fandomhigh | Library, Monday [January 11]

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Library, Monday [January 11]

Her Monomyths class was going to be a challenge this term, so Gabrielle had a copy of the syllabus in one hand as she hurried into the library and straight for the coffeemaker. The syllabus was deposited on the collections desk en route to caffeine, along with a piece of parchment containing a letter from Perdicas. She dialed the strength of the coffee down a bit today, but still put enough sugar into her mug that it might make someone cry if they saw her in the process.

Once she was sufficiently awake, she disappeared into the stacks to find a couple of books that might help her get a better grasp of that class . . . but those would have to take second place to reading the letter. Gabrielle wasn't sure when that priority had shifted, and it was questionable whether she even realized it had.

At any rate, should you come into the library this morning the odds were good you'd find one cheerful but pensive bard at the front desk.

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Well, we don't blame you. She can be awfully chatty.

But you could be into that. And that's totally cool too.

"Hey Gabrielle," Henry said when he emerged from the stacks midmorning. "Do you know where we keep the shipping supplies? I got a loan request from some place in California. Figured I'd take the box down to the post office myself."

Gabrielle looked up from the volume of Graves (this choice might have been a mistake; she kept glaring at the book) she'd been reading and set it aside gladly.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. De Tamble! Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." She'd had enough coffee now to be cheerful about being awake, and the letter had helped with that. She stood and started toward the cabinets where the supplies were, asking, "A whole box? I didn't realize we loaned out that many books at once to other places."

"Small box," Henry clarified. "They want three books, and the postal service doesn't take padded envelopes seriously."

He had what might have been an irrational prejudice about this, but you lose one rare book and you never trust the way you shipped it again.

"And good morning!"

Whereas Gabrielle would even find that kind of postal service, er, service more reliable than sending Joxer running all over the countryside. Not that she'd ever trust him with a rare scroll; no, she'd deliver that herself, but the odds of running into a random warlord's army or a cranky hydra -- er, yes. Carrying on.

"You seem to be settling in nicely. Doesn't it make you nervous, letting the books out into strangers' hands for however long it takes them to get to, er, California?" Wherever that was. She assumed it was at least several days' ride by her reckoning.

"Terrified," Henry admitted. "Every single time. The insurance is enough that I could add a wing tot the library if they lose anything or tear a page out, but it's still nervewracking."

And that was without considering hydra or random armies.

"But I guess people in California have a right to look over rare editions of Dickens, the same as we do." He sounded more resigned to than happy about this fact.

Well, the hydra had been a fluke. The armies were more a matter of course, but somewhat more avoidable.

"Dickens?" Gabrielle asked curiously. "I haven't gotten around to those works yet. I understand, though. Even if it takes much less time these days to travel so far, it's like you're . . . entrusting something someone put their soul into to the Fates. That's a lot of weight on your shoulders if you love words as much as you and I both seem to do."

"That's a poetic way to put it," Henry said thoughtfully. "I think the best I can do is to remember -- it's part of the job. We love them, but we can't keep them. You can't be too precious about it or you'll end up refusing to check books out to anyone who looks like they haven't washed their hands recently."

"Bard," Gabrielle reminded him mildly. "It's a little personal for me, but you're right. Stories are meant to be told, and shared, and we can't be everywhere to do the telling. What's the point of putting so much work into the words if no one else gets the benefit? It's a risk, but I think it's a risk worth taking for the greater good."

Yes. She really did talk like this.

"Bard," Henry agreed, nodding dutifully. "Right. And probably good at it."

She was, in his eyes, being a bit pretentious, but he wasn't taking that away from somebody who knew Homer personally.

"What are you reading these days, by the way?"

Well, she was. In the habit of sounding a bit pretentious, that was, although she wasn't half bad at being a bard either.

"Oh, this?" she asked, with another scathing glance at the cover of The White Goddess. "I thought I'd do a little extra reading for Miss Perrault's class. I may have picked the wrong book; I don't think I like what he has to say about women."

"That's one I haven't read," Henry admitted. "He kind of makes up his own goddess, doesn't he?"

"I think he's making a lot of things up." Gabrielle had dropped the more flowery turns of phrase in her annoyance. "Not to mention he seems to think the only thing women are good for, in terms of poetry, is inspiration. Personally, I think I'm a little insulted."

She rummaged through the cabinet, making a little more noise than necessary by way of venting her feelings, and surfaced with a box and some packing tape. "I think this ought to be big enough."

Henry leaned over, reached past her, and took a roll of bubble wrap as well. "This should do me," he agreed. "Thank you for your help."

He was not touching the feminism debate.

Edited 2010-01-12 01:27 (UTC)

Probably a good idea not to get into that with an Amazon who had no verbal brakes.

But, luckily, one with a good disposition, so she dropped that line of thought and just beamed. "What else are we aides for?"

Henry grinned back at her as he juggled books, box, tape and bubble wrap. "You keep me from having to do everything on my own?"

"I prefer to think of it as sharing the adventure," Gabrielle declared. She couldn't avoid being ridiculously poetic for long. "But technically, yes, that too."

When his handsomeness (it's developing a reputation among the other days' OCD) tags in.

His Handsomeness wasn't in his office most of the day; he'd gotten a ~~handwavey~~ loan request and was roaming the shelves trying to find the books to fulfill it.

You could probably catch him if you poked around enough, though.

Consider Cindy motivated enough to poke around a bit. She'd only gotten two messages over the weekend (and the one from Max could easily have been for her) and so hadn't actually realized that they were part of a larger problem.
Fortunately, Henry had included the line about kissing the baby; if he hadn't, they would be having a very different conversation.

"De Tamble," she drawled, leaning against one of the stacks. "You might want to try your wife again. At least, that's who I assume you were calling."

Henry went less pink than he'd gone with Jono, but there was still some red at the tips of his ears as he turned away from the shelves to see Cindy.

"Fantastic," he said. "It wasn't bad enough for it to go to an employee, it had to find its way to someone else too. I hope you weren't unduly horrified."

"Well, sushi was in jeopardy for a bit, at least until I listened to it again," Cindy admitted, grinning a bit at Henry's reaction. "The first time, I'd been too distracted to notice the part where you told me to kiss the baby. Once I heard that part, I realized you'd just misdialed or something. I apologize for my message back to you. I left it before I listened for a second time."

"I wouldn't blame you," Henry said, grimace leaving his face to be replaced with a friendlier expression. "I apologize for the contents, but they were meant for specific ears. I don't make a habit out of making mildly lurid phone calls to every woman in my path."

Well. Not since he was much, much younger and much more single.

"The baby's Alba," he added, brightening slightly because he loved to talk about her. "She's 15 months."

Edited 2010-01-11 17:04 (UTC)

Cindy feigned shock. "You and your wife have sex? Whatever is this world coming to? I'm utterly appalled, I tell you. All this time, I thought babies came from the cabbage patch." She chuckled a bit.

And smiled a bit when she saw him visibly brighten when he mentioned his daughter. "Awww. Shall I expect to be regaled with pictures and stories on Wednesday?"

"Oh, we'd never do anything as debased as having sex," Henry said playfully. "I was informing her we'd play a particularly rousing game of chess when she comes out at the end of the month. Alba was left on our stoop by a stork."

He smiled back at her. "Of course, if you promise not to let me do all the talking?" Because that was so clearly a problem with Cindy.

"Great. I'm going to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out whatever you're doing in chess that would cause your teeth to shake. There goes all the time I'd allotted to prepping for class." Cindy shook her head mournfully at him. "My poor class."

And then laughed. "Well, I haven't any children to trade stories about, but I'm sure I can find something to talk about. Hmm...you tell me about your daughter and I'll share about the kids in my class? Otherwise I might have to stick to the thrilling tales about my college career and I think most of those are highly inappropriate."

"I'll leave the mystery to you," Henry offered generously. "And I'd settle for your thrilling tales about college. I'm afraid mine would concentrate on illicit substances and the difficulty of finding dates as a library sciences major."

"I will have nothing but convincing stories of me spending a lot of time in my dorm, studying for classes. Very convincing," Cindy nodded, looking solemn. "Any pictorial evidence that may eventually surface to the contrary is quite clearly false."

"So noted," Henry said agreeably. "I won't even ask the Internet about you,m I have that much faith I wouldn't find anything of note."

"Wise decision," Cindy said, her face solemn. "I'm not letting my students use Wikipedia because of factual inaccuracies. It's only fair to hold my colleagues to the same expectations."

Besides, Cindy Perrault was a fairly common name. In the age of Google-stalking, making sure there was a wealth of potential other people that could be found by Google was all part of choosing a pseudonym. ~~Ignore the fact that Cindy's first class is the seventh hit under Cindy Perrault~~

"Speaking of my students, did you get my book list?" she asked. "Is it going to be okay?"

"It should be fine," Henry said. "We'll have copies of everything ~~or whatever works OOCly~~ on shelves at the front. Gabrielle mentioned your class today -- you have them reading Graves?"

If he looked impressed, he was. Henry had read damn near everything, and he hadn't read Graves.

"Well, he is kind of useful for the study of monomyths," Cindy said, with an expression that suggested that was all he was useful for. "It was on the suggested reading list, but I didn't think anyone was actually going to do so. Did someone come in and check it out?"

"Not exactly, but Gabrielle's reading it,"Henry repeated. "I think she's finding it pretty irritating, so it might make for an interesting class discussion."

"Excellent," Cindy said, looking rather pleased. "If they're not arguing, they're probably not paying attention. There's no way a class as...diverse...as this one is should be able to agree on everything."

Two more days of work before four days off omg.

*FLAIL*

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Library, Monday [January 11]

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