The air smelled crisp and light from the winter winds meandering about from The Void, bringing forth the deeply missed paleness he had long awaited. Time for him moved slower, and therefore, made him appear younger than he seemed somehow, for he aged slower than time felt. To be fair, it never touched him like it did most. To him, it never really existed until he slipped into this universe as it was birthed. His old one was much simpler. There weren’t minutes or hours, much less days, years, aeons, etcetera. It was a language he had to learn. Thankfully for him, he had all the knowledge in the world at his fingertips. All he had to do was open a book.
That though was several thousand millinea ago. He had long since learned the ‘rules’ of this world. Of the Real and Unreal and the worlds Within and Without, made friends and enemies and found his Precious once more, as he had promised so very long ago. But this time his thoughts were not on his Precious Mortal, nor his Sweet Creation: the little Shrike, nor Forbes. Nay, 'twas someone old, yet new, that he had just found not too recently. Indeed, the Beautiful Imposter caught his eye.
He first found him in the Books of the Library he protected, his many eyes taking in his visage so intriguingly scribed and illustrated. Older than when the Earth was even considered a figment of The God Given Many Names’ imagination. Nevertheless, he read of The Imposter’s adventures and deeds, noble and otherwise, his form meandering about the twisting, interconnecting, and far from Euclidean halls of the Library, his spare Thoughts and the other Guardians keeping an eye on the various creatures both Real and Unreal that came here to research. In all of his reading though, he was astounded that The Imposter never came here, let alone had any knowledge of its existence.
This, he felt, he had to fix.
He exited his quarters and trailed down the stairs, once more admiring the marbled wood and amber of the spiraling stairway, traipses of his smoke lingering along the rails from his fingertips. He could more than easily glide down, from the several stories high walls, as his form was, well, formless, but nevertheless decided to take his time. This meeting, he knew, was never meant to be something rushed.
He was essentially smoke, vague in shape and even more-so in form. He had been given many a name: Boggart, Nightmare, Darkness, Old Man, Nyarlathotep, Ghost, Son of Morpheous (Laughable due to his very age, but nevertheless taken as a compliment), and so very many others. But his true name was far longer, and inscribed on the archway in a language no one knew, the Library excluded, of course. Translated: Tantibuiselalacklior Kendrickarium Umbrarum, Guardian of the Pandora’s Library of Knowledge, Secrets, and Lives. Tantibuis, if not Kendrick, for simplicity’s sake.
His time spent allowed him to take hold of a form tall and lithe, slender, as though a shadow caught in the low sun’s light, tendrils forming at the tail of a now wool-like duster, waist-length hair seemingly caught in an invisible wind, sharp and narrow eyes catching on the various pieces of knowledge placed carefully hither and thither, thankfully held tightly in place should the Library’s owner cause it to pause. Knowledge broken leads to far too much chaos unleashed, and he would hate for the Beautiful Imposter to come here under less than pleasant circumstances.
One of several hands that were not quite hands reached out, palm up, to have a pitch-dark scroll scrawled with twinkling runes made of mystery and, indeed, pure knowledge, that entailed of the Tower with No Door’s current location placed delicately on the semi-solid form of hand that now belonged to Tantibuis. Long, clawed fingers curled around it with care, as though holding one of his moths, and placed it onto an iridescently colored podium, unrolling it and pouring over the information with a calm grin. The air was cool, a comforting chill filling the Library to bring forth a tickling tingle down the spines of those who had one. And with the flick of a wrist, he imagined himself at the Tower (nay within, for that might set of The Imposter’s Murder, and he would detest forcing them to behave, much less so remove them from existence. He wanted to come as an ally, not a threat.) and found the Imposter peering at what may indeed become a new door to the Library, his mysterious myriad much masterfully maintained and managed: the Mural of Moth Wings, should he accept the questionably Unreal god’s invitation.
