It’s become a bad habit of hers that her family and company likes to scold her about. It’s obsessive, but she can’t find it in herself to try and stop. Every day she has off, she finds herself in a new bookstore that she’s yet to visit. The smell of paperbacks upon hardcovers and the occasional mints they sell at the counter are what really get her inspired. It’s amazing how one material can hold the context of a different world in between two thicker pieces of paper, yet sandwiched in two other pieces is the crashing reality of what the Earth has done to itself.
The weather’s freezing and snow is falling on every inch of ground. The part of town she decided to venture in for the day is quiet and she has the honor of being the first footsteps on the untouched snow, each step giving her the satisfaction of sinking down an inch or so. Reaching her destination only takes a few minutes and she’s in front of the cozy looking bookstore with a simple greeting sign atop the door, the frame of wood dusted with white flakes of frost. She pushes on the cold glass of the door, thankful for her mittens, and steps right in, the bell on top of her head jingling with the sound of welcoming. A shudder runs down her body when she’s suddenly enveloped with an embrace of heat and the familiar scent of home fills her body. Ah, thank God for days like these.
However the silence was broken as the bell over the red door went off, alerting the owner of a customer. Finishing of the sentence he was reading, he lifted his head to look at the female before greeting. “Welcome.” He begun as the floor makes it’s familiar creaks as she steps into the store. Flickering his gaze away from her he only now seeing the amount of snow that had landed on the pavement outside his store, he can’t help but think to himself; ‘No wonder’.
“Let me know if you need help finding anything.” After having said his last sentence his head drop, as his per usual behaviour, down to continue reading the book. Was he set on customers service? Not more than he himself could bother to do. Without a sound he lifted the cup of coffee to his lips, slowly sipping on the hot liquid. Long and elegant fingers gently lifted the page and turning it. There’s no doubt that even if he is no longer per say a King, his silent manners of doing things have not disappeared.