A college town, the Anaxi called it. But The Stacks really just looked look a whole world of shoeboxes stacked to impossible heights, everything slapdash and teetering on its edges. Impossibly wide yellow eyes blinked up at the skyline. Eden thought The Stacks were distinctly whimsical, in their funny way. Like they were held up and together by some huge physical magic spell and they might topple down like building blocks if --

Well, he chided himself. Well, this was no time for fantastical imaginings, Edenai Andriocus Aiello -- that's how his mother would have said it, in that withering way of hers. She'd be even more withering if she saw him on aeroship back to Hesse this Hamis break in stained clothes. Eden had soiled his fine Hessean silks -- fine white silks -- in the spring mud during the burial of his dear deceased turtle-friend a week past. She'd still be awful mad at him anyway for not wearing traditional garb, but at least he'd bought new white clothes from a little shop in the shoebox town. The old witch seamstress had quirked her brows and smiled oddly around her mouthful of pins as she eyed his ox-bowed shoulders, taking out the seams in the fancy pearlescent jacket.

It was insufferably weird, but he'd skittered out of the dreary tailor's place clad in new finery just the same, his father's brass cog around his neck and a cacophony of gold bangles at his wrists. If he had some lovely frothy hat-thing to top his golden corona, perhaps his mother would be too taken by it to say a word about his missing silks. It was far more brilliant than his usual ideas -- it must work. There was a pretty old hat shop somewhere around here, in the finer end of The Stacks. With a little searching, he found the appropriate sign and ducked in the door.

Oh, hats! So many hats! He couldn't even spy nor spare a thought to the shop owner. Hats! Velvet and lace and silk in so many colors and shapes, it was quite astounding to Eden young senses. It was like a troupe of butterflies or flowers or birds of paradise had --

Reign it in, Ed.

Even without pretty fantastic metaphor, Eden was on those hats like a bee to blossoms.

Sune Bali, the picture of deep contemplation, ran his fingers along the brim of the silk top hat with feathers in it. One should think it doesn't take that much concentration to observe a simple hat. And in fact, it doesn't. But Sune Bali did so anyway. And he's done so, picking through hats and contemplating their nature, for about forty minutes now.

Half eyebrows furrowed as he turned the hat this way and that before finally deciding that this was long enough. He then smoothed his hand over his bald head (a habit not shaken from once having hair) before sliding the hat on.
Straightening his back, Sune Bali ever so carefully tilted the wide brimmed top hat just over one of his eyes. Then pressing two his fingers to his chin, he stared at the mirror. Sune Bali sucked his gleaming white teeth softly producing a hissing noise (and, to be certain, if his teacher was there to hear it they would shake their head) and narrowed his eyes in the mirror self satisfaction. He just barely kept the stupid smile of self satisfaction itching at the corners of his mouth off his face.

There should be laws, Sune Bali. Absolutely illegal.

If there was anything in the world Sune Bali loved more than being covered in jewelry, it was a good hat. Well no, that wasn't true. It was himself in a good hat, and at the thought Sune Bali finally succumbed to the childish grin trying to take over his face. Then promptly felt rather young and silly and negligently dropped the hat as if it had displeased him next to the small growing pile of hats of varying feather, and silk. It was lovely, to be sure, but he was in the mood for something extravagant.

Reaching for another hat, he paused as a low murmur of the streets and the light breeze brushed long his back indicated the door swinging open and another person entering. Without a thought he was twisting at the waist, vaguely glancing in the doors direction at the boy who'd just come in. He then did it again, more subtly. Sune Bali had to get a second look, if only for that jewelry. "Nice taste..." He muttered offhandedly under his breath, twisting the hat. He then promptly pulled on the hat with the most bobbles on from the racks that he could find.

The shop was called Bassington & Smythe on account of the fact that the owner was of the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that an undefinable air of respectability and propriety was bestowed upon a shop that was operated by business partners. He did not possess such a partner and showed no immediate inclination to acquire one, but he was the owner of a hyphenated surname and so it was the work of a moment to replace one orthographic symbol for another, apply the necessary spaces, and derive a more or less truthful name for his little establishment. He had been rather proud of that little idea. He had been even prouder the day the workmen had come by with the great wooden sign in green with gold lettering and the very handsome wooden hat and hung it above the door. That had been two years ago.

At present the owner of the shop was reclining in a wooden chair in the back room, immediately abeam of a flotilla of unfinished hats of various kinds and engaged in the tedious process of reintroducing himself to a man by the name of Umberto Bassington-Smythe. It often took him several days to reacquaint himself with himself and though it had been so far going well, he had hit a bit of a snag when he discovered the hatpins.

There were seven of them rolled up in blue velvet, each was unique and had been designed by himself as a gift to the now sadly estranged Miss Melpomene Nesbit. He had meant them to be a gift, and was going to present them to her the very day when they had their spectacular falling out. Now, alas, they had no hats to adorn but an ingenious man does not let menacingly sharp objects lie about unused. Presently, the seven hatpins were serving as a very ornate set of darts and were being used to artfully destroy the rather voluminous correspondence that a year-long attachment to the lady had produced.

With no particular malice, Umberto flung the pin with the ornate birds towards one of the letters he had mounted on the wall opposite him. It flew surprisingly well and did a more that serviceable job in transfixing the 'o' in the name 'Melpomene'. He smiled cheerfully, and wondered how long it would take him to render all the letters unreadable by the repeated application of the hatpins. However long it might take, and however pointless it was, he could be assured of one thing; that his skill in darts would benefit materially from this odd form of catharsis.

He prepared a second pin with the intent of seeing whether or not he could dot an 'i' that the writer of the letter had carelessly left without this necessary mark, when a peculiar sound made itself known. It was the sound of at least one person trying on hats. This is not a sound that most people would recognize as distinct or even noteworthy, but to a hatter it is all important.

He got up from his chair, adjusted his garments, polished his glasses with a cloth he kept for just that purpose, and sallied forth into the shop to see who it was that had come calling. Upon entering he beheld two young fellows frolicking amongst that hats without a care in the world. He tipped his head to the side and with a moderately cheerful tone addressed the nearest of the two.

"Can I assist you?"

Desiana Micheluto poked her head in the store shortly, then at the note of other people backed out and stumbled down the street. a few minutes later, she was back, and she poked her head in a little farther. she had an expression on that showed she did and didnt want to go in. Desiana was horribly shy, and flinched whenever she thought someone was speaking to her.

Still... the hats inside did look awfully nice. she frowned, arguing with herself weather or not she should go inside. she looked determined for a second, and just as it looked like she would step in, she backed out again. she stopped in front of the windows, and let her eyes glide over all the magnificent hats she might try on. she put on a determined look again, and walked right inside the store. There, she had just done it. However, she froze in her place. How could she buy a hat with out making eye contact? she hadnt exactly thought that all through. So, she bolted, and managed to stand behind on of the hat stands for some reprieve.

All these people and things about in the shop were so pretty. The dark-skinned boy was very pleasant to look at -- that was really such a nice color for skin to be. Sometimes the Anaxi students were so pale he found himself worrying if they were sick. And the boy's jewlery helped quite a bit too. Eden so liked golden things, shining things -- he had too, gold twine was twisted around all his little Hessean veins.

It was so quiet, that compliment, but Eden was not one who had many sweet things lauded upon him. By anyone but his mother, of course. But, he was loathe to admit, that might not quite count, in the broad civil spectrum of things. The response was staggeringly un-quiet in the plush smallness of the hat shop, everything just a touch stifled by the crush of fine leather and sprays of feathers and gem-toned lush things stuffing the shelves.

"Oh dear, oh my! Do you like them?" he gushed, clutching the fine white hat to his chest. The whole gesture placing his brown wrist stacked with gold bangles on a plane of white velvet. He could repress his charmingly vacant leira smile at the pleasing array of color. It really and truly didn't take much to impress him.

"Do you really?" he pressed on, sidling closer. Dim-witted blitheness not dimming a bit, he ducked down and plucked the abandoned tophat from the Mugrobi boy's growing pile of unsatisfactory hats, bracelets jangling louder than should be legal, like a rainstorm on a tin roof. Even his jewelry was loud.

"Whyever would you cast away this one, I did so like this one, it looked really, really--" he piped. The boy didn't have a very solid grasp of Anaxi etiquette, such as not loudly chirruping at boys in hat shops you knew not at all. "Really nice," he decided after plucking through his lexicon. "And if-"

Interesting to look at as the other boy was, Eden's interest was quickly drifting to the color-wonderful things all around him, and when another voice prodded at his perception, the harpoon that was his over-zealous voice was aimed on a new target.

"Oh, greetings!" he called. "You seem in a merry mood today, sir! Of course I would be to if I was surrounded by such pretty things all the time--" The bell at the back of the store tittered again, Eden's attention was ripped away so fully and forcefully it was as if a cyclone had just blown through his consciousness. Words evaporated, he cocked his head away as if he hadn't spoken to the man at all. He swiveled around to the noise. That noise meant more people, and he so did like people.

"Oh, dear! Do you usually get this many people? Hello and welcome, I --"

Squint at the doorway all he wanted, there was not a person there at all.

"Oh dear," he pronounced gravely. "Oh my. Did either of you see anyone?" Yellow eyes eyes big as tea saucers swiveled over the boy and the shopkeep, deeply bemused. "If there was no one there at all I might be going dotty. And I really and truly would not like that."

Desiana held her hands to her chest, trying her best not to hyperentilate. she was so thin, it was easy to hide behind a hat stand and not be seen. that made her feel a little better. but the bad news was that if they had seen her, things would seem to get worse.

She turned her head around to peek past the stand, hoping on hope they wouldnt notice her. she didnt want him to think he was crazy. she turned back around again. why couldnt she have chosen a quiet day to come in and buy a hat? things would have been so much easier. even if no one saw her, they might come for a hat and scare her. she bit her bottom lip. she had no idea what to do now.

If Sune Bali was surprised at all at suddenly facing the other jeweled boy after the seeming explosion of noise.... it showed. Quite clearly and not as elegantly as he'd have liked if he had any control over how the body displayed shock. He, quite frankly, eyeballed him. And having eyeballs that were, as a mugrobi, naturally predisposition-ed to be rounder (when he was not quite purposefully hooding them) wasn't at all helpful and he was certain he must have looked like his eyeballs were going to pop. He just barely managed not to grasp his heart. He wondered if he ought to swoon a bit to try and make up for the eyeballing, but changed his mind when the gold flashed (and when he realized it would probably be rather silly to do so...). One glitter and his face settled into delight.

"Oh, very much so." He waved a hand and his lip curled a bit in a smile. His face was sly and smug, as though he'd been complimented himself for complimenting. "It's refreshing to see another boy who likes it." He tilted his chin, as though one couldn't already see the line of necklaces until he's done so.

With a soft snort, Sune Bali waved his hand. "It displeased me." Which was a lie. And he made a note to indeed get that hat. Really nice, right? Well, yes. But of coarse! What a wonderful surprise. Come for a hat, and instead start a chat with someone who doesn't use big words or start talking about things that aren't about shiny. And it compliments him, bang on even better. If Sune Bali stretched his neck any higher his head might have rolled off his shoulders and under a shelf. "But, if you say so," And at this his fingers began to wriggle towards the hat. "then I might have to-"

And the clocking 'ell had his head gone off to? Sune Bali's mouth still opened, but eyebrows now furrowed as he stared at the other boy who seemed to share the attention span of a small excitable puppy.

Sune turned his head and saw whom he presumed to be the owner. Ah yes... and the owner had said something, certainly. That was to be sure because the boy next to him answered, right? But he could have said anything, so he nodded since he'd gotten no cues at all from the boy next to him as to any hint of what he'd asked. Nodding was always a decent way to answer. He wasn't sure what he'd 'yes'd to but well...

"And what?" He looked at Eden again, lower jaw hanging open, then briefly scanned the store. He'd certainly heard the door but there was just as certainly no one he didn't notice a thing. Then looked at the boy next to him again, slowly. "Good chance, that." He tried to sound like he was joking, anyway. "If someone was there, they must be another mancer?" He pitched his to be a bit voice louder, as if asking anyone in the room.

Umberto blinked. He'd been blinking considerably more of late and it worried him. He considered the possibility that his eyesight was further deteriorating, but had abandoned this line of thought when no headaches were forthcoming. Next, he considered that his extended sojourn somewhere he could not quite remember might have something to do with this curious new habit, but this would not do. Where was the evidence? And besides, he felt fairly well in himself. All his various extremities felt very much as they aught to, which is to say he was not particularly aware that he even possessed such things. Observing the conduct of the increasingly numerous shop patrons, however, he was coming to a new and far more satisfactory explanation for his ocular aerobics. To wit: the whole world appeared to have gone slightly mad and the blinking was a perfectly understandable manifestation of his bemusement. He needed only to consider the actions of the shop's patrons to confirm this hypothesis.

Some one, a small and quite possibly female some one, had darted behind a hat stand, a thing that was hardly ever done anymore. Hat racks, however excellent they were at displaying hats and keeping them out from underfoot, were shockingly indifferent hiding places. Possibly in other countries, where the hat racks were great monolithic constructions and awed men and women alike with the grandeur, such as action was commonplace. The present hat rack, being of the more conventionally svelte variety, did more to call attention to the small figure lurking behind it that otherwise. However, if she chose to hide herself behind an assemblage of hats, who was he to deny her that privilege?

As for the other two patrons, they made enough noise and bustle to satisfy even the most exacting of the foes of silence and quiet contemplation. If a small regiment of slightly drunken soldiers had wandered in to appropriate new uniforms from among Umberto's wares, they could hardly have made more of a ruckus. At lest these two appeared to be interested in hats as head-wear rather than as a species of blind, and the hatter was understandably more at home with these two fellows.

He approached them in what he regarded as a friendly and open manner. He tipped his own hat --he never bothered to take it off in the shop, it seemed somewhat not right for a purveyor of hats to go bare-headed -- as he attempted once again to attract their attention. He plucked a hat from off the head of one of the boys in a companionable manner as said, "I am afraid, my fine fellow, that this is, as you may be unaware, a lady's hat. Quite apart from that, it is entirely the wrong shape for your head. You look rather like an ornate and dyspeptic mushroom, I am sad to say."

Eden squinted up at the uproar of hat on the other boy's head.

"I do like it. But you being a hat expert and all..." he trailed off, eyes narrowing all the more and lips pursing in thought. "Oh, but it is so charming. Certainly...um. Certainly garners lots of attention. Honestly, sir, what does a dyspeptic mushroom even look like? I don't think that was a very fair assumption. Perhaps he wants to wear lady things. And I think his head is shaped just nicely," Eden offered helpfully.

He wasn't very well accquainted with hats, to be perfectly truthful. The Hessean uproar of pale fluff made hats quite a bother, unless one had their hair tied down. His mother said hats were just a fussy obstruction for fine hair braid designs.

On that thought, Eden went about the business of shifting away his bangles to reveal a bit of ribbon bound at his wrist. He tugged open the knot with his teeth, then holding the limp ribbon between said teeth while his eyes darted amongst the shelves. Having an attention span that was fleeting at best made one quite skilled at multitasking. He balanced the white trillby hat on one shoulder while his hands busied themselves with confining his fluffy corona into a braid. The process was all too elaborate, yet his fingers sped about the process even as he seemed too engrossed in searching the shelves for a viable replacement hat to watch what they were doing, wrists jangling merrily.

He spoke again, mouth full of ribbon. The words were muffled, but they may have sounded something like:

"Are heads different shapes, sir? I mean, I guess they must be, but are there different words 'em?"

Something like that.

"Oh nothing against the shape of this fellow's head, not a bit of it. A perfectly fine shape, it carries the brain about in such a superior manner and sits very confidently atop the neck. However, that self-same shape is not quite suited to the hat in question. Which is no ill reflection on the hat either. The two simply don't quite go together; rather like anchovies and raspberry coulis. Each are fine and good in and of themselves, but together they are possibly less than the sum of their parts."

Umberto gave a cheerful smile and produced from one of the tables to his stern a very tall hat with a moderate brim. He placed this upon the head of the young man from whom he plucked the offending hat. "If I may sir? Thank you. Now, this hat with its tall crown and shady brim goes very well upon this gentleman's head. It mirrors the length of his neck and generally provides a very pleasing symmetry to the whole cranial region. Though I cannot say I think much of the color." Umberto backed away as if to consider the hat and its present wearer in the manner of a scientist confronted with a new and quite unknown specimen. "I have no idea what possessed me to make a puce hat. Puce looks terrible as a general rule, and in hats it is particularly offensive. I shall endeavor to locate a more suitable hat in the area of color."

With that, the somewhat animated hat maker set out in search of a distinctly superior hat and, as he had nothing much to do and all the time in the world to do it, began to talk away with great volubility and evident good humor.

"Now then sir," he said to the young man with the enormous quantity of yellowy hair, "as to your question concerning the names for the various shapes of head I can answer you that, yes there are such words. In the measuring of bones there are words for nearly everything." A number of hats flew past at speed, landing in apparently random heaps on tables, hat stands, and atop other hats. One nearly knocked over a moa-egg hat stand in its passing. "Generally, heads are broadly classified -- please excuse the horrible pun there sirs -- into three great categories: dolichocephalic, mesocephalic, and brachycephalic. Which is to say, long, medium, and broad heads. Various interesting personages have attempted with, it must be confessed, limited success to attribute any number of personality traits to these basic forms, but I tend to limit myself to the more fictional portions of the analysis: namely, the selecting of the proper make and style of hats to suit any shape at all."

Sune Bali made a noise close to a croak. He was glad, not for the first time, for his complexion to hide the embarrassed rush of blood. His eyebrow twitched, however. "Dyspeptic, really..." He'd muttered, and then nodded vigorously at Eden after he spoke up.

"Right,that. Exactly that! A hat like that, a person would have to be purposely ignoring you or blind not to notice." He sniffed. At least someone else understood that much. Sune Bali almost patted the top of the other boys head and then had to resist smoothing over the back of his own head. It also occurred to him, at some point, that he ought to learn the other boys name. He could almost feel the weight of his teachers squinting stare of disapproval.

But at the new actual weight of the hat settled on his head Sune Bali's eyes swiveled quickly for a mirror manners and proper behavior completely forgotten. He'd not noticed it on any of the displayed for it's lack of bobbles, though now that he looked the height made up a bit for it. It was certainly not a hat he'd pick out for himself, but he admitted to himself the man knew what he was doing. He looked this way and that feeling satisfaction. "It's acceptable." Sune Bali tried not to look too happy with himself in the mirror, but still couldn't keep himself from pouting a little. He'd still not forgotten that dyspeptic. "And I should like to see the other colors."

"Other colors, other colors. Yes, I think I can oblige you there my fine fellow. Here," he said producing an exactly similar hat in an alarming shade of green, "is a hat in bilious green. Now, I know you must be thinking 'Well, that's hardly an improvement over puce. Bilious green forsooth.' and you would ordinarily be right, bilious green is not a color calculated to please one and all. Or so you would think. You would be amazed, sir, simply amazed, at the number of people I find that look very well in hat of this exact shade. " He placed the hat upon the young man's head and considered it critically for a moment. "Though perhaps you are not one of them. Unless you are going for the sickly and haunted look that is all very much the fashion among the young ladies at present. Why this should be the case I cannot say."

Another hat made its presence known, and it was of a far more conventional color; being a kind of deep and venerable grey that bespoke a serious and possibly actuarial temperament. "Now this might suit you better. It is a very reserved and serious-minded." Not that you are either, of course, but what does a little falsity signify?

He turned to the other young man and considered his wooly head and large, open face. "And as for you sir, I think, perhaps, something angular. To contrast in a most agreeable manner with your own visage, yes?"