Naali
65 Summer 518
The fog had rolled in from the sea in a heavy wave. The morning sun was doing her work trying to burn the mist away. This meant that the day was going to be humid till the winds reversed and the cool air would blow into the city. Naali had awoken early to head down to the docks. He clothing stuck to her like a rag and her hair drooped from the weight of the dew. She had been told by a patron at the library that some times the sea captains actually will bring books to trade. She learned that one of the ship captains liked to read and was expected to enter port tomorrow. She hadn’t really paid attention to the ships name. Now she wished she had. If she had the right amount of coins or she could barter for an exchange of the books. She had determined that she needed to set some limits. The first was only books that she could read and understand. She had seen books in the library written in different languages. She was reluctant to purchase any book like that. She might buy it if the artwork was nice though. The second was she wasn’t going to buy a crate of books. The more books in a crate, the easier it is to get scammed.
Like most things, Naali decides to go ask questions to get a lead to work with. She has lots of questions, just not many answers yet.
Her plan was to inquire at the Harbor Master’s office then, if needed, around the harbor bars early in the day. She had learned that early in the day meant not getting pinched, groped or trapped by as many drunken sailors. She just had to deal with the retired dirty old men and slackers that had drifted away from the loading and unloading of cargo to catch a pint or three.
Naali, had tried the Harbor Master’s office, receiving the what kind of dumb are you look. So she started through the bars, In one of the harbor bars, she met a man that had sailed with a captain like that, a lover of books or that is what he claimed at least. Naali had not yet come to realize that many of the men in the city were honorable in their dealings, but some were more interested in bedding a girl than being honest. The sailor was spinning a tale and she bit it hook, line, and sinker. Naali wasted no time buying him another pint of ale for him, trying to glean the information. This is the problem with trying to play the cute helpless woman that needs saving, some times it backfires on you. He placed a hand on Naali’s back. Well, a bit lower than her back in actuality then he moved in closer to her. Talking to her about what her interest was with books. That is when the trouble started.
A woman came across the bar screaming at Naali in a language that she did not understand. The man started to yell back at the woman in the strange woman, his hand still firmly in place on her bottom. The next thing that happened was a bit of a surprise for Naali. A tanker was flying towards her head thrown form the woman and she was lunging at Naali. Naali raised her hand to protect her head, only to have the tanker hit her under the left eye. Ale went all over her and her head stung. As the woman made contact with Naali from her lunging, she pushed Naali into the bar and other stools and then onto the floor. Most of the men in the bar started whooping and howling, others came in to the establishment having heard the sounds of a fight breaking out. The woman struck Naali in the right eye with her fist. Naali grabbed for her arms and tried to roll. The woman countered using her knees squeezing Naali’s ribs and making it hard for her to breath. The woman continued yelling at Naali, as the sailor, finished quickly his ale, quietly moved away from the fight and headed indirectly towards the door and freedom. Naali decided to use her knees and got a lucky strike with her knees dislodging the woman far enough that Naali could break the pin. She also managed to expose herself to the crowd of sailors as she swung her knees up from the ground. As blood started pouring from her nose, her eyes were blackening, her hair in a mess, and the harbor patrol arrived to break up the fight. The woman yelling still pointed at Naali and the patrol took her into custody.
A couple hours later, a sergeant came and started questioning her. Looking down and writing on his paper he speaks:
“Name?” he asked.
“Naali,” she replied.
“How long have you been working the docks?” he asked.
“I have gone down a few times to sew sails and I was looking to buy some books,” she said kind of startled.
“Is that what they are calling it now?” the man said with a chuckle.
“Calling what?” she asked.
“Prostitution,” he said looking at her. “The woman in the bar said you were a rival prostitute trying to pick up her john.”
With a screech of shock Naali yells, “What? I’m not a prostitute. I’m a librarian. I went to the docks looking for a captain that liked to read to see if I could buy books from him.”
It took about two more hours for Naali to be cleared from the charges of being an unlicensed prostitute. This meant that someone had to inquire about her at the library and at her apartment and they would need to vouch for her character.
When she got out, the sergeant kindly told her to stay away from the bars on the docks in a tone that was more of an order than a request. Naali would happily stay out of the bars, she was not a drinker. But she did want to make a connection to buy books and start a smuggling operation in the town. She needed to meet people, make connections and see what was available. The library had been helping her get a feeling about what some people were interested in, mainly the ones who had money and were literate. That is who she wanted to target.
As she walked down to the dock, the woman in the bar saw her and made a hand sign at her that’s Naali did not want to be translated. She had been having a rough day. Ten minutes later, the man from the bar found her and pointed her to a ship. The ship was in good repair, he leaned over and whispered in her ear and he put his hand on her butt again. He proposed that they spend some time getting to know each other better. Naali hit him right in the stomach and stomped off. Some of the men form his ship started laughing at hi.
She walked over and sat at the end of the peer and watched the loading and unloading. Finally, a young sailor asked her what she was doing. She told him about looking for a ship that had a captain that was reported to carry books that he might sell. The man told her to wait and walked back up the plank to a ship. In a little bit, the captain came down the plank and talked to Naali who felt like a raccoon with her swollen eyes. He brought with him, to her surprise, some books to look at. She purchased a couple of the book. She enjoyed listening to him talk about the books. The first book she bought was about the lives of exotic animals, it had drawings of animals she had not seen before. The second was a story about sailors out on the sea and the lives of their families. She gave him some money the books and told him if he brought more she would buy some of them. The two of them talked about books and her being a librarian for a while. The first mate of the ship calls him back as they were getting ready to set sail.
Naali thanked him and waved to them as they pushed off from the pier. She felt fairly good, but she still was sort from the fight. Realizing that it was about time to go to work, she headed slowly towards the library. Sort of dreaming about life and what could be.
As she makes it to the library, she hears footsteps behind her. She jumps as a man approaches her. The man is Akalak and carries a sword on his hip. In his arm is a package. He approaches her with a determined look.
“Here.” He says to her as he hands her the contents of the bag.
She lets out a sigh of relief. She had not been paying attention to the people around her. Returning books was really not something to worry about.
“What happened to you?” he asked her pointing to her blackened eyes.
Naali looked down embarrassed and said, “I was attacked.”
He shook his head at her.
As she entered, she placed the books on the desk. She tried to get prepared for the evening. She returned the books the man had given her and set them on the stack of books to be shelved. She tried to look down so people would not stare at her. Akalak do not really approve of people not being able to defend themselves. She knew that the word would get around town fast enough. She was an easy mark. She sighed again. When she completed that task, she started doing the research that people asked for. Some of the questions were interesting to her.
What do you add to the soil if your beans are turning yellow?
She started to dig through some farming books. Egg shells, coffee grounds, chicken manure, cow manure, and urine are all things added to the soil to make plants grow better. Chicken manure works really well but it needs to compost for at least two seasons and be turned then applied. Doing it too early will harm the plants. Urine would work too and could be diluted not to harm the plants. As she turned the page in another book she read that the having to much or too little water might also cause the problem.
She wrote down the information down and put the person’s name on the top of the page.
The next one was how do you make a chest with a false bottom?
This one was more interesting to her than chicken poop. There were three different designs that she was able to find in criminal records after a few hours of searching. The first was just a false bottom that slid down into the box. The second was a false bottom that had a release that allowed the bottom to slide out of the box. The third was a description of a puzzle box that a master craftsman had made. All three had been used to smuggle thing into the city through the port. She learned that you needed to pad the hidden compartment because failure to do that will allow the contents to shift or rattle when the box is moved. That was an important thing to remember. She wrote down the information without including the padding information.
The third questions about heraldry. Someone had a rough drawing of a Coat of Arms. She hated these. If there were colors she wouldn’t be able to tell. Some of the seals only differed in color. She spent time looking through books with no real luck.
As she heard a crowd of people coming into the library, she realized there was going to be a class. She headed that way to help get people situated. She sat in the back of the class for a while to make sure the instructor did not need anything.
As a drunk man walked into the library, he exposed then relieved himself on the floor. Naali got him to leave the library then cleaned up the urine.
She sat down at the desk again and rested. She started reading a book on bowery and fletching. She was surprised to find out there were so many different types of bows. Long, short, cross, hand crossbow, horse bows, and even bows used on ships. Not to mention specialty bows. The same was true about arrows. Different arrow heads did different things. Some arrows were designed to punch through things, others to cause the target to bleed out, and others for rescuing people or running lines for boats or for climbing. Naali had decided to read about weapons that were most likely to hurt her when she was a fox. She figured that her next read was going to be about swords, knives, then armor and making them. She may never actually learn to make them, but she wanted to know.
At the end of her shift, she started to clean things up. She got the homeless man to the door and pointed him to one of the “safe” places he could ask for shelter for the night. She then started to gather some of the things that she would need. She would be doing a tour of the library for a class of Akalak students. So she went and gathered some books on the history of warfare and weapons. The class would be all boys in both the best and the worse ways. There would be rough housing, horse play, and power dynamics, the smell of sweat, and well, she was female, so showing off and male hormones too. This was a job that all of new librarians got, teaching boys that wanted to be great warriors with sword and shield, skilled in weapons of all kinds that ideas and knowledge gained by books and quill can also be a weapon if used in the right way. Education was just as much of a battle as marching off to war.
She walked with one of the guards heading home to his family. She felt better knowing that she would not be jumped or assaulted.
It was a good day as a librarian. She was tired and she had learned some things. When she got to Nai’s the word of her adventure had already made it through the house. Naali ate a cold supper and read more about the craft of making bows and arrows. She heard the whispers of her housemates and ignored them. When she had eaten supper, she washed the dishes and plates as it was her turn. Then she went to her room, stripped out of her dress, and laid down in her nest of a bed and threw a light blanket over herself. She would have changed form, but she hurt enough already.
After a while Nai entered her room in with some ointments which she placed on Naali’s eyes and cheek. Naali’s face still hurt and the ointment stunk. Nai gave her a pat of comfort, said they would talk about the day in the morning. She blew out the candle and Naali went to sleep.
Word Count: 2571
