Re: Scor and Al
Al had peculiar quirks and his interest in history had resulted in one more habit, of collecting.
Collecting facts: numbers and names. Dates of birth, dates of death. It kept him grounded. It kept his curiosity sated. It kept his mind with the living.
So while he kept away from the main crowd - the people he knew and the people he did not - he glanced around him on a different level, his mind busy cataloguing these cemetery stones he hadn't had the chance to see before.
Nicholas Nott, he read. Helena Nott.
He searched his knowledge of history books and family trees. Grandparents of the deceased. Yes, grandparents, both of them. Although Helena was thirty-five years younger than her husband and died nearly two decades before her husband's stone was finally inscribed with its date of death at the end of last century.
Numbers were etched in stone, and therefore simple. Thinking of them helped.
Until Scor came, and Al's gaze was dragged to the level of living people once more. "Hey," Al echoed, keeping himself from categorizing historical facts and focusing on emotional instead. "How are you?"