2019-07-10 - How To Human
After a beautiful afternoon on the water, Isabella gets a random text from Alexander. In a move that might stun those who only know of him as a perpetually morbidly-fascinated investigator, the ensuing conversation doesn't even touch on the current mysteries they're trying to solve.
IC Date: 2019-07-10
OOC Date: 2019-05-11
Location: Bay/Reede Houseboat
Related Scenes: 2019-07-09 - A Breakfast Blend of Everything with a Side of Muffins
Plot: None
Scene Number: 597
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Miss Reede.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Mr. Clayton.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: I didn't get a chance to ask you about the text you brought to the coffee house. Work or pleasure?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Texts. There was an s there, but then there wasn't.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: In my case, work IS pleasure, so you can say it's both. The Frol de la Mar was a Portuguese carrack of 400 tons built in the 1500s and was considered one of the finest vessels ever built at the time - it was involved in several yards, and was in the front lines during the Portuguese expansion during the Golden Age of Piracy. It infamously sank off the coast of Sumatra during a terrible storm.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: several *wars, not yards.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: It has probably crossed several yards as well, so we'll chalk it up to your commitment to accuracy. ::smiley face emoji:: Has the ship ever been found, or is that the mystery that intrigues you?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: ::laugh emoji:: I suppose it wouldn't be me if I didn't try to be accurate despite my commitment to exaggeration when the situation calls for it. But no, the ship was never found, and it is a mystery that intrigues me. If I were able to locate it, it would be a terrific find. That would require taking a trip to Sumatra, at some point. It isn't the thread I'm chasing now, however. My interest lies more in what the ship was carrying at the time.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: And what was the ship carrying? Now you have me intrigued.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: My interest lies in specific pieces of the overall cargo itself, which I can't disclose to you - I don't know if I mentioned, but I was retained as part of a consulting group for a major marine exploration company in Delaware. Which means I'm bound by a non-disclosure agreement not to discuss what I'm actually after. But if you must know, the Frol de la Mar was carrying the largest treasure the country's navy ever compiled. Spoils of war from that side of the world as well as Alfonso de Albuquerque's personal hoard, and a tremendous tribute from the King of Siam to the King of Portugal. Most of these quiet exploration projects usually involve treasure in some way, but like I said, there is something specific I was retained to find.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You had not mentioned. That sounds fascinating. So, if one day you are able to pinpoint the wreck, then you...dive down and brave the cold abyss and wrest an ancient treasure from the graveyard of this fair vessel?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Yes. In many ways, this is a two-pronged search, one of which has led me here. The waters that are the Flor de la Mar's graveyard now, however, are unpredictable...beautiful and dangerous and wild. It's the sort of challenge I thrive in so I'm hopeful that I'm up to the task. If I'm successful, it'll certainly be something. It'd be career changing, for certain.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: I'm a touch confused. What would Gray Harbor have to do with a ship lost off the coast of Sumatra?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Truthfully, actual treasure hunts in my profession are rare - I and most of my brethren have taken a position that recovering anything lost in time IS treasure. This would be a first for me. As for your confusion, I can't blame you and honestly, I'm dying to explain just how it led me here. But I have to honor the terms of my NDA.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Tease. What was your first expedition?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: And yet I get the impression that you're smiling while you typed that. My first expedition was an archaeological class trip over the summer in Cyprus, certain excavations in Kition, which is located underneath Lanarca. You'd probably find it interesting, with the tunnels and catacombs.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: I was. And is that how you see me, Miss Reede? A creature of dark holes and tombs?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Not wholly - I think your fascination with the macabre is part and parcel of you, but I don't think for a second that's all you're interested in. You're interested in mysteries...of all kinds. And most of the truths they hold are buried deep by those who wish to keep them secret, who hope that time will somehow erase them.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: I do like puzzles and mysteries. But then, it seems, so do you. That, or you watched far too many Indiana Jones films as a child.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I neither confirm nor deny those movies drove me to my current profession, but I'll tell you a secret that only insiders know about those movies, if you like.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: What would it cost me, such a precious secret?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: A laugh. Let's see if I'm successful. Are you ready?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You're going to tell me a joke? And, what, trust me to tell you if I laugh? I rarely laugh, Miss Reede.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: And yet you managed to in our first conversation, and again in our second. Admit it, Mr. Clayton, I might have a knack for it.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You might. You're a bit provoking. When you decide to be.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Being a provocateur is part and parcel of me, in turn. I've always been this way. Now do you want to know what it is? The secret.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You know I do.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Alright. The truth about those movies, the secret absolutely nobody in my profession will ever admit to anyone outside of it is...
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: ::pacing emoji::
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. was a TERRIBLE archaeologist. Oh my god, he was the worst. What he pulls in Raiders, Temple and Last Crusade? If he was in an expedition, having to answer to his masters at the University or whoever bankrolled it would have absolute KITTENS! Stomping around, setting things on fire, BREAKING ming vases? He'd be fired a thousand times over!
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: But nobody would dare say it because he singlehandedly made the profession a popular course for study.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Ah. The CSI Effect.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: The CSI effect?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: When the craze of forensics shows started up, enrollment in those college programs rose significantly across the country. Despite them being ridiculous. They inspired people.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Oh, of course. Admittedly I've never seen the show. Like I told you before, I don't have much of a life outside of my work....it certainly explains how I am when I do get to socialize, as if I try to make up for those hours deep in study.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You seem dedicated, and that's good. But you should have a life, too. It's easy to realize you've spent a decade in an obsessive haze and no longer know how to talk to people.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Are you speaking from personal experience?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Of course not. I never knew how to talk to people, Miss Reede.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: You seem to do just fine with me. You even sound erudite more often than you don't.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You're easier to talk to than most.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I am?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: I find you so. I don't claim it to be a universal quality. It probably isn't. Me finding you easy to talk to isn't necessarily an indication of general sociability. I'm weird.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I've always been an extrovert, but with such a sincere confession, you've managed to save yourself from my blatant teasing about how you've decided to spend this afternoon digitally flirting with a visiting scholar. 😉 I think you're doing better than what you give yourself credit for socially, Mr. Clayton.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Is that what I was doing? You're kind.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I'm more truthful than kind, but yes. I think some part of you knows it, you're too perceptive not to. If you want to know what I think, I think you've managed to convince yourself, somehow, that you're not good with people. But from what I've seen, you've a formidable professional network willing to work with you and assist you with strange inquiries when you ask. If you didn't have some capacity for empathy and cooperation, both of which I believe are the basic foundations for human interaction, you wouldn't have it at all.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: People find me useful, Miss Reede. When they need someone to believe the unbelievable, or look into something that no one else will. That's all. Trust me, as soon as the need passes, generally the desire to associate with me does as well.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: That's something I'm actually willing to bet against you on. Obviously it can't be me, I can't be the test case, but if a person who works with you ends up disassociating with you when 'the need passes', then I'll accept that I was wrong. I don't think I am, however.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Will you accept thirty years of prior evidence?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: No. You know why?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Why? Historical evidence is the very heart of your profession, is it not?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Because people adapt. People change. That never really stops. What I deal with are snapshots of time, frozen in amber. People - living people - don't occupy that space.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Exactly. Though I don't agree with some of that.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: (long pause, bouncing dots)
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I think sometimes the soul can change also.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: You think the soul is a thing?
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: (long pause)
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: I think I'll table that talk for another time. ::smiley face:: I should probably rinse off and do some work, however.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Of course. I appreciate your indulgence, Miss Reede, and wish you good rinsing and good working.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: Good rinsing? ::laughing emoji:: Sure. You also, be careful out there. And Mr. Clayton?
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: ??
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: You can call me next time, or stop by.
(TXT to Isabella) Alexander: Ah. And you are welcome to do the same. Good day, Miss Reede.
(TXT to Alexander) Isabella: You too.
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