#earthrunes

"Stop whining, no one ever lets me investigate around here. Hurts my feelings. Besides, you're a pooka, I can translate your lies anyway I want to and claim I misunderstood when actually I just use it as an excuse to do what I want." Magnus smirks

"That's mighty white of you" the pooka's brows knit

"And Round Round, Time goes down, the water flows back up the brook, the jester's past an open book..." Magnus intones

At the word 'book' Shalimar winces "No really, I gave at the office and..."

"Sh..it's coming to me now, and..." Magnus starts, "Wait... the library, what did you do to the..."

Shalimar winces, "Tis me job to bring joy to all the world's children."

"Ayn FUCKING Rand!!???" Magnus flares

The pooka winces, "See, the joke isn't funny if I have to explain it to you."

A little wince in the shadows.

"Ayn Rand? You brought her in? that's like the antithesis of Beauty is life. If ever a woman needed a better sex life than the one she had... that hateful harridan is it. It's like politically correct Mein Kampf as far as I'm concerned... Get the good books, put them back, get the Rand out of there.. you're going to give August a heart attack."

The pooka winces, "Everyone's so cheerful. You think the Oaklord hexed me?"

"No, I don't, but I might have if I knew you' done this and I'd apologize to mom later. Now go...shoo." Magnus is still a sidhe, and on this? he's willing to order.

"no one apprecciates art," The skunk pooka sulks, and sighs. He does rise though

Zara nods, and sets about cleaning up the broken pot and puddle of tea.

Delores comes in the library, first noticing the mess, 'I Brought you more, oh my... What happened?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Delores... I had an accident."

"Oh it's all right dear, you should have told someone. We have servants who do this very well. Our staff is proud and quick and..." Then her eyes fall on the books, "Unpleasant..pardon, the staff isn't unpleasant. The uhm... books. Did you do that?"

A grim look. "I did not. No. but it will be fixed."

"It might be best if the culprit does not realize who bade him fix it."

"Oh?" The boggan says, looks at the Rand books, "Ugh. As long as it's Fixed. Horrible attitude that woman had about life. Hateful. " SHe helps clean up, then looks at Bronte, "Oh the poor creature surrounded by this. One moment. I'll be right back" She departs

"A prank. Not one I care for, but... a prank."

She reaches to scritch the bookwyrm's eye-ridge, making a soothing sound - or at least as close to one as her broken throat allows.

The boggan returns promptly and says "I hope this takes the bad taste out." And hands over some books, "They maybe a bit below her. With your persmission, Miss Zara?" She offers two books by Ogden Nash

"Below? Not at all! How kind of you, Delores. Bronte, what do we say?" She takes the books, holding them up for the bookwyrm's inspection.

The Bookwyrm sniffs, then scrabbles round one of the books greedily before catching herself , and then saying "Got no checkbooks, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I've got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night.”-
― Irving Berlin"

"oh she's wonderful," The boggan says, "You're most welcome, Bronte."

Zara's keen ears hear, is that a wheelbarrow?

"Ah. If you pardon, Miss Delores? I must needs make myself scarce... if you wish, you may watch from the shadows with me."

"oh, don't mind if I do..." And the boggan slips into the shadows with surprising skill...for a non sluagh.

Zara herself steals away with Bronte, finding a spot int he shadows.

‘Hey there, that’s a heavy load. Need a hand?’ He paces alongside the other pooka, leaning over to pluck a book off the top of his stack. “Taking these to a burning, I presume.”

"oh, sure now pooka brothers show up to the rescue. why is your kith always late?" he fusses, then takes that book back, "No no, the coasters are over there' He gestures to the bookshelves where the Rand books are.

He pushes and holds the door open so that the skunk can wheel through, and peers at a shelf. “Any Rand? No. Ann Rand?” Mispronouncing. A quirk of his eyebrow as he spies the next, and the next.

“She’s popular, whoever it is.”

"Sir Magnus adores her," Drily and he starts to pile the the rand books on the floor carefully, andd even more carefully returns the books he brought in. Many of which were in zip lock bag

He assists, pulling down arm loads of the objectivist literature and setting it aside in stacks. “August must love her to fill the library with her books. Maybe we should return these to him?”

“He always was a reader.” He remarks, looking momentarily pensive, eyes distant. Then a grin. “But only in between adventures, of course.”

A pause, an a smile "Would you?"

“Well, he’s past due for a lesson. I suppose the least I can do is bring him some reading material. For surely he MUST be ill and abed if such a scholar were to neglect his studies.”

Shalimar grins, "Like the the one fellow said to the other at the gallows, it's nice that we can hang out like this."

He stacks the Rands easily enough, and lightly plucks one of the other books from the stack. His large hands take care as he pages through, glancing at the text, and reads aloud, a finger tracing lightly along the line. ““A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

A pause, and he shakes his head, mane dancing. “I could have told you that.”

He peers over a few more pages before closing the Austen and returning her to a shelf. “I swear someone told me there were zombies in this book. Hm.”

"Oh there are...but they're well to do and pre dead thus prime husbands for those who would be instant merry widows" Shalimar is actually very careful with the books he returns, the rare copies especially

He watches Shalimar work, and carefully hands over copies, looking at each in passing. “I was looking for the library, after all, but I didn’t think a visit would come with a restocking lesson.”

Shalimar shows a smart phone, "I took pictures of them in their natural habitat," He explains, "That's way, when they came back from the groomers, I could put them back in their kennels just so."

She suppresses a hiss when Shalimar sets a book on the "wrong" shelf... he is fixing his mistake, after all...

“Isn’t there normally someone who handles this? A bookish young lass, or matronly lady with her hair all bunned up and her ‘Shh!’ At the ready?”

He peers around. “Or at least, a card catalog? The Huey, Duey, and Louie decimal system?”

"I thought it was August who ran his fingers up and down spines in here," A thought "mmm there was rumor of help ... some kind of naked mole rat pooka, lovely girl."

“Oh, we all know that the only spine he is interested in running up and down runs this place.”

Quietly glowers.