The night had closed over the city slowly, softly like a blanket being drawn lovelingly over a child, sheltering the glittering lights of the anicent buildings in the softest hues of blue and purple as sunset turned softly to dusk, a females eyes focused about the glory of the pastel bleeding of the two darker hues of the rainbow, drawing a distinct, personalized enjoyment from the sight. She loved dusk above all other times of day, the world seemed hushed almost, a whisper just waiting to be murmured into an ear and the way the colors blended and bled together in the sky above with the faintest touch of the sun captured her eye every night without fail. It was well that she had no such affinity nor love for the sunrise, for she was certainly not a morning person. Tonight however her simple enjoyment of the sky that stretched endlessly above her beloved city was jarred by the noise of sirens and her expression went from one contemplating bliss to disgruntlement, the pulsing noise dragging her thoughts away from the lofty thoughts the dusk usually enticed her to and replacing them with the unpleasantness of the current reality.<br/><br/>Her eyes turned from the large bay window, away from the vista that spread above the stone rooftops and the crowded, colorful streets of her beloved city. Instead they regarded the emptiness of the book store, the silent tomb she now found herself enshroud in, a tomb, partly of her own making. Papa had loved his books, oh that was true enough and she had shared his passion, there was little in life she enjoyed more then reading texts long forgotten and thought lost, more then discerning information and relying on her education to give her the translations to bits and pieces of documents that all scholars examined at their lezsiure. But the thrill that came from her fingers touching lightly upon parchment so aged by time it was nearly as soft as satin was a very different sort of joy then tending a bookstore, especially if one was doing the tending all by oneself. As she currently was. But Mama, bless her soul, wanted nothing to do with Papa's books, with what she regarded as having stolen half of her husbands attention, and Paulo, he had only wanted to go through, make an inventory and then sell off the precious and commerical books. The day after the funeral too. Rivan sighed softly to herself as she slipped off the chair that held her weight whilst her eyes had devoured their daily dose of twilight's dusk. Perhaps she was being stubborn, she still had her own life to start, only graduating from the university last spring hadn't afforded her much time to do anything, but when Papa had passed and no one else wanted the bookstore she had not possessed it in her to not attempt to save it.<br/><br/>She slipped out from behind the desk and wandered down the darkened isles, letting her fancy take her and whismy transmuted the rows of towering bookshelves into columns of a long forgotten palace, history coming to surrounded her as she indulged herself in the moment of folly. She was more at home among books then anywhere else, anywhere other then her Papa's company, they had been two of a kind, she and the old man, for all that his hair had been snowy white by her birth while her's was the deep deep red that appeared black except for when the sunlight caught the strands and flared with the hidden heat and flame. And he had been so tall, a tower of a man even to the last while she, his daughter reached only 5"5 in height, constantly annoyed by her older brother's teasing about her lack of height. At least she had shown Paulo that being short did not mean she was any less able to keep up or defend herself against him back in their childhood. A mirror caught her reflextion and then her eyes, hidden away through the books, Papa had placed there, whispering to her seven year old self that it was the Looking Glass from Lewis Carroll's tales. Her younger self had been enraptured with the fancy and spent hours upon hours regarding, ignoring her older brother's quips about her becoming vain. She was near staring at herself, only at the mirror and the magic it was suppose to represent. She halted there, regarding herself now, noting the softly rounded bones of her face, the fair golden skin, and the overly large eyes that were her mother's, the coloring though was just like Papa's, a rich chocolate peru that sometimes appeared to be a melting heat. Heat that flared and burned when a new maniscript came into play. "Oh..Papa..." she murmured the words softly, touching the locket that hung from around her slender neck, her eyes fluttering shut as she sent a brief prayer up to him. She missed him dreadfully.<br/><br/>Her fingers reached out to trail along the spines as she started walking again, her nose inhaling the scent of old books, leather bindings, tea leaves and cinnamon, the store itself was a scent she always found soothing, that relaxed her and brought the slightest hint of a smile to her cupids bow lips. She turned herself around, heading back toward the desk, only to trip over a book left on the floor, her plushly rounded figure landing with a soft thud against the floor. Her lips parted in a husky chuckle, she shook her head, her midnight flame tresses moving with her action, the heavy curls whispering against her skin as she got to her knees and reached to pick up the book. It was a commerical best seller, the ones she got just to keep the tourists buying things within. Only collectors would be interested in the half of the store that held such a fascination for her. She carried the hardback novel in her hands and reshelved it, dusting off her hands, her fingers then going to tuck an errant curl back behind her ears. She couldn't give up the store, couldn't let it just be sold away piece by piece, this was her father, this was her wonderland. But she would be glad when the new manager came in and worked the shifts so she could go back to her studies.<br/><br/>Back back, how she wished the mirror did lead away to another place, another time. Back to when her Papa was alive and all she had to contend with was the complexities of the next text she tackled for translation, with her father's beaming pride when the university graduated her top of her class and kept her own to help with the translation of their own anicent pieces. She had been his mia cara, his petite fairy, but without him there was no more magic in her life. Iva pushed hte thoughts away, disappointed with herself and the thinking of them, and she returned to her seat at the counter, her fingers plucking up the book she had been reading before her dusk had been stolen by the blarring sounds of the sirens slicing through the night.<br/>