Day 27: Library
Libraries, he'd found, were rarely as dull as people made them out to be. Though he felt no magic in these tomes, they were still full of useful information. Maybe some of them could tell him a little bit more about this world he'd landed himself in.
For that matter, why hadn't he run into any of the others yet? They'd all been fairly close ( Read more... )
For that matter, why hadn't he run into any of the others yet? They'd all been fairly close ( Read more... )
So she stepped through the door, feeling slightly apprehensive. It was a library, for GSD's sake; if this had been Goliath, there wouldn't have been anything even remotely resembling the written word within arm's reach of her. As it was, she wasn't sure whether to feel pleased or suspicious - what she'd read on the bulletin board about suppressed powers worried her. Bookjumping was a natural ability; how the hell would they have managed to restrict that?
She decided to settle for suspicion when she saw the book titles. Almost all of them were classics - was this some sort of a sick joke? Still, a little of her apprehension melted away as she pulled Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre from the shelf - best to try books where she knew she'd get help easily. There was something to be said for the reassuring feel of the covers under her hands.
She seated herself at a table and placed the books in front of her, closing her eyes for a moment. She'd never bookjumped while sedated, and she had a feeling it probably wouldn't be the smartest thing in the world to do. Maybe if she just rested for an hour or two...
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It was one thing to chat to Harry Potter over a bulletin board, but it was quite another to see him dressed in that ridiculous uniform, arguing loudly with - oh, GSD, was that Snape? How many of them were there?
She forced her eyes back down to the books in front of her. This was a lot more serious than she'd originally thought, and she'd originally thought it was very serious indeed. It was best if she concentrated on her own business for now - namely, trying to get out of here.
Alice in Wonderland first. If anyone could help her, Cat could. Opening the book to Alice's first encounter with him, she cleared her throat and quietly began to read aloud.
She hadn't even gotten past the second sentence when the headache struck and the world spun alarmingly. Dropping the book, she clutched her head, swearing colorfully. Her mouth had gone dry and she felt faintly nauseous - but that was normal for a failed bookjump. It was the intensity of the headache that had startled her; nothing like that had ever happened to her before. But the pounding in her head faded after another two or three minutes. Lowering her hands to the cover of Jane Eyre, she grit her teeth and started to read again.
Two sentences later, she was clutching her head again and feeling very, very thankful she had elected to skip lunch earlier today.
Fuck.
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Momo entered the library, her eyes flickering over the many occupants as she passed through the shelves. She spotted Reinforce and smiled at her, but decided to leave the weaponwoman in piece with the books she seemed to be taking joy in reading. She passed another stack and stopped, her eyes widening as she saw Byakuya.
"Kuchiki-taichou," she whispered, the words escaping her lips before she could stop them. No, no... she really didn't want Byakuya's attention at all. Al least he seemed to be more focused on Renji than anything else. Thank goodness...
Momo quickly turned down another set of shelves and, as luck would have it, spotted an older woman holding her head in pain at a nearby table. Momo quickly hurried over and knelt down next to the woman, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" She asked, her voice raw and a bit gruff sounding thanks to the shinigami's current physical condition. She took in the woman's expression now that she could see it and it looked an awful lot like this woman was going to throw up.
Actually, this woman looked like she just took some spiritual backlash like the shinigami did when they tried to use some of their powers. "Just breath. It'll pass eventually," she said as she rubbed the woman's shoulder.
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She relaxed and managed a slightly shaky smile. "Thanks," she said faintly. "The guys on the bulletin board said something about powers being repressed. Didn't think it'd be quite this bad." She grimaced. "Guess I should've listened to them."
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"I am well acquainted with how much this place restricts people's abilities. It varies for each person depending on the extent of their ability, but those of us with stronger abilities tend to suffer physical damage for the things we can do and severe disorientation to flat our unconsciousness for our more advanced abilities," she replied. "Though some of us need to learn from experience. But it does pass."
"May I ask what you were attempting to do?" Momo them paused and her cheeks colored slightly. "I apologize for my rudeness. I am Hinamori Momo - Hinamori being my family name."
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"Oh, don't apologize," she said quickly. "You were trying to help, and I appreciate it. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hinamori - Thursday Next's the name."
She gestured at the two books on the table in front of her. Jane Eyre was still half open where she'd dropped it. "I'm a bookjumper," she said, pausing slightly. Was there any chance Momo had heard of them? Thursday had only met two other Outlander bookjumpers besides herself, and one of them had been Japanese. "Er. That is, I can enter a book if I read a passage from it aloud. I was thinking I might be able to get help, but I should've known it wouldn't be that easy."
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As Thursday seemed somewhat recovered from the backlash, Momo stopped rubbing the woman's back and turned the book toward her. She skimmed the page briefly before looking back to Thursday.
"I am unfamiliar with bookjumpers," she said, "but that sounds like a very interesting ability." How was Thursday planning to get help from inside a book anyways? "Whomever has imprisoned us has a vast amount of power available to them and any contact to our own worlds as well as any outside help are cut off."
Momo's expression turned frustrated. "The ability to contain some of us so is very... unsettling."
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The expression on Thursday's face matched Momo's for a moment. Bookjumping was a pretty rare natural ability; how on earth had they found a way to suppress it?
"I take it your powers have been restricted too, huh? What are they, if you don't mind my asking?"
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"I don't mind at all," Momo replied to the woman's question. Momo theorized that if this woman was such an avid reader that she can enter book themselves, she may have read books about the Japanese legends and such and would therefore know the term.
"I am shinigami." She idly wondered if Thursday would know humans usually weren't capable of seeing shinigami should she even know what one is.
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"The term sounds a little familiar," she mused. "They're kind of like our Western Grim Reaper, aren't they? Ferriers of souls to the underworld and all that?"
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Momo sighed. "Humans normally cannot ever see shinigami, much less interact with them. Here, we are trapped within bodies of flesh and severely limited in our abilities."
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She had the feeling that most people would probably react more violently to someone announcing that they were shinigami, but what with all the times she'd done rounds with Spike...well, it was unusual and pretty cool but not exactly mind-boggling.
"Must be a bugger getting stuck in a human body," she added, frowning slightly. "At least I'm used to that. I can't imagine what it'd be like if I weren't."
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Momo smiled. "It would be interesting to meet a human that did similar work. I find the things humans create and their tremendous ability to adapt fascinating. It must be the limited lifespan. They burn bright while they can."
The shinigami shrugged. "It is.. inconvenient and makes interacting with things feel weird. Like, I know I'm touching something because I can feel it, but the sensation is as if coming through a filter. My senses are all screwed up here."
"Shinigami usually only adopt the gigai when they have to interact directly with humans. It's not normally needed, so any time spent in a gigai is limited." Momo sighed. "I think this is the longest I've ever been in a gigai."
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She listened attentively after that. Gigai, presumably, was the technical term for the physical body in which Momo was currently trapped - but she had another question.
"You said 'we' earlier, didn't you? How many shinigami are here?"
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Shiro-chan, Renji, Ran, Ichimaru, Rukia, Byakuya, the ryoka, Uruhara... And two others she didn't recognize.
"Eleven, including me, though two of them aren't from my world," Momo answered, her eyes refocusing on Thursday. "It's an alarming amount given the majority of us are officers. Containing us so speaks greatly of the vast power out captors."
She tilted her head at Thursday. "Have you met anyone you know here?"
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She leaned back in her chair and frowned thoughtfully. "That isn't to say I haven't met anyone I know, though. I've recognized plenty of people - Alec Trevelyan, Harry Potter, Severus Snape, and I'm pretty sure I saw Armand St. Just and Javert writing on the bulletin board earlier. The problem is - well, in my world they're all from books, and Trevelyan's from a movie that came out a couple years ago."
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