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"I'm fluent in English as well as Veitnamese, Japanese, German and French. I might be able to read some of them that you can't but it all depends on if you've got more training than I do or not." He sighed. "My father insisted that we all speak Veitnamese at home even though I grew up in America. I was interested in German culture... and French men are simply irrestable to me for some strange reason so I learned that too."
He kept pawing through the books until he ran over one called Catcher in the Rye. He had heard of this book before but never got a chance to sit down and read it. He took one of the couches in the general vacinity of the other man and sat down to read. He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to sit through all of it. Part of the reason he was so skinny and structured was that he couldn't sit down for long periods of time without there being a really good reason. If the book was good enough to capture his attention then he would stay. |
"I can recognize those languages. Doesn't mean I can read them, but I can recognize them. No, these odd books aren't a human language, I'm sure of it." He turned another page and continued reading.
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Completely intrigued by anything that he can't understand. Romeo had become a man on a mission. He found a scrap piece of paper lying around and put it in the book he was reading and set it down on the arm of the sofa. He stood up and looked at the other man, walked over to him and held out his hand for him to shake.
"My name is Mr. Riviera and I'm completely intrigued by these books you speak of. Would you mind showing me where some of them are?" |
"Mm." He slowly got up, never pulling his eyes from his book and began to walk back the way to the bar. "This way..." He went through the dark hallway, pulling out a small flashlight and shining it on his book just before it got too dark for him to read it. Up the stairs, not missing a single step though he wasn't looking where he was going.
From the first flight of stairs to the second, and on his way to the third, he never bothered to look at where his feet were going. |
"Cold."
Xeno stared up at the sky, gray and weary like an old woman waiting for death to rescue her from vain vitality. A snowflake fancied itself to fall into the shape-shifter's eye and melt, making him curse out of surprise. Xeno shook his head again and his hair changed from a warm, mossy green color to a saturated black. His skin turned dark like the earth and as he walked, bones and muscles stretched, making him three inches taller. This place...was absolutely desolate. There was no way Xeno could catch any business here. Why would he linger anyway? It was cold. He didn't mesh well with cold. As he wandered with hands clamped together in his thin, blue denim jacket, breath making clouds of vapor, he stopped at the entrance of some inn to dig around in his pack for his flask. Which was empty. Groaning, he turned towards the door. The windows were lit. He could probably satiate the chill inside, if ony for a moment, before he left again. So Xeno opened the door and walked inside. |
Romeo followed, the hallway was so dark that he actually ended up tripping over a few steps. But he didn't want to lose his way in this place that was so new to him. He followed the man with the light in front of him and wondered how on Earth he was able to walk up the steps without tripping himself while he was reading a book. Some people never ceased to amaze Romeo.
"What floor are they on?" |
"There's a handful on the third floor, even more on the fourth, and it increases with the floors. Half of the books on the seventh floor are in those strange languages. It's impossible not to find one there..." He took the flashlight in his mouth and turned the page to continue reading, taking the flashlight again with his hand as he continued climbing flights of stairs.
Itami made his way down into the bar from his room on the second floor. He walked behind the counter and paused a moment to stretch, then went into the kitchen to figure out what he wanted for breakfast. |
Romeo was starting to become more intrigued. He would have to speak with the owner to find out where these books came from. Hopefully they didn't come with the building or he was going to be rather upset. The fact that they started on the third and increased as the floors went up may mean something. He would just have to look at the text to find out if he could make any sense out of it. He had a feeling he was going to be spending most of his time here up on the seventh floor.
"How long have you been here...you know so much about this place already." |
"Perfect." Xeno sighed, happy for the warmth and the thought of a rich drink. He sat down at the bar and took off the pack he carried, setting it on his lap. The place was empty, which didn't do much for his mood.
"Oi!" he yelled, eyes going from an icy blue to a sharp amber, "does anyone actually work here?" A tongue ran over the chapping lips as his cheekbones became visible under tightening skin. If no one came out, he might just help himself to anything behind the counter. |
Tobias stirred softly in her bed, only to wince as her body ached. She opened her eyes quietly and pushed herself up. Her eyes flitted down to the bandages on various parts of her body, and she sighed, remembering what happened the night before. She felt awful, but at least she seemed to be alive.
Carefully getting up from the bed, she got her glass of water from beside the bed and took a drink before wandering out into the hallway. Her first instinct was to head downstairs, but the process was a bit slow because she was still sore. Eventually, though, she made it back to the bar area she'd been in the night before. Glancing around, she perked her ear before quietly making her presence known, "Hello?" |
"I've been here for three months. I'm kind of disappointed in myself. I've only managed to five hundred books since coming here..." He continued walking up the stairs without looking at all. "At this rate I don't think I'll ever read them all..." He sighed and finally shut his book, looking out over the room full of nearly ceiling-high bookcases. "Welcome to the maze of knowledge."
Itami came back into the bar from the kitchen, a somewhat disgruntled look about him. "Ra, kid," he said, eyeing Xeno. "Wake up everyone why don't ya?" He sighed and looked over at Tobias, his expression softening a little. "How do you feel?" |
Xeno glared at the guy who reprimanded him.
"Their own damn fault for not having anyone working. I'm freezing." He dug through the sack on his lap and produced a worn, leather book and a pen. He scribbled something down on a page that looked pretty cluttered with writing to begin with before snapping the book shut and stowing it. |
"Five hundred is a lot of books." He stated, but then he paused.
Romeo was astounded. He hadn't seen so many books all in one place in his entire lifetime. He walked around from shelf to shelf looking at the volumes. He recognised some of the languages, but this other guy was right. About half of the books in this room were of a text that was purely non-human. Strange symbols that weren't alike anything he'd ever seen. He pulled out one text reverently and started turning it's pages one by one, looking at the symbols. He was good with languages, he was able to pick out which symbols were used most often and assumed they were either punctuation or articles. But it was going to take maybe years to get a good grasp of what it could be. He sat down on the floor and was instantly consumed by what was in front of his eyes. |
"Not their fault that you were stupid enough to be out in the cold," he replied, rolling his eyes.
"The old trick of counting symbols doesn't work with these. I spent three weeks on them. Magnus won't talk about them, so I bet they're written in whatever language his kind speak." |
Tobias perked her ears at Itami, then nodded softly, "I think I'm ok... everything's really sore, though..." She made her way to the most comfortable looking chair nearby and sat down carefully, wincing, "I still smell like burned hair, though... I'm not sure how much I even have left..." She sighed, draping her tail over her lap and starting to inspect it, hoping there were no major bald spots.
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"Well with your burns you can't shower for a few days, I hope you realize that. Just take it easy, you'll be alright soon enough. I'll have to dress your wounds again in a few hours to make sure they don't heal to their dressings."
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"Not like I could've done anything else," Xeno retorted. "Wallowing pit of a city." He shook his head again and the curtain of black hair grew longer, streaking with gold. Xeno glanced sidelong at the animal girl, watching her for a few seconds before returning to some harmless position of staring at the wall.
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Tobias cringed at the though, but nodded, "Yes I understand... Other than smelling like a barbecue pit, I'm surprisingly clean for now, though..." She sighed and looked at one of her hands, wrapped to near-uselessness, "Thank you again, for all your help last night..."
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A black tail swished behind him, equally black cat ears moving around on top his head. The boy—or at least he was assumed to be a boy, even though he had a girlish figure—played around in the snow, drawing silly pictures in the white fluff. He hummed to himself as he hopped from place to place, soon coming to a stop at a door.
His ears tipped forward in curiosity, tilting his head to the side, black hair flopping over. His tail moving in an ‘S’ shape behind him, he opened the door and moved inside. He made a little coo sounding noise, like that of a toddle when they discovered something new. He stepped in, closing the door behind him and looking around. |
"It's rather possible. But I'll probably be spending months attempting to decipher them. Puzzles like these I really can't put down. Espically when no one else has an answer to them yet." Romeo looked back up at the man who had brought him up here. "Thank you for showing me. I never did get your name though.."
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From a distance, a lone figure watched the little cat-like boy who entered the building. The deep, blue eyes of the figure narrowed slightly is curiosity. What was that building anyway? It was so large... With a shake of a black wing which sprouted from his back, the raven-headed man- if man he could be called -stepped forward into the snow towards the building. He was interested in this place now. Eying the silver door, he stopped a few feet away, cocking his head to side as he inspected it. It seemed strange that it should be so perfect and unscratched. But there it was... With a little grunt through the scarf which covered his mouth and nose, the winged creature put a hand on the door knob, turning it slowly and opening the door. He was immediately hit with a wave of heat, which really felt rather nice. Shutting the door behind him softly, he took a look around the place, his eyes needing a minute to adjust first from the white blur that had been out there to the warm glow of the room just inside. He didn't move from the door yet though, but instead just took in his surroundings silently. |
((whoops, I'm sorry, I screwed up XP. Please ignore this))
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Locked down at the thread creator's request.
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