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Friendly Conversationalist
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 Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:29 pm
Long hours stretched before him with no end in sight, and Alberto found that the days were a little less colorful recently. His time consisted of research, strolling the gardens, or strolling the entire compound for that matter. There was nobody outside to correspond with. The recent event of the Poland mission stood at the forefront in his mind, but over the past few months the sharper details had become muddled. It had all happened rather fast, admittedly, and the whole situation was a rather distasteful one.. but it had added an interesting spark to life.
Was this the downhill slope after such a shaking event? Was he becoming bored?
As he walked the halls aimlessly, Alberto felt a touch of shame in the back of his mind for thinking this. He still thought about it and they played in flashes in his head; blood on the Atrium floor, then Eponine collapsing into the mud, hurried shooting lessons, searing pain in his arm and the sound of whipping wires. Sometimes it chilled him, as memories of jungle fighting did to him at times, but other times he analyzed it, playing out different situations or things he could have done instead. But it was no good - one can't undo what's been done.
However that didn't solve his current predicament. Without the activity that the Poland mission had provided, he'd fallen into a slump. The same one he had experienced shortly after arriving at LOTUS. He felt antsy and trapped. There was nowhere for him to go except around the compound or diving back head-first into research.
And although more research did not sound appealing in the least, he found himself standing in front of the library doors. He reached forward and pushed them open, frowning slightly at the groaning hinges. The library looked deserted, as it normally was whenever he came around. He was hoping that somebody would be doing something inside, perhaps giving him a segway into a conversation - anything to alleviate that bored, trapped feeling. Anything to keep him from thinking about Poland any more than the 300 other times he'd already done so.
Well, what to do now?
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Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 9:07 pm
Shee frowned, her eyes darting back and forth between the two garish items in her hands. Sighing, she tossed them both aside, where they collided with an equally colourful stack of boxes, which collapsed, causing the films Sholay and Kaagaz ke Phool to skitter across the polished marble floor of the library. Determined as ever, Shee dove back into the box of Hindi films she had in front of her, rejecting another dozen before she found one she liked.
She remembered watching a film once, a long time ago. It was one of the few things she remembered about her India; about her past. She had stared, mesmerized, as the grainy black and white figures of the prince and the gypsy glided across the makeshift screen that had been set up. The projector had been rickety and almost broken, and probably stolen. But she has absorbed it all, escaped into the film as the gypsy who has stolen the prince's heart. That had been her ten-year old dream.
When she had learned from Wraith that they now produced the films in colour, she had been delighted. He had brought her movies, and they had sat, in that old abandoned monastery, watching the bright films that promised there was a world in which everything was better than it seemed. Wraith, and she smiled ruefully at the thought, had pretended not to enjoy them, but she knew he did. It had been a solace, those cold days made warmer by the glow of the old television and the feeling of them both, together, if nothing else.
She thought maybe a movie would make her feel better; the choice of which to watch, however, was proving to be difficult. Shee made a little sound of frustration that was immediately drowned out by more movies clattering to the floor, the sound reverberating through the library.
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:47 pm
The sound of shuffling and sighing caught Alberto's attention, and he scanned the front portion of the library for any signs of activity. So somebody else was here after all, what luck! He found himself gravitating towards the soft sounds of digging, colliding plastic.. then a louder crash.
Somebody was definitely here, and he wondered just who it was, and what they were looking for in such a hurry.
The vast collections of books loomed on either side of him, and aside from the random sounds escaping the depths of the library all was quiet. Eventually the familiar shelves faded into ones that were less familiar to his eyes (then again, he was more focused on whatever book he had open when he made trips to this part of the building). After a few moments of walking, he found himself among smaller shelves - these were colorful, containing not books, but small, peculiar cases sitting on end.. he'd never seen such things before.
He grabbed one and pulled it out. The type face on the front read some random string of English text - Lawrence of Arabia or something - and he figured it must have been a title. Flipping it over, he pried his fingers into the crack that lined the outside, and the case popped open to another even stranger object.
This wasn't a book. What was it doing in the library?
His eyes scanned the details of the object: the grooves on the black surface, the clear cover over what appeared to be rolls of black film... film? Was this what films looked like here? However his attention didn't linger long on the object in his hands as he saw a flit of green pass his line of sight, and he noticed the young woman before him riffling through the boxes. The dress she was wearing looked so familiar..
And then it hit him. The Atrium. Blood everywhere. Poland.
This was his superior officer... currently on her knees in the library and frantically pawing through the boxes of films (that's what he figured them to be until he found out otherwise). What on Earth could she be looking for?
"Uh..." The word hung as Alberto put the video and its case on the shelf and approached her. His superior officer.. he couldn't remember if he'd ever talked to her before. Did he even talk to her on that day? "Uh... what... are you lookin' for?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:47 pm
"Oh!"
She'd been rather focused on her search, and hadn't noticed the other person in the library until he'd spoken. She stopped digging through the box for a moment, and looked up at the man.
This was... who was this? It was getting harder to remember the different recruits, since she'd been barred from missions. They were all so solitary, and she found herself having trouble putting a name to the face. He did look rather familiar though...
"Alberto! That's it!" She was distracted in her happiness at remembering something correctly and almost forgot about his question. She looked up at him, brows knitting in exaggerated frustration, and then looked slowly at the cases littering the library floor.
"I'm looking for a film to watch!" Her tone implied that of course Alberto should have known that was what she was looking for. "Although... I'm having a hard time deciding. It has to be funny and romantic and have good songs and a handsome male lead." Shee ticked off her requirements on her fingers to emphasize the points. So now he knew what she was doing...
"What are you doing in the library?"
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Friendly Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2009 11:02 am
Well now.
Alberto was surprised by her jump from surprise, to happiness, to somewhat of a sharp tone. The sight of any superior doing something more to their fancy and looking.. not as he normally pictured higher officers was something that doubly surprised him. However he had to remind himself that they were also human, with their own interests and needs for downtime. It was just hard to imagine the last time he had seen her, it was in the middle of a crisis, where a business first attitude was needed.
Put against that, this contrast was.. rather cute. His face likely showed an uncharacteristically dumb expression, as his mouth was partially open to respond when she had finally remembered his name (not that he blamed her.. he didn't quite remember hers, either).
"Uhm.. yeah.. that's me--" He started to say, before she dived into what she was looking for. A film? So that's what these little cases were? Technology certainly had changed since he last came across films.. in his time, they were in canisters. Of course, he could not have bragged upon seeing many films. He'd seen a few clips when his family had gone to visit relatives - mostly foreign fare of about two minutes long, although he had seen one where Death followed two lovers in Plague-ridden Spain; he'd found that one interesting.
He was going over the requirements in his head (was this a film or musical theater.. ?) before she turned his question around on him. Alberto blinked at her sudden changes of conversation; she was certainly one to keep up with!
"Dunno, really." He half shrugged. "Couldn't relax so I just ended up walkin'.. and I showed up here and found you looking at these." He lowered himself to the ground and picked up one of the scattered cases, turning it over to read the title. Which didn't do a lot of good - it was in a language he couldn't understand. "Didn't know they made films like theater shows.. s'been a while since I've seen one." He held out the case to her with a smile.
Perhaps it'd be a good opportunity to see the changes in cinema first hand.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2009 11:20 pm
Shee sighed, looking slightly forlorn. She knew the feeling well, of being bound up so tightly that it was hard to know what to do. "You could walk in the gardens..." That was what she found herself doing recently, after Einar. She was still mad at the man for making such a mess of himself; she still remembered the sting of him refusing her help. The gardens... she smiled ruefully, remembering when they had arrived; the "gardens" had been nothing but brambles and weeds, slowly taking over the abandoned monastery that they had found themselves settling in. She didn't know why everything had grown so quickly and so well; perhaps she had been a gardener's daughter. No, that wasn't it. Wraith was too smart for that; he was so intelligent and sharp and impeccable that she felt sure they must have been rich or near it.
Blinking and putting a hand to her temple before continuing, she smiled. "Oh, they're great. Big and colourful," she made a large circular motion with her arms for effect, "and everything always works out in the end." She took the case from Alberto and looked over the cover. "Mughal-E-Azam..." Leaping to her feet, she began to make her way over to the plump, overstuffed couches in front of which stood a modestly-sized television set. Looking over her shoulder at Alberto, she paused. "Coming? It'll make you feel better, I promise."
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