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"Go ahead and look around," Earendil smiled. "We have plenty of time."

She could look as long as she wanted to find the book that she would like.

The shopkeeper entered from the back of the shop and looked around, surveying his customers. He gave Earendil a cursory glance, looked at Lin and Miyuki through slightly narrowed eyes - and when he saw the other woman who was looking around, he stiffened quite visibly and glared quite angrily. She had her back to him, though, and didn't seem to be worried about anything.

There were books of all sorts: simple, elaborate, large, small, thick, thin, and so on, of various designs and and so on.

The young woman was also looking around, and she glanced down at Miyuki when Miyuki started to look around.

"They are beautiful, are they not?" she asked the kitsune softly, a kind smile on her face. "The books I mean. They are a work of art in themselves."

"Is there a particular design that you like best?" the young woman asked. "I like the dragons, myself."

"As well you would," the shopowner snapped, coming up behind them and grabbing the woman roughly by the shoulder. "What are you doing here again? I thought I got rid of you!"

The woman yelped and fell against one of the shelves. "What-"

"Mean?" The shopkeeper turned his eyes to Miyuki, and his lips curled in a sneer. "You want to talk about mean? The last time she was in here, FIVE BOOKS had to be thrown out! She took a bottle of ink and poured it over FIVE BOOKS!"

"I've never been in here before!" the woman protested, tears pooling in her wide green eyes.

"Shut up, vandal!" the man shot back at her, turning his fury towards her again.

Earendil's own temper was rising, and he stepped forward to join his daughter (who he was quite proud of at the moment, for standing up for the woman and for not losing her temper and doing something nasty to the man).

"She said she's never been here before," he repeated firmly, his tone cold.

"Destroying books for no reason doesn't make any sense either," the man glared at Lin, "But I saw her do it with my own eyes."

Earendil reached down and helped the woman to her feet. "If I were you," he told the shopkeeper, "I would be very careful in what accusations I make. I have seen nothing guilty in this woman's deportment, and I believe that you must be mistaking her for someone else."

"I know what I saw," the man growled. "I spend my life searching for differences and similarities, and I do not make mistakes."

The woman was crying now, and Earendil handed her a handkerchief from his pocket. She accepted it with trembling fingers and put it to her eyes.

"I have no interest in anything she has to say," the man told Lin in a tone that disallowed arguments. "She's a vandal, and I saw it with my own eyes! There's nothing she could say that could convince me otherwise."

He turned furious eyes back to the woman, and he was so furious that his entire body was shaking with rage. He pointed at the woman. "Now get out," he snarled. "And don't you dare come back here again, ever!"

Still wiping her eyes with the handkerchief, the young woman picked up her skirt and fled.

Earendil looked at the shopkeeper coldly.

"We had been planning on buying one of your books," he told him stiffly, "but after what I have just witnessed, I don't believe that I would like to give you any of my money."

He turned to Lin and put one hand on her shoulder. "Come, let's go see if that young woman is all right."

The young woman was still running down the street at top speed, as fast as her feet would take her right out of town and into the forest.