OPENING MINGLE LOG: THE LIBRARY

[yourkeepers]

	THE LIBRARY

A matchless compendium of knowledge, the Library is a collection of information and lore gathered from across the entire multiverse. Most of it is in foreign tongues that cannot be read, or in some cases even comprehended, and it is organized into seven different wings based on content. That is, most of the time - occasionally an eighth wing will materialize from the corner of one's eye, filled with ancient books and swathed in delicate, shimmery cobwebs. Its appearances cannot be predicted, and most often vanish before they can be explored.

Comments

[creased]

The Bestiary awakes perched uncomfortably on the edge of her shelf. This case wasn't made for something as large as this body, her other spine digging into her shoulder and half of her hanging unsupported of the edge. Her thoughts are just as disagreeable, the feeling that she ruined something important hard to shake.

She cranes her neck in search of someone else in the stacks. The boy from her memory maybe, though whether she'd talk to him or run in the other direction she isn't sure. But right now anyone would do. The movement doesn't help with her more immediate problem and the reconnaissance is soon ended when she tumbles to the floor with a shout.

[familicide]

"If these - blasted - !"

A crash, a harsh tumbling of books and an unfortunate tinkle of broken glass. One can only hope that crystal goblet didn't cost much and didn't contain a stray soul or two.

"Ah HA! There!"

Another crash, a racket of metal and a hard thump, and then the Bestiary has a companion on the floor, an escapee from an opposite shelf, one arranged with various baubles, trinkets, souvenirs, and forgotten items of mysterious power. His true self could be any one of them, because he has left his first self behind, dumping a nude, dragon-like boy onto the floor opposite of her.

He spots her.

"...hm." He props himself up on his elbows. "...should we run, I wonder?"

[peafowl]

The twins are passing through, still searching for interesting books, clues and, though this is unofficial, other awakened things and servants and beasts.

The book is certainly a surprise. They stop still and watch her for a little while, huddled together with their arms around each other. The pink peacock, finally, says, "Hi! Wow, we haven't seen books be people yet. You all right?"

[notpissedoff]

It's with a sharp intake of breath and a strange clarity of mind that he awakes, eyelids snapping open even though he doesn't immediately move from his position. He's curled up on his side on the floor, his back pressed against the base of a massive, towering bookcase... and as he slowly sits up and casts his gaze about him at the rows upon rows of equally imposing bookcases, he cannot for the life of him recall what could have possessed him to fall asleep in such a location.

But then, he cannot recall much of anything.

Nor can his mind reconcile what he can recall with his current situation. It was different, that place in his memory, and perhaps more importantly he was different. He regards the row of sharp thorns on each of his arms, considers the way the light seems to not fully reach him, leaving him cloaked in shadow--and knows that he wasn't always like this. He was a shinobi, the woman in the vision had said, although what exactly that entailed...

Well, he wouldn't find any answers just sitting here. He rises, and quietly, warily, begins to walk, his form all but disappearing into any shadows he passes through on his way to what he hopes may be an exit.

[ovidscholar]

Someone emerges from the stacks.

"Mein gott," the young man says. He stumbles dizzily; the world around him see-saws and swirls. On his way to the door a sudden anger lances through him, and he swipes out his arm. On the threshold of memory, seized by unaccountable feeling, he does not register the Rash Man-- and shoves him roughly away. Thorns rake his palm.

[ruineaxt]

Something about the moving shifting near-amorphous sight of a shadow ambling down a towering hall-- it set his senses alight like they hadn't been before. His head snaps to catch sight of the movement in his peripheral (where the tips of his horns had been obscuring his sight,) and his stance widens unconsciously, growing a steadier base.

His only thought had been: dangerous.

Why it would be, though-- he had no idea. But gray eyes stay locked to the shifting shadow of a man, accessing him warily: the spikes, the natural sort of camouflage, the way he'd be practically invisible if attention weren't paid...

"What're you?" It's blunt, rough, and while not openly hostile, definitely with an edge of defense and caution born of some unremembered lost instinct.

[ovidscholar]

He seems calm.

Still dazed, the clerk rests his head against a shelf. He remembers. He remembers a jury of men in robes; he remembers a seal carefully embroidered on flags and runners, the image of a man rising to the heavens; he remembers denouncement, and anger.

He seems calm, but he is shaken. He has had to master his temper. Now the regret fills him-- now, the fear.

(Fear of what?)

He takes a deep, trembling breath.

[subtleserenity]

He looks like a librarian, as much as one could hope for, anyway. The metallic woman steps toward the man with the extraordinary nose, the scent of gunpowder and fire trailing about her. Outside the hearth room, it's more noticeable. She can't remember anything, but books have memories longer than than the people that write them. She's come to see if she can find anything she can read here, hopeful it might shed some light onto who she was before. Who any of them are.

The clerk looks somewhat distressed, though. At least he isn't screaming. "You need to sit down?" she asks, stopping near him and folding her arms across her chest. "Reckon the chairs over there look decent enough." She nods toward a cluster of armchairs with a coffee table at their center. Had the Keeper had more permanent guests? It seems a great deal to maintain in the house, from what she's seen, for only his own pleasure.

[peafowl]

The peacocks were picking up books at random and thumbing through them to see if anything useful could be found, but since they took such a haphazard, hurried approach, they've found nothing and nothing familiar at all. They notice the clerk stop and lean against one of the bookcases and though they can't be sure, after a brief conference, they decide he's another one who ... woke up. Remembered things.

They remember him very dimly, as one of the people who tends the library. The sight of his nose, carefully hidden but still prominent, makes them both uneasy and slightly peeved, but they cannot figure out why.

The blue peacock gently touches the clerk's shoulder. His twin grabs the blue peacock's wrist and yanks his hand away.

"'Scuse him, he was ... uh. He's not very polite," she says. An appropriate metaphor for her twin's upbringing had failed to appear.

"Shut up," the blue peacock hisses at her and then addresses the clerk, "Are you feeling all right, darling? Not lifting too many stacks of dictionaries, are you?"

[brassandblood]

Currently exploring the accessible areas of the house, the forge doesn't notice the man resting against a shelf right away. Instead she's fascinated by the books. She knows she knows how to read, but she doesn't remember ever having done so. She reaches out, plucking a book from one of the shelves.

She's only turned a few pages when smoke curls up from one page's edge, and then the whole thing goes up in flame. Startled, she drops it, looking around guiltily, and finally notices she has company.

"I- didn't know it would do that," she says, feeling like a child caught stealing fresh-baked sweets. The flaming book crackles at her feet.

[flesh_and_bone]

The smell of old books is the first thing that draws him in from the hallway. It's familiar and comforting, something that made sense, though he had no idea why. I belong here.

Titles are familiar as well, though they flit right back out of his memory as soon as he passes by. He traces a thin, white finger along the spine of a particularly large book of medical terminology, and lingers in the stacks between Catullus and Chaucer. For reasons he wouldn't be able to explain, he wouldn't pull any of them off the shelf. The thought of touching the paper makes him very uncomfortable.

Inevitably, he found himself in the same aisle as the clerk. Perhaps this man could help explain what was happening. Caretakers of books knew quite a lot about things.

"Greetings," says the tall, pale, naked man with white hair and black eyes as he approaches the clerk. He sounds like he hasn't used his voice in a long, long while, and it's thick with an accent.* Once he's close enough, he may notice the green threads in the man's hair and beard.

[ooc: Scottish. :) ]

[deciphering]

[and yet another person who looks torn between anxiety and confusion. it's become a pretty common sight in the house today, and it doesn't look like there's a limit to who it's effected. standing against the side of a nearby shelf, he watches the Darkling sort himself out, waiting until he's caught his breath before addressing him.]

Keep breathing like that and you're going to make yourself dizzy. [he gestures with one clawed hand to one of the comfortable red plush chairs in the corner of the room.] You might as well sit down.

[justbeclaws]

The grey woman climbs down a column of shelving at the front of the library, feeling carefully with her toes for footholds where books are set well back. Her ultimate goal is to leave the library entirely, now that she can, and see what there is to see in the rest of the house. There must be a great deal, based on the size alone.

She isn't so focused as to ignore someone clearly in distress, however. She approaches the Darkling. "Can I help?"

[ironspirit]

Still tracking dirt and ashes from the garden, the sword continued his pursuit into the library. This time, at least, he didn't have to hack apart anything flammable to get through. He also had enough sense not to stand too close to the shelves. As furious as he was, the garden had been enough of a reminder that he should at least try to avoid setting anything aflame.

Not that it did much to alleviate the fact that he was still a flaming sword guy running through the library, just barely avoiding burning the entire room down. It also took him about five minutes to get hopelessly lost in there. Why was this library so big?

[creased]

The Bestiary's sure she's found her way out this time. The man running in the other direction only confirms it, in her opinion, as he clearly doesn't belong in a library. He must have come from outside. She nearly lets him pass without comment until she realizes she's left her body shelved in that direction. Her other, more flammable body.

"Hey!" she shouts, searching for something to fight with. Finding nothing useful, she runs down a parallel aisle, far enough away that she's unlikely to be set aflame. "Where do you think you're going?"

[nosentimentalist]

Well, this typewriter looks like he's at home here. He looks the bookish type, what with the large round glasses perched on his nose and an expression reserved for the most disapproving of literature critics. Sitting on one of the tables, he glances around, dimly glowing purple eyes blinking as he sorts through his thoughts.

What he just saw, what he just...remembered, it almost seemed like something he would read in a story. An arena filled with strange creatures in masks, a man with too many eyes and a judge's wig, and...him, walking in and bearing a tape recorder aloft as if it was a sword ready to cut his opponents in half...

The fist thought is to shake them off with a laugh. But it was no dream, no silly made-up story that he had daydreamed on a whim. It was real. He was...saving that girl, wasn't he? But why? And where was she now? His fingers run against the keys sticking out of his chest unconsciously as he think, but after a few seconds he shakes his head. No time to dwell on such matters. He had a lead to follow, didn't he? Well...time to follow it.

You'll probably get a sight of him when you'll find a few books toppling in front of you without warning- he's somehow climbed to the top of one of shelves, throwing down books haphazardly when he finishes looking through them and finding nothing of interest. If you look up, he'll merely look down with an amused smirk.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm investigating."

[rocksthecourt]

"I don't suppose you could 'investigate' a bit more carefully, could you? There are others walking down here."

He somehow knew he should have been a little more patient but he couldn't even care enough to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Had this guy hesitated only a few moments more to start throwing down books, he would have been hit for certain. ...And the mess was also completely unnecessary.

[deciphering]

[luckily, this one's reflexes are far from sloppy. at first it had been a bit of a worry for him that his new form would bring more downsides than it would upsides. he'd be sacrificing the ease of a compact body for one that, while bigger, would surely lack the mobility and speed of his old one. right?

wrong. he doesn't even look up to know that a book - a rather old looking one - is tumbling down upon him; his ears twitch at the whoosh of air accompanied by the sound of rustling pages, and that's as good as an indication as any. without so much as a glance, his hand shoots up and catches the book by its spine.

it's hard for him to suppress a confident smirk as he side-steps out of the way, finally looking down at the tome he's holding, idly turning it over in his hands. my, oh my, the perks just keep on coming today.]

Is that what they call it these days? I thought it was better known as making a mess.

[hondsdol]

Though the beast had never before entered the library, something drew him to the room, something that he couldn't put into words. He definitely looked out of place given how scarred he was as he placed a hand on one of the books that had fallen. He couldn't read it, but flipped the pages open anyway, stubbornly attempting to will himself into understanding the writing.

"I'll help," the wolf said cheerfully, smirking to himself. After the first hour or so of confusion, he had settled into deciding that he needed to know what was going on. Not only did he not like not being in the know of everything, but he felt the strong urge to be the one to get to the bottom of it. "You find anything you can read?" the beast asked before he set the book aside with a grumble.

[seerchlight]

This dazzling looking fairest floats about the library now, after the initial burst of confusion seems to have calmed down. He's curious, he guesses. Or maybe he's just bored. It's been so long since he's had free time on his hands he doesn't really know what to do with himself.

But he has a feeling about this place - a feeling in his gut, and in his head. A premonition. He knows that there's something here, in this library, that is both useful and dangerous. Something they will encounter.

Part of him is wondering if it's even possibly to unearth it before its time. How does seeing the future really work when you have a will of your own, anyway?

He looks very much like he's searching for something, but even he doesn't know what.

[brassandblood]

The forge is now carefully avoiding touching any books or shelves, but she's still wandering around the library, curious about what it could tell them about this place.

She notices the Fairest relatively quickly - hard not to when he's glowing like that - but he doesn't seem to see her at first, and he looks lost in thought. "Are you looking for something?"

[fastandfearious]

Something isn't right. Something is, as a matter of fact, very not right. Time is all slippery, and trying to get his thoughts in order is like trying to catch smoke with a butterfly net. He knows -- or he thinks, rather -- that this is not the way of things. But he only has the faintest inkling of a dream to tell him that, and little else to go on, and a swift panic settles into his bones.

Devolving into distressed whimpers, the repairman casts his gaze around the room; trying desperately to find something, anything, that might contain any useful or pertinent information. His brain might be all muddled, but reality is something solid, and there should be some kind of tangible clue to tell him where (and who, because something is still nagging at the back of his mind) he is.

It slowly dawns on him that he's in a library, and that books are as good a place to start as any. Hands over his mouth to muffle the whining as it dies down, he skitters over to the nearest shelf and leans against it, turning and squinting at the letters on the spines as he tries to catch his breath.

[stickshiftittotheman]

"Hey."

Even with the hand on his mouth, it's a library, so the sound's noticeable. Hence the dog (unintentionally) sneaking up behind him to check. It's for good reasons, really -- he puts a comforting hand on the guy's shoulder (though he has to reach upward to do so). "You okay, pal? You're, uh, you're making some noises." Sure, maybe he's no book expert, but he knows that usually books don't make people sound like they just stubbed their toe.

[justbeclaws]

The typewriter is sitting on its desk in the carefully-appointed corner when - she's laughing, surrounded by people, and she's writing (that's the same), but not everything, she's picking and choosing and saying things back -

She falls off the desk, which is suddenly too small to hold all of her. She lands neatly on her feet - oh, hey, feet! She's good with having feet. She's not so good with the way she feels cramped from sitting in one place for so long - but that's silly, of course she's been in one place, she's a typewriter - but she remembers, not clearly but she does remember, that they were in another place, she was in another place, once upon a time.

The corner will do for a den to come back to, but she doesn't want to be stuck there. Time to investigate!

Someone looking upward shortly thereafter might see a shadow moving along the top of a bookcase, skin glinting dully in the low light.

[seerchlight]

The low lighting stops being low pretty rapidly upon this fairest's arrival. He's floating in the air nearby, and glowing quite brightly in fact. He comes up behind her, looking off into space.

"Hey...you're a typewriter, right?" he asks, noting the keys and letters. He thought he saw one somewhere nearby.

[themosttalent]

"All right," the giant green girl calls out as she enters the library. "Just because everyone's been moved around doesn't mean we're not supposed to do our jobs! I know a lot of weird stuff's been happening, so I won't punish anyone as long as you go back to doing your job right now."

Hopefully any Beasts and Possessions in this room won't question her authority over them, which as far as she knows she doesn't really have, just over other Servants.

A second thought occurs to her. "And don't you let any of the guys who are on fire in here!"

[nosentimentalist]

"I kind of need another person to do my job, so sorry if I find that order rather meaningless in the case of me."

The drawling voice is coming from the top of one of the shelves- looking up, one would notice the typewriter dangling his feet over the edge, looking particularly bored.

"Who are you to order anyone around, anyways?"

[intothewoods]

There's a gap in his memory.

He remembers things he doesn't recognize: a man, a room, a bag, a request. It's an uncomfortable feeling. He could tell you the location of most anything in the library, but these things, he can't connect to anything. They just hang in his mind, contextless and -- unreal? Too real? He doesn't know. (It's not like he was ever that great at word-happenings. What does he look like, an English major?)

Curiosity gets the better of him, and he sets his current work aside and sets off. He wants to find that other man again, and the tapes he had carried. There's a lot he wants to ask him, and the books can wait for now.