Night 58: Staff Research/Medical Reference Library

[princeofthemoon]

[ from here]It was a library. Sesshoumaru blinked in slight surprise, his eyes flicking around to take in that which could be seen, in the scant light cast into the room. Books and papers, leather covered plush chairs, the same high-standing tables as the rest of the institute was populated with, a dark carpet stretching out across the floor. The

Comments

[ultimagi]

Her flashlight was not nearly bright enough to flood visibility to every corner of the room, or touch upon each piece of furniture, but it served well enough. The tall black structures seemed to be filled with books of varying widths, and the tables were very different from the desks of the bedrooms below. The girl's eyes were wide in the black, her steps cautious. Even in boots, footfalls were muted against the dark carpet.

"What... is this place?" she asked, flashlight still panning the room. It was huge.

[princeofthemoon]

Sesshoumaru flicked his fingertips absently, shaking off a few drops of poison contaminated with little flakes of rust, as he looked around himself.

"A library," he said, almost musingly, examining the room. Though he did not recognize everything here - on the table there were several boxes sprouting something very like vines. He blinked at them in incomprehension before turning away again. They did not appear to be useful, and therefore could be ignored. After brief consideration, he retrieved the flashlight that he had once again brought with him and flicked it on, curiosity overpowering the annoyance he would otherwise have felt, at once again having his true weakness in this place demonstrated to him.

[ultimagi]

As she moved to one of the numerous bookshelves, the girl wondered. Had 'Terra' ever gone to a library? Was she a person who read many books? Was she intelligent, or clever, or someone like that? The girl braced her flashlight against her neck, tilting her head to pin it between her shoulder and jaw, as her hands moved over the books on one of the shelves. The titles were not easy to read in the limited light, especially for their orientation; she pulled one of the slimmer volumes out to flip through its pages

[princeofthemoon]

Sesshoumaru glanced over to watch his companion for a moment, watching her move, watching the light of her flashlight dance uncertainly across the shelves as she stepped forwards just as uncertainly, already soft footsteps muffled by the carpet. He was slightly curious about her - most beings, be they human or otherwise, talked more than she did, but she had spoken only when necessary. It was a disconcerting change, though perhaps pleasant, and somewhat refreshing.

After a moment of studying her he turned away again.

There was a book on the table, and he walked to it, set his flashlight down at a not entirely inconvenient angle, and occupied himself with the delicate art of turning the pages - which were almost as thin as onion skin - without tearing them through. He grew bored quickly; there seemed little of interest here. And so, after several pages he had dropped the last page he cared to touch and taken up his flashlight again, sweeping it across the room quickly.

Shelves upon shelves. He wondered if they were all books like

[ultimagi]

But no matter how many of the innumerable dark shelves the girl examined, it was the same result. Oh, none of the books had the same text in them, of course, and what few had photographs and diagrams certainly weren't duplicates of one another, but none of it made any sense to her. If it was useful in any way, she couldn't figure out how. It was just too complicated for someone like her

[princeofthemoon]

After the second book that Sesshoumaru had taken back to the table to lightly flick through, he decided that continuing to blindly do so was foolish, as well as unnecessary. Thus far it had provided him nothing of interest.

He held the corner of the second book lightly, scanning the pages one last time, before delicately flicking it closed. His flashlight, when he picked it up, fell to a pad of paper that had been next to the first book. Someone had scrawled a few notes on it, almost illegible, apparently in some sort of code- MeSH D010259, ICD 297.1. He studied it for a moment, but without knowing the code this was written in, there was little he could learn.

He turned from the table and left it, and began simply scanning the titles of books instead of choosing tomes to open. His flashlight flicked over the spines as he read of their contents. International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Anesthesiology, Disposition of Toxic Drugs and Chemicals in Man, Virology, Disability: Challanges vs

[ultimagi]

So it was as useless to him as it was to her. The girl nodded, glancing once at the books on the nearest shelf. She couldn't discern titles in the darkness, but they seemed similar enough to all the rows she'd already examined. Oh well. They couldn't take everything with them, but the books were similar enough that even one might be useful to someone more knowledgeable than they. At the very least they would learn what sort of 'library' this was. It only annoyed her a little as she walked; a negligible scraping against fabric, a quiet thump if the cover bounced too high on a fast step.

"Then let's go," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "There's no use wasting more time here."

And with that, and another sweep of her flashlight to rediscover the door, she made her way back out.

[to here]