thisavrou_log | reading is what?

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bioshock: elizabeth dewitt

reading is what?

Who: Varric Tethras, Elizabeth DeWitt, Sans, anyone else!
When: 21st Jan or some time thereabouts???
Where: Library
What: Varric finally gives in to his urges...and visits the library
Warnings: Sans and Varric being shits, probably.

Elizabeth

So he's been meaning to visit the library ever since he realised one existed on board. But here's the thing - he knows full damn well that if he goes in there, it's going to be several days worth of sleepless nights and a missed shift or two before he leaves again. If he's lucky. So he left it in favour of the whole...settling in thing.

But here he is, at long last, and all he has to do is walk in and smell the vague hint of wood and paper and leather in the air before he's grinning broadly. Somehow he hadn't realised how...bereft the air is throughout most of the ship. Lifeless. This? This is good. This is more like it.

For a moment or two, all he does is take in the sight of all this, glance along the tops of the piles of books closest to the door, take in titles that mean anything from very little to him to absolutely nothing at all. It's about then that he decides on getting some professional help (words he has said to himself before, though generally sarcastically).

The librarian, however, is nowhere to be seen, and he has no idea what Elizabeth DeWitt looks like, so he uses the best method he's got, a classic posture - that of 'helpless idiot vaguely wanders room' - and counts on her to swoop down to take pity on him. Well, not swoop. Swooping is bad.

...Damn it, he misses home.

OTA #1

He's had to start at the beginning. The wonders of the technology the ship's crew uses to understand one another became all the more fantastic to him the second he picks up the first book. He browses the shelves, reading excerpts to gauge his interest and moving on. One book's writing may be in elaborate pictographs, no spaces or punctuation, aligned so that he's reading "backwards". Another may have a clear alphabet, but with several more letters than of the languages of Thedas, arranged on the page vertically. Where he would need to pay a scholar to understand such things at home, here he can read it all at a glance, and the burst of freedom he feels looking at all of these shelves is enough to leave him a little genuinely emotional. Or maybe he's just hungry.

His idle wandering eventually brings him in sight of another crew member, maybe browsing the shelves as well, and while he wouldn't bring himself to disturb someone in the middle of reading, if all they're doing is looking he feels no shame whatsoever in stepping over to them and asking lightly, "Anything you'd recommend?"

OTA #2

First things first. Space, planets, the universe. What is it. How does it work. How long is he going to have to take out of his life to understand it.

He ends up perched on a stool with a book whose title contains a word he doesn't know the meaning of, and he's there, reading in silence, face set in concentration, for a good long while.

Wherever you are in the quiet shelves of the library, you may be surprised to hear a loud voice exclaiming,

"What the shit."

Sans

The next couple of books he picks out are fairly simple. One is a giant of a thing that easily deserves the word tome to describe it - the history of a world he doesn't recognise in name or any kind of appearance, but where it calls itself history, for him it's part far-flung future, part fiction. The other - pulp fiction. A slim detective novel, because bad fiction is a love of his, and besides - he might still learn something.

The world has changed. It's exploded outwards, it's sped on like a downhill mining cart and all he can do is hold on to the back. And trashy fiction might just be one way of doing it.

Finding a place to sit down - part of him wants a drink, something hot and alcoholic, but he has a feeling that would be frowned upon in here - he makes a beeline for an armchair that looks perfectly comfortable from the back, rounds it--

And there's a skeleton there.

"Well, look who's come rattling in." Technically, Varric is the newcomer in this situation, but who cares about accuracy. Certainly not him.

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Surrounded by thick tomes with impressive words like General Relativity, Black Hole Thermodynamics, and Fancy Fred's Guide to Wisecracks embossed on their covers, Sans looks even smaller than usual. By his chair, a half-full mop bucket of tepid water sits long forgotten.

With increasing frequency, Sans found himself cutting off work early once his rounds took him past the library. Today started out no different, but the arrival of his friend immediately imbues added pleasure in Sans' fixed grin.

Without missing a beat: "When I heard they were letting you in, I booked it right over to stop 'em."

Edited 2016-01-21 22:55 (UTC)

"Probably the best idea, to be honest."

Varric glances at the books Sans has got - nothing he knows anything about, except the wisecracks; a fine choice - and, with nothing but a brief look at the bucket of water, settles himself into the chair across from his little skeleton friend.

"And you saw something shiny along the way and got distracted, did you? Very well done. I'll hire you for all my future guarding endeavours."

"Eh, it's something of a hobby of mine." He patted the book affectionately, his grin as laconically wicked as ever. "Distractions, I mean."

The company is nice. Grillby's, his favorite boozy haunt from back home, was a distant memory along with all the friends that used to gather there. Sans didn't realized how much he missed that easy camaraderie.

"How 'bout you, got a hankering for some self-education?"

Good thing Sans is amenable to company - Varric isn't exactly giving him much choice in the matter. Though he's been here not even a month yet, it's been a damned long time now since he had... No, friends is the wrong word - he likes most of the Inquisition. But hell, they're not easy to be around sometimes. Nothing about it is simple there, and more and more of his time had been dedicated to missing all those people in Kirkwall he could just slam his ass down beside and start trading insults and shit with. All those people who have scattered to the winds, and shit, he doesn't want to think about it.

"For a complete re-education," he says ruefully. "Technology didn't exist for me a month ago and I didn't know what space was.

"That, and..." He waves the paperback novel. "A bit of trash, just for variety."

The cover gave Sans a moment of grinning pause, brow bone raised. Not that he was judging, of course. Deep in his stacks lay dozens of the worst joke books he could find, several in languages he didn't even speak. They all had their vices, and Sans communicated that with a wink and a wave of Fancy Fred's.

"I getcha, buddy." Still, the mention of technology was interesting. "What exactly are you looking to learn? I might be able to help you out."

He can definitely see Sans as the trashy novel type - just for shits and giggles, way more than genuine appreciation of the, uh, art form. Which is exactly how Varric enjoys most things in life. Without taking much of it seriously.

As he leans forward, he's gesturing with the book. "Anything. Put it this way, back where I'm from electricity is what a mage zaps somebody with in between the fireballs and the ice flurries. It's not how you light a house, or do your housework, shit like that. We can look at the stars, but we don't even have a name for where the stars are.

"It's a whole new universe. There's another word I didn't use until this month. So..." He shrugs. "The basics of the basics. Whatever they might be."

Edited (cough typo) 2016-01-30 17:17 (UTC)

Blinking, Sans looked momentarily stunned. Sure, a lot of monsters were in the dark on many things -- quite literally -- and Sans never saw the real stars outside of books until coming here, but...

There was a lot to catch Varric up on.

"Well, I'm not exactly an expert," he lied, smiling widely, "But there's something to be said for starting with the basics."

With great purpose, Sans slowly tore a page out of Fancy Fred's (dirty jokes weren't his thing, and Elizabeth could kick his ass later), crumpled it up, and tossed it square in the middle of Varric's face.

Varric raises an eyebrow, glances again at the complicated-sounding shit on the rest of his books there. 'Not exactly an expert', the man says. But sure, he'll go with it. Plus, as Sans starts to tear out a book page, the suspicion there is forgotten. Where Varric's from, books can be printed, but it's expensive enough that you don't mass produce anything unless you know everybody on the continent is going to read it. Tearing out a page? Not quite blasphemy, but he's still going to raise his eyebrows most of the way to his hairline and watch like Sans just started performing a demon summoning ritual...right up until the page hits him in the face.

There is a long - deliberately long - few seconds as Varric stares flatly at Sans, then...slowly, reaches into his lap, plucks up the offending paper, takes a deliberate look around for the librarian...and throws it right back into Sans's...eye socket.

"You're lucky I didn't write that, serah, or I'd have to charge you per word torn out. And I write small."

Direct hit. Sans chuckled, seemingly unfazed by Varric's scandalized expression. Hell, if he weren't busy fishing the ball out from his skull, he might have busted up laughing entirely.

Not that he blamed the guy. It's not like he knew, eventually and inevitably, the page would go right back where it belonged.

"Yeah, yeah. It's in the service of teaching, man. That's priceless." Successfully pulling the ball from his eyesocket, Sans tossed it between his two hands several times. "One of the most important physical laws. An object in motion--"

He tossed the ball back to Varric, slower this time.

"--remains in motion, with the same speed and direction--"

Whether Varric caught it or let it hit him again, Sans' grin widened either way.

"--unless it is acted upon by an unbalanced force. Which would be you. ... And whatever gravity stabilizers they have aboard this ship, technically. If they weren't there, though? That tragic example of disregard for Fancy Fred's literary achievement would be floating through space for the rest of time."

A beat.

"Until it ran into another gravitational force, of course."

Varric does the polite thing and waits patiently as Sans fishes inside his own head for the paper, though not without some helpless smirking. That's probably about the level of polite either of them expects the other to go.

Back home in Thedas, the way the world really works isn't particularly important to anybody. At least, not the physical, the base physical. Magic is studied in depth - the Stone is studied in depth. But this sort of thing, what Sans is talking about, the very art of how an object makes its arc through the air only to fall back to earth (the reason, he assumes, that dwarves do not float off into the sky when they come above ground, as they're always so blighted afraid of)? It simply is and will always be.

So what this does - as Varric watches Sans toss the paper back and forth between his hands with his eyes narrowed in concentration - is, at the very least, make it occur to him that there is a reason for all of this.

"So," he says, drawing the word out to give himself more time to think. "These...gravity stabilisers make objects act like we're on a planet. And if the stabilisers weren't there, everything would just...float until it hits something? And..."

Ah, shit, he's just making guesses.

"Gravity is what planets have." He's stating it like it's not a question, but it totally is.

"Ey! You're actually not too far off." Despite Sans' usual laconic energy, he seems almost peppy as he elaborates. "On average, planets contain an astronomical -- heh -- mass. All mass has gravity, but the amount of that mass is directly proportional to the strength of its pull. There's gravity pulling between the two of us right now, man, we're just nowhere near big enough for it to matter, hehe." He grinned, eyelights twinkling. "That's a physics joke, we'll get there."

Getting ahead of himself, Sans fishes for a pen in his uniform pockets. Luckily, he actually did have a notebook on hand. Deftly flipping past his existing notes (many of them including names of fellow crew members) Sans finds a blank page and begins sketching out a few rudimentary formulas.

"Gravity has a lot of different meanings. In an applied sense, it can be thought of as a force with a set variable. For instance, to calculate the gravitational pull between two objects -- you n' me, for example -- you take the product of our masses and divide it by the squared distance between us. Pretty basic stuff.

"But if you wanna talk more theoretical -- and let's face it pal, this whole ship is basically running on theory -- gravity isn't really a force at all. You can think of it more as the amount of space time an object's mass displaces. Kinda like when you drop a bowling ball into a full tub."

There's a certain wistfulness to Sans when he finally closes his eyes, chuckling. It's been a long time since he last discussed the implications of harnessing space time.

"But then again, it's all just theory."

Edited 2016-02-16 21:19 (UTC)

Swooping ahoy.

Or. Actually staggering into the main area holding a very unruly, and very broken, chair. It looks as though the librarian attempted to stand on it and instead fell through the seat. That would teach her to not use a step stool...

"Oh!" Elizabeth calls once she sees she has a visitor. Struggling as she is, she's all smiles once she notices the patron. "Good afternoon, welcome!"

He doesn't see the human - probably human? - until she's already noticed him, and he turns to see her lugging a chair she seems to have...fallen straight through. He suppresses a wince and heads over to meet her halfway.

"And a very good afternoon to you too," he says, grinning, sketching a light bow and moving forward to gesture at the chair. "Can I help you with that?"

Definitely human. Previous abilities of time-space-tearing excluded, at least.

"That would be very appreciated," she says with a little embarrassed laugh. "I felt it giving out but at that point, jumping off probably would have done more damage than just hoping my uniform didn't tear." She sets the chair down in front of her so he can take the other side and they can move it together.

"Just to the front door, then I'll call someone to take it to be repaired or broken down."

"Sounds like you were better off committing unto the end," he agrees, picking up the other side and helping her get it over to the main door. "If you're going to do the thing, do it properly."

Said Varric for maybe the first time ever.

Chair set down, he brushes his hands off on his uniform - despite them being completely clean - and reaches out to shake her hand, because apparently that's what people do here and who's to argue with tradition? (Him. All the time. But not right now.)

"Varric Tethras - a pleasure to meet you." He glances sidelong at the rather forlorn-looking chair. "And I'm guessing either you're the librarian or I just helped you to cover up criminal damage. Not that I'm judging."

Elizabeth laughs. "You would be correct-- on the librarian count." She takes his hand and shakes it. "Elizabeth DeWitt, head librarian and chair slayer. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tethras."

"Good, good, I wasn't ready for a visit to the hold less than one month into my stay," he says, grinning up at her. "I haven't seen it, mind you. I'm sure it's just wonderful when you get used to it."

Sarcasm? Him? Never.

"In any case, I was wondering if I might steal some of your time? Maybe a few minutes, maybe more if things get complicated. I can't promise they won't."

"Warm, from what I hear. Right next to the engines, where surely nothing could go wrong."

Mr. Sarcasm meet Ms. Sarcasm.

"Ooh, dangerous requests made of a librarian. I thought today was going to be a quiet one, but apparently I was wrong," she puts her hands on her hips and smirks. "Well Mr. Tethras, what trouble am I getting into today?"

"Sounds positively cosy."

But anyway! He claps his hands together. "Nothing too arduous, I can assure you.

"I've been here...oh, say, a couple of weeks now - long enough that I've gotten over the swooning fits whenever I see a window - but where I'm from, electricity is something mages use to attack people with, and at the moment we can get up to about two horsepower." He learned that term very recently! "That's if you strap two of them to one carriage.

"So I need a complete re-education here, but truth be told, I'm not quite sure where to even start."

...yikes. Two horsepower. Elizabeth at least knew about trains and other engineering accomplishments of her time and the 1960s, but completely re-educating oneself...?

"That's... quite the task, you're right," Elizabeth says with a nervous laugh. She's already ruling out things she could give him because the basis is something that requires knowledge of something past 'two horsepower'.

"Here, uh, I know!" Elizabeth gestures for Varric to follow her. "I think I found something about the Industrial Revolution around here somewhere..."

Yeah, he can virtually see how taken aback that renders her. It's got kind of a pleasing symmetry to how taken aback this whole technology thing has left him over the past couple of weeks.

"The Industrial Revolution?" he asks, following her along the shelves. "I'm guessing that wasn't some kind of coup."

"Not in a militaristic sense, no," she says with a little chuckle. "It was the beginning of machine-based production. I suspect if you came from a place where agriculture and goods produced by a single person were the norm, the first step is to understand how people moved away from that."

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