(Untitled)

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"Bar," says Ray as he walks in, "I really hate doing this, but the library at the Firehouse is more than a little bit specialized and I'm currently persona non grata at the New York Public Library's main branch. By any chance could you recommend a book on negotiation for me, and possibly a really good biography of Andrew Jackson? Specifically the

Comments

[riversinger]

"How does one become persona non grata at a library, anyway?" River grins and waves at Ray from the far side of the bar.

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Ray shrugs. "I hope not. Stuff like this tends to attract the attention of the State Department, and I have enough issues with the documents I have to draw up as Ambassador-at-Large for Issues of Non-Human Sapience. Although a Third Rail would be nice about now."

[riversinger]

"Point them at the Treasury this time," she teases. "I'll have a cider, please." The bar obliges and River slides Ray's drink across to him before taking a sip from her own.

One of the wait rats skitters passed with a terrified squeak. "Oh shut it, mouseboy. It isn't like I never tipped well. I swear I'm going to recruit some nice Ood in here for some proper help. Liberated Ood, of course. Gentle creatures. With proper manners," she growls as another waitrat gives her a wide berth.

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"Not a species I recognize," Ray says as he picks up the beer. "Ood?"

[riversinger]

"A telepathic race, enslaved by humanity sometime in your distant future. They have a centralised cortex that connects all the Ood in a hive mind. Each individual has a forebrain," she taps her temple, "and an external hindbrain they carry in their hand. They are a bit tentacly about the face which might put some folks off but really, they're wonderful beings. And remarkably, they learned to get along with humanity. Eventually."

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Ray considers this for a bit, then shrugs. "Depends on the tentacle arrangement- and how many eyes they've got. I occasionally get a little twitchy about things with tentacles and too many eyes thanks to encounters with the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu in the animated continuum."

[riversinger]

River scents his reaction to the memory and quickly amends her description.

"Oh, they only have the two. Tentacles hanging down where their mouth would be, to about mid chest. But just two eyes. Yes, I have met a few of the multi-ocular races and it can be quite disconcerting trying to determine which set of eyes are the right ones. So much of our primate brains are dedicated to recognising faces, when the faces don't look like faces, it can be more than a little disconcerting."

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"I'm better at dealing with the faces of nonhumans than I am at dealing with my own species," Ray confesses. "It's just that, well, the nonhuman sapients of Mythos Earth who have tentacles or more than two eyes are pretty much universally bad news. I'll get over it eventually."

[riversinger]

River wrinkles her nose in sympathy. "Some sentients are crankier than others, it's true. I've often argued that one doesn't make it to the top of the food chain by being kind and gentle. Kind and gentle usually gets eaten by other, more determined species on their way up the ladder."

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"In the case of Mythos Earth, the client-sponsor linkages between quite a lot of the nonhuman races and extradimensional entities of power sufficient to snuff a human mind out like a candle tend to be more to blame," Ray says. "The Great Old Ones and Elder Gods are primarily beings from areas of that particular universe where the laws of physics as we know them aren't even so much suggestions as amusing little fairy tales by which they like to pass the time, and more than a few of them can cause massive insanity simply by impinging upon human perception to any great degree. Races like the Mi-Go or the Star Spawn of Cthulhu have enough of a group psychic linkage to their sponsors- patron deities, whatever you want to call them- that very often their attitudes towards humans, and interactions with them, are almost entirely conducted from the point of view of 'wow, look at the monkeys screaming'. That or 'I want to eat your face'."

[riversinger]

River gives a nervous little laugh. "I have to say... That sounds remarkably like the works of an author I skimmed passed when I was in the Library... Oh what was his name? Lovegood or something, I can't remember. I couldn't stomach much time in his books. They were all so dark you could barely make out your hand in front of your face, and they reeked of fish. Every person I met smelled like a fishmonger's refuse pile. It was horrid. Spent a few minutes before I decided I'd rather be chased dinosaurs on the Venezuelan plateau than interact with those poor souls."

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"Lovecraft," says Ray. "Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Mythos Earth is the dimensional variant of Earth that most closely resembles his works. All indicators are that he had some kind of inspiration from or mental link with that reality, but he himself doesn't exist in that particular reality- I checked."

[riversinger]

"How absolutely fascinating. I remember reading something about him being quite mad, and that would certainly explain it. That poor man."

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Ray nods. "In the better universes he wasn't entirely mad, but he did have some massive psychological issues and unpleasant personality flaws. Not that any of us is without our own boogaboogas, of course. I'm just noting."

[riversinger]

River cuts a glance at Ray, smirking. It was the coolly scientific manner in which he said 'boogaboogas' that did it.

"We're all a bit mad, in our own way, aren't we?"

A cheeky wink punctuates that sentiment.

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"A bit?"