kowase | IC INBOX

[ the store is a little dark inside--light enough to see the items on display of course, but dim enough that it felt more like a cozy cafe or place to spend time in rather than a store. there also is the fact that many of the items on sale didn't... actually have any sort of price on them. rather, displaying little gold plates that spoke simply, 'for display only.'

in the corner of the shop there's a large mahogany desk, and behind it sits a silver-haired individual. a pair of reading glasses on his nose. when he looks up, his eyes flash--sort of like how a cat's eyes reflect in low light, with a green sheen before the angle changes as the man sits up. ]

Welcome to Auguries of Innocence. Use your eyes, not your hands.

If you have any questions I am, of course, inclined to answer any.

[The name struck a faintly familiar bell in the back of his mind; being a) English and b) someone who had spent 80% of his life in libraries, he'd probably catch on eventually.]

Oh, I'm not entirely foolish enough to go around touching the average sharp objects, much less magical ones.

[Said casually, with no real unease about...whatever the hell was up with his eyes. He'd seen worse.]

It's quite an impressive collection you have here. Did you only just set up shop recently?

Edited 2023-04-16 02:31 (UTC)

[ in 5 hours they'll get on the topic of poetry and william blake will come up and it'll all become clear. ]

That would make you a smarter patron than at least 45% of the customers I get lately. Congratulations, sir.

[ there's a vague smug amusement to Vergil's voice as he settles his hands over his desk. Now that the angle of his head has changed, it's just apparent he has eyes sort of like a cat's--slitted, thin. The reflection was merely part of that. ]

I would say three, maybe four weeks ago by now. It took me some time, getting some things through customs.
Even with proper paperwork, Americans get so fussy about elephant ivory being used in antiquated pieces that were crafted before the trade became illegal.

Smarter, or perhaps just more aware. On average, most of this city can't perceive things like that.

[Eh, catlike eyes, whatever. He leaned over slightly to more closely inspect a sword instead as he continued:]

Afraid I've been a bit preoccupied for a while, so this is the first I've seen it. I can definitely understand the trouble setting up, though. International travel's always unnecessarily difficult with artifacts like that when one can't perform memory manipulation.

[and this is waver quietly realizing he may or may not have done the smallest amount of illegal traveling-while-in-possession-of-ivory on top of the mail theft. oh well, there's probably a minimum amount acceptable.]

Ah--excuse me. Professor Waver Velvet, just 'Professor' if it's all the same to you. Pleasure.

That would likely be part of it. Given I myself was not aware of such things like magic and the supernatural until late last year.

If I had such luck to be granted with the ability to manipulate memory instead of just... [ as he picks up a book from his desk, lifting it into the air and letting it go. the book remains floating. ] ...I would have had far more luck getting my shop set up sooner. It was quite a headache.

But I digress, that does not matter quite so much. I am here now, and free to buy and sell at my leisure. [ he'll move to get up from his desk, then, both hands folded behind his back, a rather long, elegant blue coat with an odd, snakelike pattern along its shoulders flowing out behind him. ]

Professor, hm? At the university here in the city? [ He will offer a hand--an elegant nod to his head with the same motion. ] Vergil Vittore, Mr. Vittore, if you'd please.

Interested in the mundane, but fascinating sort of historic bits? Or more the magical? I admit, I have more of the former than the latter, given It was ten years into my practice before I learned of the supernatural.

It's a common skill back at home--well, common for mages. Easier to maintain secrecy that way. [Which probably explained his high tolerance for not batting an eye at horseshit like floating books.] I've been teaching chemistry since I came to this world last summer, but my actual credentials are elsewhere; I work at a university of magecraft back in my world's London.

[Waver tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the silver handle of his cane, glancing over the assorted weaponry before looking out of the corner of his eye to Vergil.]

A little of both. I have a professional interest in magical relics and artifacts, and a casual interest in history and mythology.

Ah, so you're a sort of mage. Would explain why you would need such a skill as memory manipulation. [ keeping secrets and able to give suggestion sounds brilliant, if Vittore is honest, but. he'll keep that to himself, for now. ]

Excuse me for prying, but you mentioned a 'back in your world'. Your interest in relics and the like stem from something back home? I have heard of people visiting this place from other worlds, but I admit you are the first I have met.

While I am unsure if I have anything in my shop that would be like anything 'back home,' I do have a few.
My collection of magic items are small, as I mentioned before, I have only recently come into the supernatural recently, but.

Relics from times when magic was spoken of as truth instead of merely legend are something I have. Any particular era you are interested in?

Oh, it's not prying at all. I've been fairly open about the fact by necessity--I come from a relatively similar Earth, albeit one with a markedly different system and approach to magic. I find the discrepancy a fascinating one, though I don't quite have the expertise necessary to study it in depth. But the equivalent of artifacts with magical power to them is hard to ignore, expertise be damned.

[He shrugged, turning to face Vergil fully.]

...Most of my casual studies lie around Celtic mythology, but I have a passable knowledge of Arthurian legend and at least some vague concept of several others.

Edited (i can't spell.) 2023-04-16 15:23 (UTC)

Good. I have a habit of 'asking too many questions', given my profession, so if I do ever overstep onto topics you wish not discuss, merely say so. I will find no offence in you not wishing to disclose. [ people with supernatural powers are cagey, he's used to it by now. ]

Celtics. A good topic, and a strong contender for one of the most interesting types of historical lore there is, given what Christianity did to the history of the Celts, most of it being lost due to the religious takeover of those small nations in the early days of recording history.
Fortunately, a lot of the more interesting histories survived due to the celts quickly changing their history to folklore and fairy tale so that it would survive.

[ he's going to come around from behind his desk, moving over to a section of the shop that holds a number of glass cases, housing items that are small, decorative in nature--like necklaces, bracelets, and he gestures to a number of small, green trinkets inside. ]

I'm quite fond of items that hold a motif of the Triskelion, myself.
The number three was considered sacred to Celtics, as it represents the three most important things about the souls of all living things. That being Evolution, Learning, and a balance of one's mind, body and soul.

I'm a lecturer by trade and I enjoy my job considerably. [despite a lot of things] I have no issue with explaining in broad strokes or detail, the discrepancies between one world and another is a matter well worth careful understanding.

[...Oh god. Can you hear the sounds of an engine revving in his head because he's about to get started.]

I've found most surviving recorded myth around that area and time period gets difficult to distinguish truth from influenced bias. I have some doubts about the versions where Oisín actually met Saint Patrick, among other things.

Either way, the magic inherent in specific numbers is consistent among many pantheons and disciplines even to this day. Three in particular is one that comes up often. The Norns and the Moirai among varying depictions of the Fates, as well as the three facets of the Morrigan. I often hear it told that Bedivere attempted to return Excalibur to the lake three times before relinquishing it on the third.

[...There was another threefold incident involving water coming to mind, but he quietly ignored it.]

It's an interesting trend; my theory is that a superstition of taking actions in three or sevenfold simply grew in commonality and therefore in strength as the belief in the practice increased. Magic relying heavily on belief and perception, it then follows that the numbers themselves would harbor an innate strength.

Edited (i'm sorry i can't type.) 2023-04-16 17:26 (UTC)

[ it's a recognizable sound, because it's one that Vittore himself hears every time he starts up a conversation with someone who can keep up.
He's regarding Waver now, like someone recognising someone they hadn't quite been able to remember moments before. A light that went off in his head as

Ah

A like-minded individual.]

You're right to have doubts. Given that stories from that age has become hard to distinct between myth and actual historical legend, the burning or erasure of the truth was rampant back during those days.

Until I learned magic was real, I had assumed the inclusion of magic and fae was a product of the Celts quickly trying to insert things into their tales to make them more myth than anything else, to save those stories from being culled by the religious zealots who wanted to cover up previous history to rewrite it with their singular agenda.
Now that I know better, I have a deep fascination in those stories--if the Fates were in fact, real, and that perhaps the stories of Witches like Morrigan weren't just a tale, but in fact, true history. They say Excalibur was never a real blade, but I bet it exists out there, somewhere.

An item that would doubtless land in a museum were it real, but to have my hands on it...

[ he chuckles. ]

You are right about. It is due to the Triskelion that such sayings in the English language exist like 'Third time's the charm', or Three strikes and you're out.

The soul is in three parts, so things left up to chance make sense as well.

Oh, Excalibur definitely exists.

[He said that without thinking, continuing on in light and enthusiastic tones.]

While it's safe to say many legends were exaggerated in places or the details changed over time, it's observable fact in my own world that most are rooted in truth and actual events. Faeries, gods, heroes--most if not all have reasonable evidence behind their existence in more than fiction. The department of Spiritual Evocation is the one that usually deals in the collection of artifacts with such strong links to history during and around the time in which magic and gods were more widespread, but I'm familiar with one or two myself.

Familiar with a few, you say.

[ alright, hook and line--he's taking the bait here, it feels like bait but he's biting in. ]

You say 'Excalibur exists,' and then follow up with a special department of a mage society that specializes in items that would be of my interest.
So is it safe to say your statement of 'it exists' is because you've seen it before?
Or that you know that someone is hiding it?

[...Fuck it, in for a penny. Secrecy was kind of a joke at this point, especially after the Metaverse incident.]

I've seen it myself. The other side of living in a world where such myths are fact and evocation magecraft exists is that the chance of coming across an actual figure of legend is vanishingly small but not necessarily 'zero'. On the rarest of occasions, mages can summon such people from where their stories are recorded on humankind's consciousness.

[A shrug, as he leaned over to more closely examine the accessories.]

As weapons go, I've seen both Excalibur and Arondight a bit closer than I would like to have been to either one.

[ at the very least, if someone's gonna keep your secret, waver, it's Vergil. customer confidentiality, or something like that. even if waver doesn't buy anything. ]

Ah, I would be lying if I said I was not jealous, having seen it before.
The closest I have seen is--well, I actually have a replica of Arondight here, on display--it was made by a craftsman who handled the real thing, and did his best to replicate it from what he could remember.

It may not be worth some great fortune, but it's one of my not for sale pieces, over there in that section with the other bladed weapons.

[ he's going to point. ]

Not that I believe that Lancelot was a real person. Given that his story was ... basically fan fiction written to romanticize someone's ... original character into Arthurian legend just for their own kicks...

[Be normal. Be normal. Be normal-]

Naturally, there's reasonable arguments to be made that the story of Lancelot is apocryphal. The Arthurian mythos already being a tangle of adaptations, bastardizations, and colonization makes most of it difficult to pin down. Add to that the fact that Lancelot and Guinevere's story closely echoes that of the earlier Tristan and Iseult, which in turn was preceded by The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne, and one can safely infer that perhaps the Knight of the Lake is nothing but derivative apocrypha.

[Wrong spinoff. With a click of his cane against the floor, Waver turned to where Vergil had indicated, looking over the blade with a calmly analytical stare. It was hard to call someone 'apocryphal' when they were swinging to take your head off, but scholarly debate was what it was.]

Which then follows that if a 'Lancelot' were summoned into the world, he would manifest entirely as only the perception of a legend from the collective unconsciousness of humanity--a very plausible outcome given the way magic functions in my world.

[Incredibly plausible; it was known that Servants were influenced by common belief and legend, but created entirely from them? That felt a step too far, even for the Throne of Heroes.]

On the other hand, complex though magecraft and the rules therein may be, Occam's Razor does apply once in a while. It's not a tremendous logical leap to believe that unfortunate circumstances simply repeat themselves and instead Lancelot, Tristan, and Diarmuid alike all truly existed. Perhaps their legends were embellished or exaggerated in places, but that hardly means they were wholesale creations.

...In which case, this hilt is too wide to match the Arondight of my world, and the blade itself is shaped differently. Which, of course, doesn't discredit that it was modeled after a real sword; only that the details and even existence of such legends might vary between realms.

Edited 2023-04-18 02:08 (UTC)

[ how normal did you manage to be, waver
how well did that work out for you. ]

It is a common happenstance, for writers to copy each other and write the same stories with slightly different language, different characters. Twinge the setting a little, use a different villian, make one of the evils in the story a man instead of a boar...

[ he finds himself chuckling, darkly as he takes a step, or two
going around some of the displays to eye some of the works hanging from the walls, in their cases or held up by finely made hooks and chains. ]

Was it common? You mentioned 'mages' being able to summon beings from human consciousness. So am I to assume that you have seen some of these beings that, by history, should not have existed but due to the collective bias of human thought they exist anyway?

...Fascinating.

[ he eyes the arondight replica--again, not an item worth a fortune in his collection, but an interesting piece that he enjoyed owning all the same. Frowning a little as Waver claimed it was off to what it was likely supposed to be. ]

I will leave it up in the air that my replica is off, or merely there are differences between our worlds. If not, I fear we may stand here all day and argue semantics in the differences between our worlds. For all I know, Hrunting in your world was a bow and arrow, after all.

It would be hard to reuse 'cursed half-brother in the form of a demonic boar', I can certainly agree with that one. Harder still to have the story end with Arthur responsible for Lancelot's death by way of entrapment in a form. Would have made Arthur a good deal less well liked.

[in this house we do not respect fionn mac cumhaill.]

...I may have crossed paths with one or two individuals most would call mythological. 'Heroic Spirits' is the term we use. But whether Lancelot du Lac or Diarmuid ua Duibhne existed in this reality or not, it's crystal clear that the legends themselves do; it then stands to reason that a magnificent weapon like this remains as an important mark upon human history and the stories told therein. I don't think something as small as physical discrepancies devalue that sentiment.

From reading the stories on Lancelot du Lac, one might assume that the writer was making an actual attempt to make King Arthur less liked. Given the intense rivalry between England and France back when it was written, it nearly felt like a petty personal attack of a writer who could not wage war any other way.
...As someone who prefers literature over martial skill, I have to admit I'm quite amused at the idea.

[ fionn mac cumhiall doesn't deserve anyone's respect anyway. ]

Have you met them, then. Lancelot, Diarmuid.
I have to admit, even if they're no more than magical familiars created by the collective unconciousness of human belief, I am a little curious about how these people manifest.
How they think about their own tales, be them fantastical faerie tale or with a solid basis in true history.

It's likely good that I am no mage.
I would likely want to summon one, just to speak with them for an ungodly amount of time. [ haha. ]

They say the pen is mightier than the sword for good reason. Words and rumor do far more damage than combat, at times.

[Living in a society where reputation was everything, that was a lesson he had to learn quickly.]

...I can't say I met Lancelot or Arthur, we didn't exactly speak. But I've certainly seen them, and I counted Diarmuid a close friend for a time. It's no simple thing to summon the crystallization of human history, and can only be done under specific circumstances for a brief time. But I can certainly say that it's...enlightening.

Of course.
You could challenge a man to a duel and leave a scar that could last a while, but the pain fades.
Writing a prose that becomes popular leaves an open wound that never heals once it gains traction.

[ he gives a bit of an amused chuckle, shrugging his shoulders. ]

Alongside weapons and trinkets, I also have a large collection of old, hand-made books and journals filled with some of the most amusing letters and correspondences you might ever read. The style of writing these days have changed to a much simpler style, but people will forever be petty and snarky, regardless of how many centuries pass.

[ theres a bit to consider here now though as Waver admits he's seen king Arthur, Sir Lancelot. And its almost like it occours to him why the man expressed interest in the subject of Celtics. Knowing Diarmuid would explain it. ]

History has no idea what these people actually looked like. Their tales give vague descriptions, of course, but because the lines between what is real and apocryphal myth are blurred, paintings that exist of them are wildly different, while having similar simple details.

Was King Arthur truly blond?

[Waver let out a small laugh; both at the acknowledgment that people were always going to argue the same way throughout human history, and at what he was going to have to say next.]

Blonde, and a young woman on top of that. Which certainly calls the idea of reality versus perception into question, and plants Arthur--Artoria, I suppose--firmly into the former. No common perception would ever have summoned the Once and Future King as a woman, after all. It was as much a shock to me as it no doubt is to you.

[ hold on ]

[ you can
SEE
Vergil's entire world come grinding to a stop as he quite literally abruptly turns to LOOK at waver with an expression like he'd just been told his perception of the colour green was wrong and that grass was actually, in fact, red ]

I would SAY it's a shock and surprise to me to hear that.

Rather, I find the fact rather unbelievable and I have to wonder now if you're actually having me on.

[ hes using contractions, youve thrown him off his metaphorical horse here ]

[He gestured with his free right hand in a completely helpless shrug. No, he does not understand this any more than you.]

That's about what I said, but I'm not going to argue who's the rightful king of England when the one in the dress is swinging Excalibur around. Rather makes the argument pointless if the sword's on her side.

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