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writetomyheart2023-04-24 11:57 am
yrindor) wrote in writetomyheart2023-04-24 11:57 am
Entry tags:
[Team Three] Bibliophagy
Playing around with original work in one of my favorite settings: weird magical libraries. 1k, G
"That way lies madness."
The voice was quiet but clear, and though barely more than a whisper, it echoed like a fire alarm in Nadia's ears. In the reading room, anything louder than silence drew too much attention. She dug her thumbs into her temples and nearly sighed before catching herself. If she was hearing voices from the non-enchanted book in front of her, she obviously needed a break. When was the last time she'd stretched? Or eaten for that matter?
She winced as she stretched and worked a crick out of her neck. She was alone at the reading room table now, and her notes spread out across the well-worn word as far as she could reach. When had she filled so many pages with half-finished thoughts and possible directions for further investigation?
The neat row of volumes on the book truck beside her had also shifted while she worked. Or rather, she had shifted them as she went through each volume in turn, though again, she didn't remember going through them all. Only a single volume remained on the shelf of untouched works, its cover faded and somewhat tattered, but overall still in far better condition than many of the works she'd seen.
Change of plan: one more volume, and then she could pack up and leave early for the day. Was it still early? Reading rooms always messed with her perception of time--she blamed the lack of windows.
She wrestled her notes back into some semblance of order, or at least something that looked less like the aftermath of a whirlwind, and set the final volume on the now-clear space in front of her. Addison's Bibliography. She always loved a good bibliography. You could go down endless rabbit holes from a good one, with one book leading to another, leading to another. A bad one, however, was a nothing but a massive headache of missing information, incomplete or just plain incorrect citations, and sometimes even entire sources pulled from thin air. She loved bibliographies as much as she hated them, and finding one she'd never heard even a whisper of before was always a special sort of adventure.
She savored the feel of the paper against her fingers as she carefully opened the front cover.
"I mean it."
The voice startled her out of the moment, and when she looked up, she found herself caught in the sharp gaze of the librarian sitting at the front of the room. She cocked her head in the universal sign of confusion. The voice couldn't possibly belong to the librarian, could it? She'd never had a librarian comment on her sources before, unless it was to recommend some even more obscure tome, and what was with the cryptic warning? This was research for a publication that would probably never be read by more than a hundred people, not a video game quest.
"You want to be careful with those bibliographies," the librarian said now that she had Nadia's attention. "It's too easy to get lost in them."
"I know how bibliographies are," Nadia replied. Did the librarian think she was brand new at this? She'd been doing archival research for over a decade. She knew what she was doing.
"These are different. Especially Addison's and Gamaliel's. I keep saying they belong in the restricted section, but there's never enough space and always something that needs it more."
"The restricted section?" Surely she'd misheard. Restricted sections were where they kept dangerous books. The ones with too many teeth, or a tendency to breathe fire or spit acid, or "Anyone Who Readeth This Book Shall Be Cursed For All Eternity" sort of things. Not nondescript commentary on other academics.
"If you don't believe me, then how about you answer a few simple questions. First, how long have you been here, and how long did you plan to be here?"
"I always planned for this to be an all-day research trip. Yeah, I meant to break for lunch a couple hours ago, but sometimes the research catches you up, you know? I'll just leave early for the day instead. It happens all the time."
The librarian didn't seem convinced, but she moved on. "Second question: what's in all of those notes you've taken today?"
Nadia shifted in her seat and tried to steal a surreptitious glance at the nearest papers. "Sources I want to remember to come back to, and any additional references to follow up on," she said, because that was what she always wrote down, though in truth she remembered very little from the day's research fugue.
"How about you take a closer look at some of those notes and try that again."
Nadia ignored the faint tremor in her fingers as she slid the pages closer. So what if she didn't remember the specifics? Research fugues happened to everyone sometimes, right? And it had to be a sign she was getting more comfortable in archives in she wasn't so hyperfocused on every tiny noise she made.
Then she looked at her notes, and that train of thought stopped dead in its tracks. Had someone else been sitting nearby and accidentally mixed up their papers? She always organized her notes in tables, not whatever these tangled webs were with too many lines. She'd never heard some of these names before either, or at least she assumed they were names of some sort, even the ones that contained arcane symbols she didn't recognize.
She pushed them aside as the first cold twist of fear tightened in her gut.
"Tell me, have you ever heard of bibliophagy?" the librarian asked.
Ancient Greek hadn't been her strongest subject, but she'd muddled through the same way she'd managed the rest of the required languages for her degree. It had been a few years, but she could still manage a simple question. "Eating books? Why would I want to eat a book? Unless you mean metaphorically?"
The librarian shook her head. "No, the other way. Bibliophagy: when the book eats you."
"That way lies madness."
The voice was quiet but clear, and though barely more than a whisper, it echoed like a fire alarm in Nadia's ears. In the reading room, anything louder than silence drew too much attention. She dug her thumbs into her temples and nearly sighed before catching herself. If she was hearing voices from the non-enchanted book in front of her, she obviously needed a break. When was the last time she'd stretched? Or eaten for that matter?
She winced as she stretched and worked a crick out of her neck. She was alone at the reading room table now, and her notes spread out across the well-worn word as far as she could reach. When had she filled so many pages with half-finished thoughts and possible directions for further investigation?
The neat row of volumes on the book truck beside her had also shifted while she worked. Or rather, she had shifted them as she went through each volume in turn, though again, she didn't remember going through them all. Only a single volume remained on the shelf of untouched works, its cover faded and somewhat tattered, but overall still in far better condition than many of the works she'd seen.
Change of plan: one more volume, and then she could pack up and leave early for the day. Was it still early? Reading rooms always messed with her perception of time--she blamed the lack of windows.
She wrestled her notes back into some semblance of order, or at least something that looked less like the aftermath of a whirlwind, and set the final volume on the now-clear space in front of her. Addison's Bibliography. She always loved a good bibliography. You could go down endless rabbit holes from a good one, with one book leading to another, leading to another. A bad one, however, was a nothing but a massive headache of missing information, incomplete or just plain incorrect citations, and sometimes even entire sources pulled from thin air. She loved bibliographies as much as she hated them, and finding one she'd never heard even a whisper of before was always a special sort of adventure.
She savored the feel of the paper against her fingers as she carefully opened the front cover.
"I mean it."
The voice startled her out of the moment, and when she looked up, she found herself caught in the sharp gaze of the librarian sitting at the front of the room. She cocked her head in the universal sign of confusion. The voice couldn't possibly belong to the librarian, could it? She'd never had a librarian comment on her sources before, unless it was to recommend some even more obscure tome, and what was with the cryptic warning? This was research for a publication that would probably never be read by more than a hundred people, not a video game quest.
"You want to be careful with those bibliographies," the librarian said now that she had Nadia's attention. "It's too easy to get lost in them."
"I know how bibliographies are," Nadia replied. Did the librarian think she was brand new at this? She'd been doing archival research for over a decade. She knew what she was doing.
"These are different. Especially Addison's and Gamaliel's. I keep saying they belong in the restricted section, but there's never enough space and always something that needs it more."
"The restricted section?" Surely she'd misheard. Restricted sections were where they kept dangerous books. The ones with too many teeth, or a tendency to breathe fire or spit acid, or "Anyone Who Readeth This Book Shall Be Cursed For All Eternity" sort of things. Not nondescript commentary on other academics.
"If you don't believe me, then how about you answer a few simple questions. First, how long have you been here, and how long did you plan to be here?"
"I always planned for this to be an all-day research trip. Yeah, I meant to break for lunch a couple hours ago, but sometimes the research catches you up, you know? I'll just leave early for the day instead. It happens all the time."
The librarian didn't seem convinced, but she moved on. "Second question: what's in all of those notes you've taken today?"
Nadia shifted in her seat and tried to steal a surreptitious glance at the nearest papers. "Sources I want to remember to come back to, and any additional references to follow up on," she said, because that was what she always wrote down, though in truth she remembered very little from the day's research fugue.
"How about you take a closer look at some of those notes and try that again."
Nadia ignored the faint tremor in her fingers as she slid the pages closer. So what if she didn't remember the specifics? Research fugues happened to everyone sometimes, right? And it had to be a sign she was getting more comfortable in archives in she wasn't so hyperfocused on every tiny noise she made.
Then she looked at her notes, and that train of thought stopped dead in its tracks. Had someone else been sitting nearby and accidentally mixed up their papers? She always organized her notes in tables, not whatever these tangled webs were with too many lines. She'd never heard some of these names before either, or at least she assumed they were names of some sort, even the ones that contained arcane symbols she didn't recognize.
She pushed them aside as the first cold twist of fear tightened in her gut.
"Tell me, have you ever heard of bibliophagy?" the librarian asked.
Ancient Greek hadn't been her strongest subject, but she'd muddled through the same way she'd managed the rest of the required languages for her degree. It had been a few years, but she could still manage a simple question. "Eating books? Why would I want to eat a book? Unless you mean metaphorically?"
The librarian shook her head. "No, the other way. Bibliophagy: when the book eats you."