Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

[libraryassistants]

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!]

Comments

quiet room

[angel_of_baal]

He is immediately aware that he has intruded. Perhaps it was the almost total quiet of this space that seemed to carry a kind of reverence. Sanguinius was about to step out, because he, more than others, knows the need, sometimes, to be in solitude, until he sees the small shake of her shoulders.

He hesitates, debating leaving her to her sorrow. He had seen so much of it, on Baal, as a child. Life was often unkind there, and made the people unkind as well. Should he leave her to her sorrow?

Or risk intruding?

Maybe he could split the difference, and just ask. He tries to pitch his voice as gently as possible. "Do you wish to be alone?"

[starandhope]

The voice startles her. She sucks in a breath, automatically pushing the glove back into the journal and snapping it shut. It happens so quickly as to suggest that she feels some guilt.

"I'm all right," she says, and only then does she turn to look at the person who interrupted her. At the sight of him, she lets out a gasp. "My God!"

She covers her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect -"

[angel_of_baal]

That was a fairly unconvincing 'I'm all right', but he knows a signal to not press when he hears one.

He's spent too much time on the battlefield, and too much time with his only company being the men of his Legion. He has forgotten, he thinks, proper manners and the ways of mortals.

Still, he's trying and he hopes the effort counts for something.

He looks behind him at her startled look, expecting to find his brother, the Night Haunter, behind him. That would get anyone's startlement or fright. He took a step back, showing empty hands, to show he meant no threat. "I didn't mean to startle you."

[starandhope]

"The fault is mine," she says immediately - she would never want anyone to think her rude, and especially not someone so - large.

"I just - I've never met anyone quite so tall," she admits. "I wasn't expecting it, is all."

[angel_of_baal]

"There is no need for fault or blame." Or if there was, it was equally on him for intruding into a private moment.

He gives a deprecating shrug. He's used to being the tallest person in the room, even among his brothers, he was tall. "Please know I mean you no harm. I was just exploring."

[starandhope]

“Of course,” she says immediately. She wouldn’t want him to think she thought he meant harm!

“I’ve found this the best place to write my diary,” she adds after a moment. “Though I fear too much solitude isn’t good for my nerves. My name is Mina Harker, by the way.”

[angel_of_baal]

"Too much solitude does eat away at one." He's had his isolation times, sometimes even with his own Legion, always a step apart from them.

He gives a half-bow, remembering something like manners. "Sanguinius, Primarch of the IXth Legion." Sounds impressive. Actually is impressive. Just....not here. "One of my brothers is here, so I have at least that solace, but many here, I think, are alone."

[starandhope]

"Yes, I think you may be the fortunate exception to the rule," Mina says, almost wistfully. "I'm newly married, and I hardly dare think how my husband must be worried for me."

[angel_of_baal]

If she meets Curze, she might re-evaluate how lucky Sanguinius is, or this place is. The Night Haunter can be...challenging.

It takes him a moment to answer, because he had to search through his memory. "Oh. Marriage." He's heard of it. They did it on Baal. Well. Normal people did. He has no words of comfort to offer. "I am sorry. You must stay well until we figure a way to return you back home." Best he can offer, a hope of a future return.

[starandhope]

"I suspect we'll all collectively have to find a way back," Mina agrees with a faint smile.

"May I ask - if it's not too much of a prying question - are all people in your world so - tall?"

[angel_of_baal]

"Part of figuring that out might be discovering why we were selected." He gives what's supposed to be a wry shrug, but with the wings and armor, probably looks a bit ...more than that, which merely underscores his point. "I have a certain set of skills. The Librarius is not among them."

Besides, that sort of sorcery was forbidden now. But the last question is a good distraction for all of that. "Oh, no. Only my father and one or two of my brothers. Most baseline humans are, well, your size. I think." Honestly, it's been a while since he's seen any.

[starandhope]

"It's difficult to find any pattern, when we all seem to come from such different worlds and times," Mina points out with a sigh.

"...Are you not human?" she asks carefully.

[angel_of_baal]

"You might be right. It's perhaps my ego that chafes at the fact that I was torn from my Legion and they from me...by sheer chance." It's a little unsettling. He's not...special?!?

That's also a hell of a question. "I am...partially so. I am the son of my Father, the Emperor of Mankind." Close enough. "But these," The big wings, kind of hard to miss, "are not human."

[starandhope]

Emperor of Mankind? All mankind? That sounds almost blasphemous to Mina's good Christian ears, but she's more interested in the wings.

"No, they don't seem to be," she agrees. She's certainly never heard of a human with wings. Hikaru has a pair, but they are nothing like what this man sports. "They look like - well, like angel wings."

[angel_of_baal]

No, no, it's not blasphemous at all. The Emperor has outlawed all religions equally. The Imperium is to be a place where logic and reason and compassion rule, not superstition.

He laughs, because "My legion is called the Blood Angels, and I their Great Angel." So it fits.

"They gave me considerable trouble as a child." Of the 'murder the mutant' variety. He grew up fast.

oh boy here we go

[starandhope]

Mina pauses for a moment.

"The Blood Angels?"

That is certainly an ominous name, particularly given recent events in her life.

noooooo

[angel_of_baal]

What's in a name, right? Just a silly little bunch of words.

Just like his elongated eyeteeth are just a silly little dental anomaly.

It's fine. "My Legion, honored among the legions of the Imperium." He points to the chestplate of his armor, with a blood-drop shaped ruby. "It symbolizes the blood we shed, so that humans can live in peace."

[starandhope]

Luckily, Mina doesn't immediately associate sharp teeth with vampires. She's never seen one!*

[ *That she remembers. ]

"How very...medieval," she comments faintly. Like the Crusaders, or something. "Who, or what, threatens humanity?" In her world, it's all just people fighting other people - over geographical boundaries, or religion, or money, or all three.

[angel_of_baal]

And with luck and the Library Assistant, she shall hopefully never have to.

The word 'medieval' has no register for him. Terran history has faded to a faint blur of the time before the Emperor of Mankind unified humanity. "Many things. Xenos species--aliens, abominations to nature, who seek only to conquer and destroy." A pause. "And other, darker things, that lurk in shadows." He'd only spoken of them to Curze, but his legion had suffered at their nightmarish hands.

[starandhope]

"Monsters?" she ventures. Mina has some experience of monsters, though the thought of needing entire armies to fight them is a terrifying one.

[angel_of_baal]

"Very much like monsters, yes. They seek to enslave, or bind, or devour innocents." The Nephilim he had fought, for example, with his Legion before things went...as they went: hideous bloated monstrosities of blue, taking over the minds and wills of the human colonists. "It is my charge and the charge of my Legion to destroy such creatures so that innocence can prevail."

Don't worry, ma'am, you're absolutely safe with him.

Unless....

[starandhope]

"I am glad, then, that your world has warriors who have taken on such a noble calling," she says. "I've only recently discovered that my world is much darker than I ever thought, but there are good men in it, like my husband Jonathan, who face the darkness and fight for the light."

[angel_of_baal]

"I regret that there is need for it, but I am proud of my Legion and their deeds." They fought hard against every enemy, without flagging, without losing faith. Truly, he was honored to lead them.

But then his voice gets somber. "I, too, have had a recent similar discovery. Creatures from some darkness, entirely malign and feeding off of pain and misery." His wings shifted, discomfited, as if he can still feel the blood, sticking his feathers together.

"You are lucky to have one so close to defend you, but." He hesitates, but he's already started down that road. "The enemy he faces is a dark one if it is like ours. He will need you, very much." A note of envy--he might be tall, and powerful, but it was lonely. He had no one he could treat as an equal, much less trust as a spouse.

[starandhope]

“It is very dark indeed,” Mina says, equally somber. “It murdered my friend Lucy, and tried to murder my Jonathan. It’s terribly frustrating, to be here and unable to help him. I’m glad, at least, to know that our situations back home will not change during our time here, and to know that he and I aren’t alone in the fight - we have allies. But still.”

She holds out her hands, palms up. “I don’t like feeling helpless.”

[angel_of_baal]

"Do we know that?" Because he sure didn't. It would be perhaps some relief to know his Legion was not without him, at such a critical time. Some relief.

Minus the missing them. "It seems it does not stop me from worrying about my Legion." He assumes she feels the same, but about her companions.

"Why do you think you're helpless?" Sure, she probably can't fight as he can, but...none of his Legion could, either. It didn't make them helpless or less courageous. If anything, the opposite.