the library [sid mood + others welcome]

[errin]

[this is mostly a mood post for Sid to show she's starting to hang around the Chantry, but if anyone else wants to add on in lieu of scheduling a scene, have at it!]

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Sid never much cared for chantries. It's not fear, or history, or bad blood, or anything concrete like that. Partly it's ignorance. She doesn't know the sorts of things that can be gained from going to a chantry, because she's never been inside one before. Those in the past who might have told her about them? They could never get her to go inside.

That's the other part. That part's wariness. It never seemed like a good idea, having some secret clubhouse for the weird ones to gather and congregate, warping reality with their very presence, making themselves a kind of target. It never seemed safe. She doesn't know much about wards.

Sid doesn't know much about magic at all. Nearly everything she knows she's learned on her own, through experiments and thought and white-knuckled effort. It hurt a lot for a while, doing magic. Casting. Sensing things with those learned extrasensory senses. Changing things through an exertion of her once weaker Will.

Things have changed drastically for her since moving to Denver. No, since the others started appearing back in April. Back then she was hidden behind a thick and seemingly impenetrable suit of armor. She kept herself locked behind high invisible walls, because maybe then she would be safe. Maybe then she could keep herself protected. But then the others came along and they started knocking down those walls, not with force but with kindness. It's because of them that the woman trapped inside - trapped, not protected, sealed in to an airless place where nothing could touch her - started breaking down the walls from the inside.

Now that she's partially freed from her own bindings, she - like Grace - wants to learn.

Justin offered to help her once. Jim, too. Shoshannah may have mentioned the library at the chantry before, but it didn't sink that she meant library. For them.

It's Justin who finally gets Sid to cross the threshold and go inside. He's the one who offered the challenge, whether he realized it or not.

Why don't you come out and see for yourself some day?

Maybe I will.

"Some day" turned out to be the very next Friday after that exchange. Because what else was she going to do after work? She hasn't heard from the others yet when they plan to try and pull Kelsey from her torpor, so in the meantime what will it hurt to do some studying?

So Friday afternoon she climbed into her truck and she drove all the way across town and out of it, to Morrison. She doesn't want to do much exploring, but she might have to. Not having been before, the library's security system doesn't have her fingerprint or her retinal scan. She doesn't have an ID. She can't get in without assistance.

Assuming she gets that assistance and that she eventually does get in, she'll spend hours in that underground room. Because fucking books about fucking magic. She'll curl up on one of the sofas and read the first book she picks up - uninterrupted unless someone finds her and interrupts her - until she falls asleep. Maybe kicks her out and sends her home, or sends her to one of the spare beds for the night so she can pick up where she left off in the morning.

[CourtCat]

Sid does, indeed, get that assistance - and she even gets company for a portion of the time in the form of a creepy (angry, defensive) young Dreamspeaker who has things of her own to study and learn. It's quiet and as unobtrusive as Shoshannah knows how to make herself, but there.

[Howl]

[Justin won't be there that afternoon, but the next time he and Sid run into each other he would add her ID to the library access list. ]

[FadedNoel]

Grace finally managed to show up to "the house" on Sunday. It wasn't that she didn't want to go that kept her away, but Sid's warning to rest had sunk in a bit. It only sunk in after the exhaustion did, but that's beside the point. Too many irons in the fire, perhaps, as if that were a thing.

She had her writing and her desperate, failed attempts at expressing what Awakening meant. She had her mundane research job to keep up with still, though it had been falling to the wayside lately. Most importantly, however, she now had another goal. And this house with its library would surely sate that new hunger, right?

She followed the address out to the middle of nowhere, with a bit of concern as her cell signal winked in and out of existence. Why couldn't it be in the city (where should could get 3G and wifi hotspots)?

And when she got to the Chantry proper, her mood did not improve. It was so... big. The house looked like some very rich, landed person had got it in their heads to build something that looked like a farmhouse, so they could pretend to be one of the quaint little people. It made her feel uncomfortable. The connection hit a little too close to home, perhaps.

But books, she reminded herself. Books.

Alas, she was in the same situation as Sid. No library access, unless she could convince someone to let her in, and give her said access.

If she could, she would spend the rest of the day in the library, or until someone kicked her out. At which point she would be irate, because books.

[I know I said I would be available on Sunday, but it turns out I am getting *dragged* *kicking and screaming* to go see Pacific Rim, so I will substitute this forum post instead!]