(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

September 1st, 2004
Mid-Afternoon
14 North Moore Street, Manhattan

A door opened in the side of the old Hook and Ladder No. 8 building, and two men stepped out. "Looks like home," Ray said, looking up with a slightly disgruntled expression at the huge ad for Keymaster Cologne painted on the side of a nearby building. "Welcome to New York City, sir. Pardon the smell- while we do have a police stable across the street from us, most of what's hitting your nostrils right now is the wonderful scent of burning petroleum, which we use to power our primary means of transportation. If you'll just step right this way..."

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[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate," Prospero quotes; plurality should not be considered without necessary. "As you say, then, it would seem that simplicity dictates the circumstances which would facilitate the advance of such particulars as this are, indeed, beyond the ken of my time--as perhaps it well should be." A chuckle. "We are scientists, Ser Stantz, are we not? We work with what is to produce what might be, and not the other way around."

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Ray nods; though his French, as he once said, is nonexistent, he'd be a piss-poor scholar if he didn't have a thorough grounding in Latin. "When I was a boy of... oh, seven years, I think... my teacher asked me to consider what one invention or discovery I'd most want to bring to the people of my country's western frontier a hundred and fifty years ago," he says. "It's really amazing how very much any single invention depends on all the inventions that came before it. The Great Chain of Being isn't a hierarchy so much as a Jacob's ladder of what we know and how we get to know other things..."

[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

Prospero arches an eyebrow, a good-natured smile on his face. "Indeed? You surprise me, ser; endorsement of that particular cosmology did not seem to be, ahh, how shall I put it, forthcoming, from a thinker of your pedigree. Utility as qualification for distinction does seem to be complementary to natural progressions of advancement."

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"Old concepts do new jobs," Ray says. "Nature isn't a ladder, she's a web- everything relates to everything else, and no one part is necessarily higher or more sophisticated in every situation than any other. Ideas, now, that's another story. Nature doesn't progress- she moves in one direction or another as events take her- but ideas? Those do. So the ladder analogy still holds."

[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

Prospero looks out a window, through which a sliver of blue sky might be seen. "Heh. Whether it be wings of sorceror's will or scientist's steel, the dream of flight remains."

[gone_byebye]

"That it does." Ray smiles a bit. "Some things call too strongly for us ever to give up on-"

He leaves the rest of the sentence unsaid, holding up a hand. "I think someone's coming. Ready to meet the natives?"

[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

"By all means." Prospero tries to discreetly wipe off some of the motor oil that's stained the sleeves of his pullover. Won't do to make a disheveled introduction, after all.

[gone_byebye]

Even disheveled, Prospero is still something of a step up from quite a lot of the people who come to visit the Ghostbusters. Ray nonetheless offered him a damp cloth- a towelette ripped from a small packet- just in case. "Guys?" he called out. "It's me..."

"Good, Ray, you're back." The voice came from above- very definitely from above.

"Sure am," Ray said, looking up towards the ceiling. A long, brass-plated pole ran from floor to ceiling and disappeared into a hole from whence the other's voice came. "And I brought company."

"I'll be right down."



A moment later, the screeling sound of cloth and flesh in friction with metal rang out, and a tall, dark-haired man dropped down the pole's length. He wore subdued clothes by the standards of the people outside- a black T-shirt, a pair of olive trousers, and ordinary wire-rimmed spectacles. When he straightened, he stood a good hand or so taller than Ray.

"This is who we're here to see," Ray whispered to Prospero before stepping forward with a grin. "Egon!" he said in a more normal tone. "Boy, am I glad you're home- we have some questions for you."

"We?" Egon turned to examine Prospero, one eyebrow just starting to hint that it might possibly consider arching sometime soon. Ray nodded.

"Yep. We. This, my friend, is His Grace Prospero, that right duke of Milan, philosopher, scholar, and magus."

The eyebrow went up.

"And this, sir, is my longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Egon Spengler, parapsychologist, nuclear physicist, and fellow Ghostbuster."

[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

Having wiped off his hands to something approximating tidy, Prospero feels civilized enough to introduce himself in all proper etiquette. He doffs his hat and sketches a bow. "Ser Spengler, I have heard much good tell about the quality of your character."

[not-oswald.livejournal.com]

The other eyebrow goes up, but Egon returns the gesture- and where it would look awkward or overenthusiastic on Ray, on Egon it looks like the mark of a man who knows what he's doing. "Then you have the advantage of me, your Grace," he responds. "I'm afraid I only know of you at a couple of removes. Has Dr. Stantz brought you here for a purpose beyond showing off the city?"

[ilducasaggio.livejournal.com]

Prospero waves a hand. "Mmm, please, let us dispense with the excess of formality. Prospero shall suffice." A pause, as he considers how best to proceed, then: "As for the purpose that compels me hither, I should, perhaps, begin by asking whether you are...familiar, with the circumstances that facilitated my acquaintance with Ser Stantz? And, furthermore, how well-versed you are with the lore and the legend of my own native time?"

[gone_byebye]

(( OOC: This picture is supposed to appear in the blank space:



My apologies. ))