Library work
May. 16th, 2011 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boy_druidCopied from here.
It's good for an immortal, even one as deceptively youthful as Cavan, to have a regular day job. Not only does it keep them in touch with the mortal mentality, it also pays the bills. In between classes, Cavan works at the college library as a page. It's not especially glamorous (dealing with pull lists for the professors can in fact be a pain, when they find out some student has dared to check out a book they want), but it's a coveted job for anyone who likes to be around books. He's very good at his job, pleasant to the rest of the staff and patrons alike, and of course behind his back most of the women gossip about how absolutely adorable he is. Mostly adorable in a 'want to pinch his cheeks' kind of way. He hears them, and smiles, and is used to it. When no one is around he walks through the stacks and admires the books, and thinks of a time before books were known to the world at large, when everything that was known was passed along by word of mouth and rote memorization. He likes books, but they still seem somehow like cheating.
It's a slow day today, and there's nothing to do but a little shelving, so nobody else minds if he takes his time in the stacks putting away the books.
It's sometime around half past noon when Lorelei comes in, obviously in a hurry. It's her first day of work for the week, and he's late after having to get classwork turned in.
She slides behind the desk where she's interned, and takes a minute to calm herself upon seeing that it's relatively empty. Great; she has time to fix her hair, from where she'd pretty much just left it loose, a peridot-colored butterfly pin tucked in her pocket to pull it back from her face. Once she gets settled, she pulls up the music player on her workstation, setting it to some soft classic blues.
Now that's interesting.
He hasn't felt that in quite a long time. An immortal that isn't yet immortal doesn't feel quite the same as one that's taken their first death. Moving through the shelves and peering over the rows of books, he scans the entryway and only sees one person that wasn't there before, so that's an easy answer to the first question. It doesn't take him long to finish shelving, which should give her time to pull herself together. When he does head back over to the front desks, he's heralded by the quiet rumble of the empty shelving cart. The young man pushing it must be a freshman, because he barely looks old enough for even that. It doesn't help that he's short, five-foot-four with a light build. His clothing is an eclectic mish-mash of styles so old hey just might be trendy again. His pants have pinstripes. He's wearing a button-down vest. With a pocketwatch. At least the glasses look sleek and modern. "Afternoon. Ye must be the new one." His smile is boyishly impish, and he's got a rolling accent that makes it sound like he just stepped off the boat from Ireland.
"New to the intern thing, yeah," she says, with a quick smile pulled up for the guy. He's shorter than she is, which is impressive on its own, and his clothes are certainly on the edge of indie design and retro...something. But his accent is what really gets her; talk about requiring translation.
"Oh, you must be...um. I've been told your name, and now I've completely forgotten it." Lorelei's in a pale green minidress, swingy and cool but not too scandalous to be worn to work, with tights and a pair of boots.
"Gavin O'Shea." He grins, and reaches over across the book cart to shake hands. He's very fair, with pale blonde hair, but his eyes are dark brown. He may be a little weird, but college is all about being unique and finding yourself, so he may not stand out too much. "How're ye getting on then? Any questions?" He doesn't do much work at the front desks, but he knows his way around pretty well. He could be helpful, assuming she can understand him.
In a town like Seacouver nobody really stands out too much, which is pretty cool. And probably why there are, comparatively, so many Immortals around. "I'm doing pretty good. Running a little late today, because my professor kept me late. But I'm getting there."
Plenty of hippies moved to the west coast, so it makes for a different standard of weird. "Well we'll go easy on ye this time." He grins, because it's clearly a joke. Nobody's going to scold her for being late because so many college students perpetually are. "Most of the staff is pretty easy. You'll like working 'ere." He leans casually against the cart, because he really doesn't have anything better to do, and he's curious to get the measure of her.
She chuckles and leans her forearms on the counter, once she pulls her hair to the side, pinning it back behind one ear. "I'm hoping to...couldn't decide between history or literature for a major, so I split the difference, and went with a library."
"Like library sciences, ye mean?" He is all for the preservation of knowledge, so he's impressed with that kind of choice. It could become more important than she can imagine, when she learns to take a long view on things.
"Yes. I used to write down all the stories my grandparents told me as a kid, so I guess it's a natural thing," she explains.
she takes a longer view of things already than most; she wrote down most of her grandmother's stories because she knew one day she wouldn't be able to remember them entirely and they needed to be preserved.
"So what are you shelving today? It's pretty empty, so if you need help, give me a ring."
He's liking her more all the time, and hoping she'll still hold onto the importance of things after her first death. She could be a great asset to the world, someday. "But ye don't want to be a writer? Oh, there's not much, today. Just whatever the patrons don't know where to put back." There's a few carts in strategic locations for just that. Librarians would always rather somebody just dump a book on the cart than re-shelve it themselves and get it wrong.
"Couldn't do the writing thing. I tried once, that writing a novel in a month thing, but I couldn't pull off the whole story. I got started, and it just...pffft." She pulls her hand away from her temple like she's pulling something out, but shrugs.
"What about you? Why're you here?"
"A month! What novel is ever written in a month?" Cavan is ignorant of NaNoWriMo, unfortunately.
He turns slightly shy at her question, because he's gotten some odd reactions before. "Theology major."
"Really? You look...kinda young for it. Or is it like the comparative religions type deal?"
She tried, like she said, all of once, and that was the end of that. It had been the most stressful month of her life thus far; probably not helped by the fact that she'd tried it her senior year of high school, in between college applications and papers and a not-so-great breakup with a boyfriend.
He laughs softly, a quiet sound with hidden depths. "Doesn't everybody start out young?" There's more to the question than it seems, but it still sounds rhetorical. "More like comparative religion." He looks so young, he's probably still got time to change his major a dozen times before it really matters.
"...What was the book about?"
"It wasn't great to begin with," she says, shaking her head. "Just me walking through Bonaventure and trying to imagine what people had done that were buried there."
She makes a little face. "Now you know why it didn't work."
Instead of laughing, he looks thoughtful. "Could be turned into a grand research project. Where's Bonaventure?"
"Savannah, Georgia. It's real pretty place, and I used to go there pretty often when I could There's this road, just hard packed dirt and sand, that bisects it and sometimes all you can see is the trees with Spanish moss on them and the gravestones. Not another soul in sight some days."
Obviously, this wasn't a bad thing for her.
"It sounds beautiful." Some people might call her wandering in a cemetery pretty weird, but he's apparently not one of them.
It's not only a cemetery, but a popular spot for photography and general wanderings, being on the list of historic sites in and around the city proper; this also makes it rarer than people think to be alone there.
"I think you're one of the few people who doesn't think it's weird. Apparently people don't do that here." They do still wander around the docks and marinas, though, which is good. "You ever done that?"
He'll be adding it to his list of places to try to see someday soon. One never knows how long a place like that will last, especially if there's tourists tromping around it.
"Maybe ye just haven't met the people that do, before? And yes." He wanders all kinds of places, but cemeteries are holy ground, and intimately familiar.
Oh, it's protected. As much as anything outdoors can be, anyway.
"Clearly I haven't," she says. "I've been meeting some cool people, though. Especially lately."
Time erodes everything, though. He's seen that at work.
"Oh? I'm new here meself..." Although he's already met a few interesting people, too.
"Met a guy that was pretty cool, actually. A historian, I think he said he was...but he bought me coffee. Nice guy."
She doesn't know that normally 'nice guy' and 'Methos' don't happen in the same sentence, depending on your perspective.
He's already met Methos and the two of them got along surprisingly well, even if neither of them got coffee out of it. It's debatable whether any immortal can stay a 'nice guy', in the end.
There's no reason for him to make the connection now, though. "A student, or a professor...?"
"I don't think he was either. Said he was between jobs." How much of this story she actually believes is another matter entirely, but Lorelei knows slightly better than to divulge quite that much on the first date, so to speak. "But he gave me some journal articles to look up if I was interested."
Which was cool.
"That he'd written?" He tilts his head a little, curious, but not really trying to be nosy.
"So he said," she agrees, pulling out the slip of paper she'd written the numbers on and handing it out. It's written in angled, loopy script, but clearly legible, just quickly written.
"Thought they were worth a look, at least."
"That's why I asked." He smiles sheepishly and looks over the paper, adjusting his glasses a little. They're not thick, but they're much needed for reading. He's quick to memorize the list, out of habit.
"I won't be able to get to them for a few days, anyway. Trying to finish yet another paper has me pretty much stocked on reading material."
She's not exactly thrilled about this. Someone needs a weekend off.
"Slow days like this can give ye a chance to catch up on homework..." Of course the library is busiest when one needs that most, since then everybody has projects at once and it's full of students doing research.
He smiles a little apologetically, "Should I be leaving ye to it, then? Don't mean to be trouble."
"Oh, you're not trouble. I pretty much have it done except for footnoting everything to death," she says. "It's actually nice to have the conversation. And I can turn off the music if you don't like it."
Not everybody likes blues, though it's generally not cause for people to go postal.
"Oh, I like most music. Ye just have to keep it soft, in 'ere." This is a library, after all.
"Yeah," she says. "At home I can turn it up loud, though. My neighbors are pretty cool about it."
He laughs. "I suppose some music demands tha'." He truly is a lover of a wide variety of music, so he can appreciate that.
She chuckles. "Yeah. Swing especially," she says.
"Oh, Swing demands dancing..." For just the flicker of a moment he's almost wistful, then it's gone and he's smiling a little sheepishly.
"Yeah, it does," she laughs. "So does blues, though. Just different sorts of dancing. You swing?" Lorelei asks, curious.
If he were anybody else, he just might take that question the wrong way. As it is, he gives a shy nod. "A little." He makes a face, then. "But I have to find girls shorter than me."
"Why? You can dance with girls taller than you," she says.
"Ohh, ye must not 'ave seen much real Swing dancing..." He tries to stifle the slightly wistful look. "Not the bits where ye actually swing the girl about." Some of the better moves require a certain amount of arm strength on the part of the man involved, and it's hard to physically pick up and swing a girl that weighs more than you do.
She chuckles. "No, I can't say I've ever done the real old-school kind. Most everybody does Westie out here." She's now eyeing Cavan a little, because everybody's been codifying swing into East Coast or Westie since she's been a kid, at least.
"When did you learn?"
The smile doesn't flicker. Questions about one's past will come up. "Not all that long ago," Comparatively speaking, that is. "But may'aps they do it differently 'ere? I'm not from the States, ye know." All of this is true, if phrased in such a way as to be misleading.
"Maybe. I've never done it in any other countries," she says.
"...And that came out a lot worse than it should have."
For a minute he just blinks at her, a little confused, then he grins. He still doesn't get it, but he's going to pretend he does. He's spent a little too much time in monasteries.
She shakes her head. "So are you new to the states? Your accent's pretty thick."
He gives another nod, because somehow that makes the lie a little easier. "I'm here for the university."
"I hope you like it," she says with a smile.
"So far. This is my first semester." He hopes his newness to the area will excuse a lot of his quirks.
"I went through the first couple semesters in community college. It was cheaper, and while it's just all the core stuff, it's easier that way. What made you go with theology?"
"Oh, I don't know what I'll do with it, yet. D'ye think it impractical?" He looks so young, maybe he can be forgiven for a flighty idea?
"Nah, not really. Just not something I hear a lot of people say," she says, shrugging.
"Oh, well then, somebody's got to study it, don't ye think?" He grins again.
"I guess they do, then," she says.
"Studying to be a librarian is more practical, prob'ly." He grins, unashamed of his own choice anyway.
She chuckles. "I dunno. The way technology is going no one will need librarians."
His expression sobers, a little too serious on such a sweet young face. "Oh, no, Librarians need to preserve and distribute information. The world will always need that."
"Here's hoping I live long enough to make a difference, then."
She says it with a smile, mostly just joking.
"Oh, I do hope so." He smiles. Even with immortals, there really are no guarantees, but he's glad to know she has a chance.
Lorelei chuckles. "Should be a pretty done deal, then. I'm hardly that risky on a daily basis. You could say I'm pretty boring, actually."
"Ye don't seem boring to me," He looks thoughtful a moment, "But I suppose I might be."
"Hardly. The vest and pocketwatch alone make you more interesting than half the people that come in here, right off the bat," Lorelei says, amused. "I like it, by the way. Makes you look pretty cool."
He glances down at himself and takes a few seconds to assess his outfit, then smiles and gives a little laugh. If he were a tenured professor, that kind of costume would be normal if dorky. On him it's just a little odd. "...Retro is in?" His smile is almost hopeful.
"I wouldn't use my own ideas as fashion forward or anything, but yeah, it's getting there. At least in some places."
She'll forgo even getting into the idea of Victoriana; it's complicated.
He's not quite that outdated, but his fashion sense is mostly a good sixty or seventy years behind. "Well I think ye look nice." It's not flirtation, really. His gaze travels past her to watch a student dumping books to be shelved on their way out.
She smiles. "Thanks," she chuckles. It was the first thing she reached for, and generally a dress was about the easiest thing to wear on earth.
"Looks like you've work cut out for you."
"It's easy work." He flashes her another smile. "I'll be around, ye can always ask if ye need help with anything." He pushes the empty book cart over to switch out with the one students have dumped books on. That's the trouble with library patrons, they're always coming in an taking the books off the shelves...
It's good for an immortal, even one as deceptively youthful as Cavan, to have a regular day job. Not only does it keep them in touch with the mortal mentality, it also pays the bills. In between classes, Cavan works at the college library as a page. It's not especially glamorous (dealing with pull lists for the professors can in fact be a pain, when they find out some student has dared to check out a book they want), but it's a coveted job for anyone who likes to be around books. He's very good at his job, pleasant to the rest of the staff and patrons alike, and of course behind his back most of the women gossip about how absolutely adorable he is. Mostly adorable in a 'want to pinch his cheeks' kind of way. He hears them, and smiles, and is used to it. When no one is around he walks through the stacks and admires the books, and thinks of a time before books were known to the world at large, when everything that was known was passed along by word of mouth and rote memorization. He likes books, but they still seem somehow like cheating.
It's a slow day today, and there's nothing to do but a little shelving, so nobody else minds if he takes his time in the stacks putting away the books.
It's sometime around half past noon when Lorelei comes in, obviously in a hurry. It's her first day of work for the week, and he's late after having to get classwork turned in.
She slides behind the desk where she's interned, and takes a minute to calm herself upon seeing that it's relatively empty. Great; she has time to fix her hair, from where she'd pretty much just left it loose, a peridot-colored butterfly pin tucked in her pocket to pull it back from her face. Once she gets settled, she pulls up the music player on her workstation, setting it to some soft classic blues.
Now that's interesting.
He hasn't felt that in quite a long time. An immortal that isn't yet immortal doesn't feel quite the same as one that's taken their first death. Moving through the shelves and peering over the rows of books, he scans the entryway and only sees one person that wasn't there before, so that's an easy answer to the first question. It doesn't take him long to finish shelving, which should give her time to pull herself together. When he does head back over to the front desks, he's heralded by the quiet rumble of the empty shelving cart. The young man pushing it must be a freshman, because he barely looks old enough for even that. It doesn't help that he's short, five-foot-four with a light build. His clothing is an eclectic mish-mash of styles so old hey just might be trendy again. His pants have pinstripes. He's wearing a button-down vest. With a pocketwatch. At least the glasses look sleek and modern. "Afternoon. Ye must be the new one." His smile is boyishly impish, and he's got a rolling accent that makes it sound like he just stepped off the boat from Ireland.
"New to the intern thing, yeah," she says, with a quick smile pulled up for the guy. He's shorter than she is, which is impressive on its own, and his clothes are certainly on the edge of indie design and retro...something. But his accent is what really gets her; talk about requiring translation.
"Oh, you must be...um. I've been told your name, and now I've completely forgotten it." Lorelei's in a pale green minidress, swingy and cool but not too scandalous to be worn to work, with tights and a pair of boots.
"Gavin O'Shea." He grins, and reaches over across the book cart to shake hands. He's very fair, with pale blonde hair, but his eyes are dark brown. He may be a little weird, but college is all about being unique and finding yourself, so he may not stand out too much. "How're ye getting on then? Any questions?" He doesn't do much work at the front desks, but he knows his way around pretty well. He could be helpful, assuming she can understand him.
In a town like Seacouver nobody really stands out too much, which is pretty cool. And probably why there are, comparatively, so many Immortals around. "I'm doing pretty good. Running a little late today, because my professor kept me late. But I'm getting there."
Plenty of hippies moved to the west coast, so it makes for a different standard of weird. "Well we'll go easy on ye this time." He grins, because it's clearly a joke. Nobody's going to scold her for being late because so many college students perpetually are. "Most of the staff is pretty easy. You'll like working 'ere." He leans casually against the cart, because he really doesn't have anything better to do, and he's curious to get the measure of her.
She chuckles and leans her forearms on the counter, once she pulls her hair to the side, pinning it back behind one ear. "I'm hoping to...couldn't decide between history or literature for a major, so I split the difference, and went with a library."
"Like library sciences, ye mean?" He is all for the preservation of knowledge, so he's impressed with that kind of choice. It could become more important than she can imagine, when she learns to take a long view on things.
"Yes. I used to write down all the stories my grandparents told me as a kid, so I guess it's a natural thing," she explains.
she takes a longer view of things already than most; she wrote down most of her grandmother's stories because she knew one day she wouldn't be able to remember them entirely and they needed to be preserved.
"So what are you shelving today? It's pretty empty, so if you need help, give me a ring."
He's liking her more all the time, and hoping she'll still hold onto the importance of things after her first death. She could be a great asset to the world, someday. "But ye don't want to be a writer? Oh, there's not much, today. Just whatever the patrons don't know where to put back." There's a few carts in strategic locations for just that. Librarians would always rather somebody just dump a book on the cart than re-shelve it themselves and get it wrong.
"Couldn't do the writing thing. I tried once, that writing a novel in a month thing, but I couldn't pull off the whole story. I got started, and it just...pffft." She pulls her hand away from her temple like she's pulling something out, but shrugs.
"What about you? Why're you here?"
"A month! What novel is ever written in a month?" Cavan is ignorant of NaNoWriMo, unfortunately.
He turns slightly shy at her question, because he's gotten some odd reactions before. "Theology major."
"Really? You look...kinda young for it. Or is it like the comparative religions type deal?"
She tried, like she said, all of once, and that was the end of that. It had been the most stressful month of her life thus far; probably not helped by the fact that she'd tried it her senior year of high school, in between college applications and papers and a not-so-great breakup with a boyfriend.
He laughs softly, a quiet sound with hidden depths. "Doesn't everybody start out young?" There's more to the question than it seems, but it still sounds rhetorical. "More like comparative religion." He looks so young, he's probably still got time to change his major a dozen times before it really matters.
"...What was the book about?"
"It wasn't great to begin with," she says, shaking her head. "Just me walking through Bonaventure and trying to imagine what people had done that were buried there."
She makes a little face. "Now you know why it didn't work."
Instead of laughing, he looks thoughtful. "Could be turned into a grand research project. Where's Bonaventure?"
"Savannah, Georgia. It's real pretty place, and I used to go there pretty often when I could There's this road, just hard packed dirt and sand, that bisects it and sometimes all you can see is the trees with Spanish moss on them and the gravestones. Not another soul in sight some days."
Obviously, this wasn't a bad thing for her.
"It sounds beautiful." Some people might call her wandering in a cemetery pretty weird, but he's apparently not one of them.
It's not only a cemetery, but a popular spot for photography and general wanderings, being on the list of historic sites in and around the city proper; this also makes it rarer than people think to be alone there.
"I think you're one of the few people who doesn't think it's weird. Apparently people don't do that here." They do still wander around the docks and marinas, though, which is good. "You ever done that?"
He'll be adding it to his list of places to try to see someday soon. One never knows how long a place like that will last, especially if there's tourists tromping around it.
"Maybe ye just haven't met the people that do, before? And yes." He wanders all kinds of places, but cemeteries are holy ground, and intimately familiar.
Oh, it's protected. As much as anything outdoors can be, anyway.
"Clearly I haven't," she says. "I've been meeting some cool people, though. Especially lately."
Time erodes everything, though. He's seen that at work.
"Oh? I'm new here meself..." Although he's already met a few interesting people, too.
"Met a guy that was pretty cool, actually. A historian, I think he said he was...but he bought me coffee. Nice guy."
She doesn't know that normally 'nice guy' and 'Methos' don't happen in the same sentence, depending on your perspective.
He's already met Methos and the two of them got along surprisingly well, even if neither of them got coffee out of it. It's debatable whether any immortal can stay a 'nice guy', in the end.
There's no reason for him to make the connection now, though. "A student, or a professor...?"
"I don't think he was either. Said he was between jobs." How much of this story she actually believes is another matter entirely, but Lorelei knows slightly better than to divulge quite that much on the first date, so to speak. "But he gave me some journal articles to look up if I was interested."
Which was cool.
"That he'd written?" He tilts his head a little, curious, but not really trying to be nosy.
"So he said," she agrees, pulling out the slip of paper she'd written the numbers on and handing it out. It's written in angled, loopy script, but clearly legible, just quickly written.
"Thought they were worth a look, at least."
"That's why I asked." He smiles sheepishly and looks over the paper, adjusting his glasses a little. They're not thick, but they're much needed for reading. He's quick to memorize the list, out of habit.
"I won't be able to get to them for a few days, anyway. Trying to finish yet another paper has me pretty much stocked on reading material."
She's not exactly thrilled about this. Someone needs a weekend off.
"Slow days like this can give ye a chance to catch up on homework..." Of course the library is busiest when one needs that most, since then everybody has projects at once and it's full of students doing research.
He smiles a little apologetically, "Should I be leaving ye to it, then? Don't mean to be trouble."
"Oh, you're not trouble. I pretty much have it done except for footnoting everything to death," she says. "It's actually nice to have the conversation. And I can turn off the music if you don't like it."
Not everybody likes blues, though it's generally not cause for people to go postal.
"Oh, I like most music. Ye just have to keep it soft, in 'ere." This is a library, after all.
"Yeah," she says. "At home I can turn it up loud, though. My neighbors are pretty cool about it."
He laughs. "I suppose some music demands tha'." He truly is a lover of a wide variety of music, so he can appreciate that.
She chuckles. "Yeah. Swing especially," she says.
"Oh, Swing demands dancing..." For just the flicker of a moment he's almost wistful, then it's gone and he's smiling a little sheepishly.
"Yeah, it does," she laughs. "So does blues, though. Just different sorts of dancing. You swing?" Lorelei asks, curious.
If he were anybody else, he just might take that question the wrong way. As it is, he gives a shy nod. "A little." He makes a face, then. "But I have to find girls shorter than me."
"Why? You can dance with girls taller than you," she says.
"Ohh, ye must not 'ave seen much real Swing dancing..." He tries to stifle the slightly wistful look. "Not the bits where ye actually swing the girl about." Some of the better moves require a certain amount of arm strength on the part of the man involved, and it's hard to physically pick up and swing a girl that weighs more than you do.
She chuckles. "No, I can't say I've ever done the real old-school kind. Most everybody does Westie out here." She's now eyeing Cavan a little, because everybody's been codifying swing into East Coast or Westie since she's been a kid, at least.
"When did you learn?"
The smile doesn't flicker. Questions about one's past will come up. "Not all that long ago," Comparatively speaking, that is. "But may'aps they do it differently 'ere? I'm not from the States, ye know." All of this is true, if phrased in such a way as to be misleading.
"Maybe. I've never done it in any other countries," she says.
"...And that came out a lot worse than it should have."
For a minute he just blinks at her, a little confused, then he grins. He still doesn't get it, but he's going to pretend he does. He's spent a little too much time in monasteries.
She shakes her head. "So are you new to the states? Your accent's pretty thick."
He gives another nod, because somehow that makes the lie a little easier. "I'm here for the university."
"I hope you like it," she says with a smile.
"So far. This is my first semester." He hopes his newness to the area will excuse a lot of his quirks.
"I went through the first couple semesters in community college. It was cheaper, and while it's just all the core stuff, it's easier that way. What made you go with theology?"
"Oh, I don't know what I'll do with it, yet. D'ye think it impractical?" He looks so young, maybe he can be forgiven for a flighty idea?
"Nah, not really. Just not something I hear a lot of people say," she says, shrugging.
"Oh, well then, somebody's got to study it, don't ye think?" He grins again.
"I guess they do, then," she says.
"Studying to be a librarian is more practical, prob'ly." He grins, unashamed of his own choice anyway.
She chuckles. "I dunno. The way technology is going no one will need librarians."
His expression sobers, a little too serious on such a sweet young face. "Oh, no, Librarians need to preserve and distribute information. The world will always need that."
"Here's hoping I live long enough to make a difference, then."
She says it with a smile, mostly just joking.
"Oh, I do hope so." He smiles. Even with immortals, there really are no guarantees, but he's glad to know she has a chance.
Lorelei chuckles. "Should be a pretty done deal, then. I'm hardly that risky on a daily basis. You could say I'm pretty boring, actually."
"Ye don't seem boring to me," He looks thoughtful a moment, "But I suppose I might be."
"Hardly. The vest and pocketwatch alone make you more interesting than half the people that come in here, right off the bat," Lorelei says, amused. "I like it, by the way. Makes you look pretty cool."
He glances down at himself and takes a few seconds to assess his outfit, then smiles and gives a little laugh. If he were a tenured professor, that kind of costume would be normal if dorky. On him it's just a little odd. "...Retro is in?" His smile is almost hopeful.
"I wouldn't use my own ideas as fashion forward or anything, but yeah, it's getting there. At least in some places."
She'll forgo even getting into the idea of Victoriana; it's complicated.
He's not quite that outdated, but his fashion sense is mostly a good sixty or seventy years behind. "Well I think ye look nice." It's not flirtation, really. His gaze travels past her to watch a student dumping books to be shelved on their way out.
She smiles. "Thanks," she chuckles. It was the first thing she reached for, and generally a dress was about the easiest thing to wear on earth.
"Looks like you've work cut out for you."
"It's easy work." He flashes her another smile. "I'll be around, ye can always ask if ye need help with anything." He pushes the empty book cart over to switch out with the one students have dumped books on. That's the trouble with library patrons, they're always coming in an taking the books off the shelves...