fandomtownies | Aereopagitica, Tuesday, 6 June

First there's the Greek version...

River peeked inside. The smell of old books hit her like a wall. She loved it. She had promised herself to stay away from more intellectual pursuits, but then this could just as well be called looking at old things. Right?

"Good morning, miss. May I help you?"

"I don't know," River said. "I shouldn't buy anything. But I'd like to have a look. If you don't mind."

"Certainly. Look around as much as you like."

Walking along the shelves, River let her hand run over the books, and pulled out one or two and skimmed through a page, a smile appearing on her face.

She returned to the owner, looking with curiosity at his book. "What are you reading?"

"I'm reading the Book of Revelation. Are you familiar with it?"

"It's part of the Bible. I've read the Bible." River frowned. "It was very contradictory, so I had to rewrite large parts."

"Did you?" Giles closed the book, facinated.

"How did you rewrite it?"

"Mostly I cut out large parts. The ones that didn't make sense at all. And then I added some explanations in modern terminology, to describe quantum phenomena for example." She paused. "I never got to the Book of Revelation though. Shepherd Book, who had lent me the Bible, objected to my fixing it. He said it had to do with faith, not logic." River looked sad. "Sometimes I wish I understood what he was talking about."

"What didn't make sense to you?"

"Faith can be a difficult thing," Giles said, fully cognizent of the personal double meaning of the statement. "It requires so much of us. And it seems to give so little in return.

"Until you really need it, that is.

"It might help to think of faith as hyper-logic. It's a logical sequence that is processed so quickly that we can't even separate out the posits. We're just left with the conclusion: we believe."

"Many things. Time was behaving oddly. Planet creation taking one week, people living in hundreds of years. People surviving inside whales. Some could be metaphors of course. But there is also the contradictory statements of things. God is good but kills lots of people."

"Faith as hyper-logic. That's good. It makes sense. But how to we make space for that process to happen when we can't even follow it? What do you have faith in?"

It wasn't like he didn't see the question coming when he talked about faith.

"What do I have faith in? Myself. The people I care about. The basic good of man's nature. And man's ability to completely twist that nature to darkness. Free will."

Giles very deliberately hadn't mentioned any kind of divine being. He knew they were out there. They existed. They had power. It was fact: there was no need for faith.

The God of his childhood was a concept he still worked over in his mind. He'd read the annals of various Inquisitions and sat through innumerable meaningless services. He'd also seen an otherwise unremarkable, perfectly normal friar heal a mortally wounded woman. That god was a tricky one. Just when you wrote Him off completely, He'd go and surprise you.

What he said made perfectly sense to River, unlike the Bible. "Yes," she said. She could feel herself shudder a little. She wished she too could have faith in her own free will. "Unless pushed down into a hole full of darkness. No stars, like in space. Struggling to hold on to goodness." Her eyes widened. "People tearing good out of you."

What had happened to this girl? Giles felt like the ocean had just opened up beneath his feet.

"I-I've heard of situations where people have tried to take a person's goodness away from her. But I've also seen the most unredeemable people persue it.

"Has something like that happened to you?"

River blinked. His question was honest. "They tried. They were in my brain. With blue hands. My brother saved me." This was scary. She had held all that back since arriving in Fandom, and now when she spoke these words, it was real again. At the same time, it was good to tell someone.

Dear God. Tampering with her brain? She also seemed to be having some sort of reaction?

"It's good your brother saved you. And that you're here in Fandom. Safe.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?"

River shook her head. "It happened. But you listen well. Thank you." She looked up at him. Feeling calmer again she was relieved and a little surprised that he had taken the time to be concerned about a total stranger. "Thank you," she said again.

Just before lunch, The Tick walked into Aereopagitica with two goals in mind. "Hello, chum!" he said to the man who seemed to be in charge. "Would you happen to be the owner of this store?"

Giles blinked, quite startled by the... person before him.

"Er, yes. Yes I am the owner of Aereopagitica. How may I help you?"

"I am The Tick!" Tick said. "Dean of Students at Fandom High. This Friday we have a Book Fair for the students planned and I was hoping you'd be the Saint Bernard to the mountain climber that is our activity and give us your assistance in getting it set up and well-stocked!"

Giles's brow wrinkled as he untangled the metaphor.

"You'd like me to help you run a book fair? Is that it?"

"Yes, I would! Would you be interested?" Tick asked.

"Very much so. When? Where?"

"Keen! The fair is on Friday afternoon, either in the school gym or the school campgrounds if the weather is nice enough," Tick said. "And I'll make sure you have access to the campus for the full day to set things up and all."

"Thank you," Giles replied, a little shell-shocked.

"You're welcome, chum! I'll ~~handwavily~~ send you the details later on," Tick said. "In the meantime, though, could you point me towards the arts and crafts books? I need more ideas for the workshop I'm teaching."

Arts and crafts?

"Of course." Giles pointed. "Over there."

...for a lighter fare (to go with his ham on rye), Giles is reading The Nailthread Letters...

Pippi flounces down to the book store from the dorms (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhighdorms/637873.html?thread=39022769#t39022769) in search of magazines. Riding along on her shoulder appears to be a small baby water fowl.

"Good afternoon Mr. Giles!"

[[ooc: I *love* the Screwtape Letters. I had an audio book of it read by John Cleese!]]

"Good afternoon, Pippi. Who's your feathered friend?"

"Honk!"

"This is Pip... I'm not sure if you've met him before... He's usually much taller and more... Human."

"I'm sure.

"Is there anything I can help you with today?"

"Well, obviously, I'm looking for a book about geese." she said, "And do you have a section of magazines?"

"Hm. I believe the only goose-related book I have--aside from Mother Goose--is Barnyard Fowl for Morons.

"Unfortunately, I don't carry magazines. Books only. Perhaps All & Sundries has some?"

"Barnyard Fowl for Morons it is." Pippi nods.

"Honk!"

"I don't think they mean us specificity Pip."

...now he's working on the Vulgate version (yes, that is a bottle of ibuprofen next to him--St. Jerome's Latin is excrable)...

...and finally, Giles is perusing the King James edition. And snickering.

Aereopagitica, Tuesday, 6 June

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Lunch

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Afternoon

Early evening