Roman Bookstore (Wistful Dream)

[NightBird]

The night had closed over the city slowly, softly like a blanket being drawn lovelingly over a child, sheltering the glittering lights of the anicent buildings in the softest hues of blue and purple as sunset turned softly to dusk, a females eyes focused about the glory of the pastel bleeding of the two darker hues of the rainbow, drawing a distinct, personalized enjoyment from the sight. She loved dusk above all other times of day, the world seemed hushed almost, a whisper just waiting to be murmured into an ear and the way the colors blended and bled together in the sky above with the faintest touch of the sun captured her eye every night without fail. It was well that she had no such affinity nor love for the sunrise, for she was certainly not a morning person. Tonight however her simple enjoyment of the sky that stretched endlessly above her beloved city was jarred by the noise of sirens and her expression went from one contemplating bliss to disgruntlement, the pulsing noise dragging her thoughts away from the lofty thoughts the dusk usually enticed her to and replacing them with the unpleasantness of the current reality.

Her eyes turned from the large bay window, away from the vista that spread above the stone rooftops and the crowded, colorful streets of her beloved city. Instead they regarded the emptiness of the book store, the silent tomb she now found herself enshroud in, a tomb, partly of her own making. Papa had loved his books, oh that was true enough and she had shared his passion, there was little in life she enjoyed more then reading texts long forgotten and thought lost, more then discerning information and relying on her education to give her the translations to bits and pieces of documents that all scholars examined at their lezsiure. But the thrill that came from her fingers touching lightly upon parchment so aged by time it was nearly as soft as satin was a very different sort of joy then tending a bookstore, especially if one was doing the tending all by oneself. As she currently was. But Mama, bless her soul, wanted nothing to do with Papa's books, with what she regarded as having stolen half of her husbands attention, and Paulo, he had only wanted to go through, make an inventory and then sell off the precious and commerical books. The day after the funeral too. Rivan sighed softly to herself as she slipped off the chair that held her weight whilst her eyes had devoured their daily dose of twilight's dusk. Perhaps she was being stubborn, she still had her own life to start, only graduating from the university last spring hadn't afforded her much time to do anything, but when Papa had passed and no one else wanted the bookstore she had not possessed it in her to not attempt to save it.

She slipped out from behind the desk and wandered down the darkened isles, letting her fancy take her and whismy transmuted the rows of towering bookshelves into columns of a long forgotten palace, history coming to surrounded her as she indulged herself in the moment of folly. She was more at home among books then anywhere else, anywhere other then her Papa's company, they had been two of a kind, she and the old man, for all that his hair had been snowy white by her birth while her's was the deep deep red that appeared black except for when the sunlight caught the strands and flared with the hidden heat and flame. And he had been so tall, a tower of a man even to the last while she, his daughter reached only 5"5 in height, constantly annoyed by her older brother's teasing about her lack of height. At least she had shown Paulo that being short did not mean she was any less able to keep up or defend herself against him back in their childhood. A mirror caught her reflextion and then her eyes, hidden away through the books, Papa had placed there, whispering to her seven year old self that it was the Looking Glass from Lewis Carroll's tales. Her younger self had been enraptured with the fancy and spent hours upon hours regarding, ignoring her older brother's quips about her becoming vain. She was near staring at herself, only at the mirror and the magic it was suppose to represent. She halted there, regarding herself now, noting the softly rounded bones of her face, the fair golden skin, and the overly large eyes that were her mother's, the coloring though was just like Papa's, a rich chocolate peru that sometimes appeared to be a melting heat. Heat that flared and burned when a new maniscript came into play. "Oh..Papa..." she murmured the words softly, touching the locket that hung from around her slender neck, her eyes fluttering shut as she sent a brief prayer up to him. She missed him dreadfully.

Her fingers reached out to trail along the spines as she started walking again, her nose inhaling the scent of old books, leather bindings, tea leaves and cinnamon, the store itself was a scent she always found soothing, that relaxed her and brought the slightest hint of a smile to her cupids bow lips. She turned herself around, heading back toward the desk, only to trip over a book left on the floor, her plushly rounded figure landing with a soft thud against the floor. Her lips parted in a husky chuckle, she shook her head, her midnight flame tresses moving with her action, the heavy curls whispering against her skin as she got to her knees and reached to pick up the book. It was a commerical best seller, the ones she got just to keep the tourists buying things within. Only collectors would be interested in the half of the store that held such a fascination for her. She carried the hardback novel in her hands and reshelved it, dusting off her hands, her fingers then going to tuck an errant curl back behind her ears. She couldn't give up the store, couldn't let it just be sold away piece by piece, this was her father, this was her wonderland. But she would be glad when the new manager came in and worked the shifts so she could go back to her studies.

Back back, how she wished the mirror did lead away to another place, another time. Back to when her Papa was alive and all she had to contend with was the complexities of the next text she tackled for translation, with her father's beaming pride when the university graduated her top of her class and kept her own to help with the translation of their own anicent pieces. She had been his mia cara, his petite fairy, but without him there was no more magic in her life. Iva pushed hte thoughts away, disappointed with herself and the thinking of them, and she returned to her seat at the counter, her fingers plucking up the book she had been reading before her dusk had been stolen by the blarring sounds of the sirens slicing through the night.

[NightBird]

Vanni slipped away from the museum only after the authorities had arrived. Until then, he'd hung about, craning his neck to get a look at the commotion the same way all the rest of the group of foreign students around him were doing. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder just like they did, and he wasn't far past the age of a college student. The denim jacket, bright-colored t-shirt and slightly ratty blue jeans also blended in well. A quick change in the men's rest room had seen to that.

As soon as a group of grim-faced men strode out the front door of the museum, however, and started looking around the crowd, he ghosted away, hanging on the fringes of the student group for a block or so, then setting off down an alley. He knew where he was headed next, and it wasn't far. The sooner he had the scorchingly hot manuscript somewhere safe for a few days, until the drop to the buyer, the happier he would be, and this place was perfect to hide something like this.

A few minutes later, he was at the door to a sleepy little bookstore, the sort that looked as if nearly nobody ever came in to look around. A frown tightened his forehead as he assessed the deepening shadows. It was a little later than he'd expected it to be. Perhaps he'd stayed with the students a little too long. There'd be no harm, though, as long as the old man hadn't gone home to his supper. Still, Vanni was more relieved than he wanted to admit when the front door opened as he tested it. He slipped in and started to meander along the aisles, seemingly aimlessly, but looking for an area that didn't appear to see much traffic, and then some oversized books. Atlases, he pondered. If I were an atlas, where would I be? After a turn or two around the ends of aisles, he found them, a few recent, but many dating back a few decades. Perfect.

"Found you at last," he murmured, his hand caressing the spine of an enormously oversized atlas of World War II.

[Wistful Dream]

Rivan reflected that she had always meant to attempt to bring up the topic of the bad placement of the desk in the store with her father, yet another thing she had never been able to do. Too many of those. But when the bell rang out with the dulcet sweet tones that informed her in the jingle the door had opened, and that, hopefully, a costumer had entered she couldn't help but think of that. There was an upside to having the desk here though, in the little alcove that it was hidden away in, for the window alone she would have placed her desk here to spend the hours with no one present inside the store or its shelfs simply staring and admiring the vista of the city. Yet still, not being able to greet those who entered might cause a bit of a problem eventually. She sighed, replacing the tome of Keat's poetry on the gleaming oak of the desk that was scattered with pens and bits of paper, very much the desk of some sort of scholar just by the disray it found itself holding.

It took little time for her to traverse the distance between her desk and the front of the store, her steps making short work as she made her way through the mini maze. Yet even with that by the time she reached the front there was no one there, no customer waiting imperiously for her to wait upon them, no scholar with a particular treasure being sought, no tourist wanting to buy something just for the sake of buying something here. Odd. She pursed her lips slightly and turned to the rows of shelves behind her, wandering first through English Literature, then into World Mythology. Nothing, and nothing in Prose and Poetry, or in Artist and Prints of their Works, all labeled neatly by the placards her father had so lovingly purchased. He had spoiled his store like a child, able to afford it by his work in translations, in his knack of finding treasures in auction buys and then finding collectors to pay a fortune for them. A knack and skill his daughter now possessed as well.

She rounded a corner, going into Historical section and was startled to see a male figure further along in the section that was a gray area, both History and Reference books at once. "Found you at last," she heard his words, startled at the sudden awarenss of how silent it had been inside the store, the sort of hushed atmosphere that happened in places like this book store and libraries. Her eyes went from him to the way his hand caressed the book his eyes were so riveted on. Her steps carried her closer, Iva's chocloate eyes deepening as a slight frown marred her brown. He seemed to know his way around here better then most, particularly to this, a less popular area of the store. Her russet cotton dress whispered with her movement, the color nearly blending her in with the books and shelves in the twilight gloom that now incased the store, perhaps she should turn on the lights soon she mused even as her lips parted to speak,

"Hello sir. May I help you with something?" She queried politely.