Living the Library Life (Shadow/Gricelda)

Gricelda glanced through the list of people available for the Shadow Mission.  Wan Pound was still on the list... a fat disgusting creature but tolerable.  Some old geezer named Dusty... but figured she might as well pass as the last time she was in a dust shop was in handcuffs.  The only one that caught her attention was the one offered by Libra Airan.  It wasn't so much as she had an interest in books but an interest in Libra, a fellow faunus like herself.  She thought it would be pleasant to be under the direct supervision of another faunus for once as she sets off to go meet with the librarian.  

Gris power walks her way to the school library, making her way  to the front entrance as she arrives.  She creaks open one of the hefty doors open just enough to peek her head inside.  Her eyes scans the rooms, but fails to spot Libra amongst the the bookshelves.  Gris figured that Libra was further inside, maybe putting books on their proper positions or something.  She then pulls forcefully on door handle, the door lets out a low moan as it is being fully opened.

As Gricelda closed the door behind her, she was immediately greeted by a feminine voice behind her.  She spins in place as she turns to face the cat-eared stranger who wasted no time asking her questions involving the library.  Before Gris could speak to the faunus, let alone think of a response, the two of them where both shushed at by yet a mysterious figure.  This startles Gris, quivering in place for a second, feeling her hair perking up and goosebumps crawling over her skin.  The cat faunus girl appeared to have been as equally surprised at the sudden intrusion, which warrants a smirk from Gris once she recovers from her own little shake up.  

It was only now that she finally got a good look at the librarian, who seemed to have fit the description of the person she was to shadow under.  She opens her mouth but silence it before speaking as the cat-faunus musters up a question.  The cat-faunus barely stammered half of a sentence before the librarian asked about her two shadowers.  Gris appeared concerned upon hearing the word 'two' and speaking up:

"Two?  I thought-"

Gris cuts herself off as she remember the the girl next to her was asking about if she knew where Libra Arian.  She felt somewhat relieved that her partner was also faunus, she didn't really trust most of the humans at this campus.  Her left wolf ear turns to the cat faunus, who introduced herself to Libra as Liona, speaks to her.  Gris turns face to look at Liona as she smiles warmly to her.

"Seems like it.  Anyway, I'm Gricelda, Gricelda Mee.  Your welcome to call me Gris though.  Dunno about you but-"

Libra places an index finger on over her own lips as she whispers as loudly she could get away with.

"SHHHHHHH!  Library remember?!"  

Gris winces visiably, bits her upper lip, then continues in a hushed tone.

"-errr... right... well it be good to be working with another faunus on this one."

She smiles meekly to Liona, then turns her gaze to the Libra and stares at her expectantly.

Gris nods, agreeing with her partner for today. She leans slightly twords Liona and whispers softly:

"Yeah, us faunus should really stick together in a place like this.  You simply can't trust all of these humans to treat us kindness or respect."

Once finished, she leans back into place and watches Libra as she searches through her papers.  Gris listens and nods as Libra gives her rehearsed speech.  For all of her talk of keeping quite in the library, Libra might have been a greater offender of the "temple's" silence than either herself or Liona ever were.  But she did not dare speak up to Libra as this would only earn her condemnation.  Instead she just smiles and nods.  Given the order to follow, Gris keeps a few feet distance behind Libra made sure to keep pace with her new pal Liona.

As they tag behind Libra, Gris curiously looks around the library.  She had only seen the outside of the building until and it somehow seemed larger on the inside than it did on the outside...

Gris was somewhat surprised by how fast Libra was moving through the aisle of books.  Gris kinda liked this pace, for it kept her body in motion.  As for this library itself, Gris was still taking in all of its sensations.  These sensations range from the ambiance of lighting, that distinct musk that age paper gives off, and the pungent quite that permeates the whole building.  It was a rare experience for her be in the presence of so many books.  And the size of this particular library put her at a loss.  It doesn't mean that didn't have an interest in books, she always a slight curiosity to their contents.  Its more that she lacked to patience and the will to do serious reading in her free time as that kept her more or less immobile.  It was difficult for someone like herself to stay in one position for long unless it was truly necessary.

Libra's sudden stop nearly caused the distracted Gris to lurch forward and momentarily fight with herself to keep balance.  She spreads out her arms to help maintain balance, careful not to accidentally smack Liona in the process.  Once she regains her footing, she lets out a quite breath of relief and stands erect while listening to Libra talk about how to put books away or something.  Liona hushed whisper almost caught her by off-guard as she was a little focused on trying understand from Libra how this whole archaic system of book organization was suppose to work.  Gris turns her face slightly to Liona with a wide-eyed expression on her face.  She guess she gave off that lost puppy impression, judging by Liona's response.

Her surprised expression morphs into a kind smile.

"Was I really that wide-eye looking?  Heh..." states Gris quitely, holding back a chuckle.

"Well your right, I only just arrived here to Syne during the Winter Break.  I had a chance to walk around the academy but... I haven't bothered having a look inside the library until now."

Gris takes the moment to take a glance at Libra, who seemed to engrossed with explaining about the numbers on the side correlating to space in the shelf for the book to go to.  Gris takes this moment to lean closer to Liona and continue the conversation since it seems safe to do so at the moment.

"So... what about yourself?  I take it you have been here longer than I have." inquires Gris, who still speaks in a hushed whisper in order to avoid the librarian's attention.

Gricelda gives Liona brief nod, though she herself is a little surprised how recent this academy  really is.  Gris then looks over to Libra, just in time to listen to her assigning them both a task to complete.   Gris keeps pace with the librarian as they power walk to the next shelf section that required books.  When Libra explained it, seems simple enough.  Putting back books onto the book shelf in alphabetical order was something even she could intuitively up on.   Gris grabs an armfull of tomes from her pile and goes on to place each one into its place She checks each title and searching for the proper place of each book.  Gris stands on her tippy toes as she slots a book into a space, listening to Liona as she starts the conversation back up.  Gris turns her head slightly to Liona's direction as to not look obvious, doing her best to keep her voice low enough that her new friend could hear but the librarian could not.

"Well... lets say coming to this academy wasn't what I expected to happen to me.  But all things considered though... I have been treated surprisingly well.  Its not the most prestigious academy but certainly has its charm.  I even get along nicely with my roommates... with except for the one human."

Gris gives a small shrug, sure there are some hiccups but so far Syne has treated her well.  Gris continues the conversation with a question of her own, still whispering like a child late at night during a slumber party.

"So... you been here two years.  How has that been for you?"

Gricelda nods her head slightly up and down as she listens to Liona, who is speaking maybe a little too passionately about her thoughts on humans. Gris turns her head to eye Libra from the corner of her eye who is now easing Liona to be more quite.  Once Libra has said her peace, Gris returns her gaze onto the book she is currently working on.  She couldn't make out the title as the print was small and color of the letters and the background were too close in tone for her to make it out.  Or maybe it just the inconvenience of her colorblindness making her life a tad more difficult  Gris just places the book onto the shelf she thinks it goes onto as she really didn't want to explain to yet another group of people that she happens to be colorblind.  As she tries to decide what to do with book in her hand, she listens to Liona responding to her earlier question, nodding her head slightly to acknowledge that she was listening.  As Liona wraps up her speach, Gris looks over to Liona, looking somewhat surprised.

"Oh, really?  I just thought these missions were more like extra credit that you can get paid for." Murmurers the wolf quietly, before smiling to Liona.

"Good thing I already got a head start then~  Well if you someone someone to come along with you on hunt, you can let me know.  I might be a freshman but I'm more than capable of handling myself in a fight." she muses, placing the book in question onto the shelf.  Almost immediately, Libra pipes up:

"Ummm... Gricelda?  Dreams of Bark by Bravis Baker actually goes more on the right.  Your doing good though!"

Gris tilts her head questionably, then pulls out the book and struggles to reread the title.  She still had a hard time making out the words, all she could see was 'Beams of Dark by Davis Laer'.

"Err... how did you" stammers Gris

"SHHHhhh! You don't have to be so loud!" states the bat faunus... rather loudly.

"Oh, I just know which each and every book belongs to." chimes Libra, who after consulting with her notes proudly tilts her head slightly up as she grins devilishly  "I'm the librarian after all~"

Gris stares at  Libra an incredulous look on her face, unsure if she actually knows where all of the book in this library are suppose to go or if she actually went through the trouble of noting where all of the books are suppose to go before meeting them just to impress them if one of them shelved a book incorrectly.

"Errr... right... I'll just put... this book back where it belongs..." quietly mumbles Gris as she moves to the next shelf over and places the book into its proper space.  She silently curses this Bravis Baker and his awful color pallet for book covers.  While everyone would see a forest green book written with crimson letters... to Gris a mostly a blank dull yellow tome.

Gris looks over her copy of the list of books, unfamiliar with most of the titles on the list.  Once again it seems simple enough, just put the right book into the right so that it goes either to the local library in Bellmuse or to the library in Altas which in turn will be sent to everywhere else.

"Alright, easy enough." mummers the wolf faunus as she picks up a book.

Gris searches for its title on the list, confirmed it was for the local library before setting it at the bottom of the box.  Gris continues the monotonous process again and again and again.  Each time she found a book destined for local, she placed in on of the boxes and crossed its name off the list in pencil.  If it was international, she set it aside for Liona to take care.  As the boxes begin the with books, Gris figures she might as well shoot a question to Liona as they worked.

"Liona, are you a native to Bellmuse or did you come here from one of the other kingdoms?  I myself came from Vale." inquires Gris, who continues to sort through the rapidly diminishing pile of books.  She wasn't speaking as quietly as she probably should but figured since they where back here, no would really mind.

Gris was pleasantly surprised hearing that Liona also hailed from Vale.  Just one more thing the two of them had in common!

"Ha!  That is a coincidence!  Well I'm personally glad to have you here in Bellmuse, even if we just spent the whole day sorting books together." states Gris quite happily.

The two girls continued to work throughout the day until Libra announced that their session has come to end, which was quite a relief as the job quickly grew into a tedious occupation.  Gris breathed in the fresh air of the outside, only now realizing how stale the library's air truly was.  Gris looks over to her pal Liona as she makes a comment about the day, to which Gris nods in agreement.

"Yeah, I guess it was kinda fun."

Gricelda then watches the cat faunus scribble someone on a piece of paper and promptly hand the paper scrap over to her.  Gris looks at the numbers, about to ask if this was Liona's contact information before Liona answered her question for her.    She can't help but gasp, giddy with excitement for at last making a friend at this academy!

"Ghuahh!?  R-really?  Thanks Liona!  I-"

Gris, pauses as she thinks her excitement may have come off as sounding desperate so she tones down the level of excitement on her voice.

"I mean, thanks.  I'll be sure to add you to my contacts list.  I'll be sure to invite you along to do... something together in the future!  Oh, and I'll send you text message so that you also have my contact number.  That why you can get in touch with me whenever you, you know, when you feel like you want me around and such."

Even when she tries to keep her level of excitement down, one could easy see how happy Gris is at the moment.  Afterall, it was hard to miss the big stupid grin on her face.

"Well, you take care now Liona!" exclaims the wolf happily.

As the two depart, Gricelda reflects upon the day so far.  For Gris, it was an interesting experience and the library was impressive even if Gricelda herself was hardly a bookwork.  Did she come out with greater appreciation for the library?  Maybe.  The best part of this shadow mission honestly was coming out of it with a new friend.

[EXIT]