fandomhigh | Library, Sunday

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Library, Sunday

If anyone needed Evan today, they would have a little bit of spelunking to do. He'd come in to the library and immediately made his way into the stacks. He was going to hunt down mis-shelved books, that was what he was going to spend his way doing. Just looking over books. Alphabetizing. Mindless busywork.

And maybe hiding. A little.

[Open!]

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"Evan?" Yeul called peering into the library. Two children peered in with her. "Evan, are you there?"

Not seeing him, Yeul shooed the children into the library and followed them.

"Evan?"

She was looking for Sholeh, really, but on a weekend like this... it was a simple guess to think that Sholeh might be where he was.

"Hi-hi!" Merry said, snuggling a cheerful Ozzy in her arms. "Are you here to find my dad? Hi, I'm Merry!" Inspiration struck right then. "And I'm a junior librarian!"

"Are you?" Yeul laughed softly, clapping her hands together. "I am sure you're a very good junior librarian. I'm Yeul. Have you seen your dad around?"

"We're really looking for Mom," Flicker said, giving the girl a doubtful look. "Have you seen our Mom? And are you really a librarian? Aren't you too small?"

"Well, your mom's not here," Merry said, making a face. "The only people here are my mom and dad."

So take that, doubter face.

"And I'm no smaller'n you. Are you saying you couldn't be a librarian?"

Jackie might have taken after Ma the most, but Merry had flashes of her, too, when warranted.

"I don't want to be one," Flicker said haughtily. "That's boring."

"She's lying," Shard said, looking up from a magazine that he'd grabbed. "But you're not being very nice either."

"She started it." A common refrain, especially when one was siblings with Jackie. "Who're you?"

She was just going to ignore the girl. At least until she apologized.

"Shard Ballad," he said, holding out his hand to shake. "How do you do?"

Flicker sniffed and crossed her arms.

"That's Flicker," Shard continued. "And Mom says that blame doesn't help anything."

"Jackie Merry a Wade, but you can call me Merry," she said, shaking his hand. She couldn't expect him to know anything about Tryad naming conventions, after all. "Shard's a cool name."

"Around here," Evan called, feeling slightly better and a little more up to dealing with other people, now that there were tiny children here who apparently didn't loathe him. "I'm in the... um..."

The stacks, with all the books. It was a good place to hidey-hole, was the thing.

"Cookbooks?"

Yeul made her way over to the cookbooks, leaving the children to their own devices.

"Hello Evan," she said, once she'd found him. "This is not where you usually are during your shift. Have the children driven you to hiding?"

"Something like that," he murmured, nodding a little. "The one I met yesterday was really angry at me for something that... some future me did. In the future. In a future."

Possibly his. Most probably not.

Did you know serious conversations were hard to have with kids around, Evan? Because they were hard to have with kids around.

"Hi, Uncle Evan!" Shard said, having followed Mom. "You're so little right now! Are you feeling okay?"

An important lesson to learn! Evan blinked up at the boy and gave him a tiny smile.

"I've been better," he admitted. And he certainly felt small, right then. "But I'll... be fine."

He wasn't completely convinced. But he could smile for the tiny child. That, he could do.

Yeul smiled at the both of them, though her gaze lingered on Evan for a moment longer.

"Evan," she said, "I was actually looking for Sholeh. This is... Shard, her son."

And Yeul's too.

"Oh, um..." Evan gave Shard a little smile. "Hi, Shard. Nice to meet you."

A beat.

"I mean, to see you. Again. Because we totally know each other, right?"

He had just called him 'Uncle,' after all.

"Sholeh's in the stacks," he added, looking back up at Yeul, "so you came to the right place. She came looking for me with some of hers and mine."

Eventually, Sholeh found her way out of the stacks as well. "Yeul!" she said, smiling at her friend. "You're here, too? How lovely!" She noticed the children standing with her and gave a sympathetic smile. "You got some visitors, too?"

Oh Sholeh, Sholeh, Sholeh.

"MOM!" shrieked Flicker, who promptly flung herself in Sholeh's direction for a hug. "The mean girl said you weren't here!"

Edited 2014-02-16 22:23 (UTC)

Sholeh caught the child more out of reflex than conscious design. 'Mom?' she mouthed over the little girl's head towards Yeul.

...She hadn't been expecting this. To be fair, she hadn't been expecting the a Wade Tryad, either, but at least that made sense in the grand scheme of things. These children? These children did not make sense!

But there was no denying this hug and the excited child who was giving it. "Mean girl? What mean girl?"

Had Jackie come out while Sholeh was in the stacks?

Yeul shrugged and smiled helplessly, raising her hands to say that she didn't know either. It wasn't possible in her world!

"I don't know," Flicker said, clinging a little. "She said she was a junior librarian and her name was something silly," pot, kettle, "and now Shard's talking to her because he's a traitor."

"There's nothing wrong with talking to other children," Sholeh said automatically, trying to keep the peace. She held Flicker close, recognizing the unspoken need for closeness. Looking over, she spotted Merry talking to a blue-haired boy around the same age as the a Wade Tryad. Shard, she was assuming. "I'm sure nobody meant to be mean?"

Guess who was not the disciplinarian in either family.

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Library, Sunday

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