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Post by Audiva on Apr 6, 2009 14:13:46 GMT -5
It was almost noon, and he was not happy. Brushing a mixture of his light-streaked hair out of the way, Jason Tsuraga made his way down one of the more crowded streets of a Reno suburb. His blue eyes tracked the movements of people - he was always on watch. Always. Ever since the day he'd started running. It wasn't exactly the life he had envisioned for himself when he was younger, but, when you're trying to hide from a psychotic Triste who happens to be your father, you have to make do. To anyone but a Triste, Jason could have been just another person in the crowd, wearing blue jeans that were a little worn at the knee and a grey t-shirt with artistic black swirls draped over the left shoulder and the words 'Innocence & Instinct' emblazoned upon it. The former being in flowing white script, the latter in fiery red - almost blood-colored - scratches. He wore a leather belt, and three rings in addition a tight leather bracelet around his wrist. There was a multitude of other silver on his person, too. His ears had a total of six piercings in them - the right had three silver hoops in the cartilage, the left had two studs and another hoop in it, but this one had a charm dangling from it. And while this wasn't all that unusual, Jason had - of course - enchanted it with a spell of some sort. He also wore a necklace of wire and silver, which ended in a decently sized blood-red garnet. Though, it wasn't like all that many people noticed it, for all it was a very strange piece of jewelry.
Jason glanced at the stores as he passed, but he wasn't really paying attention to them as much as he was the crowd. When his eyes finally lit on the one he was looking for, he slipped through the crowd and pushed open the clear glass door. The shop he had entered was more of a quaint bookstore than those big chains. The carpet was a dusty blue, and there were two rows of shelving a few yards in front of him, with books neatly packed into them, as well as the shelving built into the walls from floor to ceiling. There was another row not too far down to the left of the others, though it was shorter on account of the counter being there. Jason did not look in that direction as he walked down one of the isles, his gaze scanning the titles.
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Post by Aly on Apr 6, 2009 18:50:41 GMT -5
Poppy was sitting in a corner, brown hair falling into her face as she leaned forward over her book, silently mouthing the words as she read. She looked up suddenly, seeing a boy with light, streaked hair walk by, looking intently at the books on the shelf next to her. She tilted her head to the side, then looked back at her book, continuing to read - but she found her concentration destroyed. She had never seen this boy before, and she had lived in the neighborhood for her whole life. Dressed in a long, form-fitting dress made of soft wool, she was sitting with her legs folded behind her. She closed her book and looked at him intently, before saying, softly, "Can I help you find something?"
The man who owned the bookshop was in old age, and Poppy had been working at the shop since she was eleven. Not many people came in during the weekends, so she had plenty of time to herself. She stood up quickly, holding her place and stepping forward, smiling.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 6, 2009 20:00:42 GMT -5
Jason glanced at the girl who had been in the corner when she spoke and thought for a moment. Well, since he needed some light reading along with the book he had come into the store to get, it wouldn't hurt. He glanced at the shelves of the sci-fi section as he paused, noting that the last two books of a series he had started a few months before were not resting with the others.
"Well, do you happen to have the last two books of the Saga of Seven Suns series?" he asked, looking at the shelf in contemplation. Without waiting for her answer, he slipped to the next row, running his finger down the spines - this was why he preferred to come to small stores, anyway. No one was there to judge him, even if the people who organized the bookshelves always put the books he was looking for in what he considered to be the wrong section. Last time, he had had to find the book he was looking for in the Wicca section, and that had not made him happy, because he considered half of that to be a load of codswallop; even more so because he was a wizard (or witch, whatever most people called folk like him) after all.
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Post by Aly on Apr 6, 2009 20:13:17 GMT -5
"Let me go check~" she said with a smile, skipping off to the back store room to check the cataloguing. She scanned through the pages, then found the shelf where the books were - then bustled out to get the books. She found her customer again, and smiled her genuinely 'Poppy' smile. "Here you go!" she said, holding the books out to him. "Is there anything else you're interested in? I mean, Mr North - the guy who owns the place - has tons of books." She knew she was rambling - but she loved this store. "Do you just read science fiction? I mean, it's okay if you do - but there's tons of other things." Her wide-eyed curiosity was astounding. "Horror, history - magic... Take your pick." She finally allowed herself to take a breath and let him answer her.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 6, 2009 20:21:08 GMT -5
Jason took the books, glancing at them briefly before turning his azure gaze on the young woman again. "Uh. Well, fantasy sometimes. And a little dash of magic here and there," he said nonchalantly. He could list dozens of titles that instantly came to mind when he thought of the books associated with magic that were piled up around the bookcase in his apartment. Other than that, there were a number of other genres among the bookshelf, ranging from classics to pop books some friend or another that he wasn't in contact with anymore had given him to read. The barest hint of a smile curved his lips as he studied her for a moment, hoping that she wouldn't notice and that she would think that he was only paying polite attention and not being strange or anything.
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Post by Aly on Apr 6, 2009 20:36:42 GMT -5
She laughed a little nervously, gesturing to a a wall lined with books. "Fantasy and magic are over there." she smiled. "You can take your pick." She glanced at the shelves for a moment, then at her bare feet and wiggled her toes.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 7, 2009 18:12:21 GMT -5
Jason inclined his head to her, causing some of his hair to fell into his eyes. With the two books he already had in hand, he thrust the other one into his pocket and walked over to the shelf she had indicated. He found another book before he returned to looking for the one he had come hoping to find. It was rather unfortunate, though, that he could not find it among the others. He sighed. Well, he could always ask that girl, and if they didn't have it, he could always go somewhere else for it, if need be...
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Post by Aly on Apr 7, 2009 18:49:06 GMT -5
Poppy was in another corner, one close to him, and was reading, again. The same book. It was some that was old and worn, that looked rather out-of-place in this book store; it wasn't from the bookstore. It was a magic book, one that she'd picked up simply for fun, from an antique store.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 8, 2009 9:12:47 GMT -5
Jason frowned slightly when he found that the book he had been looking for was not there, though another one he had been wondering if he needed was there. He pulled that one out and added it to his growing pile. He leaned past the end of the isle to see the girl curled up in the corner closest to him. He was about to speak when, seeing the title emblazoned in gold on the spine of the book she was reading, he stopped and just stared at her for a moment.
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Post by Aly on Apr 8, 2009 22:26:12 GMT -5
She looked up, head tilted to the side. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked with a cherry smile. Then she saw his expression and stopped, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I-Is everything alright?"
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Post by Audiva on Apr 9, 2009 10:22:43 GMT -5
"What? Oh. Yes. Yes, I did find most of what I was looking for," Jason said, though it was easy to tell from his voice that he was slightly distracted. And hence, he forgot that he needed to be conscious of breathing for a moment. Breathe, you idiot, he told himself. He about choked when he finally did, but tried to hide it as well as he could. "What are you doing with that book, though?" he asked curiously after a silence filled moment.
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Post by Aly on Apr 11, 2009 15:13:52 GMT -5
Poppy smiled just slightly, closing her book gently. "I just thought it was interesting, so I picked it up." she laughed. "It's... odd. It's from the eleventh century, it was written by a woman who was burned when she was fifty for being a witch." her expression softened to something sympathetic, almost sorrowful.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 11, 2009 17:41:24 GMT -5
"Ah," Jason managed, pausing. The irony was that the author of that book had been a witch. Profundus Veneficus - or Deep Magic as the title was when it was translated into English - was written by a witch that had indeed been burned; Jason knew that from several of the many historical books his kind had distributed through the years that he had managed to get his hands on. Indeed, he actually had that book among his collection, though it was in even worse condition than this girl's copy. "It's an interesting book, isn't it? When you can get through all of the gibberish, that is. It's a pity that some of it can't be understood, really," he said, a pleasant expression on his face. Well, even if she didn't know what it really meant, it was always amusing to see humans, practitioners, or witches who knew very little of the Night World reading books like that.
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Post by Aly on Apr 12, 2009 21:08:33 GMT -5
"It's managed to keep my attention for a while," she admitted softly, and laughed. "I have a bit of a problem with that." She laughed, a tinkly sound, and then closed the book. "Is there anything else you need, now?" she asked again.
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Post by Audiva on Apr 15, 2009 15:51:55 GMT -5
Jason paused for a moment, trying to remember what the title of the book he had been looking for was. It was Latin, too, just like Profundus Veneficus, but he couldn't remember for a second. "Umm....the book I was looking for is called, um...I think it's Validus quod Severus Veneficus, if I remember right. Any chance you have that one?" he asked hopefully.
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