Day 21: Library

[bigshotbarret]

Dreamless slumbers were easy. There was no thought, no images of people or places you knew or ones conjured by your imagination. It was simply you in darkness until your eyelids cracked and the darkness gave way to a light you were unwilling to greet

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[clockmongler]

Well, if VIII just had to ask the most unimportant questions and waste valuable time. It was not Luxord's job to answer the redhead's every single miniscule inquiry, and as such, he did nothing. When Nursey abounded onto the scene, he gave no hassle and simple followed the woman to the next location.

Ahh, a library. Finally some place pleasantly familiar. However, this was no time for literature as he could easily steal a book when they weren't looking; this was about information. Information must be gathered to assess the surroundings better than with thine own two eyes, as well as making a few allies for the sake of… well. The time comes when people must be sacrificed for the greater good.

He'd seen the woman before and, aside from being a wonder on the eyes, it would be an easy deduction to say she knew quite a bit more than he at the moment, as well as having more of a connection to the other patients. "Pardon me, madam," he began, pushing a particularly worn book in her direction with a smirk. "But am I the only one to see the irony of the Holy Bible in the fiction section?"

Converse now, information later. There was always time for harmless fun.

[lustful_thing]

Lust glanced up when someone spoke to her, eyeing the man critically. He was rather intense looking, attractive, and he seemed intelligent. All in all, hardly a bad companion for a bit of conversation.

"An ancient religious text." Lust picked up the book and glanced over it. Her master had had one of them, a great dusty old thing bound in leather. Lust's knowledge of Christianity was sparse.

"I suppose it would be fiction to those who don't follow its tenets. I'm afraid I've never read it myself - I've heard it's rather a dull read. I'm Lust."

[clockmongler]

He glanced down at the book almost curiously. He had read it before, years ad years ago, but good chance it would help him now. "You probably should not make such an attempt. Pretentious, it is. Rather useless here, though some might be as devoted to take one's tongue out for uttering such words." Or burn down a city.

That name just made his smirk grow wider, taking his attention away from the worn paper. How intruging. "I would have gathered as such from your image, though for that to be your actual name?" He chuckled, leaning himself against the bookshelf. "Your parents had high expectations of you."

"You may call me Luxord, if you wish."

[lustful_thing]

"Man does ridiculous things in the name of God," Lust said, setting the book aside. It didn't matter what god one was speaking of, there were men who wre devout or foolish enough to lay down their lives. Or someone elses.

"I didn't have parents," Lust said, chuckling. She turned, shoulder titled and hips jutting in a flirtacious pose. She couldn't help herself. Her body had been made for one purpose. "I was created, not born. I'm not exactly human, Luxord. Does that bother you?"

[clockmongler]

So he found a flirtatious one, had he? Wonderful. That just made the job more interesting.

"Fretting over vice is for a man with morals. One without a heart clearly lacks such ideas," he replied, eyes locked onto the woman's face. "Those without hearts aren't particularly human, either. Does that bother you?"

Another laugh, then, "Creation is the story of everything. Tis true nature, not the existence of parents and offspring by itself. With man comes technology, with emotion comes darkness." The Gambler pulled out the deck of cards from his pocket, taking note that no nurse was around to steal them away from him. He flipped a few between his hands, enjoying the crisp noise they made against each other. "Thus is man's downfall. He creates beings without normal pretense and destroys himself with what he created: the underlining fact of history that I've become quite familiar with."

"So no. You were created, as were I, and I cannot say I am bothered."

[lustful_thing]

"Man thinks himself god," Lust said, leaning against a bookshelf. "He seeks to do as God does, to create in his image. He meddles in things he has no right, creating life from death and using his sciences to preform miracles. But the problem with miracles that think for themselves is that they so rarely do as man intended." She chuckled softly, her voice low to keep their conversation private. Oh, she liked this one.

"You haven't a heart? That's quite alright, I haven't a soul. What a pair we make. Made in man's image but lacking those vital things which make a man. Or woman, I suppose. Tell me, if you don't mind, how you came into being? I promise I'll return the favor."

[clockmongler]

"Life was made to have a mind of its own. Those thinking to make new life without a mind are clearly fools," he nodded, knowing enough on the subject. After all, that had been IV's downfall, had it not? It was idiotic for the man to create a clone of someone so hostile and expected it to obey his every command. Such thoughtlessness…

He lowered his voice as well, juggling the cards back and forth with relative ease. "Tis a long story, if you must know. As simply as I could put it, I am the remains of someone else - the body and soul, to be specific. They've lost their heart to the Darkness, and I am the shell that remains." He cast his eyes to the woman once more, a rather playful smirk on his face despite the subject matter. "I was created through hatred and ignorance."

"And you?"

[lustful_thing]

Lust blinked, a strange expression coming over her face as he spoke. He was like she, a homunculus! But he wasn't from Amestris, that much was clear. There were others, in other worlds?

"You and I are much alike," she said, quietly, her head tilted as she spoke. "I, too, am the remains of another. The body and fragments of soul, but little else. I was created through desperation and loss, a foolish man wanting to return his lover to life. They call my kind homunculi - alchemical failures."

[clockmongler]

Hm? He clasped his hands together, stopping the cards in their motion to regard Lust's words. Truly interesting… "'Homunculus'? A man-man human…" The cards were placed back into his pocket with a sleight of hand, the other hand reaching to stroke his goatee in thought. "An alchemist by the name of Paracelsus had claimed to make a tiny being he called a homunculus. It was quick to turn on him, though since you are neither a tiny gollem nor do I suppect you were created in… much of the same way, I can suppose that the term has a different meaning in your world. Perhaps you could enlighten me on which world this would be?"

It was rather intruging to note this information. The dead, resurected to create different beings through the use of alchemy... He would have to share such knowlegde with one of the scientists, later. "They call creatures such as myself 'Nobodies'. We were not meant to exist."

[lustful_thing]

"I was made from the remains of the woman who's body I wear," Lust clarified. "I come from a world that has no name. I was brought to life in a country called Ishbal, a desert place where alchemy was forbidden. It was sacriligious. The Ishbalans are a god fearing people. I was raised in Amestris, a sprawling country that favors alchemy as the science of the people. The military has a whole branch devoted to the subject." She shrugged.

"I wasn't meant to exist, either. To create one of my kind is the greatest sin known to my world. We are accidents, failures created when man tries to be god. Or so the alchemists say. I must admit, I've never felt like much of a failure."

[still_free]

While a library could be a fairly useful resource, Mal wasn't one for getting caught up in books. That was something Simon, River, and Book might be prone to, but he was more about action than planning and research.

Well, he did like smooth plans, but not ones that involved too many outside resources. The point was, while books could very well prove helpful, he had other matters he considered more important at the moment.

The first thing he did upon entering the room was locate the few members of his crew. River was nowhere to be seen, which worried him. Kaylee was busy speaking to a boy (typical, but he'd allow it) and Simon was engaged as well. He'd rather speak to them one on one, so for the moment he was more intrigued by the woman who had managed to calm River down at breakfast.

He didn't doubt River's judge of character - she probably knew better than all of them - but he wanted to know who exactly this woman was. Throwing all thoughts of interrupting an important conversation to the side, he stepped up to the woman and her current companion.

"You were the one with River before, right?" he cut in without so much as a 'pardon me.' "How do you know her?" He was trying not to sound too accusatory, but... that was a bad habit of his.

[clockmongler]

"Not all Nobodies retain a human guise," he noted, tapping his fingers against the bookshelf behind him. "Only those exceedingly strong of heart will remain something relatively close to who they once were, and even then things change. Strange magic over certain elements, the power to travel to worlds unseen..." The blond paused, eyeing something distant for a brief moment.

"Ironic, is it not? How the love for one can turn into so much hatred, leaving nothing but shells in Detestation's wake."

The voice ringing out of nowhere almost startled him, but Luxord retained an amused, yet eerily placid expression. After assessing the man before him, he decided that aside from that reoccurring name 'River', the rest was a blank to him. "A 'may I cut in' would have been a tad more polite," he interjected, though for the most part he kept silent. This was none of his business, but some eavesdropping couldn't hurt.

[lustful_thing]

"Not all homunculi grow to take human form," Lust said, remembering the twisted creatures that they were at birth. Without the red stones, so they remained. Pitiful, half-formed creatures spawned from some dark abyss.

She was rather startled when the captain from breakfast suddenly barged in. She didn't make an attempt to hide her displeasure.

"Are you a blind man, captain? You must be, otherwise I doubt you could have missed that you were interrupting a private conversation. Or perhaps you're merely a simpleton and can't grasp the rudimentary idea that two people speaking alone in hushed voices generally don't wish to be disturbed." She folded her arms and decided she may as well let the bomb drop. She had been enjoying her conversation with the Nobody quite immensely.

"River and I met in this place. She considers me her mother."

[still_free]

This woman's quick response and general attitude made her seem more and more like Inara. As if one hadn't been enough! Though that train of thought led him to realizing that he hadn't seen the Companion since the day before. She was always warning him to be careful, so if she had gone and gotten herself hurt, he would be livid.

"Not blind," he responded, glancing from the woman to the man she was speaking to. He seemed similarly irritated, but wasn't quite so catty about it. "See, River is one of mine. You didn't seem to be any kind of threat earlier, but I have to make..."

Her mother? What kind of crazy idea was that? Then again, it certainly seemed like the sort of thing that River would think up. (Mal wasn't sure what Simon would think of it, though.) The captain didn't know much, but he more or less understood that the Tam's parents had abandoned them. Maybe River had wanted to find new parents. Still, why this woman?

"All right," he said with a small sigh. "I'm just a mite paranoid when it comes to her because she's... special, and people tend to want to take advantage of that." He narrowed his eyes slightly.

[clockmongler]

"It would be wise to mind a lady's wishes, nonetheless mind your manners," he concurred. Irritated? Luxord? What a silly notion. He may as well been, considering the derailed conversation, but he couldn't bother dredging up memories of annoyance to scowl at the stranger. Instead, he reached into his pocket to acquire the balled kerchief, fast hands unwrapping it silently for the candies inside, and smiled to himself. After popping one into his mouth, the Gambler listened quietly to the others' discussion, logging any important information for later.

This River girl apparently had some sort of relevance to quite a few people, judging from just how many were protective of her. Perhaps, if he were to put the pieces in the right place, this could be played out in his favor.

Of course, the suspicious look the man gave to Lust, coupled with the words 'people tend to want to take advantage of that,' went in one ear and out the other. Luxord would use people to his advantage if he damn well pleased.

[lustful_thing]

"River isn't the only special person here, captain." Lust crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrows. "The girl and I have some manner of things in common. Besides, considering her gifts, she'd know full well if I had any ill intentions towards her."

An over-protective boor. Not that Lust wasn't familiar with that. This captain was gruff and coarse and overbearing. Why did Lust generally find herself in the company of men of that nature?

"The good captain strikes me as the type who doesn't much care for a lady's wishes," Lust went on, casting a sly glance to Luxord. "There simply aren't enough gentlemen about these days."