A librarian's lament [backdated to not long after the Earthquake]

[highliber]

[Action]

The scream was audible from the street. It was the sound of a soul in pain. The sound, perhaps, of a librarian who has just entered her library to check for earthquake damage and seen every damn shelf and book in a huge heap. After the scream of horror finishes, she goes on with an encore performance of a stream of creative cursing about having people fired and whipped and flogged and banished, coming to a climax of "AND IF IT DOESN'T GET PROPERLY SECURED THIS TIME I WILL DO SOMETHING SO POINTLESSLY HIDEOUS TO YOU YOU'LL DIE AS MUCH FROM SURPRISE AS YOU DO FROM THE ACTUAL INJURIES! NOW MOVE!"

Some wild wingulls fly away in alarm with the volume of the last word.

[12 hours later]

Zarvora slowly emerged from the library and set down on the steps by the front door to massage her temples. She felt a migraine coming on, but at least her staff had an organized plan for putting everything back together. This put her personal projects back by weeks, if not months, though. Her Fletchling landed on her head in concern and looked down at her face, and she couldn't help but smile a bit at that as she looked back up. "What do you think, Charles? Did I over do it a bit?"

Comments

[highliber]

Armin's emotional bleed had precisely zero impact on Zarvora. Almost like she was some kind of psychic black hole. She glanced up as he came near.

"I certainly hope so. The quake hit pretty bad here, and I have had a long day because of it."

[tinytactician]

That makes her his new favorite person, someone he can emote near and not cause or receive headaches from. "I'm sorry. Is anyone injured?"

[highliber]

"Not seriously. Not here. There weren't many people even in the building at the time."

Or ever. The library wasn't a terribly exciting branch of the government.

[tinytactician]

He sighs in relief -- but then, almost immediately: "Are any of the books damaged?"

[highliber]

"There's a whole pile of books that are ruined. We'll make copies of the ones we can but..."

She deflates a bit more than she has already from today.

"It's bad."

[tinytactician]

"...could. Could I help somehow? Do you need...volunteers or money or..."

Armin shrugs a little, helplessly.

[highliber]

"Volunteers" She said firmly, "Would certainly be appreciated."

[tinytactician]

Armin nods very seriously, straightening and looking like he's about to salute. "What do you need me to do?"

[highliber]

"Mainly we need people to help sort books and get them back on shelves."

She gave a kind of wan smile, "Actually this could be a positive boon in disguise. I've been developing a new method for sorting everything, but no one wanted to change the method they're used to. I might be able to use this as an excuse to sneak the new system past them while they're all confused."