Coffee please

Tori looked at the hand on her shoulder, her mouth opening just slightly in a small “o” of wordless surprise. She wasn’t expecting the touch… but it wasn’t bad, or commanding. She quickly turned back to the speaker, listening to her request.

“How they… make me feel?” she repeated. It was an unusual question. As the woman explained herself, Tori felt like she sort of got it. If she wasn’t going to go see it herself, an eye-witness account certainly held its own sort of value. For as amazing as books were, sometimes they didn’t quite capture everything, right?

Tori frowned ever so slightly in concentration, looking down for a moment as she tried to think back on her latest trip to Trampoli. Those collections of spirits floating in the sky… how did they make her feel?

“They… make me feel peaceful… I suppose…” Tori said. “They… tend to appear where there is a strong abundance of spirits… So… it’s hard to say if it’s the town… or the runeys… but one can… really feel at peace.. surrounded by them…” Feeling like she was getting off topic, she tried to focus on just the runeys. “I um… I always thought.. they’re rather cute… when you get close enough to… see them as more than just.. a softly glowing light…. I-I think… they look best at night… Walking along.. with the runeys and the moon lighting your way… It’s… magical… I suppose…”

Briefly, Iris thought if she had made a mistake. Not everyone wanted to talk to her about things. It was something she got used to, but she knew it was her occasional excitement that pushed people away. Her excitement for knowledge could be offputting and she’s accepted that. That didn’t make the disappointment lessen, but that too would be something she could overcome.

The moment Tori spoke, Iris scrambled to write. She pulled out a notebook from her bag and a pen from up her sleeve. She wrote as Tori talked, jotting down emotions and what could be seen. Walking among the Runey’s at night sounded wonderul and she wondered if she would ever get the chance to do it. Maybe someday he would and she hoped that she could bring Mistel to see it.

There were ups and downs to running an antique shop - and the list of cons tended to drag on a little long sometimes, especially on rainy days. Mistel hated dusting and polishing. He liked the freedom to come and go as he pleased, as he could only do on his days off. He didn’t care much for parting with antiques that he and his sister had grown especially fond of despite not having room for them upstairs any longer. He wished he could keep a pet - a little white cat, perhaps - without being afraid that it might add to the shop’s upkeep.

But one thing Mistel had grown very, very fond of was doing the books. The accounting aspect of his job was far from a downside; it had become something of a puzzle for him to keep balanced, to keep on top of, to keep his math sharp and efficient and on point. He looked forward to the final hour of every shift, to cracking open the ledger and marking tidy, neat little numbers in tidy, neat little columns as he thumbed through his receipts.

It was in the middle of working through the receipts from earlier today that his sister caught him by surprise, appearing suddenly on the other side of the register’s counter. He must have missed her footsteps on the stairs, only becoming aware of her presence when she called his name in sing-song. He blinked - then broke into a wide, warm smile, the delighted surprise to have her sudden attention pulling him immediately out of the world of numbers he’d been so engrossed in only seconds before.

“I~ris~♪” he responded in kind, echoing her sing song as he set down his pen. “Are you taking a break?♪ Can I keep you downstairs for a while?♪”

Now, if Iris was anyone else, she would have felt guilty about interrupting Mistel’s work. Iris was Iris, though, and she didn’t feel bad or remotely guilty. She was more than happy to distract Mistel from his work so that they could spend some time together. After all, he’s done it to her many times before. If they never did, they wouldn’t spend time with each other outside of festivals. What kind of siblings would they be if that’s the only time they saw each other?

Humming, Iris reached out and moved the pen away, placing it on the far side of the counter. She knew Mistel would keep away from his work if she was around and he asked for her company. Better to be safe than sorry, though. “I am. ♪ I was writing a wonderful piece about a murder when I thought ‘my, it’s been some time since I have last seen my brother. I should check on him’.”

“Heehee… Doesn’t it…?” Tori agreed. They sometimes had runes and rune crystals in the fields around here, sure. But Runeys? That was something that Tori wished was more local to this area. Oh well… You couldn’t have everything, after all…

“Eh?” Tori blinked. “O-of course… Whatever you need… I’d be happy to help,” she said. Was she going to ask for more books? Or perhaps, she was hoping Tori could fill in some blanks? Well, Tori wasn’t much of a great conversationalist. She’d been told she could sound a little gloomy sometimes, the way she stuttered, or trailed off when she was thinking about something. And she was no great expert on this topic… But then again, compared to someone with no knowledge, perhaps her limited understanding would be helpful enough.

Perfect. She could get as much information as she could from her alone. Yes, the books would help, but someone who’s experienced it first hand? That was a different kind of experience. Books could explain how things happen, when it happened, and other things like that. Most books were written with a more scientific approach.

Yet Tori could tell her emotions and feelings about it. Descriptions were just as important as their scientific details.

Tori was nervous for a moment, afraid that she’d interrupted the woman after all. However, the woman smiled at her, and Tori felt assured that she’d done nothing wrong. She nodded in response to the woman’s questions.

“Y-yes, I think.. we have a couple of books.. about those…” she said. “M-most of them… should be in this section.. right here… Um… for example…” Tori pulled out an introductory book on runeys, along with books 2 and 3 in the series. “T-these should be… fairly helpful to you…” she said. “Unfortunately… there aren’t a lot of r-runeys.. around Kardia… However.. th-there are some… in a town j-just north of here… In fact.. there are so many of them.. you can see them floating.. across the entire town…” She smiled softly. “…Like Christmas lights…” she murmured romantically.

She motioned to the bookshelf. “Th-these books… we’re actually borrowing them… from that same town,” she said. “The name of the town… is Trampoli…. If you ever wanted to visit… I-I’ve been there… once or twice… visiting a friend.”

Iris listened to her take with wild fascination. Like Christmas Lights. The image popped into her head clear as day. It seemed beautiful. If Iris would be honest to herself, and to the woman talking, her explanation on Runeys was better than what the books could provide.

Oh, she would still read and consume the information the books would provide for her, but at the moment? The librarian would be more helpful.

It wasn’t often that someone came all the way to Kardia just to see the library. True, not every town in Norad had a library, but it had still been quite some time. The stranger looked to be quite elegant, and she seemed to have a deep love of books, if her behavior was anything to judge by. Not that Tori was normally one to stare, but… Well, she was curious about the visitor. 

She went over to a section of the library Tori had recently been going through- it was part of an exchange program with Trampoli that Russel had been working on. Perhaps the stranger was a researcher of some kind? Finally letting curiosity overtake her, she approached the woman before she could start reading- It wouldn’t do to interrupt her, after all.

“Ah- H-hello,” she said, nodding her head slightly in greeting. “I-I um… Can I.. help you find anything today…?” she asked.

Truthfully, Iris had no idea what Runeys were. Back home, they had nothing of the sort like it. The concept was fascinating. Already, her mind was coming up with various stories to write about it. That would include more research and what better place to do it at than here. Here, the books ould supply her with all the information she needed, and, by the looks of it, she would need a lot of it. She would need quite a few books and--

The spell Iris was under broke like fine glass, shattering into tiny pieces. She looked down at the librarian, having almost forgotten that she was here. It wasn’t her fault, of course. Once Iris got going about writing or books, she tended to forget her surroundings and anyone near her. The Goddess knew how many times she had unintentionally ignored Mistel when she got into one of her writing sprints.