fandomhigh | Library [Thursdsay 12/02]

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Library [Thursdsay 12/02]

William had not yet given in to the urge to try coffee in place of tea. He was, however, going to avoid hot chocolate for the next while after last night's severe case of the hiccups following drinking the thermos Kuukaku had sent out to him.

In retrospect, he really should have anticipated something like that.

In any case, the library was open if slightly sleepy.

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Scully was kind of wishing she'd brought her gun with that statement. She looked around at the towering shelves of books, and blew out a slow breath. "Right. So. Djinn first, please. If you have any idea where to start."

"This way," he said, leading them to the left. Part of him was practically itching to ask why that particular subject, but he managed to keep his manners in check. "Historical accounts of individual djinn are here," he indicated a shelf, "further down is some more general information about the creatures on the whole." How far he'd come in the past few months, that he could say that in all seriousness.

"Right." Some of the books were scrolls; some were huge tomes with brass clasps; a few appeared to be sheepskin or calfskin, etched with burnt and carved symbols. Gulp. "I'll start over in the individual section- although if any of you run across a djinnayah named Jeanne, French, 15th Century? Let me know."

"Historical accounts of individual djinn." Claudia shook her head. "That shouldn't still amaze me that much."

"I'm fairly certain that mentioning just about anything that occurs on this island, let alone in Special Collections, to someone back home would be grounds to have me committed to an asylum," William said, opting to go for a leather-bound volume first. He'd work himself up to some of the more unusual-looking scrolls.

"I could mention them to a few friends, but they wouldn't be very comforting. They'd just whine that they didn't get to come along," Scully said, blowing dust off one set of parchments. She unrolled it and then grimaced, seeing that it was in Arabic. "Do any of you speak Arabic? Or... Hmm. French?" She sighed. "I wish this place had an index."

..was that the sound of creaking wood? Somewhere down the rows?

"No, but I bet there's an app for that." Claudia pulled out her phone. "Or not. No signal."

"This room could not possibly fit inside the building," Spock said, "therefore, it is obvious we are in some sort of space-time anomaly." He should probably be more concerned about this than he was. "It follows that your ~~primitive Earth~~ telephone would not receive a signal."

Like, duh.

"Dude, this whole island is a space-time anomaly." Claudia smacked the side of her phone. "I knew I should have brought my soldering iron."

Because Special Collections was totally the place to attempt to modify her cellphone.

"It's probably for the best," William said. "This place can be dangerous, the last thing we'd want is to be distracted at a crucial moment. In any case, I should be able to read anything in French, at least." He frowned, and then amended "well, probably."

"Could you translate this, then? I thought I saw the name Jeanne..." Scully handed over the sheepskin, or whatever it was, then paused, listening.

Another creeeeeeeeeeak... closer now.

Claudia looked up from the row of books she was skimming at the creak. "There wouldn't happen to be any other students in here right now, would there?"

That seemed more like a question for William, so Spock looked to him. "Are we the only patrons at this time?" he inquired.

"Unless the librarian followed us in," William said with a slight frown. "But he would have announced his presence, in order to not cause us undue alarm."

Scully looked concerned, then pointed to the scroll. "Can we take this with us?"

Crack! "Okay, I definitely heard that-- could you just translate what it says there?"

"I really wouldn't advise removing anything," William said, before taking the scroll and reading what it said: "Jeanne de Flores has been the, ah, destroyer of many powerful men, and finds laughter in granting wishes which depend on the stupidity of the wisher. Only by unrolling the carpet may you have three wishes... to your own danger." The translation was a bit awkward, given the differences between Parisian French and joual, but the gist remained the same.

"Mulder unrolled her carpet? That's kinda dirty."

Claudia was irrepressible. She jumped when another noise sounded, this time much closer. Dammit, why hadn't she brought her drill?

Spock supposed the carpet in question could have not been sanitary, but he didn't see what that had to do with anything. He opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it. "Are you certain we are alone in here?"

"No," William admitted. "I'm certain there's no one else in here who came by way of the library proper." There was a slight difference there, you see.

Scully was fighting the disappointment at finding something -- totally unhelpful, or at least, confirming that there wasn't any help on most fronts-- so she wasn't quite paying enough attention to give that a real answer.

"Sometimes Mulder's stupid. I mean, Bambi Berenbaum alone--"

And then one of the bookcases at the end swung sideways, blocking off the row of books at one end with a resounding thump.

"...um?"

Claudia spun to look, then again to look back the other direction. "Okay, that doesn't seem good." In her experience, when someone blocked one route out, it was to make sure the ambush could get you from the other side.

Kids in Minneapolis could be mean, at times.

"Fascinating," Spock said. "The furniture seems able to spontaneously relocate."

...what?

"It's as if the room itself is trying to herd us in a specific direction..." William mused.

"Yes, it's terrific, let's go," Scully said, grabbing the scroll and heading for the one open area.

A bookcase swung to close off most of that corridor, herding them just as William had said. Scully sped up, calling over her shoulder, "Do you think climbing the shelves will get us out of here?"

"My vote is to give it a shot. I so don't want to know what it's herding us towards." She turned to the nearest shelf, grabbed on, and started pulling herself up.

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Library [Thursdsay 12/02]

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