In this community, I spam words.

[nottheproblem]

Who: Ziio, Open
When: 06/13 - Evening
Where: The Academy Library - Or in that area of.
What: By way of a fated book, Ziio arrives in Smash Academy. The lesson that we should all stop reading.
Warning: N/A



What is this.

The pointed question and the most direct one. Also the one that didn't provide an immediate answer. Naturally, the obvious answer was a sanctuary of books - a library. Not that it explained the situation any better. To go from a village in one moment to a library in another. Some would have held a vision responsible, but the imagery too vivid.

And the moment Ziio ran a forefinger over the spine of a book, it was too obviously real. So this was reality. Some sort of reality. An unexplained kind.

The lack of clarification was irritating at best. But if opening a book had been what brought her there, then it seemed logical that opening another - the right one - would take her back to Kanatahséton. Which eventually led to an ever growing pile of books that Ziio had opened and found disappointment in.

In other words, someone was going to have a lot to clean up later.

Comments

[vianca]

"Could you please stop what you are doing."

A tiny voice from a tiny girl that had appeared near Ziio's shelves.

[nottheproblem]

Ziio almost hadn't heard her. Well, she could have said that if she wasn't more observant. When Vianca addressed her, she abruptly paused in the middle of drawing a book from the shelf before her. Instead, she lifted her hands to show she was unarmed, or otherwise, not a threat, because she imagined she didn't look too terribly innocent.

"Yes?" she asked.

[vianca]

Vianca continued to stare at the mysterious woman in that subtly judging way despite the efforts Ziio was making to show she meant no harm. That was just the way she looked at everyone. Someday you might understand, strange woman messing up her shelves.

That was the real problem, actually. Vianca directed the striking red of her eyes to the pile of books that had been discarded without much thought, then flicked them back up to Ziio.

"If you are not going to read them, kindly put the books back on the shelves. Not on the floor."

[nottheproblem]

There was something unappreciative about what appeared to be a child saying any such thing to her. Assumptions were made - likely on both ends - but there seemed to be little point in arguing the matter. She did, however, give Vianca a bit of a lot, the same kind she had often given to Connor when he did something she didn't quite approve of.

Suspicious eyes, in one form or another.

"I'll see that they are replaced," Ziio commented. "It'd appear what I was searching for isn't something that can be found here."

But she wasn't going to apologise. That just wasn't really something she seemed particularly keen on doing, like most conversations that involved some kind of emotional input. Emotion in modesty, if it could be helped.

[vianca]

The Pikmin did not approve of that look. Her brows furrowed just slightly, and her frown became somewhat more pronounced. The reasonings for such a look were known well enough. Vianca raised her head a bit higher.

"Should you be looking for something specific, you may ask. I am the one that keeps the books."

[nottheproblem]

A child? Responsible for the books. Fitting and yet entirely strange. Ziio didn't know what to think. As much as she hadn't known what to think of Shadow. To be fair, as she was faced with Vianca, she didn't even know where to begin.

So she chose to ask a different question.

"How do you reach the taller shelves?" Seemingly ridiculous, but something she was genuinely curious about. Why was a young girl having a library in her care? Were there no adults to look after her?

[vianca]

That in itself was quite a question. Guardianship and all that. The methods of scaling shelves was much easier to demonstrate. Vianca promptly left Ziio's field of vision, moving to the other side of the shelf she was currently next to.

Well the-- no wait, there was a sound.

Vianca slid back into view in a way that probably doesn't make much physical sense but what I am in control of the library's physical plane now and no one can stop me. She was on a ladder that rolled along the length of the shelf on wheels, and came to a coasting stop near the woman and was now at near eye level with her.

Ta da.

[nottheproblem]

She could have used words. But then, how often did Ziio really carry on conversation? Not... that often. She was a woman of action and words rarely did much aside from stir up tension and frequently - conflict. Vianca had to be respected to some degree for her demonstration.

Eye-to-eye, red and brown, Ziio simply stared at her for a few moments. "Is there no other to look after you in your time here?" Was Vianca the sort of girl to need parental guidance? She seemed perfectly capable, if not downright independent.

Ziio might have seen a little of herself in the girl. Personality-wise. She was about as stoic as the native woman. Not necessarily brooding, but not particularly easy to read. Intuitive, perhaps. Or easily stirred to a lack of amusement. But anything she thought was all basic conjecture and had no ground. Not with a girl she'd only just met.

[vianca]

Well, she was a straightforward woman wasn't she? Vianca stared back, letting the question hang there for a bit.

The concept of guardians and leaders was one that Vianca had struggled with often over the years. The one the rest of her sisters had called Leader had left them all years ago, but it had been even long before that that Vianca had stopped calling the captain 'Leader.' Did a Pikmin actually need a Leader? Could they be their own Leader? If Pikmin were meant to follow, than what did that make her? She still didn't have an answer for that. Currently, the closest she had to someone akin to a parent was probably Rhys, but the priest had much too much to worry about and did not need her included in his worries. Caim might have thought himself a protector, but he was not someone Vianca would count as someone to look after her.

The person Vianca thought of when Mother's Day had come had also frequently come and gone. Vianca continued to write her letters, despite the fact that they would never reach their destination. Over a year, she reminded herself.

Holding her stare, Vianca chose to reply with, "I took up what they left behind."

[nottheproblem]

If Ziio had been the sort uncomfortable with silence or impatient, she would have turned her attention elsewhere. And it was true that her gaze had moved elsewhere, and yet Vianca still held almost all of her attention. But then she could easily multitask. It was required of a woman in her 'field.'

When Vianca did reply, Ziio found herself looking back at her and she nodded. "I will not give you more to do then." Not that she'd intended to in the first place. But there came a kind of respect for one who seemed to need no other, regardless of how the truth came to be.

After all, Ziio had once been much the same way. And in the present, she still held onto that.