Lyssa Fitzgerald
February 11, 2019 10:19 AM
The library is a magical beast by Lyssa Fitzgerald
A sweet tangy smelled filled her nostrils. Almost like a bakery. A bakery of knowledge?Whatever it was, it was comforting. Like a hot cup of tea or bowl of soup on a cold rainy day. It smelled to Lyssa like adventures and unexplored possibilities.
As Lyssa walked down the stacks she let her hand run over the spines of the books. Feeling the different textures and lettering. Old and new, bound up, hiding... no saving their treasures for her or possibly someone else too.
To her that was the true magic of books, and by extension libraries, the ability for two people to share the same view or knowledge, if even for a moment. To be literally and figuratively, on the same page. Books weren't a winner take all event like the sporting games Parker loved so much. No, books were collaborative, a never-ending ever-growing game. That made this library a living thing in her mind. One of the unwritten fantastic beasts.
Lyssa's mom used to say, "If something grows, it's alive." And didn't libraries grow? Adding new books every so often, only getting rid of certain books or merely taking them off the stacks and moving them else where? If that's the case than to Lyssa that counted as growing and thus it was alive. And like humans, each library had a different personality. The small warm and bright library of her home town, where three cats would roam the rows of books and if you sat and read would sometimes curl up on your lap. Or the big bright library Lyssa's father had taken her to once to show her one of the buildings he'd worked on. It was so bright, walls painted white with sky lights reaching down floors, almost as if it were saying "This is a place of knowledge. A spark to light a thousand other lights in our community!"
And then there was this library. It was darker in both the colors used and the amount of light in general. It was more secretive, almost felt like more of an introvert to Lyssa. It felt like it would house some ancient text somewhere. Hidden for hundreds of years that no one had found since the school had been founded. Yes, it felt mystic. Which to Lyssa made sense, it being a part of a magic school. It was also relatable. Like an introverted teenager almost. Or a teenager with, what was the phrase her father always used, "an old soul". It felt like a person who'd keep showing more hidden depths the more time you spent with it, and so here she was, walking up and down the aisles not knowing exactly what she was looking for, but knowing she was in the right place.
She smiled as she arrived at the main desk. The sign posted next to the librarian's station made her smile. She hadn't really thought about it before she came to Sonora, but she supposed inside she thought there would be a lot more people that were anti-other people. Maybe that was just Parker's view point though. Still the sign asking students to reach out made her smile.
She stood at the front desk for a second, not knowing what she wanted to find or ask for. She knew thought, if she needed to find something she could probably find it here in the Library. Lost in her head Lyssa was unaware of anyone around her. A sudden sound broke her back into the present causing her to gasp in some of the vanilla scented air.
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
The library is a magical beast
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Lyssa Fitzgerald
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Ness McLeod
March 03, 2019 4:08 AM
It is indeed by Ness McLeod
Ness wound through the familiar shelves of the Sonora library, feeling happy. Sometimes, the place felt like an extension of the Aladren Common Room - partly because it was where the common room opened onto, but also because they all belonged there. It was nice to belong, in general, and in a place so lovely as a library in particular.Books were nice in a lot of ways, but one way that Ness was particularly enjoying right at that moment was that books didn’t make assumptions about people. A book did not care who picked it up, it was just the same regardless (ok, there were one or two really weird or backchatty exceptions to that rule in the magical world, but on the whole…). Sometimes the people who made book jackets made those kind of assumptions. ‘A must read for teenage girls’ or ‘Boys will love this thrilling adventure!’ And when you got into the content of a book, it could equally be problematic… The world of books was just as much a battleground against the raging tide of gendered bullplop as everywhere else in the world. But the library, with its books lying dormant on the shelves, was quite content not to pass any kind of judgement.
Ness emerged from the fiction section, and spotted someone at the desk. Lyssa. Ness knew the beginners’ names and faces, and Lyssa had the additional interesting footnote of being related to one of Kir’s friends. Ness approached.
“He’s out,” Ness offered helpfully, having got close enough to be able to make this remark without disturbing the quiet of the library. Not without disturbing Lyssa though, who jumped slightly.
“Hi,” Ness added, side-stepping into Lyssa’s field of vision and giving a little wave to demonstrate being a physical and non-scary human presence, and not some kind of library goblin that had snuck up. “He’s out,” the Aladren repeated, nodding to the librarian’s name plaque. “Can I help you? I’m a library helper,” Ness added, in case Lyssa wondered why the other second year felt qualified to offer such assistance, “I’m technically not doing that right now, but I know the library pretty well.”
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Ness McLeod
It is indeed
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Ness McLeod
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