(no subject)

[feminine_menace]

Today finds YT poking around the Library. Most of the libraries she's seen in her life (okay, she hasn't seen that many) are school libraries - cheap carpet, florescent lights, study carrels, institutional furniture - all pretty lame. Not great arguments for the value of Literature or Learning or Knowledge or whatever.

But this library is different. It's got heavy carved wood shelves full of impressive-looking hardcover books. There's a lot of natural lighting coming in through big windows, and where there isn't, there's warm electric lights (at least, YT thinks they're electric) in hanging chandeliers or brass wall sconces. The floors are covered in soft thick carpet. The tables and chairs look like they're a hundred years old. The whole place smells like that collection of rare first-edition books YT's grandpa used to have, years and years ago.

This place is like libraries YT has only seen in movies and old photographs before, stately and quiet and full of interesting little secrets.

YT found a copy of The Neverending Story. She liked the movie when she was a kid, so she decided to try the book on for size. It turns out the book is way different. But not in a bad way. So here is YT, totally engrossed, sitting on the carpet with her back against a shelf. She is botherable but may get startled if you make too little noise on approach.

rapidRadish (Yours Truly) signed on.

CURRENT rapidRadish [CRR] 30 MINUTES AGO opened memo on board DOGS I MET TODAY

CURRENT rapidRadish [CRR] sent file "peepers.jpg"

CRR: this is a Labrador Retriever
CRR: also known as a Black Lab
CRR: (there are Yellow/Golden Labs and Chocolate Labs too)
CRR: they were originally bred to work with bird hunters
CRR: and retrieve the birds they shot
CRR: why is this one wearing that funny getup, you may ask?
CRR: good question! this Lab is a seeing eye dog
CRR: his person is blind, and holds the handle on that harness thingie
CRR: so the dog can lead him around safely

Comments

[just_cant_lose]

CAP: Oh, good timing
CAP: I couldn't give a damn about dogs
CAP: But there's a free dinner for anyone who'll transcribe a brief note for me, and leave it at the bar
CAP: Troll me privately

[feminine_menace]

YT shouldn't.

She really shouldn't.

This has Bad Idea written all over it.

But, she thinks to herself, it might be useful to her to know what's going on. Not so she can snitch on Moriarty or anything, but just on the principle that she may end up being involved whether she wants to or not, and if so it would be better to know what the fuck is going on.

rapidRadish began trolling aPosteriori

RR: you know, if you wanted to offer me an exciting career opportunity in doing your dirty work
RR: YOU could have privately trolled ME
RR: or opened your own damn memo
RR: so many options to choose from
RR: and you picked the most dickish one

Which comes as a total non-surprise.

[just_cant_lose]

AP: I have limited time and privacy, as I'm sure you'll be able to grasp
AP: If you think about why for a moment
AP: have you got a pen and paper, or do I need to remind you to get that too?

[feminine_menace]

Yeah, YT can figure it out. Moriarty boosted the Crown Jewels and is now either on the run or maxing some correctional institution (although how he got his T-Minus in there is something of a mystery).

RR: i've got the tools

This is the truth. YT's gear includes a small pen and notepad, which she now has at hand.

RR: so since you're short on time
RR: tell me what the fuck to write already

[just_cant_lose]

AP: You need to work on your manners, darling
AP: Copy this exactly
AP: I'll be checking when I get back
AP:
AP:
AP: 7219#83475
AP: Listen to what X told you. She's not lying.
AP: Room 2110
AP: Do not use the codes that haven't been invented yet, you'll know them when you see them
AP: Do not try anything on the computer upstairs, just buy a new one from the bar. The tab's good.
AP: Use your school code to break the encryption, circa 1988
AP: Use the name you want to, but don't fucking abuse it
AP: Look for him if you must, but don't ever 76 30098577
AP: DO NOT attempt the dildo. I will fucking kill you.
AP: 7219#83477
AP:
AP:
AP: Okay, YT. Done.

[feminine_menace]

Well, if YT's free dinner on Moriarty's tab wasn't gonna be lobster thermidor and expensive champagne before that shit about learning manners, it certainly will be now.

Although she is pissed, YT copies the note line for line and word for word, in neat block letters. She even proofreads it.

RR: got it
RR: who do i say it's for?

After all, YT can't be expected to make a delivery without a recipient.

[just_cant_lose]

It's completely fine. She isn't about to break the bank.

AP: Just put my name on it. Bar will look after it for me
AP: Have a three course meal on my tab. Don't drink anything I wouldn't drink

Whatever she wants, then. As long as it's not crap.

AP: Though I'm fairly sure you're too young to be drinking at all
AP: Chop chop, now. Time is of the essence. That note needs to be at the bar an hour ago.

[feminine_menace]

A note to himself, huh That's interesting.

RR: too bad you don't get to decide what I'm old enough to do :)
RR: i will deliver your super-ultra high-priority letter right now

'Super-ultra high-priority' is not sarcastic: it's a classification for Kourier deliveries, and it clearly applies here.

RR: have fun on the lam
RR: or in prison
RR: or wherever you are

rapidRadish (Yours Truly) signed off.

As promised, YT promptly takes the note down to the Bar. But not before she takes a nice clear picture of it with her cell phone. It might be useful intel for later.

[just_cant_lose]

Jim rolls his eyes at the screen, signs off and hits the button that disappears the program. YT has an attitude on her. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but he sure as hell hopes his younger self, if they meet, doesn't respond to it the way he used to. That could be awkward.

Or maybe it'd be fine. There's not actually a lot he can do about it now, and he has more pressing matters to figure out. As long as she delivers the note, no problem.

[alec_swamp]

Not far off, there is the sound of rustling leaves. Alec is trying to find a book as well, and finally settles on Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. He hasn't read it in years. Since he became a Frankenstein's creature of sort. And since he met the actual creature.

He sees the young woman on the floor and tries to step around her.

[feminine_menace]

YT thought the rustling was just pages in a book being read by someone else in the Library a ways off. Until it gets really close, that is. She looks up. "Oh. 'Sup, Professor Holland?"

Which may be very confusing for Alec, because the previous and also only time he met YT before was during Cubefall, when she was an adorable pegasus pony.

[alec_swamp]

The voice borders on the familiar. But yes, Alec is confused.

"Have we met?"

[feminine_menace]

Oh, right. "Cubefall? Pretty Pegasus? Ring any bells?" YT asks, putting her book aside and getting to her feet.

[alec_swamp]

"Ah. Of course." Unsurprisingly, she doesn't look a thing like she did. She is also as young as he would expect, but is still a bit surprised if only because he hasn't actually dealt with any teenagers in some time. "YT, right?"

[feminine_menace]

"Uh-huh," YT says.

It's kind of weird to see Professor Holland indoors. Not that he isn't a weird kind of thing to begin with (although, let's face it, everybody here is weird), but outside he kind of...goes along with the plants and trees and things. He looks a little out of context here, at least to YT.

"I just found this place today," she says. "It's, like, a real serious legit library."

Which sounds pretty obvious, but YT hasn't been in anything she considers a 'real serious legit library' before.

[alec_swamp]

Pretty clear that this is new to her. He wonders if there aren't any libraries like this in her world. Or if she's just never been a reader. Or if she does everything on a smartphone.

"I found it early on. I don't get to visit libraries at home often, but I try to read when I can."

[feminine_menace]

"I didn't used to be into books and stuff that much," YT says (thus surprising nobody). "But I've been getting more into them lately."

Juanita started recommending stuff to her, which was kind of weird at first, but she went along with it. That kind of got her started, and now she's picked up the habit of reading stuff (although not always serious stuff) even when it isn't assigned to her.

[alec_swamp]

"I used to read nothing but science books, but a friend encouraged me to try more fiction." A friend who sees most of what Alec reads, through the strange link that the present and past avatars share.

[feminine_menace]

"You should try reading the Bible cover to cover some time," YT says.

(She does not exactly classify it as fiction, although she does not exactly not classify it that way, either.)

"It's actually really interesting. Well, parts of it are. It helps if you can talk about it with, like, someone who's seriously into studying that stuff, and not just in a fundie born-again Christian kind of way."

YT was going over it with Juanita, a radical rosary-toting Catholic who studied with Jesuits and considers herself a minister to the intelligent atheists of the world.

[alec_swamp]

"I haven't read all that much of it. Never had much religion in my life. But given of the things I've seen, I suspect a lot of it is nonsense and some of it is true." He has, for some reason, the vaguest feeling he actually met someone from the Bible, but that is ridiculous. "The Phantom Stranger might be Judas, from what an acquaintance told me.

"None of which means that the Bible isn't worth a read, at least for the stories and the poetry."

[feminine_menace]

"Well, yeah, but there's more to it than that. My family's not even Christian - we're NeoAquarians - but there's all this stuff around that people like me learned in Sunday school or through TV or just, you know, because it's floating around out there. And a lot of it is wrong, but people don't know because they haven't read the Bible really closely themselves, or like at all."

There's thousands of years and layers and layers of reinterpretation, mistranslation, and who knows what else layered on scripture, after all. You can't just take for granted what some kids' picture book or a televangelist says.

[alec_swamp]

NeoAqaurians? A question for later.

"Then I will add it to my list. You suggest I start at the beginning and work my way forward?"

[feminine_menace]

"You don't have to, but it's probably a good idea," YT says. "The important thing is to get the right edition, like something with a lot of commentary in it that's not skewed towards any religion. Yeah, I know, that's not exactly a piece of cake - but those kind of books exist."

And if they exist, they can probably be found here.

[chanter1944]

((OOC: *waits till the labby guide dog is out of harness, checks with owner, then snuggles and pets!* See icon for why. Well, the specific why, in addition to the fact that labs are love. For context, the icon is of my long-time guide dog, now at the Rainbow Bridge, very off duty and chilling out on a landing at the top of a staircase. He's got one paw draped over the top step. Silly boy. <3))

[feminine_menace]

[OOC: Squee!]