Dewey Decimal is a harsh master

[will_be_god]

Who: Cyrus, whoever
What: Who wants to LEARN? Or sort things by number category, whichever
Where: What passes for a library
When: The 21st

Cyrus had been strangely absent from most of the events recently. Maybe some people had seen him, wandering aimlessly around. Maybe near that strange spacecraft that had slammed into the forest. Maybe drifting through the hedge maze. Maybe staring out over the lake. Or maybe just sitting in a corner somewhere.

This new world was close in nature to the old one. It had the same physics, the same laws of nature. The gravity indicated that they were on a planet roughly the same size as before. But the very fact of the events were something Cyrus simply couldn't wrap his head around, even in the best of circumstances.

But he had found the library, and despite the assumed age of the books, most of them were in at least fair condition (he had a memory of a movie he had seen as a child, of a time traveler in the distant future who found all books crumbled to dust from their ancientness and disregard, as the future beings were lackwits who cared nothing for learning). There were things here about this world, and he may find the connection between it and that moon.

But first he should at least put some of them away. Ugh.

Comments

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"I see the quest for knowledge is never ending," Rosalina commented when she happened upon Cyrus in the library. Her children were having a nap, and thus only Polari accompanied her as she explored their new home.

[will_be_god]

"We can never neglect our learning. In this new place it is more important than ever before." He didn't look up, concentrating on putting books away.

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

Rosalina glanced at Polari, giving a slight nod before going to his side and helping him continue to shelve books.

"And have you found anything unique here?" she asked.

[will_be_god]

"Yes. Though I must remain focused. I cannot afford to become distracted."

Though after a moment, shelving another book, he looked over at her. "I must apologize. When we first met, I did not possess emotion. They had been taken from me, and I have since regained them."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

Rosalina nodded, assisting him work through the pile of books. She didn't look back at him right away, silently processing what he said. When she had shelved another book, her fingers lingered on the spine, before she turned back to him.

"And I apologize to you as well," she said. "It was not my place to pry into your affairs, regardless of the circumstances."

[will_be_god]

A small nod was his only acknowledgement. His focus was otherwise on the books.

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

They continued to shelve books in relative silence, Polari picking up books from the stack to hand to each of them as they worked, and Rosalina making sure to read every title on every book spine as it went up. "I've never heard of some of these books," she finally commented. "Are you familiar with them?"

[will_be_god]

"Some," he whispered, not intending to be so quiet. "I suspect that we may be in some manner of collective, through the black hole in a way..."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"Then it would seen you have no shortage of new knowledge to gain," she told him. "That certainly sounds like something worth living for to me."

[will_be_god]

He had a reason to live--to bring peace to the universe. Even if he couldn't become a god, he had to find some way to accomplish it.

"...What is it that you live for? Your stars?"

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"What parent doesn't live for their children's happiness?" Rosalina asked simply with a small smile.

[will_be_god]

That wasn't anything he considered an answer. "You're avoiding the question."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"No I'm not," she replied. "I have dedicated my life to my children, wherever they may be. I protect the cosmos from those that would harm it. That duty is everything to me."

[will_be_god]

"Protection and happiness...no, this is neither the time nor place." His voice was starting to waver, so he turned back to the books. "I'm sorry. I'm not myself lately, as I said."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"It's okay," she told him. "Having never met you before your... accident, I am not certain the kind of person you were before. The least I can do is afford you the time to rediscover it for yourself."

He's not usually this pathetic I'm sorry

[will_be_god]

"It is unusual for me to have to...cope with anything." Another book. "This one was in the old library. I went through it here and it appears to be identical. Perhaps it survived, or perhaps this is entirely new. Though I had sent the old one to the Sinnoh region..."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

Seeing he was trying to change the subject, Rosalina was willing to let it go, after one final comment. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Cyrus. It simply means you're human."

[will_be_god]

Human. That was the problem. "Are you human?"

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

She nodded in response. "Despite all that I have been through, all that has happened to me, and how much I have changed... yes, I am still human."

[will_be_god]

That raised more questions than it answered. "Then you were born of humans. You are mortal. And yet you've outlived stars...How?"

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

That elicited a frown from her. Not that she was upset, but as she explained, "To tell you the truth, I do not know. I have wondered that same thing for so long, but I like to believe that the stars themselves need me, and so long as they need me, I will be there for them."

[will_be_god]

"Hm. An eternity out of necessity. And yet you had to have replaced somebody, or the stars existed without you, for you to have stemmed from a human life." A part of him was jealous of her, being chosen by the universe itself like that...

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"Perhaps I did," she said. "I may be the latest in a long line of those who came before me. Guardians of the cosmos... I understand much about the universe, except for how I came to be what I am now."

[will_be_god]

"It has been said that the death of one universe spawns the birth of the next. Perhaps you are a product of that, although that would make you something other than human."

The old Cyrus would have wanted to study her, to keep her in his lab and turn her over to his scientists in his aim to unlock the secrets of the world. But for now, asking questions was all. "Though that raises the question of why you appear as a species that would not take rise for over fourteen billion years."

[ladyoftheshootingstars]

"You misunderstand," Rosalina corrected him. "When I say that I am human, I do mean that. I was born, I had a mother, a father, a brother... When I left for the cosmos, I left behind my old life and became something else."