tampered | Log/Completed/Backdated

Log/Completed/Backdated

When; Saturday afternoon/evening
Rating; PG
Characters; Radu

lyra_of_dust
Summary; Lyra introduces Radu to the city library.
Log; Lyra was a little distracted, admittedly. Fuuma's attack on Kamui had shaken her... She was glad she was staying with Yuuko now... But she wasn't so scared she was going to hide in the temple all day.

And Radu seemed nice enough, even if some of the things he said... Well, 'stupid' would have been a charitable term in her opinion. Still, that could be corrected. (But if he started getting offended, Pantalaimon reminded her, she should just leave him alone.)

Still, it was something to keep her mind off of some things.

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So far, the time in the city hadn't exactly been pleasant, which was rather not a surprising development when the first person he had met had been Dietrich of all people. Lyra's invitation to the library seemed a welcome distraction in this mess.

He had just lighted a cigarette - his third, to be honest - and watched the sun setting in the distance, when he arrived at the appointed meeting place; the hotspring. Though he hadn't seen Lyra yet, she was doubtlessly around, since he was rather late for the meeting. He took a deep drag from his cigarette, amazed for a moment by the sight of the sun deep over the sky, which he hadn't seen in an all too long time, before he turned to look for her.

((OOC: Sorry for slowness, I'm having some trouble with my connection. D:))

"Ah there you are!" Lyra stepped out from a door. She was smiling brightly, though if Radu was observant, he would have noticed that Pantalaimon was glancing around nervously at her heels, before fixing him with a scrutinizing look.

She looked up at him, "Do you want to walk, or take the railway?"

[ooc; Bed for me, sorry.]

He didn't notice Pantalaimon's nerviousity, and even if he had paid attention to him, he would probably have noticed nothing unusual in his behaviour. He returned Lyra's smile, sincerely sympathic for the spirited, headstrong girl. Another drag from his cigarette, which he was glad to finally have a small supply of, before he answered, "Walking is no problem. We could even be faster than with the railway. Depends on what you prefer."

Half the truth was, of course, that he would have hated to just throw away his newly lit cigarette, but he was also eager, after all Lyra had already shown him in the city, to show her the speed with which Methuselah could travel if they wanted, as childish as it was.

((OOC: Kk, and sorry for me taking so long before, now it works better. We'll continue later. ;)))

"Faster than the railway?" Lyra looked up at him curiously as she scooped Pantalaimon into her arms. She let a thoughtful expression drift across her face for a moment as Pantalaimon kept his eyes on Radu.

"Why not?" she grinned broadly. It couldn't be that bad- and travelling at high speeds was always fun.

"Much faster", he exaggerated. "It's one of the advantages that come with the mutation in our blood."

He lifted the girl from the ground and started towards the library, following the directions Lyra had given him. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to rely on the Bacillus so much, but with a blood supply from the hospital, there was at least some - even if disgusting - support for him.

He stopped in front of the library, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a new cigarette, lighting it on a flame from his palm. "It's a nanomachine in our bloodstream. The same thing that causes us to need the blood supply and being sensitive to UV-light. Despite the draw-backs, it comes in handy at times."

"Nanomachine? Huh. I'll have to look it up," Lyra said in a puzzled voice as she set Pantalaimon down. Still, that was something she could always look up.

"Come on, You've got to see it, it's huge!" Lyra told him as she dragged him through the door, before turning to him once they'd gotten past the front desk.

"Now, if you try looking for something, you won't find it. Like if you try looking for books about floods, all you'll find will be books about droughts. Try it!" she suggested.

Radu frowned, admiring for a moment the multitude of books the library provided, then advanced one of the shelves and looked through it for a moment.

"I'm looking for something about souls," he explained, pondering. "I'm not sure what to look for to find anything like that. Any suggestions?"

Lyra blinked, and shut her eyes briefly.

"Well, try looking for anything but that. You don't always have to look for the opposite. Sometimes just not looking will make it show up," She explained further, "There's kind of a trick to it. Like this."

She shut her eyes, and focused very hard on not finding a book that had anything to do with souls, of any sort, and snatched a book off the shelf at random.

"The Soul, and its nature: A complete exploration, volume one," she read aloud from the spine. Very complete, in fact. The book was surprisingly heavy.

"Like that!" Lyra informed him as she handed the book to him, "Now you try!"

"Amazing," Radu commented honestly when Lyra pulled the book out with such ease. He took it, through a short glance through the pages, and turned to the shelves again. "Give me another try. Now... What about something about my country?"

He furrowed his brows, contemplating how to go from here, then closed his eyes and grabbed a book from the shelves blindly. It didn't turn out to be what he had been aiming at, but another try later, he indeed presented a book that seemed to match his expectations. He threw a glance at the front page, then handed it to Lyra. "If you're ever interested in our state. An overview over Ţara Methuseluth's social system."

Lyra took the book, and leafed through the pages with interest.

"Huh. I'll have to read this some time. You want to keep looking for stuff, or do you want to head to the hospital now?" Lyra wasn't really thinking about anything when she pulled the next book off the shelf.

"The Bronze Clocks of Benin..." her eyes widened for an instant when she saw the author. Well, that was one book she'd have to read.

"We can go to the hospital, I'd rather have a supply of blood before I run out of haemoglobin."

Radu tilted his head when he saw Lyra's reaction, to look over her shoulder and read the title. "What is that about? Something in your world?"

"Yeah... It's a funny, but I've actually met the person who wrote this," Lyra shrugged, then stopped at the counter to check her books out.

"What's funnier is that I don't think any of the real vampires in the city mind the taste of blood at all," She added with a smile as she headed out the door.

"Of course they don't mind it," Radu answered with another frown, following Lyra. "They are monsters, after all. But I doubt you'd like drinking raw blood."

Outside, he lit another cigarette, careful not to burn his newly acquired book accidently. "Does the hospital take money in exchange for blood?"

"Nah. Raw meat en't that bad though," Lyra shrugged, "I never asked. Knowing how shops here work, they'd probably take pocket lint to though."

The hospital was just a few blocks away, so it didn't take that long to get there, Pantalaimon at her heels the whole time.

Radu chose, after a moment of reminiscing, that this was not the time and place for sharing details about his own attempts with raw blood. Maybe another time, but right now he did not want to give an even worse image of himself. He followed Lyra's lead to the hospital, and entered after crushing the remains of his cigarette under his heel.

Maybe he should have been surprised to find mainly machinery busy in the complex; but it was hardly the weirdest thing he had encountered in the city so far. Surprisingly, his request for blood was granted rather quickly, and even more surprising - his offer to donate some of his own blood instead was granted as well. A litre in exchange for a litre later, he was supplied with some emergency provisions at least, and this circumstance alone had a calming effect already. He wondered whether the real doctors - who he was sure should show up in the place sooner or later - would be worried about the amount of narcotics and the weird nanomachines in his blood, when he left the building again.

"See, that wasn't so hard!" Lyra told him as they left, slipping her own books into her satchel as she knelt down.

She scooped Pantalaimon up and the two looked up at him with anticipation.

"Are you going to take us home the same way again?"

The request was indeed more heart-moving for Radu than Lyra could have realised. There was something very warm and calming about the girl's anticipation and appreciation. He picked her up again, careful with the added load of the books now.

"Sure," he promised. "We can do this as often as you want. It's a pity I can't risk making you one of us. The Bacillus mostly kills humans who are infected, at least in our world. The successful change-rate is... low."

He didn't bother expanding the topic, and instead started back to the hotspring, careful not to drop Lyra or Pantalaimon, or to run into any pedestrians or moving objects, which was thankfully easy with a Methuselah's hightened reflexes. When they arrived, he put her down, sorting her books and his again. "Thanks for showing me around. I hope we can go to the city another time again."

"Yeah, some other time. And even if you could... change me," Lyra said, "I couldn't live in your world. When people try to live in any world besides their own, their dæmons... can't survive. So they die... I mean, it's not right away, it takes about ten years, and I don't think it applies here.. because this place is different. But we don't need to worry about that." She shrugged, "Sorry. You probably didn't want to hear all that."

Lyra sighed as she set Pantalaimon down, and the two regarded Radu solemnly, "Good night."

Radu's smile darkened just a little, but he nodded nonetheless. "Of course. No, my world is not a place to live anyway. After all, there's only one place to call home anyway."

Then for a second, another thought hit him. "Lyra?" he asked, hands fumbling for another cigarette without him really noticing. "Just one more question. You know I died in my world. Does that mean my soul... my dæmon is already dead? Or do I have another one here?"

Lyra pursed her lips thoughtfully, reaching down unconsciously to pull Pantalaimon to her chest.

"I don't know. I think... she's still here. The dead people here en't like ghosts. And you're sort of... half alive anyway. I won't know for sure unless some dead person from my world shows up," she shrugged, "Or I die here and the city brings me back."

"I'm sorry," Lyra finished, "I mean, I know it's something I ought to know, but I don't." She was starting to regret offering the alethiometer as a gold ribbon sacrifice.

Radu lit his cigarette again, waving his hand lightly. "Don't worry, it wasn't all that important. I just wondered... If that rule was still valid for me, if I ever find a way out. There's people in my world whom I don't want to see anymore. Thanks for your help, though."

He took another drag from his cigarette and turned to leave. "Good night, Lyra."

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