A
anonymph
Guest
Original poster
At first glance...
There's a little store that sits in the middle of the street with nothing too abnormal in its peculiarities. You walk pass it every afternoon and only do you peer into the distorted and oddly colored front windows today. Through the glass, you take note of the shop's wares and into the shop itself. Sitting there for everyone to see are objects expected to be inside any antiques store: gleaming metal typewriters, old watches that still tick and tell the correct time, clunky telephones with rotary dials, and obscure journals full of scrawling handwriting.
Removing your face from where it's been plastered to for the last few minutes, you turn to the entrance of the store. The door is what makes the shop peculiar; even then, it's only because it's obviously a marketing gamble to attract attention and interest. The owner must have been trying to appeal to people interested in steampunk because there are intricate gears carved into the metal and a working hatch instead of a doorknob. Grabbing the wheel, you swing it to the right forcefully; so forcefully that the door swings open with a bang, and you find yourself within a small room.
There are tiny aisles and old antiques just as you expected. Leaning against the counter, fiddling with scraps of metal and a small journal, is the cashier. He's young and moves with ease though there are times where his joints stiffen up mid-motion. When that happens, he swipes at the stiffened area quickly and is back to moving like a well-oiled machine. The sound of you entering has him glancing up at you with a lazy wave only to turn back to the metal and journal. You look around the shop, already forgetting him.
You rub at your eyes and squint around you. The lighting from the grand chandelier dangling from the ceiling seems golden and puts the room into a sepia perspective, but then it changes to a different sort of gold that's more like glitter and crystal than sepia. Model blimps hang from the ceiling and look like they actually hover around the room, but that doesn't seem like something found in an antiques store. Hanging from suspended pots are plants you've never seen before of the strangest shapes and colors. They grow in indiscernible spots throughout the room and you're sure you just saw some of them move. Dust, probably pollen, hangs around the flowers and shimmers in the golden light.
There's so much to focus on in the store that you look at the walls instead. On them are faded blueprints, drafts, and hand drawn maps pinned over half of them. The other half is dedicated to portraits, paintings, and photographs. None of them seem to be formal portraits but rather candid shots. When you stare at one the subject looks blurry as if moving inside the frame. The things being photographed are odd too, misshapen forms and bad photos of animals making it seem like they've got wings or extra features. Some of them don't even appear to be real animals, at least none that you've ever seen. Turning your attention to the landscapes and paintings, you realize that they're all fictional because there weren't tiny winged people living in giant trees and, admittedly, adorable androids back a century ago. You concede to the fact that the painters have great talent and imaginations because those animals equipped with mechanical limbs look real.
The walls are too confusing and so your attention goes to the actual stuff inside the shoppe.
On a nearby table sit shined compasses and gyroscopes, old rulers and telescopes, an inaccurate planetarium with too many planets, microscopes, and even dusty tubes. Next to them are failed inventions from the forward thinkers of that time: guns and rays, time tellers with too many hands, gramophones that make weird sounds when you turn them on, there are even straps to a pair of metal wings attached to some harnesses. You blink when you see Nicola Tesla's attempt at a death ray. Striding away from that table, you go to the next one. On it are tons of journals on unbelievable species and experiments. You don't even glance at them after seeing the words "fire, pairs of eyes, and acid."
Taking it all in, you wonder why it isn't until now that you decided to come in. Everything in there is tastefully and haphazardly placed with artistic abandon. It seems just like what youre looking for even. Actually, you don't know what you're looking for, but you get a feeling in the space behind your heart and at the bottom of your lungs that you'll find it here. Your lips quirk into a smile. You feel like you could spend ages in here and time will pass like it's only been seconds.
It's such a delightful haven that it feels like you could make it your own personal Wonderland where, instead of falling down a rabbit hole, you got here through a gleaming metal hatch and was met with glitter and gold; you wonder if they've got what you want.
On second thought...
You aren't so sure that this is such a normal shop after all. In fact, you're positive that this isn't an antiques shop as it advertises on the sign swinging above the door. There are antiques, oh they certainly are, and they're all very real, but they're not the antiques you had assumed them to be. They're from nowhere you've been of or heard of except in fantastical stories. The store is authentic, most definitely, but the myriad of things in here are from another world. Worlds to be correct.
There's a little store that sits in the middle of the street with nothing too abnormal in its peculiarities. You walk pass it every afternoon and only do you peer into the distorted and oddly colored front windows today. Through the glass, you take note of the shop's wares and into the shop itself. Sitting there for everyone to see are objects expected to be inside any antiques store: gleaming metal typewriters, old watches that still tick and tell the correct time, clunky telephones with rotary dials, and obscure journals full of scrawling handwriting.
Removing your face from where it's been plastered to for the last few minutes, you turn to the entrance of the store. The door is what makes the shop peculiar; even then, it's only because it's obviously a marketing gamble to attract attention and interest. The owner must have been trying to appeal to people interested in steampunk because there are intricate gears carved into the metal and a working hatch instead of a doorknob. Grabbing the wheel, you swing it to the right forcefully; so forcefully that the door swings open with a bang, and you find yourself within a small room.
There are tiny aisles and old antiques just as you expected. Leaning against the counter, fiddling with scraps of metal and a small journal, is the cashier. He's young and moves with ease though there are times where his joints stiffen up mid-motion. When that happens, he swipes at the stiffened area quickly and is back to moving like a well-oiled machine. The sound of you entering has him glancing up at you with a lazy wave only to turn back to the metal and journal. You look around the shop, already forgetting him.You rub at your eyes and squint around you. The lighting from the grand chandelier dangling from the ceiling seems golden and puts the room into a sepia perspective, but then it changes to a different sort of gold that's more like glitter and crystal than sepia. Model blimps hang from the ceiling and look like they actually hover around the room, but that doesn't seem like something found in an antiques store. Hanging from suspended pots are plants you've never seen before of the strangest shapes and colors. They grow in indiscernible spots throughout the room and you're sure you just saw some of them move. Dust, probably pollen, hangs around the flowers and shimmers in the golden light.
There's so much to focus on in the store that you look at the walls instead. On them are faded blueprints, drafts, and hand drawn maps pinned over half of them. The other half is dedicated to portraits, paintings, and photographs. None of them seem to be formal portraits but rather candid shots. When you stare at one the subject looks blurry as if moving inside the frame. The things being photographed are odd too, misshapen forms and bad photos of animals making it seem like they've got wings or extra features. Some of them don't even appear to be real animals, at least none that you've ever seen. Turning your attention to the landscapes and paintings, you realize that they're all fictional because there weren't tiny winged people living in giant trees and, admittedly, adorable androids back a century ago. You concede to the fact that the painters have great talent and imaginations because those animals equipped with mechanical limbs look real.
The walls are too confusing and so your attention goes to the actual stuff inside the shoppe.
On a nearby table sit shined compasses and gyroscopes, old rulers and telescopes, an inaccurate planetarium with too many planets, microscopes, and even dusty tubes. Next to them are failed inventions from the forward thinkers of that time: guns and rays, time tellers with too many hands, gramophones that make weird sounds when you turn them on, there are even straps to a pair of metal wings attached to some harnesses. You blink when you see Nicola Tesla's attempt at a death ray. Striding away from that table, you go to the next one. On it are tons of journals on unbelievable species and experiments. You don't even glance at them after seeing the words "fire, pairs of eyes, and acid."Taking it all in, you wonder why it isn't until now that you decided to come in. Everything in there is tastefully and haphazardly placed with artistic abandon. It seems just like what youre looking for even. Actually, you don't know what you're looking for, but you get a feeling in the space behind your heart and at the bottom of your lungs that you'll find it here. Your lips quirk into a smile. You feel like you could spend ages in here and time will pass like it's only been seconds.
It's such a delightful haven that it feels like you could make it your own personal Wonderland where, instead of falling down a rabbit hole, you got here through a gleaming metal hatch and was met with glitter and gold; you wonder if they've got what you want.
On second thought...
You aren't so sure that this is such a normal shop after all. In fact, you're positive that this isn't an antiques shop as it advertises on the sign swinging above the door. There are antiques, oh they certainly are, and they're all very real, but they're not the antiques you had assumed them to be. They're from nowhere you've been of or heard of except in fantastical stories. The store is authentic, most definitely, but the myriad of things in here are from another world. Worlds to be correct.
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The door was what struck her interest in the store initially. Petra, in the years she traveled between campus and the dormitories, had never so much as glanced at the store until that moment even though she walked the street daily. It was only when the side with the cafés and bookstores as well as cute family restaurants she tended to walk along decided to repave their sidewalk that she wound up on the other side with the stores and boutiques.
but I'd like to put this on hold until I know I can buy it.".JPG)
"Ah hah!" He exclaimed at one of Petra's questions. "That's what I mentioned earlier that I said I was going to answer. Why you're here and what I'm giving you." He turned with a flourish towards a painting that had sat unnoticed beside them. Sybille took a slight step towards it to see it better before Krow clapped his hands and the picture illuminated from some source of light. It appeared to be the bottom of a large body of water, presumably the ocean. Although somewhat darker than the room they were standing in, it was brighter than she would expect from the ocean floor. Still, it was an entrancing sight, and it seemed almost peaceful. Strange creatures floated through the water as well as schools of fish, their scales glittering. Off in the distance and around the edges unidentifiable things flickered in and out of sight.
