Re: [log: antique store - daniel/claire/louis]
Louis finished filling the espresso maker and set it in the stove, flicking on the burner in a burst of quickly tamed blue flame. "Really?" He wondered how such a thing could be possible, but then again, most people these days had never made espresso once themselves. They relied on baristas for that sort of thing. He didn't imagine a church where luxuries were delivered to her as marks of station. He was still ignorant to the precise heights of her title, though it had not been entirely unknown to the presence, even now, that listened.
"Thankfully, I did not," he said, with a small smile. "I read all sorts of things, but history a few hundred years out of date is always interesting. Often inaccurate? Absolutely. But I sometimes find kernels of insight in it that modern historians, even with more evidence, cannot offer." He took a sip of his tea, turning off the espresso pot as it began to burble on the stove. "Afraid I don't have espresso cups," he said, and he pulled down a ceramic cup without a handle. It had a thick blue glaze, and it was likely meant for tea, but it was closer to the right size, at least.
He brought the cup to Claire, then settled himself at the edge of the couch, watching Daniel's aimless wandering around the edges of the room. It calmed him for reasons he couldn't totally explain, to watch Daniel slowly patrol the perimeter.
"Let me correct myself," he said, wrapping both hands around the mug. "Most of his best information is on the cultures closest to him, it seems to me. The Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks. The rest is mostly conjecture, and I'll need a better source for it. But Sumerians, Assyrians, Bablyonians. They are nearer the mark." He frowned, slightly. The light tone of the gracious host was fading the more he talked about it. "It's at least that old. Perhaps older. Something primal, and old as men. Something about...I don't know. Blood, death, bad crops, and pestilence. Those have all existed at least since the dawn of agriculture. Sickness and death, if they are a part of it, would obviously stretch back even further. Who knows how far into the past ancient people have been saying prayers to ward away disease?" He canted his head to the side. "But it couldn't have had proper, widespread worship, the codified kind, until there was truly civilization on a larger scale. So as old as Sumer, at least."
He didn't know Claire was wondering if the spear was meant for him. But the spear had memories of an ancient history, and the thing's memories went back at least that long.