A State of Monotony ((Riven and Tony))

[Tony Sharp]

It was midday. The light of the sun drifted in through the tall, vertical windows, for once deciding to show its face during the all too often cloudy days. It shone upon table-sides and bookshelves - all of them were unquestionably polished and catered for to the highest degree. It was undeniable that, whoever resided here paid prime and delicate attention to the well-being of the aged articles here.

Wide, gaping jaws parted in a breathless yawn, before shutting again. A habit that, considering his plant-like heritage, scarcely made any sense. And it probably never would.

Ever since his transformation in appearance, life had... rarely differed at all. Still the same old routines; rearrange the books, dust the shelves, clean the windows, sweep the floors, rid of the spiders, read a few books, check the supplies of books... and do it all again. And again. And again. Sometimes, rooms outwith the library demanded his attention. Dining halls often needed tending to, and various other rooms seemed just a bit more shamefully neglected than the poor library had been before his arrival. Certainly, it wasn't in his job description, but it needed to be done.

In the meantime, his stay at the academy had become less of a pursuit of knowledge, and more of a distraction from the real mental troubles that resided within. Whilst he'd normally be appalled at the thought of lowering himself to servant status, currently, he didn't have much of a choice. If, even if for just a few moments, he allowed himself to part his attention from his duties, his mind would snap back to the one thing he feared most - his deprivation of new, enlightening knowledge. The mere thought of it made his bone-like limbs shiver. These paltry chores were the best distractions available, currently.

Right now, the librarian organising books on nearby shelves. He'd organised them before, in fact, they were already in the right order before he'd taken them all down. But the monotonous task at least occupied his mind a little, if it wasn't becoming such an automatic process. It was the fourth time he'd done it today.

From a distance, the plantperson might seemed absorbed in his task, but there was an almost absent-minded feel to it. It seemed as if he weren't really paying much attention to that around him.

[Riven Anselm]

A second set of hands skimmed over the spines of the books, human hands.

Riven enjoyed libraries. He had been in quite a few: browsed shelves in France and thumbed through pages in Italy and California. There was always something to do in them. Aside from reading, he could scrutinize every aisle, turn every staircase, watch the other patrons, or just use it as a quiet place to plan and gather information in other ways.

He was there now mostly for the former reasons: actually reading and searching through the place. Nothing particular yet had caught his eyes, which were roaming the large room. In the sunlight, it looked very pristine and peaceful. That didn't hurt being here either, the latter quality.

He actually had had a reason for coming here. Several, in fact. One, since he had gotten to the island, he had wanted to find out more about it, and the castle and Academy itself. The library was as good a place as any to start exploring and gathering information, barring asking students or professors, few of whom Riven had come across. Start from the inside of the castle and work outward seemed a viable alternative. Two, a map would be extremely helpful in his first goal, and the library was the most likely place to quickly find one.

Three, he could lose himself in a library for awhile, and feel the familiarity of something. Actually selecting a book off the shelf, Riven glanced at which books it been between taking it out and letting it fall open in his hand, turning several pages. Hn...poltergeists...first accounts taken from encounters in castles...

He closed it with a thud, putting it back on the shelf. Turning around and rounding another aisle, he noticed someone else in the library for the first time, out of the corner of his eye. They looked like some kind of moving plant or nature a glance.

[Tony Sharp]

The flicking of pages, and a tiny 'thud' in the distance alerted his attention. Such a noise was familiar enough for him to discern that that someone else was within the library, looking for a book of sorts.

Tony knew that most people were able to look for and borrow books without him intervening, even if it took longer. He knew his assistance wasn't needed every single time. But that didn't stop his eagerness to assist anyway. Besides, it would relieve him of this dreadfully tedious task.

Placing the remaining books vertically upon the shelf, he made a quick, mental note that he'd attend to them later. For now, he'd take a gander at what this other being was doing.
He turned, and took a step forward. Such a thing should've been quite easy and simple, yet somehow, Tony's foot had managed to miss the ground completely and he'd ended up sprawled on the floor. He didn't even seem to react to this - he merely blinked, before sliding across the floor with his face quite literally pressed to the floor, his legs kicking him along behind him while his arms remained limp by his sides.

Not keeping up with his usual, overly polite and pretentious self, the librarian remained with his face on the floor as he approached Riven.
"At Lillegard we offer a very fine and reliable service to tend to your literary needs," he drawled, his tone completely flat and bored. "How may I help."

[Riven Anselm]

Attending to the shelves again, Riven didn't really see anything that would be of use to him. He still wasn't looking with terribly hard intent, but he thought he would have come across something by now. He knew his way around a library--how to find a book. Maybe a map was not in a book. He had come across a carefully organized collection of atlases. Some of them had clearly been made by those who knew about what happened behind the scenes of a circus and other establishments everywhere; there was no reference of the island or castle. Maybe it's like Avalon, Riven had thought; the school hadn't been that difficult to learn about--for him, a prospective student--but Henry seemed to be the only man capable of ferrying to and from this destination. Riven stopped, thinking of whether to start a real search or to just keep looking around. His curiosity and guesswork were growing.

He glanced in the other patron's direction again, his thoughts interrupted as he heard something fall. A heavy book or--no, it was the person that had tripped. What held Riven's attention was that he crawled and kicked, going forward, instead of getting up. Huh, Riven was sure he didn't fall that hard. A fleeting thought of planting went through his head. He half-turned towards the being that was making its way over to him, not sure what to expect.

He had to listen closely as it spoke, the voice a little muffled through the floor the owner was currently on. You're the librarian? ...Riven had considered that when he saw him, at first, but that way of approaching a patron seemed unorthodox. Even to him.

"...I don't need any help, thank you," Riven replied after a short pause, waiting to see if the librarian was getting up. He turned down the assistance not because it was hard to take the librarian's intent seriously, but because he preferred to find what he was looking for on his own. He had half-expected the librarian to ask for help getting up instead.

[Tony Sharp]

After twisting his head, the pupil-less yellow eyes blinked up at the boy. One did not simply refuse assistance around here. He might not've felt it in his limbs at this present moment, but he knew with a startling certainty that he must aid this boy.

"Yes you do."
From his position on the floor, he slid forwards towards the foot of the bookcase. From there, his arms extended upwards, latching onto the first shelf and pulling himself up. Then the second shelf. Then the third. Gradually as he scaled the bookcase to Riven's eye level, he angled his head towards him, twitching involuntarily. His fingers were careful not to touch or move any of the books - they curled delicately around the wooden frame. His stare was unwavering as he clung to the shelf in a manner a little too similar to a giant spider's.

"What is it you seek? What book? A specific genre? Authors? Directions?" He craned his neck forward eagerly, his voice a mix between a whisper and a hiss. "Tell me."

[Riven Anselm]

Looking at the librarian's face now, noting the complete rotation of his neck, Riven got a vague feeling he was used to always offering and giving help.

His refusal for help somewhat stirred as he was told the opposite, he watched, increasingly warily, as the plant pulled itself up, scaling the book case to fix him under his yellow, unsteady gaze. He kept his composure as Tony moved his head forward, issuing a sound that made calm slightly harder to maintain.

The vague feeling now past a non-verbal scream and even spoken word, he didn't think he could deny help without some kind of further...altercation. Riven looked at him thoughtfully. "It's nothing." He wasn't worried about that, but it was not a good idea to tempt a desperate man. "Just a map." He resented himself shortly for doing the opposite here, regardless of knowing that and enough about picking his battles to know that this wasn't something he needed to start one over.

[Tony Sharp]

It's nothing? Surely, it was anything but. The plant person seemed almost annoyed at the idea, desperate for anything to break him out of the monotone turn of events. He twitched furiously, before his eyes widened at the second words that came out.

"A map?" He blinked. "A map! I will get you a map!"
He practically leapt off the shelves, landing in a heap of himself as he tumbled ungracefully. However, he hardly seemed it notice the fall himself, and was all too quick to gather himself and skitter off towards the reception desk.
It was a few moments before he came running back, his arms struggling to hold the massive bundle of castle maps that he'd come to acquire - most of which were merely duplicates of each other.

Forcefully, he reached to shove them all towards Riven, some of them spilling over onto the floor. His tone was insistent.
"Take them! Take them all!"

[Riven Anselm]

The mad twitching enforced Riven's conviction – he wondered what had given him such a desperate desire to help – to make his help available. He nodded as the librarian verified what he'd said, stepping back as he jumped and tumbled off the shelve he'd climbed up so stealthily. He followed a few steps before approaching one of the tables. He'd pulled out a chair before he looked up, barely able to discern it was the librarian coming back...with much more than one map. It was strange he hadn't been able to find any of those.

Riven reached out and helped the plant with the bundle for a moment before managing to move it onto the nearby table without dropping them all on the carpets. “Thank you,” he said, composed, but genuine. He stood over the table and began to look through them, seeing most seemed to be of Lillegard Castle. Ruffling through a couple more, he asked the librarian – after a slight pause - “Do you have any maps of the island?” He'd almost mentioned he was a new student, to explain his question. Another part of his old habit of investigation - sometimes it created less suspicion to casually give a reason for why he was exploring certain places. Of course, now curiosity and habit were his chief reason for continuing the practice.

[Tony Sharp]

Tony nodded quickly at the thanks - he didn't expect one, it wasn't like he would refuse helping him. The island, the island, he gave him maps of the castle but that wasn't enough, no, he wanted the whole island now. Nattering frantically under his breath, his fingers sifted through the maps on the table--  no, it wasn't there, was it? It might be back at the reception's desk--

With a twitch, Tony hissed and flipped over one of the castle maps. He snatched a pen from the table - it didn't matter that it might be someone else's - and began to scrawl furiously on the back. It was no problem, he could remember exactly what the map looked like. Every time he drew a line wrong in slightly the wrong direction, he'd grumble noisily under his breath and redraw it until it was right.  Despite the perfectionism, he was quick - it was little under than a minute until he'd scrawled out a rough shape of the map, filling in the names into their allotted locations, filling in trees and mountains with rough scribbles.  Immediately after, he pushed it towards Riven, looking at him expectantly as if awaiting the next request.

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