FE 2024 Prompt Table 2 Fill #37 - Bookstore

[innitmarvelous_og]

Eva looked up at the little bell over the door's jingle as she stepped into the cramped bookshop. She inhaled, allowing the musty scent of the aged paper and leather bindings to wash over her senses. There were rows of overflowing shelves were towering in every direction, and there were waterfalls of novels and tomes of that threatened to spill their contents all over the creaky hardwood floors.

"May I help you find something, my dear?" a silky voice asked from somewhere in the stacked maze. A moment later, a slender man with a playful sparkle in his emerald eyes who appeared somewhere from among the packed shelves.

Eva could feel her cheeks warm at his words, wondering if he were the owner of this bookshop or just an employee. Either way his gaze was intense yet also charming. She held the worn book in her hands closer as she turned to answer him, "Um yes hello, I um actually have been looking all over the place for a very hard to find first edition copy of the play Cynthia's Revels."

The owner, for she decided he must be the owner, tutted a bit as her came over to her. His fingers were deft as he plucked Eva's book from her hands, and looked at the title, "Ah I see, an illuminated soul who seeks the Bard of Avalon's lost work. There are not many who share a refined literary passion these days."

Eva resisted the urge to close her eyes to better enjoy the richness of his voice as he appraised her with loft approval of her taste in reading, "Your battered copy sings the praises of a true lover for such relics. Pray well met, Book Pilgrim. May I present myself? I am Loki, and I am the keeper of this fine realm's Novel Nest."

Eva smiled, finding her shyness falling away at his world flair and charm. She decided to meet him head on.

She smiled, "Well met yourself, Loki. Per the object of my quest, I want to see if someone as well-read as you might have any leads on where I might be able to find my prize."

Loki's smile grew even wider, with his green eyes sparkling, he beckoned to Eva to follow him into the stacked bowels of his bookshop.

As they went when he said to her over his shoulder, "Perhaps, O lady lover of the written word. But I must caution you, treasures of such caliber usually have a way of being evasive. But I will do my humble best to aid you in acquiring that which you seek and have without a doubt proven unobtainable up to this point. Now, shall we scour my volumes and see if we cannot locate your literary gem, hmm?

Part Two