#earthrunes

He pats himself, carefully, then looks up at her, "You're kind lady, but I'm not upset in the slightest."

“I’m sorry I never got to meet the Baron.”

"He was very kind to me..." she says to Vince. "And he made many hard choices."

She sighs, and looks at the scattering of Rand. "What will you do with all this?"

"Oh, I know a guy" He looks to the lion pooka

“A ‘read with discernment’ label and distribute to local libraries?” Pondering. “Hamster bedding, or I could use new coasters. Origami practice?”

"Paper plane contest?"

“SO many book safes.”

"You will not. Even her books. They deserve respect."

Who, what where? A whisper!

He perks his ears, and turns about. “Mrrrr?”

Shalimar says "roll them for cigarettes?"

"Or joints...One could have a real mellow seflishness"

"Feh."

Shallimar mutters "Gasp, it really is the gnomes of Zurich"

A blink. "Did you...is somebody there?"

Golden eyes trace around the source of the quiet disdain.

Coradel goes back into the stacks, more slowly this time, looking.

Suddenly something bursts from the back stacks and flutters past Coradel, a book wyrm

"Bronte!"

He cannot help it, leaping for the flying target as it flits by, hands outstretched...

“I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.

The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!” the little dragon cries out

The pale sluagh emerges, ink-black eyes glittering.

Coradel is surprised, but...oh, don't ever fly at a Fiona. She raises an arm to strike at it, until she hears it speak and recognizes it for what it is. "Oh...Bronte."

She turns to where the little dragon came from, and nods. "Hello, Zara. You saw all that?"

His paws- er, hands, clap lightly together behind the flitting golden creature, and he steps back as it Speaks, watching it in interest.

Bronte is now on top of a book shelf and looks VERY embarrassed. "“Paranoia is just the bastard child of fear and good sense." (Charlie)

"Poor thing. Let's adopt it, give it a last name and raise it right." (Jace)

"You want to get it a puppy, too?"

"Sure. We'll call it Panic. It and little Paranoia can play together at the park and scare the hell out of all the other kids.” " Yup, blushing bookwyrm

“Oh, vision of loveliness.” He murmurs, eyelids drooping to just slits as he purrs. Is he referring to the sluagh, or the wyrm? Unclear.

"Oh, oytser..." She goes to the dragonet, picking her up and transferring her to a bony shoulder. "She can be excitable."

The bookwyrm resettles onto the shoulder and whispers to Zara “Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.”

"I know dear." Scritch scritch. "And I did not wish to interrupt our volunteer librarians while they were at task..."

He bows his head to the sluagh, or wyrm, or both. “Paladins of the printed word, I am sorry to have caused offense. Surely, ‘‘twas clear that only the first suggestion was in jest. Even Malort has a place in my bar, if only to teach folk to properly respect the finer liquors.”

"Volunteer? I think my dictionary is the wrong version..." Shalimar mutters

A sigh. "Shalimar, I believe you owe Miss Zara an apology."

“Voluntold?” He offers to the pooka, in an undertone.

Shalimar looks baffled at The Baroness, "Poor Quay?"

Eyes wide, she folds her arms. "Well, perhaps you could explain to me exactly how you don't owe her an apology?"

"You could apologize to August, but he did not get to witness this...experience."

"Oh, certainly, you see, I forgive her for intruding on a perfectly good jibe at the goshdarn Patter Oakularous." he explains

Zara pets her dragon, black eyes implacable and unblinking as they settle on the skunk pooka.

He looks to Zara and smiles

She... does not.

"A perfectly good jibe...at the risk of the Baron's collection?"

"Oh...that, well, I... see, I juggle thousands of things safely all the time. Even when I go to the privy."

"It's why the toilet paper is backwards by the way"

The Skunk pooka DOES look more chagrinned

"Bronte started to read one."

Coradel looks at him and considers, then leans in and whispers in his ear.

Shalimar tilts up

She straightens and gives him a significant look.