1stwitness | (no subject)

"...no." He peers down the stacks. "I was starting to wonder if there was one."

"Same here." She pushes off from where she's been leaning against the table, and follows his gaze.

"I've been coming here for six months, and I haven't either. I always end up with too much to carry before I found the end."

"Would you like to investigate?" Beat. "Although perhaps we should take a hint from Theseus and bring a ball of thread."

"Psh, nonsense. It's a Library, not the Labyrinth of Daedalus."

"You haven't seen the garage."

"I have too seen the garage. I've been driving in the garage. It goes on a bit, but there is most definitely an end."

She takes a step forward, and glances back at him.

"Well? Are you coming?"

"But of course."

He wouldn't let Alex face... the library... alone, and anyway, he wants to know.

It's just books, right? She walks along at a steady pace, one hand touching the shelves as she marks the sections, commiting them to memory.

"They seem to get older as they go along. And I found the part named 'The Restricted Section' but I'm not up to reading books that growl and move about under their own power."

Ichabod blinks.

"Living books? Yes, those sound as though they might... resist."

"That's why they're kept on little chain leashes," she says, turning to grin at him.

"Magic." He should understand that sentiment.

"Magic." He grins wryly. "Although I've never known it to be so blatant in my world."

"Oh yes, because a man walking around with no head is just as subtle as it gets."

She throws him a look over her shoulder.

"He only comes out at night - we believe sunlight weakens him - and you would be surprised what people can convince themselves they did not see."

"Sunlight, weakens the Horseman of Death? How strange."

There are pendant lights hanging from the ceiling at fairly regular intervals, and she glances up, mentally keeping track of how many they've passed.

"And I would be the last person to be surprised by that, actually. I spent three years convincing myself I wasn't dead. And I did a very good job of it, too. The mind is predisposed to seeing only the evidence which supports our own conclusions."

"Sunlight promotes life", he points out. "Perhaps it is anathema to him. Did you recall receiving the wound that killed you?"

She doesn't answer for a few long steps.

"Every day. Every time I fell asleep. Sometimes walking around in broad daylight. I could see the bullet spiralling towards my head in slow motion. I felt the impact, felt it push me over backwards. I could hear the medics that responded to the scene. I could hear the doctors working on me, trying to save my life."

"All the while, walking around, interacting with people I imagined were only constructs of my own mind."

Ichabod winces.

"That sounds really quite extraordinarily difficult."

She gives him a crooked grin. "Is it any wonder my colleagues thought I was mad as a bag of bees?"

She seems to have a sense of humour about it. Now.

"Not in the slightest. They, I presume, had forgotten more successfully?"

"Oh yes. I was the stubborn one. I refused to let it go."

They pass a bank of scrolls stacked in diamond shaped shelves, and she pulls one out to peer at it.

"I tend to be a bit of a bulldog when I get my teeth in something."

"Not a bad attribute", he says easily, "though no doubt others can sometimes disagree. What have you found there?"

"I'm not sure..."

She hold it up for him to examine.

"I don't read ancient Greek."

"I do." He smiles slightly and takes it from her. "A required part of education, when I was receiving it."

"Well? What's it say?"

"It says..." He scans it. "It appears to be... an account of a visit to the Library of Alexandria. Not one I'm familiar with, but so much from that time is lost outside of here."