Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 12

Lament of the Author

I’ve cut my soul into

a thousand pieces

And placed them in

a thousand worlds

That I might live

a thousand lives

And love a thousand times

-Chapel Orahamm

Life of a Librarian: Ch 12

Morning felt like it came too early.  Though the artificial sun indicated it was six, I still bemoaned the night going by too quickly.  My neck ached from not moving.  I had been tired.  After my lashing out from the day before, I was guaranteed to be exhausted.  The shower did little to ease the cramped muscles.  I could do with black coffee or a really strong cup of tea.  Caffeine. That was all I was wishing for.

I pulled myself out of the shower and faced down the bags of clothing.  Ill-fitted black suit again? Jeans with a black and white flannel? Or the cargoes and sweatshirt I ended up sleeping in on the couch last night? Sylwyn had been wearing jeans and a black t-shirt the last couple days. Maybe I could take my cue from him. Feeling like I was going to be underdressed, I tugged on the jeans and flannel combo. Pilfering the medicine cabinet mirror, I found an old jar of pomade and got my cowlick to behave itself.

I joined Sylwyn at the counter to stare at the empty box of cereal.  “Are you sure about the PET scan?” He took the box and collapsed it down, folding it over and over until it would fit into the trash can.

“You said it yourself. It would be a good idea to have a starting point to work off of,” I pointed out, dropping utensils from last night back in the drawer with their counterparts.

“It’s just weird.  It took me years to prepare to become a Simil.  You’re doing this almost overnight with no real preparation.” He put the mugs back in the cupboard and took the plates I handed him.

“It’s not like I’m consuming a character today, Wyn.  Don’t I have to find out who I want to become first, or something like that?” I dried my hands on the towel on the fridge door and grabbed up my suit jacket. “Can I treat this thing like a blazer, or is that a faux pas?”

He stared at it in confusion. “If you mean to wear over the lumberjack look, yeah, no, don’t. Different fabric if you were going to go all hipster professor.”

“I feel really underdressed.”

“I’m wearing a t-shirt.”

“With a sword. Ain’t nobody gonna say boo to that big daddy.”

“Did you-did you just call me big daddy?”

“No. I might have kinks, but it is way too early in the relationship for you to get access to any of those. Called the sword big daddy. It’s as tall as me. And freaking heavy.” I pulled on my boots and tied the laces around the ankles. “It’s a summons right? How do you keep it around?”

“Oh, no not a summons.”

“But you said it came out of a manuscript.”

“It did. I took it over to Laury to make me a physical copy.”

“Ohhhh. ‘K, that makes more sense.”

“Anyways. Characters would be something we can do later.  Usually the Chair chooses a series of books and allows the Simil candidates to choose which one they want.  It keeps characters from being brought out more than once,” he explained, opening the door for me.

“Why did you take the Mad Hatter?” I walked out into the hallway and turned to see his answer.  The hair on my arms rose.  Sylwyn’s posture shifted as the door clicked shut. The man was right, he remembered walking out of his apartment, and then his alter ego would just take over.

“A chess set today? Shall we find some tea?” Hatter asked.

“I guess I must look like a chess board, though I do believe that would be ill-advised to play around the queen of hearts. Tea sounds charming, Hatter.  We have something else to do today, though.” I waved to the hallway to start us moving.

“Oh?  Shall we visit with the Chair?  I don’t remember leaving them yesterday.  Ms Drover was cranky,” he mused.

“There are better words for Ms Drover that aren’t for polite society,” I muttered.  “But no, I don’t think we need to visit with the Chair today, Hatter.  Can you take me to the CT/PET specialist?  Sylwyn told me that I need to have my brain scanned so that they know where their starting point is for having me become a Simil.” My stomach coiled at the idea.

“I hate that machine,” he grumbled.

“You don’t have to get in it,” I persuaded.

“All right.  Do you want to recite Aristotle with me on our way?” he asked gleefully.

“Why don’t you tell me, and I can join you the next time?” I offered.  It had been years since I had read Aristotle.  We proceeded at a nice pace down the hall to the lines of Metaphysics.

“Here we are.” He bowed in mock humour.  It had felt like a good half-hour walk down the halls before we finally found ourselves in another grey hall with another metal door.  Simil knocked gently before opening it to reveal what appeared to be a regular doctor’s office.  

The receptionist looked up at us, startled.  “Simil! H-how can I help you?” she stuttered, wary.

I walked forward to get her attention. “It seems it would be advantageous as a prospective Simil to have a CT, PET, or MRI done of my brain.”

Her eyes swung to focus on me, and colour drained from her face.  “Y-yes, I can schedule you in.  I need to make a q-quick call,” she stammered.  Hatter motioned me toward the seating area, and we sat down in the rather uncomfortable chairs to wait.  I tried to eavesdrop on the receptionist without being blatantly obvious about it.  I couldn’t tell what she said, though.

“We can get you in now,” she smiled reassuringly, her demeanour shifting from nervous to confident, but she wasn’t faking very well.  Her colour had turned a mottled green.  She handed me a clipboard, pen, and a medical history and release form to fill out while she scuttled to the back

“Thank you,” I said appreciatively.

Coming back in scrubs, her colour had improved. “Let’s get the IV set while we’re waiting.” She pulled out a hermetically sealed set of bags and tugged on a pair of gloves. I rolled up my sleeve and let her jab the needle into the soft spot of my elbow and tried not to flinch when she started digging. A blown vein and a second try proved successful, even if it had to be in the top of my hand. “A bit dehydrated. You need to drink more water.”

“Thanks.”

“A nurse should be with you shortly.” She left back to her desk.  We sat in silence for about half an hour before a tall man in pink scrubs opened up a door to let us into the back.

“Good morning,” he greeted us pleasantly.  The first nice reaction I had seen outside of Laury and the pharmacist. The Librarian Guild medical facilities were giving me some faith.  

“Good morning,” I said cheerily.  Hatter followed a step behind.

“We’ll need to run you through some vitals. Can I get your weight?” He motioned to a scale just inside the door.  I stepped on the scale, and let him get a heart and blood pressure read.  He took my temperature.  Once finished, he ushered us into a regular-looking doctor’s room.

A good twenty-minute wait later and a scruffy man in a starched lab coat walked in with a clipboard.  “Good morning,” he checked his clipboard once more with a furrowed brow, “I think this is wrong. Mr Thaddeus Jaegar? You’re not…”

“No, that’s right. My legal name is Thaddeus Jaegar.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, we can get that changed for your new name.” He took the cap off his pen with his teeth.

“New name? No, no this is my new name, just got it changed over the summer.”

He paused, blinked, eyebrows furrowing. “I’m gonna need you to explain.”

“Is it essential for a PET scan?”

“Need to make a note in the chart for clarification. Would help to not catch nurses by surprise if you’re looking at becoming a Simil and end up unconscious in the Guild ER needing a cathetar after a battle.”

“That is the weirdest way someone’s ever asked me what I’ve got in my pants.”

“So?” He poised his pen over the paper.

“Female to male. You’d know it if you checked my prescription. Should be on the list in your hand. I just filled it yesterday. Had the pharmacist request my medical files be sent over.”

“It’ll take thirty days to get those in. I can get you scheduled with the ob-gyn on staff for yearlies. She’ll keep your script going. Might be a bit for a gen-prac to have an opening, but as long as you don’t get Cthulu chomping your shoulder or a laser gun to the gut, you should be good otherwise. I can draw blood labs while we’re here and have a needle in you anyways and get that done for updated records. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Jaegar.” He shook my hand. “I am Dr. Edgar Munce.  I’ll be administering your PET scan today.  I have spoken with the Chair, and they approved the procedure.  Can you run me through a family medical history?” he asked.  We proceeded through a litany of questions, determining if I was at risk for going into the machine.  “Simil, do you need to be here for this?” The doctor eyed the man.

“I asked him to be here for this, seeing as he’s been through it and could reassure me of the proceedings,” I spoke up.  Dr. Munce frowned.  “Your medical history is supposed to remain private,” he explained.  

“Private with the right to tell whoever I want about whatever I want, you just aren’t. HIPPA. I’ve seen the docs enough times. It will be alright,” I reassured.

Eventually, the questions ended.  He took out a paper hospital gown from the cabinet and handed it to me, along with a clear plastic bag.  “Put all of your belongings in here and put this on.  There needs to not be any metal in the machine, so take off what you can.  Do you have any implants or dental fixtures?” he asked.  I shook my head.  “Alright, I’ll let you get changed, and a nurse will be in to escort you to the next room.” He flicked his pen toward the other door in the room.  He opened the closer door to exit the room.  “Simil?” He pinned the man with a glance that could have melted a hole through metal.  Hatter exited after the doctor.  I was left in the cold room, alone and asking myself why I was doing this so willingly.

Changed, and my belongings shoved in a plastic bag, I waited on the examination chair.  The male nurse popped in from the other door the Dr. had pointed out and ushered me into the next room with the machine.  I laid down, watched them hook up a machine to my IV line and waited for the process to be over.

In the doctor’s waiting room once more, I had changed back into my outfit, a bottle of water in hand to help clear out the contrast dye.  Hatter sat quietly in the corner.  He seemed deep in thought.  “This is taking longer than I thought,” I spoke up if only to break the silence.  

“Time is and time is not; it’s all just a thought,” Hatter’s vocal fry was rough in the room.

“Are you okay?” I asked.  

He looked up at me, puzzled. “No one’s ever asked me that.”

“You’ve been quiet, sitting there fidgeting.  Do you not like doctor offices?” I asked.

“It’s lonely.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Why are you nice to me?” He picked at the seam of his jeans.

“How so?” I had taken to asking him questions when he asked me questions.

“Back at the receptionist, and even with Dr Munce, you took over,” he speculated.

“Can I not be nice to who I want to be nice to?” I asked.

“Does it benefit you to be nice to me?”

“I’m not sure yet, but should it matter if it benefits me or not to be nice to someone?”

“Thank you,” he said.  I folded my hands in my lap to not mimic his fidgeting.  “Being different like this hurts after a while,” he tried to smile at me, but his lips quivered. 

A knock at the door disturbed our conversation.  The doctor came in, not looking very thrilled with the people clinging to him. He held a manila envelope, his body language protective over the little packet against the people. “Thaddeus, the Chair is demanding an audience and not taking no for an answer.”  Following him were seven individuals in robes and masks and Ms Drover.  The room was filled to bursting.  Simil stood to greet the Chair.  Ms Drover looked at me in horror. I was starting to wonder if that was just her resting face.  

One of the individuals in robes extended a hand to me.  “Ms Oppenheimer, it’s nice to see you again.  It looks like you are in good health.  What brought you to the doctor today?” he asked kindly.  

“What brings you to my appointment?” I countered, suddenly wary.

“Simil, bind her,” Ms Drover commanded.  His eyes grew large at the command, eyebrows going up.

“What’s going on?” I asked, not moving from my place.  Hatter approached me and softly whispered a pair of handcuffs into existence.  “Hatter?”  He looked back at the Chair, pleading.  They waved him on.  I held out my hands to him as he slipped the metal loops around my wrists.  

“You’re behaving nicely today,” one of the other Chair stated.

“Can I ask why I’m under arrest for visiting a doctor?” I asked.

“We will discuss this in a different…safer…place,” another Chair hesitated.  A gag was produced from one of the Chair’s robes.  

“You put that on me, and you will regret it immediately,” I hissed.  The Chair handed it to Hatter.  His colouration paled as he studied the red wiffle ball looking piece of equipment.  “I can go with you willingly and with less disturbances if you just treat me with an inkling of respect,” I bit out between clamped teeth.

“We respect the power you wield,” the female Chair flicked thin fingers in Hatter’s direction in a bid for him to move on with his assignment.

“I signed your damn papers!  At least I know I’m keeping my end of the bargain!” I shouted at them. I stood up from the chair and took the gag out of Hatter’s trembling fingers.  “Where the hell are we going?”  I stomped toward the door.  One of the Chair moved to block my way.  “Well, if I’m cooperating to go wherever the fuck you are wanting me to go, you can damn well get out of my way!”  

The man reached for me.  A light whisper in the chaos.  A singing slash and crunch of metal cracking tile had me falling back against Hatter’s chest.  One arm wrapped around my waist, and his chin rested against my head.  The tip of a longsword stood between the Chair and me.  “Simil?” the man growled.

“See, I told you he was acting weird.” Ms Drover pointed at us.  I turned a seething eye on her.

“I’m seeing that, Ms Drover,” the female Chair responded.

“You’ve bound him as much as I’m going to let you.” Hatter’s personage was changing in front of my eyes. White gloves on his hands. An iron brown sleeve with small mother-of-pearl cuff links. I glanced up at him to catch a hint of a top hat brim.  The male Chair stepped back.  

Doctor Munce was shaking, a cold sweat pouring off him.  “All of you! Out of my clinic! I didn’t give you permission to do this here.”

The power of a Read ran through my arms.  The handcuffs cracked under a burst of extreme cold.  “And that’s as much as I’m going to let you bind me.” I chucked the handcuffs out the door.

Three of the Chair leapt forward, grabbing at Hatter and myself.  A torrential downpour of water suddenly soaked everyone.  Snow blew into the room, dropping the temperature to negative thirty in seconds.

“Back. Off.” I enunciated, kicking and scratching to get them to let go.  “Damn it, just tell me what is going on!  If you want my cooperation, I work better with people if they just fucking talk to me!” I dropped the temperature in the room again.  “And just to mention it, if it wasn’t already obvious, I can Read without saying anything or moving my hands, so binding me won’t benefit you anyway!” I headbutted one of the Chair.  The mask cracked and fell off.  A middle-aged man in a goatee stared back at me, stunned.  He scrambled to grab his mask.

The Chair was having difficulty in the extreme cold.  They were beginning to shake uncontrollably.  “Hypothermia, do you want to feel it?  I have quite a few lines from Jack London memorized,” I seethed.  Finally, the last of the Chair let go of me.

“She really is a Dewey,” the last of the Chair murmured in the onslaught of frigid cold.

“That was the whole point of me coming here, bastard!  I was trying to get a starting point.  I was doing what I signed up for!  That doesn’t mean you should harass me like this every freaking time I do something.” I pushed further into Hatter’s hold, his body warm against my back in the blizzard.

“No.” Ms Drover took the file from Doctor Munce and flicked it at me.  The papers fell around me.  Hatter bent to pick them up and hand them to me.  

I looked at them, stunned.  “Hatter,” I asked, the cold stopping as suddenly as it started.  He cocked his, eyes searching back and forth across my face.  “I need Sylwyn,” I whispered, my hand shaking.  He leaned into me, gently kissing me.  

“Deus? What’s wrong.” Sylwyn looked up, stunned to see the whole Chair in a doctor’s waiting room.  I handed him one of the scans.  “Why do you have my scan here?” 

“That’s not yours, Wyn,” I said, knowing with that one sentence what I feared was true.

“That’s Thadddeus’s,” Doctor Munce answered.  “Who are you?  What happened to Simil?” he asked.

“Names Sylwyn Aetherweard, Dr. Munce. Your predecessor was the one who got me through character consumption.” He wrapped himself around me, trying to protect me in some way from the Chair.

“Who are you?” Ms Drover demanded from me.

“I’m Thaddeus Jaegar. Library studies student, part-time TA when I’m not being abducted by psychopaths,” I spat, but I wasn’t as sure of myself as I was ten minutes ago.

“Do you really not remember who you are, Dewey?” the man with the broken mask asked.

“There has to be something wrong,” I trembled.

“Who did you consume?” another Chair asked.

“I don’t know.  I don’t know what’s going on.” The shaking was getting worse.  The scan had the same blossom of colour as Sylwyn’s did when he had consumed his character.

“When did this happen?  Simil, did you have her take on a character yesterday without the proper procedures?” accused the female Chair.

“No. He didn’t.  I don’t remember ever consuming a character.  There has to be something wrong with this scan,” I handed the envelope back to Doctor Munce.

“With what you can do, I’d have to argue not.  You are not Grace-Alice Oppenheimer,” the Chair that had tried to block the door said.  

I swallowed, desperate for the numbing heat of panic to disburse. “Who am I then?” I whispered. The blossom of panic wrapped up my spine to strangle me.  Every fibre of my being threatened to twist apart. Reads lingered at the edge of my fingertips, and I knew in that instant that I was not safe to be around. “Wyn. I can’t be here,” I gasped.  I searched his face, begging him silently to fix this.

“It’s going to be okay, Deus.  We’ll figure this out,” he tried to reassure me, a hand rubbing my arm.

“Where were you taking me?” I asked.

“To Unabridged,” the female Chair answered.  Sylwyn cursed.  

“Will it keep everyone safe?” Dizziness was creeping in around the edges of my hearing.

“You don’t want Unabridged, Deus.” Pain laced Sylwyn’s voice.

“Will it keep you safe?” I asked him once more.

“Deus,” he beseeched.  

“Sylwyn…?” I was trying not to break down in front of the Chair, but my mental fortitude was just a hairs width from being completely shot.  He nodded and pushed us out the door.  The Chair followed behind, yelling about the gag and the handcuffs as we rushed through the halls at a fast clip. Sylwyn ignored them.  Twists and turns were nauseating, and all I could do was make empty promises with my stomach, beginning it not to hurl.

We ended up at a door that looked old and rusted.  It gave me the creeps.  Sylwyn turned me to him.  “You sure of this, Deus?  What’s on the other side of that door is not a pleasant experience.”

“What is Unabridged?” I grasped at his arm, my one anchor in the rolling sea, as I turned to the Chair.

“We allow the Simil free reign. We see just what the character in full encompasses,” Ms Drover stood well back away from us, arms protectively crossed over her chest.

“They strip you bare, put you on a metal table, strap you down.  Then they stick you with needles and hook them up to electrodes and some chemicals until you feel like your brain is melting and you want to die.  Then you black out.  When you wake up, you’re in a cold cell, rocking back and forth, feeling like you were just opened up and your skin was flayed and stretched out to be sewn up again with searing hot needles. Gives you nasty flashbacks and a fear of enclosed spaces,” Sylwyn growled at the Chair.

“It forces the repressed character to take over, in an environment that is safe to us, so that we can verify who the character is and see what powers they wield,” one of the male Chairs tried to qualify.

“It’s torture,” Sylwyn hissed.

“Did you know this was going to happen to me when I signed up to be a Simil?” I dragged in a breath and let go of Sylwyn, hand going for the door. His description scared me. The Reads at my fingertips scared me more. My emotions were always either too far on or too far off. Scared was too far on, and Reads were there to protect me. Which meant I had to protect those around me from myself.

“I had hoped to forewarn you about it before you signed the papers.” He bowed his head.  I fought my terror. I swallowed, nervous.  Laying my hand on the doorknob, I twisted it open.

Inside the room, around a small privacy-wall was a white-tiled chamber.  A metal table sat in the middle, and operating theatre lights hung from the ceiling.  A drain in the centre of the floor didn’t bode well for my opinion of the place.  Machines were plugged in around the table.  A small man, sitting in a chair in the corner, looked up at us, startled, his eyes locking on me.  “Why is she not bound?” he practically screeched.  

I glared at him.  “Shut up.  This is humiliating and scary enough to not have some weasel yelling at me, too,” I snapped.  He rose out of his chair, rushing me.  He stopped short at the tip of a levelled longsword.  The man checked himself, suddenly confronted with the cotton candy clown of death in full regalia.

“Do I at least get a hospital gown or something?” I asked, staring at the table.  

“No.  Cold is meant to hurt,” Hatter answered.

“And this is why they pay us the big bucks. Thanks for keeping this from Wyn, Hatter.” I flipped the buttons of my shirt and shrugged out of it. Socks, pants, and compression top followed suit. Hatter helped me get unstuck from the binder I was very close to burning with hellfire in that moment.

“What are you doing? Simil!” The man hadn’t stopped yelling through this.  “Chair!” He turned to the robed figures.  They all had their backs to me.

“Hatter, he does anything…” I shivered in the frigid temperature and dropped the last of my clothes on the pile, and kicked them away from the floor drain.

“He won’t be the only one to die in this room.” He turned his disorienting gaze on the Chair.  They flinched at his threat as I climbed up on the cold table.  I sucked in my breath.  The sting of the metal on my skin was just the beginning.  Hatter directed the man at sword point.  “Don’t abandon me,” I pleaded with Hatter as the man clamped the padded restraints on my wrists and ankles and placed electro-pads on my skin.  I gritted my teeth as a series of IVs were placed in the arm that hadn’t had the vein blown out.  It wasn’t bad until he proceeded to set another on the top of the hand I hadn’t had an IV in yet that day.  Then he went to my feet.  I really wanted to die when he set another pair in my soles.  Cursing was about all I could do at that point. 

When the needles were set, and I couldn’t fight my shaking anymore, Hatter floated into my teary vision, the bill of sale in his hat band wavering.  “I know you don’t want this, but it will keep you from biting your tongue off.” He held out a mouth guard with a strap.  

“Better than the ball,” I gulped, tears streamed down my face, and I opened my mouth.  He brushed my cheek gently as he settled the mouth guard around my teeth and velcroed the closure behind my head.

The man started the machines.  Various liquids dripped through the IVs around me.  Fire ran under my skin in acidic waves. I felt like my skin was melting off.  The IV dripped for three hundred beats before ice surged through my veins, and stars popped behind my eyes.  Four hundred and eight beats, and my ears rang, and chainsaws shattered my bones.  Two hundred and seventy-two beats and my vision turned to pinpricks of light, and all I could hear was the ocean.  Eight hundred and three beats: a searing pain, like a million little jagged, electric knives flaying my skin ran across me, and I buckled and contorted, trying to get away from the feeling.  Load after load, beat after beat, of variable pain triggered my nerve endings. Time slowed down to the drip of an IV line.  I could only take it with every wave.  The power built under my skin like it had the day before, but there was no outlet.  I could only face the cage that was my body.  The power surged as I tried to release it, to go with it.  Then it all stopped, as suddenly as it started.

I was staring at the ceiling, blinking through the pain.  The bleached smell of the room had been replaced with the smell of…roses and…tea.  I rolled my head to see the entire room taken over with a garden.  The Chair stood stunned in the room, distracted with butterflies and birds of a strange sort.  A table in the corner held a menagerie of pots and teacups.

Hatter’s face swam into view as he laid my flannel across me.  “Alice-Deus?” he whispered.  I blinked at him.  He reached over and gently removed the mouthguard.  

“Hatter?” I rasped, my throat raw.

“Who are you?” The Chair asked in unison.

“Alice-Deus?  It’s really you,” Simil beamed.

“Hatter, it’s always been me.” I closed my eyes against the overly bright lights.  I was still trying to wrap my head around the pain I had just dealt with.

“Hatter, who is she?” The Chair asked once more.

“He is Alice-Deus,” he answered them happily.

“No, we know she is called Grace-Alice Oppenheimer.  Who is she?” Ms Drover pressed.

“You are as loony as the Walrus, Ms Drover,” Simil replied.  “He is Alice that I met all those years ago.” He pulled the weasel by the collar over to unstrap me and helped on the other side.

“You mean she is Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” One of the male Chair asked, stunned.

“It’d be nice if I could have my clothes back on while we talk about this,” I mumbled.

“Why is she still talking like herself?” one of the other Chair asked while the weasel unhooked me.  I hissed when the needles were removed from my feet.  

“Why does that have to hurt so bloody much?” I retorted.

“Because we have to force your repressed character out.  The first time a character is consumed, the brain tries to close off ties to the character.  It’s to keep the mind intact as much as possible.  If you can break the wall before it is built, the character can cross over more easily,” a different Chair explained.

“I thought I was supposed to black out.  God, that would have been better than being awake for that experience.  At least a morphine drip or something would have been polite,” I groused.  I sat up and rubbed at the bruising.  “I’m not gonna be able to walk for a couple of days, you heathens,” I shot at them, looking at my feet.

Hatter handed me my clothes and held his jacket out for my own privacy from the Chair.

I pulled on the bare minimum of my clothes and stuffed my undergarments in my back pocket. No way in hell was I going to try to tug or pull anything tight on. My skin felt like cactus needles were buried under every square inch of it. The Chair walked around the garden, mesmerized with the detail when they got that hint.  Hatter, when he was satisfied that they were ignoring me, and I was done getting dressed, brought me a cup of tea.  He sat down on the table next to me.  

“Thank you,” I whispered to him.  He smiled encouragingly.

“How long have you been like this, Alice?” Ms Drover finally turned and asked me.

“Thaddeus, Ms Drover. Is it so much to ask? For the life of me, please, call me Thaddeus. You know, I don’t have any memories of my parents from before I was six?” I chuckled morosely.  I had to think about it.  I remembered first grade.  I remembered the teachers always amused with my sense of imagination.  I never really thought too much about it, though.  My parents had always acted a little concerned about my actions, but I thought that was normal.

“Is it possible?” One of the Chair asked another.

“Did she consume a character at such a young age?” The other responded.

“But why did she phase so late?” the female Chair asked.

“Are there others like her?” another one asked, trembling.

“He, you fucked up heathens. He. Now what? What more do you want from me today, because if you can’t respect me, my name, my pronouns, or my gender, I’m exhausted and going to go lie down somewhere that doesn’t involve needles.” I stood up, teetering on painful feet.  They all turned to me.  

“Now I take you home,” Hatter made it a statement.

“Simil, we must discuss your behavior!” one of the Chair stepped forward.

“Even the best of trained dogs bite, Robinson,” Hatter’s aura took over the garden in a shadow.  The man withdrew a step.

“Going back to the apartment sounds nice.” I took the crook of his elbow to support my weight.  My feet stung. I grabbed the laces of my boots, tied them in a knot, and slung them over my neck. I had no energy to try to pull them on.  I wasn’t going to stay in that room one more second.  I hoped to never see the place again.

“You need to inform Sylwyn of this,” Simil cautioned.

“Yes,” I agreed, heading for the door.  One of the Chair strangled a squeaking protest.  I levelled a gaze at them.  “I’ll meet with you tomorrow in the testing grounds to discuss this further,” I told them as we walked out of the room.

Hatter walked me back to his apartment in silence.  He spoke fhuasgladh for the door to unlock and held it open for me.  Inside the room, he closed the door behind us with a click.  He caught my hand, pulling me up against the wall next to the door.  He pinned me, one hand pulling my waist against his roughly.  He kissed me harshly, sparking fire in my lungs.  Resting his forehead against mine, he drew in a ragged breath.  “You are terrifying in your earnesty, Alice-Deus,” Hatter informed me.  I stared up at him in a daze.  My lips felt swollen, and my core trembled.  He kissed me again, as his mapped my body against his.  Lean strength crowded, reassured, erased the day for a moment.  “Why did you do that?” He finally relenting.  I braced myself against the wall, my knees shaking and threatening to cave.

“I’ve done a lot, Hatter,” I tried to catch my breath.

“Why did you allow them to Unabridge you?” he specified.

“Because it meant I controlled the situation,” I rested my arms on his shoulders, twining fingers behind his neck to put most of my weight on him.  “It meant they couldn’t take away my free will.”

“You need to speak with Sylwyn, Alice-Deus,” Hatter kissed me once more.  His demeaner shifted, and I knew Sylwyn was back. 

He drew in a startled breath, surprised to be back in the apartment.  He pulled me to him, burying his face in my hair.  “Damn it all, Deus, I was so scared for you,” he sobbed.  “When I saw the scans…I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t know that you had consumed a character already.” He picked me up and settled me at the counter stools.

“Wyn,” I held his attention.  “They Unabridged me.”

“God, that had to be horrible.  You’re here, though. Did the Mad Hatter watch out for you?” he asked, hopeful.  I nodded, chewing on my lip.  “What’s wrong?  Did you find out what character you consumed?” he asked.

“That’s the thing.” I reached for him, but pulled my hand back to my lap, unable to touch him.

“What is it?” He sat next to me.

“The character never came out,” I told him.

“So, you aren’t a Simil yet? The scans were wrong?” he asked with relief.  

I shook my head, and horror crossed his face. “I think it happened so long ago.  I’m…I’m Alice. I’m the Alice to your Mad Hatter,” I tried explaining.

“I’m not following, Deus,” he said, confused.

“You told me yesterday of your fear,” I searched for a way to not have to say it, but came up empty, “of one day not waking up.” I rubbed at my wrists where bruises were darkening, unable to look him in the eye.  He sat, stunned, unable to move.  “I am what you fear,” I explained.

“You mean…you aren’t Thaddeus Jaegar?” he looked crestfallen.  “For…for how long?  I mean, you just Phased. It’s not like this was happening recently?” he asked.  “Were you you or were you Alice when we met here or in college?” he persisted.  

I shook my head.  “Grace Oppenheimer must have consumed me when she was very young, when she was just learning how to read.  I don’t think she ever realized what she did.  I can remember growing up, from about the age of six.  That’s my best guess at when I became me. My birth certificate never had Alice as part of my name. My folks called me Grace-Alice. Uncle Thaddeus called me Ally until I asked him and mom if it would be okay to go by Thaddeus,” I tried to explain.  That was the best I could understand about what was going on.  That had to be the explanation for why I couldn’t remember my parents before the age of six.  Why I had always suspected I was adopted.

“They knew.” Stunned awe crossed his features.

“I don’t think I would have ever thought about it until today. Thought it was just them looking for a cutesy girly nickname when I was a kid.”

“But you don’t remember your story,” he chirped.

“I remember the book because I’ve read it a billion times.  I’ve had dreams about Wonderland, but I always thought it was because of reading, from watching the movies.” I set my hands on the counter, leaning against it.

“Alice is a little girl though, not much beyond the age of what, eleven?” he asked.  

“Have you ever watched the movie Hook?” I asked him.  He nodded.  “Do you remember how Peter grew up and forgot everything about Neverland?” I pressed.

“You grew up,” he mused.  “But why have you never Read anything out before?” he asked.

“I don’t know.  I mean, the first time it ever happened, that I can say definitively was back in the warehouse when I was sorting books.  I mean, yeah, I felt like I had characters from books come to life in crowded buildings, things like that, but I wasn’t aware of actually doing anything on my own,” I guessed.  “Maybe I broke the amount of energy it took to consume a character at that age, and I didn’t gain it back all at once, but it had to accumulate over time?” I mused.

“What about Mad Hatter?” he asked me.  I looked at him, perplexed.  “How did he take finding out that you were Alice?  Was he there for you during…” he fidgeted.   I blushed, my eyes glancing away from him.  “Your character is supposed to be a child,” he protested.  

“I’m the main character to his storyline, and he just met me all grown up,” I mumbled.

“So…you and he…” he tried to wrap his mouth around the words.

“Kissed…”I supplied, not able to look at him.  He stood suddenly, chair legs grinding on the floor, and walked away from me.  I followed his flight with aloof eyes, trying to fight down my feelings of being hurt.  It had to hurt him too, to find out I was nothing more than a character from a book, and his character was in love just as much as he was.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Deus.” He moved across the room to the window.  I sat there in silence, not sure how I was supposed to respond.  This was so frustrating.  “You…you’re already a Simil.  There’s not much left for me to teach you.” He brushed at a few flyaways from his ponytail.

“Are you telling me to leave?” I asked, sliding out of the counter stool.  He looked up at me, startled, like I had just slashed him with a knife.

“No, I-I just…” he paused, not sure what he was trying to say.  It wasn’t going to do either of us any good for me to blow up right now.  I wanted to grab my things and run, but the only person I would be running to right now was standing in this room.

“What do you want me to do, Sylwyn?  I don’t know what I can say right now to you to make you okay with what is happening.  That’s the operative word here, I guess.  Making you do anything takes away your decision here.  See, the thing is, even if I left here, I don’t know where I would go.  I’m a Simil in a Library Guild.  I can only guess that we are not well-tolerated in most places.  The only place I would be running to is back here because I only know you and the Mad Hatter.  I am isolated here.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.  If I kiss you, Hatter might come out, and if I kiss Hatter, you might come out.  What do you want me to do? You told me to call you out if you’re being jealous. I don’t think that’s what happening now, but I am reminding you.” I pressed him, feeling like the remainder of my strength for the day was cracking.  He walked to me.  I allowed him to wrap his arms around me and sagged into him.

“I’m sorry, Deus.  I’m not being fair to you.”

“We’ll figure it out, Wyn.  That’s something we were always been good at doing in college.  For now, I’m exhausted, and my feet are killing me.” I withdrew from his embrace.  I pulled my flannel off and my shoes.  

“Thaddeus Jaegar!” he exclaimed at the bruising on the bottom of my feet.  

“Yeah, I wasn’t thrilled about it either.” I pulled my compression shirt over my head for the third time that day and tossed it on the counter stool, not giving one damn that I was hanging out all over the place.  I walked into the bathroom, tripping over my jeans as I got them off.  I turned the plug in the tub and ran hot water for a bath.

“Damn it! They need to find a better way than Unabridging someone to verify character possession,” Sylwyn hissed behind me.  

I turned in the mirror to see what he saw.  I had bruising across my shoulders from slamming into the metal table convulsively.  I had red puckering under my skin from whatever they had injected into me.  My wrists and ankles were bruised a sickening green-blue.  “I can emphatically agree.  I was awake for the whole thing.” I eased into the hot water.  It stung my feet painfully, but as I sank into the bath, the rest of my muscles unwound.

“Seriously?” he asked, sitting on the toilet seat next to the bathtub.

“Yeah. If you are already the character, going into blackout’s not going to happen.” I closed my eyes, savouring the warmth.

He cursed. “That must have been miserable.”

“The restraints were there so that my convulsions didn’t send me off the table, ’cause that’s all my body tried to do was get away from whatever drug they put in those IV lines,” I expanded.  “And yeah, brain-melting was definitely an apt description for the first couple minutes of that procedure.” I made little waves with the bubbles and water, enjoying the texture.  “At least I didn’t bite my tongue off.”

“What?” Sylwyn didn’t quite hear me.

“Hatter gagged me to keep from biting my tongue off.” I motioned to my teeth.

“He what!” Sylwyn came off the toilet, furious.

“Mouthguard with a strap to keep me from spitting it out so that I wouldn’t bite my tongue,” I soothed.

“What if you had puked?  Some people puke when they’re in too much pain.” Sylwyn wasn’t sure what to do with the tiny space.  There wasn’t enough room to pace.

“Didn’t think about that at that point; I just wanted my teeth to stop chattering and grinding.” I slid further into the tub, my knees exposed and cold.  

Sylwyn slumped back to his seat, burying his head in his hands.  “I’m sorry I wasn’t the one there for you, Deus,” he apologized.  

I laid my hand on his leg.  “Hatter, I think he took over, so you wouldn’t experience that. I’m alive, and we have answers to our questions.  It’ll work itself out in the end.  I scheduled with the Chair to have them at the testing arena tomorrow.  Hopefully, I can get them to figure out exactly what I’m supposed to be doing here, outside of being harassed,” I tried to reassure him.

He took my hand and brought it up to his lips, his eyes shifting back and forth across my face. “Said I’d date you, Deus, didn’t know I was bargaining for my heart to stop every time you got an idea in your head.”

“And it’s only been a day, and you’re already dealing with me taking over the bathtub.” I tried for levity.

“This how you’re going to always address pain?”

“Meh, it’s what I do to get through heart-attack level cramps, so yeah, probably.”

“Heart attack?”

“Those don’t happen as often now I’m on T.”

“Thaddeus Jaegar, how did you not just outright kill the Chair today? I feel like it would have been the most valid reason for you to have completely slaughtered them.”

“I agreed to Unabridging because I feared I would, and I didn’t want to take you out with them by accident.”

“Yo, bastard, I thought we made an arrangement that you weren’t going to hurt yourself trying to make me happy.”

“My happiness would have gone down the drain if you got taken out, so I valued the mental over the physical health, and I’m laying here in a bath with you sitting there looking at me, trying really hard not to have an anxiety attack at being perceived. Feed me cookies when we get done here, and tell me I did well.”

He chuckled at that and pulled a towel out of his cabinet. “Deal. Tonight’s bread pudding night at the cafeteria, but if you don’t mind waiting, I can go down to the general store and grab groceries.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“That exhausted; I’m waiting ’til you’re out of that water and dressed before I leave. Don’t need Mad Hatter going on a spree just because his Alice drowns in a tub getting over the Guild manhandling him.”

“Fair.”

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 11

I dropped my bags next to the shoe rack when the door clicked behind us.  A sigh escaped me as I relaxed into the gentle light of the setting sun in the courtyard.  This had to be one of the more beautiful times of day to see the apartment.

Sylwyn dropped a stack of mail on the counter.  He proceeded to reach into his cupboard and pull out a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.  A knife from the utensil drawer and a plate from the cabinet followed suit.  “Want one?” he asked, looking up, suddenly realizing that he had fallen into a pattern.

“What type of peanut butter you got there?” I asked.

“Smooth?” He turned the jar over to read the label, even though he had already smeared it across the slice of bread.

“Mind if I?” I pointed to the curtains that hung to the side of his floor-to-ceiling windows.  He looked at me quizzically and shrugged, “make yourself at home.”  I walked over and found the pull rod in the folds of the drapery.  They were heavy hotel quality with a darkening capability.  I tugged them closed, finally shutting us off from the Guild.  I closed my eyes and relaxed in the dim light of the underlit cabinets and nothing else.  It was so nice to finally feel like I wasn’t under prying eyes.

Sylwyn cleared his throat.  I opened my eyes to look over at him.  He had laid his knife down and was braced against the countertop, trying not to look at me.  “Deus, what are you doing?” he finally asked.  

I raised an eyebrow, confused.  “Closing the curtains?”  I thought that was fairly obvious.

He was fighting a smirk and losing.  “I mean,” he gestured to me, still refusing to look at me.  

I looked down.  “Eep!” I squawked.  My three-piece suit and everything else had disappeared.  “What the bloody hell?”  I cast around myself, expecting to see the green and brown material pooled up somewhere.  “Wyn?” I crossed my arms over my chest in panic.  He came around from behind the counter, putting his hands up in a placating manner as he tried his best not to laugh and keep his gaze off me.  “What happened?  Is this going to happen when I’m in public?” My heart was beating too fast, and my throat was closing up.  

“It’s okay, Deus. I’m surprised that didn’t happen earlier.” He grabbed my bags of clothing and medication and thrust them in front of me to help me with my sense of modesty. I grabbed the brown paper and crushed it against my front.

“Now, do you need sand, or you good to head in there?” He turned his back to me and pointed to the bathroom.

The tightness in my chest unravelled as I tried to understand why he offered me sand. “Sand?”

“You’re breathing again. Go get changed. I’ll get a sandwich put together.”

With a sideways scuttle, I made off for the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I upended the bag of clothing. Dragging on boxer briefs, I grimaced at how high they rode on my hip. I’d need to see if I could order in my preferred brand that was cut to deal with my shape. I groaned. My packer had ended up in the washing machine. I wasn’t about to go and dig it out in front of Sylwyn. I’d need to wait for when it wouldn’t be as obvious what I was doing.

Sighing out, I pulled on a pair of loose green cargoes, black tube socks and combat boots. Turning to the mirror, I took out the medication from the pharmacy and the little blue pencil case and foam I’d picked up. It had been a blessing that the lady on the other side of the counter had been more than willing to send for my script and hadn’t fought me on why I needed it. She smiled. She pointed me to the pencil case and suggested the foam to keep the bottles from breaking. Tears slipped. I’d needed that. I just needed someone to be helpful. I sank to the floor, sniffling like a baby. She’d made sure to spell my name correctly in the medical file and told me she’d get me a proper carrying case ordered down so I wouldn’t be making do. The waterworks refused to stop.

“Deus?” A knock startled me out of my thoughts.

I hiccuped. “Yeah?”

“You alright in there?”

I pulled myself back up to the counter. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m alright. Doing better.” I reassured.

“I’ve got hot chocolate going out here when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Wyn.” I pulled out one of the alcohol wipes and got my shot finally taken. I dug into the cabinet to find my binder still damp. I resigned myself to my fate and tugged on a sports bra, a compression undershirt, and an overly baggy red sweater with the word Tokyo scrawled across it. Along with a small box of pads I had bought just in case missing a week on my shot messed with my cycle, I shoved my pouch to the back of the cabinet behind the towels. Grabbing the brown bag from the pharmacy and the other bag with another change of clothes, I let myself out of the bathroom. I scuttled back across the living room expanse to the laundry machine and pulled my clothes out. Stuffing them quickly into the one empty bag, I pocketed my packer, relieved that it hadn’t gone all clumpy on me. I’d need to time it again to get back into the bathroom without being weird. Dropping my bags under the side table near the window, I finally sat down.

Sylwyn set a cup of hot chocolate in my hands and the plate on the side table.

I waited.  I felt like that was something I was mastering recently, waiting.  “I guess,” Sylwyn settled next to me. An eyebrow rose, and he pulled my tie from under the couch. He handed it to me, and I tossed it on my bags, “that might be the first thing I can teach you.”  

I blinked up at him, not trusting my voice yet.

“I had asked you earlier today if you had summoned the suit, right?” he asked me.  I nodded.  “Most summons, most Readings only last for so long.  An unRead helps in dismissing something quickly and keeps backlash like unBound from happening, that way you can leave an area or a battle without waiting for a Read to pass.  unReadings are vital to keeping the Guild safe.  Say you summon a…a…hmmm…a vampire or something like that; you wouldn’t want it sticking around for very long, right?” he led me on.  I nodded again, taking a sip of the hot chocolate.  It wasn’t really something I drank much of anymore, but I could sympathize with Sylwyn not keeping tea in the apartment.

“How were you releasing, or passing, or unReading your other Reads, your other summons?  Like the mammoth and the unicorns from earlier?” he asked, pushing me to think.  How was I doing that?  I sat and thought about it.

“I…it’s…um,” I wasn’t sure how to explain it.

“It’s okay if it’s hard to really say.  Try to formulate it, though; it’ll help you later…or at the very least, me,” he smiled encouragingly.

“When I Read something, it’s like, I can see pictures in my head of what I’m wanting.  I have to be really exacting in all the details.  Then, I just sort of…reach for it, but with my mind.  I have to will a lot of power into it, like I ground myself to the floor.  I feel like I pull power out of the ground.  It’s a thing you do when you centre for meditation, so I know I’m not actually pulling energy out of the ground or anything like that,” I apologized.  He nodded gently.  “When I want to unRead, without having to say anything I…it’s almost like I have a thread or a leash attached to the thing I Read, and I just let go of it.  Does that make sense?” I asked him, not sure if that was really accurate.

“It’s an interesting way to phrase it.  Essentially when most Guild members are taught how to unRead, they are taught to form poems that help them focus on letting go of the object, returning it back to its original source.  It takes a long time and a lot of practice for most members to be capable of unReading.  They have to learn how to let go.  You seem to have found the most fundamental aspect of what unReading is.  It is a tether.  Your Reading takes your energy to project something, and your unReading is releasing your connection to it all at once.  If you wait for a Read to pass on its own, it will wear you out; eventually, you don’t have the energy for it after a bit.  Sometimes, if it’s a big Read that took a lot of effort to project, it can backlash, and you can end up with unBound reactions.  You aren’t suffering any negative effects that I can see as being unBound, just startled.  You were holding a Read for the whole day and doing more on top of that without losing your hold on that one.  You must not have really realized that you were still holding it, and when you finally relaxed completely, you let that one go,” he explained. 

He was explaining, and I was fixating. His hair had come out of its ponytail. It looked silky, and I wanted to run my fingers through it. I touch the tip of my tongue to my bottom lip, my mouth suddenly feeling dry just by watching his lips work. I shifted my glance to the bookshelves and tried to breathe through the warmth seeping up my skin. Looked like my libido was back in gear where it had been before. I swallowed, trying to divert my attention to an action. Didn’t help at all. His fingers were long, thin, maybe qualifying as delicate. His muscle, hard as it was, was sinuous rather than bulky. Shadow played along cut edges. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets on the side of my thighs. Stupid side effect. I just needed a distraction. Needed to concentrate on the conversation. “Well, if it means I have to relax completely for something like the suit to go away, I won’t have to worry about losing it when I’m out of here.”

“Why’s that?” Sylwyn asked.

“Because it’s stressful outside of these walls,” I answered.

“Fair enough.” He laid his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

“Sylwyn?” I asked after a time.

“Hm?” he was dozing.

“I’m sorry about earlier.  I shouldn’t have taken such a low blow out on you.  It wasn’t fair,” I apologized.  

He sighed, trying to figure out how to respond.  “You know…you’re right.  Honestly, I’ve hated being the Simil so much.  It sucks.” A light plopping sound brought my attention to his face. A dark spot on his collar was the only hint that a tear had escaped.

“I’m beginning to see that,” I whispered.

“What about the Simil, though? You don’t seem to have a problem with him.” Sylwyn rolled to look at me.  His face was blotchy, and his eyes were red and watery.  The mismatched black and pink irises stared back at me.

“With you,” I answered.

“But -” he protested.

“See, all I see is you, Sylwyn, or Simil, or Hatter.  All I see is what’s in front of me.  You have changed in so many ways, but you are still you.  You are still the man I had a crush on all those years ago.  The man I fell in love with, talking about the validity of Tolstoy’s explanations of man’s nature.  Simil is only part of you, not you entirely. I knew I couldn’t pursue you back then. I didn’t have a name for what I was back then, but I knew I didn’t quite fit in with the gender I was born in, but I saw you with your boyfriends, and I knew I had no business even trying. I wasn’t interesting to you. Doesn’t change the fact I had feelings. Doesn’t change how I see you or Hatter.” I knew I could be burning a bridge saying it. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Not something you’re probably interested in.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Sylwyn’s brows pushed a wrinkle together over his nose.

“Reflex? Fear?”

“Fear?”

“I kinda found myself on social media. Safer behind a screen being the real me. You read some nasty shit living online. Kinda get used to being hated on by the mainstream, and dealing with the gatekeepers in the community. Internalize that hatred. The ones from the side that say you can’t be bi, can’t be pan, can’t be demi, or ace. Bottom surgery leaves behind ‘creepy dicks’. If you’re transmasc and start dating a guy, that you should have just stayed straight. That’s entirely dismissing how both men want to be treated in that relationship. If you’re a transmasc and date a woman, you should have just come out butch lesbian and not butchered yourself. Fuck that; that’s dismissing lesbians and what they want from their partner. Seen too many gays and lesbians on vids rant and act like they’re gonna vomit about how disgusting transmascs are. It becomes the expectation that I’m just disgusting. Sucks existing, you know? You finally get a name for this thing, finally start fixing the mirror, start feeling like you found a way to stop trying to rip your skin off just to realize that everyone still hates you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for kissing you. For existing.”

Sylwyn ran a knuckle along my forearm, startling me from continuing to unfurl. “You told me earlier I hated myself for the Mad Hatter? Looks like we’re in the same boat, here, Deus.”

I let out a self-deprecating huff and a soft smile. “You’re not wrong.”

“You didn’t ever ask if I was gay.”

“You. Had. Boyfriends. That you were really close to. I saw more than one hickey on your neck.” I glared his way.

He slapped a hand on his neck, cheeks going red. 

I snorted at him.

“And until you changed your name and started presenting and fighting to have people see you for who you really are, I would have thought you were a straight girl who lived in hoodies and cargoes ‘because they’re comfy’ as you liked to say.”

I pulled my hands out of my pockets as the knot of worry in my chest loosened. “Are you saying…?”

Sylwyn shrugged. “Masc presenting. That’s what I’m into. I’m a switch, and have a preference toward male physiology. Not like that can’t be figured out with a few toys. And yeah, I’ll agree, bottom surgery looks kinda Frankenstein to me, but I’m not disgusted with it, just being honest at what I’ve seen.”

“I don’t think I ever saw you with anyone that…well, I guess I wouldn’t actually know if any of your partners were trans then if they’d gone through with all the mods,” I mused.

“To be fair, no, none of them were. Not to say I haven’t had a crush on one or two that I’ve seen on social, you know, back when I had access to internet.” His voice got louder at the end of that statement like he could passive-aggressively hint to the guild through the apartment walls.

I fidgeted, going for my mug before thinking better of it. I set my hands on the couch, not sure what to do with my enegery. The question I wanted to ask was also one I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer for yet. Swallowing, I dove in, “are you, um…”

“Am I?” Sylwyn prodded.

“Are you seeing anyone now? In the guild? Or, I guess, out of it?” The butterflies in my stomach felt more like hornets.

“Well, one.”

The pit in my stomach sank.

“He’s got short black hair a la 90’s boyband, and a temper to match. Wears these really thick frames that I suspect might be fake.” Sylwyn side-eyed me.

“Oh fuck, I’m sorry, Sylwyn. Damn it. Um, yeah, I should probably -” I scrambled to grab for my stuff to get out of the apartment as fast as possible.

“I’m talking about you, dork.”

“What?”

“Dude, you and the uptake.”

“This might be a really good time to mention I’m neurodivergent. Thought that’d be kinda obvious. Teasing sometimes is a bit beyond me if I’m already nervous.”

“Librarians in the guild have a pretty high likelyhood of neurodivergence. Autistic?”

“With a touch of ADHD.” I nodded.

“Awesome, that makes two of us. Maybe between the both of us, we can remember to buy another jar of peanut butter, ’cause I’m now officially out of food in the house.”

“Maybe some chicken nuggets or mac and cheese? Wait!”

He chuckled.

“You, you, you, you-“

“Chillmax isn’t here, so I can’t play ‘cat-got-your-tongue’.”

I tilted my head. “You know my cat’s name?”

“Duh, do you know how many pics you showed me when you first brought him home from the shelter?”

I shook my head. “Come back from Chillibean. You. You’re, we’re,” I cleared my throat, but my voice kept cracking. “Are you saying you’re okay with us dating?”

He tentatively crept his fingers over mine to carefully squeeze my hand. “You seem okay with me?”

I nodded. “More than okay.” My heart took off like a rocket.

“I can’t ask you to stop hating yourself immediately. And I know you’ll have some confidence issues. I can’t imagine someone not, if I have a problem being me with the Mad Hatter. I just want you to know this: I’m not disgusted with you, and I know what I’m getting into dating you. I know you haven’t had surgeries. I’m not asking you to hide yourself, trying to exist for some image in your head of what you think I want in a partner. If it’s not good for your physical or mental health, please, don’t. Alright? You’ve been hunched up for the last hour trying to hide yourself. So you’ve got a larger chest than me? So what? Some guys who work out have some great,” he lifted his hands up to make a squeezing motion before catching himself and trying to get his face back in order, “Anyways, If you need to breathe, you need to breathe. ‘K? Don’t injure yourself trying to fit a mold you think I need to be happy.”

“I always imagined Van Helsing would have had a nice rack.” I mused at his imagination.

“Robin hood did. At least the last one that got read out two years back. We had him teach self-defence for an evening class.” Sylwyn offered with a smile.

“Earlier this morning, when I mentioned I was pan, you kinda looked displeased. Can I ask what that was about, if you’re saying you aren’t disgusted with me?”

“I wanted to make a pan-pantry joke, but I don’t have a pantry, and the laundry closet wasn’t going to work for the pun I wanted.”

“Crap. I forgot you had dad-pun energy.”

“Hey, you’re the one who kissed me first; you get to deal with me now.”

I finally picked up my hot chocolate and took a minute to drink it.

Sylwyn shifted, kicking off his house slippers and tucked his feet up to sit cross-legged on the couch. “I’m, well, I don’t think I’ll be the jealous type?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Not like I have any desire to shop around down here.”

“No, I meant, with the Mad Hatter. It’d be foolish, right? To be jealous of something living in you.” He took my empty plate and set it under his before stacking his mug on top of them.

“Not sure I could tell you that you shouldn’t be jealous. If you really don’t remember when he takes over, I’d think it’d feel just like dating someone long distance and them having a short-distance partner that you know about but you can’t participate with. I don’t think this counts as poly. Maybe? Maybe it does? I’ve kissed both Hatter and you. So…”

“Call me out if I start being a jealous jerk. If you’re really okay with me the way I am-“

“We can both work together on being better people to ourselves, yeah?”

“How’s that old quote go? You need to learn to love yourself before you’ll let anyone else love you?”

“Sounds familiar.” I finished my hot chocolate and took the stack of plates and the other mug to the counter to start washing them.

“Alright. We’re dating, then. Now what?” Sylwyn watched me from the corner of the couch while I laid out a towel and found a wash rag.

“You don’t have internet, and I didn’t see a TV in here, so I’m assuming video games are out?”

“Yeah,” he pulled out the vowels.

“Do I want to know what happened?”

“Chaos? Chaos as usual.”

“Figures.”

“I’ve got books?” He offered with a smirk.

“How about I don’t summon things in the apartment?” I returned the smile and set the plates and mugs away.

“Might be a good place for us to start then.”

“Wanna pull out a book then that you don’t mind me accidentally making a muck of the apartment with?”

He uncurled himself from the couch, disappeared into the bedroom, and returned with a heavy blanket. I came out from behind the counter to watch him rummage through his shelves. He pulled another thin picture book off the bottom shelf. A manila envelope slipped out along with it, a set of large medical style pictures spilling across the floor. Sylwyn handed me the book and went to scoop the contents back into the envelope. “What if Simil takes over?” he asked.

“Is that liable to happen?” I checked the cover of the picture book. A bear and a fox were wrestling under gold letters.

“From time to time, a Simil can take over and never change back; the character overwrites the host.” He couldn’t quite face me.

“Is there a way to undo a character like that?  When you retire, like the previous Simil, do you what, regurgitate the character or something?” I asked.

“No, it’s permanent; you can’t get rid of it once it’s inside of you. You only learn how to cope with the times you can remember.” He set the envelope back on the shelf and settled on the couch, pulling part of the blanket over him.

“That’s…that’s horrible,” I finally told him. I inched back to the couch, tentatively lifted the other side of the blanket, and scootched under it.

“Sorry, I was cold. Yeah…it’s hard knowing that one day my body could be walking around with a different me using it to do things, and I would not exist anymore.  It’s like knowing that you could wake up dead any day.  Not the most reassuring of feelings, I can tell you that much.” He wrestled around under the blanket and behind his shoulders until he pulled his ponytail free with an exasperated sigh.

“What does it take to consume a character?” I ran a finger along the binding on the blanket, counting stitches while he got comfortable.

“That projection of energy that you use in your Reading?” he started.  I nodded.  “It’s like that, but you direct inside yourself. I explained that before, but you’re trying to form the object inside of your core, or your psyche, really.  That energy sears nerve endings, reforming it to allow the new memories and personality of the character to have a habitable space,” he explained.

“You can actually see these changes on a CT scan?” I asked.

“Yep. Well, PET’s the best one. Before those scans, it was more difficult to verify if a Simil had actually been created or if someone was only acting like one to bank a Simil’s pay,” he laughed derisively.  He threw the blanket off, walked over to his bookshelves, and pulled out the manilla envelope.  He came back and sat down next to me.  Inside were images of his brain before and after the transformation.  Flowering colours showed where the Reading ability lay in the brain and how it flared when a Read was taking place or an unRead.  A distinctive new shape of colour after the transformation verified the authenticity of the Simil process.

“Will I have this done?” I shivered.

“Probably.  We could go tomorrow if you want.  You seem to have abilities that most don’t.  It might be better to have it done to make sure where your starting point is,” he mused.

“Alright. I take it I won’t see the bill?” I was curious to see just what was going on in my head.

“I never did. Tell Simil, if you see him, that you need to go to the PET specialist.  I don’t know when he’ll pop back in, and I don’t want you getting forgotten because of that.” He returned the envelope to the shelf.

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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What influences my writing?

Some people end up curious about where an author comes up with what they write. I’ve been told my writing is strange in no uncertain words. It’s been called ‘a-step-to-the-left’, ‘slipstream’, ‘undefinable’, ‘genre adjacent’, ‘not quite sure how to define it’.

To me, they don’t quite feel all that different from other stories, but when asked to give comps, I struggle to find a definitive relatable source. Often comps are book based, but I think that is where problems arise for me. I could tell you all day long the influences, but I wouldn’t be able to say this or that webstory is like this or that book. I take what I want of the stories I consume and adjust, like any decent fan writer, to make something I want to read.

The Fire in My Blood came about after watching Soldier, Waterworld, and Fire Force and reading a few non-fic books on mining disasters in West Virginia. Two of those are live actions, one is an anime. But are they comps? Well, no. I don’t think so. They’re ‘a vibe’. If you like these three things, I can’t guarantee you will like The Fire in My Blood, because you might not like boys love/yaoi. But the vibe is there. There are elements of dystopia; there’s a soldier dropped into another world where he has to learn to work with people who aren’t military – the barcode on Lunam’s cheek is a nod to Soldier. There’s the idea of genetic mutation from Waterworld and Fire Force, one of fear and consequence.

Fyskar? I can’t pinpoint too much as to where that one came from. A dream really, of a soldier unmasking a guide who came from a tribe the soldier had killed previously. It was supposed to be timeline adjacent to the Afghanistan war. Why is it Isle of Skye 1692? I wanted to explore the concept of how prejudice could destroy an entire people, and the witchcraft trials and the Plague both fell in line with the mask I wanted. I wanted the symbolism of unmasking. Coming out of a shell, breaking down walls and giving trust even when it might be dangerous. Vibe wise, Mushishi, Mononoke (Kurusuruyuri-san), Highlander, Ladyhawke, Kingdom of Heaven. That kind of haunting feel of wisdom in winter. Comps? WTF, what comps? You tell me. I can’t say Fyskar is unique, but I can tell you I don’t know what someone would compare it to other than someone saying once that it reminded them of John Wick.

Subject 15? The name came from V for Vendetta. Go watch it, and you might find that hint. It’s not an exact lift, but it was based on that. Again, the instigation for the story came from a dream…steamy nightmare more or less. Ehem. Anyways, guy ends up banging another guy only to find out that by doing that they accidentally summon an interdimensional monster because the military messed with this guy’s brain, and when he gets happy, it summons monsters. Congrats, you’ve just met the weird side of my brain that says: if you’re happy, bad things happen. I’m working on it. Why base Ishan Orlov as New Punjabi? If I blame it on the white-haired kid from Food Wars! and maybe a character from Trinity Blood that I can’t even verify if they existed or not now would you be mad? And Fane? Where did Fane come from? I don’t know. I like either writing my characters with white hair or red hair; it’s a habit I’m working on, so he ended up red. Why is he short? Because I was sick of reading a bunch of yaoi where the short guy always ended up effeminate and bottom, but I also wanted the prince to be competent and not some ‘damsel in distress’ but also not the savior of the world. So, short soldier, tall prince. It’s a love story twisted in with a dash of Stargate and hopefully not racist Cthullu. Again, comps? What comps? I don’t know; I can’t even really point you at an anime or movie for vibes. But it feels like a standard story to me of developing romance.

Polaris Skies. That one I will point to Wolf’s Rain and Underworld all day long. Those were my vibes and major scene influences. But the actual story? I can’t recall any journey stories off hand that are desperate, dystopic, and melancholic self-discovery. Then again, there are probably several very much like that but not wrapped up with genetic manipulation, a cult, or being possessed by werewolves. I like where I’m going with my stories though: A plague doctor, bodyguard, psychics, werewolves, vampires, angels, mad scientists, fire-benders, kaiju, time travel, mermaids. They’re kinda kitschy, but I’m having fun.

Subgalaxia doesn’t have much. I think it’s just a continuation of a natural storyline. One of accepting oneself, or discovering oneself. It felt like the way to conclude the series, so there might be vibes from all of it, but this one I can’t even point to an anime or movie; it just is. Oh, the breathing perfluorocarbon did come from The Abyss, but I did research how it could be used so it didn’t sound like complete bull.

Maybe that’s why they’re weird. Because I don’t think the ideas are weird or off base, I just write the conversations and go with what feels natural. Explore an idea and see where it takes me. I’ve been told my style is literary and that not a lot of people like literary works. I have to wonder if that’s what the feeling is, like Steinbeck and Hemingway, but crossed with a dash of Herbert and McCaffrey. Literature without the tragic endings and a twist of fantasy or sci-fi.

Director’s Cut: Life of a Librarian

So, Life of a Librarian is a rewrite. I had the first 14 chapters done when I finally started listening to my characters rather than bulldozing them. I wrote a couple pages separate from the script when I let them finally talk. It helped me get a feel for the characters that otherwise were flat. These chapters aren’t really going to get worked into the script at this point, well, maybe, scenes 2 & 3…I don’t know yet, but I didn’t just want to throw them in the bin. Thought you might find it interesting what authors end up cutting out of their manuscripts or not ever getting to put in. Think of this like a Director’s cut, a couple scenes that never made it to the cutting room floor. They’re rough, and I’m not editing them much, so there’s slashes where I wanted to expand the scenes.

This is…well, one of these, the kitchen and the conversation, scene 1, this was how I came out to someone really close to me, so this is my first time sharing it with others. It was what helped me decide to rewrite Life of a Librarian and use it to explore myself further.

It does contain NSFW material on the spicy side-ish, so 18+ please and thank you.

Scene 1:

Tears ran as rivers down my cheeks.  I crumpled into a ball on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest.

//

I stiffened as Selwyn’s arms wrapped around me. I know he was trying to comfort me. I understood that at the base level. I might have batted eyes at him a couple times, but people touching me was beyond my comfort zone. Well. If I was being honest, sure, having him touch me in an intimate way had flitted around my head more than once.

His arms were warm and reassuring, but his breath caught in the back of his throat. A conversational cough. He let go before I could relax. “Deus?”

The question was a knot in my stomach, a walking horror in the back of my brain. I begged he wouldn’t ask what I knew he would.

“Um, yeah. You, you going to be okay?” he asked, shifting back from me by a good foot.  That was not the question I had expected. It was not the question he wanted to ask. Not by the way his fingers dragged across my back for half a second longer than necessary.

“Long day.” I shrugged, pulling myself off the kitchen floor.

“Anything I can do?” He offered his hand to help me up.  

I took it, letting him pull me to his height. Why he had to be so close was beyond me. I studied the floor near his feet and shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I just. It’s so many things all at once.”

“Deus?” His fingers tightened on mine before letting go. I waited as the clock ticked over the hour. “Are you a girl?”

There it was. The question I hated having asked. The one I hated facing. I shoved my hands in my pocket and hunched my shoulders. Stepping back, I turned to the counter. “Does it matter what I am?”

“I’m sorry. That’s probably rude.” He shuffled out of the kitchen area to place himself against the column at the end of the counter.

“Male. Female. Some weird in between. I don’t really know how to explain it. I don’t feel right most of the time. I find it easier to be a guy more days than not.” I took up the knife and went back to cutting the carrots that had been my breaking point.

“I’m not sure I understand.” He settled against the column, rubbing a hand along his opposing arm.

“Congrats. That makes two of us.” I tossed the diced veg into the skillet. The oil popped at the intrusion.

He stepped back from the column, his hands placating. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”

I stared at the sizzling orange cubes and listened to his footsteps. Three would put him at the front door. “I don’t know how to answer you, Wyn.” I apologized for snapping at him. The door hinge creaked. “Come back. I promised you I’d make dinner.”

“You seem to need your space, and I keep treading on toes,” he admitted. I turned from my pan to look him in the eyes. A pained expression of confusion and something else creased his brows.

“I’m not a hermaphrodite,” I elaborated, turning back to the stove and flipped the gas to low. He eased back in the foyer. The click of the door was loud in the space. I waited for him to slip into the counter stool. “You’re disgusted?” I asked after the look he had plastered to his face at the door.

“No,” he denied vehemently, waving his hands.

I raised an eyebrow at his protest. His fingers retracted, balling up loosely on the countertop. His pointer finger unfurled to drag across the surface restlessly. “You can be whoever you want to be. I’m not going to tell you otherwise.”

I tossed in the roll of defrosted hamburger, salt, and pepper into the pan and jabbed at it with the spatula until it broke apart. “You and I, we were getting along pretty well there for a bit, weren’t we?” I asked, keeping my focus to the little spurts of grease rolling away from the frying meat.

His fingers curled and uncurled, leaving behind sporadic prints. He was sweating if he was leaving hazes across the fake granite like that. “We were.” He tucked his hands together to twirl his thumbs.

“Structurally, I am female.” I turned the pot of boiling water down and added in two cups of elbow noodles to it. “That’s not something you were expecting.”

“No. I thought your voice was high for a Master’s student, but you were pretty convincing otherwise.” He pulled his hands from the counter to rest his arms against the side.

“What’s the problem then?” I pressed, turning to the last of my pots. The water had darkened to a robust brown black. I lifted it from the stove and tossed a hot pad on the counter before throwing the teabags in the trashcan. The pitcher of ice was sweating near it, leaving a large puddle. I hunted down a dishtowel in one of the drawers and put the glassware on top of it to clean up the mess before pouring the tea over the ice.

“I think I’m interested in you,” Wyn admitted.

I looked up at that, my heart thumping in my chest. I set the pot on the counter before I dropped it. “That’s not where I thought this conversation was going.” I protested.

“It’s not how I wanted to have this conversation either.” He turned to study the empty bookshelves in my living room.

“Was this before or after figuring out I had boobs?” I tossed a couple tablespoons of chili powder at the browning meat.

He cleared his throat, startled at my phrasing. “Before.”

“Are you still interested?” I set the spatula down to study my guest.

“I don’t know.” Wyn pushed a hand into his hair to rest his ear on his palm. “I don’t really…”

“You liked me as a guy?” I came around to sit down in the seat next to him.

“Well, yeah.” He pressed his other arm across his stomach, his fingers burrowing into the green cashmere shirt.

“I’m not your type now.” I clarified.

“No.”

“Too bad. I thought you were cute. Better luck on the next fellow.” I rose to return to the kitchen. His fingers caught mine, stalling my move to put structure between us.

“You thought I was cute?” he asked, a soft pink running across his cheeks.

“I doubt you’d find that much comfort coming from a girl,” I bit out, wanting my fingers back.

“What did you mean by you ‘don’t really know’?” He relented, releasing me when I tugged for freedom.

I walked back into the kitchen, putting the counter between us. I swirled around the meat mixture and the noodles before setting the spatula down again. I had thought about this more than too many times. Rehearsed it in my head. The heat at my ears though was not reassuring. “I’ve called myself pangendered for several years now. Mom accepted it, and great uncle. They were pretty good with me asking if I could go by Thaddeus. Great Uncle Tad was beside himself with the fact I’d use his name.” I pulled the colander out of the bottom cabinet and set it in the sink.

“You’re trans?” Wyn asked.

“I don’t…I don’t know if I feel safe yet admitting that? Something about bills in houses and mad money mongers.” I turned the gas off and took the pot of noodles to the sink.

“You’re wearing a binder, and you’re going by a male name,” he pointed out.

“I still have moments where I like my dresses. They don’t squeeze me badly during certain times of the month.” I poured out the noodles and shook off the water.

“I’m not sure I follow?”

“Reason why I said that makes two of us.”

“Do you want to be a guy?”

“More often than not the older I get.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure I’d take the route of surgery. I’ve wondered about it. It’s been tempting. I don’t want to mess something up when everything kind of doesn’t work like it should already. As I said, some days, I’m good with my shape.”

“Do you like sex?” he asked.

Heat swept up my cheeks. What a conversation to be having at the very beginning of admitting I liked him. I dumped the noodles in with the goulash and stirred it. Silence pressed in on us as I plated up our meals and set a dish and fork in front of him. He waited patiently for me to set my plate next to him, walk around the counter, and sit down. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer that. It was kind of sudden.” He mumbled, picking up his fork.

I stared at the food. Usually the smell would have had me wolfing the concoction down. It wasn’t special by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a staple for me. I had lost my appetite though. The sheen across the carrots was making my stomach cramp. “You watch porn?” I asked.

He choked on the noodles. “Um, well…”

“Know what a chastity cage is?” I pushed through the topic, numbing to my embarrassment

“Belt or cage?” he forced me to clarify.

“Cage. What would work for you, but I’ve got nothing there for it to do anything to me,” I elaborated.

“Yes. I’ve seen it a couple times.” He shrugged as he joined me in forming a wall around this conversation.

“The best I can describe my problem is, it feels like I’m perpetually trapped in one. Like, as long as nothing touches me there, that I can feel the weight, the sensation of having something there. It’s disconcerting otherwise. Sex isn’t something I’ve been able to find myself in. Don’t get me wrong. I like romance novels. I can get off on my own, but I haven’t found intercourse rewarding. It doesn’t feel right. Male, female, non-binary, gay, lesbian, I can run through the gammit watching them and find myself wanting to be the giver and the receiver in every one of them, but when it comes to reality, with the few partners I’ve actually had, it’s never been that end all be all sky breaking jubilation that romance authors put in their books. It breaks the image in my head and pulls me back to feeling trapped in a skin that doesn’t fit quite right.”

Scene 2:

He pressed me to the door, kissing, demanding, trying to slip into my skin. Fervent desire. A spiraling heat ignited a lake of fire within me. He was lean and all encompassing. I melted into him as he trailed kisses along my neck, my fingers digging into his sides if only to keep me from slipping to the floor.

“Make love to me, Deus,” he demanded, his eyes catching mine as he came up to capture my lips again. That pressing heat fizzled at the request. My heart stuttered and my fingers went cold. I let go of his obliques and my stomach dropped out from under me.

He eased off my lips to look down at me, a puzzled question running across his brow. “Are you…? I’m sorry. Is it not something you want to do?” He gave me room.

“I didn’t expect you to want to have me the way I am. If I’m just going to be a receptacle again, I’d rather cry.” I refused to let the shiver at my shoulders give me away.

“I should have talked to you about this before pushing your buttons, huh?” he murmured, taking my fingers gently to pull me farther into the darkness. His queen sized bed was piled with pillows and a goose down duvet. Selwyn sank down on the edge, keeping a light hold on my finger tips.

“What’s there to talk about? We’re attracted to each other, I just have a hang up.” I pushed at my cheek, willing the heat of threatened tears down.

“Your partners never really listened, did they?” He feathered his thumb over my nails.

“I mean, when I’m the way I am, this whole messed up problem I find myself in, I kind of just took what I could get for intimacy. The good girlfriend situation. No one ever accepted me as a maybe boyfriend, or a friend of some kind like that. No one really ever made an effort to work with my sense of being transgender. They just…saw my body and not me. Not the fact that some days, I don’t want to be touched a certain way. I don’t always want to be reminded that I have boobs attached to me, or that my hips are too wide to let me pass as androgynous. Some days I don’t want to be on the receiving end. Or in those fervent moments in bed, when I can get to a fantasizing point, and have it collapse on me with a misplaced word.” I pressed in on his fingers in an effort to keep the lump in my throat from choking me.

“I’m listening now, Deus. And I’ll listen until I’m deaf from trying.” He  slipped back farther to the center of the bed and pulled me to sit between his long legs, my back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around me to hold over my hands where I was comfortable wrapping them on my stomach. He placed his chin on my head and let me warm to the situation.

“I tried once, giving my last partner a book on the basic structure and function of what’s attached to me, to maybe help me get to an orgasm. Saying he’d read it, he only ever read a chapter before tossing it on the bottom shelf, never to touch it again. He wanted me to instruct him, when I couldn’t even explain it myself, not well. My explanations always broke down because I thought he read the book and thought it would be easy to go, ‘oh do this because of this one stupid biological fact that my muscular structure is bound to.’ I wanted to have a common ground to start at, where both of us had that foundation we could build off.

“After that, when I told him I wasn’t feeling seen in bed, intimacy became infrequent at best. He started stressing out about not helping me enough, which killed the mood. I felt even more stressed to perform, to try to get there as fast as he did, to act like I enjoyed it, when I desperately wanted to be normal, to share that part of me. Hoping that I wasn’t breaking things apart. It started eating at me. I wanted to be close, that warmth I get with expectation and need would still crop up, but every time I found myself pinned under him, I’d start getting low grade panic attacks. When we were finished, I’d roll over in the dark and cry myself to sleep. Having anything in me started making me anxious, reminding me that I was flipping broken. I couldn’t relax and enjoy what we had. The relationship collapsed because I couldn’t figure out how to make this damn thing work like I wanted it to. I wanted to be that woman that could do feminine things and enjoy it, but the more I tried, the more I realized that something was wrong with how I felt and how I saw myself in the mirror. I couldn’t be what he needed, no matter how hard I really wanted to.

“We had this idyllic relationship other than my problem in the bedroom and I didn’t want it to break down. It got worse and the idea of returning to that need to perform has me on edge. It’s worse, because I know I’m not…you know. I’m not the guy you’d rather have holding you in the middle of the night. I don’t have the equipment, and you don’t want to go having boobs pressed against you at four in the morning.” I pushed to escape, suddenly too self conscious of my hips, my breathing, my skin burning, begging to be ripped off so I could apologize for existing.

 He pulled me tighter to him, wrapping me in his heat. “Please, don’t leave. I want to understand. You are scared of disappointing me and disappointing yourself?”

I pushed my face into his arm, tears bursting. My heart was in my throat and texture was too much to bare. A weight settled into my chest, pulling my lungs down. My ears were ringing and I couldn’t swallow. “I can’t breath.” I gasped.

Selwyn released me immediately, giving me room. He shuffled around until he was sitting face to face with me, my hands in his once again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was going to put you on edge,” he apologized while I fought to count through twenty. He let go of my hands to reach for my necklace, pulling it up over my head. “This. You fidget with it a lot. Do you need this?” He laid the beads in my fingers. The smoothness of the stone was cool and reassuring. Breath in. Breath out. Click. Click. Click. I ran the small orbs beneath my fingerprints as I told myself to breath. Selwyn sat back and waited patiently as my gaze drifted from dark corner to dark corner and I wrestled with my brain to remember how to control my heart and lungs. One hundred and eight forward and one hundred and eight back and I was able to come back to him.

“I’m sorry.” I rubbed over the massive pendant at the end of the mala.

“Do not apologize for this, Deus. Never. Don’t do it. You’ve learned to cope while you were falling to pieces.” He shifted to the end of the bed and got up. I sat where he left me, clicking through my beads as I waited for him to come back. He returned with a glass of water and offered it to me. I took it, sipping on the coolness. I had not realized how parched my mouth had gone.

“Thank you, Wyn.” I leaned over and set the half empty glass on the nightstand. He toggled the lamp on, shedding the space in soft orange light.

Scene 3:

“What do you think about cuddling?” Selwyn asked.

“I like cuddling,” I took the bowl of chopped vegetables and tossed them into the macaroni salad he was helping me prep for dinner.

“Do you mind if we play with more than just cuddling?” He set the cutting board and knife in the sink.

//

“What are your thoughts on taking this back to the bedroom?”

//

“When I asked you a while back if you would make love to me, I think I didn’t phrase it in such a way that you would understand my meaning, and that was my fault.” He turned back to me from the dresser drawer with a strap-on and a small blue dildo in his hands. I blinked at the presentation of toys.

“Oh! Oh, no, I didn’t get that meaning from you at all last time. I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Are you interested?” He asked. I held my hands out, my voice evaporating. The tips of my ears went warm as he handed me the black leather and silicone.

“I’m not sure what else you want. I read some posts saying a vibrator is good and others saying it wasn’t. I bought an egg. Do you want me to get that out?” Wyn asked as he walked into the bathroom to rummage in cabinets.

I stared at the blue silicon dong in my hand, rendered in complete detail from the hung balls to the thick head. No more than the length of my hand, it was unexpected. “No, I’m good not for tonight. Uh, Wyn?” I called after him.

“What’s up?” Another cabinet door clicked closed and he muttered to himself.

“I’ve never used one of these before, well, not on someone else in this context. Are you sure about this?” I slipped the flange into the dock on the strap.

He returned from his hunt with a vibrant red bottle with the name Pole Grease scrawled across it in edgy white letters. Setting it down on the nightstand he bent to kiss me. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

“When did you even get this thing? I thought you didn’t date inside the Guild?” I asked, standing up to figure out the contraption.

“Want to leave the shirt on?” He asked when I reached for my dress shirt buttons. I stilled at the question. I rubbed at one of the buttons. The fact he asked. The fact he listened. I smiled at the carpet like a fool and nodded.

“The night after we had dinner together at your apartment, I came home and did what any good librarian does.” He slipped his t-shirt off casually, giving me my first moment to enjoy his physique. “I went and researched and deep dived some forums to better understand you and things that would help make a relationship between us potentially more comfortable for the both of us.”

“You did?” I looked up at him in surprise.

“I like you for your personality. I find your companionship enjoyable. And everytime I watch you Read, I start having problems keeping myself presentable for polite society.” He flicked his belt buckle. “One nice thing about this that I will say I found supremely useful from the forums: I at least got to choose my partner’s size and still get the partner I wanted. You know how many jerks there are with a size I like?”

“Small is good?” I asked, watching as he flipped the buttons on his jeans.

“Prostate isn’t that deep to warrant a monster, and I’d like to be able to walk tomorrow morning.” He pushed the material from his hips to leave him in a pair of grey boxer briefs. I followed suit, butterflies trying to escape my stomach as I let my slacks fall away.

“We match.” Wyn took my fingers loosely and tugged me to him.

“Found a decent manufacturer that makes the style to fit my body type.” My shorts were longer in the leg than the women’s model of ‘boy shorts’, and they had been seen to sit on my hips without riding up and bunching like men’s tended to.

“How do you feel about compliments and what we’re doing?” He brushed a stray hair behind my ear and leaned down to my lips.

“Don’t call me beautiful and we’ll get along just fine,” I murmured against his kiss.

“I find you handsome when you’re Reading, but damn you’re cute right now.” He pulled me to him, pressing until I could identify every muscle through my clothes.

“I like that.” I slid my free hand down his back to admire his build.

“So, thoughts about using that?” He asked after the strap.

“I think I’m willing to give it a go, if you’re ok with it. Might have to tell me what feels good.” I released my grasp on it when he reached for it. He took it and knelt down in front of me. Gingerly taking first one foot, then the other, he slid it up my legs and secured it.

“Not too tight?” He checked the fit, skirting the join of my legs. I sucked in my breath as a demanding throb echoed through my being. I shook my head when he looked up at me. Looking down at myself, that feeling that everything fit together, that momentary roll over of my dysphoria was something I wanted to keep chained to me forever.

“You still good with what we’re doing?” He checked as he slid his tongue along my shaft. A firestorm burst across my skin as I fixated on his tongue, his refusal to look away from me.

“Hi.” The strangled greeting was the only word I could muster past my sudden desire to watch him continue what he was doing.

“Hello.” He twisted his tongue across the head. He slipped a hand up the back of my thigh and settled his other around my shaft. Every nerve ending burned at the sight of him as he went down on me. I shivered as his nails bit into my skin, refusing to let go. Running my fingers through his hair, his eyelashes swept to his cheekbones. I warmed to the view, his length pressing tight between his legs. A note strangled in my throat.

He came up for air, catching my eyes once more. “You’re enjoying yourself.” He smirked. “I was hoping to find a way to keep this from being one sided.”

“I could watch you for hours,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

“Watch?” He asked, running his tongue along the head. A shiver ran up my spine involuntarily. “Hmm?”

I watched gears click over his head. He played with me, keeping eye contact before withdrawing once more. He let go of my thigh to find his length. “Mind if I?” He asked, pulling at his waistband to free himself.

I nodded, heat burning through my limbs as I watched him take himself and slowly stroke as he came back to licking. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I whispered, entranced with his movements.

“I might have a thing for dress shirts,” he admitted with a cocky grin.

“I’ve got those in spades.” I returned his smile, leading him back to what had been doing so well to spark a fire in me. He obliged before rising to stand up in front of me. I tentatively reached out, skimming the soft underside of his head. His breath strangled in the back of his throat.

“I’d like to see you in every one of them.” He shifted to lean on me as I feathered down his shaft. He pushed free of what remained of his clothes, leaving himself bare to the elements. I skimmed farther, cupping his balls carefully, rolling them, slipping (scene unfinished)

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 10

“A little Simil for a big Simil?” I posited to the Mad Hatter.

“Benefit the system, and the system benefits you.” He plucked at a grape.  It slipped past his fork to roll to the other side of his plate. Baffled disappointment creased his features.

“What can I do for the Chair, and what can the Chair do for me, if this is the system that I must play in?” I pressed.  

He continued trying to spear the insubordinate fruit. “They must find the missing paper.  If it stays lost, it stays lost, but if it is used while lost, we may all be lost.”

“The great gods?” I set my plate aside.  I straightened, watching the man carefully.  This was Sylwyn, and yet not. The body of a man I had spent more than one semester discussing classical literature with and more than one afternoon guzzling crappy student union coffee with.  The mind was completely different when the Hatter took power.  I knew he was dangerous, chaotic, and scattered.  I didn’t get the impression of being in immediate bodily harm from him, though.

“Hmm,” hummed Simil as he leaned down to study the elusive grape.  “Floods, rock slides, the world would divide.  The divine would walk, and man would believe again.” He blinked as I picked up the grape he had been studying.  I rolled it between my index finger and thumb gently, holding it out to the man.  I watched him as he watched me.  Gears turned in his head as he tried to understand what was going on.  He swallowed nervously.  The Hatter reached up tentatively to take it, but I withdrew my hand.  What had possessed me to do this?  He flinched back and blinked at me once more, pink and black eyes like an owl, trying to still understand.  I held it toward him again.  He leaned toward my hand and kept his eyes locked with mine.  He bent forward farther and gingerly bit into the grape, taking it from my fingers, his tongue just barely rasping against my skin.

“Sounds like we have our work cut out for us then, Hatter.” I stood from the table, picked up my plate, and only then realized that a good portion of the people in the room had been watching us.  It took what I could to keep my embarrassment shuttered under a cool aloof gaze of dismissal.  The muted green three-piece and top hat helped this charade.  Simil rose with me, the solid, terrifying Mad Hatter that I had seen back in the courtroom.  He bowed low, motioning me towards the exit.  I took my cue, and with head held high and arrogant, I put on the best act I could and walked toward the door.  I set my plate in the bussing station, knowing that all eyes were on us. I opened the door and led us out of the cafeteria.

The door closed behind me with a harsh click.  I blew my breath out, only then realizing I had been holding it.  I held my hands to my chest, trying to still the trembling running through me.  My heart was pounding hard, and the corset vest was not helping.

“Flustered are we?” Simil asked, observing me curiously.  I checked myself, looking up to meet his confused gaze.

“I am still learning the etiquette of this place.  Do not concern yourself with me.” I frowned.

“I feel though that I must, blueberry boy.  You seem to draw me to you in such a manner that I cannot still my emotions.” He tilted his head, seeming to really understand what he meant only after he said it. His eyes flicked away from me, a shyness stealing across his features in that moment.

I settled my hands on top of my silver cane if only to place them somewhere other than my pockets.  “Are those emotions of any benefit to either of us?” I cocked my head up to look at him from lowered lids in appraisal.

He swallowed, a flush running across his ears. “Finding out may be the only way.” He turned to the hall.  “The Chair calls us; shall we grace them with our presence?” He waited for me to join his stride.

“That sounds invigorating, let’s,” I walked down the hall, the tip of my cane clicking on the linoleum.  I caught his glance a couple of times while walking.  He was trying to understand just why I intrigued him.  I was trying to understand just how much of Sylwyn’s memories were floating around for the Mad Hatter’s access while he was in control.

“What is it that you see in these halls, Hatter?” I asked the cotton candy clown of death.  He put a finger to his chin, analysing the walls.

“Grey…lots of grey really.  Is there something interesting here?” He looked about himself with flamboyant curiosity before returning to his shy shell.

“I was told that some of these halls can look like strange places.  I was just curious if you saw the strange places, too,” I answered. “Sylwyn said he could see the strange places. Interesting that you cannot.”

“How invigorating.  I have been told that before.  Do you see these places?” he countered.

“No, I do not.  It’s only grey.  A couple of pictures here and there or a bench would be a blessing.  Something to help designate areas.” I was making small talk, but it at least alleviated the droning blandness of the hallways.

“Never thought of a bench before,” contemplated Simil, thumb and forefinger rubbing at faint stubble on his chin.

“How long does it take to walk from the lunch room to the Chair?” I asked.  We had to have been walking for at least ten minutes already.

“Long enough for me to recite Genesis in Latin,” Simil dropped his hand to his side and stared at the ceiling tiles until he found one that apparently told him something and started reciting at a spot where Cain and Abel’s names were mixed in with Latin.

“Is that how you count time between locations?” I whispered, afraid to break his concentration.  It was best, it seemed, to approach Simil as nothing was surprising about him.  It seemed best to handle the people who encountered Simil with the same gloves.  If I acted like nothing phased me, it might just save me.

He pondered for a moment as more lines fell away from his lips.  “Most places only take the first twenty stanzas of the Odyssey.  Some take more,” he informed me and took back up his Latin.

“The Bible, The Odyssey, are there any other books that you deem worthy to utilize for marking time?” I asked.

“Numbers on lines help,” he mused as we turned down another hall.

“I can see that being very useful,” I conceded.  He blinked, turning more toward me as we walked.

“You are strange,” he stated matter of factly.

“As are you,” I countered.

“You ask me questions,” he retorted.

“You are full of answers,” I bantered back.

“You do not cringe from me.” He halted in the hallway.

“Why should I cringe, Hatter?” I halted with him, turning to face him.

“The others do.” His shoulders drooped with that admission.

“Am I the others?” I asked bluntly, with no inflexion.

He studied me quietly, not sure how to reply.  He shifted uncomfortably, but his gaze never left my face.  “I do not think you are the others.”

“What do you think I am?” I tilted my head, curious what this strange being in front of me would come up with.  He broke my gaze to pace the hallway a couple of steps.  I waited as he paced back.

He stretched back into a pompous posture and looked at me again.  I had the distinct impression that he approached his analyse of me as a piece of art to be considered thoroughly.  I watched him and waited as calmly as possible.

“You can do things only Simils can do yet different; you are a Dewey, blueberry boy,” he stated as he came back up to me, walked around me, settled back to the spot in front of me.  “But you do not reject me, as the others do.  You speak with me in the rooms and in the halls,” he continued.  “You took my sword…and kissed me?” he squeaked, remembering the quizzing room.

“A – you let me take the sword, B – you didn’t seem to not like the kiss,” I countered.

He narrowed his gaze at me and pursed his lips. Folding his arms he ducked to study the hall.  “I do not know why.”

“I distinctly remember you levelling that blade at me not more than five minutes later,” I reminded him.

“You gave it back,” he pressed on.

“I was no longer scared if you had it or not,” I conceded.

“Though I came after you not but a short time after,” he paced away again.  I waited for him to pace back.  “Why the poor guard?” he asked.

“Why the jail cell?” I countered.  He nodded, not meeting my gaze.  “The guard was there to protect the guild.  The jail cell was there to protect the guild.  You were there to protect the guild.  The guild was not protecting me,” I explained.  “I was tired of the guild being protected, and I had no protection of my own,” I continued.  “I have to be my own knight in shining armour, Hatter.  I was going to do what I had to in order to make myself feel safe,” I finished.

“So, mutual enemies then?” Simil asked.

“Who?” I asked.  His short sentences lacked context and made the hidden subtext confusing.

“You and me.” He paced around me once more.  I held my perfect posture, not daring to allow my eye to follow his movement.  I knew he would eventually come to stand in front of me once again.

“Why enemies?” I asked when he settled.

“You are not keen on the guild,” he explained.

“I have not yet heard their benefits,” I expounded.

“Or mine,” mused the man, looking down at the floor again.

I hedged all of my bets.  I moved forward and reached up to gently pull his face closer to mine.  His eyes flew up to meet mine.  I pulled him closer. “I feel I already know many of yours, dear Hatter,” I whispered against his lips.  My eyelashes fluttered down as I breathed in my first kiss.  The man stilled under me, but relented to my kiss.  I eased away from the kiss and the man.  He straightened, watching me carefully.  He blinked once, twice.  He swallowed, unsure of himself.  “Shall we go see what benefits the Chair may have in store?” I asked, waving down the hall.  

“You are very strange indeed.” Hatter went to pull at a non-existent cravat. Tugging at his shirt collar instead, he cleared his throat, cheeks pinking under the fluorescent lights.

“Pot, kettle,” I pointed at him and myself.

“Black.” He nodded.

Five more minutes put us in front of another grand pair of double doors.  At the very least, they were consistent in putting up big decorative doors for the prominent rooms.  Either that, or they were the only doors I was getting an imprint on.  I straightened my jacket and brushed at a wrinkle.

“They don’t bite, Ali- Thaddeus,” smiled the cotton candy clown of death.

“But do I?” I smiled back at him mischievously.  His eyes went wide as he took a tiny step back.  I chuckled lightly.  He looked away from me and rapped on the door.  A voice called out for entrance.  He opened the door and allowed me in.

Inside was something similar to Sylwyn’s apartment, though larger and grander.  A set of doors led off on either side.  Some were open to reveal desks.  A man sat at a desk closest to the entrance.  The man glanced up as Hatter, and I walked in.  “Simil, what is the pleasure?” he asked, not looking overwhelmingly pleased to see the man.

“The Chair, Blueberry Boy, benefit,” he tried to explain, a tremor running through his limbs. The man at the desk glanced at me appraisingly.  Simil eased closer to me.  

“Right, you must be Grace-Alice Oppenheimer.  We had left notice with Simil to bring you as soon as possible.  Thank you, Simil.” The man nodded dismissively.

“If you wouldn’t mind waiting over here, Ms Drover will be right with you.” The man motioned me toward a formal desk and a series of wingback chairs encircling it.  Was I going to be able to sit in that?  I had no idea.  Hatter pulled a chair out for me.  I eased onto the edge of the chair and swore up and down that I’d be getting some regular clothes as soon as I was done with the day.

Hatter sat down next to me.  He rested against his chair back contentedly.  If not for the fact that he was studying my face most blatantly and intently, it would look like he was content to rest in his seat forever.  It took everything I could to keep from shifting under his steady gaze.  It was uncomfortable, but it seemed to be his disposition, so I let him have it.

“Ms Oppenheimer, I presume?” a tall, lithe woman greeted me.  Brown hair was pulled severely against her skull into a small bun, traction alopecia making her temples thin.  A crisp business suit added to her severity.  She did not provide the courtesy of shaking hands, and I did not provide the courtesy of standing to receive one.  She seated herself gracefully in a chair on the other side of the table.  She laid a manilla file out on the table and set a series of papers around it.  I spotted a photo of myself on one.  It seemed to be a file pertaining to me, but otherwise, I could not tell what it said.

“You must be Ms. Drover,” I nodded.

She pursed her lips as she continued to shuffle papers until they were in a perfect order only she would understand.  “I must ask, Ms Oppenheimer, how have you found your stay?” she asked.

“Once out of confinement and treated as a human being with rights, much better, thank you. Please, call me Thaddeus,” I answered.  I noted Hatter’s hand tighten in his lap.

Ms. Drover inhaled sharply and released a disappointed sigh but did not meet my gaze.  “By way of your quizzing scores, and by the fact that Simil had to see to your confinement in one of the decompression rooms from an outburst, and your late Phasing, I must inform you that the Chair has great interest in your abilities,” she stated matter of factly.

“Yes, I assumed as much,” I responded.  She glanced up at me, a muscle twitching across her cheek.  She waited, quiet.  I recognized this silence.  It was used as a psychological tactic by employers when conducting an interview.  Long silence typically encouraged people to continue talking.  I waited.

Eventually, she glanced at her paperwork once more.  She shifted in her seat as she moved a paper into better view for herself.  “Though you have Phased late, and have not been formally trained within the guild schools, we have use for you,” she continued.  This time, I was the one providing the long silence.  She cleared her throat.  “We would ask that, under the guidance of Simil, you take on a critical position in the guild.”

“That seems dangerous,” I responded.  

She looked up at me and nodded.  “That would be my thought on the matter.”

“I haven’t heard any good reasons for why I should help you with this,” I pointed out.

“You will have paid board, food, and pension.  Medical, dental, and vision are all covered,” she stated, shoving a paper in my direction.

“This a paid position? What of my degree? I had a career lined out for myself, and your guild disrupted it. That won’t fix the student loan that I will still have to pay for the classes I already finished.” I took the paper.

“There is a stipend earned monthly for taking on projects,” she replied.  I glanced up from the paper, wary of that statement.  Then I thought back to Hatter.  I glanced his way.  He had been working in and with the guild since he was a child. Sylwyn had been in the real world, been to college. He would have some vague concept on if what I was going to be paid was a fair wage.

I leaned back and read the fine print.  It was all there, coverage of room and board.  A stipend with ability to gain raises and take on moonlighting and consulting.  The stipend was almost a laughable number.  I wouldn’t be able to even dream of touching that number with a job in library studies.  Medical, dental and vision were all covered.  Investment options.  I pushed the paper back to the woman.  “What do you need for me to do that you would offer this?”

“It is the standard package for members of the guild.  The fact that you can Read without the text makes it possible for the guild to offer you something more.” She pushed another sheet toward me.  I almost choked. Now that was a ridiculous number.  What was the point of that number when everything else was practically paid for?  Then the thought hit me. “You want me to take on a character and become another Simil. You think I can do that without going crazy,” I demanded calmly.

“A Dewey, Ms. Oppenheimer, yes. This is what one might consider Hazard Pay. That would be the guild’s proposition.” Ms Drover nodded once.

“Explain this to me, Steve.  How exactly am I supposed to take on a character when I do not have any formal training?” I pressed.

“My name is Ms. Dover, thank you. That is the benefit of apprenticing with Simil.  He will be your personal tutor.  That will place you on an accelerated program toward controlling your abilities at your age,” the woman stated.  “As it is, from reports I received earlier, you and Simil seem to be close already,” she glanced up at me.  I knew what she was referring to, and I was not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me blush.  

“Will that be a problem?” I asked.

She glanced at her papers and sniffed.  “As it is, you won’t really be returning back to your regularly scheduled lifestyle from here on.  It may be difficult for you to contact your, well, I guess there are no more living relationships. We will send for your cat to be delivered once you have a residence established.” She threw a levelling, contemptuous gaze my way.  I could just barely note out of my periphery the slight shiver of Simil’s shoulders. Her eyebrow twitched.  

“You seem irritated by my very presence. Is it the Simil part or the trans parts because your entire office can’t seem to work with legal names,” I pointed out, fed up with her attitude.

“You have been difficult since arriving, and you seem to have a rather…less than savoury outlook on your moral life as it were,” she elaborated.

“Hey sweety, I don’t ask to look in your underwear drawer,” I snapped in a quiet growl, for once my voice pitch going low enough to command presence in the room. 

Her eyes flew wide, and she let out an exasperated squeak. “Why do they make me do this?”

“Is there someone else I should be talking to?” I brushed white cat hair that had gathered on my velvet trousers, getting ready to stand up. “And brush your cat. No need to leave pet glitter on the guests.”

“This is my job; this is what I am supposed to be doing,” she motioned for me to stay sitting.

“Stellar work there, chief. You seem quite prejudiced against Simil.  Am I right?” I hissed. Hatter tensed under the question.  

Ms. Drover didn’t even afford him a glance.  “Should I not be?”

“Why should you?” I returned.  She huffed, waving the question away.  

“You are not motivating me towards assisting your organization here.  Are Simils so contemptuous within the organization that you pay them ridiculous sums of money to take the abuse? Is the hazard pay for mental health? Maybe ya’ll should tack in a therapist in that dental and vision package of yours.”

Her face flushed an ugly, blotchy red.  “You clearly do not understand.”  

I was getting annoyed.  With a wave of my hand, a large feather calligraphy pen found its place between my grasping fingers.  The woman’s eyes went wide as she tried not to choke.  That was satisfying.  I scribbled out my deadname from the document and carefully lettered out and flourished my legal signature across the page.  “I think I understand well enough.  This is what you want, and if I don’t sign the damn paper, you’ll just throw me in a jail cell again.  So here.” I tossed the paper at her. “Make sure you get my name right on those checks.”  I stood up.  “Oh, and one other thing, you presumptive prude,” I leaned over Hatter who was sitting watching all of this in startled awe.  “If you had checked your records, you’d realize that Hatter and I have known each other for quite some time.” I kissed him in front of her.  A strange shift settled over the man.  His hand came up to tunnel in my hair, holding me to him.  He deepened the kiss. Coffee and orange.  Eventually, we came up for breath.  A strangled gasp made us both look at the woman who was holding a hand to her mouth, her eyes the size of saucers.

“What have you done to him?” she hissed.  I think she would have screamed if it would not have disturbed the office.

“Deus?” Sylwyn cleared his throat, startled to be present.

“That is not supposed to be possible!” she continued in that weird snake whisper.  “Returning to your regular self isn’t supposed to be something someone can just trigger in a Simil like that.” She pushed away from the desk to put distance between us.  I raised an eyebrow but kept my mouth shut.

“Do you think I am the Mad Hatter all the time?  I do emerge every so often.  I am still a contributing researcher for the guild,” he seethed.

“You are Simil, and that is all you are supposed to be!” she screamed. I held a finger to my ear to cut the ringing.

“Clearly,” he rose.  She was horrified.  He extended a hand to motion me out. I grabbed up my silver cane and set my top hat back on my head.  “See that his papers are processed properly.  That is all you are supposed to do after all.” He ushered me from the room.  The door closed with a click.

I leaned against the wall, letting out a breath.  I was not getting used to this any time soon.

“What was that, Deus?” Sylwyn spat, teeth gleaming.

“What was what, Wyn?” I asked, not entirely sure what he was talking about.

“One minute we were eating lunch, the next we’re in the Chair’s office talking to Veronica.  Do I want to know what happened?” He rubbed his head.

“You don’t remember lunch?” I watched him closely.  

His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “I usually don’t remember much when the Mad Hatter comes out.  I don’t switch in the middle of a conversation, though.”

“When do you usually switch?”

He glanced down the hall and paced a couple of steps.  He fidgeted, running his thumb along the line of his pocket.  “Usually, I get switched out in the hallway exiting my rooms or when I get into the research library.  I typically don’t remember much of a day.  It seems that he appears when I have to work.  What happened?” He turned back to me, his pitch demanding.

“I ended up just talking to him…you.  We get along well enough.” I rolled a shoulder.

“Well enough? I come to at Veronica’s desk kissing you.”

“Hatter liked it. He’s the one who got all tonguey. Talk to him about it.”

His eyes grew large, and his mouth thinned in anger.

“I didn’t know you’d come up.”

His face and his body language didn’t show him letting up on being pissed off.

“Fine. Fuck it. Sorry. You’re gay and not interested in someone without a ‘real’ dick. Point me to a pharmacist and let me get my meds. I’m done with today. I’ll go see if I can find someone else who can show me where an empty room.”

“I take it he was under the impression you had to see the Chair today,” he muttered more to himself than to me.

“Apparently.”

“You have no value for your personal safety, Deus,” he grumbled.

“Fuck you very much. If you’re gonna be disgusted with me, drop the civility. All you’re doing is virtue signalling to a crowd that doesn’t care, and you can go shove it with Veronica and the whole fucking guild’s trans hate.”

“Thaddeus!” he protested.

“That’s my name, but if you don’t see me on the other side of it, then there’s no point-“

“You kissed the Simil?” he registered.

“Yeah. Twice, three times now, actually,” I reiterated.

“He’s dangerous, Deus. You can’t just go kissing the Mad Hatter.” He shrank back from me.

“I would say yes, I can, because he seems to enjoy it, but seeing as you’re technically the owner of this body,” I motioned him up and down, “I probably should have asked you first. Not like I knew you were in there the first time I did that.” I approached him.  He backed up until his back was against a wall.  I stopped in the middle of the hall.  Goosebumps ran across my side.

“Why did you do that?” He pressed into the wall, fighting against a tremble running up his hands that eventually turned into a full-body shake.

“Am I that disgusting to you? Why should I not have?” I was getting angry.  Today was just too much for my emotions.

“Because the Simil is the guard dog of the guild.  He…I…take care of…problems for the guild.  No one touches the Simil.  The Simil doesn’t take to being touched.  He…” He rubbed at the back of his head to hide his trembling fingers. His ponytail rumpled under the assault.

“No one told me I wasn’t supposed to touch you,” I retorted.

“It’s like the most explicit rule in the guild!” he yelped.

“Where are these rules?  Looks like I should probably read them before becoming this Dewey ya’ll want me to be,” I grouched.

“It’s an unwritten rule.  It’s just something everyone does,” he placated.

“Unwritten rule, my ass!” I waved a stool into existence and sat down in a huff.

“You can’t just do that!” 

“Says the person with a purposefully consumed split personality.  At this moment, I’d rather take the other,” I quibbled.  It was a low blow, and I knew it.  His face fell.  It was like I had dealt him a punch to the gut.

“I’m trying to keep you safe here, Deus.  Please,” he begged.

“Hatter may talk funny, but the times I have seen him, outside of my first day here when he pointed a sword at me, he has been perfectly polite to me.  A bit cryptic, but he hasn’t turned into a complete ax murderer on me yet,” I quipped. 

Sylwyn slumped to the floor, his hands finally no longer shaking. “He’s not harmless, Deus.”

“And neither am I.” I flashed him a warning look.  This was going far enough.

“It’ll only get worse when you become a Simil.  You’ll be -” he went to say.

“I already am, Sylwyn.  No one here likes me much.  I just went and levelled over so many people in this damn place that if people aren’t scared of my position, they are jealous of it.  You know what?  Where is that quizzing room?  I’m feeling destructive.” I started walking.  A snap of my finger made the stool disappear.

“You realize that Simils and Deweys are supposed to take years of training to just materialize things like that, don’t you?” He got up to chase after me.

“No, I don’t, because no one seems interested in actually explaining things to me.  I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be able to do this impossible thing!  I can read stories and make them come to life.  No one explained to me that was possible when I was five.  I get to figure this shit out on my own at my age.  Everyone seems pissed at me, even you.  I’m not an idiot here!” I hissed.  “At least Hatter sees the hallways the same way I do!”

“What do you mean by that, Deus?” Sylwyn caught up to me.

“Talking to Hatter, I asked what he saw of the hallways.  I was informed that it is just the grey barrenness like what I see.  So, it’s not just me,” I snipped.

“You talked about hallways with him?” he asked, perplexed.  I halted, forcing Sylwyn to stop short.

“He tells himself the Odyssey and Genesis in Latin to count the time it takes to get between locations in the guild,” I told him.  “Do you do that?”

“No, I know the map of the guild by what the walls show me.” He shook his head.

“You know nothing of Hatter, do you?” I asked.

“There’s never been a reason to know anything about the Mad Hatter,” he stated.  What was I supposed to do with this situation?

“Will you hate me as much as you hate yourself when I become a Simil?” I confronted him.

“I don’t…hate…myself.” He paused, trying to wrap his mind around it.

“You do, or else you wouldn’t be so angry over all of this,” I pointed out.

“Do you know how hard it is to be the Simil in the guild?” he tried to throw it back at me.

“Do you know how hard it is to come into this place with no background and be told that you have to become something that obviously no one likes but everyone needs and not get a straight response from anyone?” I retorted back.  He stopped short, not wanting to meet the anger in my eyes.  “I want to talk to Hatter,” I said flatly.

“I don’t know how to summon him at will.  Why do you want to talk to him?” He backed away from me.

“Because, out of everyone I’ve dealt with today, him and Laury were the only ones that made any damn sense!” I hissed, returning to my fast-paced walk.

“Thaddeus, please, don’t be like this,” Sylwyn begged.

“Then talk to me like someone who actually needs straight answers.  I am not a petulant teenager.  I’m just new to this place, and no one has explained anything.”  I turned down another hallway.  For some reason, something told my faulty navigation system that at the end of that hallway was the quizzing room.  I walked faster.

“The Simil is someone who silences those that go up against the guild.  I’m an assassin, a death god.  I’m the boogeyman that Readers scare their little kids with.  Most of their stories aren’t too far off either.” He rubbed at his arm.

I reached the door, the one that I could just feel was the right one.  I opened it and found to my relief the quizzing room.  Sylwyn followed me up the stairs at a dash.

“What do I have to do to work this thing?” I stared at the console.

“What are you trying to do?” Sylwyn eased up next to the console with me.  He typed in a few short commands.  A prompt showed up.  “Here, put in your name, and it’ll pull up your data and open up the database for you to bring forth anything you want,” he told me.

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I hurriedly typed in my legal name. It dinged me back to the beginning. I cussed under my breath and put in my deadname. “Fuck them to hell and back.”  A program window popped up and then faded behind the main menu.  A whir of fans told me the machine was running something heavy.

“That’ll activate the cameras and sensors around the room,” he explained.  “You don’t have anyone to compete against right now.  What are you going to do?” he asked.

“This,” I said.  My blood was boiling; my energy was washing my skin with a rolling knot.  Tension was pulling at my neck.  I couldn’t remember being this angry.  I could probably think things into existence without it, but I was already getting used to flipping my hands around when summoning things.  I clapped my hands, the power tingling along my arms.  A dragon rose out of the floor, hissing fire.  Sylwyn pulled back.  Ash and fire rained down from the ceiling.  A rolling sea of lava bubbled up between the tiles.  With a snap, it all disappeared.  A barren wasteland of ice dropped the temperature of the room.  Mammoths raced across the surface as a blizzard swiped at them.  The environment dissolved to men spread across a bloody battlefield.  I couldn’t quite find what would release my energy.  I wanted more.  I wanted to relieve this tension so badly.

Unicorns, centaurs, dwarves, and wizards did nothing to assuage my passion.  Climatic disasters, complicated mazes…nothing eased my tension.  I pushed at the barrier.  I felt like crawling out of my skin.  Something just wasn’t quite right.  Then a shot of electricity coursed through my system.  My head felt like it was going to explode.  Just as suddenly as it happened, my head cleared.  I felt…calm.  Oddly so.  Sylwyn’s hand rested on my arm.  I looked up at him.  He looked concerned.

“Have you seen your score?” he asked me as I came back to myself.

“I don’t even know what the scores mean, Wyn.  I just knew this was a safe space to let out my anger.” I collapsed into a console chair.

“Scores are how guild members are ranked.  Colours designate a score range.  Quite a bit of the guild members can only execute a couple of commands, and only if there are written words in front of them.  There are some that can do a large amount of commands, but again, still need the text to read.  Not many can Read out something without a text to read from.  Even at that, they can only execute a couple of commands before collapsing.  Ways that people unRead can also influence the ranks and colours.  The average color is red, or a rank three.  It goes down to green, who are rank ones.  Reading out for a green is practically a fluke.  They might get lucky to bring something out once a year.  Reds can average about one to two readings a day,” he explained.

“I was told something about a Platinum rank, if I remember the guard correctly,” I muttered, feeling wiped out.  It felt nice to feel like lead.  The restless, angry energy had finally evaporated, leaving me empty.

“The average rank for people who can Read out any number of times in any given day is gold.  Most people who gain candidacy for Simil come from the Platinum level – the ones who can fluke a Read without a text, though some Simil candidates are registered as gold – a rank under,” he added.

“Are you a platinum?” I closed my eyes.

“Yes,” he answered quietly.

“Highest level?” I surmised.

“Why do you say that?” he pressed.

“ I can only guess that the highest levels are finally taken from the candidacy list and asked to be Simils,” I responded.

“Right,” he nodded.

“What does taking on the role of Simil do then?  You can already summon things without texts,” I stated.

“That’s the thing.  Almost no one can summon more than two or three times without a text before collapsing.  The Simils can do it at will, as much as needed,” he said.

“So?” I asked.  I think I was missing something.

“You aren’t a Simil yet,” he replied.

“No…” I wasn’t sure where this was going.

“And you can do that at will,” he finished – pointing out to the arena.

“I’m not following,” I said.

“I took on the responsibility of Simil to be able to Read at will.  The best I could manage before that was about four, maybe six times before collapsing.  Even at that, I had to state passages…out loud,” he finished.  

What?  My eyes flew up to meet his.  Blood drained from my face.

“Sometimes, when someone has gone unBound, they can do what you do, summon things at will without speaking…but maybe like tops five times.” He rubbed at his shoulder.

“What happens?” I asked.

“They collapse.  They can’t do it again.  Most never try it again.  I’ve been told they get absolutely horrendous headaches if they try to summon anything.  They get too scared to Read,” he told me.

“Why do people try so hard to level up so high if it means they run a chance of becoming a Simil, something everyone seems to hate?  What does that make me?” I asked him.  He swallowed and walked back to the console.  “I’m not a Simil; I haven’t, how you say, swallowed a character.  What will happen when I do?” I pressed him.

He turned and leaned up against the console.  “You broke my record, many times over.  I’m not even sure that there is a point to initiating you as a Simil.  You already can do what they are supposed to handle.  The only reason for you to do it is if you don’t want to remember what happens when you are working for the guild.  People aim to get high up on the ranks because it means an increase in pay and better room and board.  As long as they don’t have to be a Simil, they will work for the pay,” he elaborated.

“What would becoming a Simil do for me if I can already do what you do?” I asked.

“I’m not really sure I want to find out…” He glanced at me nervously.

“What do we do now?” I asked him after a couple of minutes of silence.

“It’s not like I was trained in having an apprentice.  I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be showing you.  For the most part, the Mad Hatter just does the tasks that the Chair sets him up to do.”  Sylwyn finally pulled himself off the floor.  He walked over to me and offered me a hand.  I rose to meet him.  “I had training in how to consume the character.  That took months, though.  And that…I don’t know if it’s different for Deweys, sorry.  We haven’t had one in so long; I don’t think anyone here is old enough to remember one,” he mused to himself as we descended the staircase. “There is probably documentation around here for it, though.” He opened the door for me.

“How do you tell what time it is?” I asked.  He didn’t wear a watch that I could see.  I hadn’t seen him pull out a phone, so the place probably didn’t get great cell signal.

“I don’t really ever know what time it is unless I’m in a courtyard room, like the apartment or the mess hall.  The hallways can give you a false impression of timelessness.  The courtyard rooms, well, the courtyards themselves, have those suns cast on the ceilings.  Those do rise and set accurately to this hemisphere.

“I’m exhausted. Still need to drop by the pharmacy if there is one and hope they don’t fight me on getting my script from my doctor filled.  Think we can just head back to your apartment after?” I asked him.  I wanted out of the damn corset.  The thing was restrictive and inconvenient.  “Maybe pick up some clothes beforehand.  I would rather stop summoning my clothes into existence,” I told him. “Not sure with what money. Will my visa work down here?”

“That’s a summons? You’ve been maintaining that summons all day?” he asked with a squeak. “After doing what you just did out there?”

“Yeah, why? Thought you knew that when I asked for a book to have a different outfit option. You do it with your sword all the time.  Oh, don’t tell me summons disappear after a while.  Wait, how do those suns stay in the ceiling if they disappear soon after?  I don’t want to hear any more about what a special snowflake I am,” I groused.

“The suns are old Reads; no one in this generation has been able to reproduce them,” Sylwyn explained as we headed down the grey hallways.  My legs were killing me.  I hadn’t walked that much in years.  Desk jobs and housework were nothing compared to constantly walking the halls.

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Subgalaxia: Ch 13

Fane was practically buzzing.  Ishan watched, baffled at the new bounding ball of energy.  Ishan had seen him happily content, yes, but Fane was excited, and not in a murderous way.  He slipped his arsenal into his holsters but neglected his socks and boots. His hair pooled around him in a copper curtain.  His eyes shifted continuously between silver and blue. The smile that burst across his face was dazzling. Ishan couldn’t help himself from pulling the bouncing incarnation of joy into a hug before turning him loose at the door.

“Lunch?” Ishan asked, holding out a hand to Fane.

Fane glanced up at him mischievously, his teeth gleaming quickly.  “I have to try something first. Come on.” He pulled Ishan down the hall.

Ishan laughed, amused at Fane’s antics.  “What’s gotten into you?”

They skidded down the hall. Fane flew down the stairwell.  He waited excitedly at the bottom that lead out to the machinists’ section of the warehouse. It was shorter than the spaceship assembly, clearing at three stories rather than the fifteen on the other side.

“Charlie! Oye, Charlie, got a beam clamp ‘n a swivel you don’t mind me usin’ real quick?” Fane waived down a startled mechanic.  “Where’s Meril’s chalk she’s been using for her concrete mixes?” he continued on. Ishan paused, surprised that Fane knew these people.  He had already made rounds in there and learned everyone’s names and rolls in the shop.

“The hell you need a beam clamp for?” Ishan called after Fane, who dashed over to the mechanic’s workstation.

“A memory.” Fane grabbed the offered hardware, flashing another smile.  He could break hearts with that kind of power. Ishan’s heart stutterd. What exactly had Fane remembered about his life?

Before he knew where the man had flitted off to, Ishan was looking down at an excited Fane who was holding a fairly long length of one-inch diameter polyester rope.  A small paper bowl filled with chalk powder was precariously balanced in the other hand that was also holding the beam clamp and swivel.

“Come on, come on.” Fane motioned Ishan after him as he made for the very far end of the warehouse.  No one was using the better part of a thousand feet of space at that end.

“What’s this memory of yours?” Ishan called after him.  Fane laid out the rope and hardware before carefully unloading his weapons.  “What are you doing?” Ishan asked, puzzled, a touch nervous. Fane pulled over the length of the rope, testing its tensile strength and checked the swivel and beam clamp.  

“Hey, Prince!  Your guy need a lift?” a young woman asked as she drove over a scissor lift.

 “Uh…Fane?” Ishan glanced over at him. Fane cleanly lept the distance to the railing.  “Perfect, that’d be great.” He smiled broadly at the woman, who turned a brilliant shade of red.  Ishan stood back out of the way, standing guard over Fane’s arsenal as he watched the lift go up into the rafters of the three-story hangar.

The man had no fear.  He clambered his way out onto the beam and pulled a set of tools from a cargo pocket, and proceeded to tighten the beam clamp down.  He checked its positioning before securing the swivel to it. The woman in the lift was not pleased that Fane was working all over the beam without a safety harness, but he kept on going.

“Wha’s he doin’?” Bern sidled up to Ishan.  “By all the golden leaves of the Forest…” Bern’s eyes finally lit on Fane’s hair.

“Took a bunch of those hooks out of him last night.  Woke up to Rapunzel. Says he remembered some things from before the surgeries.” Ishan never took his eyes off the monkey on the ceiling.

“He seems…excited?” Corbin approached Ishan’s other side in trepidation.

“In all the months I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him like this.  I’ve seen him doing his shot tests and when he went after the baron. That type of excitement from him is scary, believe me.  This. I don’t even know what to make of this.” Ishan smiled, relieved. Fane fiddled with the rope at the top of the lift.  Ishan had a hard time making out what he did, but eventually, he attached it to the swivel, allowing the rest of the length to fall away to the smooth cement below.

“Must have a lot of energy if he’s up for climbing that,” mused Sophia.  Ishan glanced around to find a group of college age adults looking up at the man in the rafters.  He recognized Deck and Benj. The others must be the other wolves, he mused to himself. The mechanics had even laid down their tools.  A loose ring of curious onlookers gathered around the floor. Fane and the woman on the lift descended. He lept off the lift before it was fully lowered, landing smoothly on the floor.  He pulled on the rope, testing it, his nervous energy palpable.

“The Shaman. What have you done to him?” Dietrik turned to Ishan, his eyes flicking between blue and gold.

“Freed him of some of his bonds.” Ishan shifted from one foot to the other, his fingers tracing the embroidery on his cuffs.

  Fane waived the lift out of his space.  He took up the rope and walked it in a circle – seeing what the reach was going to be like.  Mechanics and scientists backed out of the ring he was making. He came back to centre and put all his weight on the line again.

“What are you doing?” Ishan finally called out.  Everyone was too curious. Fane looked up at him, joy spreading across his face.  He let go of the rope and walked over to Ishan, his steps fluid and sensual. He pulled off his compression top.  Gasps rattled about the warehouse, his scars quite telling. Ishan’s heart hammered in his chest, but Fane was ignoring the responses.  He tossed the shirt and the tools he had used to secure the beam clamp out to the edge of the ring near his arsenal.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.” His teeth gleamed as he pulled his hair up and twisted it.  He slipped the twist back and under until he had created a stewardess bun. Ishan was surprised at the smoothness of the action like the man had done it every day of his life.  Fane plunged his hands into the bowl of chalk and rubbed it up his forearms and then onto his feet.

“Climbing ropes?  You look like you do that in your sleep,” Sophia pointed out.  Fane flashed her a glance, his sclera going black for only a blink, but the honest smile on his face could not be set aside.

“I just about do,” he conceded the point.  He lifted himself up on tiptoes and kissed Ishan on the cheek, catching his eye for a second.  “Watch.”

Fane sprang back to his rope.  A swift stretch of his shoulders as he walked the rope around the circle once more loosened him up, the movement fluid and fixating.  Ishan’s mouth ran dry as Fane’s lines elongated, his toes pointing and flexing, drawing his legs long and lean. Ishan barely noticed at first that he gently rolled up the slack of the rope around his arm.  He relaxed himself against the rope and took up some speed, allowing the rope’s movement to lift him up his path, one arm holding his body rigidly aloft. At the completion of one full turn, he brought his pointed toes up above his head, twisting into a meathook climb.

The swinging, hypnotizing movement brought him up farther and farther above the floor.  He was home. He dropped into a swivel catch before continuing with the dance. Beats, angels, the contortions continued on and on.  “He was an aerialist.” Ishan finally understood the beauty he was watching flying above them.

“I’ve never seen anyone do this.” Bern breathed an awed sigh.

Fane pushed himself into more and more difficult contortions, the ropes forming intricate cat cradles about his lithe form.  The group below him was stunned. He could feel the memories of his many practice sessions, the muscle memory that never left.  He had to augment some of his patterns; his partner no longer there to catch or support.

He had only been in the air for maybe three minutes before he made a dizzying drop that carefully deposited him feet first on the cement. His hair was already coming free of the bun, the lengths spilling about his shoulders and chest. His years of training snapped across his senses as he straightened his back and held his head high as a finishing execution.  The group of machinists and scientists clapped and whistled at the spectacle as he drew in deep breaths. He turned a searching gaze to Ishan, swallowing nervously. Ishan waived him over to him. Fane’s face lit as he abandoned his rope and ran back over to Ishan.

“All right, guys, break’s over!” Corbin directed the shop workers.  A cacophony of disappointed vocalizations drifted in different directions in the warehouse.

“This wasn’t in your files.” Ishan smiled down at the proud breathless man standing in front of him.

“I – I worked…my sister and I worked at a cabaret as rope aerialists and pole dancers.  My folks had been part of a touring group…They taught us… Mel and me.” He glanced back at the swinging rope, the memories tumbling down like dominoes. “Mum came from a New French ballet company in Glasse.  Dad was a gymnast raised in Edin.  We were classically trained in ballet and gymnastics because of them, at least during our childhood and early teenage years.  They joined up with a burlesque circus of sorts. They did the trapeze, the silks and rings. The boss funding it.” He shook his head. “They got themselves into some pretty massive debt with the boss. When they both died in a car crash, my sis and I – we had to take their place.” The desire to be back up on the rope crawled across his skin.  He walked back, Ishan trailing behind him.  

Ishan knew he had to be patient, that the memories had to come as Fane could get them.  Bern crossed his arms, watching the man’s actions. Dietrik and Heinrich glanced at the White Horse.  They couldn’t quite shake the twisting in their hearts as Fane’s emotions beat at the circle.  A sweet, heavy scent of honey and bee brood wafted through the air, along with an underlying musk that the wolf hybrids readily identified as something more sensually driven.  The large blond man who had identified himself as Yeller walked away from the group and went back upstairs.

Fane circled around Ishan, setting him just to the side of dead centre as he worked.  He eased up the rope, muscles flexing and lengthening under the pull. The lifts and twists were more steady, the dance more intricate, more refined.  The swings were balanced to only circle tightly around Ishan as he continued to talk to his prince about his childhood and his teenage years before ending up in Sanguis.  

“We thought we were so close to being free of the debt.  The boss…he made a lot of money on our acts…and our customers…” Fane flicked a glance away from Ishan as he spun away from the man for a moment before coming back to him. “We were planning on walking away when it was all paid off. I didn’t know that Mel had started taking on personal customers on the side to clear the debt faster. When the boss found out that she was moonlighting, he had her murdered out of anger.

“When the debt collectors showed up that day demanding I pay them the rest of the debt along with adding a new number to it to make up for Mel’s death. They literally tried to charge me…to pay them for murdering my sister, saying that the boss had to charge for work done and lost merchandise, no matter what kind of work it was.  I couldn’t do it. I can remember going after his men. The anger that I had pent up inside of me. I can remember every one of them. I remember the first time I took a gun from one of them. The first knife. I remember what happened in Sanguis. The caning…cigarette burns…they branded me…ice water…steam…razor blades…bats and lead pipes…nails…they sheared my hair off and practically strangled me with it.” He hung upside down in a foot lock, right at eye level with Ishan.  The space chilled, the vapour in the air freezing in the area to create a light fall of snow throughout the entire building. Fane’s eyes shifted their varying colours, worry creasing his eyebrows.  

“When they came for me. The last time they took me from that cell, something snapped.  A red rage that shook me to the core. That day I vaporized most of the men in there with the ice, like Bern described.  I found a gun and used it ‘til it was empty. I don’t remember the walk to the base.  I do remember Zephyr finding me in the pouring rain. I remember the many operations. That tiny ass cell Sanguis had me in…” The temperature in the warehouse was plummeting fast.  

Ishan reached out a hand to touch Fane’s jaw.  He rose up on tip toes to kiss him.  “I shouldn’t have opened those memories. I’m so sorry, Fane.” Ishan rested his forehead against Fane’s.  Fane spun down from the hook to support himself with just the one-arm hold. He pulled Ishan into a hug with his free arm, lifting him off his feet.  Ishan held on, swinging gently with the man for a moment, Fane’s legs taking most of his weight. “I can’t thank you enough for returning this to me.” Fane allowed Ishan to slip along his body down to regain his feet.  Fane released his hold on the rope, letting it spin him back to his own bare feet. The cement was warm beneath his feet.

“You’re glowing,” Ishan whispered quietly.  Fane looked up at him quizzically, thinking he was stating something about his emotions.  

“Nae, literally, ye’re glowin’ like a candle,” Bern called out in the quiet space.  Fane glanced over at Bern, finally realizing that he still had an audience.

“You said you went and worked on his void last night?” Corbin asked as Bern and him walked up to Fane and Ishan.

“For several hours,” nodded Ishan.  “I wasn’t able to completely get him out of that nest, but I think it’s been improved immensely.” He brushed his hand along Fane’s free hand.  Fane took it in a warm hold.

“May I?” Bern raised an eyebrow, offering him a handshake.  Fane looked at it for a minute before relenting. He took the offered hand and pulled Bern into his void.  It was becoming a smoother transition every time he had to do it. Ishan found himself pulled in along with Bern.  He was surprised at the transformation that had happened since the morning. Though Fane still sat in the rope seat Ishan had made for him, and hooks and wires were embedded in his flesh, Fane’s surroundings were slowly shifting.

The chamber was refining itself.  It was an echoing cavernous expanse.  Ishan looked up to the ceiling. It was arched into a central point, banners of gold and red sweeping from the point out to the edges of the circular area.  Spotlights cast blue and green shadows across the space. It smelled sweetly of floor wax and chalk. Even the massive black pool was becoming defined with a set ring. There was an edge to it now where the banners met hardwood floor on the outside of it.

Though wires and hooks still cut into him, areas of his skin were unmarked and fair.  A black leather single-shoulder top wrapped around his left shoulder down under his right arm, and a band from it stretched back across to his left side.  Black leather skin-tight pants cupped him suggestively. Soft leather straps protected his wrists. Matching leather spatterdash leggings wrapped around the calves of his pants and under the arches of his feet.

“Yer space is comin’ back to ye!” Bern called up to the man excitedly.  He was so far out of reach. Fane looked down at him with a wide smile. Bern was surprised to watch Ishan reached up and levitate in the space, his fingers drawing along one of the wires that held Fane.

“You’re amazing,” Ishan complimented him. “Wanna see if we can get any more of these hooks off while we’re in here?” he offered.

“How much more can be removed without risking the jump?” Fane asked.

“I’m still betting it has something to do with these bolts.  I want to see about these rings.” Ishan tapped on the massive loops that were buried under Fane’s clavicles.

Fane turned to look down on Bern. “You coming up or just gonna stand down there and fish?”

 Bern glanced down at the pool, the waves rippling gently. He spotted the knife in Fane’s hand. He could guess at why the space was calming down.  Ishan held out his hand and offered it to Bern. Bern drew in a breath and had to suspend his sense of gravity for a time as Ishan pulled him up to walk beside him around Fane’s rig. “What became a’ the lines n’ hooks ye got out?” Bern asked from his new vantage point.  Ishan looked around, also curious. Fane waved toward the ceilings and walls. They were the banners and silks that hung down throughout the space.  Bern nodded his head, getting the picture.

“Right, so, ye knife the creature a’ the deep ‘n that keeps it at bay.  We get the rest a’ the hooks out n’ that leaves just the bolts n’ these massive loops,” Bern reiterated Ishan’s opinion.  “I’ve worked gold before. We’d need a lot a’ heat n’ a pair of pretty sturdy shears ta cut through these.” Bern sighed, not sure where to start with them.  “Ye get ta work on the hooks, Prince. I’ll see what I can do ‘bout convincin’ Fane here ta give me a furnace and bellows.” Bern glanced around the space again, not sure how he was going to make Fane loosen up his void for such an unusual instrument.  The knife was new, so clearly, he could shape the void to his will, but he was still inexperienced at it. The Fyskar had the talent to be awake in their void, but any time he had entered someone else’s void, someone not of the bloodline, he had always found them asleep.  Every space had been different, reflecting the person’s loves and passions, but he had never met them awake. Convincing a person’s void to create something new was not an easy task for those asleep. Maybe it would be easier for a Red Hare.

“Blow torch and bolt cutter’s’d do the trick,” Ishan offered as he pulled a particularly nasty hook from Fane’s arm.  Fane bit out a curse as stars sparked in his vision. These were the ones Ishan had not felt safe enough to pull before on his own.  They were larger and deeper than the others, and Ishan could only guess at what memories they were attached to. “You gonna be all right for another round?” Ishan paused, waiting for the wound to start closing.

Fane took a deep breath in and out, willing the pain to stop.  Fane caught Ishan’s eyes and nodded. “I can do another round, but should we be standing in the middle of the warehouse in everyone’s way?” Fane asked, recalling them to the reality they were in.

Bern shrugged.  “We’ll come out a’ it if someone needs us enough.  Now, what’s a blow torch?” He pulled experimentally on the chain at Fane’s left shoulder as Ishan worked on Fane’s right side.  The rig swayed, Ishan and Bern swaying with it. Bern raised an eyebrow at Ishan. This was disconcerting.

Fane had to think for a quiet minute, disturbed from his concentration as another hook came free.  The more he thought about the tool, the calmer the pool beneath him became until a blue canister blowtorch and a flint scratch lighter dropped from the ceiling the same way the knife had. “That’s a blow torch.”

Bern looked at it, puzzled.  “Right, now what?”

  Fane reached for it, but the space seemed to bend away from his grasp.  “Really?” he spat, annoyed. “Hand that to me,” Fane demanded. Bern set the instrument in his hand.  “Right. Now take it,” Fane growled. Bern took it, confused. Fane reached for it again, and the space grew.  “Bloody brilliant,” he seethed. So, he could conjure up necessary things, but he had to have someone else hand them to him. That was messed up.  “You still need bolt cutters. Give me a sec.” Fane had to think about it. The hinges were his hang-up. A well-worn set dropped down into Ishan’s hands.  Ishan switched with Bern and lit the blow torch. Fane’s lip curled. This was going to be fun. Ishan showed Bern how to adjust the flame point and heat levels before switching him back for the bolt cutters.

“Prefer the chest or the back?” Bern asked, amazed at the fire in his hand.  Fane looked at him and Ishan. He couldn’t help the sweat that broke out across his skin looking at the flame.  Now that a specific set of his memories were back, he was not thrilled about seeing the instruments around him.  The pool below him rippled.

“Easy Fane.” Ishan noticed his distress. He came around to where Fane could see him completely.  Fane would not take his eyes off of the torch. Ishan stepped in front of Bern, hiding the flame behind him.

Fane looked up at Ishan, his pupils dilating. “I…um…what just happened?” He was missing a minute in his head.

“Bern and I have a blowtorch to get the rings out of your shoulders.  You saw the flame and spaced. I think we should stop here for the day.” Ishan turned the last comment to Bern.  

“No! I…I can keep going.  Sorry about that,” Fane protested.  He wanted to have the rings out, badly. 

“I’m going to work in front then and have him work behind you; that way you don’t have to see it.  Will that be okay? You’ve got those brands on your…” Ishan looked down at Fane, an image of his real-life body flashing, superimposed on the one in the void.  His stomach dropped as his eyes spotted every hook and piercing, every line and wire, every bolt and pin. He drew a finger along the length of the meathook that still skewered Fane’s oblique.  He had been too scared to pull it out. “The scars…”he murmured. Fane looked up at him with a questioning glance.

“Prince?” Bern asked.

“Burn marks.” Ishan touched a loop piercing.  “Razor blades.” He skimmed the lines of aberdeen hooks.  He came to a series of treble hooks and glanced up at Fane, catching his eye.  He had remembered what Ajay had described to him in the torture scars, “nails?”  Fane bit his lip and looked away, nodding slightly. “Caning.” Ishan drew a finger along one of the wires that still wrapped around Fane.  “He has brands on his back where those loops are.” He looked up at Bern. Fane ducked his head, his chest constricting. The memories felt too fresh, too raw in that very moment.  Ishan traced Fane’s leather-wrapped thigh along the bolts in his legs. “These aren’t connected to that implant.” Ishan’s voice cracked.  

“No?  That’s good, right?” Bern turned back to survey the hooks that remained.

“You have pins in your legs and arms.  I read that in your medical report,” whispered Ishan, his stomach flopping.  Fane found his hand, holding it tight, the tips of his ears going red. “You don’t have to tell me, it’s okay,” Ishan pulled Fane’s head to his shoulder, holding him for a time.  Splashes of heat stained his shirt. Ishan hummed a lullaby, quieting the sniffles. Bern stood back, giving the two room.

He had only ever heard of the Red Hare in stories and legends that his people kept alive.  They were strong, fearless monsters that protected the wall from the Roman invasion. They were said to have no soul, the antithesis of the White Horse, re-incarnated demons.  He couldn’t help but watch the men in front of him and realize that his legends were sorely amiss. He had never thought the Red Hare could have been so elegant or powerful. To see the deep contrast between his outward self and the hellscape inside his head made him ache.

“He had hoped that I’d never be able to dance again.  He wanted me to live knowing that. He had them break them,” Fane whispered, the ache in his voice echoed in the cavern.

“The same with your arms?” Ishan yearned to take this pain away. 

Fane nodded. “It took years of physical therapy and dedicated exercise to rebuild muscle definition and flexibility,” he hiccuped.

“I can’t believe you got away.” Ishan hugged him tighter.

“I remember my pain, and my rage that day when I understood what they were doing, and why.  The burns, brands, scars, those were inflicted as pain and humiliation, but I knew I could still dance, regardless of my skin.  They weren’t out to kill me. They only ever brought me close to it.” Fane warmed under Ishan’s touch. “When you desperately don’t want to be where you are…” Fane shrugged.  He truly couldn’t recall leaving. He remembered laying down utter destruction, every face swarming his vision, but he could not place the walk that took him out of the prison and through the bad end of the industrial district to the back gates of the base. Fane smiled weakly.  “I guess he achieved his desire to keep me off the ropes.”

“No, he didn’t.  What I just saw you do out there, you were beautiful,” Ishan reassured Fane, pulling his chin to make him look him in the eyes.  Tears sparkled at the corners of his eyes. “You were, and I want to see you do it again.” He brushed the tears from Fane’s cheeks.  Fane perked up, relief palpable in the space.“Let’s take a break from this.   We got a few more hooks out, which will help.  We can do the big ones later, more slowly,” Ishan offered.  

Fane shook his head, fire in his eyes.  He drew in a steadying breath and glanced over at Bern, then back at Ishan.  “No, I want them out. I don’t want to be chained down to these fears.”  Ishan studied him for a second and sighed, nodding his head. “Just…I might…I might need help with the panic attacks,” he admitted hoarsely as Bern came back around with the torch.  

Ishan pulled his gaze back to him.  “We’ll get the rings out. Bern is going to soften them. I’m going to use the bolt cutters.  I’m right here.” Fane looked up to him, silently repeating the mantra, telling himself over and over exactly what was going to happen to him.  “If you need us to stop, we’ll stop immediately. I’m going to have him work in front of you. I know the flame made you panic when you saw it, but I can only imagine how you’d feel with heat at your back.  We’re going to start with the left one.” Ishan tapped on the loop. Bern nodded his head and approached the Red Hare once more. Fane’s skin prickled at the thought of the torch. He held his breath. He willed himself not to move as the torch descended.  His heartbeat sky rocketed, and all he could do was let the tears start falling.

“Do you want us to stop?” Ishan asked.  Fane shook his head. He bit down on his lip and continued to watch the men work.  The heat of the torch did not reach his skin, but the thought of it doing so rattled around his nerves. With that thought, Ishan and Bern found themselves in a grey cement room that smelled of piss, blood, bleach and burning flesh.  The crawling sensation of horror wrapped around their lungs and spines, their shoulders bending under the weight. Fluorescent lights flicked, casting deep shadows in corners.  They turned to look around them. A spotlight fell on a limp arm on the floor, reaching out across the cement, the nail beds bloody. Several men stood around the body. One man’s boot kept the arm from moving.  Hot metal wafted around them. A portable forge stood in a corner, casting a red halo up the wall. A man in a guard’s uniform approached the laughing group with a glowing brand. The metal descended in the pack of the bodies. Pain shot through Bern and Ishan’s backs.

The scream that swallowed the memory threw them out into a dim orchestra.  The lights were low, save for the limelights circling a stage that stood out in the middle of the floor.  A single side light played along the hardwood, feet flicking in and out of shadow. The orchestral strings whined and hummed as the brass began to ease into a soft melody. 

Ishan stood, petrified, the pain of the burns lingering. “What is this, Bern?” Ishan knew the man would understand what was happening.

“We’ve emerged from the void, what the Fyskar call the camhanaich.  We tattoo it on our Princes, when they come a’ age ta help activate their connection, ease them inta it in a way.  The pain a’ relivin’ those brands triggered it in the same way our needles do. Ye saw my tattoos. They represent the levels of the mind.  The second one…the one we’re in now, we call turadh, our memories.  The last is the gloaming, our emotions.  We also have the eagal, craidh and corraich at our low back – pain, anger, and fear.

We use the time for tattooing ta activate each a’ those independently, ta help guide the boys comin’ a’ age into manhood.  We help them control it through the process, ta learn how ta manage them.

“Can you help him now?” Ishan watched the lights flash spasmodically in the space, and the orchestra swelled.

“He knows the eagal, craidh and corraich intimately.  I’m nae sure there’s much I can do here in the turadh.  We watch and wait.  He’s relivin’ his past, his memories.  Those loops are nae really there in the camhanaich.  They are his biggest fears, and if he really wants them out, he has ta do it f’r himself, I think.” Bern watched a myriad of coloured lights focus on the couple that now stood in the centre of the stage.  “The fact ye came in and helped him with some a’ the hooks probably has helped him face his fears already.” Bern nodded Ishan’s attention toward the stage. A numb pressure wrapped up Ishan’s spine and a throb dropped low in his gut.

Fane was brushing against his early twenties.  He was leaner, his face much younger. Wrapped in his arms was a small woman who couldn’t be much younger or older.  They shared similar side shoulder crop tops to what Fane had been wearing in the void. Her’s connected into a tight light blue leotard and short ballet skirt.  His olive green leggings ended at the knees instead of the ankles, his leather spatterdash style wraps and wrist cuffs were polished and gleamed under the lights.   Her make-up was light and airy, gold with exaggerated freckles. Her brassy red hair had been brushed back and left long, a large blue bow clasped at the back of her head.  His eyes were smeared with kohl, creating a heavy black bar from his eyebrows to feather out softly at his cheeks. His hair had been twisted into intricate knots and braids at the crown of his head.   Red feathers danced from small chains on beads in the knots.

“Can you feel the warmth?” Bern whispered as they watched the couple take up a pair of aerial straps.  Ishan flicked a glance at Bern. He reached for the sensation. It spread across his chest and his cheeks.  He discovered he was smiling as he watched the straps pull the couple up into a tight spin. Fane cradled the woman as he took the weight of the two straps.  She looped around him, catching her feet to his as she hung upside down in the air, her arms spread out as if she were flying. The music rose. They changed their poses.  The positions were suggestive and sensual, tantalizing the senses.

“I know this story.” Ishan couldn’t hide the nostalgia that was swamping him.

“Melody was everything to me when mum and dad died.  She was older by two years, though I know the files listed her as my kid sister – she always looked young for her age.  Military didn’t get everything right. She had her head on straight, usually. She kept me safe to the best of her ability.  Looking back now, I can’t believe she could do everything she did,” Fane whispered, standing next to Ishan. Ishan flinched, startled.  Fane was watching the dance, his eyes catching every movement, admiring every technique and trick. The brands in his shoulders looked fresh and raw under the short-shoulder crop. 

“How are you…?” Ishan couldn’t quite wrap his head around Fane standing next to him and being out on the stage. Bern didn’t seem phased by older Fane’s presence.

“This a favourite memory of ye’rs?” Bern asked.  Ishan turned back to the dance, admiring the fluidity.  A set of beats felt familiar to him as he watched Fane work.  Some of the contortions were modified.

“This was what you showed us out there, isn’t it?” Ishan finally put his finger on the feeling.

Fane nodded, his eyes gleaming with forgotten dreams and hard memories.  “Pan was Melody’s dream. She loved the story. It was how she learned to read.  It took her years and too many favours, and more debt to get the boss to let her do it.  This was the first night we performed it. It was a sold-out house, and it stayed that way.

The joy she felt in flying was palpable that night.  Her dressing room was completely packed in flowers after the performance.” Fane leaned against a railing, a sad smile crossing his face as he watched.  The music wrapped around them and beat at their senses. They felt the friction, the movement of air across their faces as if they, too, were flying in the air on the ropes. The act was no more than six minutes in length, but it felt too short when the couple descended from the air, Fane kneeling over Melody in the soft glow of the limelights.  They smiled at each other, teeth glinting. They got up and hurried to the stage edges as the house lights went up, and the audience cheered. Ishan turned to ask Fane a question, but he had vanished, the edges of the memory going fuzzy.  

They found themselves tossed back into Fane’s void, the camhainach as Bern called it.  Fane rested his head against the golden rope that was taking his weight as he watched Bern’s blowtorch indifferently.  Ishan looked around, not entirely sure if he would ever get a good feel for that kind of transition. Fane reached for the torch, and Bern relinquished it readily.  Fane flipped the dial, and the flame extinguished. He set it to the side of him, the torch bobbing in the air. He turned his eyes on the gold loop and tapped on it.  The metal cracked into radiating lines. He looked at it curiously. “I don’t need these anymore,” he muttered in frustration. He gripped the loop tightly and squeezed it until the metal melted out of the hole in his shoulder and pooled around him like globs from a lava lamp.  He grabbed the blobs and blew them from his palm, creating golden floating bubbles that illuminated the space. He smiled with a bit of a chuckle, pleased with the beauty. The hole in his shoulder bled as the skin began to stretch and mend.

He looked up at Ishan, tears in his eyes.  He smiled past them, relief clear in his expression.  “Thank you for sharing my memories with me.”

Ishan pulled the man to him, “Thank you for trusting me with them.”

 Bern stood back and watched as the wires and hooks dissolved into sparkles and bubbles around the men, leaving the two floating together above the pool, suspended by a golden rope.  Light caught and gleamed off the floating orbs and drifting flakes, the space dim yet dazzling.

Bern knew they would stay like that if he let them, but they were due to leave the void.  He could feel a beating hunger that was not his own. He tapped the two to split them up.  Fane looked up at Bern and nodded. It was time for them to go. He dissolved the connection, letting them find their feet back on concrete in the chill of the warehouse.

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 9

It seemed that the hallways were perpetually empty.  Maybe it was that the complex was so vast that it distributed people well enough to make it rare for more than a couple of people to occupy the halls at any one time.  I was perpetually amazed at the layout of the tunnels.  There were no signs at the corners of the walls telling which way to go to access certain places.  There were no labels on the doors to tell me if we were inside a housing block or in front of meeting rooms.

“Why are there no directions down here?” I finally asked, after what felt like my fifteenth turn.  

Sylwyn gave a perplexed twist of his head. “What is it that you see?”

A cold chill ran down my spine. “Am I not seeing something I’m supposed to?” concerned, I looked around quickly for any signs.  All that lay around me were barren grey fibreglass walls, grey and white checked linoleum, drop ceiling tiles, and massive rectangular halogen lights.

“When you grow up in the guild, it doesn’t occur to people to actually explain to newbies what’s going on.  Gah, seriously they need to send newcomers to school, no matter the age,” Sylwyn grouched, running his hand through his ponytail.

“Sylwyn?” I asked.

He sighed and looked around.  “Quite typically, members of the guild will see the guild as different things, depending upon the individual.  This area that we are in right now is the vast promenade of Victorian-aged Paris.  Each of these doors leads to a different workshop where guild members practice their various crafts.  Just because a person can read out a book does not mean it is their job.  Many of the people here continue on with trade skills, scholarly research, science experiments.  This area is for the craft trades.  See, here,” he proceeded to open one of the many unmarked grey fire doors.  I peered in.  It was a completely different place than what I had expected.  Inside was a full-blown blacksmithy.  True, the high ceilings were significantly vented, but still, within stood rows of forges, anvils, tools of the trade.  It was deafeningly loud.  It reeked of hot metal and burning fuel sources.

A man waved to Sylwyn, who waved back.   He was of medium build, with gray, thinning hair.  He wore about him a massive leather apron, gloves with scorch marks, and boots pocked with cinder ash.  He hurried over to us, shaking Sylwyn’s hand.  “Simil, it is so nice to see you again.  You don’t stop in often enough,” the man greeted him.  

“Laury, how are the railings for the upper balcony coming along?” Sylwyn smiled back.  

“Oh, you know Gregor, he’s been finagling them into perfection…which means they are five months behind schedule, as usual,” the man sighed.  Then his eyes slid over to me.  “And who might this lovely lady be that you would bless me with such beauty this early in the day?” the man beamed to me.  I reached out to shake his hand.  He took it, and instead of shaking it, he bent low and kissed it.

“Name’s Thaddeus Jaegar, sir.” I tried desperately for my lower voice pitch to hold. It cracked anyway.

Laury’s brows furrowed in confusion. His cheeks paled, and he dropped my hand. “Boy, you should seriously hope that peach fuzz comes in soon. Don’t go shaving it till that baby fat comes off. Put you in front of that forge and give you a hammer; it’ll broaden you out right quick.”

I kept myself from rolling my eyes. “Appreciate the offer. Think I’ll follow Simil around for a while longer.”

“Thaddeus, this is Laury McCaffrey, resident Blacksmith master, and best bass singer in the guild choir.” Sylwyn tried to smooth back over the introduction.  

“Flattery won’t get those railings done faster,” Laury turned a bright red.

“When is your next performance, Laury?  I think Thaddeus would be interested to hear the great choir and see the dancing images,” Sylwyn continued to lavish the man with attention. I had the feeling he enjoyed making the blacksmith squirm.

“It’s not so great,” Laury downplayed.  “We’ll be performing in a fortnight, if you would care to join us in the great hall,” he offered before one of his apprentices brought a finely detailed rail to be checked over.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, Laury.  I’ll see you at the performance and buy you a drink after,” Sylwyn waved as we emerged back into the hall.

“He was nice,” I commented as we continued walking the infinite halls again.

“He is a bit lost in thought most days, but he’s a good guy overall.  His wife watches the babies in the daycare.  They never had any of their own,” supplied Sylwyn.  “Back on topic though,” he began again, “what I see when I walk through this area that we just turned down is a bazaar in Bahrain, circa the early twentieth century.  The people may not be about, but the clothing and trinket stalls beckon.  Down further will be the rows of booksellers.  I can never be lost, for I see what is right before me.  I know this map.  I have been lost in these many rooms, meeting and learning about the humanity of these gifted people,” he smiled, broadly flinging his hands out to the barren grey halls.

“All I see is a grey and white linoleum floor, grey walls, firedoors, halogen lights and dingy ceiling tiles.  It’s just grey on grey and goes on in infinum,” I expressed remorsefully.

Sylwyn stopped walking to look at me.  “Really?  You see the base layer?”

“The structure of the building?” I surmised.

“Yeah, not many people of the guild actually see what the structure is comprised of,” he looked around, seeming to try to see through a veil for the first time.

“So, it’s an associative memory thing.  You think of Paris, or Bahrain, or London for different hallways and create a mental map of this place that way?” I supplied, still not believing that people really saw more than the grey labyrinth.

“I have heard some people say that it looked like a massive hospital ward, that names were on every door, little arrows at every corner.  Others have told me that it is a jungle, and still others talk of being lost in a massive library.  These halls, if you look closely are supposedly covered in transcriptions so tiny you’d need a microscope to see the letters.  Any Reader will subconsciously seek out the words in the walls to create a visual world to combat the drudgery of the labyrinth.  I am sorry that you have no world to see here,” Sylwyn said almost moroesly, leading me down another corridor.  “Maybe,” he perked back up, “when you have grown accustomed to this place, met more people, you will start seeing the halls as something more than a dreary grey world,” he tried to give me a smile.

Finally, after what had to be a solid fifteen minutes of walking, we found ourselves in front of a pair of large oak doors, an interesting difference from the firedoors, though now, it made me concerned as to the nature of the door, if it was really oak, or if it was a firedoor with the illusion transcript that Sylwyn had mentioned.  “While we are here, Deus, please forgive me for having you do this, but I need for you to call me Simil.  Not many here know me by Sylwyn, which will only lead to confusion. Laury knew me before Simil, but he’s an acception, not a rule,” he held the door handle, imploring me to understand.

“I…” Sylwyn looked concerned, unable to meet my eye.

“Are you nervous of the Hatter coming out?” I took a shot in the dark.

He nodded mutely.

“I’ve talked to him already, Sylwyn. It’s okay. He doesn’t scare me. Let’s eat,” I tried to draw him off the path he was fixating on.  He nodded solemnly.  He turned to the door and opened it into the raucous chaos that was the cafeteria.  Inside, along one wall was an L-shaped buffet line, where individuals were lined up with trays.  Filling in from there to the other end were large eight-seater tables, three deep, at least thirty to the wall.  A wall of glass looked out on another courtyard, this one filled with tropical plants.  I followed him to the buffet and picked up my tray and plate.  I filled it with so many tasty things, I knew I’d go up a size.  He led me to a table where a group was just leaving.

“Because of my position as the Chair’s guard dog, not many people will openly talk to me.  More like when we met with Laury, we will have to seek out those that will speak with me,” apologized Sylwyn when he realized that no one else would come to sit.  I did not find it completely terrible at that moment, though I knew that it would become a rather sad, lonely life if it was to continue like this for too long.

“What do I need to be doing here, Simil?” I finally asked after wolfing down about half of my plate.  A jolt of shock ran through Sylwyn’s shoulders.  He blinked, looking at me.  An uneasy feeling slipped down my spine.  I analyzed the man, wary.

“A little Simil for our big Simil it might be called.  The Chair wants to see you soon, just as you wish to see the Chair.  Maybe we will find out more than we want…” a different voice escaped Sylwyn’s throat.  I was talking to the Mad Hatter.

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 8

I woke to a beautiful sunrise.  Maybe it had all been a dream.  That’s what I deluded myself with as I wallered around in the comfort of my warm blankets.  The longer I kept my eyes shut, the longer I could just think it was all a nightmare, gone with the morning light.  Eventually though, mother nature called me from the comfort of dreamland to the cold necessity of a bathroom.  I grimaced, as I peeked one eye open, then the other.  This was not my house, or my living room. My couch in my apartment was threadbare and a spring was pushing through it. Here, the leather had been buffed with a conditioner that smelled of pipe tobacco and patchouli. 

I eased myself out of the couch, waiting for the telltale squeak that never came. It wasn’t my couch, I chided. I grabbed my button-up and slung it over my shoulders for some bid at modesty. White undershirt was too thin to do much good other than let me sleep comfortably or hide the line of my binder. I padded my way into the dark room and found a closet door.  Inside was a small wardrobe of clothing, a couple shirts, a couple pairs of pants, the cotton candy clown of death outfit.  I shuddered at the monstrosity of the pattern and color, but I understood now the symbolism of it.  I closed the door and fumbled my way to the door next to it, having seen it from the light of the closet.

It creaked open, the sound sending a chill down my spine.  I found it to swing in on a muted blue bathroom with a decently sized tub and shower combination, a sink, and a toilet.  It didn’t take me long to freshen up.  The shower, my first in several days, felt glorious. My ribs and sternum were tender, and my skin was chapped red. Grimacing, I knew I’d need to find some way to be comfortable for a couple days and give myself a break. When I stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around me, my hair still dripping water, I had a staring contest with my clothing. They were grimy and wrinkled and smelled rather sour.  

For the life of me, I couldn’t conjure up a good memory of clothing from a book, none that I knew would be of use to me.  Images of prehistoric clothing and victorian dresses came to mind, but those weren’t exactly normal clothing to walk about in.  I sighed, exasperated.  Finally, I resigned myself to clothing options and put myself in a green and brown velvet three-piece suit.  The corset-vest that wrapped tightly around me surprised me.  I had never worn one before, and the sudden corrective posture made me nervous.

The costume had come from a favorite yaoi smut story, and though I did not initially have ulterior motives, a smile tugged at my lips as I looked at my shoulders and hair, my dysphoria taking itself down a couple pegs.  I was amazed I hadn’t worn such a cut before. It was two hundred times more comfortable than the stupid binder. Especially because the vest fit over my shirt rather than against my skin. I waved my hand and considered the posh matched top hat and silver cane. It might be outlandish, but I liked how I looked. 

My smirk fell as I stared at the spot behind the faucet of the sink. In my mind’s eye, I could see the brown leather pouch I had bought at the renfaire one year. The smell of the alcohol singlets. That chemically pine scent if I dripped testosterone trying to get bubbles out of the syringe. It had been over a week since my last shot. I ran a hand along my chin, wishing for the chance to feel stubble there finally. Sighing, I left the bathroom, my gut churning. Clearing my throat, I hummed low through a scale, my voice cracking in spots. I grabbed my clothes from the bathroom.

I found the kitchen and sitting room empty. There was nothing beyond the four rooms in the apartment save for a door to the boiler, ac unit, and stacked laundry machine. I threw my shirts, pants, socks, and underwear into the machine with a cap of detergent.  Sylwyn had left for the day. While I had an undisturbed minute, I took my belt, binder, and detergent back to the bathroom. I hung the belt on the hook on the back of the door and washed out the binder. I grimaced at the rust-coloured staining along the hem and touched the spot on my left that had to have been the contributor. Hunting down a hanger from the closet, I carefully got the thing hung up on the drawer rail of the under-sink cabinet to dry.  

Returning to the kitchen, I found a box of cereal and half a jug of milk in the kitchen. I snarfed down a small bowl for breakfast.  I had thought to eat more, I had woken up famished, but that tight hug of the corset made it hard for me to stomach any more.  I wandered the little apartment, familiarizing myself with the small trinkets and details as I worked through broadening my vocal range in privacy.  

There were no other photos or pictures in the rooms.  The walls were bare other than for a couple of low shelves packed with books and little mementoes.  There was a little Eiffel tower, a small vase with Van Gogh’s sunflowers painted on the side.  A wooden mind puzzle ball acted as a bookend for a set of small moleskins.  I was nervous to linger too long on the titles of the books.  Most though, I found to be in languages I was barely familiar with. I had suffered two semesters of French in high school and recognized a couple of words on the shelves.  I knew what the Greek alphabet and Russian one looked like. There were Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Then an entire section in the swooping text of Southeast Asia that always escaped me. One entire shelf was dedicated to Middle Eastern scripts.

My eyes settled on a bottom shelf in the sitting room.  A corner held about a dozen thin, worn covers of what looked to be children’s text books.  I smiled.  I leaned over and pulled a couple out of the shelf.  That was what had really inspired me to become a librarian.  I loved the look of children’s books, the ability to have so many stories, though short, at hand.  The pictures, I loved them.  I stilled the nervous beat of my heart.  Would I bring something out of them?

I eased onto the ottoman, not sure that I’d be able to get back out of the couch with the corset on.  Maybe I should have gone with a prehistoric leather wrap.  I had kept myself from looking at the cover of the storybooks.  Finally, with trepidation, I looked down at the cover.

An ancient illumination of a boy in friar’s garb holding an open book was gilded to the cover.  Centred under it, a beautiful typographic font was printed A Storyteller and His Words.  Nothing popped out; no person stood before me.  I swallowed against my dry throat and opened the cover to the first page.  My eyes skimmed the first sentence, and nothing came out.  I heaved a sigh.  A book that would not cause problems.

Once, there was a boy, nearly a man, who lived in a small village near the sea.  He was the son of a traveller.  He would often spend evenings listening to his father tell the villagers of his travels across the sea, to exotic and foreign locations.  He loved to listen to the stories.

One day, when the boy was old enough to travel, his father dressed the boy in the finest outfit he could afford.  His father gave him a small pouch and a couple of gold coins.  With his fine gifts, the boy set out on his first travel.

He wandered across the land that was familiar to him.  He had gone with his father to close villages to trade, and he knew his way to them.  He wandered to the villages familiar to him, less than a day’s walk.  On his way, he passed by a stream.  It was nearing his time to break his afternoon fast.  He sat down on the bank and set up his fishing pole.  Within a short time he landed a large golden fish.  Gasping on the shore, the fish begged the boy to let him go.  The boy, startled to have a fish speak to him, asked the fish why it could speak.

The fish told him of a purple bird with magic feathers that once came to drink at the stream.  It had taken a fancy to the fish and gave him one of her feathers.  The fish, though, could only talk of the current and the bugs that he caught.  Dismayed that the fish was such a poor conversationalist, she flew away.  The fish told the boy to find the bird and to apologize for him for never having enough to talk to her about.  The boy in gratitude for the information tossed the fish back into his stream, put away his fishing rod, and left quickly.

That night, he shared his story of the talking golden fish with the people at the inn where he stopped to rest.  The men laughed at his stories.  The innkeeper’s wife, though, had once seen a purple bird living in the trees near the hay fields.

The following morning, the boy left to the hay fields in search of the magical purple bird.  Taking a worn road, the boy stumbled upon a rock.  Looking at the protuberance, he discovered it was not a rock but a black tortoise that had fallen on its back and was having difficulty righting itself.  The tortoise asked the boy for help.  The boy, startled that a tortoise could talk, helped the creature find its feet.  The tortoise, in gratitude, told the boy of how he came to talk.  He had met with a purple lizard some time ago.  It had taken a fancy to him and followed him about for days.  She gave the tortoise the tip of her tail, telling him that it would let him talk.  She grew bored of the tortoise’s slow speech and had left it.  The tortoise begged the boy to find the purple lizard and to apologize for him for always being slow to speak.

The boy left the tortoise for the hay fields, now in hopes of finding a purple bird and a purple lizard.  He considered to himself, wondering if they were related.  Late in the afternoon, he found the hayfields the innkeeper’s wife had mentioned.  He heard, on entering the field, the squawking brays of a cock caught in a trap.  Rounding the mounds of hay, he found a ruby-red rooster caught in a snare.  He helped the creature out of the trap.  The rooster thanked him graciously.  The boy, no longer stunned to find animals speaking with him, asked the rooster if he had seen a purple bird or a purple lizard.  The rooster laughed at him and corrected him, telling him it was neither a purple bird or a purple lizard but a purple cat that had given him a magical whisker that allowed him to talk.  The cat had left, though, because the rooster was too busy to talk, and he was sorry that he couldn’t have given it more attention.  The rooster left, quickly distracted with its task of catching insects eating the hay.

The boy left the rooster and made his way into the woods on the edge of the field.  He searched the woods late into the evening, finding no bird, no lizard, no cat.  He set up camp.  In the firelight, he watched the small bit of starry sky shift slowly through the canopy of the the trees.  He decided to write down his story.  He was startled by a crack of twigs.  Looking past the fire, he saw a figure step forward.  A person in a brilliant purple hood sat down across from him.

The boy offered the person some of his meal.  The hooded figure ate graciously.  The boy, uneasy in the silence decided to tell the person his magnificent stories, like he remembered his father telling stories back home.  The hooded figure sat, patiently listening.  Finished, the boy asked the hooded figure who he was.  The figure pushed the hood away from her face, revealing a pale woman with white hair and pale blue eyes.  She motioned to her throat and made several hand gestures, indicating that she could not speak.

The boy apologized.  He told her of the apologies of the fish and the tortoise and the cock.  The woman smiled to him, seemingly amused.  She stood up and walked over to the boy.  To his amazement, she bent down and kissed him.  With that, she disappeared.  The boy, stunned, sat the entire night away.  In the early morning, he wrote down his story.

Returning to the inn the next day, he found the innkeeper’s wife and told her the rest of his story.  She encouraged him to tell the men that evening, and to charge a few coins, to make it into an event, that they might listen, and not laugh at him.  He did as she suggested.

That evening, he pulled out his book, and placed his cap on the table.  Curious, some of the patrons dropped a couple coins in his cap and found seats.  He proceeded to read from his book, and to everyone’s stunned amazement, the fish, the tortoise, and the cock appeared before them.  The bird, the lizard, the cat, and the lady did not appear, but a massive glittering purple dragon with white claws, white whiskers, and white wings appeared before them.

The boy asked the dragon where it had come from.  It thanked him for finally providing her with her own story and vanished with the fish, the tortoise, and the cock.

I closed the book.  Purple wasn’t the first colour I would have chosen for the dragon.  I would have made the fish purple and the dragon gold, but overall the story wasn’t exactly bad.  It didn’t really explain much.  

No.  

I sat and thought about it.  The fish had seen a bird.  Dragons have wings.  Maybe it saw what it most desired, a bird because it could fly in the sky.  The tortoise had met with a lizard, which dragons look sort of like lizards.  It can travel faster than tortoises; maybe that was what the tortoise wanted to see in it.  The rooster might have seen the face and the legs of the dragon and thought it was a large cat.  Maybe it wanted to be able to live more like the cat, a relaxed life of hunting.  The boy probably saw a woman because he was about that age to start thinking of things like that.

A click of the door startled me from my pondering.  Sylwyn let himself into his apartment, smiling to see me.  The clock near the door told me it was just about lunch time.  He was dressed in his regular black shirt and jeans with the massive sword strapped to his back.  His hair was pulled back in a strip of leather.  “I thought I’d come see if you wanted to eat lunch in the cafeteria?” he offered.  I paused, trying to find some reason not to. Stealing myself, I nodded when I could not find a polite way out.  I had showered, and though my outfit was probably a bit outlandish, it was clean.  I stood up, and jumped when the book hit the ground. I grabbed it quickly to look for damage. 

A small smile of nostalgia pulled at the corner of Sylwyn’s lips. “Did you find it interesting?”

“It was refreshing not to have things crawling out of the pages.” I pulled at my jacket to settle the shoulders.

“It’s sealed, so you don’t have to worry about things coming out of it.” He leaned against the door frame, that nostalgic smile broadening to one of amusement. The smile slipped and an eyebrow rose over his pink eye. I could read about three very obvious emotions run across his face as he realized just what I was wearing.

“Sealed?” I grabbed my glasses off the side table where Sylwyn had set them the night before when I’d fallen asleep the first time. The black plastic frame was cold on the bridge of my nose.  

Sylwyn cleared his throat and looked away from me to study the green blinking clock above the range.  “It’s a special book that tells of the beginning of the Librarians, and we need to be able to let children read it without problems, so one of the Chair more than a millennia ago sealed that story.  I am not sure how he did it, but we have been able to distribute the story to our charges without incident ever since the first script.”

“A dragon gave us the power to read out things from written word?  Wyn? really?”  I crossed my arms over my chest, warm velvet reassuring against my thumbs.

“Think about it; it’s not that implausible,” he mirrored my body language.

“That’s like saying Santa Clause is real,” I challenged.

“Says the person who randomly makes white rabbits emerge out of thin air.” He retorted, the memory slipping out a mild look of disgust.

“But dragons? Specifically purple, but less specifically, dragons?” I pressed.  Dragons couldn’t be real.

“Hey, it could have just as easily been a bird.  I don’t know.  The things we can read out of books, though, can make anything plausible,” the blond-haired man’s brows furrowed as he stared at the bowl and spoon I had washed and left on the side of the sink to drip dry. 

My head was not wanting to wrap itself around dragons being real.  True, if I had a copy of Saint Peter sitting in front of me, I could probably make a dragon appear – but that was me speaking it into existence, not it already existing.

“Wait, does that mean we are all descended from this one guy?” I asked, the sudden thought making me blanch.

“I don’t think the dragon was a singular case.  There are many books about people being blessed by a dragon with the ability to read out pictures in most cultures with a written word,” he shrugged.  I’m not sure why that reassured me, because that meant I accepted that dragons were real, but it did make me feel a little better.  Maybe it was just a story, and some kid had developed a genetic mutation that gave him some type of weird brain wave abnormality something…yeah.  I decided to brush it out of my mind.

Sylwyn dropped his posture and glanced at the door pointedly.  “So, do you want to try and face people today?”

“Am I okay in the outfit?” I asked.

He offered one cursory glance, cleared his throat and nodded, reaching for the door.

“To meet other people,” I hesitated. I wasn’t sure why I was. The crowd when I’d first met the chair had all been a Victoriana fashion trend. I shouldn’t be to far off, but the fact Sylwyn was jeans and a t-shirt was throwing me.

“Yes, to meet other people. Where’d you get that? I don’t remember having anything like that in my closet.”

“I can change if I have an option of something to read an outfit out of,” I muttered.

He drew in an exasperated breath and shrugged, refusing to look at me. Releasing the door, he turned to his shelves.  “You know,” he said after a minute’s observation of titles, “I don’t think I have anything in here to dress you in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt or anything.  The closest thing I have in here that I can think of that has anything mentioning clothing is this antique text on…” he pulled out a text written in Sanskrit.  

I caught sight of the image on the cover and slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the snort that escaped regardless of my effort.  “I don’t think that would be appropriate in public company.” Heat wrapped up my cheeks when I caught the corner of his black eye flicking away from me.  “Why do you have a kama sutra text anyway?” I motioned him to give me the book.  He slipped it into my hands.  It was old, the leather of the cover and the paint chipping and cracking.  I gingerly flipped it open to the illuminated text and pictures, amazed at the vivid details.  My nervousness at his presence and the topic fell away to my curiosity.

Sylwyn shrugged, “we don’t really have ready access to the internet down here. Keeps us from summoning weird things. That’s all you need is the teens at the institute getting access to fanfic.”  He swallowed, going red at what he’d just admitted. I handed the manuscript back to him carefully. He had meant the book as a joke to ease my tension at going out, but he had suddenly become uncomfortable with the topic.

“It’s a beautiful manuscript.” I didn’t want that look of embarrassment on his face, and I didn’t want him thinking me a judgemental prude. Not like I had much place to judge. Testosterone shots were no joke, and horny was an understatement. Having missed my last week, the libido spike was going down, but hadn’t entirely disappeared yet.

He glanced back to me, concern awash on his face, “you’re not…you know…mad…about me having it?”

“If you’re not mad about the fact that I’m pan, trans, and have needs like any other human being, then yeah, I won’t be mad at you for using porn for normal basic needs,” I stated, not really able to keep myself looking at him.

A look of confusion crossed his face.

“What? Thought it was kinda obvious I was trans.”

“You find both women and men attractive?” A clouded look closed down his features.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” I shifted uncomfortably.  

Sylwyn pushed his ponytail back over his shoulder and shelved his book.

“So…” I tried to break the awkward tension, “lunch?”

He nodded, walking back to his front door. “Let’s get you out of the apartment and introduced to a few people.  Maybe that’ll start you on the road to figuring out your place in the guild.”

Sylwyn held the door open for me and led me through the maze of corridors to the cafeteria.

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 7

Sylwyn led me out of the massive reference library and down a different corridor than the one I had used to access the reference library.  “I think as long as you’re with me, most people will leave you alone.  We still need to conduct a couple more tests to really see just how much you can do.  I think, though, for this evening, I can probably take you up to the hall, and you can have a bite to eat.  Does that sound okay?” he asked, stopping suddenly.  He turned to me, a bit apprehensive.

“Other people will be there?” I asked.  I was nervous about dealing with more people.  So far, I had not exactly had a pleasant experience with almost any of them.  It might have worked out better if I had been provided a clear explanation of what was going on.  Sylwyn nodded, watching me.  He was waiting for me to make a decision.

“People will know what has happened with me already?” I asked, knowing that rumours didn’t take long to get passed around in a tight-knit community.

“Probably,” Sylwyn nodded once.  Adrenaline kicked into my system, and my fingers tingled.  Without really paying attention, I had considered a cloak of invisibility from several different books. Suddenly Sylwyn couldn’t see me any more.

“Deus? Thaddeus, where’d you go?” Sylwyn popped the edge of his blade from the scabbard.  I reached past the cloth to wave at him.

He backed away from the floating hand. “Where’d that come from?”

I pushed the hood back from my face, my ears going warm. “Manga, novel, something?  I don’t even know.” My chest was too tight. Burning behind my eyes wasn’t something I was going to be able to fight.  I didn’t want this happening to me in the dining hall. I didn’t want to have everyone looking at me.

“Hey, hey,” Sylwyn set a hand on my shoulder, “it’s okay if you don’t know.  It’s okay.”

“I don’t think I can do this.” Just the prospect of having to actually go in front of these people terrified me.  I couldn’t control myself.  I didn’t want to make things worse.

“Where’s the brave, fierce man I saw yesterday?  You could have taken down a lion yesterday,” Sylwyn baited.  

I pulled the hood back around my face and buried my hands in the cloak.  I stood there, not really sure how to respond.  

When I had felt like there was nothing left to lose, it had not been difficult to feel all-powerful.  At that point, I figured that I’d never see my old apartment or my cat again.  My life had vanished into a five-foot hole. At the bottom, next to the lizard and the shovel, I had found another hole with a white rabbit and a tea party I wasn’t sure I was invited to so much as bound to the chair and made to question the sanity of the world.  Now, I knew that I’d have to conform to these people, or else be persecuted.

“How about we go back to my room, instead?  I don’t have a lot to eat there, but I can probably rustle something up,” Sylwyn offered.  I nodded.  He took me back down the grey, non-descript corridor we were in and led me down another.

Ten minutes of walking and winding through the underground tunnels, he finally stopped at a door.  “Fosgailte,” he said at the door.  A latch clicked, and the door swung open.  He held the door open for me and let me pass.  I walked in to a modestly sized kitchen and sitting room.  A large series of three ceiling-to-floor length windows overlooked a courtyard.  Trees.  

I found myself drawn to those windows.  I looked out onto that courtyard like a person who had been lost in a desert finding an oasis.  The tree centred with the apartment windows was massive.  We were on the fourth floor of an eight-floor block of windows.  A garden, maybe the size of a football field, filled with trees and a central fountain spread out below.  The ceiling was lit with a strange sun.  

Sylwyn shut the door, the lock clicking into place. A creeping sense ran down my spine at the sound. “What is this place?” I asked, hoping to keep too many years of being raised to fear men and locked doors at bay.

“One of our Readers put the sky in the ceiling, and we found that with some work, we could grow plants as they grow above ground.  This is Cero block, where many of the top people of the Guild keep personal apartments,” he told me.

That surge of panic broke through.  

“As an apprentice, I see no reason for the Chair to deny you residence near me. Here could work if you want. I’ll need to speak with them, but for a while, it might not be a bad place for you to stay if you’d like to take some time to adjust to everything,” he told me. “Breathe, Deus. You look like you’re about to pass out. When are you going to let go of the cloak? That’s got to be giving you a headache to maintain.”

“Do you want to sit?  I’ll go make you some coffee,” he offered me the couch.  

“Tea might be nice,” I said. It felt too late to drink caffeine.  Something passed over his face that I couldn’t quite place. 

“I don’t really keep tea around,” he said off-handedly.  

“That’s okay; coffee will be alright.” I sank into the leather of the couch. The wood of the side table had cup rings and an unused deck of thick paper coasters that read “Don’t Fuck Up The Table”.  

If I wanted tea badly enough, I’d just read some out later.  I leaned my head on the arm of the couch.  Maybe I’ll close my eyes for a minute, I told myself.

I woke up to Sylwyn pulling an afghan over my shoulders. My throat strangled at his closeness. Between ingrained fear for personal safety and a developed fear of repulsing people, and a current squeamishness at not having had a proper change of clothes or a bath in days, I couldn’t convince myself to breathe.

“Shh, shsh, you’re okay. Get some sleep. Bathroom’s in my bedroom. Don’t worry about waking me. If ‘cotton candy clown’ greets you, just ask him about toves and raths until I snap back to, ‘k?” He flicked the side table lamp off and closed down the living room curtain until there was only a foot of light coming through the far end of the glass. He disappeared into the room behind the sofa. A hygiene routine lulled me close to my slumber. Water hitting an enamel sink. Teeth brushing. A creak in the floor. Something small and plastic hitting laminate. A soft curse and a thin cabinet door closing. The shower rumbled to life. I drifted on the water gurgling through the pipes.

Before I could find the depths of sleep again, shifting on the pillows on the couch jarred me awake. Glancing at the door, I quickly shucked myself out of my suit coat, tie, button-up, and undershirt. I struggled with the sweaty binder, getting myself stuck halfway through and hoping against hope that the shower didn’t stop. The material scratched at my skin as I finally got free of it and shucked it to the floor before pulling on my undershirt. I tossed my button-up and suit jacket on top of the clump of fabric along with my leather belt. My skin thanked me for the break, and I was out before my head found a pillow.

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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