(no subject)
Who: Jacob Anser (MOTHER GOOSE) and Pearl Fisher (GOOD SISTER)
What: Jacob inducts a particularly difficult new Tale
When: Backdated a couple of weeks
Where: Central Park
Rating: G
Pearl: Sitting with her leatherbound copy of the Psalms resting on her lap, Pearl was anything but tranquil. She was supposed to be memorizing the peace that David found while singing to the Lord on the hills, but she couldn't connect with it. Swinging her legs gently under and out of the bench slowly, she gave a long sigh and peered down at the scriptures. She wanted to be obedient and finish the task that her teachers (and her mother!) had given her to do but it was difficult when she was faced with such curiosity over the past few weeks. The vomiting had only gotten worse and her brother had almost walked in on two diamonds and a large ruby at the bottom of the toilet before she had managed to get it to flush. And then the dreams. Pearl didn't understand. It was almost as though she had lived another life but that was impossible. You only lived one life and then you went to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. Pearl believed that she was destined to Heaven and she couldn't understand why she felt as though she were remembering the life of another person. Maybe she had been watching too much TV. Her mother had allowed Pearl to start watching an hour of TV a day, but perhaps that wasn't a wise decision. She should spend more time in her bible, reading her Psalms, instead of spending time in a world of fancy.
"What does it mean," she mumbled, her finger tracing the "9" above the Psalm she was meant to memorize. "I will praise thee, Oh Lord..." She closed her eyes for a minute. "I will praise thee, Oh Lord, with my whole heart. I will shew forth thy.." She opened her eyes again to check the next word. "Good works..."
Anser: Oh, hell.
Anser had been this close to passing the buck on the entire situation, when the journal for the Good Sister had appeared on his desk. After, that is, staring at it for nearly an hour. He had his Assistant Librarians now, and he had nearly sent the book off to Nicci to be dealt with. Really, there was no reason for him to get personally involved. But then, ultimately, he had realized that any sort of resistance was futile, and scooped up the blank leatherbound booklet, setting off to track down this new incarnation.
So it was that he came to the edge of a small clearing, on the far side of which sat a particularly perplexed looking young girl. Anser's fingers tightened around the handle of the briefcase in his hand and he drew in a slow, steadying breath. "It's not her." He reassured himself, under his breath, only to immediately feel like an idiot for talking to himself. With a grim expression he set off down the path that cut across the clearing, and took him past Pearl's bench, whereupon he stopped. The man stood before her silently for a moment, the hems of his worn trenchcoat fluttering in the breeze. After a long silence he coughed and, without making direct eye contact, made a furtive gesture to the other half of the bench she was occupying.
"Is this seat taken?"
Pearl: Pearl looked up, curious at the man who tried to sit next to her. Her mother had warned her to be careful of strangers and strangers were one of the reasons that Pearl was rarely allowed to go to Central Park by herself. The man looked clean and professional, though, and Pearl began to feel a weird twisting in her stomach. The feeling was unusual and made her almost want to say no, but instead she felt that she had to say yes. "Oh, no," she told him, moving her bookbag from the other half of the bench. "You may sit here," she said. She wasn't sure if she should smile at him, and so she smiled down at her bible instead, toying the edge of the page. That feeling still gnawing at her, Pearl finally looked up at the strange man and smiled at him. "Have you ever read the Psalms?" she asked him, feeling the need to make conversation. She swung her ankles a bit more under the bench. This man might be a stranger, but Pearl felt oddly comfortable around him. "My name is Pearl," she said.
Anser: Despite having been granted permission and invited to sit, the man continued to hover awkwardly for a moment before settling himself into the empty seat. He placed his leather briefcase on his lap with his fingers curled around the sides, drumming anxiously. This was a gross deviation from his usual routine - typically he charged in and went directly to the point, but in this situation could scarcely find himself working up the nerve for small talk. His lips twitched occasionally with the effort, as ideas died before being voiced, and he seemed almost startled when the girl beat him to the opening salvo of conversation.
"Hmm? What? Oh. No. I mean, yes, rather - I've read them, but I don't... read them. So to speak." His tone was unusual - gruff and terse, but with a gratingly hesitant quality, and he continued to avoid looking directly at his bench companion until she made a direct introduction. When she offered her name he finally turned his head to catch her eye - or rather, to be caught by it, as he seemed momentarily transfixed when their gazes met. It may have been the secret poet in his literary soul, but he could have sworn she had her eyes, and the revelation was like a kick square in the chest.
If Pearl hadn't been uncomfortable already, then the sad, lingering manner in which he looked at her - in silence, no less - couldn't possibly help. After a couple excruciating moments he finally seemed to take hold of his senses, and giving his head a quick shake, quickly finished the greeting ritual. "Anser." He offered, before adding, "Professor Anser. Comparative and Classical Literature Studies, NYU."
Pearl: Pearl watched him drum his fingers on his briefcase. She was silent for a little while and tilted her head to the side. "I see," she said, nodding and turning a page in her bible, even though she had no reason to go beyond Psalm 9. She was fifteen, but her parents had tried to shelter her and while she knew that there were 'dangers' in the world, she had never even watch a movie or tv-show about women being captured and raped. She looked over at Anser, locking eyes with him unintentionally and wondering what made him so nervous.
"NYU is a very nice university," she said politely. "I am sure you are a wonderful professor. I haven't decided where I would like to go to University, yet." Pearl wondered if he was supposed to promote his school to teenagers in Central Park. Perhaps that was why he had sat next to her. There was something familiar and normal about him. Perhaps he knew his parents and she had met him in a party. That was entirely likely. She wondered why he was staring at her like that, and so she dipped her head down to look at her Bible again for a moment before looking back up at him. "Are you alright, Professor?" she asked.
Anser: Anser responded to the kind words regarding his institution with a noncommittal mumble and further finger-drumming. He was back to looking at his briefcase very intently, looking uncomfortable and confused, as though stumped by a particularly difficult math problem. The fact of the matter was he was wrestling with the notion of how one might go about gently breaking the news of Taledom - frankly, he'd never really tried the approach. He should have asked Velvet before he left.
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Yes, fine. Thank you." he answered, though still at something of a distracted mumble, before the question seemed to stoke some sort of idea in his mind. "Are you?" He retaliated rather suddenly, then continued, "Feeling well, I mean. Have you had any sort of troubles lately? Bad dreams, perhaps? Strange memories?" he clenched and unclenched a hand helplessly in his effort to articulate, before adding abruptly, "Vomiting? Yes, there's a history of that. Are unnatural vomiting?" He seemed relieved to have struck upon what he imagined to be a more civil bedside manner, when in fact he was just coming across as a lunatic.
Pearl: She grew nervous as he asked her about the vomiting. Pearl squinted up at him, her heart beating quickly. Had her parents sent him here to have her checked out? Was he going to tell her parents that she was a bulimic? "I'm fine, sir," she said. "Why-- How--" Pearl bowed her head obediently, unable to lie. She didn't want him to tell her parents that she was throwing up. Pearl had been obediently following her dietary restrictions because of her GERD and she didn't know what else to do. Of course, as far as she had researched there was no other cases of vomiting precious jewels. She was the first one and she didn't know what that meant. Swallowing and pursing her lips before looking back at the Professor Pearl slowly nodded. "I have had some dreams," she said. "But they aren't bad. I think they're happy. Do you think that dreams mean something, Professor?" she asked, trying to stall the likely unavoidable answer to the questions about vomiting. It wasn't wrong to just not answer a question, was it?
She twisted her hands anxiously on the cover of her bible. "Did my parents send you to talk to me?" she asked softly. She knew she wasn't bulimic. Why would anyone want to make themselves vomit. It didn't make any sense.
Anser: "Oh, God no." Anser scoffed his opinion on the significance of dreams with a wave of his hand. "Freudian psychobabble for the most part. However, our dreams - your dreams - are a different story. They're not really dreams, you see. They're more like... memories." his brow furrowed at the difficulty of articulating himself, showing all the helpless anxiety of a parent gearing up for the sex talk.
He was still trying to figure out his next move when she asked about her parents, and he turned to look at her sharply, shaking his head. "What? Oh, no. Nothing like that. In fact, it'd be best to leave your parents out of this entirely. They don't-- Oh, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself with that. Probably sounds awfully creepy." He winced at this, then drew in a deep breath and clasped his hands together, as if to begin again. When he started talking again it was in a more even, but heavily patronizing tone, as though his audience were five rather than fifteen. "Pearl, this is going to sound a little bizarre, but you're not a normal girl. You're a fairy tale. Or, rather, a reincarnation of one. You're the Good Sister from the French fairy tale 'Diamonds and Toads'. Sort of a moral parable of kindness, with an odd distribution of rewards and punishments. I'm one too - a different tale, though. There are many of us, and we've been reincarnating into different bodies throughout history since our tales were created. There's a community, of sorts, into which I've come to welcome you. It's overseen by a body called the Atheneum, run by Librarians, such as myself. So. Uh." His diction fumbles at this point, and he scrambles to finish with an awkward, "Welcome."
Pearl: More than relieved that Anser had neglected to continue on with the questions about vomiting, Pearl could hardly concentrate on what Anser was saying. Anser's patronizing tone had no affect on her; she was accustomed to being spoken to in that manner. She blinked a few times as his words began to sink in. "I'm -- I'm a reincarnation?" she said, touching one of her shoulder blades. "Of a fairy tale?" It made sense but it shouldn't. People weren't reincarnated. Fairy tales weren't real -- And yet, somehow, she knew that it wasn't a joke or a trick. She closed her bible and hugged it against her chest. That explained the stories that she dreamed of. "Are you sure?" she asked cautiously. "Are you sure that you haven't found the wrong girl?"
Biting her lip for a second in concentration before she peered up at Anser she asked, "What fairy tale are you?"
Anser: Anser's relief at having blurted out the main bulk of his mission seemed to make him more comfortable - and in being more comfortable, his features hardened into something more characteristically grumpy. That wasn't too painful. "Oh, positive." He affirmed with a nod, his tone almost wistful, belying some sort of inside joke in the response. The next question seemed to make him uncomfortable all over again, however, and he looked down and shifted from side to side awkwardly. "Oh. Hurm. Well. Me?" He continued to mumble his answer almost unintelligibly, though one could be fairly certain he said either 'Mother Goose' or 'Moth Caboose'.
He continued to shift restlessly, mainly because this was usually where he did some sort of pithy 'good luck, don't die' farewell and left the unlucky Tale largely in the lurch. Unfortunately he couldn't bring himself to do it now, but was caught with a complete lack of small talk in his repertoire. What to do? Ah yes, the compendium!
His thumbs quickly fumbled with the clasps on his leather attache case, which was hurriedly flipped open. He reached in and drew out a small leatherbound book, which he wagged in her direction. "I'm going to give you this, Pearl. It's called a Compendium. It's magic. And I don't mean 'a trip to Disneyland' magic - real magic, so don't lose it. You can use it to communicate with everyone else in our community." To illustrate he flipped it open to a random page, and held it up to show words being scrawled across the page by an invisible hand. Once she had a good enough look he snapped it shut and held it out to her.
Pearl: "Mother Goose?" she said. Pearl wasn't sure if he was joking, and she leaned closer. "Excuse me, Professor, did you say Mother Goose?" The fact that fairytale animals could be reincarnated as people was shocking, as was the fact that a female character could come to life as a male. "My grandmother used to read Mother Goose to me when I was little," she told him, trying to be polite.
She took the Compendium and held it over her bible. She opened it up and saw conversations glistening on the pages. "Ooh," she said, feeling a bit dizzy as she read it. "I see," she said. Pearl swallowed, dipping her head down. "How many of us are there?" she asked him. She wondered if the others had problems like she did with her vomiting.
Anser: Pearl's polite questions were generally met with a mix of grunts and mumbles, none of which were all-too-enlightening. With the journal passed on and his duty technically complete, Anser went about shutting his case and gathering himself up as though to leave. He was all set for a swift retreat, even half off the bench, when he paused briefly, and then sat back down. He turned to look at Pearl intently, one brow raised in what appeared to be a look of suspicion.
"You should know, Miss Fisher, that in addition to remembering your Tale-life, you've also been reincarnated several times over in the past, and you may... Well, there may be memories from those lives as well." Now his eyes narrowed and he took on the general demeanor of a teacher checking one's hands for notes in a test. "Have you... experienced anything like this?"
Pearl: Caught off guard by Anser's quick departure, Pearl stood up. She was about to call out a goodbye to him before he turned. Instinctively she sat back down next to him, paying close attention to every word that he said.
"Several times?" she said, very confused. Pearl suddenly wondered if she had been a boy in her past life. Her brow knit in perplexity, she swallowed and shook her head. "No, I didn't know that that was possible. I don't think I remember anything. I just remember the family and the fairy and," she gave a shy smile. "The prince." Pearl picked up her Compendium and held it closely against her chest, just as she had held her Bible earlier. "Do people sometimes remember those things later?"
Anser: The answer garnered a sigh of obvious relief from Jacob Anser, who proceeded to stand up abruptly again. His briefcase was hefted in one hand and he faced Pearl for a final farewell. "God, lets hope not." He answered cryptically, quickly curtailing any further questions by a vague gesture that seemed to start as an offer for a handshake, but ended in a limp wave. "Goodbye, Miss Fisher. If you have any questions, you can contact me through your compendium. When you feel ready you're also welcome to visit our headquarters, the Pentamerone - there's an address inside the cover of your book. So. Erm. Goodbye."
With another awkward nod of his head, he turned on his heels and proceeded to march off, chastising himself for not having left that to his Assistant. Damn his brief bout of sentimentality...
What: Jacob inducts a particularly difficult new Tale
When: Backdated a couple of weeks
Where: Central Park
Rating: G
Pearl: Sitting with her leatherbound copy of the Psalms resting on her lap, Pearl was anything but tranquil. She was supposed to be memorizing the peace that David found while singing to the Lord on the hills, but she couldn't connect with it. Swinging her legs gently under and out of the bench slowly, she gave a long sigh and peered down at the scriptures. She wanted to be obedient and finish the task that her teachers (and her mother!) had given her to do but it was difficult when she was faced with such curiosity over the past few weeks. The vomiting had only gotten worse and her brother had almost walked in on two diamonds and a large ruby at the bottom of the toilet before she had managed to get it to flush. And then the dreams. Pearl didn't understand. It was almost as though she had lived another life but that was impossible. You only lived one life and then you went to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. Pearl believed that she was destined to Heaven and she couldn't understand why she felt as though she were remembering the life of another person. Maybe she had been watching too much TV. Her mother had allowed Pearl to start watching an hour of TV a day, but perhaps that wasn't a wise decision. She should spend more time in her bible, reading her Psalms, instead of spending time in a world of fancy.
"What does it mean," she mumbled, her finger tracing the "9" above the Psalm she was meant to memorize. "I will praise thee, Oh Lord..." She closed her eyes for a minute. "I will praise thee, Oh Lord, with my whole heart. I will shew forth thy.." She opened her eyes again to check the next word. "Good works..."
Anser: Oh, hell.
Anser had been this close to passing the buck on the entire situation, when the journal for the Good Sister had appeared on his desk. After, that is, staring at it for nearly an hour. He had his Assistant Librarians now, and he had nearly sent the book off to Nicci to be dealt with. Really, there was no reason for him to get personally involved. But then, ultimately, he had realized that any sort of resistance was futile, and scooped up the blank leatherbound booklet, setting off to track down this new incarnation.
So it was that he came to the edge of a small clearing, on the far side of which sat a particularly perplexed looking young girl. Anser's fingers tightened around the handle of the briefcase in his hand and he drew in a slow, steadying breath. "It's not her." He reassured himself, under his breath, only to immediately feel like an idiot for talking to himself. With a grim expression he set off down the path that cut across the clearing, and took him past Pearl's bench, whereupon he stopped. The man stood before her silently for a moment, the hems of his worn trenchcoat fluttering in the breeze. After a long silence he coughed and, without making direct eye contact, made a furtive gesture to the other half of the bench she was occupying.
"Is this seat taken?"
Pearl: Pearl looked up, curious at the man who tried to sit next to her. Her mother had warned her to be careful of strangers and strangers were one of the reasons that Pearl was rarely allowed to go to Central Park by herself. The man looked clean and professional, though, and Pearl began to feel a weird twisting in her stomach. The feeling was unusual and made her almost want to say no, but instead she felt that she had to say yes. "Oh, no," she told him, moving her bookbag from the other half of the bench. "You may sit here," she said. She wasn't sure if she should smile at him, and so she smiled down at her bible instead, toying the edge of the page. That feeling still gnawing at her, Pearl finally looked up at the strange man and smiled at him. "Have you ever read the Psalms?" she asked him, feeling the need to make conversation. She swung her ankles a bit more under the bench. This man might be a stranger, but Pearl felt oddly comfortable around him. "My name is Pearl," she said.
Anser: Despite having been granted permission and invited to sit, the man continued to hover awkwardly for a moment before settling himself into the empty seat. He placed his leather briefcase on his lap with his fingers curled around the sides, drumming anxiously. This was a gross deviation from his usual routine - typically he charged in and went directly to the point, but in this situation could scarcely find himself working up the nerve for small talk. His lips twitched occasionally with the effort, as ideas died before being voiced, and he seemed almost startled when the girl beat him to the opening salvo of conversation.
"Hmm? What? Oh. No. I mean, yes, rather - I've read them, but I don't... read them. So to speak." His tone was unusual - gruff and terse, but with a gratingly hesitant quality, and he continued to avoid looking directly at his bench companion until she made a direct introduction. When she offered her name he finally turned his head to catch her eye - or rather, to be caught by it, as he seemed momentarily transfixed when their gazes met. It may have been the secret poet in his literary soul, but he could have sworn she had her eyes, and the revelation was like a kick square in the chest.
If Pearl hadn't been uncomfortable already, then the sad, lingering manner in which he looked at her - in silence, no less - couldn't possibly help. After a couple excruciating moments he finally seemed to take hold of his senses, and giving his head a quick shake, quickly finished the greeting ritual. "Anser." He offered, before adding, "Professor Anser. Comparative and Classical Literature Studies, NYU."
Pearl: Pearl watched him drum his fingers on his briefcase. She was silent for a little while and tilted her head to the side. "I see," she said, nodding and turning a page in her bible, even though she had no reason to go beyond Psalm 9. She was fifteen, but her parents had tried to shelter her and while she knew that there were 'dangers' in the world, she had never even watch a movie or tv-show about women being captured and raped. She looked over at Anser, locking eyes with him unintentionally and wondering what made him so nervous.
"NYU is a very nice university," she said politely. "I am sure you are a wonderful professor. I haven't decided where I would like to go to University, yet." Pearl wondered if he was supposed to promote his school to teenagers in Central Park. Perhaps that was why he had sat next to her. There was something familiar and normal about him. Perhaps he knew his parents and she had met him in a party. That was entirely likely. She wondered why he was staring at her like that, and so she dipped her head down to look at her Bible again for a moment before looking back up at him. "Are you alright, Professor?" she asked.
Anser: Anser responded to the kind words regarding his institution with a noncommittal mumble and further finger-drumming. He was back to looking at his briefcase very intently, looking uncomfortable and confused, as though stumped by a particularly difficult math problem. The fact of the matter was he was wrestling with the notion of how one might go about gently breaking the news of Taledom - frankly, he'd never really tried the approach. He should have asked Velvet before he left.
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Yes, fine. Thank you." he answered, though still at something of a distracted mumble, before the question seemed to stoke some sort of idea in his mind. "Are you?" He retaliated rather suddenly, then continued, "Feeling well, I mean. Have you had any sort of troubles lately? Bad dreams, perhaps? Strange memories?" he clenched and unclenched a hand helplessly in his effort to articulate, before adding abruptly, "Vomiting? Yes, there's a history of that. Are unnatural vomiting?" He seemed relieved to have struck upon what he imagined to be a more civil bedside manner, when in fact he was just coming across as a lunatic.
Pearl: She grew nervous as he asked her about the vomiting. Pearl squinted up at him, her heart beating quickly. Had her parents sent him here to have her checked out? Was he going to tell her parents that she was a bulimic? "I'm fine, sir," she said. "Why-- How--" Pearl bowed her head obediently, unable to lie. She didn't want him to tell her parents that she was throwing up. Pearl had been obediently following her dietary restrictions because of her GERD and she didn't know what else to do. Of course, as far as she had researched there was no other cases of vomiting precious jewels. She was the first one and she didn't know what that meant. Swallowing and pursing her lips before looking back at the Professor Pearl slowly nodded. "I have had some dreams," she said. "But they aren't bad. I think they're happy. Do you think that dreams mean something, Professor?" she asked, trying to stall the likely unavoidable answer to the questions about vomiting. It wasn't wrong to just not answer a question, was it?
She twisted her hands anxiously on the cover of her bible. "Did my parents send you to talk to me?" she asked softly. She knew she wasn't bulimic. Why would anyone want to make themselves vomit. It didn't make any sense.
Anser: "Oh, God no." Anser scoffed his opinion on the significance of dreams with a wave of his hand. "Freudian psychobabble for the most part. However, our dreams - your dreams - are a different story. They're not really dreams, you see. They're more like... memories." his brow furrowed at the difficulty of articulating himself, showing all the helpless anxiety of a parent gearing up for the sex talk.
He was still trying to figure out his next move when she asked about her parents, and he turned to look at her sharply, shaking his head. "What? Oh, no. Nothing like that. In fact, it'd be best to leave your parents out of this entirely. They don't-- Oh, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself with that. Probably sounds awfully creepy." He winced at this, then drew in a deep breath and clasped his hands together, as if to begin again. When he started talking again it was in a more even, but heavily patronizing tone, as though his audience were five rather than fifteen. "Pearl, this is going to sound a little bizarre, but you're not a normal girl. You're a fairy tale. Or, rather, a reincarnation of one. You're the Good Sister from the French fairy tale 'Diamonds and Toads'. Sort of a moral parable of kindness, with an odd distribution of rewards and punishments. I'm one too - a different tale, though. There are many of us, and we've been reincarnating into different bodies throughout history since our tales were created. There's a community, of sorts, into which I've come to welcome you. It's overseen by a body called the Atheneum, run by Librarians, such as myself. So. Uh." His diction fumbles at this point, and he scrambles to finish with an awkward, "Welcome."
Pearl: More than relieved that Anser had neglected to continue on with the questions about vomiting, Pearl could hardly concentrate on what Anser was saying. Anser's patronizing tone had no affect on her; she was accustomed to being spoken to in that manner. She blinked a few times as his words began to sink in. "I'm -- I'm a reincarnation?" she said, touching one of her shoulder blades. "Of a fairy tale?" It made sense but it shouldn't. People weren't reincarnated. Fairy tales weren't real -- And yet, somehow, she knew that it wasn't a joke or a trick. She closed her bible and hugged it against her chest. That explained the stories that she dreamed of. "Are you sure?" she asked cautiously. "Are you sure that you haven't found the wrong girl?"
Biting her lip for a second in concentration before she peered up at Anser she asked, "What fairy tale are you?"
Anser: Anser's relief at having blurted out the main bulk of his mission seemed to make him more comfortable - and in being more comfortable, his features hardened into something more characteristically grumpy. That wasn't too painful. "Oh, positive." He affirmed with a nod, his tone almost wistful, belying some sort of inside joke in the response. The next question seemed to make him uncomfortable all over again, however, and he looked down and shifted from side to side awkwardly. "Oh. Hurm. Well. Me?" He continued to mumble his answer almost unintelligibly, though one could be fairly certain he said either 'Mother Goose' or 'Moth Caboose'.
He continued to shift restlessly, mainly because this was usually where he did some sort of pithy 'good luck, don't die' farewell and left the unlucky Tale largely in the lurch. Unfortunately he couldn't bring himself to do it now, but was caught with a complete lack of small talk in his repertoire. What to do? Ah yes, the compendium!
His thumbs quickly fumbled with the clasps on his leather attache case, which was hurriedly flipped open. He reached in and drew out a small leatherbound book, which he wagged in her direction. "I'm going to give you this, Pearl. It's called a Compendium. It's magic. And I don't mean 'a trip to Disneyland' magic - real magic, so don't lose it. You can use it to communicate with everyone else in our community." To illustrate he flipped it open to a random page, and held it up to show words being scrawled across the page by an invisible hand. Once she had a good enough look he snapped it shut and held it out to her.
Pearl: "Mother Goose?" she said. Pearl wasn't sure if he was joking, and she leaned closer. "Excuse me, Professor, did you say Mother Goose?" The fact that fairytale animals could be reincarnated as people was shocking, as was the fact that a female character could come to life as a male. "My grandmother used to read Mother Goose to me when I was little," she told him, trying to be polite.
She took the Compendium and held it over her bible. She opened it up and saw conversations glistening on the pages. "Ooh," she said, feeling a bit dizzy as she read it. "I see," she said. Pearl swallowed, dipping her head down. "How many of us are there?" she asked him. She wondered if the others had problems like she did with her vomiting.
Anser: Pearl's polite questions were generally met with a mix of grunts and mumbles, none of which were all-too-enlightening. With the journal passed on and his duty technically complete, Anser went about shutting his case and gathering himself up as though to leave. He was all set for a swift retreat, even half off the bench, when he paused briefly, and then sat back down. He turned to look at Pearl intently, one brow raised in what appeared to be a look of suspicion.
"You should know, Miss Fisher, that in addition to remembering your Tale-life, you've also been reincarnated several times over in the past, and you may... Well, there may be memories from those lives as well." Now his eyes narrowed and he took on the general demeanor of a teacher checking one's hands for notes in a test. "Have you... experienced anything like this?"
Pearl: Caught off guard by Anser's quick departure, Pearl stood up. She was about to call out a goodbye to him before he turned. Instinctively she sat back down next to him, paying close attention to every word that he said.
"Several times?" she said, very confused. Pearl suddenly wondered if she had been a boy in her past life. Her brow knit in perplexity, she swallowed and shook her head. "No, I didn't know that that was possible. I don't think I remember anything. I just remember the family and the fairy and," she gave a shy smile. "The prince." Pearl picked up her Compendium and held it closely against her chest, just as she had held her Bible earlier. "Do people sometimes remember those things later?"
Anser: The answer garnered a sigh of obvious relief from Jacob Anser, who proceeded to stand up abruptly again. His briefcase was hefted in one hand and he faced Pearl for a final farewell. "God, lets hope not." He answered cryptically, quickly curtailing any further questions by a vague gesture that seemed to start as an offer for a handshake, but ended in a limp wave. "Goodbye, Miss Fisher. If you have any questions, you can contact me through your compendium. When you feel ready you're also welcome to visit our headquarters, the Pentamerone - there's an address inside the cover of your book. So. Erm. Goodbye."
With another awkward nod of his head, he turned on his heels and proceeded to march off, chastising himself for not having left that to his Assistant. Damn his brief bout of sentimentality...