The place with the most books (Coren)

[Alea Davenport]

68th, Fall 511

What do you get when you don't know what you're looking for? Books. Alea had left her home looking for adventure, and all she'd found was more questions that she could count. Rather than answering her questions, like any sensible person, the people of Avanthal directed to a place called a "library," which had no translation into Denvali. As far as she could tell, it meant "the place with the most books." Alea had never understood the appeal of books. Why read for ages about dusty old history when you could just find someone to TELL you what you want to know?

She opened the door timidly and stepped quietly into the library, making as little noise as possible. She carefully closed the door behind her, not willing to disturb the silence of the atmosphere. She stepped into the center of the room and looked around. The only person...or person-shaped thing she could see was someone completely covered in black, who appeared to be napping. She opened her mouth to say something, but no sound came out, so she gave up and walked to the nearest shelf and tried to look like she knew what she was doing.

[Coren]

Coren didn't stir from his deep slumber as the woman silently entered the library. He always had been somebody who could have slept through almost everything, so a woman quietly sneaking inside a building wouldn't wake him up by a long shot. And so the young man continued to snooze, blissfully unaware of the fact that the old librian was stomping towards him a glint of fire in his eyes. “Coren... I didn't hire you to sleep on the job! Wake up!” The older man said in acccented vani as he shook coren roughly by the shoulder, with no effect. Coren just continued to snooze. Much to the older man's ire. “Damn kid.” he muttered underneath his breath before whacking coren on the back of his head, hard. That got coren's attention as he abruptly shot back up. “Good your finally awake, lets keep it that way this time will you?” The old man said as he gave the young man sitting in front of him a withering stare. “ehm I'll try?” Coren stammered out, embarrassment easily audible in his voice. The old librarian just shook his head. “Why don't you go and help that kid over there out.” He pointed towards the young girl standing at one of the shelves. Coren just nodded and quickly scrambled out of his chair and walked over towards the girl. Happy that he got out of Felix's lecture. “So, what are you looking for?” Coren said quickly in vani as he arrived smiling towards the little girl. Though his leather facemask did obscure his lower face.

[Alea Davenport]

Once again, Alea cursed language barriers. She also hated being in the same room as someone being scolded. She was quite familiar with the tone of someone who had been caught shirking their duties. Being pointed at from a distance only made her feel like she wasn't supposed to be here, especially considering that she was in sneak-mode, which was often reserved for places she wasn't supposed to be.

She recognized that the cloak-with-eyes was addressing her in Vani, but she only recognized "what", "you", and a conjugated verb. By this point, she'd given up encountering anyone who spoke Denvali, so she tried putting words together in Common. "My Vani is...very poor. I'm sorry?"

[Coren]

Coren had the sense to feel a bit of embarrassment as the girl in front of him made it clear in common that she didn't understand vani at all. It should have been clear to him from the start though, she didn't even look like a vantha at all. With her light colored hair that missed the typical shine found in every vantha and not having the typical eyes of a vantha. “Sorry, did not notice you were not form around here.” He slowly said in heavily accented common. “I was asking what you where looking for here in the library.” Coren paused for a few moments and gave her a closer look. “Also I think this is your first time coming to the library. Yes?”

[Alea Davenport]

Alea focused hard and struggled to pick out the words through the man's heavy accent. She decided to answer the easy question first. "Yes. This is my first time here. At the... 'lie-bary,'" she stumbled over the unfamiliar word. Then she tried to think about what she was looking for. Lack of direction was what led her here in the first place. Looking around at the sheer volume of books, she thought that "everything" might be a bad answer. She did not think she had the patience to read ONE dusty old tome, much less all of them. As she was trying to think of a subject, some furry face crossed her mind, and she smiled. "Tell me about Kelvics."

[Coren]

Coren smiled behind his mask as alea told her that this was the first time at the library. “Well, I need to give you the rules then. If you want to loan a book, you bring it to the person behidn the desk.” He pointed towards the desk he had been sleeping on a few moments earlier. “I'll write down your name and the name of the book in the ledger. Books can be loaned up to one season, though depending on the book, the time may be shorter.” He looked at her, a friendly expression on his face, not that she would see it though. “Did you understand all that?” When the little girl asked him to tell her about kelic's he just shrugged. “I do not know much about kelvic's aside the very basics. There should be a few books here about them though. Just follow me.” He started to walk through the many shelves. Pondering where the hell the books about kelvics would have been put. There probably should have been a few books about them underneath the history section. After a short walk he stopped in front of the history section and turned back towards the girl. “Well, there should be a few books about kelvic's in this shelf.”

[Alea Davenport]

Alea stared blankly at the shelf. She recognized the letters on the bindings, but to puzzle actual words out of them, she would have to focus on each word individually. She made out the word "History" before she gave up. She didn't want to learn history, she wanted to know what was true NOW! She turned back to the man with an incredulous look. He didn't expect her to sort through these by herself, did he? Because there was no way that was going to happen. Then what he said made it to her comprehension. "Should?!" she echoed. "You don't know? What is your job, since you don't know what is in the books?"

She held her face in her hand. Why was nothing ever easy?

[Coren]

When the little girl in front of him began to question what his job was since he didn't know what was in all the books. He just shook his head, why did he alway's get the annoying kids? “My job is took keep all the books in order, keep track of which ones are loaned out, to who and when they should be back in and to give some help if people can't find a book they are looking for.” He said in a patient tone, suppressing the slight irritation he felt at the girl's behavior, was he really asking to much for her to find a book on that subject on her own? More then half of the books where written in common so the language barrier shouldn't be that much of a problem. “And yes I said should, I know that there are books about kelvic in the history section, I loaned out a few of them this week in fact. What I don't know however is that there still are books about kelvic in the library at this moment. We got a lot of books here, you can't expect anybody to know exactly which ones we all have and how many of them are still in the library without looking up the list and comparing it with the ledger. Which takes a lot more time and effort then just you going through shelf.” he just patiently waited for the little girl's reply, really hoping she would just give it up and go look through the books on her own. He had other things to do then to cather to every wim of a little girl who wanted to get every problem solved for her.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea put her hands on her hips. "If it is so easy to look at books, YOU do it!" She could see no reason why this man would not help her beyond sheer laziness on his part. She had rarely picked up a book that wasn't forced on her, and efficient research methods were entirely beyond her comprehension. The attendant's words were not at all reassuring; she had no desire to spend hours doing something that would ultimately prove fruitless. She imagined that if she tried to deal with these books by herself, she would find it impossible, and would be forced to give up immediately. Clearly, the solution to this dilemma was to get someone else to do it for her.

However, this man was starting to get on her nerves. He was being deliberately unhelpful. Well, she wasn't going to let him get away with that! She folded her arms across her chest stubbornly and declared, "If you don't help me, I will bother you all day."

[Coren]

Coren just gave the little girl in front of him an annoyed look. “I look at books at least 8 chimes a day little girl. Now I probably should go back to work, if you got a book you want to loan just come to my desk and I'll note it in the ledger.” He simply ignored her rather petty treat that she would annoy him for the rest of the day, she was just a little kid, he didn't doubt he could just throw her out into the snow if she really annoyed him, before walking past her and back towards his desk at the front of the library. If he was staying away to long and felix noticed he probably would get in even more trouble and if he knew felix, he was going to get another lecture about hard work and how your not supposed to sleep on the job at the end of the workday anyway.