Chance Encounters [Archive]

[DragonSong]

It was meant to be a routine supply run: pick up the things she needed, maybe chat with the locals for a moment, then head back home.

But the sign outside the new store- well, new since the last time she'd been in this part of town anyway- captivated Serena's attention. Old and Rare Books.

Well...she was running out of reading material. Surely it couldn't hurt to just look around, right?

So there she was, three hours later, nose buried in a rather dusty, leather-bound tome she'd found in the back of the shop. It was quite fascinating, detailing alchemic ingredients and their different uses, but she found she was having a hard time deciphering the notes that appeared to be scrawled by hand into the margins.

She wasn't even sure the notes were written in Common. Perhaps a dialect of Essyrni? No, that didn't seem quite right either...

[Klezmer Gryphon]

The smell of old and new books was always a welcome scent in Pippin's nostrils. Even if he wound up not buying anything, the bookstore could keep the griffon enthralled for hours, just gleaning the pages of various tomes and volumes on its shelves. He only wished he could have afforded more books.

Presently, he was wandering around the back of the store, out of the ever-watchful gaze of the store clerk up front. It was a little cramped between the shelves, and the only light in that part of the building were the sparse candles placed at the end of each bookcase, which, toward the back wall, only provided a faint orange glow with which to read under. What surprised him, though, was finding someone doing just that.

As Pippin rounded a corner to browse the next shelf after finding only tales of lusty lizard women on the previous bookcase, he stopped just short of bumping into the lady with her eyes glued to the pages of some book.

"Wenwth-ain, losin. Nw hatlni-wn dâi cecadd." the griffon said, forgetting in his moment of surprise that the majority of La'marri's denizens didn't know a word of gwinoddi.

((OoC: Pippin's basically saying "Sorry, didn't see you there!"))

[DragonSong]

"Oh!" Serena started, glancing up- and almost dropped the book in surprise. "Oh!" She blinked at the creature who'd almost bumped into her, eyes wide. "Um, sorry, I'm in the way..." She tried to shuffle over to give the griffon room, but there really wasn't a whole lot of space to work with.

Offering a sheepish smile, she sort of gestured helplessly with one hand. "Maybe I could slip around you? Um..." She bit her lip and ventured, "Do you speak Common?" It would be just her luck that he could understand what he was saying just as much as she'd understood the strange language he'd just spouted.

[Klezmer Gryphon]

Staring at the lady for a moment as she shuffled in attempt to let him pass, Pippin a confused look on his face... And studied the confused look on hers as she asked him if he spoke Common.

"My apologies, ma'am. I sometimes forget that not everyone speaks the gwinoddi-otal." he said, his eyes slowly shifting to the book in her hand. It was a dusty old tome, needless to say, and there were a lot of such volumes on the shelves around them, but something about it had captured his curiosity.

"May I ask what you're reading?" he inquired, propping himself up on the shelf next to him with his talons to peer into the pages of the book in question.

[DragonSong]

"Hm? Oh, sure!" Serena smiled, mismatched eyes lighting up as she tilted the book to give him a better angle. "It's an old alchemy text. A little dated, but some of the theories it mentions are quite fascinating."

Frowning a bit, she tapped one of the notes in the margins. "Honestly I'm very curious about these, but I'm having a hard time deciphering them."

[Klezmer Gryphon]

Pippin's eyes darted to the spot his new acquaintance indicated and locked on instantly to the words written in the margin. A curious, inquisitive look formed on the griffon's face as he studied the words over and over, not believing what he was seeing.

"This book probably at one point belonged to a griffon. Those notes... They're written in gwinoddi-otal, which very few humans possess a knowledge of." he said, running a talon gently over the old page as he read the rest of this old griffon's notes, "If it would interest you, I can translate these notes."

[DragonSong]

"Really?" Serena perked up, grinning at him. "That would be great, thank you!"

Then her face fell a bit and she glanced toward the front of the store with a sigh. "I've been here a long time already though, I'm not sure if I should really stay..." She worried her lip, considering.