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There's a man on a couch by the fire, feet up, two books open in his lap. One is an ancient, dusty-looking thing, the other an English-Sanskrit dictionary.

Someone's researching.

[ooc: Recycled post is recycled! Open until his next EP.]

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[ostro_goth]

Teja has never seen anything written in Sanskrit.

He has seen written Latin, Greek, Gothic, and Hebrew in his lifetime (each language using a different alphabet!), and Japanese, in his afterlife; but never these squiggles.

So he looks at the dictionary, in passing, mildly curious.

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The Sanskrit book contains, possibly helpfully, illustrations of a rather impressive looking city, nestled in a valley between several imposing mountains.

The dictionary contains no such pictures, a fact Nikola finds mildly frustrating.

And when he's frustrated, he tends to curse in Serbian, though softly, under his breath.

[ostro_goth]

"Your language sounds like that of the Veneti, that lived east of our realm," Teja says. "So that is how it is written?"

The Veneti had been barbarians, freshly coming in from the east; but with time, they would acquire writing, as all mankind seemed to do.

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Nikola glances up from his books. "Hmm? No, this is Sanskrit, that was Serbian.

"Though I believe the Serbs have some sort of vague connection to the Veneti."

His interest in ancestry doesn't general include his Serbian heritage.

[ostro_goth]

"I have heard neither of Serbs nor -- Sanskrit, was it? -- before," Teja says. "One would assume they were all after my time, and have not introduced themselves to me since I came here."

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"The Serbs likely were," Nikola says, taking in Teja's appearance. "Sanskrit, though, is one of the oldest known languages, so unless you're from very, very long ago, I doubt it's before your time."

[ostro_goth]

"It was not known among the Greeks and Romans, let alone my people," Teja says. "I died in the year 552 of Christian reckoning, and was an Ostrogoth."

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"It was a bit far East for you, then. It was certainly around."

He pauses, frowning. "I'm sorry, did you say you died?"

This would make Teja the first dead patron he's met.

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"Yes," Teja says. "A spear to my lung ended my life, in battle. You must be new here, that you have not spoken to a dead man before."

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"I've been here for...several months, I believe, though it's several years for me, but I've never met someone who was dead before."

[ostro_goth]

"There are several of us," Teja says. "Perhaps they did not say, when the met you. Some might not wish to spook strangers, or remind themselves of their own death."

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"That's certainly possible. I think many people here would be wary of revealing their true natures to strangers."

Nikola certainly is.

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"There are not only dead men," Teja says, "there are shape-shifters, blood-drinkers, and sorcerers."

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"Those, I've met. Mostly. I don't think I've met a sorcerer."

He wouldn't classify Yrael as a sorcerer. Not really.

[ostro_goth]

"Oh, there are many of those as well," Teja says. "And sorceresses, also."

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"Well, I should hope so," Nikola says, amused. "I'd think by the end of the universe, people would stop discriminating by gender."