Log: Darlington and Temeraire WHO: Darlington and Temeraire WHAT: A chat over dragons and unique books WHEN: early October WHERE: The Great Library's Special Collections department WARNINGS: None
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Having completed all his assignments from the first few months of term, and even some of those which he knew were coming up, Temeraire had resorted to gathering more research for his PhD, or at least, for one of his most favoured topics, namely: interdimensional relativity and travel. He had not actually decided on this yet, and would not have to decide for several years, but there was no harm in reading ahead, particularly when one had literal centuries of literature on the subject to catch up on. He had already torn through the entire reading list for his current class, Introduction to Quantum Information, which was satisfyingly full of the kind of advanced mathematics and the theory behind and beyond it that made his heart sing. Then he’d skipped a bit ahead in quantum mechanics, which was a lot more complicated and required some more supplemental reading to really understand, and led to a bit of a detour into relativity and cosmology. He still got frustrated whenever his lack of computing experience got in the way, but he’d had most of the summer to get a much better handle on that sort of thing, and he was powering through much faster now. His Professors, probably despairing at how often they were being approached for recommendations in the realm of reading materials, had given him a List, which meant he got to go to the Library.
Temeraire had mixed feelings about the Library. Oh, he loved the books, of course, the books were wonderful, and there were so many of them, and they were all organised in such a way that it was so easy to find what you wanted, and sometimes things you didn’t even know you wanted until you found them. But there was something about the building itself that made him a bit uneasy. About all buildings, really, when the windows were high up and difficult to see out of, so that you could be anywhere at all with no horizon to look at, and in the knowledge that such buildings had been built by men, who, while admirable for their centuries-old determination to survive despite their obvious disadvantages, were fallible, and that this particular library had at least once before in history been destroyed by fire, and Temeraire, who had once almost been burned alive in a building much smaller and much less sturdy than this one, found that being there too long made the back of his neck itch uncomfortably, and if he pushed through that, it started to get hard to breathe. Still, he could spend a happy hour or two on occasion with a pile of books on the floor, while he lay on his stomach under one of the tables, which paradoxically perhaps was more comfortable than sitting on a chair with the great ceiling hanging so high up above him, making him feel small. No one seemed to mind so long as he was neat and didn’t try to put anything back himself, which always seemed to annoy the librarians for some reason. At least when he looked human, no one stared at him, or interrupted his reading. No one paid any attention to a nondescript teenager who liked to read, so long as they didn’t get a look at his draconic eyes, which were always buried in a book in any case.
Near the end of the List were some books which must for whatever reason be quite rare, or very old, or - the possibly which excited him the most - very very new, and had to be requested specifically from Special Collections. He had planned on leaving them until last, but in the end he couldn’t quite bring himself to it - after all, surely they would be the most interesting, even if they did not turn out to be the most useful. He had very diligently noted down the full titles and the catalogue numbers, in his sadly rather childish handwriting, and now he went up to the counter and pushed his list across it. “I would like to read these, please,” he declared.
The young man behind the counter was smartly dressed—he’d once been described as a sentient J. Crew catalogue, and he had to admit that while the comment was mean, it was not inaccurate. He took Temeraire’s list and reviewed it, taking in the extremely specialized nature of the knowledge being acquired, and decided he must be dealing with a serious academic despite the childish handwriting and the apparent youth of the person before him.
“Certainly,” he said. “Have you read from Special Collections before?” The answer would determine whether or not Darlington gave him the well-practiced introductory spiel or not.
“No,” Temeraire said. “It’s not especially difficult, is it? I read the catalogue,” he pointed out, helpfully.
“Special Collections is where the library houses books that require special handling of some kind,” Darlington answered. “It’s not difficult as long as you pay attention—each book has its rules, and I’ll relay them to you before you use it. Sometimes the rules are for the protection of the book, sometimes for the protection of the library and its patrons. For instance…”
He quickly typed the first reference into the computer to see its requirements. “Portal Principles cannot be left without supervision, because an old enchantment on it causes it to occasionally turn invisible.”
Temeraire’s reptilian eyes widened in fascination. He knew this would be interesting. “Oh,” he said, mind already racing. “Does it actually turn invisible or does it shift into a parallel space dimension? That would make sense, for a book about portals.”
“Invisible,” Darlington confirmed. “The item history says it was previously owned by a wizard who didn’t want his younger students messing about with portals, so he put an invisibility enchantment on it. The enchantment has worn down over the last 200 years, so now it pops in and out. If it turns invisible while you’re using it, you’ll just need a sprinkle of Zephraim’s Powder to turn it back—we have it here, I’ll give it to you with the book.”
He said it all very matter-of-factly. After his years with Lethe and the time he’d spent working in this department of the library, Darlington was good at acting very accustomed to the unusual. Inside, he was still thrilled by every day he got to spend in the midst of so much amazing magic, but he kept that under wraps. He was, as ever, a creature of dignity.
“Oh,” Temeraire said, a bit disappointed. He still hadn’t quite got the hang of magic, in the sense that he could not rationalise it with numbers such as one could with science. And he was frustrated that he could never do any himself, with the one very obvious exception that was not him anyway, it was the amulet. “I mean, that is still very interesting,” he added quickly, not wanting to offend the very helpful and polite librarian. “Although it must have been annoying to have to take the enchantment on and off whenever you wanted to read your own book, when you could just find a good hiding place for it instead.” Like a parallel space dimension, he thought, rather wistfully. If he ever worked out how to create his own portals without magic, he could hide all kinds of riches in there if he wanted. Laurence would say this was not a very charitable use to put his academic pursuits, but it was after all only theoretical at this point, and there would be plenty of time to come up with more potent arguments in his own favour.
“Perhaps one of the others on your list creates portals,” Darlington said, seeing the obvious disappointment. He glanced over the paper Temeraire had given him—it wasn’t exactly light reading, and it didn’t seem to fit with the image of the person standing in front of him. Of course, he also worked with a thousand year old dragon who looked about 21, so Darlington was aware appearances could be deceiving.
“May I ask what it is you’re working on?” he asked instead of some of the other questions popping to mind. The best rule in Special Collections, he’d found, was to treat all patrons like serious academics until proven otherwise.
Temeraire brightened almost immediately. “Oh, it is for my doctorate,” he said proudly. “I have not officially declared yet, but my professors say if I want I can start the research and narrow down the area of study, which is the most difficult part anyway,” he admitted. “I am interested in quantum physics, and parallel dimensions, and especially cross-dimensional travel. And plenty of other things,” he added, “but in most of those areas it seems to me that most of the work has already been done, especially when one has access to such a wide array of information from across all of time and space, and it seems to me that no one in Vallo actually knows how Vallo really works, even if they were born here, so I would like to try and find out.” He beamed.
“A worthy goal,” Darlington said. “I hope you find the answers you seek, or at least get a quality dissertation out of it. If—”
Darlington’s natural curiosity fought with his ingrained inclination toward politeness. It was a brief battle, only a second or two in length, and finally settled by Darlington’s inability to walk away from a mystery like a Ph.D. candidate who didn’t look old enough to be out of high school.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?” he asked. “Feel free to dismiss the question if you find it rude.”
“Not at all. I am… nearly eleven years out of the shell.” Temeraire considered. “At least, as long as once considers one’s age to be one’s own linear time. That is, nine years in my home world and one and eight months here. Although I was much older for at least one of those months. But it will be eleven years in January. How old are you?” he asked, since it was only polite to reciprocate that sort of question, by his understanding.
“Twenty-two, assuming one’s own linear time,” Darlington politely replied. He couldn’t help but notice the use of the phrase “out of the shell,” and of course immediately wondered what that meant. Combined with the age, he had to assume Temeraire was of some species that matured much more quickly (and presumably absorbed knowledge much more easily) than humans did. Darlington had met some quite young doctoral students at Yale, but not that young.
Now that the seal had been broken on asking weird questions, he supposed he might as well carry on with it. In for a penny, in for a pound, as it were.
“I assume from your language and your age that while you look human, you aren’t actually human?” he asked.
“Oh, no, I am a dragon.” Temeraire realised he probably should have opened with that, but he was still getting the hang of this sort of conversation. He also tended to get distracted by just looking at people, especially when he first met them. His short distance vision was so much better in this form that each new face was of fresh interest. He tugged his amulet out from under his shirt. “I can use this to be human for a while, if I need to go into buildings, and so on, but I don’t like to do it for too long, as it gets a bit uncomfortable.” He shifted his shoulders a little awkwardly, trying to ignore the urge to stretch wings he didn’t have at the moment. He held out a hand over the counter instead. “I am Temeraire. A pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Daniel Arlington, but everyone calls me Darlington,” his new acquaintance replied, giving his hand a firm but not aggressive shake. “A pleasure to meet you as well.”
Darlington couldn’t decide if he wanted to ask about the amulet or the dragon himself first. His curiosity was piqued by both. He decided it was more proper to ask about the person first.
“Are you a dragon native to Vallo, or did you come here from another world?”
“I don’t think there are any dragons native to Vallo,” Temeraire said, “at least not that I have come across, and the ones from other worlds tend not to talk at all.” He sighed a little. “No, I came here from England on the planet Earth in the year 1813, although not the same Earth as some others. I do think we could use some sort of designation system. And you?”
“New Haven, Connecticut, United States, Planet Earth, in the year 2019,” Darlington replied. “And we do have at least one dragon native to Vallo, though until recently he was a resident of the fae lands. He works here.”
“Really?” Temeraire brightened considerably. A dragon working in a library? For a moment he had a particularly vivid fantasy of what that would be like; to be surrounded by so many books all the time, and to know where they all were… but the idea was rather quickly overshadowed by the realisation that he would be stuck in this building most of the time, which did not really appeal, no matter how pretty it was from the inside. It would have to be quite a small dragon, he thought, or one who could change his shape, such as he could. “I would very much like to meet him some time.”
“I’m not sure where to find him today, but I’ll arrange for an introduction over the network once I get your books for you,” Darlington said. It seemed only proper to connect the dragons; he thought it must be lonely being the only one of one’s kind in a place. He’d seen that often enough with Alex at Yale. “Do you want all of them at once, or one at a time?”
“One at a time, I think,” Temeraire said after dragging himself back to the conversation and giving the question some consideration. “Otherwise I expect I will get distracted, trying to read them all at once. Which is probably not a good idea if some of them are likely to disappear.”
“That was going to be my recommendation, but I try not to tell scholars how to do their jobs.” Darlington turned to the computer to refresh his memory on the location of the first book he’d looked up for Temeraire. “Take your pick of the carrels, get comfortable, and I’ll bring your vanishing book to you. Then you can let me know when you’re ready for the next.”
“Thank you very much!” Temeraire beamed. “I greatly appreciate all your help.” He bowed, and strode away feeling as though even if today’s research yielded less than all of the answers he was looking for, he had at least made a new and valuable connection.