Gun Show in the Library with the Rifle | Day 4 - Morning/Day | Open

[subtleserenity]

[Scenario A: Only those who have had previous positive interactions with Zoe, please!]

A person can only spend so much time staring at books she can't read before the urge to do something that feels marginally more meaningful - and physical - takes over. Lights had said the Keeper wasn't there anymore, and Mason had confirmed he'd gone walking out in the world some time ago. The questions of where and why and for how long eat at her. The not knowing seems almost as bad as knowing might. If she is only going to have herself, limited as her memories of who she is are, for another few days, she wants to know it.

She has those she would think to call on. Ones that seem ready enough to go looking, too. She has a few ideas about where to look - the Keeper's bedroom - and how to do it, but a part of her knows that one head can hold only so many thoughts on where to stash a diary, date book, or whatever else the white creature in her dreams and nightmares uses to plan his schedule.

The library is her domain now, or as near to it as can be said. She begins to search for her allies, thoughts of a brigade scouring the Keeper's bedroom in her head. There might not be that many, but she'd take what she could get. When she happens upon one, her greeting is simple: "Goin' huntin' for things we ain't meant to have. Interested in comin'?"


[Scenario B: Anyone who would like to have Zoe prod at their possession form like the possession prodder that she is can tag into this one!]

The library is enormous and its inhabitants and transient visitors scattered. Even with a focused intent, her gaze is drawn to the myriad objects and books the Keeper has in his possession. She has yet to grow tired of her returned senses, though she's learned to curb her apparent enthusiasm since her initial exploration of the shelves in the Hearth Room. Still, a particularly interesting book, statue, or other item may pull at her to go touch, smell, experience it. Her stance from the first day remains: If it's a person and they don't like it, they're welcome to say as much.


[Scenario C: Anyone who would like to have Zoe approach them as a person can tag into this one!]

As for anyone physically there for her to see, she nods politely at them. Potential allies lurk in the most unassuming of bodies sometimes, after all. Her gaze is calculating on these ones, searching out hostility before she approaches. She has no desire to start a fight. That would be counterproductive when she's seeking extra pairs of willing eyes and hands. Her greeting is more weary for those she does not know, but it's still friendly enough: "You find anything you can read in here, I'll find a hat to eat. Reckon the Keeper's the finest linguist in the 'verse or don't get to readin' but a fraction of what he steals."

Her stance is guarded, arms crossed over her bare chest and head cocked to one side. Her polished body shines faintly in the library's lights, and the smell of gunpowder hangs heavy in the air around her.

Comments

[scenario C?]

[automobile_enthusiast]

She's not the only one so polished, and there's something rather radiant in the luster of this Fairest's armor-- although possibly only because of the aggressively crimson hue of so much of his plating.

"What's a hat?" he asks absently, knife-sharp and scalpel-fine fingers delicately turning one more page of the volume he's perusing... Ah, but hopelessly. This one's as incomprehensible as the last, and every other one he's opened, no matter how familiar the angular sigils on the cover looked.

He shuts it with a snap and slots it back into place on the shelf, sighing-- a sound that emerges not from his nose but the slats on his belly. "And don't you think 'steals' is a bit... harsh, hm?" He looks over at her for the first time, optics black and glowing red in a white face that's just as polished as the rest of him (and her, for that matter).

[A]

[seerchlight]

"Oh yeah? What kinds of things?" Lights asks, forgetting to turn around to face her. He's floating somewhere in the lounge at present, legs tucked up beneath him.

c, day

[virulentvexation]

She notices her approach out of her periphery, but doesn't focus on her until she's addressed. That isn't a dialect she's familiar with. She repeats the other changeling's words in her head in an effort to understand.

" 'Steals'?" is her reply, slow and thoughtful, as she glances up from the indecipherable pages to the changeling beside her.

The smell of gunpowder bothers the hydra not a bit, though she isn't self-aware enough to realize why, or that it might be unusual at all.

C

[manelesscatking]

A boy with hair so red it almost seems alight is angrily mumbling to himself as he yanks books off the shelves and shoves them back. He barely acknowledges the lady's initial nod and continues scowling at each squiggle-infested book he pulls down.

Once he takes a second to register her little speech, the page sighs and says, "I guess you're right." He closes the book in his hands and shoves it back on the shelf.

As he turns to face her, the page grunts and scowls a little. "You're shiny...what brings you to this part of the mansion?"

[B]

[creased]

There is a large green book lying invitingly open on one of the library's polished tables. It's text is as incomprehensible to the gun as most of the other volumes she's seen, though it may feel frustratingly familiar despite that fact. Still, there are illustrations to peruse, of gorgeously colored if anatomically improbable beasts.

Her other form has wandered some aisles away, searching for anything interesting in the stacks. The use of her hands had been momentarily pressing when another volume catching her attention. By the time she'd decided it was useless, another shelf had caught her attention. The need to watch over her book form was forgotten.

[She isn't written in Japanese, but in something that's very reminiscent of it, just fyi.]

Scenario C

[inseine]

A man-beast, covered in wildly striped hair and absolutely disinterested in the unending sea of unreadable literature, paces near one of the largest library shelves.

Tirelessly he has spent the past four days prowling up and down the House corridors. There are two sorts of creatures he seeks: First, those who will join his efforts to organize the Keeper's things, preferably individuals that he can recall as members of the Inner or Outer Guard; and second, those rulebreakers and displaced Things who have abandoned their stations and contributed to the chaotic atmosphere in the halls. If he does not have the manpower or the means to round the disordered Things and set them back to their tasks, he shall at least keep a running list in his mental filing cabinet of what sort of creature he is dealing with. The Guard must be ever-vigilant, even though -- or rather because -- Master remains mysteriously absent.

This morning, the acrid and intoxicatingly familiar stench of Gunpowder lured him to the Library. At the sound of that firm, almost feminine greeting, he raises his ruffed head and flashes a toothy, terse grin.

This one. She is what brought him here, he notes with a pronounced twitch of his nose, with that thick gunpowder cloud she carries with her. He recognizes her vaguely. That could be either good or bad for the gunpowder girl, depending: the only scents and faces he remembers belongs to either other Guardsmen, or to creatures he once herded when he was put to task.

"Unlikely." His proud voice probes like a sharp growl, abrupt and sudden, from the corner of his stretched lips. He gazes at Gunpowder Girl steadily. "You are asking the wrong Beast. I do not read. I've got no use for that."

A

[wingedapostle]

She's in the library, looking through each book on a massive shelf. Upon the other's approach, she shuts the book she's holding. "Of course," she says simply. The prospect of finding things she shouldn't excites her more than one might expect. There are answers out there, answers of all kinds, and she's going to do everything she can to dig them up. "What are we hunting for?"

[okay let's get in here - A] [I think that might be Zoe's song for CR chart actually]

[bloodand]

The music is playing on low, catching an upbeat and ready-to-move vibe before the woman even opens her mouth. He's not sure what about it prompts him to look up - he'd been sorting out the pillows from the girl who jumped onto him earlier. The question prompts a smirk, probably the closest thing he's had to an actual smile since awakening.

"You have to ask?"