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( 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.

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If Benevenuta had ever entertained the thought that perhaps Lucius was sleeping in a shed somewhere (having both the air of someone without much and someone too new to it to have a lot of sense), the thought doesn't cross her expression for a moment. It's true; you can't read her poker face.

"I had one for him already," she demurs with blithe smoothness, so readily that it's not immediately clear that (while truthful) she is, in fact, making a joke. That happens.

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.

"It's a quiet season, this year." In other words, she wasn't expecting to get much in return, and indeed did not; she just doesn't know many people, and most of those she felt like being generous to weren't people who knew her well enough to be that much inclined to responding in kind. Brownies and an anonymous cash donation weren't a bad haul, really, and she'd spent enough of the past month attending winter festival parties that she's had about as much as anyone needs of that sort of thing regardless.

Then, "For a lot of us, I suspect." What with so much of their cohort being so new.

"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.

Benevenuta shrugs; she wasn't including everyone in the first place, but she doubts she's the only one having a quiet holiday. (Some probably quieter - she has family here, and not the uncomfortable alternate kind.) Since they're in conversation now and since she was in fact browsing this aisle herself, she moves with him placidly as she says, "I haven't found it friendless." Which could mean a number of different things, none of which she immediately specifies. "But I am-- it isn't the first time, also, to relocate. I'm...the word, adaptable?"

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?"

She'd meant more in her own world, but moves with the slight shift of intent gracefully; it's not as though it isn't still, in its way, accurate. (It had just been...different, that time.)

"Ah, not the first time. But I could come and go, you see, so it was...more interesting than inconvenient."

"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.

And perhaps by way of illustrating his point about her: "But an opportunity, also." (Some of her speech patterns as an English second language speaker have hints of places other than France or Hungary; Germany, perhaps.) "There's already so much to learn--" and she skims her free hand over the books she's carrying, reflexive more than deliberately illustrative, her hands following the direction of her thoughts.

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?"

"History, culture-- medicine, and how it intersects with the other." Even the subjects she has a passion for are presented low-key; there's a sincerity to her but it's veiled, somehow, like she's a step apart no matter how intently she watches, always watching from the sidelines. "It's difficult to choose a focus."

There's a wide range of histories and cultures to choose from; she's trying to pin down what's most prevalent in Baedal itself, but understanding that sometimes seems like trying to clasp oil in her hands.

"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."

As much as remarks of the sort tend to be really amusing to her, Benny's small smile is entirely guileless, giving nothing more than a hint of good-natured deprecation-- surely you aren't so very old, Mr Malfoy.

"I think - I have always thought, the best way to understand the place where you stand is to understand how its history is perceived." And by who. It's why she has so many history degrees, from so many different places and times; the perception changes, era to era and place to place, and she doesn't study it to lord her experiences or to refresh her memory, she does it to examine the thought that shapes the discussion. To learn from it; to understand what's valued and why.

Maybe that's true of people as people, too, and not just people as patterns.

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.

"The calendar year will be 524 in not many days," she points out, hugging her books to her chest as they move down the aisle - it's a young gesture, the way she does it, and while some of those mannerisms she has are genuine, others are cultivated to create an image that makes use of the truth without inhabiting it. "It might not have been built in the traditional sense--" many of these buildings came here whole, "--but...you are teasing me, aren't you."

"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."

"Ah, that. Yes, I think so." It's quite neutrally said - her curiosity doesn't overrule her good sense, it's just there alongside, and there's more than enough in Baedal to put her guard up - but she's quite aware of the implications of this city. Of its nature, and what it might mean. "But 'when' and 'what' aren't without value." Or implication of their own, or without the ability to create interesting spaces of silence. The shape of things that aren't said.

Edited 2011-12-29 12:23 (UTC)

"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."

"So you are not a religious man." It's mostly another light joke, yes, but it's also worth noting that Benevenuta has been raised always knowing her own why; and always knowing her father's complete lack of similar faith. There is no one solid, perfectly accepted explanation of a world, she supposes, and for most immortals the question of their own existence is answered 'just because, we guess'. Because always.

Baedal is less than a century older than Benevenuta herself. It's an odd thought.

"But-- I don't find it that way, I suppose. I wonder if that's my luck or yours, hm?"

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."

"It feels strangely solid for so--" there's a pause as she looks for a word and finds none, offhand, shrugging. "It's a new place, to me; I like to know it."

"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."

"How do you define optimistic?" Benevenuta returns promptly, following his gaze thoughtfully to the title he's examining. "I think you'd find me very amusing, in my optimism. What about your discovery?"

It's not that she's relentlessly cheerful, it's just that upon examination, she doesn't seem to ever shake.

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."

"Stelanmancy for good, old vintages sounds like a marvelous idea," Benevenuta observes, contemplatively, with a moment's nostalgia for alcohol that the changing process of wine-making through the years has made unavailable for longer than most people are under the impression she's been alive. After a beat-- "I would very much appreciate that. Finding a good bar in this city has been a lot of trial and error, so far."

...she's choosy.

"Do you play billiards at all?"

"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."

"I am very persuasive," she assures him, skimming her fingertips along the edge of the book spines until she reaches something to stop on and slide out for perusal. "Though it isn't required, if you're worried about being beaten."

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)

Benevenuta's fleeting scrutiny is amused, and even more open than he is she's still a little bit muted, somehow. She is comfortably confident that Lucius Malfoy has a competitive streak, probably about three miles wide. It may be more of a competitive motorway system, with an assortment of lanes and speeds.

"The end of the week would be fine. Veerdi." 'Going native'. She's been doing it for decades.

"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.

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

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