sunnydalealum | (no subject)

You could say they're alien. Just ... not from the same set (sheaf) of worlds Nita knows.

But by this time they're already out of the demonic languages and into the human-but-not-English languages: Welsh, Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, German, French, Etruscan, Arabic, moving too quickly to see all of them.

"Language reference," Rachel announces, "and ... yes, here's the Sulcaric syllabary." As she reaches for the book, she adds "Is there anything else you'll need?"

"I don't think so. If I run into anything, can I come find you?"

She smiles. "You certainly can. Or you can see Ms St. John at the center desk -- which you should also do once you're through, either one of us. And in case Andrew hasn't told you the rules yet," she adds, "this is a reading library, not a lending library, so the books stay here. You can make copies, except for actual spells; talk to me about those if there's anything you need.

"On that topic, one more thing: no magic in the library." She says that last very firmly. "Not without specific permission obtained in advance from Ms St. John and from Ms Harkness."

"Oh -- oh, sure, okay. Um, I've got a reference manual with me that I was planning on using, but it's in a temporospatial claudication. It'd need a little bit of power to get it out. Should I go ask them about that? . . ."

Rachel's eyebrows go up again. "A temporospatial...?"

"A pocket tesseract," Andrew explains. "Invisible Bag of Holding?"

"Oh," she says in evident relief -- but then shakes her head. "But no, that's the kind of thing that could affect some of the books here. I can tell you now Ms St. John's not likely to allow it. Sorry."

A pause. "I'll tell you what, though -- if you just step out of the library, you could access your pocket from there, and then just carry the book in by hand."

Nita perks up. "That'd work. Thank you."

"Thanks, Rachel," Andrew adds, taking the syllabary. "We'll find a table?"

As they put down the books, he says to Nita in an undertone: "We can leave them here while we go retrieve your manual."

"They'll be okay unsupervised?" she murmurs back, only half-joking.

"These? Oh, sure. We didn't take out anything dangerous. I mean, nothing actively dangerous. Rachel knows better than that."

...Yeah, the half-joke's gone right over his head.

. . . She shakes her head a little, grinning.

"Okay. Awesome."

As the double doors of the library proper close behind them, Andrew glances quickly around the vestibule (empty) before nodding to Nita.

"Okay, we're good. Go ahead."

"Great."

She murmurs a few quick words, makes an unzipping motion, and reaches into thin air to rummage. A moment later, she pulls out her manual, then reaches back in; a moment after that, she retrieves a spiral-bound notebook and a battered silver pen, and closes the claudication.

"All set!"

Andrew glances at the pen -- silver barrel, grooved around the lower half to keep the user's fingers from slipping -- and grins, for no immediately apparent reason.

"After you," he says, opening one of the double doors and gesturing with absurd formality.

She grins, tucking her books under her arm, and leads the way.

As far as the threshold, anyway. Because that's where the wards kick in, and for a split second --

alien magic intruder PROTECT

-- for a split second, the air in the doorway solidifies around Nita.

"--Oh crap."

Overlapping: "-- Oh frell. Nita, don't move, I'll get Ms St. John --"

"Easy for you to say!"

Meanwhile, as the humans have their discussion . . .

. . . the books are having their own.

The way books communicate uses words, but mostly in ways that the human mind is too slow to follow.

What Nita's manual says to the library boils down to: It's cool, she's with me.

And, after some hemming and hawing (that boils down to Kids, I don't know, in my day we'd have asked permission first) and additional arguments (that have the words CATNYP and Book in them) . . .

Nita suddenly stumbles as the air goes back to being air, allowing her to complete her interrupted step.

"Uh --"

Andrew pauses in midstep, not because he's been interrupted but because ...

"-- what just happened?"

Blinking, she waves a hand experimentally -- takes a step backward, takes a step forward.

"I have no idea."

(If it's possibly for a book to look smug? Her manual looks smug. Discreetly.)

"Okay, well."

Cautiously he touches the open door, as if half-expecting the gesture to set off an alarm.

"If we don't get anyone coming to demand what we just did to the wards, it's probably okay."

"Here's hoping."

She continues to eye the door warily, but nothing further seems to be forthcoming.

"You want to lead the way back? I'd hate to get lost in these stacks."

The table where they left the books isn't all that far, but Andrew's happy to lead the way.

Within a few minutes they're seated, with three books lying open on the table in front of them.