Ridicule or Reverence?

A Tale of Two Moments

"They spelt 'blasphemist' wrong."

Abigail Rook, who had been rather distracted by the task of rummaging through the papers she was holding at that moment looked up, and evidently had looked a great deal more bewildered than she had meant to as her employer fluttered the scrap of paper he had been regarding in her general direction. She could just recognise that it was formerly one of their fliers that now seemed to have been used by anyone who had passed by to test out whatever new writing implements they might have had on their person. Nothing of which was she found written there was particularly flattering - in fact, some of it was utterly and unnecessarily vile in its cruelty as far as she was concerned - but she barely registered it as she sought out the specific graffiti that had been pointed out to her.

"My word, you're right. It's meant to end in '-ist', isn't it? That definitely says '-est' there." The way she phrased this, and it was quite on purpose too as she did notice the gaze of a few people that passed them by on the street, was more pitying than offended. She wasn't particularly offended by the notion anyway, she rather thought she had more than thick enough skin to weather the occasional melodramatic accusation. 

"That is embarrassing," mused the mad detective, a sparkle of amusement in his strange, storm grey eyes, "The first even slightly interesting thing they, whoever the nameless 'they' it is in this instance, chose to write in a while and they managed to spell it wrong. Shame," he paused, folding the paper in half before vanishing it away into one of the numerous pockets that comprised his bulky, beaten up old brown coat, "If there was something particularly clever I might have considered keeping it." 

"Would you, sir?" came the reply from the investigative assistant, "With all due respect sir, some of the other things they wrote about you there are things I wouldn't think in regards to my worst enemies." 

"Well, yes that does not surprise me, Ms. Rook," came Jackaby's reply, already turning on his heels to continue on their way after their little detour, "But that says less on the nature of those who have so little going on that they feel the need to write insults over fliers and more on the fact that, as far as people go, you are a good person." 

Abigail did not follow him immediately. No, her step had faltered just a little bit when she realised she did not have to disentangle some sort of thrice veiled complement out of her employer's comment at all, but could actually take things at face value. She hadn't even been completely sure if the supposed madman was capable of offering something even remotely similar to a normal complement.

"And anyway," he continued, slowing his pace a little until he was sure that his assistant was following him, "Why should it concern me what they might or might not think of me? It is their business, not mine, and it matters little if a person wants to simply pass me off as a madman or," he paused as he drew the paper scrap out again, scanning it for a moment, "Consider me a 'nutjob wanker with his head stuck up his arse'," the flier was vanished away as quickly as it had resurfaced, and the detective let out a small chuckle as he did so, "The fact they are so willing to lash out while contenting themselves with believing only what is easy and obvious, and exclusively what they can see with their own eyes suggests they are not the sort of people who can even know how to form an opinion of me. I challenge their tedious, dull, and perfectly ordinary lives, so of course they are going to try and take every opportunity to try and make me go away. I make them think, Ms. Rook, and, unlike you or I, that sort of person does not like being made to think."

Rather suitably, her employer's words gave Abigail several different things to ponder over all at once. She might have pondered, also, how it was the man was able to think about so many overlapping things that had no correlations to one another at all times, but that would have added another thing she needed to think about and so passed it off as just being part of the nature of the Seer, and was content with this. Before the lanky man managed to get too far away, she clutched at her sensible grey skirts and broke into a little jog to catch up with him.
How Jackaby managed to walk so silently with all the things he carried in his pockets or wore on his body in one way or another, and so upright considering the weight of his coat having been enough to almost knock her right over on the few instanced she needed to move it, was one of the many, many puzzles surrounding the detective that she had simply accepted as a fact of life. She had found it a great deal easier to accept the oddities that came with her position, for even in those instances where there was no possible way for her to understand everything of a situation, she knew it was real. It might not be real to her, per say, but it was real to Jackaby and that was more than enough proof for her.