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Jack Frost is in the bar, curled up in a sofa, reading a book. 'Dance Dance Dance' by Haruki Murakami.

He may be murmuring out loud as he does, unaware that he's doing so.

Sounds like a weird book.

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"Ah," says the man next to him. "Are you all right?"

"Yes."

Jack glances up at him and grins, because it's a wonderful book.

"Perfectly, thank you. I'm sorry, am I reading out loud? It's a horrible habit."

"A bit," he replies, "I suppose--I couldn't tell."

His fingers twist together.

"Is it a good book?"

"It's a wonderful book. It's very odd. It's called Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami."

He holds it up for inspection.

"I love it."

"What's it about?" he asks, with the kind of hungry look reserved for dear ones and new knowledge.

"That's sort of hard to say. There's a man, and he's trying to find the Dolphin Hotel but it's there but not, and there's a woman but we're not sure. There's a little girl and she has a horrible sad mother, and he's got a friend and a call-girl has died."

Jack hasn't quite worked it out.

"And a sheep-man."

"Right," says Harding. "I'll take your word for it.

"Do you like to read?"

"I do, on and off. While I travel it gives me pause from thinking, which I like and sort of rather need. A bit of peace between my eyes. Do you read? I could let you borrow this when I'm done if you like."

Pause.

"I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack of the Frost."

"Dale Harding," he says, and automatically adds, "just Harding, please."

Then his eyes widen.

"You mean like Jack Frost Jack of the Frost?"

"Like that, yes. Pleased to meet you, Harding."

He inclines his head, and sets his book down.

"Where are you from?"

"Nowhere, U.S.A.," he says ruefully. "And you?"

"I'm mostly in Italy, but I've been travelling, and just arrived in Japan. Which is where I got this. Just from Nepal, which was lovely."

He liked Nepal a lot.

"Really? I've never been anywhere--is Asia exciting?"

"It's beautiful," says Jack, almost reverently because it's so old and wonderful. Very wonderful.

And he's never travelled anywhere nicer.

"I used to live in India."

Harding has, of course, seen pictures, and he heard about Ghandi and his followers for most of childhood and adolescence. But it's not the same.

"What's it like?"

"Hot under your skin like fireflies. Beaches, where I was, and bursting crowded streets. Smells you can't name and dancing. I was a translator."

He loved India.

"I had a little home with one room and a matress on the floor, and a huge window that I kept glass bobbles in, with painted shutters.

"I--I don't mean to be terribly impertinent, but, um, being what you are--did you like being in a place so hot?"

"Not really. But it was so lovely there- in Chennai, there was a music festival. I needed the work. The spice and air. It was worth it to just manage."

Sometimes you give things up.

He understands that.

"It sounds it."

"You haven't travelled anywhere?"

Be careful, or Jack's liable to invite him. Jack trusts too hard too fast.

"Not really, no; I never got the chance. I've been around the United States, but nowhere outside it, really."

Jack looks sorry and whistful.

"I've been going a lot of places. A whole lot of places and I think I'm going to go to Germany next."

"Oh--I've heard there are wonders there, right enough."

His hands twist around themselves anxiously.

"Speaking of going--oh, I'm sorry, but I'm really feeling tired; I can't keep up with the conversation anymore." And, indeed, he does look ready to fall over. "Tell me how the trip goes?"

[OOC: Man, I am so sorry, I am swamped through my own fault. Can we play again another time?]

"Of course. It was nice meeting you!"

Jack turns back to his book.

[ooc: np! any time]

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