fandomhigh | Fandom Library, Wednesday

Entry tags:

library

Fandom Library, Wednesday

You know, it had been a hard and confusing couple of days and Arden was just going to spend her shift reading. Sure, she had stuff she could be doing, but you know what else? She also had a book she could finish and she knew which one was going to be a priority today.

Maybe if anybody saw her, they'd assume it was some kind of class assignment. Or maybe they'd accept that sometimes, a little bit of escapism was what a girl needed. Whichever.

But she wasn't completely shirking her responsibilities! If anyone showed up, she'd be happy to help them. Though maybe people could time their visits to coincide with chapter breaks? That would be dope.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In case you didn't want to interrupt the aide's reading.

Apparently you did want to interrupt her. Rude.

Gray wasn't rude! He was...no, okay, he could totally be rude sometimes. But at least he wasn't asleep on top of the books or something? "Hi, Arden."

"Hi Gray," Arden said, her smile a little more subdued today than usual, but real enough for all that. "Good to see you!" Without your soul in a sword of whatever. "What's up? Got a project or something you're working on?"

"Uh...kinda, but that's not why I'm here. Unless you have any books on how to blackmail an angel." He wasn't ruling it out. He rubbed ruefully at his curls and muttered, "Blackmail is probably the wrong word." He absolutely could not expose the angel's secrets without hurting his brother in the process, so...threaten. He was going to threaten an angel.

A lot.

"Uhhh....probably?" Arden said. "This library kinda has everything. But I couldn't tell you where to look right off the bat. The Librarian might know? That kinds sounds like a Special Collections thing."

"Don't worry about it," Gray told her. "That's a...it's a personal problem. I'll figure it out."

Or he would stab Lazarus. One of those.

"I wanted to ask you about something. From this weekend."

With a sword with all the souls of his brothers in it?

Arden had a sinking feeling about this; she was pretty sure that any question about this weekend was gonna bump up against something, but she still gave him an unsure but game smile and said, "Sure, shoot."

She wasn't promising any answers, though.

Nah, the weird soul sword was for stabbing Lucifer. Lazarus wasn't that special.

Gray shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and said, "I totally get pretending to be mundane, you know. I've done it. Boring, but, y'know, humans. There are so many of 'em. What are you gonna do?" This was oblique, but probably better than his discarded alternate opener of, 'So what's a Duskwatch?'

You know, somehow Arden had been expecting a question about Cal or whatever, not her own personal nightmares that nobody was supposed to know about (so many people now knew about).

"Whaaaaaaat?" Arden asked, very believably. "Oh gosh, who can say? I mean there was so much that we talked about that I don't really remember because it was all future stuff. What did I say about it, exactly?"

That would be so much more believable if she wasn't shoving a nipper bottle of rum at the squirrel on duty. But maybe Gray would think it was just a preemptive privacy thing?

Okay, well, Gray was definitely raising his eyebrows at that. "Some words I didn't understand," he said once he was pretty sure the area was desquirreled. "I mean, look. I remember you saying that you were totally human and as far as you know your world is totally normal. Like, a bunch of times. And like, I don't know what's actually going on because I don't know what any of those words mean. So I just wanted to check that you don't think we're going to invade your universe or something if we find out it has whatever a Duskwatch is."

"Huh?" Now Arden looked really confused. "Why would you invade my world? Y'all seem like you have your own things going on."

She thought about continuing to deny she even knew what a Duskwatch was, but...here was the problem. She'd be lying. And she didn't like lying to her friends. Well, she liked dying strictly less, but...

Well, an easy question first. "Have you ever heard of the Detente?"

"Trust me," Gray said. "We definitely do."

To her second question, he said, "I'm guessing you don't mean the easing of tensions in the Cold War under Nixon and Brezhnev." Weird reference to spring to mind, Gray.

"Uhhhhhhhh......" Rude to spring that on the girl who was homeschooled by someone who didn't give a fuck about most human subjects. "Noooo. I don't even know who those guys are."

Or the Cold War.

Look, there were a lot of gaping holes in her education, okay?

"No, I mean the accords between the various supernatural factions that laid out the rules by which everybody has to abide by to keep any one faction from outpacing the others while, most importantly, not being discovered by humans."

Did that ring a bell?

"You don't know who Richard Nixon was?" Okay, deep breath. Focus. Just assume her universe had different presidents or something. "Never mind, that's not important. The other thing: no. We definitely don't have that. I mean, we generally try to avoid exposing the whole supernatural community, but loads of individual humans know about the supernatural. My brother Alastair's partner is human." And not Lazarus. "And I don't think any faction cares about what any other faction is doing, except for when the demons periodically try to conquer the world. And the cat and wolf shifters' weird rivalry thing."

Edited 2024-07-10 07:33 (UTC)

Suuuuuuuure. That was definitely it. The different presidents thing.

"Well, if there are factions like that at home, they'd care a lot," Arden said. "Like, at least two factions would be at war with each other and a third would probably be draining one of the first two super-fast, and that faction and another faction would be making more of their kind and outbreeding another faction and...look it would be a whole thing."

You know. If. A weirdly specific 'if.'

"But the first and most important rule of the Detente would be that any person not already part of the Otherside finds out about Othersiders, they get executed to protect the secret." Exceptions were made but they were rare and only given if the human in question could prove to be a benefit. "And if somebody finds out because they were told by someone else? Both people get killed."

That was a very specific if, there, but, "Okay, that's...okay. There's a really hardcore rule that says you can't tell humans about supernatural society, which apparently calls itself the Otherside?" Sure. Why not? "So you extended that to...everyone including supernaturals from other universes, like, just in case. Is that what you're trying to say here? Because that sounds exhausting." Or maybe that was the Sloth talking.

Edited 2024-07-10 08:01 (UTC)

Arden shrugged. "It's better than being killed," she pointed out. "Don't say anything to anyone, just play dumb and normal. Just pretend to be from a normal world where there's nothing supernatural. Then you don't have to try to remember what you've said or how or try to come up with any fancy explanations. You protect your own ass and everyone else's."

"Exhausting." Then he took his hand out of his pocket and held it out to Arden. "Hi, I'm Gray and I'm a Nephilim. And I promise you do not need to protect my ass. I can do that myself." When he wasn't asleep.

For a long moment, Arden looked at his hand, her own hand coming up to clutch the onyx pendant she wore beneath her shirt. She'd been planning to just leave it at the explanation given. But with Gray framing it like that...

It would be a lie to take his hand and not introduce herself back. And not taking his hand would be like saying she didn't trust him. In her head, Callista and Duke and Grim were all screaming at her, telling her that she was stupid, that this was going to get her killed, that they'd told her over and over and over that she couldn't trust anyone, couldn't tell anyone.

But...even if the space thing with Cal wasn't gonna happen, she'd really liked sitting around a sushi table with everyone. With her friends. Even twenty years later, they'd been friends. And Gray had been one of them. Maybe...maybe this was how that happened.

Slowly, and like she was afraid he might bite, she extended her hand and took his, offering a shake. "Arden Finch," she said quietly. "Sylph. Um. Air Elemental."

Gray grinned at her and told her, "I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool."

"Well, it means I do a lot of stuff with air," she said, giving him a tentative smile back. "I mean, you wanna fly a kite or make sure your ultimate frisbee always goes where you what? I'm your girl. Uh, except for how I try to never use my powers and pass as a human as much as possible. But, um. It's why I loved going flying so much. And why I love being up high. It's not something I can do, but...it feels like home."

She bit her lip and said, "But please, please don't tell anybody what I am. Or that I'm anything at all. Not even your brother. Even more than not breaking the Detente, what I am? Has to be a secret."

"I can keep a secret," Gray said, "but you should know that my brothers and I have a telepathic bond. Sometimes when we're close together things seep through without us meaning for them to." Which was going to become a problem for him for reasons completely unrelated to Arden, but he wasn't letting himself think about that right now. "Speaking of, uh, I was actually really worried after Parent's Weekend because you kept insisting your world was definitely 100% mundane and I knew it for sure wasn't." On account of the extremely freaky sex Bellamy and Grim had had.

"Oh, but we can totally go flying again sometime!"

I remain very tired. I don't know why.

...Oh wait never mind, I do. Len don't yell at me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mod Your Library

Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Re: Talk to the Aide - NFB, please!

Talk to the Librarian

OOC