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Who: Teatime and Evelyn
Where: The library
When: Evening
Rating: PG?
Summary: Evie is (unfortunately) the only one around for Teatime's arrival.
The Story:
Teatime was not where he thought he would be. He was not technically lost, because for Teatime, journeys were more often measured in time than distance. He had a destination in mind, so although he was not sure where the locked doors of the Unseen University would lead him, he was not altogether disturbed to find himself inside a library rather than outside somewhere.

The doorway he'd stepped through, he noted with interest, had disappeared along with the cleanly sliced remnants of the door itself. In its stead was a wall of tomes that, upon inspection, appeared to be atlases and geographical text books for places that he had never heard of. He pulled one off the shelf and extended it in front of him sideways, so that gravity would turn the pages and he could keep one hand on the hilt of Death's sword. The round world described within held no interest for him and though he continued to look at it, his attention was on a soft sigh issued somewhere out of his line of sight.

Teatime surrendered the book to gravity's embrace and silently flitted through the walls of shelves until he found the source of the exasperated sound. He stood for a while and assessed the woman from a shadowy recess. He decided to get closer before the weight of his presence congealed into something just shy of palpable and spooked her. His focused attention tended to do unnerve people that way.

Without taking a single step or moving any muscles whatsoever, he stood behind her. His mouth opened for a greeting, but he wordlessly leaned forward just enough to read the middle three sentences of her book instead. He found nothing particularly frustrating about the material. His voice caught up to his mouth (which was, due to reading over her shoulder, closer to her ear than he had originally intended.)

“My name is Teatime, what's yours?” he asked genially.

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Evelyn was not sighing in consternation, nor was she sighing at the subject matter of the aforementioned book in her possession. What she was sighing at was an impossible situation, circumstances beyond her ken, and other things that have very little to do with dry text or suspiciously silent strangers sneaking up behind her in the library.

Now, the narration should note that in the past, Evie has not had a particularly good track record with suspiciously silent strangers sneaking up behind her in the library, as one kindly Rich Brooke - or rather, Jim Moriarty - once made certain to leave her lying in a puddle of her own blood on the Turkish rug in the sitting area. Older and wiser now than she was then, Evelyn has since learned a fair bit of self-defense.

Her sense of hearing, unfortunately, has not improved to the extent that she notices a new presence behind her. She shrieks and flails her arms a bit, almost falling out of her chair.

"For Heaven's sake," she gasps, hand fluttering to her chest as she half-trips to her feet, steadying herself on the table.

"You couldn't be a little more dir-"

...which is when she gets a good look at the owner of the mysterious voice, finding herself at something of a loss.

"...ect?"

Quite used to this manner of reaction, Teatime stepped just far away enough to avoid being brushed by both her and her wayward chair. To the untrained eye, it looked as if he hadn't moved at all.

Through a cascade of blond curls, he tracked her eyes with his own. His smile didn't falter when her voice did. When he straightened, his height was unimpressive and his build, even layered with his Assassin's gear, was slight. He had a boyish face and ridiculous hair to go along with it, but something about his presence put the primal part of the human psyche on edge.

"My apologies," he said, and although the tone was right, his expression hadn't changed enough to support it. Teatime watched her with a twinkle his mismatched eyes (or at least, the human eye which was still capable of twinkling.) "Your name?" he reminded.

Evelyn stared at him for a long moment, wondering a great deal of things, not the least of which having to do with A.) his presence in the library in the first place, B.) those very strange eyes, and C.) his rather odd surname. If it even was his surname.

If it weren't for the unsettling gaze, she'd almost say that he looked charming.

"...Evelyn," she replied grudgingly, not all that keen on divulging a great deal of information to a total stranger. Straightening up, she smoothed her shirtwaist and reached over to shut the book she was perusing.

"May I help you, Mister...ah...Teatime?"

His smile went crooked, one side shifting into a frown. On anyone else, it would have looked like a sneer. On Teatime, it simply looked as if half of his mouth had forgotten that a smile required muscles to pull upward or else had abandoned the venture altogether. "Teh-ah-time-eh," he enunciated deliberately.

He brightened after a beat, as her question filtered back to him. "Oh I do hope so, Miss Evelyn. You see, I know the who and the when but I'm at a loss as to the where and the why." He cocked his head as he scrutinized for a moment. She didn't strike him as someone magical or influential. "Not that I think you would know the latter." It did not occur to Teatime that he was being unnecessarily obtuse.

...Teh-ah-time-eh. Of course. That is...precisely what she meant to say. Evelyn felt her own pleasant smile twitch as she resisted the urge to correct his 'Miss' with a 'Mrs.'

"I'm afraid when is also a pertinent query, Mister Teatime."

This time with the proper pronunciation.

"The where is Wonderland, of the Lewis Carroll variety with a few small alterations, and the why remains yet to be seen by all those who come here as involuntary guests. Given that more people are likely to ask from whence you came, it's only fair to share the fact that all current Wonderland residents hail from entirely different time periods."

Evelyn was included in this weighty generalisation, of course, but she wasn't about to offer up anything more than the basics for a fellow with an odd look in his eye and a proclivity toward sneaking about.

"That said, you must be new here."

"Wonderland," he repeated, more to assure her that he had heard than any sort of need on his end. He had been told that his eyes went glassy (or rather, the one that was not already glass went glassy) when he contemplated too hard.

"Is this Lewis Carroll a wizard?" he asked after storing the offered details. It was not altogether too hard to kill wizards. They left their focus in front of them and their backs exposed. Sometimes literally.

"Not to my knowledge," she replied carefully, "But I'm certainly some literary scholars would disagree. He's an author. We're trapped in his world. Or...perhaps it's just a world he visited and wrote about- but that doesn't matter, conversation for another day, and all that-"

Evie waved her hand, dismissing the subject.

"Regardless, we're all trapped here for an indefinite period of time and that's that, really."

Edited 2013-06-30 18:17 (UTC)

"Trapped in his world. His fictional writing world?" It wasn't so strange. He'd spent the last couple of hours in the Tooth Fairy's castle, and that was almost certainly imaginary. Still, ending up in a fictional world accidentally seemed like something that took intention on somebody's part. He could understand why he might be... contained, if not how.

He tilted his head, birdlike, and reassessed her. "So what are you? Dignitary? Thief? Grave robber?"

"Librarian," she said coolly, wholly unnerved by the way his head moved, how oddly reptilian it seemed. "And archaeologist," came the addendum.

By now she had gotten used to the strange personages that Wonderland pulled through to its side for whatever reason. Magic and science, none of it really made sense here.

"And you?"

Teatime's eyes flicked past her at 'librarian'. He hadn't even considered the possibility, even though they were in a library.

"I perform services," he chirped as he idly swung Death's sword. It had the odd effect of ringing like a wet fingertip on the lip of a wine glass. "Necessary services." He froze and turned his smile on her once again. "Maybe your... archaeological" he enunciated deliberately because it was just a fancy term for grave robber as far as he was concerned, "services would come in handy. Do you dismantle traps?"

Services.

Any 'service' that required the use of an enormous sword couldn't possibly bode well. That, and Evie didn't particularly like the way he was looking at her. As though she could fulfill some marvelous use.

"I'm a historical conservator, Mister Teatime, not a tomb raider, and while I count rudimentary lock-picking as a designated skill set, I don't participate in black market activities."

Her older brother, on the other hand...

"I see," Teatime said. His mouth lingered over the last syllable and his expression bordered on disappointment. Rudimentary lock-picking was not especially useful to him. He himself could pick locks rudimentarily. His thoughts strayed briefly toward the late Mr. Brown and his excellent service up until his timely end...

A single blink brought his attention back to the woman before him. "So a black market is already established here in this Wonderous-Land?" It was to be expected really. Where there were people, there would always be those eager to exploit others to get ahead.

It was a great relief to hear him almost put-out by the fact that she couldn't help him with...whatever it is he thought she can help him with. She's no grave-robber.

"It is, to a point. There are vendors out of doors on the opposite side of the house who do trades of questionable legality."

And they were really best to avoid, there was positively no telling what they'd want in return for a favour.

Edited 2013-07-17 16:17 (UTC)

"Opposite the house? That's... worrisome." His expression didn't say worried as much as disturbed and intrigued. He had studied long and hard to navigate the sophisticated side of the criminal underground. He wondered if such a thing was even established here.

"Surely the local watch makes efforts to shut down such obvious activity," he cocked his head.

Evelyn stared at him, suddenly struck with wonder as to where he could have possibly come from in the first place. His own criminal background seemed apparent given the blade in his hand and the queries about underground circles those who buy and sell illegal objects.

"We don't have a watch," she replied slowly, making certain to memorise every detail of his face, just in case.

...not a difficult feat, really.

Teatime's brow furrowed. No watch? Did that mean no one was around to enforce laws at all? It almost didn't seem fair... But then, if a building like a library was still standing, perhaps the general population was a peaceful sort.

Still, there had to be some manner of governing figure that he could grace with his skillset. There could be no politics without Assassins, after all.

"Someone should really put one together. If people are pulled in randomly, there's no telling when somebody dangerous might slip through," he replied at last.

Somebody dangerous.

How very apropos, given that he was the one in the conversation wielding a sword.

"I might just have to do that," she responded smoothly, unruffled by the implication that something bad could happen, and that he might be the impetus for it.

"You'll let me know if you see any suspicious characters about, won't you?"

"Oh, of course, Miss Evelyn. You've been most helpful this night." He stared for a moment longer than was strictly polite before inclining his head in a bow. "I look forward to returning the favor some day." His consequent smile was toothy and abrupt, but he did not subject her to it for long. With a quiet whoosh of dark material, he turned and strode away.

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