asklepios: ᴀᴄᴛʀᴇss ɴᴀᴛᴀʟɪᴇ ᴅᴏʀᴍᴇʀ; ʙʟᴏɴᴅᴇ (Default)
ᴀ sᴇʀᴘᴇɴᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴇᴇ ([personal profile] asklepios) wrote in [community profile] multiversallogs2011-12-27 04:34 pm

( closed ) there are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth;

Who: "Vanessza Bernát" and Lucius Malfoy
What: An encounter in a bookstore.
Where: ...a bookstore.
When: After Christmas.
Notes: One day Benny will wear a color.
Warnings: None as yet.
Benevenuta has always enjoyed the wintertime for the things mortals and immortals alike to choose to mark (or not), but modern celebrations are still a relatively recent introduction to her life; watching their invention by the Victorians was one thing, but reemerging in the late forties to discover that they were apparently 'ancient' had been a cute moment. The point being, it doesn't much bother her to go without and after she's sent out her small gifts (Ayse got a bigger jar, of whiskey and apple jelly) and sifted through the jewelry box that arrived for Catenrat (she needs to buy a better lock for it, she thinks), she's more or less done for the season 'til New Year's and unconcerned about it. She'd call her father, some years, but not every single one and it isn't so strange to be mostly alone.

There's any number of clichés about her kind, that way.

So, in hat and gloves and coat with sensibly flat shoes, she's investigating the offerings a bookstore that is not currently in the throes of a post-gifting sale (it's quieter than some others which are, and she doesn't feel the pressing need to get up close and personal with everybody who wants a copy of the latest Baedal publications) and carrying her scarf in hand, sifting through the history section with a few titles already under her arm.
amourpropre: (pic#1083024)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-27 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
It's been a strange Christmas. That it's called Catenrat should have been a first hint.

The last couple of years had held a distinct lack of wintry merriment, which doesn't mean Lucius can't feel its absence as sharply as he pleases. He had been quite determine to ignore the cohort invite and neglect to listen to nonsense about cats and rats. With exception to a bottle of red sent off to the Malfoy townhouse with a curt little note signed with his name, the one acknowledgment he had made was to rake blunt fingernails in wonder over the blank span of skin where twisted white scars had once been. Even if the ones at his other arm were fresher and slow to heal in his age, the rats had taken the correct markings.

But in truth, he remembers Christmas as family dinners with distant relatives and more societal banquets and dances, the wizard brand of nobility filling up the season with bright lights and food slaved over by long-fingered house elves and insincere courtesies and the ceiling charmed to fall intangible magical snow from the chandeliers. How he had complained about it all, when it suited him.

The bookstore is a nice neutral kind of place. There had been a title in the library he had wanted for himself, and this was seemingly the only store in Baedal (of the ones he had bothered to explore, anyway) that had pledged to obtain a copy for his purchase, so upon entering, he makes for the front desk. His garb is black on grey and only distinctive in the cut of his coat, long enough to swing near his heels, sleeves generous and loose, and long blonde hair makes stark rat tail tendrils along black-clad back. The man working the desk obligingly hands over the requested volume, Lucius taking it and not immediately paying for it; he has all the time in the world and so, he will browse, and continue building his mental fortress with even more texts to occupy his hours.

Hands gloved in lambskin leather and cane missing from his person (as he has taken to storing his wand in the deeper inner pocket of his coat, sometimes), he moves further inside, hands to himself and eyes on the titles crammed thickly together.
amourpropre: (pic#1083020)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-27 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
Lucius is, or was, good at the kind of conversation one considers cultivated. Or balanced. Lately, though, he allows these affects to fall around him in ungainly clatters to allow those around him to pick up the pieces instead, as with his alternate and wife, with the elder Snape to some degree, with the people he recruits to go out into the fog with. Like now, a little, when he glances and recognition comes with a stilted pause.

And down towards the books in her arms. This isn't a nod of dismissive. "For yourself," he deduces. It's sort of like a greeting. "Otherwise it is said you may secure last minute guilt purchases between Eve and the New Year, or whatever counts for it.

"Good afternoon," is remembered.
amourpropre: (Default)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-27 12:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"I've a residence in Skulkford," Lucius clarifies, in case she. Perhaps thought he didn't. Granted, there was a lengthy period of time when that could have been true, and fortunately no one around to inquire. He lets the book he'd requested fall open partially in his palm, an idle flutter of pages. "But otherwise, you can keep it for the next bleeding stranger that arrives at your door."

That's kind of her, though, to set a portion aside. Kindness being a thing that never ranked a high priority to give or to receive, but it's not unwelcome.
amourpropre: (pic#1082946)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-28 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
Conversational subtlety detected and responded to in kind; the glimmer of half-smile at the corner of his mouth, gone again too easily. "In that event, you will have to consider the last token of my appreciation as a gift in kind. I didn't get anything for anyone." Which is mostly true, and where it isn't entirely true can be excuse by the fact he is replacing a taken thing and also because.

He doesn't wish to explain to strangers the nature of friendship with Malfoys who are not him.
amourpropre: (pic#1081310)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-28 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
"Some."

It's neutral agreement, but also correction. Not everyone is alone in general, the season aside. And considering he didn't get such a bad haul himself, all things considered and despite his own quasi-refusal to respond in kind, Lucius could probably stand to stop including himself among the more tragic.

But why would he do that.

"There is always next year." So it would seem. "You seem considerably well-adjusted for someone friendlessly transported into a new dimension." He says this and begins to move a little, continuing short browse down the aisle without completely walking away.
amourpropre: (they'll take our place)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-28 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
That gets a glance, and it has Lucius wondering how he bothered to get to 45 without ever once departing his own reality - in any way he can remember, at least. Then again, Baedal does comprise a very minuscule fraction of the multiverse, open to any number of variation. They are all, when considering the mathematics of probability, remarkably unique.

"A useful response. Was departure ever willing?"
amourpropre: (pic#1083023)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 09:15 am (UTC)(link)
"Unlike Baedal. An inconvenience."

Lucius' tone says that he finds this an understatement, or that Vanessza is understated. Her acceptance of magic and potions, mild interest being a thing he would not attribute to a Muggle, even one from whatever walk of life lies beyond dimensions he's experienced. Fear, perhaps, is expected, cool aversion. Wonder and awe. He certainly knew some of that upon coming here.
amourpropre: (pic#1083019)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
Similarly without intent to illustrate, Lucius fingers clasp around the book in his own hands, the leather worn and faded in patches rather than any new publication. He casts a look back towards the shelves. It wasn't really a hunger to learn that drives him here.

He bites back at least ten pessimistic things to say.

"And what are you learning?"
amourpropre: (wipe your hands on a dead mans greatcoat)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 11:43 am (UTC)(link)
"Quite so. I imagine it intersects with all of the order of dropped yarn. Histories, cultures."

There are many. He glances down at his own book. It is picked up due to its familiarity, in contrast - authored by someone from his own world, or at least somewhere very much like it, an unremarkable text about remarkable things, but nothing strange or new to him. "I seek what I know, but I can and shall make the unflattering excuse of age."
amourpropre: (pic#1083321)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 11:55 am (UTC)(link)
Old, no, but there is a stubbornness that sets in around one's mid forties. This is not a clarification Lucius can make, lacking both reason to-- she is, as far as he is aware, a young enough lady for her profession-- as well as that much. Self-awareness.

Ever. "Baedal has history? I had not noticed," is glib.
amourpropre: (pic#1081500)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am."

That almost gains a hint of a smile as well, a ghostly impression of one. Any more than that and his face might crack. "But admirably researched all the same, demoiselle.

"And so we have this place, seemingly created little over half a millennium. You may find the answers of when and what, but the most literature I anticipate you'll find of why is that ghastly little pamphlet they leave us with upon arrival."
amourpropre: (pic#1082947)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
"Only because ignorance is worthless." Which doesn't say much towards the amount of value he puts in learning the make of this little pocket universe, but he won't disagree. "In contrast to the myriad of worlds its populace comes from, Baedal feels-- interstitial. The cosmic equivalent of a train station."

He doesn't quite shrug. "But I suppose it earns its place, given another five hundred years. No one told us why with regard to our own homes either."
amourpropre: (Default)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2011-12-29 12:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Light joke gets a slightly gruff and wordless sound of response, all Lucius can summon for what is not a question.

From more sacred and treasured scrolls kept guarded by the academics of his own community, through to the Holy Bible, and down to the pompously written pamphlet in the green tiled room, Lucius won't be citing anything written by some third, mortal party as a reason for his walking the earth, or randomly appearing in it, as the case may be.

It's hardly worth articulating, truly. "I do not consider myself fortunate, so you may have it, as you wish. Whatever wiles away the hours spent here."
amourpropre: (all this trouble for my present self)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2012-01-02 12:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Solid, yes, if small in space as well as time."

And growing smaller, if some of the rumours prove to be correct. There's a dreary thought. This whole conversation is dreary, actually, and seems to occupy so much of Lucius' dialogue when he isn't debating business and numbers with Severus the Younger, the monsters in the mist with his other set of colleagues, or the immediate family of Wizarding Britain with the people within it.

"If you uncover anything optimistic, consider sharing your findings with me," he offers, instead, in that drawling tone of tolerance for the hopeful as he takes a book off the shelf to read its front. "I did make one discovery, myself."
amourpropre: (Default)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2012-01-02 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
The Magical Bestiary of Ugya, marked as the former property of Xanatica Library, wherever the hell that is, could be a fictional title in the eyes of some, but it isn't in Malfoy's. And as for her disposition, a little unshakable optimism is amusing; relentless cheeriness would be annoying and they'd likely have stopped talking by now. So there is that distinction.

"I have yet to find another purpose for optimism but to amuse," he notes, blithely, as he flips open the book to see if it has anything of relevance, or happens to be the kind of text that Lovegood would obsess over and quote at social gatherings. Perish the thought.

The pictures aren't unlike what he sees in the fog, at least. But to answer her question, he closes the book. "The vintage. Whether wine is magicked in from other planes or the fog hasn't corrupted the vineyards, I'm not certain, but there's a place in Aspic I am attempting to frequent and develop a habit for, and their house red is usually reliable. I could show you."
amourpropre: (pic#1083022)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2012-01-02 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"Is that a necessity?"

He decides to put the book back. A Muggle's descriptions of animals he may or may not have seen fail to inspire, and Lucius is more interested in the magical properties of the fangs of a two-headed dinosaur are rather than urban myth and rural legend. "Because you could attempt to persuade me if so."
amourpropre: (pic#1082947)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2012-01-05 11:03 am (UTC)(link)
The 'hm' that follows that is equal parts dismissive and amused, and he flicks a glance to the book she's obtained before turning it back for the shelves. "Or you could simply appeal to some innate, competitive quality I may or may not possess." He glances for the store front.

Not that he's wary of anyone-- seeing him banter with a Muggle. But it's almost a compulsive instinct. "When suits you?" comes out more curt and conscious than he intended.


[ idk why i deem this better but at least i wrote it while awake? sry. ]
Edited 2012-01-05 11:03 (UTC)
amourpropre: (we know each other although we've never)

[personal profile] amourpropre 2012-01-09 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
"Very well."

It's helpful, being self-employed - nearly any day will do. Why the universe saw fit to give Lucius Malfoy that much control over his own existence is a mystery, but considering how he began, it can only improve, or limp along in discontent equilibrium. Amused scrutiny is tolerated, offering no more argument than a raised eyebrow, before Lucius consciously steers his attention back to the book in his hands.

The one he had come here for in the first place. "I'll leave you to your books," he says, "and allow the cashier to overcharge me." He steps back, then, to allow her her browsing, and to follow his own path back to the store front.