thisavrou_log | [OPEN] People Can Lose Their Lives in Libraries

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[OPEN] People Can Lose Their Lives in Libraries

Who: Elizabeth DeWitt, 100 Books, and You
When: October 8th - 15th
Where: The NEW AND... NOT QUITE SHINY YET Library
What: Head Librarian Elizabeth has shelves, desks, and books. Now she just needs to figure out where all of it should go...
Warnings: ~~Sexy Librarian~~

'Good morning everyone. Exciting news for those of us bibliophiles (and the individual who needs information from a book every once in a while), I've been informed the rooms that will house the Moira's collection are ready to be turned into an actual library. All he necessary parts-- shelving, chairs, tables, and books-- have been delivered, so it's only a matter of time before I have everything organized.

'But I don't see a reason for anyone who's been itching to read something to go without while I catalog everything. If you're interested in looking through what parts of the collection have been delivered so far, anyone is welcome. The Library is located on the same deck as the Mess Hall, past the gardens. Any questions, feel free to contact me, Elizabeth DeWitt, on my personal MID. Thank you!'

Thank goodness, she'd recorded that message and broadcasted it before she'd started moving things.

After she'd updated the network with the existence of the library, Elizabeth had started moving shelves against the walls. It was slow going and in a matter of minutes Elizabeth had sweat through her work suit. Well, it wasn't as though she hadn't known this endeavor would take elbow grease. No whining, it wasn't her style-- Elizabeth just rolled up her sleeves and put her back into it. One shelf at a time, one foot at a time if she had to. And once the she had the shelves in place, then she had a box of books waiting for her.

((OOC: Elizabeth will be setting up the library all week! Currently the collection is about 100 books, she gets another 100 every week until Than's collection has been moved entirely. The first two days (8th and 9th) she'll be struggling with shelves and looking anxiously at the boxes piling up, on the 10th she'll get all the tables and chairs in place and start sorting the books in the boxes, the 11th through the 15th she'll be in sorting and cataloging hell (yes, she's handwriting all the cards in the catalog-- what else would she do, after all?). She's very dedicated to it, anytime anybody comes in, it's clear she's been working hard. Maybe even forgetting to take a break for lunch...))

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[Jacky was pleased as punch that Elizabeth thought well enough of her to allow her the use of her given name; being without her friends has been lonesome, but those she's met on this ship have been wondrous in their own ways.

Moving closer to Elizabeth's desk, Jacky put her sack down on the nearest table and crossed her arms, tapping her chin. She really should ask for something to help her catch up, seeing how far behind she was, but, well.]

I know I ought to ask for something to catch me up, but...perhaps fiction, this time around? Something to read over lunch.

Always a good choice. [Elizabeth whispers conspiratorially, leaning over her desk towards Jacky. She grins and flits over to one of the shelves. The collection is spread out for now, there's only a hundred or so books out and Elizabeth is leaving space for more, but clearly she's got the makings of a fiction section going.]

Genre-- that's the next step. What's catching your imagination at the moment? Explorers? Love stories? Political intrigue?

[Jacky almost had to laugh; add in war stories and piracy and the list was practically her life!]

Ummmmmm... [Pursing her lips, Jacky mulled her options over.] Howabout an adventure?

Perfect! [Elizabeth bends down to a lower shelf and pulls out three books. The collection is still small, but she thinks she can manage to find something here.]

Alright, normally I would instantly recommend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I've already pressed someone else into reading that one and I have a feeling that reading about the ocean isn't much of an escape for you. [She smirks.] How about... [She's not familiar with this one, so she reads from the back.] 'A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ'?

[Jacky laughed.]

Well, I've never been twenty-thousand leagues down, but I've been down a fair tick. [Thinking about it, she warned:] Rapture of the Deep? Not so 'rapturous'.

[As for the book...] Sounds a bit...weighty. What are the other options?

[Elizabeth stops full tilt, blinking at Jacky as though she'd just said she planned on jumping off a bridge. The question rolls off of her, unprocessed.]

Rapture of the Deep. Under the ocean, I'm assuming... Where'd you hear about that?

[Jacky snorted.]

Tilly--Professor Tilden, that is, the scientist who taught me and the boy's on the Dol--the ship I first served on, he was a bit of an...inventor. Had me strung up on a giant kite--!

[Ahem. That terrifying event was near a decade behind her, no need to dwell when there's a so much more recent terrifying event to relate.]

Well, he got a hold of a diving bell and had me use it to dive off the coast of the Spanish Keys. But, because I'm a girl, and thus too simple-minded to understand his high science, he didn't tell me why I weren't supposed to come up outside the bell if I went down in the bell. Now, I'm not the most patient soul if someone's trying to make me do busy work for no reason, so one day I got too impatient to wait for the ponderous trip back up.

I got the bends. It...hurts, so bad you feel like you're on fire, like bubbles moving through your joints. But first, you get giddy, hence the more colourful name. Nitrogen narcosis is I think the scientific name.

[Naval Intelligence might be many miles and many years away, but Jacky's not going to tell more than the barest of bones about this particular trip; she escaped getting sentenced to Australia once, and she'd not like to rely on her luck a second time. Shaking off her doldrums, Jacky pasted on a facsimile of a grin.] Got to ride back down in my Jaimy's arms, until everything equalised and we could come back up. He was so scared of the bell, but he did it for me.

[Diving bells, diving bells... Elizabeth feels like she's read something about them, but only for novelty's sake. Obviously she wasn't going to go down in a diving bell anytime soon, not in a flying city. And in Rapture there were bathyspheres for touring the ocean depths around the city. But obviously Jacky isn't talking about the city, she's talking about nitrogen narcosis, and Elizabeth lets out the breath she was holding. What would she have done if Jacky had been talking about Rapture? What if she was someone freed from becoming a Little Sister, or worse, someone still trapped down there meaning all Elizabeth had done had been for nothing?]

[She shouldn't think that so quickly. Elizabeth chuckles faintly, trying to shake off the sudden panic.] Right. Nitrogen narcosis, I've read about that. I went to an underwater city once, but they'd moved a bit beyond diving bells...

Anyway-- [She puts 'The DaVinci Code' back on the shelf.] Something else, something else... Something lighter.

Oh? [Jacky laughed, a little, shaking off her memories like so much water.] Well, I s'pose I shouldn't be surprised; seems like miracles are commonplace, now.

[She tried to picture it.] Coo-ee, that must've been a real treat though. A whole city beneath the waves...

It was beautiful. [That's easy enough to admit.] Though maybe not the best of places to be-- it was founded on the idea that the 'best and brightest' shouldn't be subject to regulations by government, religion, or morality. Sounds ideal on the surface-- a place where you can do whatever you like-- until your artists start electrocuting their models for not being good enough. [There's something in her voice that suggests Personal Experience.]

Ah! I know-- [She pulls a large volume off of the shelf.] Now, this book has a story called 'The Lost World' in it, which is about explorers in South America encountering all kinds of strange and prehistoric creatures in it. But, it also has a few other stories by the same author about a detective named Sherlock Holmes. He's most famous for those, but I think if you're looking for stories about explorers, that one should be right up your alley.

[At first blush, that sounds exactly the place where she'd want to be. No Crown hunting her down to do this mission or that, no temperance movement to shut down her bar and try to take her children-- heaven.

But then her inner Higgins pointed out how too many of her fellows--and not even her piratical brothers--would do with no laws or rules guiding them, and she can very well see what Elizabeth was driving at.]

Well, not rightly sure what 'electrocuting' is, but I'm guessing it's not a good thing.

Oooo, now that sounds like a real ripper! [Taking the book, Jacky flipped through the pages, skimming a little here, a little there. Shutting it, she beamed at Elizabeth and struck her patented 'curtsy-without-a-skirt'.] Thank you very much, Miss Elizabeth! This will be the perfect thing to go with my lunch--

[She thought of something.] Speaking of, scuttlebutt says you've not shown hide nor hair outside this room in the last few days. You eaten yet today, yourself?

Imagine getting hit with a lightning bolt and surviving. [She says with a wry smirk, handing over the volume to her and heading for her clipboard. It's a pretty low-tech checkout system right now...]

Me? [She looks up from the clipboard then at her MID.] It has gotten late, hasn't it? It just seems like every time I think I'm close to finishing, I have a better idea about where a section should go... [Elizabeth looks balefully at the half-empty boxes and careful piles on the floor.] But I guess I'll fall over if I don't have something to eat, right?

[Jacky's seen what lightning can do.] That sounds...very unpleasant.

[Turning around, she grabbed her little lunch sack and opened it, removing the sandwiches and offered one to Elizabeth.] Lucky you, I grabbed a few of these from Mess, and I'm always happy to share with a friend. If you can dig up some glasses, I can even provide libations.

Surprisingly, I can. [She takes the sandwich and goes to her desk, pulling off a few empty cups she hadn't taken back to the mess hall just yet-- late night cataloging.]

Here we are. [With her other hand, she drags a second chair over to a nearby empty table.] First lunch break in the library, lucky me that it's with a friend.

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[OPEN] People Can Lose Their Lives in Libraries

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