ravi is a (locksmith) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2011-04-08 21:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | atsuko chiba, nigihayami kohakunushi |
let's go, hero!
Who: Atsuko Chiba + Nigihayami Kohaku Nishi
What: A meeting and a great adventure to boot!
When: Backdated to after Valentine's Day-ish.
Where: Bookstore then library.
Rating/status: ~PG/finished.
It had been a long day. Days? Though the curse - the drugs, he corrected himself, since this was a human world - had worn off and his mind was sharp again, Haku still felt disoriented. Perhaps that was just the nature of this strange place that was home to so many from so many worlds. Or perhaps he was just tired. The sandwich Dinah had bought for him had taken the edge off his hunger, but he hadn't slept, really slept, since... well, he didn't count the time in the hospital. The disappointment of not being able to escape easily was weighing on him, too, and he barely noticed when his feet carried him to the first warm place he went by.
It turned out to be a bookstore. A few people browsed the shelves, and a few more were curled up on armchairs wedged in between some displays, but no one paid him any attention as he made his way to a little nook towards the back. He'd just intended to rest there until he felt a little better, but (and he should've known better) the moment he let himself relax, he fell asleep.
An hour later, he was still there, but instead of being a human-shaped boy tucked into a corner, there was a silver dragon curled in a neat pile on the carpet. He wasn't small, but he slept soundly and his stillness meant that he could pass for an odd piece of decor. Plus, he'd had the good luck to not be too far away from the Fantasy section, so he nearly fit in.
What Atsuko was doing near that section, however, it could not be immediately said.
But it was a part of her investigation of The City and her effort to familiarize herself with the area. The original plan had been to look for a movie house or a rental but as phones alone were hard to comprehend in this realm as it is, Atsuko made it a point not to rely on these ideas heavily. That was how she got to the bookstore -- because a bookstore was a good enough place to define the culture of a city.
She took with her a booklet of a map the moment she stepped inside and wandered around the shelves to look at the titles and authors and tried not to interrupt the readers or step on their feet as she walked along. Some of the names and texts were familiar but some were just downright foreign which made her quest a little harder for her. Nevertheless, she took her sweet time touring, even spending an extended period in the Psychology shelf and considered buying one of the books she'd browsed through, something she decided was going to be helpful for her in this strange realm.
Atsuko never left a shelf unvisited and the farther she walked, the less relevant the materials became and she soon grew bored. She'd thought of turning back a couple of times already and find that movie house she'd been looking for since she had her breakfast but always, she would finish one row of collections and start in another. Her vigilance brought her as far into the fantasy section, and although she had given up hope that this section was going to help her gain an understanding on her current circumstances, she tapped her heels across the empty floor, anyway, and started on the leftmost book of the topmost row. She was careful not to miss any clue that might have been hidden in the titles or in-between the pages. She hoped that this was going to pay off and take her somewhere closer to her goal.
Atsuko received something else entirely, though. At the end of the row she had first visited, she almost started to walk back to where she began until the sparkle of mild silver caught her eye and she leaned away from the shelf to look for the source and found it to be in the form of bulky load of wrapping cloth, she thought, that was decorated by sea green fur. She thought it was an old curtain dumped in the corner where it was no longer needed.
But as she approached, she found something else that she had missed from her earlier distance -- a pair of limbs she had mistaken for embroidery and a huge head she had mistaken for rough folds when she first saw it. A dragon's head to be correct.
Atsuko gasped mildly and stayed rooted to her spot. If this was an old toy, it was certainly remarkable in likeness!
The dragon slept.
Gradually, he became aware that he was being stared at, and then the part of his brain that was paying attention kicked the more sluggish parts into action. Haku caught himself just before he moved, realizing that he'd fallen back into his default shape and remembering where he was. He forced himself to relax again, keeping his eyes closed as he carefully let his other senses determine if he was safe. This city - The City, Dinah had called it, as if it was the only one in the world - was unpredictable. Just because he'd fallen asleep in a harmless bookstore didn't mean he was still there...
But he could hear the low murmur of people talking and the quiet thumps and rustle of books being selected, flipped through, and re-shelved. And he could smell dust and paper and people, people who weren't afraid or injured or in pain. The air was still pleasant, not cold and sterile like the hospital, and the carpet under his claws was the same as before.
Haku sighed in his head. It had been stupidly careless of him to just fall asleep like that in a place like this, but even after such a short nap, he felt better. He knew it'd be a bad idea to let himself sleep again, so he contented himself with simply lying on the floor and trying not to think too hard about anything.
But as his mind drifted lazily through a starlit sky, he forgot himself and let his ears twitch as in his head, he heard the voice of a young girl calling his name from far away.
Atsuko waited...
The book and the map were still pressed closely against her as she continued to watch the odd piece of decoration sitting in a less interesting corner of the shop. Considering the luster that the dragon had appeared with, she thought it must have been cut entirely out of precious gems but how they got the hair in, she couldn't fathom, much less how they got to afford it and move it around! She wrinkled her brows the more she pondered on the dragon's presence, and after looking over each her shoulders, began to walk closer to the figure.
At-chan... someone whispered.
The nearer she went, the more astounding the dragon became to her. She thought it was odd that such a fantastic piece of art should be found abandoned in some nondescript corner of some bookstore and not a museum. Was it a prop -- a damn expensive one -- used to promote a book and now set aside after the buzz? Or maybe it used to be smack dab in the middle of the bookstore when it first opened and had gotten too old -- never mind how it still looks shiny -- to be interesting to the visitors?
Or more importantly: was it relevant to her investigation? Well, Atsuko was just about to find out.
At-chan, that's dangerous!
Stay back, Paprika, she warned the voice at the back of her mind as she leaned towards the dragon's head, right hand reaching out to feel its hair.
The light touch might as well have been a hard shove. Haku's eyes slammed open, and his claws tore tiny holes in the carpet as his brain screamed at his instincts to not just take off in flight (or to turn around and bite). Perhaps he wasn't as well-rested as he'd thought. He wasn't normally so paranoid, but the City was unnerving even to a creature accustomed to moving between two very different worlds. He could deal with the unpredictability of spirits and witches, and even the strangeness of humans in a normal human world, but this place? Though it was in many ways like a regular human city, sometimes it seemed as though the buildings and the land itself thought and reacted, which was disturbing.
One green eye rolled back to see what had disturbed his almost-sleep, since there was no point in pretending to be a statue now. Slightly to his surprise, he saw a rather, well, normal-looking woman who didn't seem angry with him or afraid of him. His head shifted slightly as he gave in to his curiosity a little more. She looked like she could be Japanese, and Haku felt a little flutter of hope rise in his chest. He knew that he wasn't in Japan. He knew that he was still in this cozy bookstore in this strange City. He knew he didn't know who this woman was any more than he'd known who Dinah had been. But...
He tried his best to not look like he was going to make any sudden moves, especially not aggressive ones. Though he knew that traditionally in Asia, dragons were treated with respect, he'd also seen a poster in the bookstore of a knight fighting off an English dragon with sword and lance and knew that there was a chance that she would be just as foreign to him as anyone else here. Best not to take any chances with so many different types of creatures around.
Atsuko had almost heard the scratch of a violin or the shriek of a flute at the back of her mind when the lids fluttered open and she tore out a gasp from chest, stumbling two steps back and withdrawing her hand as she stared at the living statue...no, dragon.
Is it actually alive?
She'd held her breath as she watched its claws, its eyes move, almost as if if she restricted herself, she would disappear from the creature's attention and be on her way. Atsuko wasn't a stupid girl, after all. She knew of dragons in history, literature and culture and understood that the lot of them weren't exactly very friendly to humans, so to say.
But damn her if she was going to walk away from this opportunity! Her investigation so far had led her to nothing exceptional but this...this was beyond exceptional!
Atsuko glanced over her shoulders, again, before she turned to the...dragon...and asked it, whispering, "Are you actually alive?"
Haku blinked at her. He couldn't speak, and didn't even want to open his mouth, since flashing fangs usually didn't signify a peaceful greeting. Carefully, he raised his head a foot off the ground, turning slowly to face her, trying his best to not look like he was dangerous (which was rather like a tiger trying to look like a kitten).
He nodded.
He knew it would be best if he took his human form again - he would better be able to communicate with her, and he was far less intimidating in that shape. On the other hand, a dragon abruptly turning into a human was not likely to be well-received right away, but if she wasn't too afraid of Haku in his true form, perhaps she'd be willing to wait for him to duck behind a handy bookshelf once they'd established neither was out to hurt the other.
Raising himself up a little further, Haku arched his neck in an introductory bow.
Atsuko seemed to have recognized that gesture, and she bowed back. One thing was for sure now, this dragon didn't only look Asian, it was Asian!
She was quiet for a moment, simply looking at the dragon, forcing her limbs to relax as her eyes went over its scales and fine hair. Jennifer Government from the institute had mentioned elves and vampires and Marisa Coulter had a golden monkey. She should have expected that at this rate, a dragon shouldn't be such a far-fetched idea (and maybe a talking cat while she was at it) and on top of that, he understood her and was...civil.
For how long, Atsuko didn't know. So she set her books aside -- placed it on top of a shelf -- as she flicked open her purse bag by her other hand and began to fish for her wallet. When she thought of dragons, aside from their diet, she knew they liked shiny things -- treasure caves and all that.
"I hope I didn't disturb you too badly," she whispered cautiously as she produced the shiniest coins she could find in her possession. "I've come around exploring this place; I'm new," she added as she offered the money to the dragon, stepping two paces closer and crouching before it. She wasn't usually this brave but what the hell.
A little after, she said, "My name is Atsuko."
He watched her a little warily, but his hesitance was quickly erased when she held out the coins. Her body language was like that of a little girl greeting a cat, and Haku nearly snorted. He wasn't some insipid fairytale dragon with a brain the size of a pea and the consumption of maidens always on the mind. He would find it very uncomfortable to sleep on a pile of gold.
Besides, in his experience, witches - some of them, at least - were far more money-oriented than he.
Haku drew himself up rather haughtily. No, shiny coins would not suffice. Not that she needed to appease or placate him in any way to begin with - the very idea was amusing - but he'd much prefer a cup of tea to strange money. She was introducing and excusing herself, though, and while he wanted to encourage his friendly self-image, he knew he wouldn't be able to do that for long as a dragon. Bowing and other non-verbals wouldn't get him much further than 'hello.'
He blinked, inclining his head. Then he flicked his tail, that simple movement pushing him off the ground and propelling him behind a nearby bookshelf. He changed quickly, not wanting her to see him in the process of transforming. For him, it was like changing clothes in front of strangers: something he'd never do if he could help it. Silver scales fell like rain but disappeared into the light that cocooned him for a short moment, then shrank, lingering briefly within his new shape before dimming completely. He paused to adjust his clothes - because he had been spending more time in the human world, they were no longer the strictly traditional style he'd worn for years, but were still simple with solid colors and clean lines - and stepped out from behind the shelf.
"Hello, Atsuko-san," he said solemnly, bowing again. "You may call me Haku."
Atsuko took her time to realize that her lips were parted a slight. It had been since he moved behind the shelf (she wondered if she'd scared him off or something) but now that he had a name, the doctor clamped them close. What shocked her a little was the fact that this dragon was...actually several years younger than she was.
She held the coins by a closed fist now, as she thought about what to say next. All things considered, this Haku really was quite civil and polite! No coins were necessary, all along...unless he wanted her to buy him ice cream.
The thought of a dragon licking ice cream made Atsuko quirk up a small smile. "Nice to meet you, Haku-san," she said to keep the formalities intact. "I hope you had a good sleep at the back of a bookstore." Because dragon or no dragon, this was a very odd place to take a nap in.
If Haku was embarrassed by being caught sleeping in the bookstore, it didn't show on his face. As it was, while it wasn't the best first impression for him to make on someone, he didn't feel like his dignity was compromised in any way. His response was nearly as serious as his greeting. "Yes, I did. But thank you for waking me - I should not have stayed here so long."
He didn't say anything about how not only had he not meant to fall asleep in the store, but that he hadn't meant to turn into a dragon either. That slip-up was a little embarrassing, even though he knew it was most likely due to the complete lack of decent rest he'd had since his arrival in the City - however long ago that had been.
His eyes went to her hands, where the coins had appeared and now disappeared. "I wouldn't advise you to try and attract creatures with money here, even if you think that's what will appeal to them. I haven't been here long, but," he shrugged his shoulders a little, unable to articulate exactly what he meant, "not everyone here seems harmless. They may rob you if they think you have money to spare."
True, he had no one specific in mind when he warned her, but he couldn't explain the strange aura this City and many of its inhabitants had. It wasn't necessarily hostile or even aggressive, just... weird. Perhaps that was just the side-effect of so many different worlds coming together.
"If they didn't greet me as a dragon, you can rest assured that I won't be going around the city making unnecessary charity work," Atsuko said with a secret smile on her face.
She reclaimed her books, then looking around her, stepped towards the side of a bookshelf and placed her back against it to lean, volumes held over her skirt. "But when you're new here, you'd want to get on the good side of people. How could I have known you were a boy all along? How could I have known you wouldn't eat me if I hadn't offered you money?" She shook her head. "But that's besides the point."
She flicked a stray lock of hair off her face. "So how do you find this city so far?"
"Because I was sleeping in a bookstore filled with people and they were all still alive," Haku returned, then shook his head to dispell the responses to her other, undoubtedly-hypothetical situations. Humans. Sometimes spirits were a lot simpler to deal with, even if their shapes had a great deal more variety to them.
Despite her last question sounding the most casual (especially when accompanied by that flip of her hair), he knew that was the one she was actually asking. "This city? It's a trap."
He looked at her a little more closely. She was a woman in a bookstore who was clearly familiar with the strangeness of the world, and therefore not one of its creations (like those other nameless, faceless shoppers seemed to be - possibly?), but she also seemed somewhat comfortable here. She was carrying books, after all. "Have you seen the wall yet? Even when it stops, the air is impassable."
Impassable? Atsuko's brows furrowed. The wall being impassable was all well and good, if the wall was suddenly passable, then everyone was in deeper trouble and anytime now, she was so sure that the Great Wall of China would suddenly come strutting in without a ticket but the air? Impassable? How...
"What do you mean impassable?" she asked him.
"I could not break through it," Haku replied patiently. Certainly it sounded self-explanatory to him, but he could see how the idea of impassable air would require confirmation. "It was like an invisible wall."
He sighed, the disappointment still fresh in his mind, even though he couldn't say he'd really thought it'd be so easy to get out. "You can try to find a gap if you like - if you can fly..." He let the unspoken question hover there. Dinah had mentioned that everyone she had met had something special about them that set them apart from typical humans. Atsuko looked perfectly normal, but here, that told him very little. After all, both he and Dinah probably appeared like regular humans as well (dragon shapes aside).
Atsuko frowned. Fly? Atsuko couldn't fly -- but Paprika could! Just in dreams, though...
She tossed her hand to the side. "Well, obviously, I can't fly so I can't even try. I suppose you'll need some special permission from the governor or whoever before you can to get pass it," she said with an almost fake sigh, "But as is normally the case, I'm willing to be that it's not a very easy thing to get..."
The presence of the wall was an important piece of discovery, though. A wall meant a system and a system meant a government. This strange place has a government.
"What else can you tell me?" she asked as she glanced at her wristwatch, then sought around for the closest counter. Atsuko figured that they could probably use a less awkward meeting place than what they currently occupied.
Haku was a little taken aback by her bluntness. He'd met very forward women before (Yubaba and Lin before foremost among them), but Atsuko's confidence in an unfamiliar place like this was surprising. Perhaps it wasn't a bad thing, but he wasn't sure how to react to it. He'd always taken great pains to appear composed at all times; showing impatience had not been part of the skills he'd honed (probably because Yubaba and those who ran her bathhouse did enough of that).
"About what?" he asked, doing his best to maintain his level of calm, though he was both a bit put-off and a bit confused. From the way she spoke, she seemed more at ease here than he did. "You seem quite well-informed about the way the city is run. I only know about its boundaries."
"I only know that it has elves, vampires and dragons," Atsuko said.
Moving away from her bookshelf, she gesture for Haku to walk with her while she started towards a cashier counter to her diagonal left, heels clicking as she went. "Maybe you can tell me more about the boundaries. I've never heard of them until you told me about them." She glanced at him.
He followed, only balking for a second at being directed along so casually. Though he wasn't boastful, Haku did have his pride, but he was learning to stifle it (working at the flower shop was also made that completely necessary). Here, he knew he couldn't afford to lose a potential resource just because he didn't want to listen to a human.
Well, it wasn't too hard to follow Atsuko - a woman older than he, or so it appeared - despite her straight-forwardness. If she'd been a younger girl, perhaps then he'd have to give voice to his reluctance.
"There's a wall," he said, feeling vaguely repetitive. "It's very solid, completely surrounds the city, and there's no way through it. I flew to the top and there was still no way out." He shrugged. "That really is all I know of this place for sure. I have only met humans. Special humans, but still humans. You've seen elves and vampires?"
"I've met someone who's seen them." But she met her in the asylum and she was not exactly on top shape at that time.
She was the next customer by the time she made it to the cashier and offered her an ample smile as she placed her books on the counter and flicked open her purse bag to pull out her wallet.
"As for me, I haven't seen much. A dragon, a woman with a monkey...I haven't quite gotten around the system of this place. Politics, culture, transportation..." She fell quiet as she slipped out a couple of bills from her wallet and handed it to the woman. "It just occurred to me, Haku," she said turning to the boy, "You said there was a wall and it was solid and impenetrable from all sides...what about a gate, have you...do you think you've seen one?"
Haku shook his head. The sharp disappointment at not being able to get out had faded, but still lingered, sullen at the back of his mind. "I haven't seen one. But I spoke to a woman who has been here longer, and is more familiar with the city. She hasn't found a way out yet. None of the people she's met - even wizards - have been able to, either."
He picked absently at a spot on his sleeve as he thought. "But I don't think that a city with a wall like that would put gates in it. I heard that sometimes you can't even make it to the wall. You walk towards it and end up in the middle of the city again. I haven't experienced that, but I have no reason to think she would lie to me."
"Oh, do you have a job here?" he asked after she'd paid. He certainly hadn't arrived with any money on hand, though he rarely needed it. His earnings at the flower shop would be useful here, since he couldn't simply apprentice himself to someone in exchange for food.
A gateless city was curious enough, one that acted like an inescapapable vortex was even more so. It was not a happy thought, and it was something that preoccupied Atsuko as she received her change and her purchases.
When Haku inquired about her state of employment, she smiled to him and said, "I'm still looking." It was a lie. "However, it doesn't seem like a lot of people require the expertise of a psychotherapist. Did you have a suggestion or a job opening you're willing to share with me?" She started towards the doors leading out of the bookstore, gesturing for the boy to walk with her. There were still things she wanted to talk with him about.
"No," Haku said, biting back another reply as she beckoned him again. There wasn't anything imperious or superior about the gesture - it just seemed to rub his scales the wrong way, so to speak. He would have to get used to it, though. He wasn't some sort of semi-divine elemental spirit here; he was just a kid, for all appearances.
"But you have money," he pointed out. "I thought you might have gotten it through a job." After all, his mysterious rent money had only come with his pay for Dinah. Maybe it would've come regardless, once he'd found somewhere he wanted to live, but he wouldn't be able to tell that. He had questions for her, too. Like what sort of special powers a psychotherapist had, and why hadn't she found a job yet (surely a number of people here could use her services). He asked the most pressing question first. "Where are we going?"
"It just fell into my pocket," Atsuko said to Haku with a smile. No one should know that she accepted money from a stranger...at least not when she looked the way she looked -- which is the appearance of an employed woman.
"We're going to the library," she said resolutely, chin tilted up to the sunlight as they stepped back into the sidewalk and she promptly released her map to look for it. "Since you've started telling me about this place, something's been nagging me at the back of my head. If you noticed," she glanced to Haku from the booklet she held, "we have such an impressive...security system, if you can call it that, but it works mysteriously. Everyone gets in but no one's gotten out yet and there isn't even...a physical means of entrance. Aren't you curious who's behind all this? Why this is happening?"
Haku tilted his head, expression still impassive. He had given those questions some thought, but it had been brief. "A little. Where I'm from, strange things happen all the time. Things that humans would think are strange," he corrected himself. Talking frogs and flying paper birds - while not necessarily run-of-the-mill - weren't anything to panic about. He shook his head. "The borders between worlds aren't as strict as a lot of people think. Humans who end up in the world I come from usually learn that looking for trouble tends to invite it."
He'd generally found it best to just follow the current, breaking away only when necessary. True, there had been some life-changing exceptions to that, but he wasn't sure he saw in Atsuko the same sort of spirit he'd seen in Sen. For one, she wasn't desperately trying to find a loved one, and something like that tended to do a good job of convincing spirits that not all humans were all bad.
"Why the library?" He didn't even know there was a library, and he wasn't all that certain a library would give them any answers that a bookstore wouldn't. Of course, a library probably held older books and such, but surely someone would've dug through there by now.
Atsuko smiled appreciatively at Haku. She learned about the trouble with the borders the hard way.
"Why not the library?" she asked him back after, her tone a-matter-of-factly, and her face bore no trace of doubt whatsoever, as though she was sure that the library was going to be their one true hope for setting things straight. She was already keeping her booklet when she continued, "Unless you have a better suggestion for our next destination that isn't the city hall or other government offices, that is. I thought we might try to look for hard, cold facts with enough historical value to make an impact. Not trivias, common knowledge that everyone vomits these days." The city had walls and the houses looked modern. Surely, the city's past should have a lot to say about their current predicament?
The library was exactly how she thought one would look like in this place and it only pleased her that her guess was more than one. It was huge, it was wide, it had pillars and it looked aged and perhaps intimidating to some. She led the way up the white flight of steps then past the doors and towards the concierge mixed in the throng of passing people.
"Where do you think should we start, Haku?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Non-fiction?" he guessed. The libraries he was used to mostly held books on magic, or what humans probably considered folklore but what he knew to be true. He peered up at the labels attached to the ends of the rows of shelves, knowing only that fiction tended to be organized by author and non-fiction tended to be organized by number. What the numbers meant was still a mystery to him.
Once he'd found a section that seemed to have a historical theme to it, Haku picked a shelf almost at random and started down the aisle. Atsuko would probably have a better - more organized - way of searching through the library, but she had asked his opinion, after all, and he tended to just trust his instincts. He didn't bother to look at the books around him right away; he still wasn't sure they'd find anything here, but if the City library did hold any secrets in its shelves, they wouldn't be immediately accessible.
Atsuko wanted to smile but she kept it to herself this time. Non-fiction? Really? Haku was a rather strange one, she thought. He had no concept of bizarreness and he seemed, indeed, the type to read non-fiction. He was definitely the first of his personality, taste and age she'd met. Then again, she supposed dragons really were just that way...
"We'll try it, then," she said to agree with the boy as soon as she'd reached the concierge and announced her interest on reading about...architecture. It was a spur of the moment thought, something that came out of her mouth when she realized that she hadn't yet been able to form a coherent request by the time that she needed one. As soon as she'd gotten the information she needed, she and Haku parted ways while she went deeper into the library.
The farther she walked from her new friend, the quieter the surroundings got. Readers were huddled over books, separated sparsely by tables and her heels gained volume for every step she took. Soon enough, she'd reached the shelf that she needed and turned to that direction -- straight-backed, face quiet as though she understood what she had to do.
All this was just training, though...
The books in that part of the library seemed to have an unspoken rule that they had to be bigger and thicker than all the rest -- at least that was what Atsuko felt as she pulled out a book about the history of architecture and began flipping through the initial pages until she reached the first chapter. After two paragraphs, she decided that it wasn't what she was looking for and carefully slid it back into its slot.
She was patient as she went through the entire shelf, pulling out books seemingly at random and keeping two as she scanned the titles on the spines and painstakingly crouched and tiptoed where she could not read something. By the end of the shelf, she turned and started at the one behind her, pushed back against the wall perpendicular to the aisle she had just come from, and at that very moment had found a book. It was topped by a pair of round eyes blinking at her from the tight darkness and she stared back at it with equally round eyes.
Belatedly, Atsuko gasped and stumbled back while the pair of eyes disappeared completely. She sought for it, and that was where she found a trail of...crawling black cotton balls skittering down the side of the shelf from a crack and hurrying out to the branching hallway. It was such a bizarre sight, Atsuko thought. She couldn't begin to imagine what they were, herself reminded of ants what with the discipline and before she caught herself, she was soon following after them, bending a little to keep them in sight despite the dimness.
Where are you going? Paprika thought within her, and for once, she agreed to her inner ego. Her brows remained furrowed and she neglected to check her frown as she turned the corner and walked the stretch of what she soon found was the serials section. The smell was sharp against her nostrils and she snorted at it.
Atsuko, be careful!
This isn't a case for the dream detective, Paprika, Atsuko said to shut her down and stubborn to the voice in her mind, she dared the impending darkness that was overwhelming her. She'd only noticed it when she was deep within the cold mouth and she gasped as she glanced around the dusty shelves that surrounded her. True enough, the fuzzy crawling critters had disappeared and all she could find were vague shapes of archives and a foot that extended out from the corner. Her brows wrinkled further as she approached the figure.
Atsuko, watch out!! Paprika shrieked.
Atsuko gasped sharply at the sight of narrow, pale shells sticking out from cuffs and boots. Bones. The shadows that shrouded the corpse moved and the figure was vague except for its gaping mouth--
Another shriek erupted but this time it came from her. Atsuko's arms were freed as she ran back the way she came and stumbled on her heels as she took the corner.
Haku wasn't looking as hard as he could've been, he admitted to himself. He thumbed through a few books, finding information on places that looked like they could be from fifty different worlds, but nothing that looked specifically like the City. To piece together a history of this place, or any sort of story, they'd have to spend days here, weeks, probably months, and Haku didn't have the will for it. Of course he didn't want to stay here forever, but Dinah was nice and had provided him with a job that he liked well enough (it wasn't quite learning magic, but tending plants was far preferrable to studying history books).
The scream jolted him away from the diagrams of some old building he had been peering at, and he jammed the book back onto the shelf before taking off at a run down the aisle. Other patrons glared at him as he sped by, but no one reached out to stop him. He paused at the main aisle, trying to remember where the sound had come from, then darted down another aisle on the opposite side he'd been on.
There were too many books.
"Atsuko!" he shouted, sure he was going to be punished for this by some sort of library spirit (or maybe just a strict librarian). Or maybe even the City itself, if it could sense that there were people poking around where they shouldn't. It was an intimidating thought, and one that made him run faster past the shelves, further from the main hub of the library.
Then he reached the end of a shelf and promptly careened into the woman he'd been looking for, knocking them both over. He bounced up as quickly as he could, reaching down to offer her a hand. "Sorry," he said a little breathlessly. "Sorry. What happened?"
"Something's coming!!" Atsuko shrieked, almost as if Paprika herself had escaped the realm of dreams and shrieked for Atsuko. Sure enough, as the older woman spun to stand behind Haku, the darkness that she had just escaped was consuming the path she had just taken, the dusty cotton balls leading the way with a flail of stick limbs.
Haku was used to facing hysterical women, though they were usually quite a bit older then Atsuko and had a tendency to breathe fire when they were mad. His reaction speed was slow more because he had grown accustomed to not having a reaction, so when the tide of tiny creatures hit him, he just stood there and let them stream around him.
They were shrieking too, with tiny voices, and when he focused his attention a bit more, he realized he knew what they were. Sootballs - animated little clumps of ash and soot that came to life when magic was strong. They were generally harmless and simple-minded (if they had minds at all), but if they were fleeing from something, it was probably a good idea to follow them.
Then again, the sootballs fled from nearly everything. He stayed where he was, making sure to keep Atsuko behind him.
"These won't hurt you," he told her distractedly, squinting into the darkness before them and ignoring the few sootballs that had gotten caught on his sleeves and hidden in the folds of his shirt. "What did you see?"
Atsuko was confused by the fact that they weren't running at all.
Haku was much smaller than she was but she didn't lie to herself that she really wanted to cower behind his back and wait until everything just disappears. The tiny cotton balls of darkness had caught on her dress, stockings and shoes and she made a noise as she brushed them away, catching soot even in her manicured fingers.
She threw her gaze forward, again, bracing to take flight whenever she needed to but beyond the scurrying dust bunnies, she wondered where the...carnivorous darkness was.
"I saw a body," Atsuko's voice shook but she put up an effort to speak coherently. "Although all that's left are bones. It was in the shadows...and then the shadows moved."
"It was lying there? Or was it moving, too?" Haku asked, taking a tentative step forward as the flood of sootballs slowed. The shadows ahead didn't seem much smaller even with them gone, though it did seem unusual for what had been up-till-now a calm, well-behaved, normal (for the city) library. He almost wished he had something he could use to poke ahead of him, but throwing books at whatever lay before them was out of the question.
He settled for half-sliding, half-sidling forward until he noticed the sootballs tugging urgently at his shirt. When he glanced down, the few left were staring wide-eyed at him and pulling as if they wanted him to go a different direction. He looked back at Atsuko, hovering behind him, and tilted his head at the sootballs. They waved their little spaghetti arms frantically, then resumed tugging on him.
"They were with the skeleton?" he said, though he was fairly certain they had been. They knew what Atsuko had found, then, and if they wanted Haku to approach differently, he would do well to listen to them. So he sidled a little to the side until they stopped pulling and he was pressed up against a bookshelf.
Ah, it was the sneaky approach, then.
"Of course it was lying, it was dead!" Atsuko spat almost huffily. Really, as if skeletons could live! "I followed these...things over to the serials section. And then I saw the bones, it was submerged in darkness...Haku what are you--" she cut herself. Wasn't it obvious what the boy was trying to do? Well anyway, unlike her, he was a dragon! Dragons probably don't get affected by such trivial matters.
She stayed rooted to where she stood even as the boy moved closer, a sizable cluster of soot things surrounding her as though in bated breath. Her fists were firm and she kept her eyes trained at Haku's form.
"Do you see it?" she asked after a while, clueless to the dimming lights coming from Haku's direction.
Haku generously attributed her snappishness to whatever trauma she'd just gone through, which was probably worse since she didn't think that skeletons probably could move. He had yet to meet a skeleton-shaped spirit personally, but he knew that some spirits had faces shaped like skulls, so an entire skeleton wasn't unthinkable. And this was a city with creatures from all universes.
"Come here," he said, waving a hand towards the shelves. "I think they want us out of the way if this thing comes rushing out. And," he knew this was a dangerous promise to make, mostly because he wasn't sure he could fulfill it, "if something does come out, grab onto me. I'll get us out of here."
Then he went back to edging into the depths of the library. "I don't see anything," he said after a moment. There was a glint of something that might've been bone, though. "Maybe. Was it here?"
Atsuko stared hard at Haku as if he were mad. An inner desire in her wished she would suddenly just transform to Paprika 'cause then, it would mean that she was in a dream where she -- or Paprika -- was more powerful.
True to what the boy had suggested, though, the little dark things were urging her towards his direction -- not that they had much strength to even lift her hand but he could at least feel their insistence against her stockings. Atsuko felt that it was against her better judgment, pressing her lips together, trying to keep a frown away but eventually, she lifted both her feet and removed her pumps.
She jogged quietly towards Haku and kept a hand free in case she needed to, as he had said, "grab onto" him.
Atsuko nodded to his question then said, "Yes." when she remembered that she was behind him, creeping along with some soot things. "Do you know what it is?" she asked a beat later, having stopped herself when she meant to ask if he could see it.
He shook his head. "Where I'm from, there are all kinds of spirits and things like this. I don't even know of all of them. Here? It could be anything." Haku peered at the skeleton. There did seem to be something around it, something alive, though his mind told him that more than his eyes did.
"If it killed that person, I don't need to know what it is," he admitted, voicing his worry for the first time. At home, he would've approached it, but at home, he would've been on a level playing field with whatever spirit it might've been - he probably would've had an advantage, actually. But he wasn't going to risk himself, or Atsuko, on a mysterious creature in a mysterious world.
He started to back away, keeping a wary eye on the bones and the shadows around it. "We should go, I think."
Atsuko turned to look at Haku and nodded at him. That was possibly the best decision he could ever come to.
The darkness grew thicker -- it was moving. The tiny black balls were flailing frantically again and some had eventually disappeared while others burrowed deeper into wherever they hid. Atsuko held her throat as she stepped back, ready to throw her shoes at anything that came at her while she glared warily at the space ahead of them.
"Now," said Haku, a bit more forcefully, and took hold of her hand - something he would've never have done under less possibly-life-threatening circumstances. He still tried to keep her behind him, though he was sure it looked strange, maybe almost even like a child trying to protect his mother (but without such a great age difference).
This creature, whatever it was, probably wasn't from his world. It seemed darker, crueler, strange even compared to some of the spirits that dwelled in Japan. He didn't want to fight it if it didn't attack, partly because he didn't know anything about it and partly because they were in a public library and the risk for collateral damage between a dragon and a sinister mysterious figure was likely very high. On the other hand, waiting for it to attack could prove fatal.
Fortunately, the decision wasn't left up to him. As the sootspirits fled back into the recesses of the library, so did the darkness, though with significantly less panic. It seemed to flow away, rather than run or walk - but Haku wasn't paying it too much attention, aside to note that it wasn't chasing them as they backed away.
Atsuko tripped the first few steps she took with Haku on hurrying back and it didn't help that he'd held her hand and she felt imbalanced because of that. She held her breath as they moved farther, eyes still frozen on the mass of charcoal clouds in the space that she could see and in one panicked moment (where she squeezed Haku), she thought that the darkness rolled closer to them, giving chase.
She wanted to run, pull her hand away from her friend, turn and escape. But it was obvious that the boy knew what he was doing better than she and that it was much wiser to leave the decisions to his experience. Fortunately for her, she was right on this conclusion and the shadow was gradually thinning out -- and the lights were shining brighter than she'd remembered them to.
Running would've probably been the proper course of action, though Haku had to consider the possibility that it was a creature that hunted live things - things that moved - and running might have provoked it. Plus, as a dragon, he had to consider his pride a little, though it certainly wasn't worth the risk of getting anyone killed.
But it appeared that the creature was leaving. Perhaps it was chasing the sootspirits, or perhaps the City had moved it, or perhaps it'd merely made its point. It obviously hadn't wanted to be disturbed.
Haku let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, the stiffness in his shoulders loosening. "Let's go. Are you okay?" he asked (somewhat belatedly, he knew) as he finally turned around and started walking quickly back down towards the main hall of the library, trying to ignore the way the skin on his back still crawled as if the monster might decide to chase them after all.
Atsuko nodded. If she were to be more honest, though, she didn't know if she was okay. She was rattled by the darkness and the dead body, neither -- combined or separated -- ever brought with it good news. But she was unharmed, and that was a thought for celebration in this otherwise crazy world.
"I lost my purchases," she noted in a voice that was almost half-lost. Looking back, she found the books she'd taken interest on as well as her items scattered where she might have dropped them and she excused herself from Haku as she wore her shoes again and jogged towards the fallen objects to pick them up. She left the books on the closest shelf, though, and simply kept her own. When she thought about it, what she'd done was actually rather rash -- but she didn't find the idea of showing her fright very appealing. Never mind the fact that she'd just shrieked at his face just moments back, that is...
Atsuko's breathing was still fast as she returned to the boy's side and nodded to him. Her hands were cold and she was white -- whiter than she already was. "Do you think that shadow was in any way connected to this place?" It seemed an unspoken agreement that neither wanted to investigate on that matter, though. Not just yet, at least.
He knew that books were important, but even Haku would've left those behind, despite the mysterious creature's seeming retreat. He didn't have time to voice any objections before Atsuko had run off again, but at least he didn't have long to worry before she returned.
Her question was a little worrying to think about. It would almost be reassuring if the creature was something the City had devised as a defense mechanism - otherwise, it meant that there could really be all sorts of beings here. True, Haku was proof that the City didn't just pull humans in - and even Dinah wasn't really a typical human, though she was closer to it than he was - but both of them blended in. That shadowy thing probably didn't.
"I don't know," he said after some thought. "It could just like the library. It's probably usually quiet here, and there are lots of places to hide. The skeleton could've just been a visitor who found it." He tilted his head. "Or it could've been placed there to keep us away from something. What do you think?"
Either way, he was fine with not going back to double-check.
Atsuko was used to guards of such kind. If a patient was not yet sleeping deeply enough to dream freely, their ego normally would come to step in and guard the id -- the unconscious -- from any tampering and she -- or Paprika -- would have to shove the memory away or distract it by using another one before it distracted her. Still, that wasn't to say that she fully agreed with the presence of the ominous guardian in the library.
What did the City want to keep away from them?
"Maybe the City doesn't want us being too...inconspicuous like this," Atsuko muttered to Haku, partly to keep herself from being heard, partly because she was half-lost in thought. She wasn't even sure she'd used the right word. "Maybe it's expecting us to do 'normal' things first..." However normal was going to be in a place like this. "Before we go out of our way again, if you know what I mean." She turned to look at Haku.
Haku didn't like to think of the City as a creature. The idea of them being manipulated, being watched, by a bunch of buildings made his scales itch and his skin crawl and other uncomfortable things. But it seemed like a possibility. At the very least, there was something here pulling strings. He'd witnessed Yubaba's reaction to creatures fighting the control she had over her bathhouse - of course whatever controlled the City would be similar. Playing along was likely a good course of action.
He nodded as they made their way back through the library. "Maybe. It didn't seem to mind when I tried to get out before, but either way, it would be good if you found something to do here. I don't think we'll be escaping any time soon."
He pushed open the front door, relieved to be leaving the heavy shelves behind in favor of the outdoors. "I'm sure you can find a job here if you want - maybe even your old job. If you used to work on your own, your office might be around here somewhere."
Atsuko paused in her steps to give Haku the look of slightly wrinkled brows that he was due. "My laboratory?" What a funny idea! How could her laboratory -- or clinic or office -- even cross boundaries to get here? The idea in itself was impossible...in reality, that is.
"Either way, I would not know where to search for it," she said with a small chuckle as she led Haku leftwards from the entrance. "I'll look for it in the directory, though. But for now," she glanced at her new friend, "Would you care for coffee?"