Library Consultation
#69 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Jarzyl seeks emergency help at the library
I'll get back to longer, bigger stories soon. But first, more slice-of-life. (2,163 words)
Atlas was busy with his job. Walking slowly down the library aisle, he pushed along a document cart that was half filled with books of assorted sizes. Stopping at the right spot, he grabbed one of the books--it was a hardcover book titled, An Abridged History of the Early Drakken Clan Wars--and slid it back onto its place on the shelf.
The dragon fledgling nodded approvingly, then he moved onwards, returning more books to the shelves until the aisle was done. Then he carefully maneuvered the cart into the next lane of bookshelves to continue there. As he was doing so, out of the corner of his eye he spotted another young dragon--a fledgling just like him, but with scales of bold orange hues compared to his own stealthy black--who had been briskly walking through the library. She spotted him too, and immediately scampered over.
Atlas pushed his book cart into the aisle. "No running in the library," was the first thing he said over his shoulder, when his friend came within range.
Jarzyl Mintaka decelerated to a brisk trot. "Atlas!"
"Shh, quiet please in the library," Atlas continued.
Jarzyl lowered her head and quietened her voice down to a frantic half-whisper, but she nudged his side. "Emergency! I need your help!"
Atlas halted the cart and finally looked at his friend. "Yes? What is the nature of your emergency?"
Jarzyl looked nervous. "Academic?"
"You're getting expelled from school?"
"Uh, no. Ok, maybe not a real emergency. It's not life or death. But it's urgent and important! Do you know that math assignment we submitted in class this morning? I messed it up! I didn't realize it was two pages--I only did the first page!"
Atlas shrugged. "That's unfortunate." He grabbed a book from the cart and then put it back onto the appropriate shelf.
With her frill drooped flat against her neck, Jarzyl anxiously shifted her weight between her paws. "I messed up. I messed up! I was about to leave school when Pyxis came to find me and said that Drak Eeto wanted to see me at her office. Then... then she was asking me if I was having difficulties following the class or some personal issues at home, because I didn't do half of the questions on the math assignment sheet. But it was only because I was stupid and I didn't realize the assignment was double sided...!"
Atlas put another book back onto the library shelf. "And you told her that, right?"
Jarzyl nodded. "She... she gave me back my assignment paper and told me to finish it and slide it under her office door by the end of today, otherwise she'd deduct me marks for late submission."
"That seems very reasonable. So go do the assignment."
"But you have to help me with it! You did both sides of your assignment, so you know the answers to the questions!"
Atlas threw a mildly judgemental look at her. "You don't learn anything if you copy my answers. Besides, if you can do the first half of the assignment, you'll have no problems with the second half. It's more of the same."
Jarzyl grit her teeth. "But I don't have time! I have maybe... one hour to complete the assignment? Help me, help me please."
"In the time it took you to fly all the way here to the Central Library, find me, and explain your problem, you would already have completed the assignment if you had stayed in school instead."
"Now that you put it like that, maybe that's true. But I just... I wanted someone to help me. And so I came to find you."
"I'm on duty. I have to reshelve all these books." Atlas picked up another book and looked at it--The Collected Memoirs of Atus-Du Mintaka: How I Built the City of Wings. He turned the book towards Jarzyl and gestured. "Hey, look. It's that book by your ancestor. This book is really popular. I'm surprised there wasn't a reservation for it. It won't be left on the shelves for long."
Jarzyl took the book and put it back down on his book cart. "Atus-Du isn't my ancestor. He was the founder for my clan, but he didn't have any children--which might have been because he was so obsessed with storm shields and airships that he never made time to, uh, mate with anyone. At least, that was my impression from reading that book."
Atlas nodded approvingly. "You have read it."
"Some Mintaka drakken worship Atus-Du. They think he and the other ancestors are watching from the next plane of life, guiding the clan. I don't really care. Sounds a little creepy, actually." Jarzyl glared at him. "Hey, hey, hello! My math assignment--are you going to help me or not? Please?"
Atlas let out a sigh, perhaps a little melodramatically, then he nodded. "Fine." He reached into his flight harness and checked a small pocket watch. "My shift is not ending anytime soon. I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable if I took a short break." Grabbing the opposite end of the book cart, he pushed it back out of the aisle and then turned it in a different direction. "Follow me."
"What would I do without you?" With a relieved smile, Jarzyl trotted along beside him.
At a different section of the library, Atlas gestured towards a door. "We can work here, in my office."
Jarzyl looked impressed. She tried to peer in through the large window that was next to the door, but the window was a too reflective compared to the dark interior of the room. "You have an office? Wow."
"Do you think a part-time, apprentice student librarian gets an office?" Atlas left the book cart against the wall nearby, and then he pushed open the door. This room had one large window facing inside to the rest of the library, but the opposite wall was made of glass and faced outwards towards the exterior of the library and overlooked the street outside--blinds had been pulled down over the outside window, but now Atlas opened them partially to let afternoon sunshine pour in. This revealed a simple undecorated room, with a table and some floor cushions for dragons to sit on. "Of course I don't have an office. This is a discussion room, meant for library patrons to use."
Jarzyl snorted. "Funny." She followed Atlas into the discussion room and closed the door after her. Then when he shut the other set of blinds, blocking off the view into the discussion room from the rest of the library, a sly grin crossed her snout. "Oh, privacy." Jarzyl shifted closer to him, and then she playfully tweaked the tip of one of his horns.
Atlas made eye contact with Jarzyl, and he faced a brief crisis of morality--his sense of responsibility dictated that he remind his friend to focus on her work, but he also felt sorely tempted to just... not do that. "Jarz."
Jarzyl resolved this quandary for him. "Hey, stop distracting me. We need to do work." She sat down on one of the floor cushions, and then opened a side pouch of her flight harness, to take out an ink pot followed by a document binder. Jarzyl uncapped her ink pot and curled her tail forward to dip her tail tip in ink, then she took out her math assignment sheet and slapped it down against the table. "Ok, ok, focus. Let's go. Come, help me."
Atlas walked over and grabbed another floor cushion. He pushed it right beside Jarzyl's cushion then sat down next to her. Rather than saying or doing anything, he just let Jarzyl get on with her assignment, with the reasonable certainty that she was fully capable of doing it herself.
Murmuring softly to herself, Jarzyl worked quickly. "Let me see..." The dextrous tip of her tail darted across the sheet as she scribbled down her working. On occasion she shot a quick query to Atlas. "This should be permutation, not combination, yes?"
"Correct." Atlas watched her work, checking her answers against his own memory of how he'd solved each question. He did once spot her making a mistake with her mathematics, but mostly she was correct and didn't need his assistance. "Check your numbers, right there."
"Thanks." Soon Jarzyl was almost done. "Last question. Ooh, how much time do I have? I need to get this assignment back to school before dinnertime, or Drak Eeto will get me in trouble. Do I still have time?"
Atlas checked his pocket watch and found that a third of an hour had passed. By his estimate, Jarzyl had another two-thirds of an hour before she needed to leave the Central Library and fly back to school. "You've got lots of time."
"Do I? What time is it? Oh, by the sky spirits, don't tell me. I just need to get this done..." Applying herself with furious speed, Jarzyl surged through the last question and scribbled out her answer.
With one final stroke of her tail tip, Jarzyl let out a cheer. "Hah! Done. Phew!" Leaping to her feet, Jarzyl slid her assignment sheet over towards Atlas. "That's the answer, right? Is that what you put on your assignment?"
Atlas peered at the slightly crumpled piece of paper. "Your writing is so messy. But your answer is correct."
"Yeah!" Jarzyl shouted excitedly. Being noisy would be unacceptable in the rest of the library, but the discussion rooms were meant for meetings or lively chatter and they kept sound from disturbing anyone else visiting the library. "I did it!"
"I told you that you could. Well done."
"Heh." Flipping open her wings, Jarzyl flapped them down so hard that her feet briefly left the ground, then she quickly wiped the ink off her tail using a spare piece of paper. Acting calmly, she carefully slipped her math assignment sheet back into her document binder, before capping her inkwell, and then keeping all her belongings back into her harness pouches. "I got the assignment done in time. Thank the ancestors, thank the sky spirits, and most of all, thank you."
Then she jumped at Atlas and kissed him. She licked at his snout hungrily, and one of her paws grabbed his neck while the other grabbed one of his horns. Atlas let out a soft sigh as he let Jarzyl get what they both wanted. "We're going to get caught if we keep doing this," he noted. "Caden was asking questions this morning."
"Shh, quiet please in the library," Jarzyl muttered, and she kept kissing him.
Atlas laughed. "Is this the real reason you came to find me here?"
"Honestly... no?" Jarzyl murmured softly in between each lick at his snout. "I was so worried and panicked about having missed half the assignment. I wasn't at all thinking about... this. I just needed someone to help and... you're the one who always helps me." She grinned. "But now that I finished the assignment, a little reward is deserved, don't you think?"
"A reward for me, or a reward for you?"
"Exactly. I want to lick you... eat you... touch you..." Pulling back, Jarzyl made a rumbly satisfied sound, like a purr. She smiled, looking confident and content. "Hmrrr. Atlas, you are just... The things that I want to... I could just keep..." Then her eyes went wide and her neck frill suddenly went flat. "What time is it?!" Before Atlas could even respond, Jarzyl had snatched out her pocket watch from her harness. She calmed down. "It's alright. I've got time. Another five minutes."
Atlas blinked, as his sense of responsibility briefly managed to resurface. "I should go get back to work. I'm supposed to be on duty. I have all those books to reshelve."
Jarzyl kissed him again, and he didn't go. "You're just... helping out a library patron."
"I don't think the head librarian will accept that excuse," Atlas muttered, but then he kissed Jarzyl back, and used his tongue to repeatedly lick at her snout and her neck.
Exactly five minutes later, Jarzyl opened the discussion room door and stepped out, followed by Atlas. A few other library visitors had been browsing the shelves nearby and briefly looked over, but no one paid them any attention. Just a couple of fledglings who had been doing some studying.
Jarzyl casually nodded to Atlas, one friend to another. "Thank you," she murmured. Then she strolled off towards the elevator lobby, heading towards the rooftop to take flight.
Atlas watched her go. There was a cheerful skip in her step, and her tail swished from side-to-side. "Jarzyl Mintaka," he murmured to himself. Atlas then glanced at the book cart, which was still right beside the door, half filled with books he needed to return to the shelves. He went back to work, but he was smiling too.
END