It is currently 09:48 Pacific Time on Wed Jul 28 2004.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous Moon phase (75% full).

Dark Wine and Roses Bookshop(#2090RJ)
This is the new books area of the store. Shelves of books dominate the room,
      with much of the floorspace being taken up by them. The walls are white, 
      with dark wooden beams spaced along them. The beams join along the 
      ceiling at ornamental moldings. The floor is made of golden-maple boards, 
      polished to a high gloss, and soft grey carpets are scattered across it. 
      The room is always brightly lit, either from the large windows letting in 
      sunlight during the day or the old-fashioned ceiling lamps during the 
      night. A cashier's station is set off to one side. 
An archway on the west wall leads into the cafe area of the store, while a
      spiral staircase in one corner goes up to the second floor. On the north 
      wall, a door labelled 'Manager' can be seen. To the east, there's another 
      door, this one with a small sign about readings on it, while the door 
      leading to the garden outside is to the south of the room, near the 
      cashier's station.
Obvious exits:
Cafe  Second Floor  Garden  

The combined bookstore-cafe hasn't been open for long and its customers are few
      at the moment. Mary, with a black backpack hanging from her shoulders, 
      browses the large print section, pale hands absently rolling and 
      unrolling a shapeless black fedora.
Of the few customers, one stands out immediately when he enters. Some eyes are
      drawn to the man, other seem desperate not to look at him. The one 
      reaction that's common to all of them is the way they effortlessly spread 
      out and away from him, like ripples caused by a large stone. Trevor seems 
      not to notice, or perhaps he's just used to it. Either way, the man heads 
      over to the myths and legends section to browse.

There's something possessing about this man. Something that lures and holds
      gazes, demanding a second glance. There's an air of age and wisdom about 
      him, almost as though he's stepped out of an ancient legend and into the 
      modern day. He's tall, at just over 6', and broad-shouldered. It's not 
      too much of a stretch, if you half-close your eyes, to imagine him 
      striding across the highlands wielding a mighty claymore. His blue eyes 
      are alive and alert, giving a eerie measuring quality to his gaze. Waves 
      of long, black, hair frame his face and come to a halt atop his collar, 
      where they rest most of the time. There's an air of nobility and 
      authority about the set of his jaw and way his roman nose appears to be 
      chiselled out of his face.
	Trevor currently wears plain black trousers, a semi-formal white shirt, and a
      large black leather traveller's greatcoat. The clothes have evidently 
      seen some wear, and hang on his frame rather than fitting him exactly. 
      Somehow, though, on this man they seem equal to fine cloth and noble 
      robes.

Mary glances up as Trevor passes her on his way to Myths and Legends, her light
      eyes squinting behind her glasses. Unlike everyone else, she doesn't seem 
      at all put off by the tall man and soon turns her attention back to the 
      titles in front of her. There's not much there, though, and certainly not 
      what she's apparantly looking for; with a sigh, she heads over to New Age 
      which, as it happens, isn't far from Myths and Legends. Go figure.

Trevor is currently browsing a book entitled 'Legends of the British Isles'.
      There is a picture of a man on the front which, oddly enough, bears a 
      certain resemblence to the man currently flipping through its pages. 
      Wierd that. He and Mary pretty much have the area to themselves. New Age 
      is too close to Myths and Legends, and it's rather odd inhabitant, for 
      the other customers to feel comfortable in.
Two odd inhabitants, to be truthful, though Mary gets more stares, overt and
      not, than Trevor. Biting on her lower lip, the girl leans close to the 
      shelf, peering closely for a moment, then sighs, straightens up, and 
      unhooks one arm from her backpack straps and starts rummaging around in 
      it.
Oddly enough, Trevor dosn't seem to stare at Mary. In fact, he barely seems to
      notice his fellow browser. But then he's seen much stranger things in his 
      time, himself included. Replacing the book he's been flipping through, he 
      heads into New Age as a book catches his eye. Again, it deals with the 
      British Isles. This seems to be about the veneration of the Green Man and 
      his links to the stags that once roamed Britain in great numbers.
Mary takes a hard, bulky eyeglass case from her backpack and opens it to switch
      out the normal-looking wireframes she's wearing currently for another 
      pair of wireframes. This second pair looks normal enough but for the 
      little stunted telescopes (looking rather like watchmaker eyepieces) 
      mounted to the tops of the lenses. Putting these on, she resumes scanning 
      the titles, her head tilted downward so that she's looking through the 
      telescopes.

Long distance to Trevor: Mary gives you a visual reference, if you've never
      seen bioptics before: http://www.designsforvision.com/LVhtml/LVtel.htm -- 
      top pair.

That does attract Trevor's attention, the man never having seen such glasses
      before. His measuring gaze dosn't linger long enough to be considered 
      rude, however, before it returns to his book. By this time they are alone 
      in the room, the other patrons having found reasons not to be there 
      anymore. If the man considers a bit odd that Mary dosn't seem to fear his 
      presence, he dosn't show it.
Maybe the girl's a little over-sensitive, but though Trevor doesn't stare long,
      Mary glances over at him before he turns away, and her mouth twists into 
      a grimace. She turns away from him and continues checking out the little 
      group of books on dream interpretation, her body language tense and 
      angry. She folds her arms tightly across her chest and scowls at the 
      books.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you." When Trevor does speak, it becomes
      clear why he's so interested in the British Isles. That's his home. His 
      accent is a deep, smooth and cultured, British one. "It's just that I've 
      never seen such a remarkable pair of glasses before." He sounds like a 
      scholar whose found a dusty old book of great interest.
Mary's mouth tightens. "They're bioptics," she says curtly, glowering at the
      books. "Vision aid."
Trevor nods at that. "Well, I didn't assume you'd be wearing them for fun." He
      replies. "But as I say, I meant no offence." He falls silent then, and 
      while he appears studying his book, he's pondering the girl.
Mary shrugs and offers up a flat, "'Kay," which is only the barest
      acknowledgement of Trevor's explanation. Typical rude American teenager, 
      and one who apparantly woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. 
      Shoulders tight and lips pressed together, she pulls a book off the shelf 
      titled _The Dream Book: Symbols for Self Understanding_ and starts 
      flipping through it.
"Dream Interpretation, hmmm?" Trevor raises an eyebrow as he notices the book.
      "Having funny dreams lately? It's common in people your age, I've found." 
      There's a pause. "How rude, I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name 
      is Dr Argyle. Dreams happen to be one of my specialities. Indeed, I'm 
      often able to tell someone what sort of dreams they've been having lately 
      just by looking at them." The man holds out a hand, determined to be 
      friendly in the face of the typical rude American teenager.
Mary's nostrils flare as soon as Trevor starts talking again; she turns toward
      him, chin lifted so that she can look through the normal bottom half of 
      her glasses. The outstretched hand is, for the moment, ignored. "You can, 
      huh?" She sounds skeptical, to say the least.
"Oh yes, it's quite easy." Trevor makes a show of examining the girl, using his
      measuring gaze to his advantadge. "Your dreams.....there's lots of blood 
      and violence. Running, as though possessed by uncontrollable urges. 
      Probably the moon features prominantly, and there's a lot of howling 
      involved. I'd imagine death is quite common and, as with the violence, 
      you're on the delivering end." He waits then, to see what her response is.
Mary's eyes, magnified behind her glasses, blink in startled recognition, and
      then her face shuts down, going tight. "And how'd you, like, figure that 
      by just *looking*. You, like, the John Edward of dreams?"
Trevor smiles slightly, and shakes his head. "Not at all. Part of it comes from
      an ability to recognise what I've seen before in myself. I went through 
      something very similar when I was your age, which led me to enter the 
      field I'm now in." There's a pause. "That book you're holding won't do 
      any good. It's based around symbolism. Symbolism requires a certain 
      amount of order. Trying to find order in your dreams would first require 
      you to impose order on chaos. Your dreams, after all, seem a little too 
      real, don't they? And they're certainly too fast paced and chaotic for 
      any sort of order or symbolism."
Mary shrugs. "If you say so..." Then, challengingly, "So what books have *you*
      had published?"
"If I believed you could write down a cure, I'd be a very rich man." Trevor
      laughs softly. "I work in the field, so to speak, with actual cases. 
      Books on dreams, while interesting, will no more give you any relief than 
      reading a book on painkillers while undergoing a headache would."
The golden-haired girl continues to look skeptical. "No, but a book could talk
      about what *causes* headaches and what medications are available and what 
      the downsides are and stuff. Where'd you get your PhD?"
"Yes, it could. But you can read that book from cover to cover and it won't
      tell you a thing about your dreams." Trevor seems fairly certain about 
      that. "Cambridge University, England. My original area of study, 
      unsuprisingly, was pyschology."
Mary absently hefts the book in her hand as if not yet willing to put it back.
      "Obviously," she echoes, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. 
      "So you know what my dreams mean, huh?" The Fianna's not won her over yet.
Trevor nods. "I rather thing I do, yes. They indicate some internal fear of
      forthcoming change, and your subconcious' reaction to it. The fear of 
      change may or may not be concious." The Fianna pauses there, waiting to 
      see what she has to say.
Mary shifts her weight again as she mulls that over. The two are quite alone in
      the bookstore but for the young man behind the register, who's way off on 
      the other side of the room. "I'm gonna be a senior next year," she says 
      after a moment. "Then college."
"That is a rather large change." Trevor nods thoughtfully, the confirmation of
      the age being one extra piece in the puzzle. "How do you feel about 
      college?"
Mary shrugs. "Excited, I guess, but I still don't know where I'm gonna go,
      y'know? And I haven't been away from my parents for a long time. And I'm 
      *hoping* my best friend and I'll go to the same college, but that might 
      not happen, so."
Trevor seems to understand. "That does sound like the sort of big change your
      subconcious could be reacting to, especially with the uncertainty that 
      could easily cause internal fear on a subconcious level."
Mary sucks in on her cheeks, then exhales. "Guess so. Sounds good, anyway." Her
      tone's not all that enthusiastic.
"Skepticism is understandable." Trevor smiles somewhat, although at what isn't
      clear. "Very healthy thing."
"Yeah, keeps you from getting screwed over." Mary glances at the dream
      interpretation book again, then turns and puts it back on the shelf. 
      Score to the Fianna. Turning back to him, she asks, "So, I acknowledge 
      the fear and the shit'll go away?"
Trevor shakes his head. "I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. You see,
      acknowledging that the fear is there does not remove the fear itself. The 
      fear itself can only be removed through dealing with the source of the 
      fear, in this case the changes involved in going to college. Obviously 
      this particular cause cannot be dealt with outside of the natural 
      timeframe, i.e. it will not be resolved until you go to college." He 
      pauses for a moment. "Acknowleding the fear is merely the first step. The 
      trick for you will be managing and coping with it effectively until you 
      go to college." Which, if his hunch is right, is unlikely to ever happen.
Mary grimaces. "Great." She pulls off the bioptics and trades them back for the
      normal-looking wireframes.
Trevor seems sympathic. "It's not as bad as it sounds." No, it's a hell of a
      lot worse. "You've shown the strength of character needed to cope and 
      manage it effectively in your desire to seek out and confront the cause 
      and meaning of your dreams, rather than ignoring them and hoping they'll 
      go away."
Mary rolls her eyes slightly as she puts the hard case back into her backpack.
      "Yeah, well, I kinda *was* hoping they'd just go away. But they haven't. 
      So." She shrugs again and shoulders the bag.
"We all do." Trevor laughs softly. "It's human nature to ignore problems and
      fears rather than confront them. It goes back to our days as monkeys. A 
      monkey that went down to confront the scary things prowling the forest 
      floor, well that was a dead monkey. But a monkey who hid at the top of 
      the tree waiting for them to go away? They went away, sooner or later. 
      And that monkey lived to produce and teach the next generation of 
      monkeys."
Mary's mouth twists into an expression that's half a smirk and half a grimace.
      "Great until the scary things, like, climb the tree. Or set fire to it. 
      Or push it down."
Trevor nods. "Very much so. As it happens, the monkeys evolved quicker than
      anyone else and became the ones wielding fire, and capable of thinking 
      like that. Had something else got there first, we wouldn't be here having 
      this conversation."
"Lucky us," says the girl dryly, then changes the subject. "So, how long've you
      been in America?"
"A few years." Trevor replies. "Long enough to gain an appreciation and
      familiarity with it, but hardly anytime at all in terms of my life."
Mary nods. "Is it, like, really different?"
Trevor nods almost immediately. "Very much so. Despite the two cultures having
      a lot of overlap and being so closely related, they've evolved in very 
      different directions."
Mary shifts her weight to her other foot. "Yeah... less history, *way* more
      land, and except for, like, Canada and Mexico we're, like, more isolated 
      than you guys are."
Trevor laughs softly. "Don't you believe it. We're completely surrounded by
      ocean, and while Europe is close, traditionally there's a lot of 
      animosity between us and the continentals."
Mary snorts. "Can't be as much as between *us* and them, thanks to Dubya.
      Drunken dork." She rolls her eyes in a typically teenager sort of way.
Trevor smiles at that, shaking his head. "Don't be so quick to dismiss the
      president. Sometimes that's what true leadership is. Making an unpopular 
      decision and taking the flak for it, because it's the right decision to 
      be made."
Mary wrinkles her nose. "'Cept it wasn't," she says curtly. "Nobody's found any
      weapons of mass destruction, there was *no* evidence that Saddam was 
      gonna go terrorist on us 'cause all *he* cared about was his *own* 
      playground, we'd already *had* a war in Afghanistan and hadn't finished 
      rebuilding *there*, and people are *still* dying in Iraq. Oh, yeah, and 
      he went and stomped over everyone who might'a been our allies." The 
      girl's getting a good rant on, and getting steamed. "Bush just did what 
      the fuck he wanted to do. I mean, yeah, anybody can make a mistake, but a 
      *real* adult is willing to cowboy the fuck up and realize, 'Der, wow, I 
      fucked this shit up' and fix it rather than keep insisting that 
      everything's okay."
"Maybe that was a good reason for all of this. All Saddam cared about was his
      own playground, and that's how he treated it. A playground." Trevor 
      replies thoughtfully. "Those were human lives he was playing with. Entire 
      ethnic and religious groups. Supposing someone took control of America, 
      and decided he was going to kill all the Christians, or all the people 
      from Kansas." His tones are soft and calm. "You'd want that stopped, 
      wouldn't you? Of course you would, anyone capable of compassion would. 
      People are still dying in Iraq, yes. But nobody's dying in Iraq because a 
      madman decided he didn't like the colour of their hair, or the prayers 
      they say. I think that's worth it."
Mary shakes her head. "Duh. But that's *not* why Bush went after Saddam. It was
      all weapons of mass destruction and the fucking war on terror. And you 
      can't fix *everyone*. Fuck, if the bastard cared so much about human 
      rights, why didn't he do anything about Afghanistan *before* 9-11? I 
      mean, before then he was all, like, 'raar, I hate China!'"
Trevor considers this for a moment. "If the end result was good, does it matter
      why the problem was fixed? I'm not saying the end justify the means all 
      the time, but in this case...well, if you had a headache, it wouldn't 
      matter what the medicine was called as long as it stopped the headache, 
      right?"
"Maybe," Mary concedes, "but he *still* handled it like a dork. He *could* have
      had the other countries helping out instead'a pissing them all off like 
      he did. Like during the Serbia thing. Clinton might'a been a lech, but at 
      least he knew how to *talk* to people."
"The other countries didn't want to help out." Trevor responds. "They kept
      demanding more proof, and all the time people were dying. The last time 
      France demanded more proof, it marched into Paris under the German flag. 
      How long was it worth waiting for something that might never happen, when 
      every day was more lives lost?"
Mary arches her eyebrows at Trevor, then states, "Godwin's Law. You lose.
      Sorry." She smirks, the expression belying the anger lurking behind her 
      light eyes; this is one snarly young Democrat-to-be.
Trevor seems confused for a moment, before chuckling. "You have me there, you
      win. Been so long since I've had a debate about politics it took me a 
      moment or two to remember what Godwin's Law was." Well, human politics 
      anyway. "Any idea what you'll study at college?"
Mary eyes the tall Brit. "History, probably. Maybe a minor in music."
"History's a good study." Trevor smiles. "I have a great deal of affection for
      it, although it's not my field. And music, you say? An interesting 
      combination."
Mary shrugs, black-painted nails scratching absently at her elbow. "Violin.
      Started playing when I was little."
Trevor smiles. "A beautiful instrument, the violin. I like to listen, and I
      play a little fiddle myself. Not as much as I'd like, though. I don't 
      have the time."
A touch of skepticism flickers back into Mary's eyes. "...No, huh? That sucks."
      She shifts her weight again and says, "Uh, listen, I gotta go. Got a 
      lesson later." Maybe it's a lie. Maybe not.
"Indeed it does, ah, suck." Trevor says, not seeming at home with teen slang.
      But then he's an aging scholar, why would he be? "You'd best run along 
      then. I wish you the best of luck, and I have a feeling we'll run into 
      each other again."
Perhaps that last wasn't the best thing for Trevor to say, at least judging
      from the way Mary's eyes narrow. "Uh, yeah. Right. See ya." She turns and 
      exits quickly, putting on her hat as she does so.
Trevor watches the girl go thoughtfully. His lupus is too pure bred to get away
      with tracking her through the City. He'll just have to trust his luck, 
      and hope she hangs out here often.