Killer librarians gonna librarian

[theflyingone]

I hope everyone has made permanent as many books as they could from the last space. Those you wish to make available to everyone, please fill out a card for each of them telling us with whom it can be found, and place it in a public catalog, like the one in L—The Workshop. [ Can he still call it Leonardo's Workshop if Leonardo is gone? He wants to, but that is also like putting salt in the wound. ] Alternatively, leave them with me in The Workshop and I will shelve them for you.

What we've just received may serve, but personal accounts such as ours will shed light on more than just general history. I encourage you to write your own. I have again gathered my own notes on last Jaunt. You can find them under the title January Codex. I did not have much this time around. A bit about youth culture, illegal vision technology, courier trade, artisan trade, smuggler trade, what Jason told me about a book describing how the plague began, and how... delinquents are dealt with.

I came back with a pair of long earrings, but I do not wear earrings. Would anyone care for them? They are made of feathers and painted bird skulls.

[ And lastly... ]

If I... did anything embarrassing during the Samhain festival, I apologize. For my other self. I was not myself. And drunk.

Comments

[prolificarse]

...Of course I'd make my return after the books are gone.

[There's a pause as he reminds himself how to ward a conversation from prying minds - it may have been one of the earliest tricks he'd picked up after becoming a Traveler, but it's still been some (fuzzy, nebulous) time since he'd last practiced.

Still, after a few moments, he adds, privately and under one-sided protection:]

What happened to Leonardo?

[No, he didn't miss that slip.]

[theflyingone]

We saved as many as we could. It is a fair amount. If everyone does as I have asked, you will find out where they are soon. I am handling some in the library as we... speak? think?

[ Being a new(ish) Traveler, he can only follow along with the privacy protection while concurrently maintaining the semblance of a public conversation for everyone else's benefit. Some feat for someone not used to speaking on the network.

Leonardo's disappearance is not a secret anyway. His Workshop had become a fixture in Liminal, and by extension himself. His absence had been more noticeable. Altaïr's psychic "voice" becomes a little fainter, as if speaking too loudly about something he cares about is something to avoid in daily life. ]

He disappeared, in the manner of Travelers in the past. He was gone when we returned from the last Jaunt. His rooms remained.

[prolificarse]

There's actually a proper library now? Maker be praised.

Ah - simpler to call it speaking, I'd say. Or communicating, if you'd rather not get tangled up in specifics.

[Private]

That's unfortunate. Less so than I might have feared, but still. We're sorely diminished without him.

[theflyingone]

Leonardo and others remembered and collected enough books before I arrived. I suppose it was only a matter of time. He had remembered and created books that I knew, despite being centuries after my time. It was a comfort.

[ Private ]

As far as I know, he did not suffer. The Jaunt was fairly peaceful, compared to others, and so was his other self. He was simply... gone. Did you know him well?

[ He isn't even sure if he should talk about it like death, but that was what the loss felt like. ]

[Private]

[prolificarse]

Not as well as I would have liked. Two week intervals between disaster are less than ideal for socializing.

Re: [Private]

[theflyingone]

I would agree.

[ On both this being a disaster, which he would not say aloud on this network where prying overlords might hear, and there being an unfortunate lack of socializing with Leonardo as himself. ]

Well, you are welcome to visit his Workshop at any time to look at the new books. Everyone is.

[Private]

[prolificarse]

[Meanwhile, Dorian assumes they can hear everything, on the network or otherwise, but rarely pay attention to anything that falls outside their particular sphere of interest. Much like spirits, really.]

I will certainly take you up on that.