Obscura
[Players: aidan_mutou and mpegasus.
The Scene: Pegasus decides to explore the city, intending to find some green space, but ends up waylaid by a curiosity or two.
Backdated to Wednesday, August 15th.]
~~~
The best way to learn your way around a new city was to walk it, so said at least one article Pegasus had read quite some time ago. It was to do with locating yourself in a visio-spatial matrix of some sort and other such elaborate mental technology, all of which boiled down to learning from the experience of physically being there… somewhere at any rate. Which meant that he ought to go walking round New York really. Perhaps not all of it and certainly not constantly but enough so that he learned to pinpoint his experience and not just rely on things like Googlemaps, which were unreliable anyway since he didn’t quite believe that Google HQ had quite so many things of note and certainly wasn’t likely to really have pink flamingos about.
Which left him with the problem of where exactly to go. He could most likely pick up a Zagat guide and wander about from restaurant to restaurant making note of people’s shoes or whatever else it was that the young upwardly-mobile professionals supposedly did but somehow that all smacked a little too much of living out the sort of scenario concocted by the likes of Bret Eastern-Ellis or possibly Evelyn Waugh. And if he was entirely honest about it; it wasn’t that Pegasus really gave that much of a damn about what anybody wore anyway. Appropriate and tasteful might be the real extent of his criteria and besides, what one man found suitable; another might easily find abhorrent. Which hadn’t exactly got him anywhere beyond sitting in his office and staring at the crumpled plastic wrap of his lunch as it sat forlornly in the bin.
But having decided to thwart Croquet’s intentions of keeping an eye on his sometimes errant boss, it had made perfect sense to Google for parks within reach and be disappointed by the obvious choice of Central Park. Something further afield was in order, something like Tompkins Square Park which sat far enough from other locations Pegasus had already heard of and won points simply for being near New York’s own Greenwich Village. And of course anywhere that could be reached via the underground was always worth the preference.
The New York underground certainly behaved like the London version or the Paris metro. Colour coded, fast and every so slightly… fragrant. Still, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a hanky to hand and nasal spray would be easily acquired once he got back from his extend lunch tip and who knew, maybe New York didn’t produce that same nasal congestion and soot didn’t clog up people’s nostrils in transit. Paris certainly hadn’t been as bad as London or perhaps it had, it had been some years after all. Yet the effect of the New York system seemed to be quite the same really, even the business of the essential changing of lines at Châtelet or Waterloo or in this case Union Square was similarly reproduced so that he could reach the 1st Avenue stop. From there it was only a brusque walk to the park or at least it would have been if a sudden glance into a curious shop window hadn't stalled his progress.
Obscura Antiques & Oddities announced the gold lettering on the window and a single glance inside certainly didn’t seem like it would be enough to satisfy curiosity. Besides, if the point was travelling the city to gain his bearings, a curio shop was just as valid a destination as a park. And it did seem like a particularly charming place after all. It was hard to tell if the distant cabinet filled seemingly with rows and rows of Victorian era jars or the taxonomic studies nearer the forefront were responsible for his sudden decision to forgo the park entirely, and certainly the framed drawings on the walls might have contributed, but giving up on other destinations entirely Pegasus carefully, almost stealthily pushed open the shop door. The trick on those occasions was to push the door open gently and slowly enough so as to see if he could stop the bell doubtless hung above from ringing or at least cause it to give out only a muffled and lethargic peal.
Today that game was something of a draw since the door was a little heavier than Pegasus had anticipated and the bell rang softly anyway but it hardly mattered as the immediate interior of the shop appeared quite worth a surprise defeat. Taxonomic studies, things in vials, books with beautifully bound fabric covers slowly mouldering away, mechanical diagrams sprung to life as if from the golden age of industry and in amongst the obvious sights; the little curious things that always caught his eye, tiny trinket boxes and old harmonicas, sepia photographs that would fit in the palm of a hand. And dolls; old, neglected and wonderfully blank-eyed children’s dolls. As beautiful as they were intrinsically terrifying.
It was tempting to simply stop near the entrance and stare about in delight but a general overview of the establishment might be bettered served by starting at the back and working his way towards the front. Less desirable things were often pushed to the back on some occasions while on others the interior of such shops tended to hide the most desirable curiosities.
As he made his way towards the back of the shop the sight of something seemingly bright pink interspersed with purple though a cabinet’s glass seemed incongruous with the setting, until he rounded the cabinet and discovered it to be the hair of an individual perusing the stacks of antiquated books, quite oblivious to his scrutiny. And as much as Pegasus would have considered paying a compliment; the tall shelves in front of him were suddenly the rather more immediate distraction.
“My, my… this is quite a collection.”
The encroaching footsteps had vaguely registered, but the sudden vocal intrusion startled Aidan out of his reading. Glancing up -- and up -- he gave the tall stranger beside him a quick once over before replying. The man's hair was so blond as to be nearly white, and just long enough to brush his shoulders. Besides being tall, he was fairly slim but betrayed by a slight middle-age paunch around the waist. His suit was stylish in a way that spoke of being more than just middle-management, so what, Aidan wondered, was he doing in an antiques shop in the middle of the day?
"Indeed," Aidan said, with a sideways smile to the other man. "I could spend the afternoon on these, and never mind the rest of the shop."
Pegasus offered an amiable smile of his own, gaze flickering between the bookshelves and his unexpected and somewhat petite companion. Not that that was an accurate descriptor since almost anyone could be judged shorter in his presence and he was, admittedly, a terrible judge of what was and wasn’t deemed average. "I always wonder if these sorts of shops are like Tardises?… Tardi? They always look so tiny from the outside that I never expect them to hold quite so many fascinating things."
Then stepping up to the bookshelves before there was a hint of a reply he added with a wink: "And I must say; your hair is really rather fetching."
"Thank you," Aidan replied with a delighted, boyish grin. It wasn't often that his hair garnered notice, let alone praise, in the city. Peacock, he chided himself, realizing he was puffing up a little at the compliment. Tardi, though... "I've always thought of it as N-th dimensional space, myself. Libraries tend to do that trick, and the better museums, too."
Glancing at the book he still held, Aidan folded it closed and stroked gentle fingers over the cover. "Looking for anything in particular?" His grin flashed again, quick and bright. "I've investigated most of the lower shelves already."
"In that case…" Pegasus trailed off, suddenly wondering quite how to phrase the question without sounding a little too New Age hippie. "Would there have happened to be anything useful on divination?"
He followed the query up with a slight depreciating laugh and smiled almost apologetically. "Except I should probably rephrase that somewhat more specifically, shouldn’t I? I wonder if I can; these things tend to find you rather than you finding them."
He’d always considered the prospect of digging through stacks and shelves an adventure and in such cases often liked to imagine himself as a latter-day Lord Carnarvon after all.
A thoughtful noise covered Aidan's surprise as he flicked a quick glance at the blond man. It wasn't that unusual, he supposed, to run into someone interested in the occult in an antiques shop like this. Divination had experienced periodic cycles of interest as science tried -- and often failed -- to explain the course of history. Still, given everything else he'd been dealing with over the past month, it seemed more than coincidental. "Indeed," he murmured. "I haven't come across anything yet."
Shelving the book he'd held, he ran his finger along the shelf, below the line of faded and decaying spines. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Tarot?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the gilt lettering that was far too difficult to read without his glasses. One of these days he was going to have to break down and get a second pair. "Or something more... arcane?"
More arcane than what exactly? Pegasus briefly wondered what that might entail. "I shan’t be cutting open any goats in the near future so perhaps the business of oracles is a little beyond me and the i-ching seems to dislike me or at least deliberately ignore my ruminations so… yes, tarot." Which really was quite a roundabout way of answering when he actually thought about it. Why was he suddenly rambling on anyway?
Absently rubbing his left eye he added: "At least the cards don’t seem to mind me and they’ve not yet objected outright to my occasional repetitiveness." Which didn’t need mentioning either and certainly didn’t bear explaining. "But if there’s nothing here… well, nothing specific anyway, that certainly is a shame." He concluded before he said anything else pointlessly obscure and entirely unnecessary.
"Nothing on the lower shelves," Aidan corrected mildly. He cast an intentionally obvious glance upwards at the shelves that stretched above his head. Picking a book at random from just above shoulder height, he carefully pulled it down and opened its yellowed and time-worn pages. "My cards have been... difficult... lately," he continued. If his companion of the moment was willing to divulge such things, it was only fair that he offer in kind to prolong the conversation. Besides, his curiosity didn't want the stranger to get away just yet. "Though I don't think that's their fault."
On a whim, he shifted the book to his left hand and offered the other man his right. "I'm Aidan, by the way. Mythologist by trade and seeker after curiosities by inclination."
"Difficult questions sometimes call for difficult answers?" Pegasus smiled at the truth of that seeming flippancy. But perhaps his usual sophistic tendencies wouldn’t create quite such obscure conversation to a fellow hunter of curiosities. His smile widened as he reached out to shake the proffered hand firmly; perhaps the bookshelves weren’t the only thing of interest for the moment after all.
"Maximillion Pegasus; gentleman adventurer." Adding with a wink; "And crockery trafficker… unless you’d be at all interested in the latest Vera Wang crystalware this season; in which case I’m an authorised Wedgewood dealer too."
Aidan laughed, thoroughly enjoying the man's mildly flirtatious manner. "I'm afraid crystalware and crockery are a little too... upper-class... aristocratic? for my tastes, but I'll keep it in mind, should the need arise. Gentleman adventurer, though," he continued, with a thoughtful tone. "I dare say you sound like an interesting man to know."
"I rather hope so." By now the implication must have been palpable… perhaps. Unless that had been a double entendre? Had it? The thought flickered briefly before he mentally rebuked himself. At least years of corporate business meant that none of those somewhat inappropriate thoughts showed in his expression. "Alas the limit of my adventuring at the current time may merely be…" Glancing up at the shelves for a long moment he deliberately reached high up, since that was about the extent of the usefulness of being tall right now, and pulled down a moderately sized volume sporting a mid green fabric cover. A glance at the spine revealed it to be a Victorian guide to the use of cooking herbs which in of itself might mean any number of things if he was going to take his cues from the scenery.
Letting the book fall open in his hand gave him a page on the uses of chervil, sometimes termed gourmet or devil’s parsley, depending. And it was from that page that something fluttered to the ground to land rather determinedly at the mythologist’s feet.
If some divinity were smiling down upon him at that moment; Pegasus rather fancied that they must be smiling pretty hard.
Aidan looked down. Death stared back at him, skeletal menace completely undercut by being upside-down, and by the arc of a faded rainbow in the background. He almost laughed; nearly choked on the effort of containing the sound. Squatting on his heels, he picked the card up gingerly between thumb and forefinger. La muerte o la transmutacion, it proclaimed. The Reaper in a field of wheat.
"Am I chaff, then?" he murmured. Straightening up, he turned the card so that Pegasus could see it easily, but didn't relinquish his hold on it. "I fear this was meant for me," Aidan said quietly. "As I acquired another single card of the same deck in a... similar manner... some months ago."
Eyes on the card held up, Pegasus didn’t reach for it; he could quite agree that it hadn’t been meant for him because it wasn’t often that the esoteric deposited itself quite so neatly at one’s feet. A seeker of curiosities by inclination Aidan had called himself. It made Pegasus wonder all the more if it was perhaps less seeking than a natural affinity between curiosity and seeker. Perhaps it was.
"La transmutation." He mispronounced curiously. "And la muerte would be death." Death and transformation? No, that would be stating the obvious. Death or transformation then. "All it came down to was: die or adapt," Pegasus quoted half to himself.
Of course the expression of what might be construed as divine action was always obtuse.
With a slight shiver, Aidan glanced at his companion. Maybe this was the message he'd been waiting for, the one his own cards had been unable to voice. Die or adapt. Well, that was one truth of the world. One he'd been attempting to avoid, perhaps, despite repeated reminders. Clearing his throat, he looked around casually, surreptitiously trying to locate any video cameras. "Is the book of interest to you? Perhaps one of us should purchase it, on the grounds of karma, if nothing else."
"All knowledge is useful." Pegasus gave a slight smile. "Yes, I could probably do with a reasonable herb manual and the Victorians always did seem to have something interesting to say on the topic. Shall we?" He gestured in the direction of the till with the closed book. "Unless we should part ways here?" Which did remind him of the time and the fact that all joking aside; Croquet might actually send out a search party if he was gone much longer.
Tarot cards weren't exactly of a size to palm easily, but Aidan made it disappear into a pocket of his messenger bag nonetheless. He replaced it with one of his business cards, offering it to Pegasus with a smile. "I think I need a library, or at least a WiFi hot spot, and I imagine you must have other business to be about this afternoon, but I am glad we bumped into each other. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pegasus."
Taking the business card, Pegasus gave it a glance long enough to indicate that he’d read the information and short enough not to forestall further action before tucking it away in an inner jacket pocket. It was a gesture recommended by either Debrett's New Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners or Correct Form, he couldn’t quite remember which; though neither text had covered quite how to offer his own card as far as he could recall so he merely offered his own held lightly between index and middle finger almost as if he might be attempting to flick a playing card.
"Likewise, though I certainly hope that on the next occasion you might consider joining me for coffee."
"Coffee is the way to a writer's heart," Aidan replied with a flash of a grin as he took Pegasus's card. Playing with words and meanings, yes, but why not? How often did one find a "gentleman adventurer" in an antique store offering a coffee date? Especially one who triggered the random appearance of Tarot cards. "Which is to say, I look forward to the possibility." The card vanished into a pocket. "I'll be in touch." With a nod of his head, he turned to make his way to the door.
Allowing his gaze to follow Aidan’s retreating figure for a second or two longer than was really quite proper, Pegasus weighed the volume in his hand almost absently before moving in the direction of the till. At least he’d be returning to the office with something to show for his travels which would enable him to argue that the outing had been worth his while. Not that returning ‘allegedly’ empty-handed would have been such a disappointment anyway, all things considered.
He was already humming something which may or may not have been from Die Zauberflöte under his breath by the time he reached the till.
The Scene: Pegasus decides to explore the city, intending to find some green space, but ends up waylaid by a curiosity or two.
Backdated to Wednesday, August 15th.]
~~~
The best way to learn your way around a new city was to walk it, so said at least one article Pegasus had read quite some time ago. It was to do with locating yourself in a visio-spatial matrix of some sort and other such elaborate mental technology, all of which boiled down to learning from the experience of physically being there… somewhere at any rate. Which meant that he ought to go walking round New York really. Perhaps not all of it and certainly not constantly but enough so that he learned to pinpoint his experience and not just rely on things like Googlemaps, which were unreliable anyway since he didn’t quite believe that Google HQ had quite so many things of note and certainly wasn’t likely to really have pink flamingos about.
Which left him with the problem of where exactly to go. He could most likely pick up a Zagat guide and wander about from restaurant to restaurant making note of people’s shoes or whatever else it was that the young upwardly-mobile professionals supposedly did but somehow that all smacked a little too much of living out the sort of scenario concocted by the likes of Bret Eastern-Ellis or possibly Evelyn Waugh. And if he was entirely honest about it; it wasn’t that Pegasus really gave that much of a damn about what anybody wore anyway. Appropriate and tasteful might be the real extent of his criteria and besides, what one man found suitable; another might easily find abhorrent. Which hadn’t exactly got him anywhere beyond sitting in his office and staring at the crumpled plastic wrap of his lunch as it sat forlornly in the bin.
But having decided to thwart Croquet’s intentions of keeping an eye on his sometimes errant boss, it had made perfect sense to Google for parks within reach and be disappointed by the obvious choice of Central Park. Something further afield was in order, something like Tompkins Square Park which sat far enough from other locations Pegasus had already heard of and won points simply for being near New York’s own Greenwich Village. And of course anywhere that could be reached via the underground was always worth the preference.
The New York underground certainly behaved like the London version or the Paris metro. Colour coded, fast and every so slightly… fragrant. Still, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a hanky to hand and nasal spray would be easily acquired once he got back from his extend lunch tip and who knew, maybe New York didn’t produce that same nasal congestion and soot didn’t clog up people’s nostrils in transit. Paris certainly hadn’t been as bad as London or perhaps it had, it had been some years after all. Yet the effect of the New York system seemed to be quite the same really, even the business of the essential changing of lines at Châtelet or Waterloo or in this case Union Square was similarly reproduced so that he could reach the 1st Avenue stop. From there it was only a brusque walk to the park or at least it would have been if a sudden glance into a curious shop window hadn't stalled his progress.
Obscura Antiques & Oddities announced the gold lettering on the window and a single glance inside certainly didn’t seem like it would be enough to satisfy curiosity. Besides, if the point was travelling the city to gain his bearings, a curio shop was just as valid a destination as a park. And it did seem like a particularly charming place after all. It was hard to tell if the distant cabinet filled seemingly with rows and rows of Victorian era jars or the taxonomic studies nearer the forefront were responsible for his sudden decision to forgo the park entirely, and certainly the framed drawings on the walls might have contributed, but giving up on other destinations entirely Pegasus carefully, almost stealthily pushed open the shop door. The trick on those occasions was to push the door open gently and slowly enough so as to see if he could stop the bell doubtless hung above from ringing or at least cause it to give out only a muffled and lethargic peal.
Today that game was something of a draw since the door was a little heavier than Pegasus had anticipated and the bell rang softly anyway but it hardly mattered as the immediate interior of the shop appeared quite worth a surprise defeat. Taxonomic studies, things in vials, books with beautifully bound fabric covers slowly mouldering away, mechanical diagrams sprung to life as if from the golden age of industry and in amongst the obvious sights; the little curious things that always caught his eye, tiny trinket boxes and old harmonicas, sepia photographs that would fit in the palm of a hand. And dolls; old, neglected and wonderfully blank-eyed children’s dolls. As beautiful as they were intrinsically terrifying.
It was tempting to simply stop near the entrance and stare about in delight but a general overview of the establishment might be bettered served by starting at the back and working his way towards the front. Less desirable things were often pushed to the back on some occasions while on others the interior of such shops tended to hide the most desirable curiosities.
As he made his way towards the back of the shop the sight of something seemingly bright pink interspersed with purple though a cabinet’s glass seemed incongruous with the setting, until he rounded the cabinet and discovered it to be the hair of an individual perusing the stacks of antiquated books, quite oblivious to his scrutiny. And as much as Pegasus would have considered paying a compliment; the tall shelves in front of him were suddenly the rather more immediate distraction.
“My, my… this is quite a collection.”
The encroaching footsteps had vaguely registered, but the sudden vocal intrusion startled Aidan out of his reading. Glancing up -- and up -- he gave the tall stranger beside him a quick once over before replying. The man's hair was so blond as to be nearly white, and just long enough to brush his shoulders. Besides being tall, he was fairly slim but betrayed by a slight middle-age paunch around the waist. His suit was stylish in a way that spoke of being more than just middle-management, so what, Aidan wondered, was he doing in an antiques shop in the middle of the day?
"Indeed," Aidan said, with a sideways smile to the other man. "I could spend the afternoon on these, and never mind the rest of the shop."
Pegasus offered an amiable smile of his own, gaze flickering between the bookshelves and his unexpected and somewhat petite companion. Not that that was an accurate descriptor since almost anyone could be judged shorter in his presence and he was, admittedly, a terrible judge of what was and wasn’t deemed average. "I always wonder if these sorts of shops are like Tardises?… Tardi? They always look so tiny from the outside that I never expect them to hold quite so many fascinating things."
Then stepping up to the bookshelves before there was a hint of a reply he added with a wink: "And I must say; your hair is really rather fetching."
"Thank you," Aidan replied with a delighted, boyish grin. It wasn't often that his hair garnered notice, let alone praise, in the city. Peacock, he chided himself, realizing he was puffing up a little at the compliment. Tardi, though... "I've always thought of it as N-th dimensional space, myself. Libraries tend to do that trick, and the better museums, too."
Glancing at the book he still held, Aidan folded it closed and stroked gentle fingers over the cover. "Looking for anything in particular?" His grin flashed again, quick and bright. "I've investigated most of the lower shelves already."
"In that case…" Pegasus trailed off, suddenly wondering quite how to phrase the question without sounding a little too New Age hippie. "Would there have happened to be anything useful on divination?"
He followed the query up with a slight depreciating laugh and smiled almost apologetically. "Except I should probably rephrase that somewhat more specifically, shouldn’t I? I wonder if I can; these things tend to find you rather than you finding them."
He’d always considered the prospect of digging through stacks and shelves an adventure and in such cases often liked to imagine himself as a latter-day Lord Carnarvon after all.
A thoughtful noise covered Aidan's surprise as he flicked a quick glance at the blond man. It wasn't that unusual, he supposed, to run into someone interested in the occult in an antiques shop like this. Divination had experienced periodic cycles of interest as science tried -- and often failed -- to explain the course of history. Still, given everything else he'd been dealing with over the past month, it seemed more than coincidental. "Indeed," he murmured. "I haven't come across anything yet."
Shelving the book he'd held, he ran his finger along the shelf, below the line of faded and decaying spines. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Tarot?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the gilt lettering that was far too difficult to read without his glasses. One of these days he was going to have to break down and get a second pair. "Or something more... arcane?"
More arcane than what exactly? Pegasus briefly wondered what that might entail. "I shan’t be cutting open any goats in the near future so perhaps the business of oracles is a little beyond me and the i-ching seems to dislike me or at least deliberately ignore my ruminations so… yes, tarot." Which really was quite a roundabout way of answering when he actually thought about it. Why was he suddenly rambling on anyway?
Absently rubbing his left eye he added: "At least the cards don’t seem to mind me and they’ve not yet objected outright to my occasional repetitiveness." Which didn’t need mentioning either and certainly didn’t bear explaining. "But if there’s nothing here… well, nothing specific anyway, that certainly is a shame." He concluded before he said anything else pointlessly obscure and entirely unnecessary.
"Nothing on the lower shelves," Aidan corrected mildly. He cast an intentionally obvious glance upwards at the shelves that stretched above his head. Picking a book at random from just above shoulder height, he carefully pulled it down and opened its yellowed and time-worn pages. "My cards have been... difficult... lately," he continued. If his companion of the moment was willing to divulge such things, it was only fair that he offer in kind to prolong the conversation. Besides, his curiosity didn't want the stranger to get away just yet. "Though I don't think that's their fault."
On a whim, he shifted the book to his left hand and offered the other man his right. "I'm Aidan, by the way. Mythologist by trade and seeker after curiosities by inclination."
"Difficult questions sometimes call for difficult answers?" Pegasus smiled at the truth of that seeming flippancy. But perhaps his usual sophistic tendencies wouldn’t create quite such obscure conversation to a fellow hunter of curiosities. His smile widened as he reached out to shake the proffered hand firmly; perhaps the bookshelves weren’t the only thing of interest for the moment after all.
"Maximillion Pegasus; gentleman adventurer." Adding with a wink; "And crockery trafficker… unless you’d be at all interested in the latest Vera Wang crystalware this season; in which case I’m an authorised Wedgewood dealer too."
Aidan laughed, thoroughly enjoying the man's mildly flirtatious manner. "I'm afraid crystalware and crockery are a little too... upper-class... aristocratic? for my tastes, but I'll keep it in mind, should the need arise. Gentleman adventurer, though," he continued, with a thoughtful tone. "I dare say you sound like an interesting man to know."
"I rather hope so." By now the implication must have been palpable… perhaps. Unless that had been a double entendre? Had it? The thought flickered briefly before he mentally rebuked himself. At least years of corporate business meant that none of those somewhat inappropriate thoughts showed in his expression. "Alas the limit of my adventuring at the current time may merely be…" Glancing up at the shelves for a long moment he deliberately reached high up, since that was about the extent of the usefulness of being tall right now, and pulled down a moderately sized volume sporting a mid green fabric cover. A glance at the spine revealed it to be a Victorian guide to the use of cooking herbs which in of itself might mean any number of things if he was going to take his cues from the scenery.
Letting the book fall open in his hand gave him a page on the uses of chervil, sometimes termed gourmet or devil’s parsley, depending. And it was from that page that something fluttered to the ground to land rather determinedly at the mythologist’s feet.
If some divinity were smiling down upon him at that moment; Pegasus rather fancied that they must be smiling pretty hard.
Aidan looked down. Death stared back at him, skeletal menace completely undercut by being upside-down, and by the arc of a faded rainbow in the background. He almost laughed; nearly choked on the effort of containing the sound. Squatting on his heels, he picked the card up gingerly between thumb and forefinger. La muerte o la transmutacion, it proclaimed. The Reaper in a field of wheat.
"Am I chaff, then?" he murmured. Straightening up, he turned the card so that Pegasus could see it easily, but didn't relinquish his hold on it. "I fear this was meant for me," Aidan said quietly. "As I acquired another single card of the same deck in a... similar manner... some months ago."
Eyes on the card held up, Pegasus didn’t reach for it; he could quite agree that it hadn’t been meant for him because it wasn’t often that the esoteric deposited itself quite so neatly at one’s feet. A seeker of curiosities by inclination Aidan had called himself. It made Pegasus wonder all the more if it was perhaps less seeking than a natural affinity between curiosity and seeker. Perhaps it was.
"La transmutation." He mispronounced curiously. "And la muerte would be death." Death and transformation? No, that would be stating the obvious. Death or transformation then. "All it came down to was: die or adapt," Pegasus quoted half to himself.
Of course the expression of what might be construed as divine action was always obtuse.
With a slight shiver, Aidan glanced at his companion. Maybe this was the message he'd been waiting for, the one his own cards had been unable to voice. Die or adapt. Well, that was one truth of the world. One he'd been attempting to avoid, perhaps, despite repeated reminders. Clearing his throat, he looked around casually, surreptitiously trying to locate any video cameras. "Is the book of interest to you? Perhaps one of us should purchase it, on the grounds of karma, if nothing else."
"All knowledge is useful." Pegasus gave a slight smile. "Yes, I could probably do with a reasonable herb manual and the Victorians always did seem to have something interesting to say on the topic. Shall we?" He gestured in the direction of the till with the closed book. "Unless we should part ways here?" Which did remind him of the time and the fact that all joking aside; Croquet might actually send out a search party if he was gone much longer.
Tarot cards weren't exactly of a size to palm easily, but Aidan made it disappear into a pocket of his messenger bag nonetheless. He replaced it with one of his business cards, offering it to Pegasus with a smile. "I think I need a library, or at least a WiFi hot spot, and I imagine you must have other business to be about this afternoon, but I am glad we bumped into each other. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pegasus."
Taking the business card, Pegasus gave it a glance long enough to indicate that he’d read the information and short enough not to forestall further action before tucking it away in an inner jacket pocket. It was a gesture recommended by either Debrett's New Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners or Correct Form, he couldn’t quite remember which; though neither text had covered quite how to offer his own card as far as he could recall so he merely offered his own held lightly between index and middle finger almost as if he might be attempting to flick a playing card.
"Likewise, though I certainly hope that on the next occasion you might consider joining me for coffee."
"Coffee is the way to a writer's heart," Aidan replied with a flash of a grin as he took Pegasus's card. Playing with words and meanings, yes, but why not? How often did one find a "gentleman adventurer" in an antique store offering a coffee date? Especially one who triggered the random appearance of Tarot cards. "Which is to say, I look forward to the possibility." The card vanished into a pocket. "I'll be in touch." With a nod of his head, he turned to make his way to the door.
Allowing his gaze to follow Aidan’s retreating figure for a second or two longer than was really quite proper, Pegasus weighed the volume in his hand almost absently before moving in the direction of the till. At least he’d be returning to the office with something to show for his travels which would enable him to argue that the outing had been worth his while. Not that returning ‘allegedly’ empty-handed would have been such a disappointment anyway, all things considered.
He was already humming something which may or may not have been from Die Zauberflöte under his breath by the time he reached the till.