The Main Library

[Kai]

"You know," she began, voice a little distant in her contemplation, eyes narrowed, "I've never read Call of the Wild." Taking her gaze from the spine of the book in her hand, Kai turned her head to look at her companion. "What does that say about me?" She couldn't keep the smile from touching her lips, the little light of amusement dancing in her eyes.

Reading wasn't really her thing, she didn't spend a great deal of time with her nose in a book, but she had indulged in the pastime her fair share over the years, accepting the offer of a loan from one member of the pack or another, a novel or a volume that they thought she might enjoy or at least find interesting. A long time ago, ten years or more, she had tried to sit down and read The Lord of the Rings on someone's recommendation -- she couldn't for the life of her remember who it had been now -- but had only gotten about fifty pages in before her brain had given up on the effort; she'd returned the book with a smile and a thanks but never endeavoured to try again. Reading really wasn't her thing. She was better suited to physical hobbies, things like her archery, or kicking Noah's ass. Just the thought of the latter made her smile grow.

Getting out of the hotel every now and again did a wolf good, Kai believed, and so when the young male had come looking for volunteers to head out with him, she had agreed with a subdued kind of enthusiasm. It had been too long since she'd gotten out of The Hyperion without it being a routine patrol, for which she had no one to blame but herself, and now that she was out, she couldn't help the dance of energy, almost playful, through her veins. In a public library, of course, that kind of energy could get her into trouble, albeit a tame kind and not the usual sort a fighter was accustomed to. Still, she didn't want to get herself or the others kicked out. That would hardly be fair to poor Darien.

[Darien]

“Well,” Darien said, thoughtfully, “I guess it’d say the same about you as it would me, since I’ve never read it either. It’s one of those books that I’ve always meant to read but just haven’t ever gotten around to. I keep thinking that, someday, maybe I’ll actually sit down with it and change that.”

Darien enjoyed sitting down with a good book when he could keep his mind focused, though he sometimes had trouble with that. Occasionally, as he was trying to read, he would get an image in his head that demanded he stop and either sketch or paint it and absolutely refused to leave him alone until he did. Luckily, he usually managed to at very least get to the end of a chapter before the image began to bother him to the point where he absolutely had to stop, but there had been times when he had not been able to push the image away long enough for such a thing. It was, he supposed, just ‘one of those things’ and had come to accept it, though he did hate to have to put down a book in the middle of a scene just to get the image out of his mind.

It had seemed like an especially good night to go to the library, Darien wanting to see if he could find something that he had not yet read, so he was extremely grateful that he had been able to find someone willing to go along with him. He had been sure that he would be able to eventually, but he had, honestly, not expected to get volunteers as quickly as he had, thinking that everyone might already have had something they preferred to do.

Not only was he thankful to have found a couple of willing volunteers, but he was also grateful he could count on not getting kicked out of the library. At least, for a while.

[Noah]

In true Noah fashion he had grumbled and griped to Kai about leaving the hotel but only because she had asked him if he wanted to go along with Darien and he knew she actually wanted to go and one of his pastimes was teasing her. A quick swat which had him ducking for the door had done the trick and, laughing, he had agreed that fine he would go if it meant that much to her. In reality he was happy to be out too, even though the hotel wasn't even remotely cramped it felt good to stretch his legs a bit without getting ash on his boots.

"Geeze." Noah said, looking from Kai to Darien and back again. "Am I the only one around here with a little culture?" He flashed a grin to show that he was obviously just kidding around with them, giving Kai a nudge. Surprisingly though Noah actually did read quite a lot and most people didn’t expect that of the fighter, seeing him more as the time to want to sit and watch movies but while he did like to do that too, he was fairly widely read. Maybe it was like a form of meditation for him, he could slip into a trance when reading a book and not have to worry about anything too much outside of it. Either way, he had read the book in question and now fully intended to make his female fighter friend read it at the very least. He would read it at her if he had to.

[Kai]

Kai adopted her usual feigned-shock when faced with any kind of tease or taunt from Noah, before narrowing her eyes and allowing just the faintest flicker of the wolf to the surface. "I don't know what you're trying to imply, Lancione, but you should be careful. You're treading on thin ice." She allowed a little of a growl -- harmless though it was, instead purely playful -- into her words, before turning her gaze back to the books in front of her, sliding the Jack London novel back into place, snugly between two other novels that were considerably larger. The titles hadn't really interested her the first time around, and once again she overlooked them as she browsed, waiting to see if anything would jump out at her. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Honestly, if Noah intended to read Call of the Wild to her, at her, then it wouldn't have been the first time he'd taken it upon himself to educate her in a literary fashion. And truthfully, Kai sometimes liked nothing more than to listen to Noah's voice while curled up in that big armchair of his, at her most comfortable and content when not only in his company but feeling relaxed and without troubles. The pack had had a stressful, somewhat unpredictable time lately, and spending that sort of peaceful time with Noah was always a perfect way to take her mind off things. As a fighter, she didn't often allow herself total distraction, but she felt she was permitted the odd moment of complete and utter relaxation just like everyone else.

[Darien]

A joke about being full of culture to the point of exploding died on his lips as soon as it came, Darien content enough to let Noah and Kai 'battle' each other over it. He was listening to them as he attempted to decide what kind of book he was really in the mood for, going over the library's layout quickly in his mind. The horror novels, he realized, was a section that he had not really looked through in a while, which meant that there could easily be something new and attention grabbing there. It wasn't often that he decided on a horror novel, having found more than once that some of them could take far too long to actually get to anything even remotely interesting, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought that, perhaps, that was what he wanted to take a look at.

He usually didn't get the insane urge to stop in the middle of a sentence to dive into a piece of art when he read horror- maybe because the subjects were always so dark and therefore did nothing to inspire him- so that could be a plus if he was looking to actually read for a while.

Though he could easily recall a time when there had been someone he would have listened to reading all night if given the opportunity, he slammed the door on those memories before they so much as had the opportunity to begin surfacing. There was no sense in dredging up such things, after all, especially since the floodgates would open and he'd spend a sleepless night trying to shut the past away again. Who needed that sort of night?

[Noah]

His eyes followed her putting the book back on the shelf. It was more than likely that now the idea was in his head she was going to read Call of the Wild to Kai at the next opportunity and that was that. They didn't need to take the copy from the library though; the Hyperion had a couple of copies in its own library. "Oh. Uh-huh." Noah nodded as if he was seriously considering her words, looking down at his feet with a nod and the corners of his mouth downturned. He looked up from beneath his eyebrows, squinting at her, shifting his weight from foot to foot slightly, arms folded. "What're you gonna do? Drown me in the teeny puddle of your culture?" Obviously he was still joking around, he didn’t really think he was more cultured than Kai, in fact he strongly suspected that in the scheme of things she won that particular round. It didn't stop him from playing around though.

A grin came to his features as he gestured to the other male. "'Sides, Darien here would save me."

[Kai]

Call of the Wild was a book she had always been interested in, just never picked up for one reason or another. The funny thing was, Kai was fairly certain there was at least one copy in the library at The Hyperion, a place where many books that had once belonged to members of the pack ended up along with a lot of numerous other novels, reference books and history volumes. If Noah ended up reading it to her, then that was fine with her. There were definitely worse ways to spend a relaxing evening.

Her eyebrows climbed up closer to her hairline, her posture shifting, her body turning side-on to the stack beside which they stood, browsing, one hand lifting to settle on her hip with her other loosely gripping the edge of the shelf just below shoulder height. "Oh, is that what you think? The guys stick together to try and beat up the girl?" She laughed. "What makes you think Darien would have your back? Or even get involved in our little squabble in the first place, huh?" She said it with a smile, looking past her fighter friend to the younger male at his back. "You really shouldn't ask other people to fight your battles for you. It's just embarrassing." Her eyes were back on Noah, a hint of a sympathetic pout on her face as she shook her head.

[Darien]

Darien knew that he probably could have found a book to read in the Hyperion’s library, but there was always the chance that he would find something that had yet to be acquired by the pack if he looked around the public library. As extensive as the pack’s collection was- especially when the private collections of pack members were considered- there would probably always be something that could be found at the public building that wasn’t part of any book stash at the pack home. It was that thought, that chance of finding something he had not yet come across, that drew him to the public library, though there were certainly no guarantees.

“I think I’ll leave which one of you is more cultured for the two of you to figure out,” Darien commented. “I usually know when I shouldn’t get in the middle of something and this? I’m pretty sure this is one of those times. Besides, Kai might hurt me.” That was, of course, a joke, because he knew perfectly well that she would never do any such thing. “I don’t think the librarians would appreciate me screaming like a girl as she did.”

[Poppy]

By this point, Poppy was used to working nights, to juggling her studies with her job in the library, working the late shifts when her brain was a little more closed down, when she could just drift alone and still be useful. Poppy liked being useful, being needed, working, keeping busy. It kept her happy, kept her feeling she could do something and while working in a library was hardly bringing aid relief to the poor in Africa, wasn’t working on a newspaper that actually cared about the truth, things that were truly good, but it was something. It made her feel good, like she was actually helping someone. Even if that someone was just a random member of the public that needed help on where to find the latest ‘Harry Potter’ as if the large display wasn’t hint enough.

She hummed under her breath as the books were slotted away in the correct place, noise so quiet as to be almost none existent, Poppy used to keeping her words and any sounds quiet while at work. Every book was examined for a moment, and she liked to think that it mattered to the books that someone took the time to look at them, to notice them. Each book was a gateway into a whole new world and it was a shame to just ignore that. A small armful of books were collected up, Poppy moving away from the trolley and around the corner, slowly filing them away, happy enough in her own world, treating each book carefully, as the treasure it was.

[Darien]

Returning his attention to the books on the shelf, Darien attempted to find something that caught his attention, screaming for him to read it. There was still the possibility that he’d wander into another section and see what he could find there, but it was always best to exhaust the area he was currently in before he moved onto another, just to be sure that he didn’t miss anything that he might take an interest in. It wouldn’t do any good to completely overlook something that might become his new favorite book, after all, so he always made sure he checked- and sometimes double checked- each shelf he went by, just to be on the safe side. He took choosing a book fairly seriously sometimes (though there were times when he didn’t give it as much thought as he probably should) and it just seemed like one of those nights.

As he read titles, he began to wander away a bit, leaving Kai and Noah to discuss what they would discuss while he attempted to find a book he wanted to read. It would have been easier had he known exactly what genre he wanted, and even better if he had known the exact book he was after, but he didn’t, so he had to wing it and search. He knew he’d feel triumphant about the whole thing if he found something, read it and discover that it was actually really good, though he knew that he’d feel like it had been a waste of time and effort if it turned out the opposite. He’d never know what a book was like if he didn’t read it, though, but first he had to find something that grabbed his attention.

[Poppy]

There were people in the library, something that always cheered Poppy up; it was always good to know that people were still willing to visit places like this, that people were still interested in books, in reading and learning, in seeing what library had that they didn’t at home. Of course, there were those that only came to places like this because they were too cheap or too poor to afford to buy books themselves but if it was the later reason then she was only too happy to see then borrow books. If it was the later, well, it was still funny when they came in on the day a new book came out, only to leave stunned that it either hadn’t been bought yet or more often than not; there was already a huge waiting list. It was the people like that, the ones that treated the library without any respect, something to just abuse, as if it was there for them and only them without ever wanting to give something back that annoyed Poppy at times, the rudeness of those people.

It was all part and parcel of working anywhere she guessed, taking the bad with the good and she had to admit, most of the time, it was all worth it. Armful of books were carefully rearranged as she walked, attention mostly focused on the small pile she was holding, taking care that none of them were going to fall as she moved, the odd one put away. The rest didn’t belong in this aisle though, their home was a couple of bookcases over, Poppy heading towards them, world all but narrowed to her current job.

[Darien]

Darien didn’t really read as much as he felt that he should but, when some piece of art or another wasn’t pulling his attention in a completely different direction, he greatly enjoyed sitting down with a book and letting it take him wherever it would. Libraries, Darien felt, were almost like a world unto themselves- albeit a world that held thousands of other worlds within it. That was the magic of libraries, though. They held portals to numerous other worlds that anyone could find their way into if they just opened up the covers, sat back and allowed the book to transport them there. He knew that there were a lot of people who enjoyed reading about werewolves- there were even werewolves that enjoyed reading about werewolves- but he really did prefer to delve into books that had to do with places, creatures and people that he wasn’t so familiar with. It was more exciting to him that way.

Making his way slowly down the aisle, he continued to stop every now and then in order to read a title or pull a book off the shelf in order to read the blurb before returning it to its place and moving on. He wished that he had some idea as to what he wanted to read since that would have made it a great deal easier to figure out what to get. The only thing he really knew was that he wanted a work of fiction, maybe something from the horror section if he found something that he thought might be good, but he wasn’t completely set on that; neither of those really helped, though, since fiction was such a wide genre and it was only a possibility that he would get something from the horror section.

Perhaps he was putting too much thought into it. Maybe, if he stopped working so hard on figuring out what he wanted, he’d end up coming across it completely by accident. It was, he supposed, worth a try.

[Poppy]

There was freedom in the library, one that might not readily be apparent to those who saw it and just thought books, stuffy books and old people and everything that was wrong or stereotypical in a library. No, there was more, there was so much more, Poppy knew that, there was the freedom of the books themselves, endless gateways into endless worlds. But it was more than that, the library was home just as much as her apartment was, she knew all the rooms, the shelves, the books as well as any of the librarians. Here she could be whatever she wanted to be, Poppy skipping a little as she moved down the long row of shelving toward her next destination.

Her leg started to ache a little after a hundred or so meters, a dull, annoying ache and in the back of her mind, Poppy knew it wasn’t a real pain, wasn’t because she had banged it on anything like that. It hurt because her mind had decided to make it hurt, because she had dared to forget about her burn mark, because she had acted as though her leg was fine, as strong as before. With an internal sigh, frown creasing her forehead for a moment she began to walk normally again, realising seconds too late that her pile of books were falling forward.

It was one of those slow motion falls, something Poppy could tell was coming a good five seconds before it actually happened, a little slip and the books in the middle of the pile started to wobble, to tumble forward and the harder Poppy gripped the ones on either side, the quicker the collection was tumbling out of the middle. Pace picked up into an awkward little trot as she stumbled forward and around the corner without actually checking to make sure she wasn’t in anyone’s way, a soft little cry of dismay as books flew everywhere.

[Darien]

There had always been something peaceful about the library. Perhaps it was the quiet such a place demanded or maybe it was just being surrounded by the books, knowing that there were adventures to be had while settled in safely somewhere. Whatever it really way, the library was a calming place. There was joking going on within the walls, as well as lives going on and people going along their chosen paths, but a peace hung over the building that he couldn’t deny. He couldn’t help but think that others often seemed to pick up on that vibe as well, but there was always the chance that he was just projecting his feelings of peace and contentment onto them.

Darien wasn’t paying attention to where he was going as he moved to turn the corner, his focus instead on the books at the end of the aisle. When he ran into the woman carrying a pile of books and her stack flew everywhere, he couldn’t tell if she lost her grip on the books because of his inattention to where he was going or if something else had caused the books to slip. In the end, it didn’t matter. He should have been paying attention to where he was going rather than trying to read the books’ titles while walking.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately. “I should have been paying more attention to where I was going. Are you okay?” Once he made sure that he hadn’t stepped on her foot or caused one of the books to ram her in the ribs, he’d gladly help her pick up the books. They could wait until he made sure she was all right, though.

[Poppy]

Letting the books run away with her was one thing, accidently spilling them everywhere so it looked as though a minor natural disaster had hit the area was bad enough but to bump into someone mid accident, to have books crash into a member of the public and so hardly create a good impression about those who worked in the library was a very different matter indeed. And so much worse when it was a cute member of the public, Poppy taking in the sight of the man opposite her. Oh he was cute and it was just her luck that she would throw books over someone like him.

Flustered, she half lifted a hand to her hair, not really sure why she was doing it, certainly not when he was apologizing to her – and why was he even apologising at all, when it had been her fault? It was sweet of him, hand lowering once more as she took in the mess around them, books strewn everywhere and Poppy had been far too greedy thinking she could safely carry such a stack without exactly this happening. It was a wonder she hadn’t dropped a book on someone before now in fact, a slightly sheepish smile on her face.

“It’s okay, I’m sorry, it was my fault, the books ran away with me, I shouldn’t have been carrying so many, I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m sorry, are you okay?” Poppy itched to bend down and start collecting the books back up, especially those that had landed open, pages bending and creasing and making such a mess.