be his favorite (for now).
"Knowledge," she says, not at all like none of that just happened. "A few years of travel over a lifetime of prosperity and a family." She smiles, and that smile seems to see that figures.
"I'm Lucy, by the way. And okay, um. So let's forget about the myths. Do you have a favorite book? Or," because he is a shopkeep who knows a great deal about books and someone once said that picking even five favorite books was like picking the five body parts they'd like to lose the least, "a collection of books?"
Adam Gallowglass"First," he says. "You poked me." His eyes drop to his shoulder, return to Lucy's eyes. He has one eyebrow hitched higher, but both of them want to rise. "Why?"
Lucy"You don't have a shadow," she says, duh, "and I wanted to make sure you weren't a ghost."
Adam Gallowglass"I'm Adam," he says. Did he give her his name already? He is rumpled and doesn't seem to remember if he did. He doesn't wear a name tag. This isn't a name tag sort of bookstore. "And I'm not a ghost. Is that how you usually check? A poke?"
His expressions are poised things, not loud but not completely inscrutable either. They shift and change as he speaks, affected by whatever it is he is feeling or thinking. He is thinking about shadows, surprised (a little) to be called on it, but not startled by it. There is a certain wariness that has been mostly sublimated by the creature's frost-cold touch, by her tone: duh.
"It's not an ability I've learned yet. How to poke ghost or to see them."
Lucy"I know, it's not really a scientific process, but I'm not really into scientific processes," she says, grinning before she lets the grin fall away. Lucy does not become somber and serious, but she is a touch more solemn than she was a moment before.
"If you'd turned out to be a ghost I would've been really surprised. Usually I have to light a lamp to see anyone, but I didn't and then there you were, eating pizza and moving books around." Her eyes lift upward and take in the store around them. "This wouldn't be a bad place to get stuck." Her gaze returns to him and her smile returns. "It would've been sad to send you on, though. It's been nice talking to you." The grin deepens. "Even though you keep finding ways to avoid my questions."
Adam GallowglassHe hahs, a chuckle that's as much air as it is sound. He holds up both hands as if she's got a spotlight and he's a Saturday morning cartoon crook, but without panache. He is matter of fact. His smile is slight, a ghost of a smile (don't send it on, Lucy), but still a smile.
"Don't think of it like I'm avoiding your, erm, questions; think of it like I'm avoiding being made a liar, and when you do get your answers, ah, the answer will be true."
He lowers his hands. "Partial to philosophy, but I recently read A Telling of Stones by Táltos Horváth and I liked that. I like Steinbeck's King Arthur."
LucyShe lifts her chin slightly, her expression not terribly smug but a little bit triumphant. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it? And I haven't read that one," she says of the Táltos Horváth. "Is it new? I think I've read one of his other books, um." Her frown turns thoughtful as she casts her mind back. Then it brightens. "Corn Dogs. Er," sheepish grin, "Corn Gods. I might be getting hungry."
She hugs the book he gave to her to her chest, which is thankfully not nearly so damp from the snow/rain combination happening outside still. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't think you were a liar if you changed your mind about a favorite anything. Opinions, ideas, they change. That doesn't make the new opinion or thought more true than the old one."
Adam GallowglassHis eyes crinkle, as if to say, oh, but it was agony. He opens his mouth to correct her too, because Adam corrects people when they're wrong, but she gets it so instead he opens his mouth to say, "It is newer than Corn Gods. Most people haven't read that one; it's all A Silence of Stones. You can have a slice of my pie if you want." That whisper-ghost of an accent threads through the offer.
He'll wait until she has taken it up or demured. Then he says, leaning against his desk and the pizza box, no plates but napkins aplenty to soak up the sodden grease, cheese still warm if not hot. "As for ... Hmm, perhaps you're correct. I think mercurial creatures might hide behind such reasoning, the Fae and other sorts. I do try to be solid."
Not mutable.
Speaking of mutable, mutability, changing things, "You're new to the city, I take it?"
Lucy
"You don't mind?" she asks, polite, because Lucy tends to be polite when she's not poking people to be assured of their solidity. "Thank you." She sets the book down and then, since it could now be said that they are hanging out more than Lucy is hiding out from the weather, she divests herself of her guitar case and sets it down out of the way. Gatering up a small collection of napkins, she picks up a slice of pizza - toppings cease to matter when Lucy's stomach, which has not been filled since much earlier, comes suddenly alive.
"Humans," she pauses, throat catching on a bite that didn't go down quite when she thought it had. Clearing her throat behind a curled fist, she tries again. "Humans are pretty mercurial, too. That's why the gods in so many mythologies are always so fascinated with them. Nobody ever really knows which was a human will go until they're going." Which is really just her way of saying Adam doesn't need to try so hard, without actually telling him not to try so hard to be solid.
"Pretty new still, yeah. My sister and I are still trying to decide if we'll settle in. Which really just means we're trying to find a place that we can afford. And jobs. Steady ones."
Adam GallowglassHis parents would be horrified by the grease on his slacks. His parents aren't here to see what their child has become and is becoming, and Sara wouldn't tell them if she weren't on a honey moon trip around the world, supping on love and adventure in equal measure. He doesn't invite Lucy to sit on his desk or seem very inviting of such a maneuver, but there is a chair nearish right now, one of those spindling wooden ones looks like it was culled from a thrift store or some arts and craft booth at a fair. Lucy's eating and Adam thinks about eating another slice. He will, eventually.
"Are gods so different from people?" he asks her.
And maybe that is what they'll talk about. Human potential. Godhood. The human potential to become gods and the gods' potential to become human. Perhaps they'll discuss spirits and Lucy's sister and just what jobs she's qualified. He doesn't know a lot of people but the subculture junkies and the radicals do come into the store sometimes, for Sara's sake if not for his own. They forget him. He is forgettable. Maybe someone will have something for her.
He'll ask about Ginger. Maybe Lucy'll know what he means and maybe she won't. He'll eat another slice of pizza, and then he'll get a call.
He'll take it, and then excuse himself because it's going to take a long time. Lucy: she'll get a business card. It has all the contact information he ever gives out, which isn't much. An e-mail, a phone, the store's phone.
Before she goes, he'll leave the phone for a moment to tell her, "Denver. I'm not staying here forever either; perhaps not longer than a year. But it isn't a bad place. Plenty of personalities."
Then his phone will snag him again. Business consumes even the most willful of Willworkers.
Adam Gallowglass[roll the credits]
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