On the hill outside the town, evening.

[mannybianco.livejournal.com]

The shop had just closed, and Manny had watched the4thsister walk down the street and disappear.

He picked up a small box of books, a small bottle of paraffin, and a box of matches. He walked down the road in the opposite direction, across the grassy lower slopes of Clonrichert Fell, and up into the higher, rockier ground overlooking the town.

In due course he attained the summit, where a wide flat stone stood in the centre of an ancient henge.

He arranged the books on the stone, a sorry little heap of late fourteenth century English poetry. He sprinkled the fuel. He dropped the match.

He watched it burn.

And, when the flames had done their work, when the winds had claimed the last of their ashes, he picked up the empty box, the bottle and the matches, and he returned to the shop, locking the door behind him.

When some things die, they call for sacrifice.
When some things die, they call for commemoration.
When some things die, they call for revenge.

Manny didn't know which it was, or whether it would suffice. Whether the work he'd done would prove complete. Time would tell.

As sleep approached, and he rehearsed the events of the evening, he couldn't work out whether he'd put twelve books in the box, or eleven. Whether he'd burnt eleven, or twelve.

It probably didn't matter.

Comments

[scissors--.livejournal.com]

Edward is in the park, chopping a tree like a mad chopping...thing. He sees a man walk outside, and set fire to a certain parcel. Looks like books, from a distance. Edward scratches his head. Is it a thread? Is this a declaration of war to mister A. Phale? A fight amongst booksellers? Mad at mister geoffrey chaucer? Nazi deutschland mit ihre rituele buch-verbrennungen einmal wieder? Edward doesn't know.

[the4thsister.livejournal.com]

(ooc if Paige finds out she's gonna kick Manny's arse!or maybe just never speak to him again)

[mannybianco.livejournal.com]

[OOC - No reason why she should find out ... unless the fact that there's a book in your bag has anything to do with the fact that Manny's not really over it yet, despite what he's just done ...]

[the4thsister.livejournal.com]

(ooc - *Paige's best innocent, little girl, lolly sucking look*)

[mannybianco.livejournal.com]

[OOC - is that a lolly in your mouth, or ...]

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

[OOC: Okay, that's not scary at all! Geoff is definitely gonna be spending the weekend hiding under the bed. And it won't be from the six-legged Amazon squid-women either.]

[shane-mcc.livejournal.com]

[[OOC: Bwah. Neither scary nor horribly ominous, either... creepy English dude. Uhhh, him. Not you. *patpat*.]]

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

[OOC: I wanted to ask if the book-burning ritual thing is going to be leading anywhere in particular. I'm completely up for it if you want to work out some kind of vengeance plot. Let me know if what Manny did ought to result in any kind of effect on Geoff, and I'll work it in.]

[mannybianco.livejournal.com]

[OOC - At the moment, and from Manny's point of view, it's just his own strange way of getting closure, and slaking his suppressed anger without causing any real damage. But in a town with this much magic flying around, you can't tell whether anything odd is going to happen. There's a plot waiting to be worked out, certainly -- it'll probably centre around the book that Paige concealed in her bag. It's well within canon for Manny to do strange things that no-one else understands, and it's well within canon for the consequences to come as a complete surprise to him.]

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

[OOC: I imagine that the book is now at Geoff's place, since Paige has left a lot of her things there. It would be interesting to think about how Manny's anger and sense of betrayal might manifest itself. I'll think on subtle ways I can introduce this into Geoff's life -- maybe starting with a little extra bad luck, and evolving into something more. If you have any ideas, let me know. You're right, with the amount of magic about, it could develop into a pretty interesting plot for the town. Oh, and it would be pretty IC for Geoff to stop by to see Manny sometime and try to smooth things over. I can't imagine how that could do anything but make the situation worse, but that's how Geoff would think.]