a wolf in librarian's clothing [Akita&Jordan]

[Hunter]

The city of Mossy Hollow cared a great deal about its public library, as evidenced by the size and grandeur of the stately building, with great stone columns marking the entrance, the product of ample municipal funding -- more money than the non-existant lycan support programs would ever see.  Akita had to swallow her bitterness whenever she thought about it.  There were other grievances against the city, too -- its high school curriculum, its road maintenance, its tepid anti-fairy ordinances -- but this was the latest on her mind, and the one she was reminded of every time she was reminded of the cost of her workplace. Akita loved the library, but it played second fiddle to some of her needs.

Anyway, as long as the books were housed and cared for (and kept track of), that was all she cared about.  Her mind had wandered to family issues and her aunt's latest boyfriend as she rolled a book cart off the elevator onto the second floor, pushing it towards the far back wall of the reference section.  Along the way, as she paused here and there to re-shelve some of the books on her cart, she caught glimpses of the surrounding titles -- "A Complete Encyclopedia of Potions", "Nymphs of the American South: An Ethnography", "The Use and Misuse of Telekinesis Over the Ages", "Understanding the Chemistry of Firebreath", and other sundry titles on the subjects of spells, human etiquette, the fairy-volant conflict, vampirism... and lycanthropy.

She didn't like dwelling on her condition (or anything else beyond her control), but it was hard to escape thoughts of it for long when she was in this part of the library -- the section with all the dense, freaky subjects that she, as a human, presumed that she would always have the option to avoid.

The young wyfwolf put off dealing with the books on her cart about lycanthropy until most of the others hand been shelved, at which point she had to suck it up and brave the small section against the wall where the library kept its lycanthrope titles.  Akita had already been through many of these soon after she found out she'd been infected, even the ones with cringe-worthy titles and half-naked wolf-people on the cover, so she didn't spend much time on them.  She just wanted to get this over with.

However, one of the books still managed to catch her eye, and she realized that she hadn't seen this one before.  It must have been a new arrival.  That's how it came to pass that the young librarian's assistant, who usually pitched in here and there doing odd jobs, stood there lingering in her least-favored part of the reference section, dressed -- rather nerdily, as suited the job -- in a collared shirt, sweater, and khaki slacks, and examining a small, unfamiliar book as she leaned against her cart, which was now blocking most of the lycan section.

There must have been some mistake, she thought.  A title like "A Microeconomic History of the Market for Lycan Pelts" clearly belonged with the economics texts.

[Kiba]

Jordan Grace

"Umm... excuse me. I was looking for the Lycan section," a voice came. Jordan stood there in skinny jeans, black boots, and a tight fit black, v-neck shirt. Her brunette hair was held back with a black headband that had a flower design to it. Her make-up had a natural look to it, excluding her bright red lipstick, although it matched well. Her silver, hoop earrings dangled delicately and the necklace she wore was a little, silver locket. She was shorter than the librarian assistant in front of her, although she looked a few years older.

She had decided to take a break while searching for a job. Instead, she decided to find the library and look through it, maybe try to find out a bit more about being a Lycan. Of course, that was hard to do without telling someone why and she didn't want anyone to know that she was one. That would just be an awkward start for a conversation. Especially if they hated the supernatural.

[Hunter]

Akita jumped, startled, as she looked up and turned to face the young woman who'd come to ask her for help. The surprised expression was quickly removed, though, to be replaced with a soft, professional smile. "Oh. Well, congratulations, you found it. These ones here--" She pointed from one end of the section to the other, indicating the numbers they ran through. It was a small area, just a few shelves vertically and not taking up much space side to side (no wonder she'd asked for help finding it). Akita rolled the cart out of the way to give her room to browse, quickly putting the economics book back on the cart to be dealt with later. It had probably been mislabeled; she'd have to check with the head librarian on that.

She didn't head off right away, though, as she couldn't help feeling a little confused as to why someone would specifically ask for the lycan section, as opposed to the magic & nonhumans section in general. Usually, when people actually bothered with books like these, the sections on vampires and fairies held more of a draw -- which made sense, as those were the beings that were the most dangerous, out of everything cataloged here. There was self-evident good reason to be reading up on things like those.

But just lycans, specifically? Well, sometimes unafflicted humans might have an interest in researching lycanthropy for simple essays, in the case of high school students, or out of concern for their livestock and pets, in the case of anyone who kept vulnerable animals like rabbits or chickens -- it was a relatively simple matter to keep wolves away with wolfsbane, though; everyone knew that... didn't they?

"Is there... something in particular you're looking for?" she asked quietly, trying to fish out the other girl's reason for being here. Trying to soften the question, too, she smiled in a self-conscious sort of way that she could only hope made her look eager to help. It wasn't really any of her business why patrons wanted the information they sought. If this was a good day, though, she wouldn't get the question thrown back in her face.

[Kiba]

Jordan Grace

The short girl smiled and nodded a 'thank you' to the African American woman. She moved to look at the books. Her eyes scanned the titles carefully; "A Full Moon with a Lycan", "Standard Lycan repellent", "How to Kill a Lycan: The Beginners Guide", "How to Know if You've been Turned", "Guide to Lycanthropy". A that was as good as many. She grabbed the last and picked it up. She also picked up one called "Lycans and Their Enemies". That may be useful too.

She looked up at the question and gave an embarrassing smile. Oh. Well, the question had been asked. It was only polite to answer it, right? And Jordan was definitely not one for lying, even to strangers. "No, just... information. I'm still studying up on my own kind," she said, her voice sweet and soft as her cheeks, neck, and ears turned a bit pink.

She looked down at the two books, biting her lip with embarrassment. Maybe she should have searched for the section on her own. That would have been less troublesome. "Do you recommend any books?" she asked, looking at her curiously.

[Hunter]

Akita tried not to let the surprise register on her face when the girl revealed that she was infected. She didn't want to look prejudiced or fearful, obviously, but it was mostly a matter of quelling her immediate urge to confess me too, me too. She knew better than that. This was her workplace, not a place for making friends, even if she was shocked and excited and eager to befriend the first lycan she'd met who was her own age (and kind of cute, not that she was going to say anything about that either). So she bit her tongue and nodded her understanding and poised herself to remain delicately aloof to the situation, one hand resting on the cart behind her.

Recommendations? Honestly? No, she didn't -- she thought most of these here were more than a little insulting and more geared toward the prevention of infection or warding off wolves for the unafflicted's benefit than they actually addressed anything useful for lycans themselves. But, being of the nature she was, Akita was reluctant to reply in the negative and leave it at that.

"Actually..." After a quick glance around, her voice fell to more of a hushed whisper, even though she'd already been speaking in a library-volume voice. "There's nothing here that could really help, but-- in the restricted section, where I've never been, that's where they keep the heavy spellbooks that go into transfiguration magic, and I've heard... I've heard they've got rituals for learning to control the shifts on the full moon." Even though she wasn't sure whether she should be trusting a stranger with this, she added, hunching slightly forward with her head down, "If you apply to check out one of those books, I'll help attempt the ritual with you."

The reason Akita hadn't checked them out herself was simple: the application for requesting spellbooks like that required specifying the reason for the request, and she wasn't ready to disclose her condition to the city just yet. As long as she was being safe, she thought she had a right to keep things like that private.