LSRO: Chapter 297 - Almost Archaic (Patreon)

Weeeeeeee

Bit late, but I did it!

I actually think I have my ducks lined up now. Maybe. Probably about 95% at any rate.

Hand is still crap lol

~~

Chapter 33

Almost Archaic

Quinn knew she was right, but just how right, she wasn’t exactly sure. The minutes Carafax had given her were old, as in ancient, as in an almost archaic tone. She found it actually difficult to interpret their meaning properly. 

She’d obviously been quiet for too long because Malakai cleared his throat before speaking. “So either it’s really interesting or it’s so dreadfully dull that you’ve just fallen asleep with your eyes open?”

Quinn barked out a laugh and the rising tension she’d been experiencing seemed to dissipate with the laughter. “No, no, I’m actually awake,” she said, shaking her head. “Just, I’m not entirely sure how to interpret this.”

Mal frowned and stepped over to where she sat on the desk. “Well, how do you mean it’s difficult to interpret?”

Quinn shrugged and spread the journal very carefully so that he, too, could see its contents. Although the journal was old, magic had to be keeping its pages pristine and whole, so she didn’t feel like she was in danger of damaging the journal to spread it open. It was one of those Librarian instincts, the knowledge of how best to preserve any book she touched.

She indicated two sections on the page. “Do you see this? First here, to the order of time allocation of Korradine’s tenure and then there’s some legal jargon I’m really not understanding here. But then there’s also,” she pointed further down the page before continuing, “a close race between Korradine and Sarilia to be the next Librarian, not approval-based, voting-based. Sarilia withdrew.”

Quinn looked up at Mal very excitedly, expectantly. 

Mal frowned. “Do you think it’s the same person as Sarila, Quinn?” He asked incredulously.

Quinn continued her nodded encouragement, and he paused. “But how? I don’t think the Salosier lived for 10,000 years.”

“Do we really know that she was a Salosier? We came across people who camouflaged themselves as the Balisor clan.” She paused. “Do you see what I’m getting at?”

Malakai nodded. “Well, it makes sense,” he said, “In a weird roundabout sort of way. You think Sarilia is really Sarila, and it was a spy, or do you think Sarilia could be a relative?”

Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you to help me interpret it.”

“But I’m not knowledgeable...” he paused. “Sorry, I’m also not helping by arguing the point.”

Quinn chuckled. “We should probably ask somebody who knows then.” She didn’t mention that Escadril was no longer there because of Sarila. It made her feel all sorts of empty whenever she thought about it.

“No, you’re right,” Malakai said. “Do you think we should ask Narilin for help?”

Quinn sighed. Narilin had been extremely close to Sarila. She probably needed to check on their book doctor. After all, she’d just lost not only her grandfather of sorts, but also somebody who had been a parental role model for her. It had to be difficult and yet she was constantly repairing the Library books lovingly and efficiently.

“I really, I don’t know,” Quinn said. She ran a hand through the hair that had fallen out of her ponytail, pulled it out and twisted it around the elastic band in her hair, trying to get it out of her face. She suddenly felt a bit overloaded. “I really don’t know how to go about figuring this out,” she said, suddenly somewhat defeated.

Malakai shrugged. “Well, you’re the Librarian, and this is kind of the stuff you have to deal with.” While the words were sort of harsh, he did say them kindly.

Quinn sighed. “Yes, but you’ve been here like as in this world, universe, whatever, way longer than I have.”

He chuckled. “Well...” 

But Lynx interrupted him. “You could just ask me,” he grumbled.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “I guess I didn’t need to because you just offered to take a look at it.” She teased, her tone light.

This time, he glared at her. It was probably the most unimpressed look that he had ever given her before. He sighed, sounding very put-upon, and picked up the journal reverently, closing it very carefully. “Fine, I’m going to take the journal with me and gather Dottie and we’re going to go over it. Oh, don’t look at me that way, Malakai.”

Malakai raised his hands in self-defense to either side of his head. “Hey, I’m just worried about the journal. It’s been entrusted to us.”

Lynx raised an eyebrow. “You don’t actually think Carafax gave us the only copy of this one. There’s no way he did that. Their annals aren’t for public consumption. This is, as far as I can tell, a very rare stepping in by the Chroniclers. They gave us a copy, not the original. It has protections. Can’t you feel them?”

Quinn let out her magic senses toward the journal, which she probably should have done earlier, she realized. It could have had traps in it. It could have had anything in it. But this didn’t. And it definitely had nothing threatening about it.

“Oh,” Malakai said, “well, you make a good point. Anyway, I’m gonna get Dottie.” And then Lynx was gone.

Quinn blinked after him. “Oh, well, I, I guess we can go over the results of the security scan I did with the Library.” She felt a little off-kilter. Overloaded. Overwhelmed. Suddenly very hot, and the room around her felt smaller than it was. And it wasn’t a small room at all, which she knew. She paced her breathing: in for four seconds, hold for two, out for four seconds. She did it multiple times, while Malakai looked on somewhat concerned.

“Are you feeling unwell?”

She shrugged. “I’m healthy, just a bit... It hasn’t been that long since my last synchronization, and I don’t think I have quite wrapped my head around the changes that were made this time. Everything is more vivid, more alive, more connected. Especially me.”

“Well,” Malakai said, “how about you take a breather, while I go over the information you gathered? Can you share it with me?”

She smiled at him. “I can definitely share it with you.”

For several seconds, Quinn just watched him. There was a lightness to her thoughts now, to allowing Mal to take a look at the things she’d already seen. Right now, she couldn’t see the forest for the trees and that was a big problem. Compartmentalization was a great thing as long as she could keep track of everything. But with Jasper’s death, the revelation about the Library’s siblings, the little eyeball hijacking her memories, the core, and the other plethora of things... the separations she’d created to keep everything on track were slowly fading. 

She couldn’t afford for things the meld back together. It’d be chaos.

Her only option was to slow down, analyze everything again, and make sure the lines she’d drawn were strong. 

So, she pulled the breathing trick again. Four seconds in, two seconds hold, four seconds back out. It was amazing how calming that could be. She went through all the memories she had, examining each section of the compartmentalizations, and found there were things in there she hadn’t paid the proper amount of attention to that she probably should have.

The main thing was the eagle eye everybody had been so shocked she’d pulled out of head and manifested in reality. When she thought about that, it was bizarre. That she’d dismissed it as something so normal felt odd now. Perhaps there’d been magic to make her not notice it, or else not recall what she’d done with it. How did they shrink the eagle eye down to get into her memory in the first place? Had she blown it up? Were they usually really small? She shook her head and laughed.

“Everything okay there, Quinn?” Mal asked, looking up from his HUD.

She smiled. “Just realized I dropped the ball on something.”

“Do tell.” He grinned at her.

“Not yet, figuring it out first.” 

He returned to the information in front of him and Quinn continued to figure out what was bugging her about the eagle eye and its tie to Ardenil. If Quinn had an eagle eye, what was to say that other people in her vicinity didn’t have an eagle eye as well? Didn’t it stand to reason that it could be a way to track them and perhaps thereby also the Library? No, not exactly because Ardenil had lost possession over the eagle eye. Was that because of how long it had been there or because Quinn was now attached to the Library? She really needed to talk to Nishpa. It was probably her next stop.

And if they had been able to track her with the eagle eye originally, why did they need to access the tracking ritual that Jasper had left behind? Quinn groaned ever so slightly.

“You know, you could just take a break.” 

She looked up at Malakai. “I don’t think a break will help. I’m more stuck. It’s like I need something to kick-start this thought I have in the back of my head and help me get my brain around it.”

He perked up at that. “Is there anything I can...”

But the door burst open and Nishpa floated into the room.

“Shouldn’t you still be hospitalized?” Quinn asked.

“Obviously not because I’m already here,” Nishpa said in her sort of overbearing but kind of sweet way.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “I see you’re here. Should you be here?”

Nishpa pondered the question for a second. “I do believe Dr. Miles’ exact words were that he couldn’t keep me there if I insisted on leaving. And so, therefore, he didn’t keep me there as I insisted on leaving.”

Despite herself, Quinn chuckled. That sounded exactly like the Nishpa they’d all come to know and love. And she heaved an internal sigh of relief at the fact that the little Firionas Fae she’d befriended was back to her old self after her horrific encounter with Sarila. Which was part of their problem and one that she didn’t really want to bring to Nishpa’s attention right then.

“Why the frown, Quinn? Talk to me.” Nishpa’s gaze was clear, determined.

 “Why are you here? Why did you insist on leaving?”

“Oh, I was absolutely fine. I’m healed. They don’t need to keep me there anymore.”

This time, Quinn’s raised eyebrow had absolutely no effect on Geneva’s aunt.

But finally Nishpa capitulated. “Fine. I wanted to speak to you about your eye.”

That was when Quinn noticed that the eye was hovering behind Nishpa. Peeking out and glancing at Quinn before it ducked back behind the hovering fairy as if it was shy or perhaps unsure of its welcome.

“Hey,” Quinn said. “Come here.”

It poked its head out, blinked twice and looked up at Nishpa, who nodded. And then it hovered over to where Quinn was. Its little wings beating rapidly.

“You... can you tell me why you were put in my head?”

It blinked at her and sort of held itself at a diagonal. Which ended up being really weird with the way that its wings beat because it sort of went in this weird circle. Quinn couldn’t help but laugh at it. “Can you just sit down?”

“It can’t, Quinn,” Nishpa said. “It’s not able to stop its wings.”

“Oh.” That surprised Quinn. “How did I pull it out of my head, then?”

“I don’t know. I would literally have to have a look at your memories.”

“Well, you can.” Sometimes magic just made things so much easier.

Nispha studied her for a few seconds. “I know I can. I just... I think you’ve had so much crap in your head that I should probably leave well enough alone just for a bit.”

Quinn nodded. “Probably.” 

“I think we have a couple of things that we need to do, Quinn.”

Malakai had sat himself half on the desk, his arms crossed as he watched the Firionas Fae speaking to Quinn. His body language was receptive and so Quinn was less worried about what Nishpa might say. Despite Mal being very close to her own age, comparatively, to the rest of people around her, she always felt like he’d been there so much longer that he had better instincts than her around magical creatures and beings. He seemed mostly relaxed, and that helped Quinn’s tension ease as well.

Nispha sighed before speaking very forcefully. “I think... I think we need to go and visit Ardenil.”

Malakai grunted. “We don’t know where Ardenil is,” he said. There was exasperation in his voice, as if he just... he knew that it was tied to a portion of his family and he was irritated that he couldn’t be more help.

“That’s not exactly true,” Nishpa said, practically cringing at the admission.

“And how is it not exactly true?” Quinn asked.

“I meant exactly that. It’s not exactly true that we don’t know where Ardenil is.”

“Then why have you been keeping it from us?” Quinn blurted out.

“I haven’t been keeping it from you.” Nishpa winced as she spoke.

Malakai swore. 

Quinn didn’t even know what language that was, but she knew swearing when she heard it. Her translation protocol had failed. “Tell us how you really feel, Mal.”

He turned around, his eyes blazing. “You realise that since I don’t know and Nishpa doesn’t know what that means, right?”

And then Milaro was in the room, his hands on Malakai’s shoulders. “We all realise it, Mal.” his grandfather spoke gently.

And that’s when it clicked for Quinn. Of course. That meant Arnekai had known all along and hadn’t told any of them, even while she’d been in the Library treating her son.

~~

THE THOT PLICKENS

lol

Much love

KT