Fic: Lost in a Book (Look & Read)
Title: Lost in a Book
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1463
Characters/Pairings: Lord Dark, Gorwen, Charn (Dark Towers/Through the Dragon’s Eye)
Notes/Warnings: None.
Summary: Lord Dark goes in search of a book and encounters something rather stranger in his library. Of course, it can’t possibly be real; that would be as silly as believing in ghosts…
For liadtbunny in the 500 Prompts Meme - prompt 292: dragons in your eyes - Gorwen/Charn/Lord Dark (Look and Read). This was about as shippy as I could make a fic about an unconvincing dragon, a creepy evil thing, and an oblivious lord, two of whom happen to be David Collingses - which is to say, not shippy at all. (Liadt did say I should feel free to insert commas. This being Look and Read, I did think about doing that literally, but managed not to.)
1. Lord Dark, from Dark Towers (one of the BBC’s educational Look & Read serials) is David Collings c.1980, living in a castle, full of ghosts he doesn’t notice and being an artist who carves things out of polystyrene by the power of mime. Despite his name, he’s not evil. 2. Charn and Gorwen the dragon are from a later Look & Read - Through the Dragon’s Eye. Charn is an evil thingumy and Gorwen is the good dragon. Have their incredible epic battle.
***
Lord Dark wandered into his library in search of a book. Not a golden book this time, but an old children’s story he was sure he’d kept somewhere. There was an illustration inside it he was thinking of copying for his current art project.
A picture of a dragon, he thought. He’d never quite been able to get it out of his head. He looked up and down the shelves, running his finger along the edges of the spines, and thought with a sigh that he probably should have asked Edward first. His son had spent probably more than half his life in the library, reading his way through piles of books.
But before he decided to give up, he spotted it - a dark red leather spine striking a contrast to a faded beige and green either side of it. He gave a muted exclamation of triumph and pulled it out. Having found it, he carried it over to the nearest chair and sat down to look more closely at the book.
It fell open, strangely enough, onto the very page he’d been thinking of. He smiled to himself. He probably had looked at it too often when he was young, after all. There it was, a little less dramatic and well-executed than he’d thought, but there was a dragon - a good dragon in this case - breathing out fire as he faced down the hideous villain.
There was an odd moment in which everything seemed to blur and grow unaccountably cold. Lord Dark blinked a bit, and shook himself - and then, somehow, there seemed to be a very peculiar figure in the library with him.
“Help me,” it rasped at him. It - he, Lord Dark corrected himself guiltily - was wearing some sort of costume complete with a mask, but one that was so blackened and ragged it was hard to tell exactly what it been meant to be. There did, though, seem to be a definite bone motif.
Lord Dark let go of the book and hurried across. There were questions to ask here - who was he, why was he dressed in that way, and why and how was in the library at Dark Towers - but that was rather beside the point when he was clearly in pain.
“You’re hurt… burned?” Lord Dark asked. “What on earth happened to you?
“Yes.” It was more of a hiss than anything else; the pain in it was audible. “But I think not mortally. Help me!”
The man - Lord Dark hesitated again over that term, because, although of course he could only be a man in a costume of some kind, his brain still seemed to want to fall back on ‘creature’ instead. In his current state, it was hard to be sure, but he did look oddly similar to the illustration of the villain. Charn, hadn’t it been? That, though, was completely impossible.
Perhaps he was a ghost, Lord Dark thought, and then nearly laughed at himself for such foolishness. But there had been an incident all that time ago, with those thieves and - well - whatever it was he, Edward and Tracey had seen.
“I should fetch help for you,” Lord Dark said, putting a cautious hand to the other’s shoulder. “A doctor or -”
“Hide me!” The figure - Charn? It seemed to fit - shifted and then caught at Lord Dark’s arm. He had ridiculously long nails, or claws, though some of them had been broken off.
Lord Dark couldn’t keep back a slight laugh. “Hide you? Of course I can’t - don’t be unreasonable. Certainly not when you’re in this state! Now, I can go and phone you an ambulance and that I will do, if you’ll let go of me -”
“One of your books!” Charn snapped. “Give me one! Now!”
Lord Dark could lean over far enough to reach the lower shelves from his current position, so he did so and passed over the nearest volume to hand. If it kept this very odd visitor happy, fine. And then maybe he could phone for the ambulance - and, he thought, with decision, the police, too.
“Promise you won’t tell him where I am!”
“Him? I’m sorry?”
“Gorwen.” Charn turned his head and Lord Dark couldn’t help an instinctive reaction to try and move away, but the other still gripped his arm. There was such hate and anger in the one word that Lord Dark found himself shuddering. “Promise!”
Gorwen? Now why was that familiar…? Then it came to him and he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Gorwen the dragon? Well, no, I’m hardly going to be able to tell him anything, am I?”
“Promise, fool!”
This really was, thought Lord Dark, a bit much. If the wretched fellow - thing - wasn’t so badly hurt, he’d have had words with him about his insulting behaviour. “I promise,” he said. “Under no circumstances will I tell any passing dragons where you are. Now, please, let go of me, and I’ll go and fetch you some proper medical help.”
Charn let go of him, and Lord Dark got up and hurried to the door, glad to get away. But when he turned round, hearing an odd sound, like the rustling of paper, the creature had vanished, only wisp of black and green smoke still hanging in the air, but they evaporated swiftly and Lord Dark was no longer sure they’d even been there.
He crossed back towards the spot, at a loss as to how to explain any of that, but before he could even try, someone - or something - else appeared in the library.
“Gorwen?” he said, because he’d remembered that story, the picture - and the dragon - for a very long time. “How -?”
The Dragon looked at him. “Yes,” it said, seemingly untroubled by the fact that he shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t even exist. “I was afraid that Charn wasn’t destroyed - and there does seem to be a path leading here.”
Lord Dark tried blinking, but the dragon didn’t go away. It remained there, watching him patiently.
“Have you seen him?” Gorwen asked.
Lord Dark thought about that. “Well, I’ve seen him in the book, of course.”
“Yes.” Gorwen sighed. “So you know. He wasn’t always evil. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
This, Lord Dark decided, must be a dream he was having. There was no other way to explain it. “I did see him,” he said, “but you needn’t worry. He’s trapped inside one of my old books. I’ll keep it safe and make sure he doesn’t get out again. He was very badly hurt - he might not survive as it is. And even if he does, I don’t think he can get up to anything in a dusty old book of English grammar.”
“You’ll guard it?” Gorwen breathed out and slight smoke passed in front of Lord Dark’s face. “Yes, you will.”
Two very strange promises in a row, Lord Dark thought, but endeavoured to keep both of them. Even in a dream, one shouldn’t make promises one didn’t intend to keep.
“As long as he cannot harm anyone else or return to Pelamar.”
“Oh, I’ll lock it away somewhere,” said Lord Dark. He felt as if he ought to find something else to say - it wasn’t everyday he met one of his favourite childhood book characters - but he couldn’t think what.
Gorwen vanished again, leaving Lord Dark with only the two books beside him.
*
He must have dozed off in the chair, looking at the storybook, Lord Dark decided afterwards. A very odd dream, but understandable, given the illustration open in front of him. That he was now sitting on the floor instead and when he looked at the book again, the picture only contained the dragon with no trace of the villain were facts that he chose to overlook.
He also picked up the fallen grammar book and, though amused at his own foolishness, didn’t replace it, but took it across to a set of shelves with a lockable glass front and shut it there, squashed under a weighty nineteenth century Bible. Really, he should throw it out - it was a battered, slim volume, no doubt thoroughly outdated by now and slightly damp, if he wasn’t mistaken. But still, he had promised.
Anyway, he thought, the main thing was that he had found it. He was helping with an art project in a primary school over in London, and they’d finished making pottery animals and the teacher had asked whether he could help with something a bit different. It wasn’t his usual line of work, but he had agreed. Now they could use this picture for their mural. He thought it should work out rather well - it would certainly be something different and imaginative enough to please the children.
***
End Notes: Any errors in Pelamar continuity are my fault for refusing point-blank to watch any sections of Through The Dragon’s Eye that don’t contain David Collings (a perfectly reasonable standpoint, I feel), but I did check its Wikipedia entry & rewatch a bit. I think this counts as “banished by Charn”, and I’m sure a dull grammar book is the Wastelands in Look & Read terms. As for Dark Towers, I’m sure this sort of thing happens all the time; Lord Dark just doesn’t notice.
And I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone stopped to labour over any difficult words and read them aloud. Nor did I manage to insert any commas, unless having a book of English grammar counts.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1463
Characters/Pairings: Lord Dark, Gorwen, Charn (Dark Towers/Through the Dragon’s Eye)
Notes/Warnings: None.
Summary: Lord Dark goes in search of a book and encounters something rather stranger in his library. Of course, it can’t possibly be real; that would be as silly as believing in ghosts…
For liadtbunny in the 500 Prompts Meme - prompt 292: dragons in your eyes - Gorwen/Charn/Lord Dark (Look and Read). This was about as shippy as I could make a fic about an unconvincing dragon, a creepy evil thing, and an oblivious lord, two of whom happen to be David Collingses - which is to say, not shippy at all. (Liadt did say I should feel free to insert commas. This being Look and Read, I did think about doing that literally, but managed not to.)
1. Lord Dark, from Dark Towers (one of the BBC’s educational Look & Read serials) is David Collings c.1980, living in a castle, full of ghosts he doesn’t notice and being an artist who carves things out of polystyrene by the power of mime. Despite his name, he’s not evil. 2. Charn and Gorwen the dragon are from a later Look & Read - Through the Dragon’s Eye. Charn is an evil thingumy and Gorwen is the good dragon. Have their incredible epic battle.
***
Lord Dark wandered into his library in search of a book. Not a golden book this time, but an old children’s story he was sure he’d kept somewhere. There was an illustration inside it he was thinking of copying for his current art project.
A picture of a dragon, he thought. He’d never quite been able to get it out of his head. He looked up and down the shelves, running his finger along the edges of the spines, and thought with a sigh that he probably should have asked Edward first. His son had spent probably more than half his life in the library, reading his way through piles of books.
But before he decided to give up, he spotted it - a dark red leather spine striking a contrast to a faded beige and green either side of it. He gave a muted exclamation of triumph and pulled it out. Having found it, he carried it over to the nearest chair and sat down to look more closely at the book.
It fell open, strangely enough, onto the very page he’d been thinking of. He smiled to himself. He probably had looked at it too often when he was young, after all. There it was, a little less dramatic and well-executed than he’d thought, but there was a dragon - a good dragon in this case - breathing out fire as he faced down the hideous villain.
There was an odd moment in which everything seemed to blur and grow unaccountably cold. Lord Dark blinked a bit, and shook himself - and then, somehow, there seemed to be a very peculiar figure in the library with him.
“Help me,” it rasped at him. It - he, Lord Dark corrected himself guiltily - was wearing some sort of costume complete with a mask, but one that was so blackened and ragged it was hard to tell exactly what it been meant to be. There did, though, seem to be a definite bone motif.
Lord Dark let go of the book and hurried across. There were questions to ask here - who was he, why was he dressed in that way, and why and how was in the library at Dark Towers - but that was rather beside the point when he was clearly in pain.
“You’re hurt… burned?” Lord Dark asked. “What on earth happened to you?
“Yes.” It was more of a hiss than anything else; the pain in it was audible. “But I think not mortally. Help me!”
The man - Lord Dark hesitated again over that term, because, although of course he could only be a man in a costume of some kind, his brain still seemed to want to fall back on ‘creature’ instead. In his current state, it was hard to be sure, but he did look oddly similar to the illustration of the villain. Charn, hadn’t it been? That, though, was completely impossible.
Perhaps he was a ghost, Lord Dark thought, and then nearly laughed at himself for such foolishness. But there had been an incident all that time ago, with those thieves and - well - whatever it was he, Edward and Tracey had seen.
“I should fetch help for you,” Lord Dark said, putting a cautious hand to the other’s shoulder. “A doctor or -”
“Hide me!” The figure - Charn? It seemed to fit - shifted and then caught at Lord Dark’s arm. He had ridiculously long nails, or claws, though some of them had been broken off.
Lord Dark couldn’t keep back a slight laugh. “Hide you? Of course I can’t - don’t be unreasonable. Certainly not when you’re in this state! Now, I can go and phone you an ambulance and that I will do, if you’ll let go of me -”
“One of your books!” Charn snapped. “Give me one! Now!”
Lord Dark could lean over far enough to reach the lower shelves from his current position, so he did so and passed over the nearest volume to hand. If it kept this very odd visitor happy, fine. And then maybe he could phone for the ambulance - and, he thought, with decision, the police, too.
“Promise you won’t tell him where I am!”
“Him? I’m sorry?”
“Gorwen.” Charn turned his head and Lord Dark couldn’t help an instinctive reaction to try and move away, but the other still gripped his arm. There was such hate and anger in the one word that Lord Dark found himself shuddering. “Promise!”
Gorwen? Now why was that familiar…? Then it came to him and he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Gorwen the dragon? Well, no, I’m hardly going to be able to tell him anything, am I?”
“Promise, fool!”
This really was, thought Lord Dark, a bit much. If the wretched fellow - thing - wasn’t so badly hurt, he’d have had words with him about his insulting behaviour. “I promise,” he said. “Under no circumstances will I tell any passing dragons where you are. Now, please, let go of me, and I’ll go and fetch you some proper medical help.”
Charn let go of him, and Lord Dark got up and hurried to the door, glad to get away. But when he turned round, hearing an odd sound, like the rustling of paper, the creature had vanished, only wisp of black and green smoke still hanging in the air, but they evaporated swiftly and Lord Dark was no longer sure they’d even been there.
He crossed back towards the spot, at a loss as to how to explain any of that, but before he could even try, someone - or something - else appeared in the library.
“Gorwen?” he said, because he’d remembered that story, the picture - and the dragon - for a very long time. “How -?”
The Dragon looked at him. “Yes,” it said, seemingly untroubled by the fact that he shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t even exist. “I was afraid that Charn wasn’t destroyed - and there does seem to be a path leading here.”
Lord Dark tried blinking, but the dragon didn’t go away. It remained there, watching him patiently.
“Have you seen him?” Gorwen asked.
Lord Dark thought about that. “Well, I’ve seen him in the book, of course.”
“Yes.” Gorwen sighed. “So you know. He wasn’t always evil. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
This, Lord Dark decided, must be a dream he was having. There was no other way to explain it. “I did see him,” he said, “but you needn’t worry. He’s trapped inside one of my old books. I’ll keep it safe and make sure he doesn’t get out again. He was very badly hurt - he might not survive as it is. And even if he does, I don’t think he can get up to anything in a dusty old book of English grammar.”
“You’ll guard it?” Gorwen breathed out and slight smoke passed in front of Lord Dark’s face. “Yes, you will.”
Two very strange promises in a row, Lord Dark thought, but endeavoured to keep both of them. Even in a dream, one shouldn’t make promises one didn’t intend to keep.
“As long as he cannot harm anyone else or return to Pelamar.”
“Oh, I’ll lock it away somewhere,” said Lord Dark. He felt as if he ought to find something else to say - it wasn’t everyday he met one of his favourite childhood book characters - but he couldn’t think what.
Gorwen vanished again, leaving Lord Dark with only the two books beside him.
*
He must have dozed off in the chair, looking at the storybook, Lord Dark decided afterwards. A very odd dream, but understandable, given the illustration open in front of him. That he was now sitting on the floor instead and when he looked at the book again, the picture only contained the dragon with no trace of the villain were facts that he chose to overlook.
He also picked up the fallen grammar book and, though amused at his own foolishness, didn’t replace it, but took it across to a set of shelves with a lockable glass front and shut it there, squashed under a weighty nineteenth century Bible. Really, he should throw it out - it was a battered, slim volume, no doubt thoroughly outdated by now and slightly damp, if he wasn’t mistaken. But still, he had promised.
Anyway, he thought, the main thing was that he had found it. He was helping with an art project in a primary school over in London, and they’d finished making pottery animals and the teacher had asked whether he could help with something a bit different. It wasn’t his usual line of work, but he had agreed. Now they could use this picture for their mural. He thought it should work out rather well - it would certainly be something different and imaginative enough to please the children.
***
End Notes: Any errors in Pelamar continuity are my fault for refusing point-blank to watch any sections of Through The Dragon’s Eye that don’t contain David Collings (a perfectly reasonable standpoint, I feel), but I did check its Wikipedia entry & rewatch a bit. I think this counts as “banished by Charn”, and I’m sure a dull grammar book is the Wastelands in Look & Read terms. As for Dark Towers, I’m sure this sort of thing happens all the time; Lord Dark just doesn’t notice.
And I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone stopped to labour over any difficult words and read them aloud. Nor did I manage to insert any commas, unless having a book of English grammar counts.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: