TEST DRIVE MEME #2

[libraryassistants]

Welcome to the Library

Those who are new awake in the stacks.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, and the memories of the last things you were doing are hazy at best. But now you’re here, and all you can see is books in every direction, the bookshelves teetering high enough above you to reach to the sky.

A helpful sign points you in the direction of the main circulation desk, and even if you try to ignore it and go in any other direction, the desk is where you will find yourself. A figure sits behind the desk, not even looking up as they sort through books and other media; they look, to your character, to be the exact picture of what they expect a Librarian to be.

Trying to ask the Librarian a question will get them shushed, but they’ll point down a hallway to the side, leading to a kitchenette and what appears to be a dorm room, where they’ll find they’re not alone in this strange place. But once they’ve looked away, when they look back, the Librarian is gone.


The Lobby

Those who are already familiar with the Library will see the Lobby change for the second time. It’s not paper plate UFOs and metal walls this time. Instead there are cheerful garlands strung about, and a stack of books shaped into a Christmas tree taking pride of place. The Help Desk is closed, the ‘Back in 5’ sign once again a bald-faced lie, but there is a menorah sat behind in the window, conveniently just out of reach of anyone who tries to get it. The candles are lit in a… somewhat sporadic fashion, the correct order but with no rhyme or reason to what ‘night’ is being represented. Either time is strange here, whoever’s in charge of it doesn’t know what day it is either, or they simply don’t care. Or some mix of the three.

Those two particular winter holidays are not the only ones represented either; characters will find a smattering of decorations or festive accessories from a great number of holidays, from their own worlds and beyond. There is what looks like a cabinet with instructions to pick your fortune from one of the many drawers. For some reason, there are a number of what looks like a child’s toy ponies placed on and around the cabinet. There are also some posters declaring in bold, decidedly upsetting typeset: “THE GOD-EMPEROR WISHES YOU A FESTIVE SANGUINALIA!” complete with a picture of a certain Library resident in all his feathered, shining glory. (The poster is not remotely shiny, but there are helpful accent lines to show that he should be shining.) And, for some reason, there is also a giant straw goat in the garden now, surrounded by festive strings of lights. Please do not set it on fire.

The Kitchens

It seems the decorations are not the only thing in the holiday spirit. The kitchens, usually bereft of anything but the most basic foodstuffs, are now full to the brim with a variety of holiday foods. There is always a tureen with hot mulled wine and a try of sweet pastries near by it, there’s ham and latkes in the fridge to be heated up, jelly doughnuts, moon cakes, pies, and an assortment of other delicious things. If your character would expect to find a certain thing within the stash, they do, regardless of how niche it may be. Christmas chili? Of course there’s christmas chili!

Oh, and that mulled wine isn’t the only alcohol around either- champagne, sake, hard cider… again, anything anyone might expect to find. Just try not to overdo it too much, alright? Everyone still has to sleep in the same room, and the Assistants aren’t going to show up to hold your hair back.

Crafts and More

What good are holidays without crafts? The Maker’s Space has been specially supplied with anything you might need to make your festive crafts- this includes everything you’d need for a gingerbread construction! (You’d think this would be in the kitchen, but don’t kid yourself- those things are not for eating.) There’s strips of colorful paper rings and instructions on how to make your own, little things of clay and paint and directions on how to craft your own dreidel, ’stained glass’ paper lanterns, and more. Oh, and glitter. Obviously there is a lot of glitter available.

There are also snow globe kits, mostly generic winter themes- trees, presents, and the like. Strangely enough, however, when they’re complete and shaken, they’ll show a memory from the person who shook it- a memory of a holiday, or snow, or generally something that invokes the feeling of the season- light, and hope, and togetherness. It’s fragmented, almost stop-motion in between the falling bits of ‘snow,’ but once it has settled the normal, basic scene inside returns.

Comments

[unsheathedfromreality]

"Has it been that way since you were children?" It seemed odd to him, that if their father had gone through such effort to create a -- toolkit -- of so many disparate brothers, he'd let them be so far at odds. So disdainful of their siblings.

But then, the Emperor had made children for tools. How well Illarion knows what comes of that mindset, and what joy it might take in pointless conflict.

"Seems strange to me that he would be. You're sworn to kill us and he seems the kind to get invested." Perhaps guard your heart a little better, Sanguinius, with some reasonable detachment?

Or perhaps to a primarch, a mortal was something like livestock. You treated them well -- might even get attached -- before the slaughter, but they weren't people.

[curzed]

A toolkit is the accurate term. Konrad held no illusions at all as to whether or not he was seen as a weapon or as a son. "Since we first met," is the mild correction, "Some ... eighty years ago. Had we been raised together I doubt much would change except the length of our enmity." A slight shake of the head allows his lank black hair to shade part of his face, cutting off a tiny amount of light.

Every bit helps. This place is far too fond of powerful lumens. "Sanguinius' record versus xenos is as bloody, if not moreso, than my own. Usually he keeps his 'investment' as you say, to humankind." Which, granted, was also because the xenos the Blood Angels dealt with were often the kind that needed to be eradicated.

Not stray people stuck in a library. "We are weapons all. It would be unwise to ever think otherwise. Even the so-called least of us knows our purpose."

[unsheathedfromreality]

That gets the now-familiar birdlike cant of Illarion's head -- where a human might raise a brow in incredulity. "Your father fostered you all out?" he guesses, with the expectation he'll be corrected again. Fosterage from infancy would be strange, but not uncommon among Nephele's own homegrown empire. Orcish nutria put much more stock into lineages written in paper and mutual exchange, rather than blood.

But the Imperium of Man is stranger still than all his comparators, he's learning.

In light of that it does not surprise him at all to hear the genial angel also has bloody talons. "Wouldn't begin to," think otherwise. "You're all like talking to a greater tyrant someone claims to have domesticated."

The huge dragons could form a bond with elves, or even humans, but still had a regrettable habit of mauling their smallest flockmates to death when instinct took over.

"You're easier to deal with."

Not least -- not that Illarion's fully aware of it -- because the uncanny aura that bent around Night Haunter encouraged the reverence of fear, rather than the reverence of awe. Weak as the shrike is to mental influence, he's more used to dealing with something that wants him afraid of it, than something desiring his happy compliance.

He is so screwed.

[curzed]

"Nothing so deliberate as fostering. To hear some tell the tale, kidnapping and scattering at infancy." He rather suspected it was deliberate, but he wasn't going to venture that with a future foe. It wouldn't do any good. "Most of my brothers did conveniently wind up in the care of others, however." Some better than others. Only one had the idyllic upbringing of an entire family, parents and all, and a stable content world.

What a greater tyrant is eludes but context provides enough. Some large predator that occasional people try to turn into pets. "Easier than my dear brother, or easier than a greater tyrant?"

Curze thrived on fear. Respect and love were best left to others, who understood it and could reciprocate it.

[unsheathedfromreality]

"You didn't?"

Night Haunter being a two-hundred-year-old feral child would ... make a great deal of sense.

It would also be a piece of purest horror, given how well the Emperor's design survived what should have obliterated any ability with language, or basic ability to function as a person in the society of other speaking beings.

Then, a huff of almost-laughter. "Than your brother. You're the tyrant with unpainted feathers. There's no mistaking you for what you are."

A monster, same as Illarion. Just a much bigger monster.

[curzed]

Being able to rip information out of people by eating them, and then being a starving child desperate for food, had a fantastic way of teaching language and at least a distant understanding of social structure! "No. Best that I had not, for the people of Nostramo were the worst kind of criminals. Raised by such base creatures, I would possibly have been one of them. And then what of order?"

It's only a thought experiment, and easily dismissed. Such was never to be his fate and dwelling on it was pointless. "He would be saddened, I think, to hear you say so. He does work so hard to be approachable." But being a paragon of otherworldly beauty and grace has terribly predictable side effects on most things! "Not that it does him much good. Every step he takes to try to remove himself from a pedestal only raises it a little higher in the eyes of most."

The Night Haunter's smile is brief, humorless. "Such is his role, as judgment is mine. I do not envy it."

[unsheathedfromreality]

"Crime requires its own kind of order," Illarion murmurs, but more to be contrary than as any substantive argument. Couldn't have a criminal underground if civilization didn't exist. "But I take your point."

Which -- in an odd way -- reminds him of something he'd meant to do, next he saw Night Haunter. A little rummaging around on his person yields a small bag of suet sweetmeats (the peppered kind) and an ornately tooled leather bottle of kvass, which he strolls over to drop unceremoniously before the primarch by way of an offering. Local black god appeased for another day.

"He succeeds." Mostly. "Doesn't make it less disconcerting, knowing he'd wipe us out too. Suppose if that bothers him, it's his moral quandary to settle."

[curzed]

Organized crime is not required by the label of crime!

That is the second set of treats Illarion's found for him. He hadn't forgotten the fruit and eggs, either. As the bottle and bag are dropped nearby on the circulation desk, they're considered thoughtfully. Even if it was poisoned it would take one hell of a poison to get through a primarch's metabolism. "I admit I don't know his mind about such things. He will obey if a command is given, as do we all. But perhaps he would regret it."

The bag is picked up idly and investigated. There was the scent of fat and spices, and other things he couldn't quite identify, which is interesting. "It may be that your kind will be allowed to live, if you pose no threat to the Imperium. There are on occasion species declared protectorate instead."

[unsheathedfromreality]

If you're gonna start declaring a universal law, bucko, Illarion's really going to doubt the claim to Imperial state atheism.

The shrike considers the meager size of his offering when Night Haunter picks up the bag of sweetmeats. That's all that there had been among the strange holiday feast; clearly he'll need to plan better for future tributes. It is, at least, not poisoned; the kvass isn't even alcoholic enough for a primarch's liver to notice.

But the spice in the sweetmeats might be a new thing, at least. He is not going to explain it.

"There's a difference between regretting a necessity and regretting something you should never have done," the shrike says, quietly, and puts his back to the circulation desk so he can survey their surroundings. It's done with all the automaticity that living things breathe. "Neither brings back the dead.

"What constitutes a 'threat to the Imperium'? And will our culture be allowed to live?"

He's watched an empire consume its neighbors before -- even elven neighbors. He knows how this goes.

[curzed]

The bag is gestured with, a nonverbal 'fair enough'. Sanguinius' reasons for regret would be his own, and Konrad didn't know what those would be. He could guess, but in the end that's all it would be. "Nothing does. Not until you." The dead usually stay dead.

And then one of the little balls of fat and spices is fished out and studied. In his hands it is indeed small, but it wasn't made for him, and library upscaling only does so much. "Ordinarily, for xenos, a threat to the Imperium would be the likelihood of the alien species directly threatening the lives of citizens, taking resources from them, or bringing heretical things to the metaphorical table such as worship of false gods."

'Taking resources' was an extremely vague thing, some used it as an excuse to remove aliens from a potentially useful world the Imperium simply wanted. "Drawing from the Compliances I have enacted with my Legion and as joint ventures with my brother, cultures are often not affected ... overmuch. Tithe is expected, as is obedience to Imperial law. So long as these are obeyed much else is left to local discretion." Aside from the god thing. "As your kind eagerly believe the mundane is the divine, that will be required to change on pain of extermination."

[unsheathedfromreality]

The shrike gives one of his huffing almost-laughs. "Some restitution that is."

He continues to study the far-off depths of the library as Night Haunter outlines of what's safe, what's expected for aliens coming under Imperial rule. In most details, it didn't sound all that different than what Domitian expected of their new client states -- forcibly acquired or not.

But for the issue of religion. The orcs didn't care so much if their clients only gave lip-service to their gods and the Triumvirate as Pontifices Maxima, nor whether that was admixed in with other worship, so long as worship didn't hide warlocks or devotion to banned Princes. The Crownbreakers and their hidden blade saw to the outlying cases.

But an Imperial religion that could tolerate no competitors and no syncretism ...

Esfir would die, he thinks, and anyone who had ever felt enough devotion to serve as her lay assistants in the rites. No shrike would ever again be shriven before the Saints; no fathers would sing lullabies of the crocus field and the Judge's closing eye over their fledglings.

They could, maybe, shift to wholly occult worship of the stars -- every shrike's secret conscience, her private heart. But that would not keep them together, and they so desperately needed those touchstones after Shroudwood's fall.

They were dead, one way or another. Dead if the Imperium found them -- dead if they didn't, and Eyes had his inexorable way.

"Understood," is all he says, at last. It's all he has to say, when his heart cannot even grieve at the thought of extinction.

Perhaps the sparrows had been right. Perhaps their struggle had been over before Illarion was ever born.