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Post by Dr. Daniel Carter on Sept 13, 2004 3:10:49 GMT -5
Charlie Dudox :Charlie waited in his room, hovering over his desk of texts. Daniel was a faster translator than she was. He was probably fluent in more dead languages than any man alive. Languages had never been Charlie's specialty after all, she was an image girl. A stick figure could unravel an encyclopedia of history,social constraints, religious beliefs, and prosperity. In her mind it was far harder than decifering verb conjugations, but she would not knock Daniel's skills, after all, that was what she had come for originally. On his bed she had unrolled her sleeping mat to remove the precious artifact. It was a scroll in amazing condition, considering its age. For eons it had been kept in a cave unmolested, sheltered from dampness or animals. <C> Charlie Dudox The hand penned caligraphy still shown as knew as the day it had been written, complete with decorative lettering and innane amounts of curly cues. The quality of the scribe told Charlie that the document had once been greatly prized, as each word much have been tediously slow to write. the quality of the ink and parchment also spoke of it's importance. Unfortunately, though, while she had been able to grasp a word here or there, there was much detail that was simply beyond her current grasp. In her mind, the parchment was old news though, instead she poored over the details of Daniel's work, attempting to get herself up to speed so that she would not look like a moron when Daniel came out of his shower. <C> Charlie Dudox It really was a balmy evening and Charlie loosed herself another button on her blouse. First impressions had been, made and now it was time to get comfortable and relax a bit. The sound of water in the room next to hers brought up images of Daniel nude in the shower. It certainly was a pleasant picture that she conjured. Certainly all that work at dig sites would give him a good body to match those dashing good looks. The glasses were a bit... nerdy... she had to admit. In fact, Daniel seemed to fall directly into the webster definition of nerd, but Charlie didn't mind. He would be a lovely conquest and she had been known to bring out the wild side in even the most reserved of men. Plus glasses were easily lost... er broken... er... replaced with more stylish frames.<C> Charlie Dudox All in all she was getting ansy in the room all by herself. After all, two weeks is a long time for a girl to travel all by her lonesome. <E>
Daniel Carter: -The shower felt good. It had been too long since he had one. Running water after all in times such as these was a very precious commodity. But he didn't linger too long. There was an amazing prospect just the next room over. Just thinking about the offer made him tingle all over. Of course, he was thinking about the artifact, for what else could his mind be on? Pulling on a loose tunic and a pair of loose cotton pants. Ulster's nights even in early fall were quite warm, he found. He came out, polishing the glass within the wire frames he had since childhood with the bottom of his shirt and smiled at the slightly fuzzy picture of the woman he had until now thought to be a man sitting on his bed. He ran a hand through his light brown hair, slicking some of it back(C)- Daniel Carter: -and shaking the rest of the water from it. He would shave in the morning, best not keep her waiting any longer. Putting his glasses on with a blink of two he looked around. Ah, so she had flipped through his field research had she? He stared hard at the small desk for a moment. Daniel had a genuine photographic memory, something that came up often in the internation archeologist's society. It was how he learned his languages so quickly. It was always easy to remember alphabets when you could summon the picture at will, now wasn't it? He flipped a couple of pages back in his new journal and tapped it, as if to remind himself to do something in the morning. Turning back to her he rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his hands together(C)- Daniel Carter: -"Ok, Miss Charlie, let's see what you've got here that's so exciting." He said in an enthusiastic yet somehow scholorly way. He took a seat next to her on the bed and craned his head next to hers to study the scroll she held in her hands. His reaction was... well, as she predicted. His mouth hung slightly open at the very sight of it, his brow furrowing in a perplexed and astounded look as bright blue eyes skimmed over the scroll in wonderment. "Charlie..." He murmured, "Do you have any idea what this is?" He asked running his fingers over the text for a moment, some of it shining at him in the lamplight. He recognized it very well, and he suspected so did she if she had really read his books. "It's Tamil..." he said in a quiet voice. As he reached for it and his fingers(C)- Daniel Carter: -connected with the page his eyes jumped and the lids snapped wide open, but he could see nothing. It was happening again. In a brilliant flash he saw vaguely the shapes of men, two natives and a triad of explores, torches, a cave. Outside he could see sand, large gusts of wind, the men were hiding in a rocky cave. He could see them reaching for the scroll which was upon an altar of some kind, and then light flooded back into the room and he was back again. He had them often, his visions, always when he touched something archaic. Halar called them priceless, and at times like these Daniel tended to agree. "They found it in a cave... there was a sandstorm, they were traveling, they found it on an Aon altar..." He looked over at her, "Didn't they?"(F)-
Charlie Dudox :Her grin spread across her face as he of course instantly recognized the Tamil. This was more than just any Tamil. A lot of the stuff Daniel had worked off of had been glorified supply lists and simple histories. One look at this scroll screamed religious text. The wood working of the handle, the quality of the caligraphy, the size of each piece of parchment that had been sewn together. Scribes that were apt to make mistakes liked to work on small parchments, it meant that if anything went wrong they could destroy the single panel without rewriting the entire work. This scribe wrote in almost two and a half feet pannels. He either was a master of his craft or a supreme masochist. <C> Charlie Dudox The smile turned to awe when Daniel managed to conjure the story of how they found the scroll and she nodded her head. "We had found some simple alter stones about a quarter of a mile away and were heading out to begin the dig when the storm hit. We took shelter in the cave only to find the second alter. Daniel, we didn't tell anyone that is was Aon because even we weren't certain. It is way farther than we ever thought them to travel. How did you find that out?" She seemed almost worried. This was going to be the dissertation for her Phd, and while she was certain that this was something big, making wide and utterly incorrect assertions before the whole archeological world would be far from helpfull. After all, she had gained enough of a reputation as it was. Charlie Dudox <E>
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Post by Dr. Daniel Carter on Sept 13, 2004 3:11:20 GMT -5
Daniel Carter: -He blinked at her again. "I... I really don't know, actually." He said, almost surprised that she asked though it was the most logical thing to say for her, he supposed. "It's just... just A thing I have." He said vaguely moving his hands around trying to explain it and utterly failing. He got up and rummaged around the desk, picking up a quill and an ink well and some pieces of loose parchment. He moved back over beside her and sat down on the bed and began drawing furiously. Long stroke marks, short scribbles... he was actually pretty good at sketching, though most archeologists were by this point in their careers. "It looked like this, right?" he asked still dabbing the quill in the ink and scrawling as the picture took a sketchy form(C)- Daniel Carter: -of the altar he had seen in his head. "It had an inscription on it, something in reference to what the scroll was and a little stone holder for it here..." He sketched on, his intensity for his work, a trait he was well known for, now showing through. "And there was a pillar here, a very plain one carved into the front of the stone, and then a man holding a crystal ball inside of a crescent with a feather inside of it and a tree to his left side..." he said sketching even more furiously. "Is that what it looked like?" He finally stopped and looked over at her, adjusting his glasses again. "That's Hamarin, the Tamilite God of Scribing. He carries the world in a dish and records its history on the leaves of the palm trees, that's what the first paper was made from."(C)- Daniel Carter: -he explained, pointing at the eeriely accurate drawing infront of him. He looked back up at her again. "It's how I knew it was Aon." He looked down to the text again and skimmed over it, hesitant to touch it, but this time when he did there was no flash, no vision. "This is absolutely incredible, Charlie, I can't even begin to tell you how much this text is worth to the archeological community..." he said, his eye catching on a particularly large character at the top of the scroll that was obviously not in the Tamil language. "Look at this..." he said, his fingers hovering just above the paper and the character. "How on earth..." He mumbled again. "Charlie, I think you stumbled upon the only complete religious treatsie of the Tamilite tribes of the Aon..."(C)- Daniel Carter: -He said, his brow furrowing again in complete stupification at it. "This character... it's in Enochian. That's a celestial script!" He exclaimed, more to himself than to her. "This text... it's perfect. It's perfectly written, there's no flaw, no damage..." He looked up with a small smile an pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose again. "Congratulations, Miss Dudox, if this goes public, then you're about to become the most sought after archeologist in the entire world."(F)-
Charlie Dudox :That's what she had figured. Her studying, her very gut told her that this had to be a Hamarin alter. The scroll had to have been the bible of Aon people in it's only complete form. Still, it was lovely to hear the words come out of Daniel's mouth. She had not been out in the desert on accident. For years she had studied migration patterns of the Aon people, and while the whole world crowed about how the Aon would never settle in anything but the most temperate of climates, she had seen the pressures of immigration into the area and the religious fervor that often came with difficult changes. Only she had believed that xenophobia could be strong enough to send the Aons out to the desert and she had been right on the money.<C> Charlie Dudox That would show the whole archeologist community who was boss. That would show anyone who said she was easy, over ambitious, and more trouble than she was worth. This was her road into respectability, if not fame. But Charlie had never been known to travel straight down any road. With the smile still wide across her face she laughed "Do you remember how I said you would kiss me when you saw this? I do believe it's going to be the other way around." Without a moment of hesitation Charlie reached over and took his stubbly cheeks in her soft hands. Her kiss was surprising in how gentle and passionate it could be at the same time. This was no friendly peck while caught up in the moment. Daniel was excited about the artifact and this in turn excited Charlie.<C> Charlie Dudox Her eyes fluttered closed as she kissed him, her thumbs rubbing against the coarsness of his cheeks. She liked a five o'clock shadow there was something wonderfully masculine about it. Had she no fore thought at all she might had brushed the scroll right off the table and pushed Daniel right down on it. Thank god she managed that much self control.
Daniel Carter: -A tamil religious text! He could hardly believe it! He had been searching for such a thing for what seemed like ages! He laughed on the inside at his own pun and continued to scan the text. This was amazing. Of course he couldn't just -read- the thing. Tamil was an incomplete language, it wasn't like Hetitte or Mapouche that were younger and could go to common much more easily. Tamil was a script language, but the characters meant so many different things that it was often hard to place them in context without the scroll in your right hand and a book of notes on the language in your left. But his wonderment and skimming was cut short and for the first time in a very long time Dr. Carter was the object of someone's immediate attentions and affections(C)- Daniel Carter: -The kiss caught him completely off guard and as she grabbed him and pressed her lips to his, he could do little more than sit stunned within her grasp like a small animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Now, any other man with the right sense in his head would have seized the wonderful opportunity to become a bit more intimate with such a drop dead gorgeous, intellegent woman, but Daniel was a very different breed of man. It was not that he had no interest in women, it was more that he did not know how to prioritize his interests nor did he know how to react to him. Oh god, Halar was right... he was completely inept socially! When she finally detached herself from him he could only sit, his mouth hanging open in even more (C)- Daniel Carter: -stupification than he had when she originally showed him the text in the first place. His face felt like it was on fire and that was evidenced by the red flare to be seen, even in something as low as the kerosene lamplight. Somewhere up in the great dark sky there was a silver dragon circling around laughing from the depths of his lungs at him. But Daniel could say nothing, he could only blush and open his mouth as if he was going to say something, but no words came out. At long last he was able to regain his sense of speech. "That was... interesting." He said, looking slightly confused. (F)-
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Post by Dr. Daniel Carter on Sept 13, 2004 3:11:42 GMT -5
Charlie Dudox :To say that Charlie had kissed men before was an understatement. In fact, soon after she grew out of her phase of beating up boys and making them cry, they all started crying over broken hearts instead of broken bones. Never before had a man reacted quite like Daniel had, though. Usually they kissed back, that was for one, and for a moment she wondered if she had completely lost her touch when Daniel seemed as responsive as a dead man in her grasp. Not that she had ever kissed a dead man, she was known for occasionally being kinky, not crazy. When she pulled back she gave him a small, almost shy smile, wondering at his look of sheer bewilderment. That was interesting? Insteresting? That was certainly a loaded word. <C> Charlie Dudox Either he liked it and was too much in awe to form any more poetic words or he was simply trying to figure out the best method of escape from the room, the castle and Ulster if necessary. Was it possible that he had never been kissed before? He was a full grown man afterall, too old to be quite as clueless as he seemed to be. The silence between them was uncomfortable and she was never one to let a pause hang for long. Instead she shrugged lightly as though it had been nothing. "I couldn't help myself, it's hard around a man like you." With this she turned her attention back to the scroll. She was certain that his mind probably wouldn't be completely on his work anymore, but she wasn't about to let her secondary goals get her completely off the track of fame and fortune. <C> Charlie Dudox "Now what has me really excited, of course, is these beginning passages here. I'm slow with Tamil but there were a few words that seemed to stick out to me. Look here, these three words, they seem to stay that the world began with one child. I suppose that solves the whole chicken or the egg argument." She smiled at her lame ass joke, hoping to lighten the mood.
Daniel Carter: -He was still a little stunned. "I... ah..." He said, still watching her. Her assumption was wrong in that he'd never been kissed, for as a nearly thirty year old man, he most certainly had. Indeed, some theorized that if he was half as passionate in bed as he was about his work then he was hell of a catch. He was just... well... oblivious to her flirtations up until now, but well, that all changed, hadn't it? He swallowed hard, letting the shock of being ripped from a Tamil text into the arms of a goregous co worker wear off a little bit. He was still quite red in the face, but expression of feelings beyond that of the scholorly nature, well that wasn't too easy when you spent most of your young and impressionable years with a dragon as your parent, now was it?(C)- Daniel Carter: -A man like him? He blinked. Never once had it occurred to him that he might be an attractive young man. "I... I'm just an archeologist..." was the only (very stupid he might add) reply he could muster. Didn't most women go for nights or princes or rogues? No one ever went for the nerd, did they? Actually, after taking a look at him Daniel was fairly sure that the priest in the city got more women than he did. Most of the time Daniel was too wrapped up in his work to really notice it. When she turned his attentions back to the text it was like a slap in the face to stop staring at her and go back to that work. He turned his head and looked at it, but he seemed more to be staring through it. He shook his head as if to clear her out of it before he could read(C)- Daniel Carter: -it again. "Yes..." He mumbled, still half distracted. "You're right... but the wonderful thing about Tamil is that every word has about three or four alternate meanings..." He said, looking over the text and then tapping his finger on the word 'one'. He got up and started to tear through his notes on the desk before he found what he wanted to and brought it back over, setting it down on the bed next to him as he sat beside her. He glanced at the notes he had taken earlier that day on the book Kahlan had given him and then looked over the scroll again. "The Tamil word for one, also means Understanding and also means God. In this case I'm guessing that they're referencing Somun, the child of Ahtak, the One and the Power." He scanned over the page(C)- Daniel Carter: -again. His brow furrowed, but this time in a look of worry crossing it. "This is strange... it's almost like... like a set of directions, to what I can only guess at but whatever it is, I think it has something to do with the cave system you were in." He said, reviewing the script. "But I would need more time to translate it. I don't have my notes all here, some are still in Invernis being held by... by a friend." He didn't want to say by a dragon, though some people in the archeologists' society knew he had been taught by a silver wyrm, he didn't much talk about it. He could only assume she had some idea of it. He looked up at her again with a more casual look. "It's worth a shot at translating it, I suppose. It will probably take you on that grand adventure(C)- Daniel Carter: -you always wrote me about wanting to have." He shrugged and looked down again. "But I have an excavation in the East of Ulster starting in a day or so. I have to get it underway before the cold season hits and the ground gets too hard to dig. I won't have access to the rest of my notes until then. You're always welcome to accompany me out there... it should prove interesting." He said, his fingertips still hovering just above the parchment as he studied it, that intense flame of knowledge relit anew in his eyes. He studied it for what seemed like years, until finally his head popped up and he looked at her again. "Charlie... one other thing. Was there any broken pottery in the area?" He asked, seemingly out of the blue. "You know, pots, jugs(C)- Daniel Carter: -clay shards of any kind in or around the mouth of the cave, and patches of sand nearby, maybe around the altar?" He was guessing all of the above. Something that he hit in the text obviously prompted him to ask the question, one that was seemingly random, but Daniel -was- and expert on the Tamilites and their descendents the Aonians to a lesser degree, so surely something in that constantly moving mind of his had prompted the strange question.(F)-
Charlie Dudox :she shook her head when her stammered that he was just an archeologist. "No, no, Daniel, it's not archeologists I can't resist. It's young, handsome geniuses." She let this compliment go as though she were commenting on the weather as she turned her attention to where he pointed to in the text. This is why she had come to him. There were more complexities in Temil than she knew how to grasp. She watched him grab the books, her head tilting to the side as her bent over to pick a few off a low shelf. Not bad, not bad at all. Hell, what was she thinking? That might be his best angle yet! Despite her strong will to stay calm and under control, she licked her lips, smiling politely as he returned with his references. <C> Charlie Dudox "There were pottery shards which of course would be expected, considering that the alter was also most likely a place of hermitage for the scribes. Therre appeared to be a mix of those for religious puropses and those for every day use. What surprised me most was the utter lack of animal bones in the surrounding area. There was no sacrafice going on which leads me to believe that either food was so scarce that they were not sacraficing, which seems unlikely, or that they were using the bones themselves for another means, perhaps even grinding them down. For what purpose I've yet to figure out. Perhaps the clay, or some other purpose. What's the word for bone. She reached past Daniel who was leaning over the parchment, her body brushing up against his. <C> Charlie Dudox As she flipped through the pages her hand rested on the small of his back for balance. As she read through the double meanings of bones though her hand slowly slipped down to his butt. As a kid she was always the one who could not look at anything without touching it. I suppose somethings never change.<E>
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Post by Charlie Dudox on Sept 14, 2004 3:39:13 GMT -5
The Very Next Day:
Daniel Carter: -Halar's deep silver eyes, though like ice at first glance also held the secrets of many ages long since passed. He was not as old as the temple, naught but a hundred years younger, but still he had not always dwelt in Ulster. He had seen many things as he was now at the end of his lifetime on earth. He had seen kings die, immortals overthrown, civilizations rise and crumble. He had seen the procession of the Gods as they had left this world forever as a young wyrmling. Now at his ripe old age, Halar mentored the man he thought to be the bridge that would span the gaps of time. Daniel's brilliance was unsurpassed in his field, his intuition a gift that Halar thought should be used in a manner according to what Daniel was doing with it now(C)- Daniel Carter: -as Kahlan tells her story he listens and behaves as any creature so wise would do. Ah, so the picture becomes clearer. When she chokes, he bobs his massive head in condolence and speaks closer to her so as not to let the others hear him. "Kahlan, I do not blame you. You need not say more. For now, this explaination will suffice me. As you assumed, I already know your secret, one which I will die with." The dragon said, his voice deep and cool at the same time. He hesitates on his next sentence, choosing his words very carefully. "Do not fear for Daniel. He could not possibly know. He is mortal. If you believe he would be an asset to your own history, there is a way to explain it to him that he will understand very well..."(C)- Daniel Carter: -He trailed off then. If Kahlan wanted to know more, he would tell her, but he would not push her. He would let her think it over and decide for herself if she wanted to young archeologist so inimate with her. Daniel himself had said goodbye to Amariette who dismissed herself to retire to the Golden Apple after receiving directions. With a small smile still a tinge pink in the cheeks he watched her leave, the energetic young farm girl with bouncing red curls... For a long moment he watched her go across the market square as if worried she might run into some trouble. She was impressionable and he did not want to see her get hurt in a place so forboding and new. He blinked and looked at the ground then, wondering why he had watched her go, why(C)- Daniel Carter: -it had felt so strange when she took his hand. He shook the feeling off and looked back towards his abandoned journal. Ah, yes... he still had a lot of work to do in that... He moved to the tree and picked the book up in his hands, running his fingers over the quill scratched pages he had been filling since he got here. It would be stored in his house in Invernis with the others. You could practically start a museum with the collection he had or a bookstore. He smiled at the thought. Perhaps someday the people of this world would have as much appreciation for their history as he did... and maybe, just maybe, they would start to learn from it as well. (F)-
Charlie Dudox :Charlie had spent most of the day hovering over Daniel's notes, comparing them to her own scroll and slowly, painfully beginning to the process of translation. Daniel knew the language better than she did, after all, he had cracked it, but Charlie knew more about this most eastern of the Aon tribe, and that made her knowledge of equal value. She was also a little uncertain about Daniel. Perhaps she had come on too strong last night. It would not be the first time she had scared a man away by being herself. Still, it was enough to make her want to bang her head into the table nice and hard. Still, she was not one to be couped up inside or to give up without a fight, Instead she struck out to find Daniel. <C> Charlie Dudox After all, he was the only person she knew in this whole damned place and she wasn't one to spend long periors of time in solitaire. It rubbed against her nature like nails on a chalk board. She could not help but smile at the sight of him scribbling away in his journal. Did the man ever take his mind of of his work. For a moment she just watched him, hoping that she had not totally blown things between the two of them. Still, she was not out to spy and she cleared her voice to gain his attention "Hey there Daniel, Whatcha up to?" she plopped down on the grass beside him and craned her neck slightly to see what he was writing. If it was personal it would be easy enough for him to close the book without her seeing, but she made the broad assumption that it was not.
Daniel Carter: -His scribblings were nearly illedgible, but he could read them and that was what really counted, he supposed. As he wrote, more liesurely than the night before, he only noticed Charlie after she approached and sat down next to him. "Oh... hey Charlie." He said, shifting the book so that she could see what he was writing as well. This was just another in a large catelogue of journals he kept on all his digs, each one dilligently labelled and made on a specific subject. This one happened to be the latest in a twenty one volume set on the translation of Tamil, a feat that was in and of itself, so difficult that Daniel could not do it without his notes on hand. "This language... a few of the characters are confusing me, and the context... it's all wrong." He said, pushing(C)- Daniel Carter: -his glasses up on his nose in frustration and wrinkling his nose for a moment. "I just don't understand, this was on an altar to Hamarin, but it has nothing to do with him. His name... it isn't even mentioned unless one of the untranslated characters has a double meaning that I missed, but I doubt that..." He said, skimming what he had copied from her scroll painstakingly into his book after she had left his room the night before. He had stayed up all night, still forgetting to shave and forgoing that kind of hygeine for the sake of work. "And this scroll is using characters that weren't even in the original text, these characters look like the normal alphabet, but they have a different structure, at least some of them do..." He rubbed the back of his head(C)- Daniel Carter: -and then his eyes. He was tired. Working too hard, he'd been. "The only thing I can think of is that either this is some kind of formal script we've never come across, or that this script is near a century older than the original Tamil texts we cracked five years ago. Either way, it's a breakthrough, that is, if I can get it translated." He set the book down on the grass and leaned his head back on the treetrunk, closing his eyes. He needed a fresh perspective on the situation, that's what it was. He needed to look at it from a different angle. He just had to wait until his vision cleared up, he supposed.(F)-
Charlie Dudox :She sighed softly, work work work, but it was best off just to bide her time for the moment. She looked down at the characters and pursed her lips, it was an action that she did any time she was deep in thought. After a moment she replies, slowly at first as she draws up all the years of research she has done. I am absolutely certain about the time period in which the cave was used. The Aons could not have come to that area until... oh... maybe a hundred years before your texts. While that's reletively substantioal it probably does not account for the amount of unrecognizable characteristics." There was a pause, again those deeply pursed lips then a smile slowly forms over her face. It was one of those, I've got it, smiels that always kind of made her glow. <C> Charlie Dudox "No... no... the problem is not the time period, the problem is the language itself, my god they really were a cryptic group of people. There is something definitely distinctive about the words, look they are each marked the same way on the first and last character, always the same set of letters but in varying orders each time, like a built in poem or code. Did you notice that." She was getting excited, for all the attention she paid Daniel, there was a reason she had gotten so far in her field. She picked up a stick and began to draw out the characters in the dust, looking them over with curiosity. "What in god's name are they trying to tell us." It looked to her as if there was a definite pattern, perhaps math based, the mystics often used complex equations. <C> Charlie Dudox So many options, she would not be able to sleep tonight. For a moment she forgot last night and was simply giddy with the ramifications of this new puzzle. princess_of_ulster left the room
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Post by Charlie Dudox on Sept 14, 2004 3:39:54 GMT -5
Daniel Carter: -He looked over, staring at the text for a long while as she spoke. Puzzle... puzzle... the word echoed in his mind. Code... he had seen the triads and he had noted them ,but he had not understood the meaning until she said anything. He looked up at her, his face astonished and seemingly frozen but inside his mind those gears were still turning, going at a rate so fast he couldn't possibly tell her what he was thinking until he got it all sorted out first. "Code... Charlie..." He started, having a bad personal habit of not finishing sentences. He looked down at the text again and ran his fingers over it a few times then snapped them and yelped in satisfaction. Jumping to his feet his face changed to utter excitment as he began pacing around the grass by the tree(C)- Daniel Carter: -"Charlie.. you're a bloody genius! I can't believe I didn't SEE it!" He wanted a fresh perspective and she had just provided him with a better set of lenses, it appeared. "Of course its in triads, most semetic desert languages are like that... they come in sets of three but it matters about the context and the order of the words but the Tamilites took it a step further. They have three meanings for each word, three words for each sentence, that means not nine ways to arrange it but twenty seven!" He was on a roll now, wildly gesticulating, running his hands over his face, his hair, trying to wipe off that old way of thinking. "These are in a code so uncrackable... they made it that way... they didn't want it falling into the wrong hands so they wrote it in a way(C)- Daniel Carter: -that no one who didn't understand the context could crack..." He stopped and stared over the city for a moment. "My god... Charlie... it's not a warning or a holy writ..." He looked down at her with a charged smile on his face, "It's a key. They're telling us how to unlock something, something in that cave, they're telling us where to find it." He stooped down next to her and grabbed her by the shoulders with the look of a brilliant madman. "Charlie... I think we're onto something... this could be the biggest single discovery in all of archeologicial history."(F)-
Charlie Dudox :Her eyes widened as he described what they had discovered. "We'll have to go back to the cave, Daniel, the both of us. I don't think I would have ever gotten this far without your help. When can we leave, do you still plan to stay here with this dig?" She was grinning like a school girl despite the fact that she was attempting to sound serious and professional. And damnit all to hell, she had the biggest urge to kiss him again. This was going to be a problem, she was never good at holding back some of these wills. This was going to be bad bad bad. Control yourself Charlie, when you cannot act, just talk, talk for all your worth. And that's exactly what she did. "Daniel... this may be completely off topic, but I need your advice on something. <C> Charlie Dudox You see I have this beautiful young Archeologist friend and she went and kissed her handsome young archeologist friend and he may have given her a look of total and complete terror. To say the least, she is feeling a little uncertain abbout what to do around him, especially since she's about to try and kiss him again." There is was, at least her had a warning. If he wanted to run, then he had his head start and she would not chase him. She was a girl to get what she wants, but not one to go where she was not wanted. Perhaps that's why she ended up moving around so much. There weren't many places she was wanted for long.
Daniel Carter: -He was still crouched in front of her and waved his hand for a moment to clear his head and then pressed his fingers against his forehead in concentration, "No, no I have to stay on this dig, it's got a lot of funding. I can't just leave an ancient Gaelic temple half buried, either, that just wouldn't be right, and Halar commissioned me for this, it can't wait. I only have two more weeks before Ulsters cold season, and we need those two weeks to prepare an exploratory expodition to the Aon anyhow... get some gear, desert equipment is not easy to come by..." He said, rambling on and on his brain firing off at about a million miles an hour. "And then we would have to get the..." His blue eyes snapped open and he stared at her for a moment, "Wait, what?"(C)- Daniel Carter: -he looked thoroughly confused and then understood. Or so he thought. "Well, I suppose if youre friend really likes the guy... though you know, I'm not really the one to ask and all, I've been married for eleven years, the romance of it is all lost on me." He realized he was gripping her shoulders and let go. "Oh... sorry about that." Looking at her again, the stunned expression on her face, made him realized that he had phrased things utterly wrong again. He sighed and smacked himself in the forehead and held up his left hand. No ring. "To my work, to the archeological society. Figure of speech." He shook his head and sat back on the grass in front of her. "Anyway, so you're friend... she really likes this guy, and he's... what, afraid of her or something?"(C)- Daniel Carter: -He frowned. "Why would a guy be scared by a beautiful girl? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Maybe he just didn't know she liked him romantically. Though in some cultures like the Athrobos it's death for a woman to do anything she's not told to, I doubt he's Athrobian. They don't usually meet with the civilized world, though I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it. He doesn't have dred locks and a feathered headdress, does he?" He asked, looking at her again, genuinely unaware of what or who she was referencing.(F)-
Charlie Dudox :She frowned when he he said they could not leave immediately. It made her wonder how she could stand to be around anyone quite so rational and thoughtfull. But listening to his response to her little scenario caused her to frown slightly. He had to be joking, he and to be making fun of her not to understand what she was saying. It was not like she had tried to hide who she wasa talking about. Could he really be that dense. On top of that she nearly died when he said that he had been married for eleven years. There were many things that Charlie would cop to being, a trolop, a flirt but never, EVER a home wrecker. For a man to be her interest they had to be completely free of all other ties. Anything else was a heinous crime in her eyes.<C> Charlie Dudox Had she kissed and molested a married man last night she certainly would have had to leave town. Her dig would never go as well without Daniel's help but anything would be better than meeting Mrs. Carter. How dare he talk about his work that way and scare her half out of her mind. After a moment of disbelief she came to the conclusion that he was still talking hypothetically and had no clue that she was referring to the two of them. Her voice softened as she leaned forward. "No, no dread locks, though he could use a comb. And no, no head dress, just a pair of slightly goofy glasses." She gave him a small playful wink before leaning in to him. "Daniel, let me announce my intentions." She leaned into him and slipped those glasses off his face, planting another kiss on his lips.<C> Charlie Dudox This one was softer, almost timid in her approach. She was still worried about scaring him off or forcing him into rejecting her. It sure would be nice if he decided to kiss her back this time. BUt her hopes were not that high.
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Post by Charlie Dudox on Sept 14, 2004 3:40:27 GMT -5
Daniel Carter: -He blinked, he was caught off guard, but this time he his excitment took over. The glasses seemed to be of some Samson-like origin that allowed him to relief himself of some rational thought when removed from his face. Maybe it was the fact that he was terrified of not being able to see. Blue eyes now unshielded by glass had a very up close and personal look at the woman pressing her lips to his, and this time, adreneline was her friend. He reciprocated, and quite well considering... well... how he was. Apparently there were things that his tongue could do other than speak eighteen dead languages. She wasn't kidding about needing a comb, though, or a shave, or a new pair of glasses, but none of that seemed like it would happen in the near future(C)- Daniel Carter: -He started trying to pull back a little bit between breaths, stammering and babbling as per his trademark "You know...I... mmph... Charlie... I think.... mmmm maybe this would... ruin our... ah... dah... professional... ah... mphh! relationship..." He was scooting back just a little, though it couldn't be said he was exactly avoiding her touch, just... spazzing at it. She went for him again and he caught her shoulders, staring at her with that furrowed brow- I'm confused look he always had and said, apparently out of nowhere. "You really think my glasses are goofy looking?"(F)-
Charlie Dudox :She kissed him once more and replied "Daniel, the professional relationship was ruined last night when I grabbed your butt. Either that or you are going to have to charge me with sexual harrassment on the workplace." She handed him back his glasses, seeing out helpless he was without them and gave a small laugh. "Of course your glasses are goofy. But... goofy in a good way, don't worry aobut it much. I prefer them on you over a head dress.... though dread locks." Charlie pauses, looking him over and imagining a good set of dreads, but know... they would most likely just make him look more like a street bum than he did already. "No... no dread locks either, I suppose you must be perfect just the way you are." <C> Charlie Dudox She shrugged her shoulders and sat back, giving him a moment to regroup himself. "Daniel, this is the time where you either reciprocate my romantic intentions or you run screaming in fear into the night." She seemed completely frank with his choices. Niether one would necessarily be a first for her, but she did have hope. "What d'ya say? Can you think of a good reason for a guy to be scared of a beautiful girl now?" She tilted her head to the side. The moment of rejection, this was always the not so fun part in her little line of duty.
Daniel Carter: -Quickly he fixed his glasses, scrambling to put them back on his face, his head reeling again. She found him attractive?! What the hell was wrong with her! He blinked a few times, sitting on the grass, blinking and staring and confounded. "That's a really loaded choice." He said still halfway distracted. She was beautiful ambitious, intellegent, and innovative. He had read some of her dissertations, and although he did not always agree with her methods, found great merit in her work. And her narrow waist. And her neckline. And... no, god, jesus christ! What was he thinking? He had a dig to run, he had another book to publish, and that teaching position at the academy to think about accepting, and he's staring at her like... He shook his head(C)- Daniel Carter: -Married, Daniel, you're married, to the texts, to the aritfacts. What would your trowel say if it found out! "Look... can't I just... not answer the question?" He asked, his face twisting a little bit into an expression that said to her, 'You do realize that I have absolutely no clue what to do with you, right?'. Well true, he liked his life, it was simple, he knew where everything was, he had a little house and he kept it how he liked it. He saw his mother every sunday and wedsnday afternoon, he taught part time Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the rest of the time was spent researching in his library or on site at a dig or taking long trips to guide wayward travelers through the most dangerous reaches of the world. It was not the kind of lifestyle conducive to having a woman in it(C)- Daniel Carter: -So her answer was really yes an no. He was a man, and with that came the natural kind of urges that were awoken around a beautiful girl who was throwing herself on you. He had admiration for her as well... but... "I mean... Charlie... up until two days ago, I thought you were a man." Well that pretty much summed it up. It meant he didn't know. He didn't know how to handle the situation, he didn't know how he felt, and he really didn't know her that well either. So his hands were rather tied. She would either get fed up with his stupidity with women or flirt her way into his bed, he wasn't sure which she would try, or which he wanted either.(F)-
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Post by Charlie Dudox on Sept 15, 2004 1:05:28 GMT -5
:The smile on her face thinned some, as if it became a little strained for her to keep it there. That was not Charlie in her natural state. She was happy go lucky, wore her emotions on her sleeve and often blurted them right out, to other people's dismay. She offered a shrug as if it was of no great consequence what Daniel decided or refused to decide. "Sure... sure... there's no reason why you need to decide right away. We got time, hell you got at least two weeks of work on that dig of yours and I'm free labor. Well... relatively free, I got this whole issue of room and board, but I don't eat much or take up much room so it shouldn't be a problem." There it was. She would not push him or do anything to try and make him uncomfortable but at the same time she had set a bit of an ultimadum. Before they left for the Aon cave she wanted to know at least in what direction the two of them were heading. Being strung on was a habit that Charlie certainly meant to break this time around. She stood up slowly and brushed herself off. "I think I have some code breaking to work on tonight and from the sound of it, I have a good deal cut out for me." There was a pause for a moment as she seemed to gather her thoughts about what she had done, what he had said. "Archeology and I are not mutually exclusive in this world, Daniel. Look how bright the future looks when we've worked together for a few days. For once in your life, perhaps you might have to just settle for having it all, huh?" As she gathered her things she added, the sly grin slipping back onto her face. "Listen, when you decide to announce your answer, maybe you can try kissing me. I promise that I wont act like I was attacked by an Ancient Haronian Harpie." With a wink she turned her back on him, leaving him to one puzzle that might not be solvable through the use of ancient texts.
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