The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Human Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Caustic on 12-05-2008, 22:39:47</h2>
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				Title: <strong>The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>12-05-2008, 22:39:47</strong>
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				It's August in New York, and heat bathes the city's sprawling, prone body, as if heaven is determined to remind the inhabitants that, yes, Manhattan is an island.&nbsp; Sweat streaks the faces of those crossing Washington Square, darkens the back of shirts, makes people scurry from awning to awning in a desperation to avoid the torrential summer sun.<br><br>An ice vendor on the street rolls his empty cart along the sidewalk, harried along the way by lean brown and gray cats that he hisses at, but won't kick away.&nbsp; No one else loves the ice vendor when he's got no ice.<br><br>A line of motorcabs that thread the streets under vines of looped electrical and telephone wire, by corners where there are phone booths and crossing-signs, stoplights and flat-board-sign wearers.&nbsp; A young woman crosses the square in front of roman-- she looks digified and miserable in her heels and skirt, languishing at being proper in the heat.&nbsp; Roman catches a glimpse of her legs' silhouette as she crosses at the corner before a slat-side truck, and he can't help but smile-- just a little-- at how good it must be to watch her stockings come off.<br><br>Course, no stockings now... no silk.&nbsp; Lots of things are different now... ration coupons, steel drives, all of it.&nbsp; Not as many men about.&nbsp; Roman draws some stares, cause he looks like he's in great shape.&nbsp; Hell, he's not even sweating in this heat-- his tan suit remains smooth, when he sweeps his forehead, the white hat comes off, and the hat band is barely damp at all.&nbsp; He looks lke someone who should have enlisted... big shoulders, tall, lean-waisted, angular-jawed.&nbsp; A dusting of shadow on his cheeks, and before the hat goes back, some silver at the temples.&nbsp; Short hair, cropped with an electric razor every few weeks.&nbsp; Just for the ease of it.<br><br>A flat-capped boy in suspenders and a cotton shirt twice his size calls out about the news from the opposite corner.&nbsp; Roman doesn't stop walking, switches the change for the black-printed white rag of newspring.&nbsp; The front says that the Russians are making real headway into Poland, says they found some kind of civilian camp there and aren't talking about it much, but that it's pretty bad.&nbsp; <br><br>It must be bad, then.&nbsp; The Russians were never much on personal connections, from what he remembers of his time sorting their reports and reports about them.&nbsp; Some believe that they might become a problem after the war, once they've recovered.&nbsp; Roman's not sure of it, himself.&nbsp; But he wouldn't doubt it.&nbsp; They'll survive, and come back different... something more, bigger inside than out.<br><br>A Fairlane pauses long enough to let him cross, and Roman can see the campus-- the edifices of stone that are New York University.&nbsp; A catacomb of knowledge in three-story segments, a maze of cultivation, a despot of individualism, youth, brilliance, tradition, and ludicrous repetition of speculations.&nbsp; Prometheus' bones, inhabited by scavenger beetles.<br><br>The finest of these beetles is Dr. Rafe Evans, Egyptologist, Anthropologist, Stoicist, but under it all a hard-drinker and cantankerous bastard.&nbsp; Roman had med the man a decade before, when he was still working for the Agency and the old man was, though lacking the title, already an old man.&nbsp; They'd get into arguments about Camus, kill a bottle of 20-year-old Scotch, play chess until the sun came up, in those days.&nbsp; Only ten years, and the old days were hung and preserved to dry to dust in the abbatoir of memory.<br><br>A door, glass panes and pull the size of a breadbox.&nbsp; Roman was staring at it, his fingers wrapped around the flat-iron handle and its sheen, and no one was watching him... if they had, they'd have seen him standing rigid, eyes open, blinking from time to time, for a full minute.&nbsp; For him, though, it was more like ten-- he'd returned to a chess game with Rafe, in his upstairs study while a storm rattled the shutters like a persistent and bored child.<br><br>He'd heard a noise-- a high, shrill little cry, like a cat or a bird through the halls of Rafe's house, over pine floors, past alabaster moulding, vases from Greece, a piano with cracked keys from Africa, framed paintings not hung leaning against the walls, a cavalry saber's dingy gold tassle, a suit of armor of disintegrating silk and leather from Japan, scattered pieces of camera equipment, and-- more than anything-- the sound had carried past stacks, stacks, and stacks of books, like a hedge maze through Dr. Evans' winding world, through his cradle of detachment, his recluse's den.&nbsp; The space between them was his hermitage, and was the fortress of the girl he'd been saddled with, unexpectantly, last year.<br><br>Rafe's flesh and blood-- conceived and born god-knows-where, her archaeologist parents taking the girl along from one quest to the next until their questing met its untimely end.&nbsp; She must have still been having nightmares, and Roman stayed far from the doorway, polite to her as he was to anyone, but secretly desperate to maintain distance with anything so impressionable as a child.<br><br>The flashback over, Roman removed his hat as he pulled the door to, then stepped into the tiled foyer, onto a ceramic mosaic grayed with age and dust.&nbsp; His patent shoes clipped smartly along the floor, and he swept his eyes over the doors of lecture halls, offices, and receptionist tables.&nbsp; Somewhere, a lecture was in full swing on the topic of the Saracens and the Seige of Acre, the dry, sonorous notes mercifully muted by distance and heavy, oak doors.&nbsp; But Roman's not going to the lecture halls... he threads the alabaster tunnel, the cracked-plaster and dust sighing at the presence of so many feet, but only audible in this solitude.&nbsp; <br><br>The mechanism of a fire door crunches loudly, and he passes through.&nbsp; He's headed for the basement to find the girl who had glared at him at every meeting, as if she could sense the wrongness about him.&nbsp; No longer a girl, now a young woman.&nbsp; Dr. Evans' natural protege, his only decendant.&nbsp; Gifted, lovely.&nbsp; Too smart not to know that Roman is not like anyone else.&nbsp; Even now, his skin darkened faintly by the sun, his tan-colored suit whispering softly with each step and his white hat held inconspicuously in his hand, there's a predatory air, an otherness about him.&nbsp; Too much animal in him for these modern times... too much time spent among the secrets and bones and lies so old they became truths.&nbsp; <br><br>He taps once, waits, then opens the door to the massive undercroft of the university hall-- the great, pillared rooms are the complex of some underground hive, the dusty catacombs of memory-pieces so fragmented that they can never be made into sense complete sense.
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Airindel</strong> on <strong>14-05-2008, 20:39:35</strong>
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				In the catacombs of archives in the depths of the university, underground in a maze of stone walls and small private rooms sectioned off with heavy oak doors or those made with panels of glass, industrious students gathered and roamed, rooted in place to study and grow weary and dusty like the venerable professors that made the archives their hive. Busied themselves, the professors did, lost in thoughts, lost in their own theories, lost in their own quaint little world of specialities. Scratchings of pens echoed throughout, and the dry pages within old tomes turned: the only noises that filled the rooms save for the hum of fans and the breathing of individuals. Enclosed in silence it remained, and the atmosphere as impossibly still as it could be: the climate was arid like the sands of Egypt that yearned for a droplet of water, a bead of rain to quench an unbearable thirst, and that it would always remain. No librarian, no professor, and no researcher wished for anything less for the travesty of a fox marking, the scent of must or mould would condemn a body of literature and spread the disease amongst the books and files like the plagues of yore.<br><br>Fitted snug behind a desk that was uncommonly cluttered with loose papers, parchments tainted yellowish-brown from time, a young woman swathed in hues of dull grey and black was perched upright on the uncomfortable yet smooth wooden chair. Stocking feet, a rarity given the shortage of silk, lack of funds and ration cards, were kicked free of heeled shoes, loose, and toes poked at one another as the right foot idly rubbed and caressed the left. As smartly as she was dressed, the skirt and blouse impeccably matching and well tailored to her curvaceous body, there was an air of eccentricity to her. A fountain pen twirled loosely in her thin pale hand; fingernails were neatly trimmed and painted a dark red to match the lipstick that adorned her face, her succulent lips that were kissable yet no man or woman dared to bestow affection on the delicate skin. Occasionally, those fingers stopped fidgeting to push up her glasses that slid down her nose, a repetitive offence that was irritating, and interfering with her work at cataloguing the scrolls. <br><br>It was a tedious and meticulous task that many loathed, yet for Rebecca Evans, the granddaughter and protégé of Dr. Rafe Evans, there was solitude within it, a remarkable comfort and fondness that surrounded her, her aura, for too there opportunity to touch and examine texts that had long been forgotten by many scholars save for those with peculiar interests. It was those sentiments which made her stare blankly at the pages for the longest time; serene she remained, unmoved, and calm as any lifeless book upon the shelf. She drifted through a past time when she was just a youngster, voices and vague memories of her parents floated through her mind, and for but a moment, she could feel the sultry rays of the sun upon her face and the dryness of sand wash over her hands, her feet, and her very essence as if the gods and goddesses of the ancient Egyptians whispered her name in her ear. <br><br>From her reverie, Rebecca was pulled because a single knock disturbed the tranquillity of the rooms, the natural habitat of the dedicated studious. The sound, low yet fierce, seemed thunderous as it echoed throughout the chambers and it made heads turn and wide bloodshot eyes peer from over the top of thick books with marbled or gilded edges, or some recently cut to unfold the knowledge held within the sacred pages. On glancing up, Rebecca recognized the man at the door, and her nose scrunched smaller and her delicate forehead furrowed with disdain for him; her memory of Roman over the years had not faded and still she thought of him as peculiar. Why he was there at the university and in the archives, the young woman did not know, but she could only guess that he wanted to involve her grandfather in some impassioned questionable theory, and seeing her grandfather now frail, Rebecca knew that Roman would only tax him emotionally and mentally. She could not afford that for she feared losing him to Death before his true time.<br><br>Praying that Roman had not seen her, had not recognized her for it had been several long years, Rebecca began to gather up the papers she was cataloguing with meticulous detail. She had decided she would leave through the back fire exit unnoticed, but the plan ended when a careless unobservant librarian walked into Rebecca, and the stack of papers, the dense files, fell from the young woman's hands and scattered over the floor like a ticker tape parade on Thanksgiving Day or the Fourth of July. Her nose wrinkled once more, but now she stood in the midst of a mess, her natural alabaster skin paling, and anger boiled in her blood. &nbsp;“Mmmm.” The delicate noise slid from her throat, caressed her mouth, and flitted into the once silent and still air. <br><br>&nbsp;“Miss Evans, I'm dreadfully sorry. Please allow me to help,” The thin librarian, a man only a few years her age, whispered, and in no particular order, he began to awkwardly pluck up the pages, wrinkling them, shuffling them, and it made Rebecca further pale.<br><br>Her hand clapped the librarian's shoulder. &nbsp;“Mmmm.” A nervousness went about her. &nbsp;“Please do not. I beseech you.” Rebecca whispered, and scampered across the floor like a meek mouse gathering the delicate pages; the librarian looked confused, but knowing she had grown up in Rafe Evan's household, knowing she was kin, her quirks were forgiveable especially those regarding texts and scrolls; a bibliophile some called her.<br><br>In the current maddened mind that was Rebecca Evans, in the state of it all, Roman was completely forgotten by the beauty. <br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>14-05-2008, 22:29:10</strong>
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				The research assistant's lepidine face turns reluctantly away, betraying the sinking feeling that accompanies the special flavor of humiliation that accompanies disappointing an attractive woman.&nbsp; He emits a sound like a gasp or a squeak when he's met with an unexpected, sudden presence, and his apology fails mid-exhale as he shuffles away, hurrying, desperate to end the moment.<br><br>The whisper of creaking leather off to her side is followed by a presence that dims the muted, basement light like a cloud, black-washing the sun's light.&nbsp; Then he's crouched alongside her, tan-clad long legs bent double beneath him.&nbsp; This is as close as they've ever been in proximity-- before this moment, there was answering the door, riding opposite her grandfather from him on a streetcar, across the round table at one of Rafe's late dinners of French-labeled cheese, a bottle of red wine, a pan-seared flank of some harbor-fish she could never really identify.<br><br>Roman.&nbsp; No last name ever mentioned.&nbsp; In those days when she came to live with her grandfather, Roman must have been close to the age she was now, perhaps a bit older-- but, certainly, he'd been just as old as those sands of her child-mind's memory.<br><br>His hands passed along the sheaves of white press, scrawled violet-black script in looping whorls that spoke of discovery and exhaustion, fine-detailed tables of syllables in dialects not heard aloud in a thousand years.&nbsp; His are long fingers, like thick-grown, aged bamboo wood, honey-tan and strong. They look strong enough to crush bone, with knuckles a constellation map of fine white scars-- perhaps from that very thing.<br><br>Those hands glide to the edge of each sheaf, coaxing it from the ground rather than crinkling at it, and in a moment he's swept together a stack of paper to a neat pile, albeit unsorted, that he lifts with surprising care.&nbsp; "You'd think that, with the hours some people spend studying writing," he straightens, seems quite close-- the angle allowing him to appraise her shoulders, her glossy black hair, the delicate nose and fingerboard throat, in one downtilted glance.&nbsp; "You'd think they could show a little reverence."<br>A smell, unfamiliar.&nbsp; Almost imperceptible, even at this proximity-- some faint cologne, perhaps-- sandalwood, clove oil, like some poultice from Tunisia.&nbsp; "Good to see you again, Rebecca."&nbsp; &nbsp;His voice again, dark and resonant, a sundown of notes with the red tinge of some Southern home, as faint as the last glimpse of day.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Airindel</strong> on <strong>19-05-2008, 01:37:40</strong>
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				No notice did Rebecca offer the librarian, his thin body almost disappearing into nothingness after she addressed him, after she dismissed his presence. His clumsy skeletal fingers, those that were a little too long, a little too slender, those that dredged the crisp old papers across the floor, those that skimmed them like hooks baiting fish stopped, and fled he did down an empty corridor that lead to a small room adjoining another a small room: newspaper archives were housed there. No notice did Rebecca offer that same librarian; not once did she realize how often the glasses he wore consistently slid down his nose, or the haze of blue behind those glasses that forever admired her over the years of her being a student at the university. No notice did Rebecca offer that librarian nor would she ever for unimportant he was, Jared Williams, the librarian, aged sixteen days, four months and twenty-six years, or so Rebecca believed and wanted to believe for why else would she know his name or that little detail of age. The thought was distracted in her mind as Roman made his presence, always particularly silent: the scent of him familiar, and a flood of memories filled her, hours of staring at the peculiar man who never seemed normal, doubted he was normal, and her lips, crimson in colour, full and beautiful, rosebud in shape pressed into a thin line. Fingers caressed fingers as papers were exchanged, the only contact between her and Roman ever, and Rebecca stepped away, withdrawing herself from his company, his presence, dismissing him as she dismissed the librarian, Jared Williams.<br><br>&nbsp;“Reverence,” Rebecca repeated the one word as she chased a lonely paper over the floor; her legs bent, long and shapely, to disappear within her skirt yet the seam of her stockings were alluring and one had to ponder where it met her creamy white skin, and the colour of garter that had it clasped in place. &nbsp;“So few, indeed, hold a book or paper in reverence as <em>we</em> do for many are unlike us, unlike <em>you</em>, Roman.” Rebecca whispered, her voice faint and serene as the atmosphere around them remained broken, disturbed, and many eyes watched them before drifting back to texts that remained dusty.<br><br>Rebecca spun on her heels, black patent leather that were inches high, and with one long leg before the other, she stalked away from the older man, dismissed his presence from her as she had dismissed the librarian's. Rebecca, however, did not consider Roman to be unimportant; his presence disturbed her, and the reason Roman was at the university and in particular within the archives haunted her mind let alone her person. Her small nose wrinkled in disgust at the weakness that plagued her, the weakness of being drawn to his handsomeness, the strangeness that caressed Roman's soul, and momentarily the young woman blamed the lingering scent of sandalwood that she recognized. It perfumed Roman's bronzed skin, or maybe his clothes, and it made Rebecca stop in her tracks. She turned to face Roman once more before she paraded away and disappeared into the lonely corridors of the archives.<br><br>&nbsp;“He's unwell, Roman, my grandfather. If you have any reverence for him, any, I ask that you just leave him be.” It was the first time there was sincerity in her voice when she addressed him, a hint of warm, and her eyes momentarily gazed into his, into the murky depths that housed a mysteriousness about his aura.<br><br>Her footsteps echoed on the tiles.<br>
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				Title: <strong>Re: The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>28-05-2008, 22:17:22</strong>
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				Roman watches her as she steps away, the clean stride somehow alluring and utterly proper.&nbsp; Her dismissal passes over him like a waft of warm, dry air from a lady's paper fan, slows him with just as much resilience.&nbsp; He almost protests, but knows there's no use in it.&nbsp; The old man's pride prevented him from admitting the graveness of his condition directly.&nbsp; Roman was no liar, and Rebecca no fool, and to harp on the subject-- to mention that her grandfather had received Roman's company at his home with a icy calm would be pointless.&nbsp; She would already know.<br><br>The nurse had bustled about quietly, speaking to the old man in French when she needed him to lift his head, turn this way or that, or when she was injecting something into his arm, or into the rubber valve of one of his glass intravenous bottles.&nbsp; The cool determination of him, but the grim resignation that his abilities would fail... there was knowledge in the man's mind of a hundred different cultures' histories that, outside his mind, could never be collected... behind those pale eyes, straining with pain, were hundreds of unsortable volumes of notes, tens of thousands of hours of study-- an expertise with which he had sawed like a carbon blade through the most impenetrable of lore for decades, seeing where Roman's eyes failed, where departments of academics and priests and artists had stared only with fish-eyed wonder.&nbsp; And the man had spoken to Roman, his old friend, in the fashion he always had; with a caballero's respect, a rake's tinge of cynicism and humor.&nbsp; But muting it all like biting cold snow was the stinging-- the pain of his sickness.&nbsp; The blinding, brainstem-crippling sickness.&nbsp; And disappointment.<br><br>"I almost wish I had," he says softly, following her footfalls with a casual swagger, one hand in his pocket and the other fingering the leather band of the hat in his hand.&nbsp; "...left him be, that is.&nbsp; But it's too late for that now."<br><br>Stepping closer, footfalls steady as his eyes, Roman moved to assume a position at her side and, like some inquiring suitor asking for a dance, extends his hand, matching her pace, and gives her a roll of curled photographic paper-- the edges are curled, glossy, the white border of unexposed paper giving way to an inky black where one hand-rolled photo's image peeks out.&nbsp; "He's determined that this is something demanding your attention."<br><br>It made sense, in a way-- she was brilliant, a fact more evident from the old man's lack of comment than any braggery-- he spoke of her quietly, with calm consideration, for years.&nbsp; When he chose tutors for her, they were his own graduate student protege-candidates, who never seemed to rise to his level, but showed enough promise to earn a moment of his attention.&nbsp; But Rebecca-- she must be remarkable indeed, for now, in his final days, he has paid her a compliment that Roman's never seen.<br><br>"He said..."&nbsp; and the thought actually gives Roman pause, for just long enough to ensure that he speaks it correctly, "... that you're the best chance I have at this."&nbsp; The photo-paper unfurls, and black, mechanically-even edges take shape, and she can see there in the black and white of one print the shape of a creature-- her recognition is immediate, but unfocused.&nbsp; For a moment she's certain that it's Ancient Chinese, but-- strange, the angles and dimension bear the earmarks of Aztec design, three-dimensional and caricaturish.&nbsp; A beast of four heads, a man's body-- it's in tile, or etched stone-- the photo makes it difficult to tell-- it resembles so many things that it is impossible for her to say precisely what it actually depicts... but it isn't good.&nbsp; It's simply beautiful.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: The Labyrinth of Bone (Airindel and Caustic)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Airindel</strong> on <strong>29-05-2008, 22:16:28</strong>
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				<em>The ticking of the antique grandfather clock filled the quietness of the night, and that particular quietude was punctuated by wheezing, and the ginger fingering of books and papers turning; a crisp, yet low sound it was: Dr. Evans was blankly staring at a page in a book for hours, and his granddaughter was more than aware of that fact, but did not remark. The decline of his health was worrisome to Rebecca: of late, he lost the sarcastic tone in his sullen voice, his dry and remarkable wit, and compliments were a little too generous. It made Rebecca weep silently at night as she prepared for his inevitable death, yet to be decrepit and with failing health, ...no, she was bitter that her grandfather could not have a more worthy decline, a notable death. It all seemed and all felt wrong, and little use was it to dwell upon the matter; her pen dipped into the red ink and thirty-six percent Rebecca wrote in a perfect loopy curvature penmanship. &nbsp;“Instead of a rubbish term paper associated with your name and grade, one would think that a student would have the intelligence to ask for an extension to create a decent, not necessarily good, but a decent paper.” Rebecca said, her silky voice breaking the silence that swathed the room, and her dark eyes glanced up at her grandfather.<br><br>Immediately Dr. Evans, for indeed the man was never 'grandpa' or 'pappy' or anything more endearing to Rebecca save for his actual name, fidgeted with his oxygen tubes, and in doing so, the book slid free of his hands, slipped against his blanket and fell to the floor with a thunderous clap. Rebecca arched her eyebrow and did her best not to seethe with disgust or chastise the man, but she did clear her throat, did clean the nib of her fountain pen and did close the inkwell. &nbsp;“You are a contemptible man at best, Dr. Evans, almost obnoxious at times, and of late you have taken to polite societal manners which is, actually, unbecoming of you. Please, do tell me what is worming through that brain of yours so we might be able to resume a normal life.” Rebecca stated, and departing from the comfort of her desk, she sat beside the old man and nestled into his bed linens.<br><br>&nbsp;“I fear for you when I am gone.”The old man confessed, his voice hoarse, practically raw, gritty, and he reached to squeeze his granddaughter's hand. &nbsp;“I don't want you to be alone.”<br><br>Rebecca smiled. Continuously over the last fortnight her grandfather persisted in the idea that she settle down, have a family, raise little ones in a normal lifestyle, and if she were incompetent to do that, to make herself attractive to Roman, to be less frigid regarding him for Roman knew her well, and understood her. &nbsp;“No! No! No! This conversation is closed. There is no more discussion concerning me being alone when you die, besides, you are just loathsome enough that whatever god or goddess controls our fate, that he or she shall turn you away, and you will remain haunting me. I hardly consider that alone,” Rebecca commented and pecked a kiss upon her grandfather's warm and wrinkled cheek. &nbsp;“Besides, Roman is,” She searched her mind for a specific word, and exhausted from grading papers, she shrugged her shoulders. &nbsp;“peculiar.”<br><br>Dr. Rafe Evans choked out a laugh. &nbsp;“And my granddaughter is not?” He jested, and his eyes studied her for a moment before closing them for the night so that sleep could claim him.<br>Rebecca only scoffed at the remark.</em><br><br><br>As if the two were passing notes in elementary school, the curled photographic paper was given to Rebecca; fingers touched fingers, idly, carelessly, and yet there was a delicateness to the caress: a fear that the paper would be ruined, or dropped, or that another might see who was passing in the corridors. At first, she did not look at the paper, but instead lingered in Roman's closeness, breathed in his scent, and let it drift over her body and through her as if the pair were courting; no fear of that, however, as silence passed between them save for the footfalls. His were heavier, and one could tell that he wore a shoe, and hers were light, and pranced with a clicking of heels; strides were equal, and at a leisurely pace.<br><br>Rebecca, in stepping near her grandfather's office, stopped to unlock the door, and only then did her fingers glide across the photographic paper to uncurl the edges. Papers dropped once more, dropped from surprise as her eyes caught sight of the man, or beast, or the symbol; fluttered the papers did, and scatter across the smooth tiled floor. It was a blur, the image in the photograph, and for a moment Rebecca caught glimpses only and as she realized what it was, what it maybe, it concluded solidarity, and only then did she drop the files. The keys hung loosely in the door, and at first she could only look at Roman as if she were a clumsy school girl carrying too many books, too many files and papers: her red lips parted more than once, yet no words formed.<br><br>&nbsp;“You are a bothersome man,” Rebecca finally murmured as she struggled with the door, finally opening it and inside she walked; the windows were open, and nothing truly changed with the office save that it was hers now, yet nothing had changed but the name on the door. Her grandfather's art, photographs and maps were hung neatly upon the wall as well as display cases, and a collection of books were neatly arranged on shelves with odd nick knacks cluttering them. It even smelled of her grandfather save for the perfume. &nbsp;“Would you pick up the papers?” Rebecca asked, and she removed a cigarette case from the desk drawer, struck a match, and lit a cigarette. Marred with the imprint of her crimson lipstick, she offered it to Roman and then lit one for herself.<br><br>&nbsp;“Where did you find it?” Rebecca asked, referring to the photographing as she studied it. Her fingers, with the neatly trimmed nails painted dark red, pushed her glasses higher onto the bridge of her nose as the other hand held the picture. Smoke, a thin wisp of grey, filtered through her lips, and she turned to look at Roman. Her bobbed black hair, sleek and shiny, framed her pale face that formed an inquisitive expression that marked a note of interest and certain curiosity.
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