Completed What You Need (Fox)

[Tsaba]

59th Summer, 513AV Tsaba traced one finger along a shelf until she found the right spot. Then she took a book from the small pile balanced in the crook of her elbow and gently slotted it into the row. When she'd been employed, she'd expected to do more copying and less filing, but somebody had to put them away. Her fingers lingered on the spine of the book for a moment, strong and new between its battered companions. Its predecessor had been a mess, ink leached from crinkled papers. but she'd saved it. So long as somebody was willing to transfer their information to new shells every once in a while, books were immortal -- sort of like Nuit. The next book needed to be placed several shelves away. Tsaba was only intimately familiar with the Auristics section, but she'd memorised the general layout of the library sections as a whole, so a glance at the book was enough to tell her where to go. She weaved through Auristics, around he normal table, and towards the more mundane skill sections. Just a few more to file, and she could get back the quiet little copying room and continue to do her actual job.

[Fox Starseer]

Here in Zeltiva, a massive library, presumably from times gone by, stood, filled with thousands of books. Huge white marble walls, doors made of wood, presumably oak or something equally as heavy-duty, windows large enough to, possibly, ride a horse through. It was enough to attract the attentions of a young Drykas man.

Fox walked through the library doors and proceded to look for the book he wanted. He happened upon a lady who looked to be a worker here. "Excuse, do you work here?" he asked. He hoped she could help him find the book he was looking for.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba looked the man who addressed her up and down. He didn't look familiar, but that meant nothing; there weren't many Zeltivans that she could recognise on sight except library regulars. And everything about him said that he wasn't a regular. "Yes, I do," she said eventually. She just wanted to get back to copying, but she couldn't very well ignore them man; if Castor hadn't taken the time to help her when she'd first arrived, she'd probably still be looking for the Auristics section. It was only fair that she pass on the favour. Besides, if the man wandered cluelessly about the library, he might do something horrible, like misshelve a book. While that woudn't be as big a problem in the Wright Memorial as on Sahova, the mistake could very well go unnoticed (and the book inaccessible) for years. "Can I help you?" she added, hoping to discover what he wanted as quickly as possible and get back to work.

[Fox Starseer]

"I'm looking for a book on tactics, if there is one" he said. He looked the woman up and down. Her eyes where an icy blue colour, and she looked to be about his mother's age. He smiled and held out his hand. "I'm Fox" he said. "And you are?" he asked.

[Tsaba]

"Tsaba. I'm Tsaba." She shook his hand, maneuvering her paralysed little finger neatly out of the way, and remembered to give a friendly smile as she continued; humans didn't like faces to stay expressionless for too long. "What sort of tactics are you interested in? Military or game strategy?" The same basic rules applied, of course, but for some reason military books had their own area. Tsaba spun on her heel and headed in the general direction of the correct sections, trusting Fox to follow. There was something strange about him, something she was missing, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Possibly she was just distracted. "To be honest with you I'm not overly familiar with our strategy books," she explained as they walked. "I normally focus on copying books here, as opposed to filing them. But what you're looking for shouldn't be difficult to find, once I know that that is. Are you looking for any specific tactics? A combat style, perhaps?" The man certainly had the build of a warrior. Probably. What did warriors look like? It wasn't the build of a scribe, at any rate.

[Fox Starseer]

"It's nice to meet you, Tsaba" Fox said. He always tried to be nice and curtious. "Mainly military field tactics. Like sword and shield tactics, or mixed unit tactics" he said. He followed closely so he wouldn't get lost. "I'm kinda new around here, but I think that was obvious" he added, trying to keep the conversation going.

[Tsaba]

"How so?" Tsaba asked, her voice even. "You could just as easily have meant political tactics or chess tactics. Or even tactics in writing scrolls. Or, of course, tactics for naval combat. We are on the coast." She paused in the military section. "Here are our books on military. Infantry tactics, then... from a command perspective, I assume, or you would have asked for books on swordfighting..." Military history, perhaps? Were there infantry-specific books? Did how-to guides for war even exist? "So are you a soldier, then?" she asked, to make conversation while she searched. A new commander of some kind, maybe. He couldn't be an experienced one, or he wouldn't have come requesting such books unless he was after a specific title. "Or is your interest purely academic?" Tsaba didn't think she'd ever met a soldier, unless the occasional Sunberth 'revolutionary' counted. She'd seen the occasional stab wound, though. There were a lot of military books to skim through, but eventually she found the military history section. That seemed like the right place to start, unless there were enough 'tactical how-to' books for their own section. Which wouldn't be all that surprising, not that she came to think of it. People did seem to like killing each other.

[Fox Starseer]

Fox thought for a second. He wondered how she would react if she knew why he had left Endrykus and had come here, but he decided against telling her the whole story. "Kind of academic, I guess" he said. He looked on the shelf and found a book. "The Martial Wizard Society Battle Wizards Manual: Beginers Tactics" he read. "Interesting...I wonder what the Martial Wizard Society is" he said, half to himself and half to Tsaba.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba pulled down The Art of Plains Combat and glanced at the foreword before noticing what Fox was reading. "Wizardry tactics? Are you a magic-user?" Magic in battle... she had a feeling that most Zeltivans, liberal as they were, wouldn't take too kindly to that sort of person. Not her problem, though. She was about to hand him the book she'd found and get back to book copying as quickly as possible, but as she lifted the book, she stopped herself. The whole point of coming to Zeltiva in the first place was to study people. She couldn't learn from the mainland entirely through copying text. "So... are you a local soldier? A guard?" She highly doubted that he was a local. Of course, he might just be a sailor, on an errand for somebody. No reason to assume he was looking for books for himself.

[Fox Starseer]

"Ah, no I'm not a magic user" Fox said. He slipped the book back where he found it. He looked at the one Tsaba was holding. "The Art of Plains Combat...could be interesting" he said. Being a Drykus he knew about the plains, because of where he lived. He looked at the rest of the book. "I'm not a guard, no. More just a warrior without a job" he said. Plus finding and saving my twin, which is why I need to know about tactics he thought.