unfinishedlibrary | Careful of the stacks

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Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

Who: EVERYONE!
What: A bunch of Editors walk into a library...
When: October 31st - November 13
Where: The Unfinished Library
Content warnings: Please add them as needed in the comment titles!

Welcome to the Library, Editors.

As the new residents drop into the Library, they are bound to have questions. Unfortunately it seems no one (except perhaps someone on the phone) appears to have any answers. But there is a nice little cart with a carafe of too weak coffee, a pot of too strong tea, assorted creams and sugar packets, and what appear to be leftover boxed shortbread cookies. There’s a sign inviting people to help themselves but reminding them not to take any food or drinks into the stacks, or touch any of the books with their grubby cookie hands. But aside from this little display and the nametags they’re all given, which do reappear whenever removed for the first week (where do they keep coming from?), the Editors are more or less left alone.

The Library is eternal, or at least it seems that way, unbothered by its new inhabitants. It certainly does not seem like this is anything unusual within its operation. Are there other sections of the Library with Editors, tucked into a different part of the stacks? Have there been Editors here before, and the ones here are simply a replacement? It’s impossible to say, just that the Library seems quite prepared for them. The refrigerators are stocked with appropriate (if generic) foodstuffs, any tantrums in front of the circulation desk are completely ignored, and attempts to set the Library on fire fizzle out before anything can even catch.

However, after a few days, some of the scenery in the Library seems to be changing. Little singing bowls and white noise makers pop up on various shelves and counters, yoga mats appear tucked under the bunk beds (plenty for everyone, somehow), and some of the rooms have started playing relaxing, meditative music over unseen speakers. More confusingly, there are also small UFOs hanging by string from the lower ceilings of the contained rooms, which on closer reflection are revealed to simply be two paper plates glued together and painted silver. In the beginning they’re quite sparse, but by the end of the second week they are everywhere and impossible to ignore.

At the start of the second week, there is a possible hint as to why, for at least part of it. On the table by the circulation desk there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” Next to it, there is a sign up sheet: a waitlist to check-out the ‘reading.’ (There is no explanation or apology for it actually being a movie.)

[ooc note: The Library prompts from the TDM can be considered canon to the game. Remember any of the locations listed in the setting are fair game. Have fun!]

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Sanguinius tears his attention away from the mattress, forcing himself to look normal. Totally normal, and with a smile that doesn't quite show all of his teeth.

The problem with being Sanguinius is that he is a terrible liar. Case in point. "It's...not there," because it's not real, "I'm sorry for intruding in your space. I understand mortals take great stock in privacy."

Despite being tall for a human, Harker was young. Only twenty-one and yet, he looked at the even taller winged man as if he caught a child with their hand in the cookie jar.

Hearing the word mortal from Sanguinius didn't send his nerves into a frenzy; he was more miffed at his privacy being breached. Yet, that lie was awful.

"Stop, it is quite alright." He shifted, his hands going behind his back folded together, his suit jacket half hiding the large knife at his side. Yet, he didn't even reach for it. "While, yes, I do take a lot of stock in my privacy. Something must have caught your attention." His hands moved again, this time offering one over to shake. "So let us start over. My name is Jonathan Harker, and may I ask what you were looking for, sir?"

It's why he didn't lie very often--risking embarrassment. If only the other had stayed away for...five more minutes? He would have at least sated his, uh...his curiosity.

"Sanguinius. Primarch of the IX Legiones Astartes, the Blood Angels." Surely the name and the red blood droplet motif on his armor was just, you know, a coincidence.

He has a feeling that his lie wasn't going to work a second time any better than it did the first. How about some tiny slice of truth? "I thought I smelled blood." Go on, tell him he's wrong!

And this is how Harker ended up being held captive in Dracula's castle. Ignoring red flags, red flags with red blood droplet motif on their armor.

Tipping his head respectfully when the other spoke. "Do you wish it all said together?" He had to ask; manners are essential.

"...Oh." This time it was Jonathan's turn to look a little guilty as he rubbed at the back of his white hair. "Yes, and I do apologize if it is offensive. I didn't wish to frighten anyone, but my coat has quite a bit of blood staining it. I hid it down there to spare anyone who might be frightened." He really should have considered if it smelled that strongly or not. But, he didn't.

Sanguinius laughs. "No, Sanguinius will suffice. My kind take their rank and titles seriously."

The laugh gets a little nervous at the end, because, well, that wasn't the issue with the copppertang of blood in the air. "I'm not frightened by the scent of blood." Or the taste of it.

Stop being weird, Sanguinius. "Are you injured?" He's pretty sure Harker isn't, or he would have smelled it on him.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sanguinius." That name would take some getting used to, but he would do his best to say it properly each time. Clearly the rules of society had changed or were never the same in some worlds. He would learn and adapt as best he could.

He couldn't help but look amused, even if the way it was said should have set off alarm bells. "As long as it does not offend." Something about this very tall, angelic-looking being reminded him of dealing with a younger child. What a strange feeling.

"No, no. I assure you I am quite well." Debatable, but he is not bleeding. "The blood is not mine; I caught my friend when he was falling in battle." It felt odd saying it that way, but that is what it was.

"Very little can offend me." Sanguinius has a notable temper, but he is slow to anger. And he's abashed, more afraid that he was discovered than anything else.

"That sounds like a tale. Your friend survived?" Because it does smell like, well, not a small amount of blood.

"I will keep that in mind, but never take advantage of it." Jonathan replied truthfully. It was good to know when one was hard to offend, but bad form to abuse such a thing.

Moving to lean a little on the bunk-bed post to not have to speak too loudly lest people be eavesdropping. "It is, even if it does sound like fiction. I am rather certain he was dying as I held him from falling fully in the snow just before I appeared here. It was a deep stab to the lower side. I believe it would have been fatal. We were far from anyone who could have helped." Van Helsing might have if he had had time and the tools, but he had had neither. "Mr. Morris was a brave man, and I am sure he would have been proud to die in a battle, as he certainly did."

Oh, his brothers had made sure of testing him. Also, he had learned young the lesson of being quick to take offense when one was much, much stronger than the one who offended. "Only a fool or a cur strives to offend." And Harker seemed like neither.

"The best death one can hope for is to die in service to a cause larger than oneself." So, whoever this Morris was, he agrees. "But that wound doesn't sound fatal." Says the Primarch with the weird alien organs ~~don't ask where they come from~~ with magic healing properties. "Perhaps he survived." Sanguinius might sound distracted, because he's trying not to think of the blood scent, rich and redolent in the air, still, to his senses.

"Yes, exactly, and I am neither; at least I aim to never be either." He's had his moments where a curse will slip through, or he threatens to sell his soul. Jonathan knows he is not perfect; he is human.

"He, like myself, is fully human. The sheer amount of blood… I am not sure, but I wouldn't mind holding out hope. He was a good man." He assumes the big angel isn't human. Which may be rude, but also, what human has wings like that?

"Are you quite alright?" He asks, worried for the other.

"You would be surprised, and dismayed, how many give into their baser nature." Unfortunately, and always consciously. The fact Harker would choose not to speaks well of him.

"In the end, all must die eventually, or nature itself is subverted. If he died, he passed in the arms of a friend, his duty done, and that is no small thing." The smile may look a little thin: Sanguinius knows when he dies; it's not here, it's not any time soon. But he feels it stalking him like a beast of prey.

The question is a little too direct to simply wave off. "I am...it has been some time since I've eaten." That had the benefit of being both plausible and true. Just not entirely the latter.

"Sadly, not as surprised as one may think. Thankfully, I strive to be better than that." Being an orphan meant his prospects had been low, and many of the other boys had been hellions. Befriending Mina, then Mr. Hawkins had set his life on a better path.

Questionable now, all things considered, but he refused to regret any of it.

"Thank you. You seem like someone who has seen a lot of battle, so your words do bring comfort." Quincey was a man of action, dying doing what he believed and seeing it to the end. That was probably the best end the Texan could have hoped for at the time.

The response has the blue eyes shifting up again to meet Sanguinius's own as best he can. "We must remedy that; it does no good to go hungry if there is food to be had. Perhaps we could check the kitchens? See if anything would help?" He's not picky, but he's also not offering a vein anytime soon. To anyone, short of his wife if she appeared in a vampiric way. Granted, he didn't see the signs.

"You will be a model to others--the weak but willing often require someone to emulate." So that's you, obviously.

"My Legion and I have seen many battles, and good deaths, and bad. Your friend, if he did die, did so with honor and a clear soul."

Uh. He. He didn't mean that. Exactly. It was just the smell of the blood on the coat cloying in his throat and...

...and now he had to go along with it. "That would be...uh...very kind of you?" He knows that's the correct and polite thing to say, it's just awkward.

That got Sanguinius an odd look before he smiled again and tipped his head in a silent thanks for what he was taking as a compliment after a moment of thought. "So you command armies?" That is what he took from legion. It made the most sense, more so after hearing the count tell his stories of battle and valor.

"Thank you. I am certain that is what he would want if he did pass." A small lingering hope that maybe he was mistaken. This giant angel clearly thought so; who was he to argue with an angel?

Nodding again, no idea just how that offer may have sounded, or the bullet he may be dodging. "Of course, sir, it would be bad form not to. Come, let us go." Motioning the other away from the bunk and that tasty furcoat.

"My Legion, yes. Valorous men, every one." His pride glowed for a moment, then faded. "The loss of every single one of them feels like a stab to my heart, though I know they all die with honor." Honor and duty help, but loss is loss.

He does give one last longing look at the coat, lamenting that there hadn't even been a moment to sate his thirst. Perhaps later? "Do you know how to get food here?"

"I am so sorry to hear you lost any of them. It sounds like it pains you greatly." Jonathan should be crushed from losing Quincey and Mr. Hawkins, but he was repressing it all. The longer he went without confronting any of the last few months, the better in his mind.

Perhaps later Harker would never know as long as he put it back as he found it after. It wasn't a far walk to the kitchenette. "Well, the garden has some vegetables, but some of the others have made stew and sandwiches. It is not a lot, but it is better than going hungry."

"They are my own sons." Of course it hurt. Five hundred of them, at one attack by Ka'Bandha. "Every death is a loss to their brothers, and the world, however willingly offered up."

Don't worry about your trauma, Jonathan; Sanguinius has plenty to distract you with!

"I am not particularly picky." For all of his refined appearance and speech, he could eat literal rocks and be fine. "Is there anything that is food from your culture?"

"Oh my, that is awful. You have my deepest condolences. It cannot be easy to lose one's children, more than one at that." He's a Victorian; he knows sometimes children don't make it to certain ages. But to die in battle? How awful.

At least focusing on someone else's pain certainly kept his off his mind.

"Nor am I." he offered with a light nod. Jonathan loved food, but he had never had the luxury of being picky, and didn't see that changing anytime soon. "Well, let me take a look!" Turning from Sanguinius to look around, he finds a few small sandwiches of watercress and cucumber. A small smile crosses his face as he turns to take up the plate and moves to hold it up to Sanguinius. "I don't know who made these, but my wife made sandwiches like these often." He didn't know Mina was there yet as of this thread.

"I know most do not regret their deaths, as they spent their lives serving their brothers and our cause." No one was eager to die, but fear of death was a liability to fighting. "There is only one who might have." Whose eyes, red and sorrowful as the Red Angel took him, haunted Sanguinius's sleep.

Which is why he just wasn't going to sleep anymore. Obviously.

Sanguinius selected one of the sandwiches, turning it over, carefully. "So you have fond memories of these." Reasonable supposition. "Perhaps there is someone here from your home, if the food is so similar." He and his brother are both here, after all. It's NOT beyond the realm of possibility that another sandwich enjoyer would be here.

"Even if there is no regret, surely there is pain in their loss. Even dying in honor must leave a void to those who survived." He would remember the sight of Quincey falling backwards to the end of his days.

Sleep is for the weak.

"Yes, there are. We often had to take picnics in order to see each other when we were courting. She often made sandwiches like these." Once the small plate was set down, he took one up as well. "I would not think so, I am not even sure why I am have been brought here. Perhaps the professor could; he is very wise. But I could not see him making something like this."

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Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

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