luisa_mystery (luisa_mystery) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-03-16 21:42:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, luisa rey, tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who:Tas and Luisa
When: Early March
Where: Baxter’s Bakery
What: A creative meeting
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete
Luisa was rather looking forward to this meeting, she’d never met a cartographer before but when her publisher had suggested a map insert for her new book she had to admit she’d liked the idea. After speaking to a few friends she’d decided to go with someone who was local, after all it would be nice to help them out and have a local contact.
Entering Baxter’s she ordered a drink and then sat down to wait for the arrival of Tasslehoff, she had to admit she already liked his name.
Tas was very excited to meet Luisa. She wasn’t the first author he had met. He liked to meet any of them who would see him, partly so he could really discuss what they wanted with the map, but mostly because he enjoyed meeting new friends and really enjoyed the excuse to go travelling to meet them. It was always a lot better than when he had to talk to some third party over the phone and it was always a pain when he’d send what he had drawn and then they’d send it back with revisions and then he’d had to send it back and it was really just a whole lot of effort. It was definitely a lot better when he could talk to the author in person, and while he missed the opportunity to travel to somewhere else, he was actually pretty relieved that this one was local.
Tas grabbed one of the free coffees that coffee shops left on the counters that sometimes had names written on them (this drink had ‘Mike’ written on the sleeve, but he tossed the sleeve into the garbage, and was a little disappointed to learn that it was just a plain old coffee) and then scanned the coffee shop for the woman he’d seen in the photo on the back of one of her books, and upon seeing her happily trotted over to the table. “Hi,” he said, holding out his free hand for a handshake. “Are you Luisa? You look like her if you’re not. I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot if you are her! Well, I guess even if you’re not, I’m still Tasslehoff, but I’m really supposed to be meeting with Luisa so if you’re not her I won’t be able to talk to you for very long.”
Luisa looked up at the voice and smiled, her smile growing as he continued to babble in a rather endearing way. “You’re in luck I am Luisa” she told him, shaking his hand, “Pleased to meet you, I’m so glad you could meet with me. Can I get you anything?” she offered as she gestured for him to take a seat. “I have to admit I’m very much looking forward to this, I’ve never met a cartographer before”
“Oh good!” Tas said, slipping into the seat. “I don’t need anything though. I mean, unless you meant that delicious looking pie that’s in the display case. But if you didn’t, I don’t need anything.” He smiled cheerfully at her. “I’m looking forward to it too! I love it when I get to meet with authors.”
Luisa laughed, “You know what I think pie could be a good idea” she said calling over one of the girls and ordering pie for them both. “Do you have any specific genres you like working on?”
Tas somehow managed to brighten at the idea of getting the pie after all, which was impressive given the fact that Tas was already plenty bright. “Well, I mostly work on fantasy,” Tas said. “They’re the ones who usually want maps made up anyway. But sometimes I work on other stories and that’s always fun too!” He didn’t mention that he rarely, if ever, actually read the books that he designed maps for. He didn’t get much enjoyment out of reading.
“Mine isn’t as exciting as fantasy I’m afraid but I think it should be fun” Luisa said with a smile, “I write mystery novels and they tend to be set all over but the newest set I’m working on is based in the UK so that’s what the maps will need to be of” she explained.
“Mystery novels sound like fun,” Tas said as he pulled a sketchbook and a couple of finely sharpened pencils that he’d been keeping in his backpack, and flipped the sketchbook to a blank page. “I don’t think I’ve ever drawn a map for a mystery novel before! What were you thinking? Just town maps or one of the whole country?”
“Well then I hope it’s a fun first” Luisa smiled, “Town maps, in the novels I’m going to have hidden passages and landmarks so I was thinking they could perhaps be somehow different on the map like fonts or something like that”
Tas’ eyes widened at the idea of hidden passages. “It sounds like it’ll be a fun first!” Tas said, immediately sketching out what could be considered a very simple town map. He hadn’t ever been to the UK and wouldn’t be able to draw any of their maps from memory, but that was something he could do in the comfort of his own home. “I love hidden passages,” Tas said as his pencil flew across the page. “You know, one time, I was in this castle, and I was looking around, and I found one! A hidden passage, I mean. And then I went inside it and followed it, and it lead to this big dungeon. One that was filled with ghosts and zombies! It was really exciting. What do you think of something like this?” He turned the sketchpad toward Luisa. The streets were all drawn with thick, solid lines. However, connecting the streets were the occasional corridors drawn with pale, dotted lines, the words ‘Secret Passage’ in a fancy, extra loopy writing.
“I like things like that too, which I guess is why I write about them” Luisa said, smiling at his enthusiasm and glad that he seemed to like the idea. “Oh that would be perfect, exactly what I imagined in my head, only better” she said excitedly. Having the maps would maybe even help Luisa with the rest of the series since she’d need to work out the locations and things to go into them.
“Sometimes I dream of finding secret passageways,” Tas said. “I’m really good at it!” He had no reason to think that Luisa was a dreamer, but he really liked his dreams and wanted to talk about them often, and people had regular dreams too. There was no reason Tas couldn’t have regular dreams about finding secret passages.
“Special dreams?” She asked because of course she was interested as a writer and a naturally inquisitive person, “They’re fascinating aren’t they? So are you a kind of explorer?”
“Yeah, special dreams!” Tas said excitedly. “Do you have them too? I am kind of an explorer. Well, really more of an adventurer. All the places I visit already have people living in them, so I guess I can’t really say I’m an explorer, but me and my friends are going on some really great adventures together!”
“I do” she said with a smile and a nod, “That sounds like great fun. I’m a journalist in mine but when I discovered a major cover up I suddenly had people chasing me trying to kill me so they were pretty action packed too”
“That does sound pretty action packed!” Tas gasped. “I don’t have anyone trying to kill me in my dreams! Well, not specifically me. I guess there are sometimes people who try to kill us, but it’s not that it’s because we’re us so much the fact that we’d do things that made people want us dead. It must be so exciting having someone who just wants you in particular dead.”
“Exciting is one way to put it, pretty damn scary is another” but she smiled, “It does get the adrenaline pumping though, I can’t deny that. Ironically it makes you feel incredibly alive when people want you dead”
Fear was an emotion that was foreign to Tas. He’d never been particularly fearful in general, but those odd twinges of worry and fear and caution that he’d once had seemed to be melting away the more he dreamed. “It does, doesn’t it?” He said. “It’s always the best when goblins or draconians or humans are trying to kill you, isn’t it? Those are always the most exciting
dreams!”
“I can’t say I’ve ever dreamed about goblins but I imagine it’s similar” Luisa grinned, “I always wake up with a bit of a rush for those dreams” It wasn’t an unpleasant way to wake up by any means. She rather liked it actually.
“You’re lucky about that. They really, really smell. It’s kind of awful. I even lost one of my knives - well, one of Flint’s knives - in a goblin. You can never get the smell out after that.” He sighed sadly. It had been a rather nice knife.
Tas understood exactly what Luisa meant though, and he nodded eagerly. “Nothing gets you up in the morning like a deadly fight!” Tas said cheerfully. “I always have so much energy the next morning, like I can do anything! Are your books like your dreams?”
Luisa wrinkled her nose at that, “I’m glad I’ve never encountered one then because they sound awful”
“They’ve started to be influenced by them a little” she admitted, “I feel since I’ve been dreaming I’ve become a better writer. Even though she’s a journalist I think the writing style she uses has helped me incredibly”
“They really are. They’re really ugly, and really smelly, and somehow even stupider than they are either of those. Though, that made learning goblin pretty easy.” Tas really didn’t like goblins, despite the fact that he could speak goblin in his dreams and had even noticed that he could speak a little bit of it here, too.
“Oh, that’s nice! I do love it when your dream skills can help with your real life!”
“I’m impressed you can speak goblin” Luisa said, “Even if they are smelly, ugly things. I can’t speak any other language, here or in my dreams”
She smiled, “It comes in handy at times. And it definitely makes me a better writer”
“Oh, I’m really good at languages,” Tas said cheerfully. “Here I can speak English, obviously, and French - Canadian - and Spanish, and Inuktitut! And in my dreams I speak Common and Kender and Troglodyte and Goblin!” There were subdivisions of Common that Tas was also fluent in, and he was pretty sure he could also understand bits and pieces of Elven and Dwarvish - picked up from Flint and Tanis - but he was far from fluent in either language. He loved learning new languages though. It meant that he was able to talk to even more people than he might’ve otherwise been able to talk to.
“I’m jealous” Luisa said, “I’d love to be able to speak another language. I’m impressed with your knowledge” Luisa would have liked to learn but when she did have free time she was writing or spending time with Magius. Perhaps she should make time though, it would kick something off her bucket list.
“Maybe I can teach you!” Tas said cheerfully. “If there’s any you’d like to know that I know!” Tas had never taught anyone anything before, but he thought he’d be a good teacher. Definitely better than the ones Caramon had had in high school, where they were always shushing people because they were having private conversations among themselves.
“Spanish might be nice or French even” Luisa said, either of those would work well and she would like to be able to speak the native language if she ever visited a french or spanish speaking country. She had a feeling one of the more fantastical languages may be a little more difficult to learn, “If you have the time then I’d love to learn”
“I have nothing but time!” Tas said. He always kept himself busy, but he didn’t have a real job, so his schedule was fairly open. “But great!! I can make a map for you and teach you languages! How wonderful. I just know this means that we’re going to be good friends!”