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

[angel_of_baal]

"I understand, which is why I haven't spoken of it." Do you know how hard it was to admit? Either he's right and it happened and he's been permanently tainted, or he's wrong and delusional and probably also permanently tainted.

"You...truly can't remember? Is it because you did not stalk someone, and threaten to murder them in a recaff facility? Or because you can't remember that?" It's important. Did it happen or not?

[curzed]

The only problem is, Sanguinius has spoken about it. And acted as if Curze knew about it and was playing some kind of game. His accusations have been relentless, and his intentions with the knife beneath his pillow had not been peaceful.

It's escalated since. Now there's the nonsense with the posters.

Which might be why the Night Haunter doesn't seem at all remorseful. "I stalked more than one alien. Chased one through the woods for quite some distance and quite nearly caught it before it crushed my secondary heart and escaped." He healed, or at least he doesn't seem to be suffering lingering side effects he can't hide. "It made a bargain I intend to keep. The other xenos hid behind the act of an idiot and coward and attempted to downplay its crimes and shirk responsibility at every opportunity. Neither behaved like you, looked like you, smelled like you. I tasted their fear, their inhuman stench. Nothing of either of them was like you, and killing them is not murder. It is law."

Sanguinius really was sick, perhaps. Or on the other hand, Curze was expected to ... read minds. "Whatever tricks this place is playing on you, I would not hunt a brother so."

Well. He would. He's certain of it. It would happen. He didn't know the details but it had the feel of truth somewhere in the future.

[angel_of_baal]

And yet, he had harmed nothing but a piece of fabric, and his dignity, with his knife. He had never been treated like prey before, like a predatory cat, toying with him before making his meal. The daemons, Kyriss and KaBandha had toyed with him similarly, probing at him as though seeking weakness, delighting when he bruised.

"And yet, I was one of them." What hurts more than being nearly terrified to death by Curze, even unrecognized, was that the whole thing had marked Sanguinius so deeply yet...Curze didn't seem to even recall it. It was that unmemorable.

He had always thought his death would be memorable. Meaningful. "You truly don't remember." He pulls his hair back, off his shoulders and ties it in a loose knot on the top of his head. "Truly."

[curzed]

"You were not. I don't know what this place is attempting to manipulate you into, but you are not one of those creatures. Perhaps some sort of witch could hide your appearance, but all of what you are from me? Impossible. My memory is accounted for."

He only pursued the two he mentioned. Neither were Sanguinius. "Yours.. has obviously been tampered with. An alien trick, to turn us against each other." That's all it is, right?

[angel_of_baal]

"I was. I knew its history. Its dreams. Its....fear." That had been the worst part. Fear, cold and burning. A prey's fear, and a prey's...acceptance of the inevitability. He would fight to the death, screaming defiance and duty, and Tsang had just folded, numb, like a wet rag.

All of Curze's gibes since had been just an echo of that acute humiliation. To die in limp fear. Anathema. "An alien trick. Contamination." His wings drooped, pinions touching the ground. But only him. Not Curze.

[curzed]

What could have, should have been a numbing realization that he'd been tormenting his brother is dulled by repeated accusation and anger. "And never once you thought to try to explain yourself. It was right to threats, as if I would chase you through the woods." Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who could just assume something so insane?

"You've marked your Legion with the shape of your soft heart, that drop isn't only for blood. It made you a target, but the sin is not yours. Put that xenos out of your mind. You know our duty, we must not waver in it no matter what they try to force you to experience."

[angel_of_baal]

"I did not know myself! I did not know who you were! In my mind, you were merely the 'stranger'." Well, Tsang had also had a host of thoughts about Curze, including a very complex diagnosis and treatment plan, but that was irrelevant.

"What if you had succeeded, then, Curze?" Despite his own belief, strong as tempered steel, that he died elsewhere and elsewhen, in a weakened body and mind? What would happen to his soul, lost in the warp. What would happen to his Legion? his duty?

He blew a breath out like a horse chuffing, trying to exhale the tension. "We need a sign, between us, if such a thing happens again." Because next time, Curze might be the one transformed.

[curzed]

"And your excuse here?" He gestures towards the sleeping quarters. "When you threatened me multiple times, and it became clear I didn't know what you were speaking of?"

What sign could there possibly be? He wasn't that kind of psyker. He never would be. He couldn't tame the one power he had, developing a new one wasn't going to happen. "If I had succeeded, then you would have more to complain about when you recovered, I put a hole through Kaiisteron the size of my fist and he still lives in spite of it. You too would be untouched. I could have handed you a necklace of that xenos' bones as a consolation gift."

Curze wouldn't be this careless with it, had things gone differently, gone better. But inevitably he expected the worst, and inevitably he got it.

"If this place is giving out false memories of being something else, then what sign would override that?" Curze shakes his head. "That's no power of mine. Nor yours, I suspect."

[angel_of_baal]

"You didn't even try. You were so certain I was out of my mind." Way to kick him while he was down. At least it felt like that to him. "When you were at your lowest, I came to offer aid, or try to, and not simply mock you or tell you that you were imagining the work of the Librarians upon you."

Instead he had taken the indignity of the drone with, well, absolute ill-grace, but he had taken it nonetheless.

"So you just accept that it will happen again. Perhaps with you as the prey next time?" And just...not even attempt to forestall it?

[curzed]

He hasn't forgotten the drone either. Or that entire conversation. "And what would your response have been were our positions reversed, had I threatened to attack you multiple times and claimed you not only would, but had been actively tormenting your brothers for entertainment? I seem to remember you taking insult over my efforts to make sure others are safe simply because they didn't rely on you alone, so I must fear to wonder what you would have done if I'd treated you then exactly as you treated me more recently."

Curze's gesture is sharp, a brief negative slash. "Not for the first time you chose to hear insult when there was none, mockery where there was none. Don't pretend the role of the martyred saint, you wear its robes poorly." He resumes his slouch against the circulation desk, radiating irritation.

What would he do if their roles were truly reversed and next time he was given the memories of some xenos in need of extermination. "If it happens again and 'I' am the alien, I expect you to do your duty without hesitation."

It's simple for him. It always had been.

The law is the law.

[angel_of_baal]

"You actively tormented me." So, turnabout, or something. When his nightmares were of the tiny Revanian, a XENOS, it was bad enough, but the fear from Curze's obvious enjoyment of tormenting him.... "You would have done precisely the same." Curze handles insults no better than he.

"But if I saw you struggling in the throes of a nightmare, I would not have exacerbated it."

He gives a frustrated sigh. "If I were a xenos. Yes. But I was not." It's hard to explain. "You were yourself, with your memories, and self. I was captive inside this other identity." ....would killing Tsang have freed him? Huh. His face shows the puzzlement as he thinks through this.

[curzed]

"No. No, I see what you're driving at without even intending to," the Night Haunter muses softly. "You and that thing do share one inescapable similarity. You're both determined to shirk anything like your own wrongdoing. Every grace granted yourself without granting the same to another, the best of intentions to your actions and the worst of intentions to anyone else."

It's a wonder Sanguinius takes any responsibility for the Red Thirst. Then again maybe he didn't, and Curze just hasn't seen it through all the way yet. "Thus does a tossed pillow to wake you without doing harm or having harm done to me become actively tormenting you and exacerbating things, not seeking to end the trouble without some passing mortal getting decapitated by a flailing wing. You are much the same as all our brothers, aren't you? You wish me to be the hateful villain, and so act accordingly."

It seems, to him, this is finished, pushing himself back off his place on the circulation desk. He's not interested in yet another round of debate over why Sanguinius - or Tsang - had been the pure innocent harmless party who'd done nothing, and he the terrible irredeemable tormenter who would torture his own brothers for fun. "Do not cry when you get what you want, brother."

[angel_of_baal]

"That's unfair." Some of it might be true, but that was not something he would seek Curze's guidance on. He did not say untrue, just that the accusation was not helpful right now. "My flaws are manifold, but not your concern." Starting with the geneseed and spiraling from there. He knew it was just a matter of time before Curze would hold the secret of his blood curse against him, too. It was a foolish error to have told him that. Once again, he had trusted wrongly.

"And what is it, exactly, that you think I want, Curze?" Once again, Curze turning his back on him, and while his feathers rose, he stood his ground. Curze's ability to weaponize any interaction, to make anything play into his interpretation of events, was frustrating.

But he was his brother, and both sons of the Emperor, and both stranded here. Their best chance of making it back was to work together. If that could even happen.

[curzed]

"You made them my concern."

He doesn't even need to be trying to antagonize. It just happens. Really it's no wonder he's got such a bleak outlook on ... well, everything. "Life isn't fair, and you should be grateful it isn't." There were worse options than an unfair, uncaring universe. "So long as you hold me responsible for things I could not know while giving yourself exemption for the same, I have nothing further to say to you."

[angel_of_baal]

"And you have made your failings my concern." He waved a hand at the drone, buzzing around, and he has the awful thought, suddenly, about whether or not the SecUnit one could lip read.

One thing that was never in short supply around here was new things to dislike.

The wings snap tight against his back. "Then go, but know that should you need me, I will willingly render aid. Even so." Maybe a little 'I told you so' but after the fact.

Perhaps, this time, the Chief Librarian will take him seriously.