A Linguist's Studies (Request to join; T for caution... oh and Teen)

School libraries held a merit all to their own. Even one such as the Academy could not be truly sneezed at. These, however, lacked not only the space and solitude of more public libraries and the individual flair afforded to a personal one. As such, it seemed far more common than not for the teacher's aid to be buried in various places outside of publicly accessible catacombs, instead seeking out auctions, flee markets, second-hand and first-hand stores alike to build up a private collection. Of course, when your family affords you the luxury of, simply put, affording basically everything "so long as you keep your nose out of trouble," and it aids in studies, things become far less complicated and merely a matter of tracking things down, exploring, and just generally hunting for knowledge not yet acquired.

This was, by and by, the reason why Evelyn was now in her third store of the day, as well as the fifth location she had tracked down in and around Death Vegas. The back seat of her car was covered in books of every variety, a fact that had led her to stuffing her convertible's air freshener into her glove box in favor of the old book smell, a scent that she was thoroughly convinced would end up getting her high one of these days. Even still, she found herself sitting cross-legged in an old-home-turned-thrift-bookstore, surrounded by texts on every subject from Greek mythology to mandarin Chinese to origami. Honestly, it was almost sad how easy it was to lure her in --- and these were the texts that she considered informative, rather than mere pleasure reading.

Knowledge is power. Harrison had heard the phrase more times than one would care to count and he had taken the words to heart. To that end, he had spent much of his adult life amassing and scouring books of every shape, size, and subject. When he had heard that the second-hand shop near his apartment was hiring, he had filed for an application within the hour. He had spent the entire first week merely walking the aisles, pulling and reading every dusty novel and dated encyclopaedia that caught his eye.

Bookstores were, by and by, pockets of solitude in an otherwise bustling world. Harrison didn't mind. It was a blessing in itself that silence could be found as readily as the books themselves in the winding rows of shelves. The silence suffocated the tangle of thoughts that often shrouded his mind, providing a momentary eye to the storm that cognition caused.

Still, he couldn't help but notice that the silence had been broken more and more by the appearance of a young woman frequenting the store. Small of stature and smaller of talk, she had come in relative silence, barricading herself into a small pile of books each visit.

"The Art of War," he said aloud, noting the book in her hands. "Eastern philosophy is a fascinating subject."

She lifted her head, reading spot impossibly memorized, bright blue meeting his gaze. Initially, there was a hint of confusion to her watery depths, soon replaced by a smooth relaxation and acceptance. After numerous trips to the store, she'd come to recognize anyone that either worked or frequented its walls; this man was no exception. Smiling brightly at him, she nodded, though made no move to change her positioning on the floor. Her black hair fell back in loose, wavy locks, neck only pseudo-revealed beneath a collar-esque style choker. A long sleeved, maroon button-up held fast to her figure, collar naturally, slightly, upturned in its v-shaped neckline, a hint of a lacy, black undershirt peeking out where her cleavage would show. Wrapped securely around her form was a casual, black corset, rimmed in a deeper red, fitted perfectly to her. Black skinny jeans, a chained wallet, a studded belt, and short black combat boots adorned her from the hips down. Her hands, meanwhlie, previously had sheer, fishnet patterned gloves on, now draped over her leg, as she favored the feel of the books quite heavily. "Philosophy itself is a fascination. That it differs from our societal norm increases its intrigue." Her voice seemed to lack a lot of the usual feeling one would expect, from a woman or otherwise, but the intellect she possessed was heavily laced into her tone, a pride there that was fully justified and far from over confident.

ooc:


I just swapped and deepened the colors, pretty much.

Harrison shrugged, fingers tapping in a faint rhythm against the book beneath them. "Philosophy is, at its core, a composition of ideas and beliefs borne of one's experiences and knowledge. Knowledge tends to precede us, but the amount of knowledge attained varies as extraordinarily as experiences. Where they vary, philosophical outlooks separate. You could say that knowledge is the seed that creates the tree and experience creates the branches."

"Oh?" She asked, her curiosity quite obviously piqued as she looked up at him, holding her place with a finger for a moment before closing the book entirely. "And what, then, would you say of wisdom?" Her vivid eyes seemed to search him, seeking out an answer to a question left unasked, intrigue building as his words fell forth.

Harrison eased back onto his stool, letting a hand trace along his jawline as he pieced together a response, though the faint scritch of fingertips brushing over day-old stubble irritated him.

"Wisdom is a very enigmatic beast," he admitted, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the checkout counter. "Educated men and women often mistake knowledge for wisdom. In truth, wisdom stems from an acceptance of the notion that we know nothing and a willingness to listen more than we speak."

"A fine standpoint," she stated, setting the book down entirely and gazing up at him with intrigue and a restrained fascination. "How, then, does one reach such a revelation?"

"You don't," Harrison said simply, a chuckle escaping him. "Wisdom is something you attribute to others and not to yourself. Should someone insist that they have wisdom, they more than likely simply have an ego laced with false humility."

"The folly of mankind," she stated, watching, "the hubris of humanity, where all are better than all else and yet grossly, ironically, both the same and far behind."

"Indeed," he murmured, his brows furrowed as he sorted through the tangle of thoughts, pulling and piecing fragments together into coherent phrases. He rolled the sleeves of his plaid button-up to his elbows. "Wisdom is always in pursuit of the top of the mountain. Arrogance is thinking you are already there."

"And naivety is the ignorance of the mountain's existence in the first place." Her smile was like a tiny spark in comparison to everything else, gentle and serene, almost out of place on the otherwise almost emotionless face.

Harrison clicked his tongue, impressed. "Meeting a woman with something to say on philosophy is rare. Meeting anyone with something to say on philosophy is rare." He stepped out from behind the counter, palms pressing into his slacks as he worked blood back into his legs. "I'm Harrison," he offered with a nod, extending a hand calloused by years of books traded over them towards her.

Evelyn rose at this, a clear testament to the "legs for days" phrasing, though nowhere near to the extreme as her cousin. The near lankiness of her build was interrupted only by the fine, smooth curves of her figure, accentuated by the corset outside of her top. Her hand extended to meet his, smooth, well-nurtured and yet her grip was firm. "Evelyn," she responded, nodding as they released each other's palms, "Feel free to call me 'Eve,' Harrison. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is equally met," Harrison intoned warmly, dipping into a respectful half-bow. "It's unfortunately uncommon to meet someone who will immerse themselves so wholly in such a wide array of topics." He gestured appreciatively at the pile in which she had secluded herself. "Tell me, what is your current intrigue as far as books go?"

A slight, telling grin formed at her lips, and she offered a light, partial shrug. "What isn't?" Bending and kneeling down slightly, she lifted one of the tomes, holding it out to him. "I'm a linguistics undergrad student and a teacher's aid." A light laugh followed, "My pleasure readings delves primarily into mythology, especially wherein I may translate it for myself."

"Mythology," Harrison echoed, an eyebrow raising inquisitively. "Do you favor one particular branch of mythology over the others?"

"The current fascination and focus is Greek," she stated, simply and honestly, thumbing through the book she'd shown him. "I've also studied Egyptian, Celtic, and Norse. Germanic will be following the Greek, and I go back and forth on people's theories in regards to things such as Easter Island, Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, various pyramids, and Atlantis." Her eyes had come to focus on the pages before her, miraculously keeping up with the speed of her fingers. "Atlantis is a most interesting concept."

"Given our talk of hubris, it's a relevant concept," he admitted, thumbing through the stack of books she had amassed to one side. "I find amusement and intrigue in the idea of a pantheon that actively meddled in mortal affairs. It is a powerful dynamic, the notion that a simple act of valor or hubris could garner the attention of a god or goddess...and not always for the better. Rarely so, actually."

"Especially where lust was concerned," the meister pointed out, gesturing to a family tree she found at the back of the tome. The particular one that she was pointing out focused exclusively on Zeus himself, and was a tangled mess of confusion.

"The progenitor of promiscuity," Harrison said with a laugh, finger tracing over the god's...unsavory genealogy. He reached for a nearby pile of books, extricating a weathered tome from the stack. "Though I recall a certain Norse god who had a rather unfortunate affair with a horse. I wouldn't peg it as the weirdest thing a god has done, but oddities certainly span cultures."

A laugh followed, and Eve shrugged in response, "He also bore both a wolf and a serpent, additionally." Her eyes had just the slightest additional hint of a spark as she set the Greek book aside, retrieving a Norse one instead, "And is the father of the Norse deity known as Hel, reigning over the realm by the same name..."

"So I have read," he said simply, smiling faintly as his eyes glanced over the faded cover of the Norse mythology book. "My brother has told me to go to hell enough times that I felt it necessary to give him a history lesson on the origins of the phrase. I've seen cats more receptive to baths than he was to my lecturing."

Amusement danced lightly in her eyes as they met his, a faint smirk playing at her lips, "My cousin seems well enough capable of bathing her Thomas. Perhaps not all hope is lost for him, yet."

He grinned bashfully, defeated. "I'll be damned. That eliminates the limited excuses I have for my brother's behavior." He stepped back behind the front counter, pulling a pair of thin Mark Jacoby glasses from his pocket and sliding them up the bridge of his nose. "What is your current weapon?" He asked simply, moving back to settle into a spot beside her and pulling a book from the pile into his lap.

"Currently?" She asked, a bit of a chuckle escaping her, "I don't have one, technically. I'm mentoring a time weapon, but..." A sort of defeat seemed to be encompassing her, and her hands roamed into the books to distract her from the emotions she knew not how to handle, "My last partner... my boyfriend left me back in February."