The twinkling stars that illuminate the night sky for us today may not be what they seem, as their radiance may very well be nothing more than drifting memories from lightless husks.
A Blog for my TMA Vast and Desolation Avatars.
"Ah.. hello. Katerina here. Alya Katerina. I also go by V. I'm new to this whole Tumblr scene, and I'm generally not someone who is online in general, but I was told by some colleagues it'd be good to establish some sort of presence here online. I'm sharing this account with one of said colleagues who promised to show me how this works.
I've got a profound interest in astronomy and sailing, my favourite piece of media is Homer's Odyssey, and I'm well-versed in breadmaking and baking pastries.
I've recently started to work at the Magnus Institute in the library if you need to find me!"
"Hey, colleague in question here. Either call me Aiden or Harpy. If there's any fun chaos, let me know.. preferably sooner than later so I don't get any annoying ass lectures from AK up there or whatever. She likes to stop my fun a lot.
I like rock climbing. And uh.. doing random shit on the internet. Yeah.
I'm usually in Artefact Storage. Do NOT come looking for me or let my boss know I'm slacking off."
[OOC and more info below cut]
I'm back on my bs again. If you've seen my other roleplay blogs [[my main]> @therealestheadarchivist, @blood-hounds-and-brutalization, @gravedigger-duo, @records-of-theonewhoslumbers, @silverwings-the-silly or @gaz1ng-upon-eachother] you know how chaotic things will get.
A. Katerina. V. - (she/her in "Breathtaking")
She is an Avatar of the Vast who has learned to love the sea and sky, after being ridiculously sheltered for all of her life. She's been marked by the Buried and the Spiral heavily. She tries not to kill anyone when trying to feed the Falling Titan, she really does, but she can't help it sometimes...
"One with a radiance like yours, should be allowed to twinkle in the sky for their whole eternity... Would you like to experience that?"
Aiden/Harpy - (he/it/they in "Bonfire")
He is a Desolation Avatar that keeps close to himself. He has been kicked out of several events for calling people curses. It is not likable please beat them up.
"What.. hey, who the fuck wrote my description?"
It can also break the fourth wall for some reason, but not often.
"Fuck you!"
Tags:
#Twinkling - Interactions with Katerina
#Burning ties - Interactions with Aiden
#Supernova surveyors - Interactions with both Alya and Aiden
#Asks - For, well, asks.
#Ignition - For starting posts
#Gamma ray burst - For ending posts
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie stares at Adrian, absolutely stunned. Honestly, it seems like he might have at least a few things pretty well figured out, minus the actual terminology.]
"It is, isn't it?"
"Can either of you *please explain what is going on?" Aiden questions exasperatedly. Then, it pauses, looks up, and waves his hand a little.
*PLEASE!!!
I mean, I only know what I've picked up working in the Archives, but... okay.
You know how Katerina said you've been giving her Buried relics? The Buried is like... claustrophobia. The fear of suffocation. That kinda thing. So all the different Fears are different categories of what scares you, basically.
Aiden stares up [at what would be the Tumblr screen for us people] and blinks a few times in disbelief.
"Chat is this real?? Is the reason I have fire powers not because I'm in a superhero comic???"
"Uh.. no," Katerina replies. "Y'know. Your.. fear. Like your fear of everything you love being destroyed.. Desolation..."
"What are you on about? My backstory hasn't been completely written yet, idiot."
"????"
"'Supernatural Horrors' Institute? I thought this place was called the Magnus Institute?"
Katerina facepalms.
"... Again, what are you on about? We're not some.. weird little fictional people, we're, well, people with jobs. And lives."
"Mm.. Lucky you."
The air falls to awkward silence for a bit before Katerina decides to resume speaking.
"Hn. Aiden, I think we should document the hoodie and put it in Artefact Storage with the other stuff. I'll buy you a proper hoodie."
".... Only if you're not buying another cursed one," they acquiesce as it pulls off the hoodie. ".. This one is kinda itchy anyway. Feels like dirt."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie stares at Adrian, absolutely stunned. Honestly, it seems like he might have at least a few things pretty well figured out, minus the actual terminology.]
"It is, isn't it?"
"Can either of you *please explain what is going on?" Aiden questions exasperatedly. Then, it pauses, looks up, and waves his hand a little.
*PLEASE!!!
I mean, I only know what I've picked up working in the Archives, but... okay.
You know how Katerina said you've been giving her Buried relics? The Buried is like... claustrophobia. The fear of suffocation. That kinda thing. So all the different Fears are different categories of what scares you, basically.
Aiden stares up [at what would be the Tumblr screen for us people] and blinks a few times in disbelief.
"Chat is this real?? Is the reason I have fire powers not because I'm in a superhero comic???"
"Uh.. no," Katerina replies. "Y'know. Your.. fear. Like your fear of everything you love being destroyed.. Desolation..."
"What are you on about? My backstory hasn't been completely written yet, idiot."
"????"
"'Supernatural Horrors' Institute? I thought this place was called the Magnus Institute?"
Katerina facepalms.
"... Again, what are you on about? We're not some.. weird little fictional people, we're, well, people with jobs. And lives."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie stares at Adrian, absolutely stunned. Honestly, it seems like he might have at least a few things pretty well figured out, minus the actual terminology.]
"It is, isn't it?"
"Can either of you *please explain what is going on?" Aiden questions exasperatedly. Then, it pauses, looks up, and waves his hand a little.
*PLEASE!!!
I mean, I only know what I've picked up working in the Archives, but... okay.
You know how Katerina said you've been giving her Buried relics? The Buried is like... claustrophobia. The fear of suffocation. That kinda thing. So all the different Fears are different categories of what scares you, basically.
Aiden stares up [at what would be the Tumblr screen for us people] and blinks a few times in disbelief.
"Chat is this real?? Is the reason I have fire powers not because I'm in a superhero comic???"
"Uh.. no," Katerina replies. "Y'know. Your.. fear. Like your fear of everything you love being destroyed.. Desolation..."
"What are you on about? My backstory hasn't been completely written yet, idiot."
"????"
"'Supernatural Horrors' Institute? I thought this place was called the Magnus Institute?"
Katerina facepalms.
"... Again, what are you on about? We're not some.. weird little fictional people, we're, well, people with jobs. And lives."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie stares at Adrian, absolutely stunned. Honestly, it seems like he might have at least a few things pretty well figured out, minus the actual terminology.]
"It is, isn't it?"
"Can either of you *please explain what is going on?" Aiden questions exasperatedly. Then, it pauses, looks up, and waves his hand a little.
*PLEASE!!!
I mean, I only know what I've picked up working in the Archives, but... okay.
You know how Katerina said you've been giving her Buried relics? The Buried is like... claustrophobia. The fear of suffocation. That kinda thing. So all the different Fears are different categories of what scares you, basically.
Aiden stares up [at what would be the Tumblr screen for us people] and blinks a few times in disbelief.
"Chat is this real?? Is the reason I have fire powers not because I'm in a superhero comic???"
"Uh.. no," Katerina replies. "Y'know. Your.. fear. Like your fear of everything you love being destroyed.. Desolation..."
"What are you on about? My backstory hasn't been completely written yet, idiot."
"????"
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie stares at Adrian, absolutely stunned. Honestly, it seems like he might have at least a few things pretty well figured out, minus the actual terminology.]
"It is, isn't it?"
"Can either of you *please explain what is going on?" Aiden questions exasperatedly. Then, it pauses, looks up, and waves his hand a little.
*PLEASE!!!
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
"Uhuh. Yeah. Well. Aiden keeps throwing Buried artefacts at me on the regular."
"Can someone explain why the word 'buried' is capitalized!" it calls out, mildly frustrated and confused.
"Yeah, uh, he doesn't know about the whole 'Fear' thing yet.." she says awkwardly.
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
"Well, I only did that because I knew he'd be fine in the end.." she grumbles.
"In her defense," Aiden chimes in, although it would seem he's being held against their will, "I gave her Leitners on more than one occasion.. What was the first one?"
"It was DIG."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
"I.. Oh come on now.... I'm not as bad as they are," Katerina huffs, crossing her arms. "I haven't done anything weird! Name one weird thing I've done!"
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
"Eh? What was that?" Aiden can't help but ask.
Katerina only shakes her head and finally gets off the floor.
"I'm sorry about it," she apologises. "He's just.. strange. You'll get used to it."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
"I will throw you out a window Alya, so help me lord..."
Katerina is just on the ground now, although the laughter has somewhat ceased now.
".... ah.. if you throw me out the window, I'll drag you into my domain...." she drawls, sitting upright.
She looks to Ellie.
"Uh oh. Did we break you?"
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
Katerina just starts laughing even more. She's actually just kneeling on the floor now and still laughing way too much to breathe.
"I, well, wh.. I'm sure the readers have worse hear-me-outs!" Aiden protests. "Come on, at least one of you have to agree with me!"
To Ellie and Katerina, they're just yelling at thin air.
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
Katerina bursts into laughter, unable to help herself now.
"Shut up!!!"
"See," Katerina says as she doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and trying to control herself [and failing], "even she thinks it's utterly ridiculous! They called Elias 'fine shyte' once, whatever that means."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
"A fight? Wh.. well, no, I mean... Elias...."
Aiden trails off, its gaze distant.
Katerina strides over to Ellie.
"He's smitten I think," she whispers, looking rather proud of herself.
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
Aiden looks.. more than a little disappointed after hearing that actually. He's sort of sulking like a small child now, fidgeting with the hoodie.
".. damn," he huffs, finally looking away from Katerina.
The librarian steps back now.
"I'm sure he'll look at you eventually," she says, although she has a not-too-subtle mocking undertone. "You would just looove that, wouldn't you?"
"Shut up! You're embarrassing me in front of all the people reading this!!!"
".. Readers? What?.. I'll swear never understand you."
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
[The familiar phrase rolls easily off Ellie's tongue before she realizes that she actually has no idea if people from the other departments can get fired.]
Knowing him, I think he'd be more upset about the burn marks than anything.
"Will he?... Oh well. 's not like this job pays well anyway," Aiden grumbles, although he seems kind of half-hearted about it.
Katerina stifles a chuckle and adjusts the collar of his button-up.
"Hm.. maybe the pay isn't great, but the view is."
Aiden now looks like they're trying to set the librarian on fire using his gaze alone, and at this rate there's a non-zero chance it'll work.
[Ellie shoulders open the door to the library, barely managing the stack of books she's holding– it's nearly up to her chin. She spots Katerina and smiles.]
Oh, hello! I was sent up from the Archives to return all these?
@ask-ellie-hayes
Katerina looks up from the book she's reading upon hearing Ellie's words. She takes only a second to memorise the page number before setting the book down and scrambling to her feet.
"Oh, let me help you with that," she says as she makes haste, already reaching out to take some of the books. "Ah.. oh dear, who's the genius who sent you with all of these by yourself? And all the way from the Archives! That must've been a pain."
[Ellie shrugs, actually capable of doing so now that her load has been reduced.]
Eh, not really anyone in particular? I was going to bring mine up, and I kind of just ended up with everyone else's while I was at it. You know how it is.
Katerina can't help but frown slightly, shaking her head with a tad bit of disappointment.
"That's still not alright," she sighs as she shifts her hold on the books to hold them with one arm, "and honestly? I'd prefer if I just got a call to come down and get them myself. It's not like I do much else in here anyway."
Katerina goes and sets the stack of books down on a table, waving Ellie over to set down the others.
"You're welcome."
Katerina already starts sorting the books into different, smaller piles, muttering something about some of the books falling apart, and sone of the spines being broken. After a minute or so, she picks up one of the smaller stacks and walks over the the nearest shelf, skimming all the titles and authors.
"You know," she speaks up as she places the first book, "no offence, but the Archives seem to be lacking a bit in.. organizational skills."
You're... not wrong. I think the head archivist was trying to get things put together better at first, after the mess the last one left, but... actually, I don't really know. I don't think it's really been a priority since I started.
[She examines one of the damaged books and sucks in air between her teeth.]
These are a wreck, though. I'll let them know to be a bit more gentle.
"Mm.. Don't bother with that," Katerina states, shaking her head once more. "I've tried that. It works for half a week at most before it's back to.. well, property damage. And I've seen far worse anyway."
Katerina vaguely gestures to a box next to her desk with a pile of.. very damaged books, as well as a glue stick or two, and rolls of tape.
".. Book repair wasn't on my job description, but Elias is damn lucky I can do a decent job."
I mean, maybe if there's someone right there reminding everyone? I'll give it a shot at least, try to make your job a bit easier.
[She peeks into the box of damaged books and cringes. At least one of those is her work– in retrospect, forgetting a book in the Spiral's corridors wasn't her best idea. She's lucky she even managed to retrieve it.]
"Much appreciated."
Katerina finishes with the first stack of books and moves onto another, casting a glance up at Ellie as she gazes into the box. She can't help but chuckle at least a little.
"You know," she continues almost lazily, "those aren't even the worst of the worse. One time I had to fully reassemble a book from scattered pages alone and basically rebind the whole thing."
"Oh, haha, well, honestly, I'm just.. I used to bind books fairly frequently, so.."
Katerina shrugs her shoulders, reshelving the last of the books with a slight huff.
"Wow, okay, all done," she says as she dusts off her sleeves, stifling a sneeze. "You all needed a lot of books, huh? I mean, then again, it's the Archives. There's probably a lot of research being done down there or something."
That's still really cool. I'd love to try getting into something like that.
[Ellie finally tears herself away from the box of damaged books and joins Katerina near the shelf.]
Mmmm, there are a couple big readers down there. But it's more of a buildup over time type situation, I think. Probably another reason why I ended up bringing them all up at once.
"Oooh.. yeah. That's fair. I actually have a list of books made specifically whenever the Archives request them under certain topics. I don't draft them as overdue immediately or just grant extended time, since I've seen how hectic it can be once or twice," Katerina mumbles, crossing her arms and leaning against a shelf.
"... Actually, that reminds me that I should probably check if Blackwood has returned that one book on baking that he requested for personal use.. hmm.... Maybe I should start marking books as overdue again."
[Ellie laughed. Hectic was... certainly a word for it.]
Well, things do get crazy down there on occasion, but most of the time things are actually pretty quiet. You don't need to let us get away with things like that. Even just a friendly reminder would be more than appropriate, I think.
"Hm.. well, alright then, if you say so," Katerina acquiesced. "Maybe the overdue fees with instill some sort of.. responsibility and discipline."
She pulls out her cellphone, quietly cursing the poor wifi connection before scrolling through some sort of list.
"... Oh! It seems Blackwood has actually returned the book. Meanwhile both Sims and Stoker.. will need a good talking-to, it seems."
Agreed. And maybe I could talk to everyone about setting up a drop box for the Archives? That way someone could run it up once a week or so and nobody has to worry about coming all the way up to the library to return things all the time.
[Hopefully Jon won't be too... abrasive with Katerina. Ellie thought she'd gotten all the books that had been laying around the Archives, but she certainly wouldn't put it past him to have a few more holed up in his office. And Tim's are probably just crushed into his desk somewhere.]
Katerina's eyes seem to twinkle slightly at the suggestion.
"Oh, that'd be lovely, actually.. and quite convenient!"
She returns to looking through the list.
"... Hm.. seems I've got to go down to Artefact Storage as well. Someone's got a book or two waiting."
She seems to be slightly irritated at the mere thought of Artefact Storage.
"Oh you have no idea.." Katerina groans, facepalming. "The amount of times I've had to go down there and smack someone with a Leitner because they 'accidentally' sent it up here instead is.. well it's quite the astronomical number."
[Ellie cringes. She hasn't had any direct experiences with a Leitner, but she's been in the Archives long enough to have heard the stories. Katerina is probably lucky to be as unscathed as she seems to be.]
Oh, and having those end up in the library would be a disaster. Do you just have to check every book that comes through, then??
"I do, unfortunately."
Katerina pauses, and then grimaces as a horribly awful memory comes to mind.
"Oh my stars. Speaking of Artefact Storage, I've got another piece of.. cursed clothing to give them."
"I.. don't know actually," Katerina admits awkwardly. "I mean, hm, first was a tie-dye shirt that turned out to be marked by the Spiral and caused me to visually contort like I was in a funhouse mirror. Then it was this pretty nice leather jacket.. or, well it would've been nice if it didn't start bleeding when you put it on."
Katerina nods towards a hoodie draped over the edge of her desk.
"And that hoodie seems to have been cursed to suddenly pull the drawstrings tight and choke out the person who's wearing it."
"Eh, it's fine," Katerina answers nonchalantly, looking rather dismissive now. "I mean, I managed to carry it from my house to here without any harm, so I think the journey to Artefact Storage wouldn't be much of a hassle.
.. That being said... I could always just call someone from over there to take it away for me..."
"Ah.. unfortunately I've been doing on with this 'rivalry' since I got here."
Katerina stands up straight all of a sudden, looking like she now has an idea.
"Oh, I know exactly who I'm going to call to pick this up actually.." she mumbled, already typing something into her cellphone. "Hehe.. he'll never see this one coming."
Katerina, while waiting, moves to her desk and sets down her phone. She picks up her thermos and takes a sip, unable to stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. She looks like the epitome of mischief.
"Only when a certain someone is particularly irksome," Katerina drawls, taking another slow sip of the drink in her thermos. "Of course, it's nothing more than mere jokes, though."
A harsh, insistent knocking on the door interrupts the librarian, but she doesn't move to open it.
Katerina sets down her thermos and stretches.
"No, no, I'll get it."
She walks over to the library door and locks it with two clicks before returning to her desk and calling out, "it's open!"
The door rattles on its hinges violently for a few seconds, as if it's barricading some bizarre feral animal, before the air falls silent once more. The knocking resumes.
"Oh, believe me, it gets worse," Katerina responds, voice low.
She walks to the door, ensuring her footsteps are audible. She then stands in front of the door, unlocking it with one click and re-locking it with another. She then returns to her desk, smug as ever.
"Okay, harpy boy. It's open for real this time."
"You better be honest right now!" a sort of raspy, squeaky voice called from the other side calls out.
Five seconds later and the door has been kicked clean off its hinges, and in the doorway stands a guy who radiates the most angsty teenager energy that someone who isn't a teenager could possibly have. It's slightly stunned as he stares at the door, which is now on the ground.
"Still not the worst thing I've seen."
Katerina finishes her drink.
"Hello, Aiden."
"Don't 'hello' me, V," Aiden scoffs as he steps over the fallen door. "You told me the door was open!"
"Never said you had to kick the door open," she retorts, barely suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "I mean, the violent option was always your thing anyway.."
"You little-"
"Shhh.. we have a guest," Katerina continues, casting a glance at Ellie and smiling politely just as before, but it feels slightly off.
"Oh, uh.. hey. I'm Aiden, or, whatever, I don't really care... But nice to meet you too, I guess."
He looks back over to Katerina.
"What did you call me for?"
The librarian gestures to the hoodie on her desk.
"You always tell me how cold the back of Artefact Storage is due to the vents back there, so I got you a hoodie."
".. wait, really?"
"Oh." He looks back to the librarian. "Are you sure?"
Katerina nudges the dark blue hoodie slightly.
"Yeah, it's a spare. I know it's not really your colour, but I think it'd work for the time being."
Aiden approaches, glances at Ellie, then Katerina, and then picks up the hoodie.
"Oh wow. It's warm. And heavy," he comments absentmindedly. ".. I'll put it on back in Artefact Storage."
"Oh, uh, yeah, do that!" Katerina adds quickly, reaching out and placing a hand on Aiden's shoulder.
"... You're not gonna take a photo of me looking stupid in some ugly ass hoodie, right?" he questions a little harshly as it shrugs Katerina's hand off of them.
"Ah, no, of course not.."
Aiden scrutinizes the hoodie for another minute before it gives in.
"... Fine."
He pulls on the hoodie.
".. You know, blue actually doesn't look terrible on m-"
The drawstrings pull tight. They cough and sputter. It starts flailing around like a fish out of water.
Katerina honestly.. kind of just sits there on the edge of her desk, swinging her legs.
[Ellie looks disbelievingly between Aiden and Katerina for a moment before fumbling in one of the desk drawers and coming up with a letter opener, of all things.]
Aiden, with an excessively defiant expression despite being strangled right now, shakes their head and steps backwards as far as it can before he grabs the drawstrings. It begins to smoke a little before bursting into flames, and it snuffs it out just as quickly.
Katerina looks amused, but also a bit relieved.
"Good job," she says flatly while Aiden is slumped against the wall, desperately trying to catch his breath. "And I didn't need to bother the fire department this time!"
".. I'm fine," Aiden stutters as he straightens the hoodie, which—now that the drawstrings have been destroyed—seems to be harmless enough.
"It's been through worse," Katerina chimes in. "And, in my defense, so have I, so it's perfectly fine!"
".. If it doesn't behave, then I'll burn it."
"You say that like it's an animal, harpy," Katerina points out.
"It sure as hell felt like I was being attacked by one.."
They stare down at the hoodie once more.
"You think Elias will be upset if I'm technically wearing an artefact around the Institute?"
