fandomtownies | Aziraphale's Rare Books, Monday Afternoon

Anything in particular Kiki can help you find?

After stopping into the Emporium, Boone drops by the bookstore.

Kiki, looking up from her book, hops up and greets him.

"Hi! Browsing, or are you looking for something specific?" she asks.

"Just browsing, really." He replies, smiling and looking around. "I'm kinda looking for a classic or something...if you have anything you want to recommend?"

"Sure - what sort of classic are you looking for? Adventure? Drama? Tragic or comedic? Gothic? Romance?" Kiki is already flipping through the enormous ledger that contains the store inventory.

"Adventure, I guess," Boone responded, watching as she flipped through the almost intimidating ledger.

[[OOC: I'm not slacking off! Really!]]

"Hmm, classic adventure?" Kiki muses, "Here's a few you might like...Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson - about a young man whose uncle tries to sell him into slavery. He escapes and has to travel across Scotland to get home. And then there's Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, about a man who gets revenge on those who betrayed him and put him in prison... Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, about a knight and a great medieval tournament. How do any of those sound?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure I haven't read Ivanhoe, and the first one - Kidnapped - sounds great." He answered, grinning at the young girl.

"Both are really good - but Kidnapped goes faster. Ivanhoe can get kind of wordy at times," Kiki answers, smiling back. She comes out from behind the counter and crosses to the shelves.

"You can look them over as long as you like," she offers as she pulls one off the shelf. The other, oddly enough, is located in a completely different area of the store. Even more oddly, the books on either side have nothing to do with them, and little to do with each other. There seems to be no organization in this place whatsoever, and how anyone can find anything is a bit of a mystery.

"Thanks. I'll do that." Boone wonders for a moment about the lack of organization, but puts it down as the girl having her own "system", that only she can understand - that was what Shannon always said, at any rate.

"Help yourself to the tea and cookies," Kiki adds, nodding at the platter and carafe on the table in the lounge.

Cozy fire, tea, books, biscuits, cat. Grab a seat and enjoy.

Ben gives Kiki a nod. "Good afternoon, Kiki. Mind if I borrow the lounge to get some work done?" He gestures to his full messenger bag, containing his manuscript.

"Go right ahead," Kiki smiles. "Good luck with your work!"

Jiji is sprawled across two full cushions of the couch, but, seeing Ben come in, he scooches over to let him have some room to work. How magnanimus!

Ben suppresses a laugh at the cat's sprawl. At least he's kind enough to leave some room -- that's more than anyone would get from most cats. "You're a good cat," Ben says, scratching Jiji behind the ears before he sits down. "I bet you don't even chase Pogo, no matter how much he tempts you."

Jiji half-closes his eyes and purrs contentedly.

It's nice to have someone who appreciates his forebearance, because really, Kiki doesn't reward him enough for his tolerance and affection towards the baby ferret.

Having been left to his own devices in the shop (since the shopkeeper is apparently such a poor pet owner that he leaves the ferret home alone at night), Pogo peeks out from the spot on top of the cabinet where he'd been sleeping and spies the familiar black cat on the couch.

/Ooh! Warm fuzzy friend!/

Excitedly, he scrambles down from his perch and scampers across the floor and over the arm of the couch, pouncing happily on Jiji's tail.

Formerly snoozing, now rudely and abruptly awakened, Jiji spazzes. He leaps about 3 feet in the air in shock and lands on all fours, back arched, tail ballooned, eyes wide with surprise.

Recognizing Pogo, Jiji crouches, takes a breath, and tries to recover what little is left of his dignity.

Don't DO that! he meows, but his voice is amused. He sits down delicately and flicks his tail around for Pogo to pounce on.

The things I put up with, he comments with a roll of his eyes. For all that, he seems to enjoy the game well enough!

Delighted that his friend has taken to the new game, Pogo bounces back and forth and pounces again on the swishing tail. Jiji's admonishment seems to have completely missed the little creature, as he gives no indication of having even heard it.

/Jiji! Jijijijijiji! he chitters excitedly.

Pooooooooogogogogogogo! Jiji replies. Not fair. Your name is much more difficult to ennunciate quickly.

On one of Pogo's passes, Jiji gently places his paw on Pogo's tail, pinning him carefully.

Pogo gives a little squeak as he unsuccessfully tries to pull his tail from under Jiji's paw. His claws scrabble a little on the leather of the couch and he turns his head to give the cat a pouty look.

Jiji! Lemmego! Lemmego!

With a small smirk, Jiji lets go. Jiji flicks his tail to let Pogo chase it again, and does his best to keep Pogo from landing in the middle of Ben's manuscript.

Pogo is still pulling at his tail, so when Jiji lets go he tumbles head over heels across the couch. Righting himself, he pounces the cat's twitching tail one more time, and then changes the game in mid-stride and goes skittering up Ben's arm (http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomtownies/534348.html?thread=20939852#t20939852) to hide himself under the man's shirt collar.

Ben jumps almost as much as Jiji from the ferret's playful attack. He spends nearly as much time watching their little game as he does editing his manuscript.

In the middle of the animals' play, the little ferret appears to change it's mind about what its doing. Running quickly up Ben's arm, it perches on his shoulder and peeks out from under his shirt collar -- which affords the creature very little cover, but it either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

Ben stiffens as the critter climbs up his arm. This is closer than he wanted to be to the action -- too close. Carefully he reaches up to remove the offender, hoping to avoid claws or teeth in the process.

Jiji, in the meantime, crouches and looks very much like he's gone to full-pounce hunting mode.

Blinking up at Ben, Pogo snuffles softly at the man's fingers and chitters a little.

Nono! Hiding! he whines.

Not, of course, that it's likely Ben understands ferret.

"C'mon, guys. No playing on the skittish, non-scratch-resistant human." Ben did not want to be spilling HIV-positive blood in the store, but he also wasn't appreciating being climbed on, either.

Jiji relents, for Ben's sake, and drops out of playful-stalking mode, sitting up again, twitching his whiskers.

C'mon down, Jiji mews. I won't catch your tail again, I promise.

Pogo doesn't really understand human yet himself, but he has learned to recognize the tone of voice that means he's doing something he's not supposed to. So he hops from Ben's shoulder to the back of the couch and runs along it to the other end.

Sorry! Sorry human! Sorry Jiji!

Dropping down onto the far arm of the couch, he curls himself into a little ball and sits watching Ben, blinking and exuding harmless cuteness for all he's worth.

Are you hungry? Jiji asks. Let's see if we can't cute some food out of Kiki. Hop on.

Jiji hops off the couch and, after a satisfying stretch, waits patiently beside it for Pogo to scamper down and onto his back.

A ride!

Pogo bounces up and down and then drops onto Jiji's back.

Cookies? Yummycookieman isn't here.

Jiji is not a large cat, so it is a lucky thing that Pogo is so little. The sight of the black cat sauntering along with a baby ferret on his back is overwhelmingly adorable. Jiji carries his charge around the store, and when Kiki catches a glimpse of it, she doubles over laughing. Her reaction is predictable:

"You two are SO CUTE!" she gasps in delight.

It's hard work being this cute, Jiji replies. You could reward us with cookies.

Kiki looks a little dubious. "Well..." She hasn't been authorized to feed Pogo, and - are cookies good for ferrets?

Jiji turns the charm up a notch, hoping Pogo will follow his lead.

[AFK for about 15 minutes while I go home. Work = Poo.]

Blinking up at Kiki with the most innocent, most adorable expression he can muster, Pogo chitters at her.

Hi warmbookfriend! Cookies! Yummycookieman!

More blinking. And hopeful cute ferret nose wiggles.

"Geeeeeee!" squeals Kiki, "Alright, you sold me. Here you go," she says; patting each on the head, she holds out cookies for them to take.

Cooookiieeee! Pogo squeals delightedly, devouring the treat and scattering crumbs all over Jiji's fur.

Trying to maintain one's dignity with crumbs on one's head is well nigh impossible, although very cute. Jiji nonetheless takes his cookie delicately between his teeth to eat it with the daintiness becoming a feline.

Eating a cookie while wriggling with excitement and balancing on the back of a cat is quite the feat as well, and one that's a bit beyond the abilities of a rather young ferret. Mid-wriggle, Pogo finds himself rolling right off of Jiji and landing on the floor with a little thud.

Pouting and blinking, he looks up a Kiki with an injured expression.

Ow.

"Oh, poor little guy!" Kiki says, scooping up tenderly. "Are you okay?"

Jiji uses this opportunity to sit and munch on his cookie.

Pogo decides to milk the attention for all it's worth and gives a little sad squeak. He curls up into a ball in Kiki's hands and twitches his nose against her fingers.

Brightpocketman left me all alone, he pouts. Yummycookieman wouldn't give me cookies.

"Awwww, poor bunky," Kiki smoothes his fur and sits down in one of the armchairs. Jiji hops up onto the arm beside her, still munching his cookie, and Kiki holds Pogo in her lap, petting the soft fur on the top of his head.

Pogo snuggles into Kiki's lap, happy with the attention. He gives Jiji a pleased look, thinking how smart the cat must be to come up with such a clever plan for getting treats and petting.

Jiji purrs, looking very pleased, both with himself and with Pogo. Yes, he decided, he had found himself an apt and cunning pupil. This looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Now, if he could just find the way to work with those rambunctious and irrepressable cub twins, the whole town would be eating out of their paws in under a week.

Realizing all too late that this was not the ideal choice for a place to escape the confines of the apartment, Ben packed away the manuscript and stood up to leave. "You two behave yourselves, or you're going to drive off actual customers," he scolds the two pets.

Jiji, sauntering out of the lounge with a ferret on his back, looks back to beam at Ben with beatific innocence.

Innocent. Right.

Aziraphale's Rare Books, Monday Afternoon

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