(Oswald attempts to discuss with Zoe whether the abyss merely feels has mouth vibes or in fact directly represents one.)

Zoe had not considered that the abyss might be a mouth metaphor but wow now that you point that out it makes sense.

Hey Guys There's Another Person Here Do You Maybe Want To Not Talk About Mouths.

The other person is, you will find, actually part of the furniture.

They are doing quiet unobtrusive literary criticism. And also haven't noticed the other person but if Mordred says so (or just sorta indicates so with gestures and expressions).

Mordred makes his way towards the extremely normal man.

"Hello?" the extremely normal man says. His voice quavers with anxiety. It says, why are you talking to me. I am very small and scared and frightened and talking to me is a very mean thing to do. It is kind of remarkable that he achieves this effect while being 6'5" and fat.

"Hello," Mordred says, quietly, because they're in a library.

"Do you want to look at the articles I'm looking at?"

Mordred nods. Smiles. He looks friendly and polite and legitimate; he's young enough that you might think he was a student.

"Here you go. I-- can wait around until you're done?" He turns every sentence into a question.

Oswald can help Zoe pore over newspaper articles while Mordred does whatever it is he's doing over there.

Peter Lukas is in SO many newspaper articles. He apparently LOVES being in newspaper articles. Here he is at a charity gala for the Hospital Superbissima. Here he is at a meeting of the Malta Chamber of Commerce. Here he is as a founding member of the Malta Committee for the Protection of Morals. He is in SO many pictures and his eyes always look incredibly uncomfortable

Zoe's problem with libraries is that there are so many things that are totally irrelevant to what she cares about and she always gets bored before she finds something important. Having someone talk to her about whatever they're reading makes it less painfully boring.

"Or I can read the ones you aren't working with," Mordred says. He's excruciatingly polite, for a definition of polite most often used by university students; he's careful to take up less than his share of the available space and not to take an article the man is currently reading. He's friendly. Legitimate. There is no reason to object to his presence.

"Oh, no, it's fine? I don't want to inconvenience you? Here, take a look and see which clippings you need?"

"It's fine, really, you were here first. What are you looking for, I might have found something that'll help?"

"Oh, I'm just looking for information for my article about Malta's response to the Abyssinia crisis."

(He is in fact doing this, he's looking at articles about the Abyssinia crisis and Malta's foreign policy.)

"Sounds interesting, I'd like to read it when it's published?"

"Of course! It'll be in Il-Berqa? I don't know if you read Maltese?"

"I don't, unfortunately," and Araari knows Italian and some Arabic but that might not be enough to usefully translate. "I don't know what the etiquette is for asking about people's research around here, with other grad students I'd say 'pretend I asked the question that would get me the most interesting answer' but that might be horribly rude."

"Oh, I wouldn't call it research? We're just near Italy, you know, so there's a lot of questions about what our foreign policy is going to be what with Mussolini and all? I sure hope there's not a war."

"I hope so too. -- sorry, I don't think I got your name?"

"Adam Vizarri."

Smile. "Lucas Marsh. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vizarri."