Liechtensteiner!

Adam Night Owl Books - or An Arch Key Books. The used storefront is unprepossessing, unreveletory. Door. Library cart of books for a dollar, most of them crap. Dusty, weather-drenched, weather-transfigured oriental rug for people to wipe the mud from their boots before going inside. The rug crawls under the door. The door rings bells for whoever enters: here, here, a customer! Night Owl - or anarchy - Books is on a corner and lower than street level. There is a big step inside. There are bigger steps into what appears to be the 'main body' of the shop (or at least one section of the shop) to the right. This is the section that has windows on the street. The windows are full of: a clothing line above displayed books, pinned to which are advertisements for art shows or writer's workshops or retreats or concerts, most of them old, some of them new. Buttons of a philosophical nature: tongue-in-cheek, sharp, biting. Boxes of postcards. Fascimile pages from this folio or that. The right section of the shop is full of low bookshelves and aisles, a rickety wooden chair, a step-ladder. The left section of the shop is where the shelves get high: where some of them are glass-doored, are locked up, lock and key, where some of the finer stuff is to be found. The left section of the shop also gives way to a staircase, the banister old and scarred, which sneaks upwards and curves out've sight. It leads to the second floor, where there is - and it must be no surprise - more books to be found. There is a table. The table has a pyramid of books. The books that are sub-culture orientated: art books, a Polish grafitti artist's work, a shocking work of photography, exerpts of Henry Darger's magnum opus, how to make a bomb. If one is standing just inside the door, toward the back of the store, not quite straight on (more to the right), but nearly - there is a desk. The desk has a register and, just now, a mint-green typewriter, and a series of wires, and it is somewhat caged-in on the sides by boxes of unsorted books. Behind the desk is a door that is closed which says 'employees only' in fading gold cursive on a wooden plaque a museum poster circa the 1970s depicting some Renaissance work of art plastered there-upon. To the left of the desk there is a wall. The wall has a window in it. The window looks at what you'd reach if you didn't go up the stairs but followed the bookcases back into a little room full of works with a more occult or classical bent. It still isn't the rare stuff. Not really. That stuff is kept elsewhere. Internet business is where it's at for places like this. It's nice that they still have a presence, isn't it? And the proprietess of Night Owl Books has enjoyed being a supporter of local authors and artists, has thrown signing parties, has let old punks in to read and made them coffee at 2 am in the morning, sometimes at 4 am, which is not usually a time when Night Owl Books is open (but sometimes it is - it IS that kind of shop), so for those who know about the used bookshop, who visit it on and off, well: They like it. It smells like words. Like forests pressed into service of eternity. The proprietess has been gone for a month and her nephew has taken over shop. Her nephew? Her nephew. He isn't much to write home about: not he. He is essentially Mysterious, slightly Unknowable, an Arcane thing, with a tousled-up mop of hair most people can't agree on: Dark? What? And eyes of - some color. They had a conversation with him and it was - about this thing. That thing, next time they think about it. Maybe they don't. He's fine. He's reading a book at the desk, absorbed. The knight esconced in his forest of ink-and-paper, word-forest, book-wood. Music is playing. Swan Lake. Leonhard There's a shrillness to the man's glances, quite at odds with what could otherwise be described as a handsome face. Checking that nobody else appears to be approaching the shop, the glances flit left, right, left again... and then he enters the bookshop, as comfortable as his patience will allow. There is a Consor to find, and all the better that it be in private. If anybody's coming in shortly after him, they're not somebody he's seen either following or waiting. He stops in the doorway, the glance changed to a warm flitter of the eyes about the interior. Bringing the door softly - even politely - closed behind himself, a smile seems to have found root on his face. Yes, this would be the place, it's fuller character now revealed to him. Avoided for ten years but known from outside, known from conversation with others, known but never entered. About damn time. He carries a need in him, this one. Not so much a hunger, though his eyes pick with notable taste (and prejudice) at the shop's content. Is it mere politesse, his quiet lack of true interest in much of the stock on display. A mild glance to those nooks and crannies of the interior in which the treasure perhaps sits beneath dragons? Still, there it is in the way he, however politely, disregards all but the more esoteric titles as he moves into the shop. A need for something else... A need that his polite mannerisms do little to hide. Indeed, he seems... open. Unguarded to some degree. Practiced, perhaps, at feigning comfort? He's certainly not there for the books, though their presence - and the suggestion of yet more, of rarer character - clearly pleases him. There, one would find suggestion of the Arcane, but moreso it is in his pace. For all the promise of the hidden, the esoteric, even the dangerous, his is the pace of the magus whose feet have carried him in the grandest of libraries... Clearly, there is no Sally to be found. Not immediately, nor perhaps any time soon. He thinks of the incident in another such shop. Taken over by the Syndicate in the wake of the Storm, he had blundered in... to be fair, in the heat of altruism... and only evaded the inevitable by pretending to have been looking for pornography of the most esoteric stripe. And that had happened after five months of not being there between visits. This was the first time he had entered this shop, sought this Consor, been faced with this young man... (I was that young once, before...) His fingers flicker awake. Swan Lake invites them to play notes upon the air, as if a piano perhaps. No. Not a piano. A harpsichord. "Would Sally be around?" The accent is thick with the Alps, however fitful in its ease with English. He asks this, then seems, should Adam glance up from his book, a little amused. I was that young once, and I was magus.... Adam [Boom! Percept + Aware on the old decripit guy. -1.] Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 ) Leonhard [Hola! Per+Awareness on the foetal charmer.] Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) Leonhard [[For 'Sally' in the above posts, please do read 'Sarah'. An OOC mistake taken IC. Leonhard knows the name properly. WhitBloke made him say it, but he meant Sarah..]] Adam The bells ring for Leonhard. Their voice is not the silver of bells of another age: hey, hey, a scion of the Order of Hermes is here! The Tower has sent its representative! There is nothing elphin about the sound of them. They're little children compared to those hypothetical other bells: giggling, tugging on the sleeve of Adam's attention. Adam looks up from his book. This is: not all that usual a thing, when the bells ring. He isn't worried about thieves. He isn't worried about helping customers, either. They'll ask, or he'll be bored and he'll ask. But this time the man who pauses on the threshold has that something - inspirational, something like a good support; something that makes Adam think of being bolstered, of O heaven the fire of invention. Another Willworker. So Adam looks up from his book. He puts his book down when Leonhard approaches. There is a pen on the desk, too, next to the typewriter, and a journal for jotting notes. The pen is a good one, expensive, of some bloody red wood with a silver nib: suitable for an Ace of Wands, a Knight of Wands. He, leaning his forearms on the desk's edge, takes it up with his left hand, twirling it as if for something to do. His expression is curious, perhaps - but he's so reserved. "Sorry, no." He sometimes has the ghost of another accent, too. But it isn't an accent that belongs anywhere. It's the accent of someone who belonged to one Nation, but was dragged through other Nations for most of his formative years. Creeps in sometimes, especially when confronted with An Accent. "Just got hitched. She's gone touring the world for a while and left me in charge. Are you a friend of hers?" Adam. To Leonhard's senses, the shadowless young man's signature, that spark-seed contained that says Willworker, I Work My Will, feels: valiant, relentless; conjures up a sense of swords or armor flashing in the light ceaselessly, impaccably. Leonhard "Never met her, and I doubt she'd know me. Which would rather make me appear odd for asking after her but for the inherent, ah, associations. Well, far be it from me to exercise good timing," he mentions of her absence.Swan Lake continues to animate the fingers on his left hand but his right draws up and moves towards Adam, offering to shake. As tangible as his hand is, there is the Resonance of the man. Inspirational, though quietly so. Supportive, though perhaps simple less so... at least in this environment, however comfortable he appears. "Leonhard Frick. We've not met, either, but I suspect we know each other a little already." Adam Pas de trois. Allegro. Triumphal, with an edge of darkness. That's what animates Leonhard's fingers and makes them remember music. The dark-haired young man (Magus) twirls his pen [wand] more slowly when Leonhard offers his own hand. He doesn't hesitate when he takes it. He is even-keeled, is Adam - or appears to be. Even-keeled, self-contained, self-assured - it's all in the handshake too. By the end of that, the pen is stilled in the fingers of his other hand, the sharp nib of it ink-kissed and pointing southward. Leonhard suspects that they know each other a little already. Adam - pensive-eyed, clearly bemused - says, "Suspect is such a nasty word. You're never a suspect without the stain of guilt somewhere on your person, even if your hands are clean as soap. Odder ducks have asked after my aunt, don't worry." A beat. "You're practicing, too. I'm Kit. Pull up a, erm, well we do have seats around here, or ah, an office, if you'd like to go talk..." Adam finally stands, and that bemusement seems to grow stronger when he looks around, because he seems to have missplaced the stools or chairs or whatever it is he can offer somebody else. That, or they've turned into boxes. "I'd say in privacy, but," a smile that sends wrinkles around his eyes and down his cheeks, not quite but almost carving out a dimple. He's got an animated face when he chooses to animate it. Goes very still on that but, but flicks his eyes around. Holds up one finger. Says, clearly, "Cricket, cricket." They are alone. Leonhard One performance of welcome deserves another, of course.... The Jerbiton's warmth deepens. Practicing. Such a good word for it. Yes, a good word, and met with a smile, even as he welcomes Adam's offer with one (if less acute) of his own... "Practicing. At Pymander. Still. Quite the cornucopia," he notes pleasantly of the shop. "Now and then, I have suggested to clients that they pop in. I run a creative retreat. Pasaran. Up in Nederland. Won't bore you about it. Just hoped to meet Sarah at last. Sent plenty of my clients here. Pick up a good book, you might pick up on a good thought, right? Myself, I've been concentrating... well, once again concentrating... on the Neo-Platonists. Particularly Proclus. Vaduz... Oh, the accent's Liechtenstein.... in case you were wondering.... Where was I? Oh, yes. Proclus? Vaduz! Vaduz used to have quite the most labyrinthine bookshop. Such rich variety, much like yourself here. I miss the place but I'm here now. Oh. I'm rambling, aren't I?" For the duration of the rambling, the visitor effects a seamlessly natural routine of hand gestures, smiles, even a twirl to once again take the shop in better. All carried on warm tones. All rather affable. All rather honest, too, though the rambling ends rather suddenly. An austerity of motion dawns across his body. There is a bow, ever so slight yet honest. "Yes. Proclus Vaduz bani Jerbiton." The eyes appear to have grown tired of the shop, and their brown rests upon Adam. "I am extremely pleased to find the Sarah leaves her stock in the hands of one who might lend it evermore strongly than even she towards the City of Pymander. A seat would be lovely, but I had no intention of interrupting any magus' studies when I came." Adam Leonhard rambles. Adam listens. As Adam listens, he watches Leonhard. There isn't anything hard about the watching, nothing edged, nothing sharp -- nothing malicious, at least. Nothing dark. Nothing calculating, but perhaps something in that statement isn't quite true. Adam's attention once given does have an edge, becomes a fixed point, a keenness, and when Leonhard conjures up Pymander, Adam is startled into pleasure. It looks like a grin, boyish, tinged in surprise, as radiant as any young man's grin ever is. But Adam is far too contained to grin pleasure for long, so after that oh! I see! grin! he listens to the rest of Leonhard's full greeting with a measured intentness, that -- But wait no. Proclus Vaduz Liechtenstein Labyrinthine. The shadowless man grows still indeed, standing on the other side of that desk. Poised, understand, spine straightening instinctually. Serious. He's a serious thing, Adam. "Can't interrupt what never ceases, can you? Can't stop the tide by stepping in it. You knew my,--" a pause. "Erm, I know you." Flush-up-the-neck. "I know of you, that is. I'm Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass bani Bonisagus. Adam, here in Denver, to most of the Awakened community. You knew my mater." He doesn't give her name yet; cautious. Leonhard That a Consor of the Order might leave or otherwise trust her wares in the hands of a Magus - that much was a pleasing surprise, though in all fairness to probability not such a surprise. More a hope revealed after the fact. That he might happen into the company of a magus of the First House...There grows the tear. So soon after Adam's neck had flushed, something had wrought a tear in the brown of his eyes. Perhaps he is so flattered after his little routine to be recogn... No. Bonisagus. The mention of the First House. "Dominic Adam Julian Gallowglass, magus of the First House, it is such... Oh it's such a pleasure to meet you. Such a... joy, in fact." He looks as if he might clamber over the desk and fling some manner of clumsy hug but he restrains himself. For all his emotion now, his motion remains economical, remains austere. "But, I suppose the joy is more mine. I'm afraid I can't think who your mater may be. I've been Interdicted for a decade and... I suppose that's where you might know my name. I'm not here to threaten, though I should think you've already taken that as true. Wait. I'm being a dolt, aren't I? You're saying... Are you saying your mater is somebody I know from... Not Elyssa of Bern! Oh, you're Elysse's? I thought she only trained girls. How is Elysse?" Adam A hug? Adam does not look as if he would enjoy a hug. He looks far too dignified for hugs. He looks far too self-possessed for hugs. He looks too serious - solemn, even. He rubs his chin (or the beard - yes, why not just say it: he strokes his chin) and there is leashed amazement there. Leashed something, anyway. Now, he hasn't tensed, or drawn away, he is just - still. Until this: a shake of his head. He puts the pen (wand [oh, we have our symbols, don't we?]) down on the desktop, and then rakes those fingers through his hair. "No," reflective. "Not - Elyssa. Do you mean Elyssa Diana? No. I mean Arethusa." How closely he watches Leonhard, who has been out of the world for ten years. "Arethusa Thessaly Plantagent." Leonhard "Elyssa Diana, yes, yes," comes the rapid nodding. Elyssa Diana! She of the rampantly apolitical research, coming as it does in fits and starts. Hardly a bad poet in her youth, too.... Oh. Wait. Another name. Another topic and tone entirely...."Arethusa Thessaly Plantagent bani Bonisagus. A formidable maga, and a formidable woman besides." The name weighs heavily on his memory, and sparks a sorrow, a sympathy. "I remember her pain perhaps better than our conversations, not that we shared many. There's me, waffling about Diana the Dy... uh, Elyssa. What is it?"He leans on the desk, which had hitherto perhaps been the only thing to bar his flying hug, closer to the Bonisagan. He blinks, steadily, but briefly. (This magus is witch-touched. Where is his shad.... Leave it. Arethusa....) "She and I were both interested in the Storm, though I think I'd be flattering myself unduly if I suggested I could have truly been much help to her. Still... She did seek me out. I hope what I had to tell her has been of use to her." Serafíne Awareness - Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 Serafíne And Awareness-of-Adam Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (5, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 Adam [Well then!] Leonhard [[Sorry. For. The. Slow. Awareness+Perception.]] Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 ) Adam "She told me." The warp and weft of his expression changes. Nuanced. Subtle. He has realized something, and the realization has his shoulders rising, falling, and he stops ruffling his hair so that it is an owl's feathered nest of mayhem. What is it? Leonhard says. Adam, after a beat, replies with this: "Your ten years is up. Have you contacted any of your old friends? Or was Sarah," he is so solemn!, "your first step?" Pas de deux: Intrada. Tempo di valse. A waltz? Something sweeping, to dance to. Adam [Er, yes, also Perc + Awareness, is a Sera this way coming?] Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Leonhard Drop it. Politely."Sarah was on the list. Got a bit crumpled over the last ten years, but she was always somebody to seek out. Well, once I got back from the Greater Alps Tribunal. You know how Primi are. Went to see Andros, reconnect, find a lot of people have moved to the caves of the Mundane world. Pity. Not a lot of building been done those ten years. Must be quite frustrating for you, coming into things after such a... you know... Everything that befell us. It's a criminal shame. An opinion I share with Garrett. Met him, heard about other magi, but he didn't ment.... Hold on."So something will shut him up when he gets going... and he looks concerned, looking to the door and back to the Bonisagan. "Cricket, cricket," he mutters. Serafíne Something in the winter night. Like AM signals on the radio, their fucking resonance is all amplified and Sera feels them from a block and a half away and Adam, well, he can sense her before she's turned some negligible corner far, far away. Which is to say: they've warning. Warning before the bells on the inside of the front door chime that they will soon be joined by a third, who feels, see, like instinct, bone-deep and gut-wrench, and the borders-of-things, the places where names fall away, after the old is torn down, before the new is remade, and something else - addictive maybe, compelling, enthralling too. It is a Sera. She's wearing leather, rather naturally. A rather tiny skirt that the bottom third of which consists of these interlocking metal rings rather than actual fabric. Long bare legs beneath that end in a pair of the most extraordinarily wicked looking heels, covered in fucking sharp spikes, like some medieval goddamned mace has been morphed into shoes. A torn Ramones t-shirt (white) over a black lace bra clearly visible through the thin cotton, beneath a black leather jacket lined in shearling. She is carrying a stuffed bunny. She has come to see Ruse. Serafíne (Oh my these shoes: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m02jihB15n1qmifsro1_500.jpg are the shoes. :) ) Leonhard Those aren't just shoes. Those are proof of premeditation in a court of law. :) Leonhard She is carrying a stuffed bunny.Moving aside should he have been blocking Adam's view of the door, Leonhard slips one hand into his moleskin jacket. The other remains on the desk, once again fidgeting along with Swan Lake. He smiles to the newer visitor, reminded of his own business' clients and patrons but clearly waiting for Adam's lead to follow in the absence of outright assault. MIBs don't carry bunnies. Much. Adam Adam's House is a House of loners, in some (many) respects. Far-flung, missing, lost-in-books, lost-in-theory, lost. They are Tower-mages, Knights-in-Towers, Frozen-in-Towers, barriers between them and the 'real' world. Sarah was on the list. Adam nods, infinitessimal thing, and though the realization is still there like the sound of a bell deep-struck in the waves informing his expression, it is not a surface-thing. "You'll like her. Most people do," he admits this last thing: confesses it. Hold on, Leonhard says, and Cricket, Cricket, and Adam: Oh, he feels it too. He does. Feels it even before the bells sing out her name, hot woman (essentially hot, innately hot) in leather, with - of course a stuffed animal. He didn't feel that in advance but he isn't surprised. Is he? Maybe he is a little. Bewildered. That's it. He's a touch bewildered, but says with good grace - " - that's Serafíne. And I didn't say this before, but it is a pleasure - " a curious intensity in this aside; maybe that's where his shadow has gone? To feed that fire " - to meet you." Serafíne Sera is a little bit drunk tonight. Maybe; she's a little bit something tonight but Adam has met her once and Leonhard knows her not at all so he can hardly be expected to assess the looseness of her body language and the fact that the faint hint of tobacco-and-cloves in her hair means that she has been doing more than merely smoking clove cigarettes tonight. Though she has been doing that too. But yes: a rather young, rather hot, rather innately and elementally hot, woman with a little black clutch in one hand the handle of which is formed to resemble both brass knuckles and a skull-and-crossbones with black crystals for eyes. Tattoos visible on her hands; the palm and wrist of the left, the edge of the palm on the right. More would be visible on her arms but she is wearing a coat. It is winter. Sera has the bunny tucked into the lapel of her coat and it is rather small though larger than Adam's adolescent ferret. She waves her fingers as she walks in the door. Gives Leonhard a once-over that shifts to Adam, after. Adam who just seems to slide back into her consciousness when she glances at him. Sera didn't really remember his eyes. She sort of clomps through the front room of the store to the other pair. In those shoes she cannot really do anything but clomp. Take a wrong sort of step and she could open up a vein and bleed out on the hardwood. "He's gonna think I'm stalking him," says Sera to Leonhard, and her pupils are rather large, even given that it is nighttime without. Says it like she's confiding a secret, with a sliding, liquid sort of grin. " - but mostly I came to see Ruse." Leonhard "Made my week," the Jerbiton offers upon Adam's mention of their own meeting. "But now I'm feeling spoilt. I came looking for a Sarah and I meet a Serafine. You run an amazing shop." The words, if mildly clumsy, are rinsed free of any hint of smugness or seedy attempts at masculine charm. Both hands once again visible, the tension lifts from him and he stands easily. He looks to Adam, warmly, but turns to Serafine as she talks. "I wish I could help you, I really do, but I tend to point people in the direction of Muse, and I doubt the two are on speaking terms. Which I suppose is a pity." He can't help a glance at the shoes. Leonhard [[sorry, should have found a way to emphasise the 'I' in "I wish -I- could help you..." He's friendly, not narcissistic!]] Adam He is still touched by a certain gravity; reserve. But he smiles slightly. He usually smiles slightly, and the slight smile is usually enough to (gently) transfigure. There might've been an almost-chuckle there, too, lodged behind his adam's apple. Which I suppose is a pity. Adam also can't help a glance at the shoes. From an outside perspective, perhaps it's a touch comical: the unconscious mirroring that goes on. "Ruse can't come out to play, I'm afraid. Is the bunny for him? He'll tear it up in two minutes." Adam [I also should have been clear. He's deigning to almost-chuckle at Leonhard's line AND Sera's line. Amusement for all. (grin)] Serafíne Charlotte goes still when Erich reaches for her belt loop and she's not really gettinganywhere because Melantha is holding on to her hand so she hasn't really gotten far. Just off the bed, snagged in two locations, right? Pinned to the hear and now. She is quite remarkably still at first, Charlotte, and a stranger who does not see the animal in her might read this stillness as a prey-thing; a rabbit shivering against the snow; a mouse remembering the shadow of a hawk soaring over the meadow. Except there are no strangers here, just Erich and Melantha and they are her pack, and as breakable and crystalline as Charlotte is, she is also a wolf, a wolf-girl, a girl-and-wolf, who collects fingerbones and brainpans and unconventional, nobby, gnarled teeth of fallen foes with which to make a necklace, a circlet, a halo. There is violence vivid beneath her skin and her stillness is as much the alert alarum of a pack-creature brought to the Alpha's attention prematurely; wary and sharp and still. Charlotte glances at Erich's face and pulls herself up quiet and short, but settled enough that he can feel confident she's not about to bolt. Not immediately about to bolt, at any rate. "I don't - " Charlotte frowns; she lets go of Melantha's hand and brings her arms in close and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and pulls her shoulders in tight, this slouching incurve defining her shoulders-and-neck that makes her look entirely adolescent. "I don't like it when you fight. Sometimes it makes my head hurt and I don't know what to say. And you - " Her brows knit, "I don't want you to fight. I don't like it when you feel bad, either." Her breathing's a bit sharper, faster. "Maybe you can talk better when I'm not here." Serafíne (ARGH. Apologies. I am MTing. here is the real post.) Serafíne "Hi." This is Sera rather directly to Leonhard, as if she had just-now-noticed him standing at the desk or the counter or what the fuck ever. See? Her mouth spreads in a close-lipped but rather generous and assuredly-slightly-altered smile. "I am actually also Sera." The first vowel's a bit different, throat-closed rather than the bright and open air of Sarah but Serafíne seems rather delighted by the fucking symmetry at play. And she's about to ask Leonhard who he is and where he might direct her were she in search of Muse but Adam tells her that 1. Ruse can't come out to play; and 2. He would tear up Bunny and Sera looks mildly horrified at the thought and rather defensive of the threadbare stuffed rabbit she's carrying so thoughtlessly around and then they are both glancing down at her shoes and so of course she does, too, lifting up her right foot and turning it this way and that way so that they can admire the running gleam of light along the spikes. "Aren't they awesome? A bitch to stumble over them in the middle of the night and you can't get past airport security with the fucking things, but otherwise, awesome. Oh, hey. Was I interrupting something?" Leonhard There is a clear softness to the man when he notes the horror visiting Sera/fine upon the news of Ruse (a pet? a Familiar...?) tearing into the bunny. But it duly evaporates into the mist of agreeable whimsy that washes over him as she shows off her footwear. "Leonhard," comes the name, almost incidentally as he admires the bravado of the shoes, clomp or no. "But, no, I wouldn't say so. And even if you were, you do so.... well..." He looks to Adam. It's not his roof to speak under, after all, but he ventures to end his comment, "You did bring a dash of fun through the door." Leonhard "But I suspect it's me that's interrupting," he admits aloud, looking to Adam. "I'll be meditating upon this meeting. I had best leave you to.... ah... Well, it's been a wholly pleasurable venture, coming in at last. Serafine. Adam."There is a reluctance, but an affability. A manner of manners, if brisk. Leonhard [[Sorry for double-post. Realised it's nearly 5am here now. Damn.]] Serafíne OOC: No apologies! I hadn't realized you were in England (?). That is very late. By the way, my AIM is istioname. hopefully we will be able to play again. Thank you for allowing me to crash! Leonhard [[Way I'm looking at it, I've enjoyed a very, very enjoyable scene thanks to Adam's Boss and got the added bonus of IC meeting an Ecstatic, which will delight Leonhard when he gets to reflect upon it. (Very pleased you crashed, as you put it.) Hope the scene continues well for you both. Shan't just log out. Will post properly.]] Adam "Nobody is interrupting," Adam says (decrees [a regal little beast, isn't he?]), firmly. Rubs his forehead across his forehead, and he has been standing - standing since before Serafíne stepped through the door, just on the other side of his desk. Now he touches one of the typewriter's keys, pushing down idle-y so the bullet-rapport snap of key bites down and punctuates the backdrop. "And they look difficult. Your shoes, that is. For jumprope and erm. Things." He is - well. He looks up from Serafíne's shoes - looks up, away, from the iron maiden-y spikes - and back at his Tradition-mate. Reluctant to see him go? Perhaps. He keeps it contained, though his neck flushes again - and whatever expression is in his eyes is a distant thinking-thoughts-that-are-elsewhere sort of expression. "Come by again soon, Leonhard. Erm, take a card." An owlish blink, and he pats himself down absently until he finds the card he meant as a bookmark in the book he was reading, profers it. Serafíne "They're brilliant for curb-stomping and roasting marshmallows." Sera reports, sanguine. Sanguine? No; there's a degree of bemusement that could feel sly if she weren't so damned open about everything. Still, when she informs Adam, "I'd take them off to jumprope, though," she does so with a degree of solemnity that feels almost self-aware. "For sure." "I actually," Sera/fíne has tucked bunny away for the nonce in the warmth of her jacket, snug up against Joey-Ramone's screen-printed left elbow and some of his wild mop of hair. And she's continuing this all conversationally, almost confidingly, to Leonhard, as if there were eight year old girls sharing a secret while in the lunch line, "have a bustier that matches. Fucking covered in spikes. You could really hurt someone with that. "That's a weird-ass name," says the girl who tells people to call her by one of the names of the fucking heavenly host, but she says it with this supple wash of a grin and a dark eyed look that takes away any sting and finishes its circuit in a rather lopsided fashion. She says it rather admiringly, all told, and probably in the same tone of voice she used to ask a priest whether or not he wanted to make out with her in one of his confessionals, her first proper night in Denver. "I can't figure out if it's just old-fashioned or like fucking Austro-Hungarian or something. "Either way, it was cool to meet you. I'm sure we'll run into each other again, soon." That's just the way it happens, isn't it? Leonhard "I'll trade you," he chirrups, producing a card of his own in exchange. Pasaran. Creative Retreat. "And perhaps you'll do me the favour of a visit. Let me show off some Jerbiton hospitality and lap up talk of whatever you might be working on." There is a momentary return to the austerity of motion. Deliberated movement, arguably prim, possibly in danger of being labelled pure affectation, but unguarded for all that. He nods, and breathes an almost-bow to the Bonisagan.But the formality is gone in a beat, in turning to Serafine, and most particularly to her relaxed comments on her bustier. "You know, I might be able to picture that better after a drink." Although it is a rather overt and almost certainly unexpected move to make, Leonhard, offers a hand to Serafine (and Bunny), Swan Lake still playing, and a pure playfulness in him for a moment. Then the obvious returns to mind. "Ah, no, almost asked you to dance me out, but I think I prefer my dancing feet free of perforation. Next time. I shall hold you to it." In embellishing his reluctant departure, however, he does manage a laudibly rhythmic dance (to Swan Lake) in the direction of the door. There is a lightness in his step. Certainly, they aren't the same feet that brought him into the shop to begin with. I came looking for a Sarah and I have found a Serafine... and a fellow of the Order. "Made my week," he can be heard to say after bowing at the door and disappearing off into whatever night might suffer his risen mood. Leonhard Although.... he can be heard... his accent in full presence, almost joyful... calling, from wherever he has gone, "It's Liechtensteiner!" Leonhard Coudn't resist that last line. Thanks again, Jess! Good meeting Serafine. Must scene-up again soon, I hope. All the best! Serafíne OOC: hee. Absolutely. (grins) Thank you! and hopefully, yes. Soon. :) Adam An almost-bow, the suggestion of formality -- Adam returns it with a nod. Subtle. And that is where all his shadow has gone, into those kinds of subtleties. Leonhard's card gets tapped against the register, then finds itself -- as many stray bits of paper do -- a bookmark in one of Adam's books. He does not become playful, our serious (pensive [distant]) cavalier of words. He smiles faintly; that thoughts-are-elsewhere remove stays, even and up until the other Hermetic dances. Then he laughs. Adam's got one of those shoulder-hunch laughs that requires him to actually lean forward, before making some gesture with his bony wrists, something that's like holding the laughter in because of course one shouldn't let laughter get out. "Do you have any pears?" Adam asks Sera. Adam [AND THEN WE FIGURED OUT THEIR TRUE BEGINNING. DUNDUNDUNNN.]