Alleviating Boredom (Open)

[blackjack6124]

An empty day ahead of him, a restless Malachi was wandering the streets, looking for something to do, an empty leather sack over his shoulder. Ennui be damned, Malachi thought, There must be something to occupy my time. That is how you pronounce that, right? En-oo-ee*? Wait, focus. Pronunciation is not important right now. I'll figure it out later. Free day, something interesting. Is there a book store nearby? Should I ask someone? I don't want to look all day. But would it be weird? How do you spell...no, I just discussed that. No wait, that was pronunciation. Thuoth help me, I'm doing it again. Malachi's thoughts raced further in similar pattern, until he developed a headache, which was soon compounded with further thoughts on the headache itself. Malachi pulled against a nearby wall as he grabbed his forehead with his left hand while pressing his right thumb against his right ring finger, attempting to assuage the confused thoughts.

((*Ahn-wee.))

[Darastrix]

"Young man!" A woman with grey hair pulled back into a bun walked quickly toward him, a frown of concern on her face. "Young man, are you all right?"

[blackjack6124]

Malachi raised his hand slightly and glanced up at the woman, a look of mild stress on his face. "Nothing too important, just a headache." Malachi took a second's consideration, then added, "Oh, if I may, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find a book store or a library in town, would you? I haven't had the chance to explore."

[Darastrix]

"I do," the woman, Ivy, answered. "But I can't say that reading sounds like a pleasant thing when you've got a headache." She raised her brows at him and lowered her head to peer at him over the tops of her glasses.

"Let me get you something for that, and then I'll show you to the bookshop."

[blackjack6124]

"It's no trouble, they go away quick enough." Malachi laughed, adding, "I just need to stop thinking so much. It's a bad habit."

[Darastrix]

Ivy gave him an odd look at that. "Your choice," she said. "But if you end up needing something because you let it get worse, I'm going to make sure it's perfectly vile-tasting." And that wasn't even the worst she could do; she could always send him to Callum.

But she'd offered her help and made her threat; all there was to do now was show him to the bookshop if he was determined to ignore his head.

[blackjack6124]

"You have my word that if this headache leaves the realm of tolerability, I'll take the foulest plant you can offer for it and choke it down without complaint." Malachi hiked his sack a little higher, then added. "For now, however, I'm more concerned with a bookshop which you claim awareness of? If it's no trouble, of course."

[Darastrix]

"No, it's no trouble. I was just out for a walk, myself," Ivy said. "This way." She headed off with a quick step that belied her apparent age. "What are you after at the bookshop, anyway? Books, obviously, but what sorts?"

[blackjack6124]

Malachi shrugged as he kept pace. "Reference materials, epic fiction, historical documents, religious texts, things like that. Some of my collections have been begging for addition, and I can't not oblige. A job application would also be nice. And it may help my headache to find a dictionary, oddly enough. I wouldn't think too hard on how that'd make sense."

[Darastrix]

"Scholar of Soahc?" Ivy guessed. Solutions that made no sense were by and large the forte of the Lord of Madness' children. "I'm partial to Worg and Efil, myself. Lived a long while in Autus, in fact. My daughter lives there still."


[spoiler=_{((OOC Note))}]Just a reminder, it's a pseudo-medieval setting, so job applications aren't really a thing.[/spoiler]

[blackjack6124]

"Not Soahc. I have the utmost respect for all Forces, but Thuoth holds my heart. The solution has a logic behind it which rationalizes its paradoxical nature. I've always assumed she'd appreciate the logic behind it."

((That logic being: The headache was caused by too much thought on too many topics at once and too fast. By removing some of the things bothering him, such as how "Ennui" is pronounced, his headache will go away. Same principle behind deleting useless files so your computer will run faster. It's already working, since he's already having some of his thoughts answered.))

[Darastrix]

"I'll take your word for it," Ivy replied. "I've never really given him much thought, but then, I'm not a scholar or a philosopher. Ah, here we are."

She stopped before a small building where a painted sign depicting a book and quill swung above the door. "I'm not sure how good their selection is," she remarked. "After the gorge rats drove so many folks out of Haven, shops like this--shops that sold things that folks didn't need--were pretty much abandoned along with their stock for a while, and they've been a bit slower to get back on their feet."

[blackjack6124]

Malachi flinched, like a man punched. The passion in Malachi's voice indicated the sincerity of his reply.
"What? People not needing books? That's like saying that plants don't need love! How better to exchange information from culture to culture and century to century than by why of written word? Why anyone would abandon the very foundation of civilization for rats? There is no monster so great as to validate the abandonment of literature, ignoring those monsters contained within the pages, or the monsters responsible for the literature, if such be the case."

[Darastrix]

Ivy gave Malachi an odd look. "Plants don't need love. Autus--and most of Naruta--is a testament to that. They grow wild all over without being needing to be pampered and petted. At any rate, I'm not saying books aren't needed in general, but in times when people are afraid to set foot outside, they're a luxury that you shouldn't risk your neck to get."

"I'm guessing you're not from Haven. These were rats that ate people," she explained. "They started picking folks off at night and it got to the point where they actually working together to hunt. You'd see one eating a dog out on the street and go to the other side to avoid it, and there'd be more waiting to attack you. I was almost taken by them myself that way. They invaded entire buildings. By the time Lord Cross took over the guard and declared martial law and setting up places for food and supplies, people were starving themselves because they were too scared to go out to buy food. Nobody was going to risk their lives to buy anything that they could survive without, and even if anyone was daft enough, those merchants had either set up in the little market outside of Haven's walls where it was safer, or they'd left the country entirely. What they were selling didn't matter. It wasn't worth anyone's life to stick it out with a shop and hope that you wouldn't be bitten before you made it ten feet from your home."

[blackjack6124]

"I know. I only said they need love. Notice that I failed to specify whose love. And don't think I don't remember the rats," Malachi said with a shudder. "I'm still trying to forget them."