fandomhigh | Library, Friday (12/18)

Nightmares were not, generally speaking, a problem for Cosette. The ones she had had last night, though, must have made up for lost time: herself as a small child again, struggling to carry a heavy bucket of water through the woods at night, surrounded by a cacophony of raucous laughter and angry voices and visions of Madame Thénardier's vicious smile.

Hoping some early morning air would clear her senses, she had gone out for her walk only to have that cut short by having to run from some flying creatures with nasty-looking weapons.

And then -- because she knew this island fairly well by now and it was more than obvious that something was afoot -- she had gone straight to the library. People would likely be coming in to see if they could figure out what was going on, and besides . . . it was safe here, and being around the books was comforting. So she put on some soft, soothing music and got to work brewing some tea for people to have, should they need it.

[OOC: ~~Please hold for BDE OCD.~~ Have at!]

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Right. Her dreams had been bad enough, and then there was the matter of things swarming the streets and seemingly intent on attacking whoever they saw. The mail wasn't getting delivered today, and people could just deal with it.

But Éponine wasn't in the mood to just hide and let everyone else handle the situation, not this time, and since she didn't care to tangle with the demons or the shambling undead things or whatever else was out there, she headed for the library. Why should the kids be the only ones who got to try to figure things out? She could read, too, and since she didn't have too many points of pride, might as well do something with the ones she did have.

She was beginning to regret that decision just a bit by the time she was leafing through some volume with Fandom Historical Poetry Through the Ages printed on its spine.

"These words are silly," she declared out loud, regardless of whether anyone was around to listen. "All these funny spellings, and extra letters, good lord! But here, look."

Putting one finger on the page in front of her, she read out loud, and haltingly:

""'twas the days before Crīstesmæsse -- you see what I mean about silly, now? Less letters would do just as well -- when it came to us;
the waters rose 'sides the island rocks, but no one cared
for we were agripped in the sights of matters past affeared
tears, fears, those gladly lost, all history's pus,
it came for us, it came for us.""

She set the book down, humming softly to herself as she stared off into the stacks with a faint frown on her face. "It came for us? What did? How d'you like that for comforting?"

"A slightly older version of English," Bob explained. "Some of those letters used to actually mean things." He came to look over Éponine's shoulder. "The past? Is that what this is?"

Forgive the ghost who didn't dream.

Éponine tapped the third line of the passage. "Sights of matters past -- that's the thing, isn't it? Lord, the dreams I had last night! That's what it means, I'd guess."

"The past..." Bob thought for a moment. There was something in this book..."

He headed for the pile he;d been working on, one of which was Dangers of Fandom: A Compendium. "I only brushed by it - I don't think it was part of the book itself. Can you open this?"

Éponine briefly considered telling him to ask Cosette to do it, since she was the one getting paid to be here, but it was in her own interests to stop whatever was happening this time, after all.

"That I can," she answered, getting up to follow him over to the pile. "This one here, is it? Just tell me where to open it to."

Yes, well, Éponine was here, and Bob was single-minded. "It was about halfway, maybe a little less. Something stuck in the pages."

"Ah! Well, that's easier than trying to find one or two lines," Éponine said, starting to flip through the book's pages a few at a time.

Close to halfway through the book, she could feel what she could only describe as the pages suddenly feeling as if they wanted to fall a different way, and opened the book to that spot.

"What's this, here?"

"There it is," Bob confirmed. "Something you said about the past..." He read, "'If these spirits cause you no upset, be wary: the past, it came to me, and I was fine, for I had little; the present followed, and it did no harm, for I forsake it; twas the future that swallowed me whole, for I saw none.' There it is again, the idea of the past coming for someone."

Éponine looked distinctly unhappy about that notion, but kept her thoughts about that to herself.

"But there's the present too, isn't there?" she asked. "And the future -- yes, I think I know what that's like." That last bit was half-muttered, and accompanied by a bitter laugh.

"I'm not sure I want to find out," Bob muttered back.

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