2019-11-09 - Tell Me a Tale

Eleanor is busily writing up a proposal to provide the coffee and tea for the Historical Society's New Years Eve party. She's seated at her kitchen island, tapping away at her laptop with her glasses perched on her pert little nose. She has her hair back in a low ponytail and is in yoga pants and a loose sweater which slides a bit off one shoulder. The sounds of an 80s station are filtering from speakers set around the house.

August texted Eleanor earlier in the day that he'd 'found something in the forest' for her to have a look at, and would come by after work. And now here he is, the familiar sound of his Outback parking outside preceding him knocking. "Pizza," he says, smiling, because he's feeling that way. But also, he does have a pizza for them, and some breadsticks and salad.

And the award for the best boyfriend ever goes to....August Roen, for bringing his lady mystical things AND pizza. Doesn't get much better than that. Ellie slides off her stool and moves over to the door, opening it for him with a broad smile. "Have I told you lately that you're the best? Because you're the best." She takes the salad and breadsticks off his hand so he doesn't have to be totally loaded down, and heads into the kitchen.

"You have, but I don't mind hearing it repeated." August leans in to kiss Eleanor's forehead, shuts and locks the door behind him (all the locks). He slides his workbag off his shoulder and leaves it on the couch for the moment, sets the pizza on the kitchen counter. "So. Remember that book you found?"

Ellie sets the food bag on the island and rummages through cupboards and drawers for plates and utensils. "There's beer and root beer in the fridge," she notes as she sets things out for them and begins dishing things onto the plates. Real plates. She's trying to use fewer paper products. At the question about the book she snorts.

"Kind of hard to forget a book that pulls you physically or at least mentally into a story and turns you into a character," she points out. "Why did you hear something about it?" she asks, looking over at him curiously.

August leans against the kitchen counter while Eleanor assembles the plates. He's in his work clothes, though today must not have been a 'tree day' for him because he's in a snug fit, black, wool sweater and not the usual graphic tee to be sacrificed to the ever capricious plant gods. Denim jeans and workboots, though, so he was definitely working on the greenbelt or the allotment plots. "Found another one, actually." He bobs his eyebrows. "Got yanked into it." He doesn't look injured or sound particularly troubled by that, at least.

Eleanor's head snaps towards him to look him up and down at his admission, and make sure he isn't injured. "Are you all right? Was it the story I was in? Or a different one?" Now her green eyes are lit with the fires of curiosity as she slides him his plate and a napkin. She chomps on a breadstick and makes a happy sound.

"Forgot to eat lunch today. Was writing up a proposal for the New Year's Eve party the historical society is planning. Trying to sell them the coffee and tea service for it."

"I'm fine," August reassures Eleanor, taking his plate. "It was something different. A fantasy story of some kind. There was a mountain that was actually some kind of stone giant. Some miners--dwarves, gnomes, that sort of thing--had pissed it off and woken it up, so it was making all these earthquakes and destroying everything, trying to dig them out of their mines." He licks his lips, takes up a slice of pizza and has a bite. His expression gets distant. "I got wrapped up trying to save some of them. Think I almost got stuck in there, it was getting harder to remember it was a book." He shakes his head, gets a pair of rootbeers from the fridge, one for each of them.

Eleanor reaches for the offered root beer and takes a sip. "I think, if I hadn't been thrown off by needing to go into a dark and stormy forest, I might have gotten stuck in mine too. The book couldn't know I had that phobia though. But earthquakes?" She looks worriedly at August. "That could not have been fun for you. Were people trapped?"

She sets into her pizza with an appetite.

August toys with his rootbeer before opening it and having a sip. "Yeah," he admits, glancing up at her for half a second and having a drink. "But I was also this kid who was watching it all happen, and that got me back out of it." He frowns. "Makes me wonder, though--are there maybe some people inside these books? I found this one out on a trail. What if the person who brought it there's still," a nod at his workbag, "caught up in it?"

He has some pizza to stop thinking about the cavern crumbling around him, the cave of people caught inside a rocky tomb. He's having dinner with Eleanor right now.

Eleanor shakes her head a bit. "I don't think that is likely. Mine was just on my shelf in my office all of a sudden. I think they are simply putting themselves in our path so we pick them up and open them." She says it as reassuringly as possible, reaching a hand to touch his arm briefly.

"I'll want to take a look at both of them, side by side, once we're done eating. I want to be fully brain-fed before we poke at a magical artifact, you know?"

August mmms around some salad. The thought soothes him, in truth; if the books are looking for the unwary, then maybe August and Eleanor were their first victims, and so no one else was caught. But how many others were out there?

Between bites of dinner, he says, "It did the same thing yours did. With the text? How it doesn't look readable at first, but then does? And it had the same kind of...nondescript cover, no author or anything either."

Eleanor ponders things as she chews, looking thoughtful. "I wonder if it could pull more than one person in, or what someone else would see when it pulls someone in. Are we still there, sitting and reading or are we sucked through the Veil?"

August adopts a similar look. Two researchers, hard at work over pizza and rootbeer. It's just like college. "Kind of wondering the same, on the other hand I don't really want to ask anyone to test it, or test it ourselves. Who knows if we can get out the second time in." He flicks a surreptitious glance at Eleanor. "I was also thinking maybe of trying to read it with the mind gift."

"Hrm," Eleanor ponders. She swallows down a mouthful of food. "That is something we could do. I'd also like to maybe have someone with strong Physical Glimmer so maybe if we get pulled in bodily, they can come get us out."

"Good idea," August says. "I can ask Itzhak when he's free, we can bring them over to his place, maybe." 'So we don't have to do it here, in your house' is the implication there. He sets his plate aside, washes his hands in the sink. "Want to have a look, or are you digging into seconds?"

Eleanor looks distraught, as if this as a terribly difficult choice. More food since she skipped lunch, or poke at some magical books. ARGH! She sips her root beer. "Seconds. I'm feeling a bit too eager about looking at these books. I want to make sure doing it is my choice, and I'm not being influenced by them."

August grins, gets himself another slice and a little more salad, saying, "In that case." He moves aside so she can get to more. "So. That Historical Society thing. I was thinking of proposing table centerpieces and wreathes." He pauses there to see what she thinks.

"That would be great! I think they'd go for that. I'm sure there's Addington money being thrown at this so they should be able to afford us," Eleanor points out as she grabs seconds.

"Also," August says, pointing at her with a breadstick, "advertising." He sidles closer to her so they're leaning into one another as they eat. "How's the shop been doing? Masquerade good for business?"

Eleanor nods at the question and swallows down some salad. "It was great for business, especially with that likely not so natural fog. Made everyone chilled so hot beverages were on everyone's mind. I'd thank Mother Nature if I thought she had a damn thing to do with it." She grins.

"No, she probably didn't." August almost sounds like he's disappointed to be able to say that. "The garden was a hit, though; hoping it got June some business to get her started. Might point her at the tree farm folks in case they need some help getting everything set up for Christmas." All done with his seconds--which didn't amount to much, he's not that hungry--August slips an arm around Eleanor's waist. "So. I was thinking of going to Portland in a couple weeks here. Just before or after Thanksgiving."

Eleanor finishes up as well and moves to set things into the dishwasher and get leftovers in the fridge. She is working SO HARD not to go running to look at the books. Be proud of her. "Oh?" She muses. "What's in Portland?"

August plants a kiss on Eleanor's temple as a reward for not leaving the kitchen a mess to dive into the books, gets to helping with the ditches. "My family. I mean, some of them. And Powell's," a lift of his eyebrows, because who doesn't want to spend a day in Powell's?, "and a place like here. Where the Other Side's close. I wanted to check it out, talk to some folks I know down there who're like us. See if it changed there too." He's determined to figure out this damned thing that happened at Gohl's funeral. It doesn't occur to him that he's said something kind of specific in there, but then he doesn't always keep track of what he says either.

"Oh!" Eleanor says, grinning a bit at the mention of Powell's because she has no doubt made many an excursion there for research books. "How long do you think you'll be gone for?" He hasn't asked her to go with him. She's not going to assume that. "What family do you have there? Siblings? Parents?"

"Both," August says, noting the use of 'you'. "Mom and dad are in a little retirement place, and Hannah's family's there. Zelda's in the Bay Area but she'll come up if I'm going to be in town. And," he turns and sets his hip against the counter so he can face Eleanor, rather than look at her sidelong, "I was wondering if you wanted to come with." He doesn't let her answer that, instantly launches into a planned spiel. "It'd just be a couple of days, probably stay at a B&B. Hannah can get us a discount, her guy helps manage a few. And, Powell's." Because Powell's is how he can convince her.

Eleanor's entire face lights up when he asks. She didn't dare even hope he wanted to introduce her to his family, but there he goes and says that right there in black and white. She launches herself at him and kisses him quite soundly. "I'd love to!" she declares. Powell's is just a bonus.

August grunts, catches Eleanor in her arms and kisses her back. Then he really kisses her back, down her neck to her collarbone. "Good," he says, nuzzling the hollow of her throat. "Don't worry, they'll like you fine. They're not judgmental people. They couldn't be, with a kid like me." He runs his hands down her back to her hips. Wasn't there something else they needed to do? Books, right, the books. Whatever; he kisses her again, one hand on her cheek, his thumb under her chin.

Books? What books? She has no recollection of any books at this moment. Eleanor returns the kiss with a grin against his mouth. "They helped make you who you are. I'm sure I'll like them too," she murmurs between kisses.

August pauses between kisses to rest his forehead against Eleanor's. Some of his joy fades, but not all. "They saved me. After Bosnia. Them and Zelda and Hannah." A small sigh, and another kiss. "I want you to meet the people who put me back together. I wouldn't be here, wouldn't even be alive I think, if it wasn't for all of them." He strokes her hip thoughtfully. "How about we lock up that book until we can get Itzhak to keep an eye on me." He doesn't bother voicing what he wants to do instead, just kisses her chin, then her neck. ('Work on the proposal for the Historical Society' is probably not it.)

Eleanor has that look in her eye, which he has come to know well. No more work is getting done tonight, at least not for a while. "Sounds like a very," kiss, "wise," kiss, "plan." Oh she'll lock the book up. Just maybe not right this minute.