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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Jan 26, 2013 16:20:39 GMT -5
At certain points in time, there were things to do in the library.
Normally, Naomi spent her time behind the desk, her nose deep into a book, waiting hopelessly for someone to come in. She always dreamed that someday, the library would be as busy as the canteen. Would that ever happen? Probably not, but it was a nice dream. Combined with her constant reading, she would spend time dusting and trying to keep the general disorder that seemed to affect the camp from time to time from touching her neat, organized little empire. Outside the walls that defined the library and her small living space behind it, other people were in charge. In here, her word was law when it came to the books. No one else knew how to care for them or even how to properly organize them. When she’d arrived, the camp’s books had been stored unceremoniously in crates and kept out of circulation. She’d nearly had a panic attack seeing them like that and had taken it upon herself to make sure that people had access to the books.
Today, she was doing exactly that. One of the scouts had wandered into the room with a box nearly overflowing with books. Her interest piqued, Naomi had hurriedly said thank-you and shooed him out before taking the box to her table and starting to sort through them. She very well couldn’t let him see her lift with ease the box that he had been struggling to get in the door. That would be entirely too suspicious and might just blow her carefully cultivated image as a human. Hell, she had the tattoos to prove that she wasn’t a vamp if ever anyone stripped her down to find a mark. It had been a long process, getting each one of those. It was a tie between the one on her ribs and the one on her hip for which had hurt the most. She couldn’t even imagine the pain it would have take to get her mark inked in. It extended from the base of her neck to the base of her back and was centered over her spine. The others, well, they hadn’t hurt so much, although she’d been struck by the strangeness of the white ink on her arm, it was barely visible but still there.
She slowy started unstacking the books and placing them by category on the table. She’d sort through them more thoroughly later, but for now she was just concerned with separating the fiction from the non-fiction. She’d work her way through the second stack later, given the time it would take her to prepare the labels and figure out where in her well organized library they would go. She’d need to Dewey code them and then find space on the shelves, something that she was thankfully running out of. In the beginning, the library hadn’t been nearly as large as it was. True, it still fit on four walls, but that was better than the two that it originally had been. Other than the space taken up by the books, the space was dominated by her table in the center and small card catalog set into the wall under a few shelves. Although it was really just a dresser with a few shoeboxes to hold the cards, she felt that it was an important time saver (not that anyone agreed with her). Other than that, there was a threadbare easy chair in one corner and a small table under one of the windows holding all of her supplies for tea. She wasn’t stingy with it. If someone wanted to sit in the chair, read, and have a cuppa, who was she to say no? This space was created to be a haven from the outside world.
Other than the door, the only other large feature was the fireplace that was currently crackling. As much as she loved the warmth that it provided, Naomi was always wary of the thing and had a good foot and a half of empty space surrounding it just to make sure that nothing caught flame. She didn’t like that the space wasn’t utilized, but she also didn’t like the idea of books burning and so she dealt with it.
She sat down in the aged chair behind her table after the sorting was completed and started going through the non-fiction stack, categorizing each and writing a check-out card, a catalog card, a internal card pocket, and a label for each one. After that was completed, she’d affix the label and the pocket and start the next book. A computer would have saved her so much time, but alas, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon and so she relied on her knowledge of library history and of her time as a child spent in libraries with the exact same system as the one she had. The next item that was on her list to find was a typewriter and some ink for it. She’d told Sammy that much and he’d laughed. She knew it was a long shot, but if she could find one among the errata of the camp (like so much else that she had in the library) or find one outside of it, she would be more than happy, she’d be ecstatic. It would cut down the time that this process took and enable her to get back to her one main activity: reading.
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note: yay!
words: 912
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on Jan 26, 2013 16:47:58 GMT -5
It was Greg’s day off.
Those two words made him chuckle a bit though and shake his head. They most certainly didn’t mean what they meant in the old days. And the didn’t mean what they probably meant for the vampires that were in town. A day off was tentative, a maybe. Not a definite. He had had maybe one or two where he actually didn’t get called in. But that was the nature of the camp he supposed. Someone was always being rushed into the “hospital” of sorts that Greg worked at, with some sort of bite or gash. And Greg was happy to help.
It wouldn’t have been his chosen profession, had the world not changed. He would have likely become something like a banker—like his family always became. Or maybe a professor of some sort. Some type of scholar. But after spending so much time growing up getting patched up, when Greg had gone to camp he had been drawn to the odd little hospital, and soon found himself roped in to help when he was old enough to without getting in the way. He learned quick and he had a knack for it, oddly enough—which he also hadn’t expected.
He was happy to work there, happy to help out and make sure that people stayed on top. Even if Mark called him Nurse all the time like the jerk that he was. It was just boy stuff. But either way, he knew he helped save lives with what he did, helped patch people up and that helped attribute to the small sense of pride he was growing. He was still skittish, still damaged from years of abuse at his father’s hand, but he was working on it. He was getting better slowly, and what he did most certainly helped with that.
He took off his glasses to gently clean them on the edge of the flannel button down he wore—it wouldn’t have personally been his first choice but he took what hand-me-downs he got happily. He had grown up in camp, and while most people got to wear what they had brought with them from the outside world, Greg and his best friend who he lived with Mark didn’t really have that luxury. The stuff they had from when they were eight wasn’t really all that likely to fit. People brought stuff in all the time though, and he was happy for the new stuff and the hand me downs. Greg wasn’t a complainer.
Besides, he liked the Camp, liked the way it ran. He had grown up here, not in the world that most people knew. He had been ten when he ran away with Mark, and spent most of the years he could remember here. It was a way of life for him now, and he was happy with it. Much happier than he had been before coming here. He knew most of the people, he was happy to help those just coming in—because a lot of them were beaten up from the journey through the forest. It was a good thing for him.
The whole vampire bit didn’t factor in for him like it did for most people. He had never actually bumped into one—as far as he knew anyway. That wasn’t why him and Mark and run away, they had simply used the opportunity to do so. So he didn’t have the same bone deep dislike most did here.
As he got himself ready for the day, up early out of habit because he knew the chances were he’d be called in so he didn’t want to sleep the day away and miss the poor person sent to drag him over, his eyes alighted on the book on his table. He had finished it last night, as always, because the bookworm read fast. He couldn’t help himself, he just loved to read without hesitation, it had been his escape before and though it wasn’t exactly that for him anymore, now it was mostly because he just loved reading so much. It was a wonderful pastime, wonderful way to get lost in someone else’s world.
Either way, he knew he had to give it back. Which meant he would have to deal with turning bright red. He sighed and shook his head. He was working on that too.
He had been so happy when he had found that Naomi had set up the library. It had been before his time here, but not by much. Greg had donated some of the books he had brought with him, mostly the non-fiction ones that he had used to help Mark and himself survive their journey here. Stuff like what plants were safe and which weren’t, navigation by the stars, and that stuff. Some others he kept to himself, as the only things he had left from his past life. But he was usually in there, even if he had read most of the books there before.
Scooping the book up under his arm and leaving a note in case Mark came back early or someone did come looking for him, he left the small place he shared with his best friend and headed across camp for the library. A small smile or wave, shyly in most cases, was afforded to the people he knew well as he walked. Odd little community that they were.
It wasn’t’ long before he reached the library. He entered with a soft knock. He knew this was a public place but he also knew that it just felt rude not to knock. He smiled a bit when he noticed her and turned bright red, immediately. He didn’t mean to it just happened. ”H-Hey Naomi” he stuttered and then frowned lsightl at himself. Beautiful women—of which Naomi certainly was made him stutter, made him nervous. He had never had the charm with the ladies, it was true. But he was working on that!
He sat the book down that he had come to return on the table and was about to comment on that when he noticed the books that seemed new, or at least new to here. A small, shy, smile curved at his lips. ”New books?” he asked, always happy to see that. And see! He didn’t stutter! Okay, so he was still bright red, but at least it was a start.
Words: 1069
Muse:Good!
Comments: Yay!
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Jan 27, 2013 18:30:48 GMT -5
Writing all of the cards and labels, Naomi’s fingers were quickly becoming smudged and stained with the black ink from the pen she was writing with. That was the cost of this procedure, however, and she wasn’t about to stop in the name of washing her hands. One, that gesture would be futile given that she was nowhere near done yet, she was only half-way through the non-fiction and still had the entirety of the stack of fiction to label. This was most likely going to take her all afternoon, namely because of the rather archaic system that she had going. However, given the circumstances, she couldn’t do much better than manually doing the cataloging and labelling. She finished one book, stuck on the label, put the index card in the slowly growing stack to her right and stacked the book next to her feet. It was better she had them there than on the table, she was trying to prevent her own confusion.
She heard a knock at the door and looked up to see a rather familiar red face coming into her little world. “Hey Greg,” she said with a smile, “how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t need to knock to come in here?” She set down the pen and interlaced her fingers, stretching out the stiff muscles and tendons in her writing hand. She loved days with new books, but hated them all the same time. On the ever so rare days like this, she knew that the cataloging would end up with her having little more than a claw for a hand for the next couple of days as her hand slowly gave up on being angry and cramped. Sometimes, she wished that her affinity worked on herself. Sure, she could make someone else’s hand tense up, but that wasn’t precisely fair or just, and so she was just going to have to deal with the tension and the pain like every human would: painkillers and a hot cup of tea to wrap her affected hand around.
“Yep, one of the scouts brought them in this morning. It seems they found an abandoned cottage in the woods,” she said, her sheer joy showing clearly on her face. She grabbed the book that he had set down and reached for the rolodex where she kept the cards where she tracked who had each book out. She pulled out the one for the book he’d just brought back, scratched out his name, slipped it into the pocket, and put it on the pile by her feet. Like everything else, that could be put on the shelves later, after she’d finished cataloging the rest of the new books.
She looked around her, wondering where the hell she was going to put all of these books. It was possibly going to take a full reorganization of the space and obtaining a ladder. Unlike the large libraries she’d grown up loving, she didn’t have the luxury of having extra space at the end of each shelf in chase the collection grew. No, she had to use every spare space that she had for the books. There were only two more empty shelves near the floor on one wall. After that, she was going to have to start utilizing the very highest shelves that she’d been avoiding given that she wasn’t the tallest person around. Admittedly, she was by no means truly short, but she hadn’t gotten the strapping height from their shared heritage that her brother had. She blamed that, as with most things that went wrong, on her mother. The woman was slight, dainty even, and the first one to summon another to get something off of a high shelf. But that was then. Now, Nai didn’t even know where her mother or either of her father’s were. She only cared about where the one whose looks she’d gotten for Sammy’s sake, he did love the man. Otherwise, when she was curled up wondering where her parents were, she wondered where the man with laughing brown eyes who had taught her how to say “metatarsus” at a young age was.
As with maintaining just about anything in this world, living in the camp was a big balance of give and take. She got the library she’d been dreaming of running since dropping out of pre-med and EMT training, but with it came the expectation that she be the one to run it, single-handedly. There simply weren’t enough spare hands around the camp for her to have even a part time helper. The other people who would be able to do that were more concerned with making sure that a little knowledge got knocked into the heads of the camp children while they taught school. But, in the end, that was okay. They wanted to pass on knowledge and she wanted to preserve what they weren’t able to. Her little empire represented the collected knowledge and creativity of more people than had ever wandered through that small school house. And preserving that knowledge was indeed a noble purpose.
An idea emerged, fully formed, as her eyes went back to Greg again. He really was a cute kid, stutter and all, but her idea had nothing to do with that. No, it had to do with the fact that he was possibly the only other person in the camp that loved books as much as she did. “Greg, how’s your handwriting?” she asked a little absently as she looked back at the stacks in front of her, picking up her pen and an index card as she did. If he could help her get through this mess, she’d be done faster and he’d be able to scamper off with the new books sooner than if he didn’t. Yes, a brilliant plan indeed.
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note: yay!
words: 975
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on Feb 1, 2013 14:44:49 GMT -5
Greg was more than happy for the day off if it meant that he could wander off to the library. It was one of his favorite spots to be, mostly just because he was entirely a book worm. His other place to be was, oddly, at work. But being that it was his day off that was not where he was going to go. The library made so much more sense in this instance, of course. And he had a book that he needed to return, he had finished it over the course of yesterday while he had been working and there had been no one to check up on or sew up.
Often it amazed him how often he did have work to do as the medic in this place, but he supposed it shouldn’t. Given t heir current situation he thought it did make sense but still, he couldn’t help but be amazed about how often his day off turned into not being a day off at all. He supposed it was a good thing that he enjoyed his work then, helping patch up people much like he had often been patched up growing up.
He knocked when he entered, out of habit of course because he always did. Public place or not he just felt like it wouldn’t be right to enter without knocking because often it felt like this place was mostly Naomi’s. And speaking of, of course he turned bright red when he saw her. Pretty women tended to do that to him, much to Mark’s amusement and his annoyance. But what could he do? He tried. He did stutter though and that made him scowl slightly at himself.
He scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile. ”Sorry. Perhaps just a few more times” he answered, the smile turning slightly shy. Like he had thought earlier, it just seemed impolite not to and Greg was nothing if not polite. He had always been, he just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t make himself do anything that he saw as impolite and not knocking when he entered a place like this just seemed to be just that to him. He didn’t voice that out loud though, because he didn’t like having to explain that he was just polite, it always felt oddly like bragging but he just liked to be polite.
He smiled and had to note with a happy note that there were new books, though he turned it into a question of course. He loved when they got new books, it didn’t seem to happen often enough for him. He adored books to a fault. He set the one he had come to return down. She answered, confirming that the scouts had found them at an abandoned cottage and he nodded, curiously looking over a few titles and noting which he hadn’t seen before or read before, out of habit more than anything else of course.
”Well, lucky us. I love when they find more books” he said, with a smile. He was still blushing, but it had managed to tone down and he wasn’t stuttering, being around books and talking about them tended to put his mind in that mode and he could focus on that, he would get so wrapped up in it that he would forget to be nervous, forget to stutter and that was always good. It meant he would stop being so hard on himself inside of his own head at least, which was most definitely good. His father had set him on that road, and it was a road he was trying to veer off of but sometimes he just needed a distraction to do that properly.
He watched, though he was more in his own thoughts right then, as she took out the card that had his name on it for the book and took care of putting aside what he had brought in. It was a good system, he thought, that was going on here. Much like all of the rest of the Camp as well, everything had a place and they used as much of that space as they could. It put him in mind of his own little corner of the camp, though he knew they were absolutely lucky that their meds were always as in supply as they were, much like with the books in his opinion.
He was shocked back from his thoughts and back into the real world by Naomi asking him a question. He took his eyes off of the stacks and the books on them and brought them back to her, slightly wide for a moment with his own shyness but then he smiled, and nodded a little bit. ”W-Well, it’s better than your average d-doctors” and then he huffed a little bit at himself, stutter again even as he felt a little bit more relaxed. It was more talking about himself in that sorta manner that made him do it. He shook his head. And tried to get out of it, he needed to stop being such a nervous person. ”Why do you ask?” he asked, though he had a feeling that he knew why, as his eyes went to the cards she had obviously been writing for a little while.
Greg used to help handle the bank records back at his place, and his mother had been a stickler for keeping the traditional ways as well as the technological, so his handwriting was good from helping with that—one wrong 9 that looked like a 4 after all could be disastrous. So he wasn’t bragging, merely telling the truth, and the nervous boy tried to focus on that. Maybe that would help him stop blushing and stuttering so much. Maybe
Words: 965
Muse: Not baaaad
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Feb 4, 2013 18:54:44 GMT -5
She smiled at the ‘a few more times’ comment. It was nice that people realized that this was her little corner of the world, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t welcome there. She was more in favor of having people come and go than just stay out for fear that she’d freak out about the books, not that she’d even done anything like that. The only time people really got her ire up was when they wrote in her precious books, then it was anyone’s bet what would happen next. Typically it involved her scolding them harshly and telling them not to do it again. She couldn’t really deny anyone access to the resource, but she could put the fear of the librarian in the. If the book wasn’t yours, you didn’t write or draw in it. Simple enough really, but it was surprising how many adults forgot that rule. Children, well, all she could really do was try to teach them that. There were a couple of books in the kids section that had drawings and scrawlings that she hadn’t been able to get out of them with erasers. She’d been quite put out when they came back to her that way, but there was nothing that she could do about it.
“Me too,” she said with a light laugh. There really was no better day in her world than when she was brought new books. She wanted to celebrate every time, run around in the streets infecting everyone with her joy. Of course, that probably wouldn’t go over too damn well, but one of these days she was going to do it, if not to just see the look on her brother’s face as she ran through the streets and danced and did all of the things that she would have done when she was younger to celebrate the fact that she had new books for her precious little world. She was not short on enthusiasm, although she was careful to keep it relatively curbed when she was in the camp, she didn’t want to accidentally do anything that would set her apart from the humans in the camp. She worked hard enough to keep up the image of being just like them that it wouldn’t do to go ruining. She looked less underfed than the majority of them, the benefit of a dual diet, and she generally looked less exhausted as well, but that (as she well knew) was typically chalked up to the fact that she had one of the few sedentary jobs in the camp. She split her own wood, sure, but that was hardly considered real work in these parts. She helped in the gardens in the summer and helped when it was needed, but otherwise, she was in her library.
Her hand flexing continued as he answered, there were times that she truly wished that she could just use her affinity and that she could make someone else deal with the cramps. That, however, would be cheating and would be in bad form, plain and simple. There was no good way to go about making others quite literally feel her pain. “Well, I was wondering if you’d like to stick around, have a cup of tea, and help me label the rest of these. Two people doing it would make the job go faster and be more entertaining,” she said, pointing her non-cramping hand towards the tea station that she had set up. Admittedly, there was no tea ready at the moment, but she could remedy that in a jiffy and since she wouldn’t be alone if he decided to stay, the likelihood of her boiling the kettle ‘til dry because she forgot to take it off the burner was close to zero. That in and of itself was a miracle. Her kettle was a little warped on the bottom from the few times it had boiled dry. She tended to get absorbed in one task and one task only and sometimes things changing in her environment didn’t mean that she was going to realize that they had changed. She’d often worked far into the dusk, only to realize that she should stop and light the room up in order to ensure that she wasn’t caught unawares while she was distracted, getting by on being different from the rest of them.
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note: - - -
words: 729
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on Feb 15, 2013 14:53:42 GMT -5
Greg couldn’t help but be polite, it was just how he was. Hence the knocking on the library door before he entered even though he knew that technically it was a public space. At least he had entered after knocking rather than waiting? It showed he was making some sort of improvement on realizing that it was a public space and he didn’t really have to knock. It was just that Naomi made this place so cozy, it was hard for him not to think of it as her private domain, and not the public space that it really was.
He was happy to see that there were more books though. That was always such a wonderful thing. Books. Who thought he’d be seeing so many in a camp that was hidden out in the forest? It was why he had brought so many of his favorites when he had run away from home to come here with his best friend eight years ago. He had been convinced that there would be no time for anyone to want to bother with things like books. But lo and behold, here they were. In a wonderful little library. He knew he probably had Naomi to thank.
He couldn’t see most other people being too concerned with it. Though, he supposed that wasn’t true. There were still schools and the like going on for the young ones so there was totally a chance it would still exist and people would still respect the books. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter either way, really, being that they were here and weren’t really going anywhere as far as he could tell. And he was grateful for that. More books always made him happy though, it was more than a bit of a bookworm after all.
Greg was relaxing a bit again, being that they were talking about books, and eventually the bright red blush on his cheeks died down to at least a light color and not the quite so obvious red stain it had been before when he had first entered. Talking about books, or medicine, or the things he had studied since coming here tended to make him calm down enough to make him behave like a normal person, and not the painfully shy one that he actually was. He smiled at her comment, along with the little laugh making him ease up a bit on the shyness, and nodded. ”I would hope so…with you being the librarian and all” he said.
He had blushed once more and stuttered-frustratingly enough-when she had asked about his handwriting but it seemed his answer was good all the same. He was glad she didn’t comment on his nervous actions, it made it easier for him to make them stop if they weren’t being pointed out, because pointing out flaws and the like always brought his mind right back to his father and that never really did him any good. He shook his head, putting that thought out of his mind again.
It was easy to do when he was here, surrounded by books. He had always been a reader and that had just intensified when he had come here. It was a nice escape sometimes from the reality of their world. One he had never had to see, being that—to his knowledge—Greg had never met a vampire. Mark and he had fled before anything could happen, more using the war to get away from their bad home lives than to get away from the impending vampire take over.
Then she explained her reasons for asking and he nodded a bit. ”As long as I don’t get called in to help at work, I’m happy to help,” he answered, shyly as always. ”There is a lot of books, you shouldn’t have to do them all on your own” he answered, with a small smile. He had been raised a gentleman, in a small town in the south, and that was something that would likely never leave him. The idea of her doing it all on her own and such made him happy to help, the idea of being around the books and seeing what new ones there were made him even more so happy to help.
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Feb 26, 2013 18:23:33 GMT -5
There were few things that she enjoyed more than her books. At this point in her life, Naomi had to make sure that the simple pleasures in life were the important ones in order to protect everything from falling down around her. And she buried every other urge under the books and the tea and the ritualistic practice of her katas every day. Somewhere in there, she was able to make sure that everything worked and that she was able to keep the less innocent and less human urges at bay. She wasn’t a crimson, so that made things a little bit easier, but there were still the moments when all she wanted to do was chase something down, times when she went into the woods and wandered until she was satisfied with the way that things were going. She was, after all, a proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. She lived in fear of losing control for a moment or two and making mistakes that she could never recover from. There was no way that her true nature should be something anyone other than herself and her brother knew about.
From this aversion to letting on that she was anything more than human came the intense nesting and the fostering of the image that she was a sweet innocent who’d seen more than anyone ever needed to in her short life. The truth was, her life was going to be long and she wasn’t as innocent as she seemed. But she’d never tell that fact to anyone. No, she was just a librarian, not-so-plain and not-so-simple though she may be.
She laughed at the ‘I hope so so’ comment. There was truth to that. Even though there had been people with her love of words in the camp in the past, they were less about the books and more about the words than anything else. She’d nearly kicked the camp’s journalistic lead when she’d discovered the books mouldering away while the presses were firing with copies of broad sheets and all of the pamphlets that the city was littered with during the era before he was caught. Did she regret grousing at him about how, as the keeper of the words, he should have been more attentive to the few books? Never. During his tenure in the camp, Rudy Matheson deserved every bit of crap that he got from just about everyone, herself included. He brought it upon himself.
“Strangely enough, it can get a little old at times, what with all of the completely destroyed ones that I sometimes get,” she said with a shrug. When she said bring me all of the books, she meant it. Sometimes, she’d spend days trying to restore something with her limited skills. There were a few that were beyond her skills as an archivist, but there were a fair few with tattered covers that were currently on shelves that had been saved as a result of her being completely and utterly obsessive in making sure that the pages dried and by a liberal application of glue and tape. She did her best with what she had and that was a ragtag collection of books and continually dwindling supplies. There were moments when it simply wasn’t worth the work that she would have to put into the books to save them, not when it threatened her little cache of repair materials. She had a growing pile of books that were trash by anyone’s estimation, unable to throw them out or burn them as fuel (even though they were trash, she still felt sick at that thought). Anyone was welcome to take them off her hands, but she hadn’t really publicised that fact.
She smiled and nodded. “Of course, making sure that everyone is healthy definitely comes first,” she said, good doctor’s daughter and all. She would not stop anyone who was trying to save someone else or prevent illness. Those were the kinds of things that came before the books. As much as they were food and medicine for the soul, the body had to be in working order for the soul to be at all reparable. “Well, technically, labelling them all is my job ‘round these parts,” she said with a laugh as she walked to the tea service. “Black or green? Sorry there’s not more options, but with the way getting supplies goes these days, I consider myself lucky to have any tea at all,” she said filling the kettle and setting it to boil. While she waited for a response, she got the teapot and two of her chipped cups ready.
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note: woo! posting!
words: 771
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on Mar 14, 2013 22:41:21 GMT -5
Usually Greg was one of two places. He was at what was the Camp’s hospital where he worked, something he found sort of funny because before he had come here he would have never thought of getting a medical decree despite how often he saw the inside of a doctor’s office or emergency room because of his father, or he was in his room with a book in his hands. The only times that he would stray from this was when he was with Mark and Mark was dragging him somewhere as per usual, his best friend was his opposite.
Or when he was coming to the library to return a book and get a new one.
He came in her often enough but often he couldn’t stop and chat. He either was heading to work or he was exhausted from work and was just looking to go back to his own place that he shared with the afore mentioned friend. Not that he didn’t stop and talk to Naomi when he was here, it was only polite after all and Greg was nothing if not polite. But he often found himself turning bright red because pretty girls made him turn that way and Naomi was quite beautiful.
It was only when they were talking of books, as they were right now with the new shipment that had come in, or when it was of his job that he managed to calm down the blush and stop the stuttering. He was just a nervous person, he had always been but that was probably his father’s fault, as well as his own slightly skittish and nervous personality that had just been pushed further by said father. But he loved talking books, and he loved when new books came into camp. He had never thought he would see a library again after running with Mark into the woods at ten years old. So this was wonderful.
He said that he hoped she enjoyed it, being the librarian and all, and she laughed which made him smile rather than blush, because he was working on not being so nervous. It had been eight years without that oppressive force in his life after all. But the current blushing was more over the fact that girls made him just act like that. He was never going to get a date, he thought with a little smile.
”Yeah, I can see how that can get old. Like treating bug bites and poison ivy can get for me from time to time” he said with a little laugh. One would think that people would learn after a while not to go into certain patches of brush, but it was usually the new ones, the ones who had just arrived who had that particular ailment or the ones who had just wandered out of the main camp for the first time. Either way, he saw those two “illnesses” more times than he cared to count. It got to be a little much.
”But I’ve seen the work you’ve done with some of the more destroyed ones…its pretty impressive” he said, blushing at that but that wasn’t something he could help. Giving compliments tended to do that to him.
He nodded as well at her response to him saying that he could stay and help as long as he didn’t get called in. ”Its technically my day off, so hopefully I can stay and help all the same” he replied again, with another nod. If he wasn’t careful he’d turn into a bobble head doll, he scolded himself gently, mentally.
There was another medic in today—there were a few of them on camp which was good, being that Greg couldn’t handle everything on his own—so he shouldn’t get called in but he had thought that before and ended up going in anyway. It was winter so there was less of a chance because people were staying closer to camp than they would in the warmer weather, for the sake of there wasn’t much out there right now that was good for them. It was too cold to stray too far, in Greg’s opinion, anyway.
He laughed a little bit, just a soft chuckle. ”Everyone deserves help from time to time…and either is fine really, whatever you’re having,” he answered, trying as always to make things easier for other people. Self sacrificing sort that he was. ”And please don’t apologize, I get it” he said with a smile. In two years he would have been living at camp as long as he had been living in the old world. Eight years was a long time so he was used to things that went on camp, when things went into shortage or when they were lucky and those in the Sector could get them things. He got it. Most people around here did eventually.
Words: 815
Muse: Okay
Comments: I'm sorry, I'll get better!
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Mar 30, 2013 18:26:15 GMT -5
There were problems with being the only vampire in the camp, namely the hiding part. She was comfortable keeping everything wild under lock and key, she had been doing it beforehand, but it was the terror and anticipation whenever a kid in the camp hit puberty. She watched with wary eyes and prayed and hoped that they stayed human. On the few occasions that they had changed, it had broken her heart. She’d tucked herself away in what few depths of her library existed and hadn’t left, watching through the windows as parents and children cried and everyone carried on with the way things had to be, taking the children to the citadel and leaving them there, a group of children unlikely to ever see their tiny, dirty homes and their family ever again. It was the way of it though, something that couldn’t be avoided. And every time, she remembered seeing the terror in the eyes of the leadership of the camp, hoping that the children would keep the one secret that kept the camp alive and leave the location of the camp unmentioned when they started to make friends with their own kind, if they did.
She remembered when she went to vampire school, it hadn’t been the best time in her life. She hadn’t fit well and she’d spent most of her time with an adult handler at the dojo or sitting in the library until the librarian told her it was time to go to bed. That had been her life. She hadn’t been one of the ones stoked on it. She still remembered the shock when she’d found her mark, the terror that she’d felt when she’d seen it in the mirror as she walked out of the shower before school that day. It was possibly the second most terrifying day of her life and it hadn’t ended as well as the first. She hadn’t found more family and she’d been the one affected by it, leaving her parents and going off into the strange, strange world of learning how to be a vampire. Needless to say, it was something that she’d rather not remember all that much.
She laughed. “Yeah, something like that,” she said with a grin. She wondered what life would have been like if she had stayed in premed, gotten over her nausea at the sight of blood (seriously, worst vampire ever). She imagined that she probably would have been swept up by the other side, whether or not she wanted it, or that she would be doing much the same thing that Greg was, dealing with the day in, day out illnesses of the camp and making sure that everyone was healthy. Then again, she might be dead by now if she’d stayed in the medical side of things, having pushed herself a little too much one too many times with her affinity. She knew from experience that overdoing things was possibly the worst decision that she could make. At the same time, she felt like every time she pushed herself a little bit further, she got a little bit stronger, a little bit more able to make the changes that she needed to.
It was her turn to blush a little bit. “Thanks, I try to get them back into readable conditions. I can’t save them all though,” she said, putting the kettle on and emptying out the last batch of leaves from the infuser, “but I tell myself that books are like everything else, they don’t last forever.” She was going to have to talk to Sammy soon, she really was running out and as much as having tea at her disposal was a luxury item, well, it was one of those little rituals that kept her more human that monster. And she was always more than happy to share her little stash with the camp, one of the things that she was going to have to remind him of.
“Green it is, then,” she said, still smiling. She did feel a little guilty for having all of the tea about, and having her own space, but that was the way of things. She was the only vamp in the camp and having a human room with her would probably be a poor plan in the end of it all. She was, after all, not exactly the safest person to be around in this camp. And eventually, even that would come to an end. She maybe had a couple of years left living here, before she’d have to move on and make a space for herself in the Citadel, like every other vampire child of the camp.
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note: woo! posting!
words: 779
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on Apr 15, 2013 16:47:14 GMT -5
Greg was more than happy to spend his day off here, in the library. He wasn’t really one to sit around and not do anything. Even on his days off, he would read or he would go around and help where he was needed, knowing that the chances were that he would be called in anyway. The camp kept growing after all, and they didn’t always have enough medics for people to take any sort of day off. It was more important that the camp was healthy and no one was hurt than he get a day to sleep in.
So he was more than happy to be helping Naomi here at the library, writing for a bit wouldn’t do him any harm. He didn’t really get to write much anymore. He had always enjoyed school, for the reading and the writing. Mark could call him a geek and a book worm all he wanted, he really was and he didn’t mind that fact. He shook his head and sat down, ready to help Naomi. And hopefully not turn bright red constantly because they were talking about books so he hoped his blush reflex would just calm down a little.
It was mostly because Naomi was really pretty and he found it hard not to notice. He always noticed when girls were pretty, but wasn’t that sort of a duh? He just didn’t have Mark’s suave flirting skills. He was more of that stuttering geek most of the girls thought were soooo cute in high school. He nearly wanted to roll his eyes. Or at least he assumed so, being that he had never gone to high school. He had been about two years away before they had run away. He didn’t mind that he had missed it. Sometimes he minded that he had missed out on going to college though, he would have been now if the world was normal.
But at the same time, it was likely he would have gone away and Mark wouldn’t have bothered, thus separating the boys so he didn’t really want that. Maybe it was better than the world had taken the turn it had taken. He didn’t really mind much either way. He had been living this way for most of his life, he barely noticed anymore that things were different. He had a job he was proud of, there were books for him, and he lived with his best friend. It was just fine by him.
He nodded and smiled when Naomi confirmed it was something like that. Without even a blush. Now see, that was progress! Not much, but better than he had been before. It was likely all the talk of books and doing things around camp along with what he did. That was always the surefire way to get his cheeks to stop setting on fire they way that they usually tended to do.
He smiled, with a bit of a bashful tinge, and watched Naomi ready the kettle as she spoke, trying not to get lost in his own thoughts again, he always felt bad when he did that. He nodded. ”Well I think that you do an amazing job, given what you have to work with. And you’re right…not everything lasts forever” he agreed, nodding and because they were on the subject of books he was slowly sounding a bit more confident then he had been before that point. It was a silly thing about him but something he couldn’t help. He was happy to be on the subject. And he had great respect for Naomi for what she did, wondering if any books would be saved if she wasn’t around to fix them. But he wouldn’t say that out loud, he was too bashful. And that would be too much like flirting for the shy boy. Though it was just the truth to him.
He smiled and nodded when Naomi said that it was green tea then. He didn’t much care either way, no matter which it was. He found tea rather relaxing either way, he didn’t mind which taste it was. He had never developed much of a taste for it to be too discerning. He was just happy to be here to be of help if he could be. He wasn’t much for days off, like he had earlier thought. It was good for him to keep his hands busy.
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on May 22, 2013 23:26:26 GMT -5
Someday, maybe all of this would end. Someday, maybe everything would figure itself out and the world would stop biting at its chains. Someday. Wasn’t that the point of all fiction: envisioning a world where everything worked out and everything came to some kind of neatly bound conclusion that wasn’t necessarily trite or boring? In her experience, however, the world was not something that could be chased so neatly into categories and behind most bad there was some kind of good and vice versa. Humans surviving was good, humans surviving solely as the pets of vampires was confused. Vampires hunting humans was bad, vampires hunting humans because it was frankly the best way for them to survive (not to mention humans being their natural prey species) was confused. There were two sides to every story and at least one sociopath waiting to tell you why their side was the best of it. She wasn’t sure where she fell in that line-up, but she tried to keep her balance towards the good side of things.
“Thanks,” she said as she sat back down at the desk, waiting for the water to come to a boil. That was one of the big waits that she had in the world, the tea. The ritual of it was all bound up in the time. A quick cup was all too often a rushed cup and not actually worth drinking. Still, if she could have it, she’d beg, borrow, and possibly steal an electric kettle. They were faster and self-regulating, which meant that there was little potential for her to go off and forget about her tea. The fact that she’d had one in college was probably part of the reason that she was so bad with a normal kettle. Even here, after years of trying to break some of her bad habits, she was dealing with the remains of that one. It was a bad one, right up there with not doing her dishes immediately after their use. The nice thing about the camp was that she could get away with that given that it was all done out of the cafeteria rather than out of the home (a damn good way to control supply and demand of food in her book as well). She was, well, not the most attentive to things outside of her books and her aikido. She’d been joking accused of being anorexic because she forgot to eat more than once.
She picked up one of the books off the table and started writing out all of the important information on a pair of check-out cards, an index card, and a sleeve for inside the book. Even though the system was old and a little outdated, in a world where she didn’t have access to a computer the old ways were the best ways. The only threats to this system were loss and destruction of some kind, all of which were things that got under her skin and made her a little fidgety if the truth be told. Well, fidgety might not be the right word in all cases, but it was certainly accurate enough to describe the seething rage that came with a damaged book or something along those lines.
“So,” she said, moving on to the next book in the pile, “has anything interesting happened in the infirmary recently?” It was a change in topic, true, but she could only talk about saving books for so long without getting a little weary. True, she was making her avocation her vocation, but that didn’t mean it didn’t get tiring from time to time. Besides, it was enough about her, time to make Greg talk. She adored the boy, really did, and as a result had taken it upon herself to make him more comfortable around other people by being herself, or as close to herself as she could be without telling the whole damn truth and ruining what she had in the camp. She understood being the bookworm and the quiet one and what it meant to have friends that were more outgoing and personable. She’d never tried to be one of them, preferring to wander in her own little corner of the world, reading her books and doing her katas. Once she’d come to grips with the fact that she would never be the up-and-coming popular girl or something along those lines, life had gotten easier. It was just a game of accepting who she was and that was often easier said than done.
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note: woo! posting!
words: 751
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on May 27, 2013 13:50:02 GMT -5
Sometimes Greg wondered what would have happened to him if he had gone to high school like most normal people. He supposed that even if he had, it wouldn’t have lasted very long before the war had come and forced him out of it. Either way, he sometimes wondered if he would have done well in high school or if he would have gotten bullied for the way that he acted and his level of intellect rather than his level of physical skills. He knew he would have had Mark who generally made sure no one bothered Greg even here, though no one was really doing that here because it was a different set of values. Greg was one of the medics, it was a bad idea for the jock types to piss him off or bully him.
Either way, he sometimes wondered if mabe he would have gotten the chance to come out of his shell more. He would have still been in the house with his abusive father though, so that wasn’t all that likely, he thought. Perhaps it was just better than Greg’s life had turned out the way that it had. Now it was just him and Mark and over the past eight years that they had lived here they had made a life here. He loved the people here, they were so nice. Naomi was definitely one of those, though he blushed in thinking slightly. She was pretty, it made him a bit nervous.
But she was also the librarian, so he tended to push that thought aside. She was such a nice girl too, just as intent on books as he was if not more so so it made it easier to focus on that when he was with her, after the first few awkward minutes. He got lost in the idea of a book or a story and tended to forget about being nervous about the other stuff. It was good for him, entirely good for him, that she didn’t seem to take notice of his nerves and just kept talking to him. He appreciated it because he figured she had to notice how he got. It was good, though now his thoughts were going around in circles and he had to chuckle a bit. Oops.
He blushed slightly when he nodded in reply to her saying thanks. He smiled at her and watched as she came back, mostly still lost in his thoughts and not entirely paying attention to the real world until her working on the books brought him back out of it again. He watched her on the first one just to see what she was doing before he picked up one and started in on it himself. It had been a long time since he had written anything other than notes about what his patient had to pick up from the infirmary, but he was happy for the change and his handwriting wasn’t too bad, as he had said earlier. And he had read the books from here often enough that it was easy to pick up, he had seen what they were supposed to say often enough.
It was slightly repetitive work but it was calming in a way, it calmed down Greg’s often flustered nerves and state so that way he was calmer, not blushing too much. It was good for him, such work. He had noticed this when he was working at their hospital as well, the work was something he did well so he barely noticed when he had to touch the women that came in with this cut or that and he had to examine it. TRhis was much the same, repetitive and calming work, that was what set the boy’s mind at ease enough to be a normal human being for once. Though he’d never be what most people would consider a normal teenage boy.
He smiled at the change in topic and nodded, glad for the change. Though it made him a bit nervous to talk about his line of work, at the same time he was comfortable with it—if the oxymoron could be used. He was an odd child. Anyway, he nodded a bit. ”Nothing…too interesting per se. A few cases of frost bite because people forget to keep warm the way they should, too butch for that” he said with a little laugh, shaking his head and finishing his first book before he started on a second and continued talking. ”But that seems to happen most winters with the newer recruits. They forget. There was a pretty bad injury the other day that resulted in actual surgery, which I just assist with” he said, blushing that time with a little nod. He enjoyed the work though, he enjoyed making others better as others had made him better when he was growing up.
Words: 814
Muse: Good!
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on May 30, 2013 21:56:52 GMT -5
It was strange how life went. One moment everything seemed so perfect and the next everything was being torn into pieces and there was nothing she could do about it. Every now and then what would be called a melancholy in the days of yore and good books struck her and that was what she seemed to be suffering from for a brief moment. She wasn’t sure why. She never was when they struck, but that was the long and the short of this moment of odd moods and strange thoughts. She looked at the book in her hands for a moment. Fitting, really, Notes from Underground was prone to making people feel either melancholy or angry. Dostoevsky was good at that. But it wasn’t the book, it was some other kernel of discontent bubbling up as they did. Perhaps it was the wish that she truly was human and had no need for subterfuge or dodgy answers about how she’d survived everything. Maybe.
She nodded as he talked about the frost bite, it really was one of those problems that could be solved by putting on socks or curling up next to someone or both. Not that she had much knowledge in the second category anymore, she always wore her socks and, well, she wasn’t human, was she? But no one knew that, not anymore. She’d been hiding long enough that she was probably assumed dead by anyone who knew her in the outside world and wasn’t that just charming? Give your all, do your thing, shine like a star, fall off the planet and be assumed dead. But that was the way of it, wasn’t it? Have a war that kills large parts of the population off and suddenly it becomes easier to assume that your loved ones are dead rather than hoping they’re alive. And that little problem right there was why she hated her own kind. They sucked the hope out of the world one war and one death at a time. Gods and spirits save her if there ever did come a time she had to live among them. She wasn’t sure she could do it. But she also knew she was likely going to be the person in the camp that got caught next. Not that the vamps would know that. No, she could just be Moriah Erickson and no one would know anything different.
Her stomach churned at the thought of surgery. She wasn’t sure it was because she remembered damn well when her father had gotten wrapped around a semi and spent long hours in the operating theater while her mother panicked and Nai was left alone to do a lot of things. She’d distracted herself with accidentally finding her biological father, but that could only get her so far. Or was it a reaction to the fact that she just knew that there was blood in the operating theater? Probably both to tell the truth. In point of fact, she was the worst vampire ever to walk the planet given her general aversion to blood. “Surgery was one of the things that terrified me most about trying to go to med school,” she said as she pasted another label set in one of the books in her stack. She would have to get over that if she ended up in the city. But for now, she was as human as they came and that was good enough for her. She liked the lie she lived in.
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note: she's being weird and I have no idea why and I am sorry its short >.>
words: 585
outfit: check it
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Post by Gregory Vincent Ashford on May 31, 2013 12:34:35 GMT -5
Greg enjoyed being in the library, at the Camp. There was something about it that seemed like a world apart, a place totally separate from the rest of the place that they lived in. It was more…it gave people a place to escape in a way, a place to read, drink tea, apart from the physical work that took over the rest of the Camp. It was refreshing to Greg who would completely read all day if he was given the chance to do so, rather than run off and do anything physical. He left that to his best friend instead.
It was funny how he had come here only to return a book and now instead he was sitting down with Nai, the librarian, marking down the new books so they could be added in to the rest. He enjoyed it though. As much as Naomi made him a bit nervous when he first came in because he was such a shy dork, once he really started talking to her, talking about books and his work, he settled down and truly enjoyed talking to her because she was just a kind person. He enjoyed being around her.
There was something different about her too. He wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps if he knew that she was actually a vampire—something that wouldn’t scare him really because he wasn’t the sort that hated vampires like most here, he had just used the war to escape a bad situation—he would have attributed it to that. It likely was that really. But honestly, he thought it was more that she was so refreshing and kind and focused on the books rather than the crazy worries about food, and keeping them safe, and the like of that like most did here. Not that Greg didn’t worry! But he was more an academic sort was all.
He was totally okay with the change of topic, to be honest, he was just happy to stay on topics that he was totally comfortable with. He was happy to talk about her work, because it meant that he was talking about books really. And he was also happy to be talking about his work, his work was totally a calming subject for him because it was something that he was confident in. He was helping others, he as keeping the camp safe where he could in his own way. The Warriors protected from without, he helped protect from within.
He blushed a bit at that thought. So perhaps he was making it sound a bit grander than it was. He wasn’t all that important. He shook his head with a little smile and kept up with what he was doing, writing on the cards and being happy to write something that didn’t feel like medical gobblygook or prescriptions for other people. It was interesting to be writing about books again, it took him back to his former years, as brief as they were. And some of his years here too, back when he went to the little school here.
She had asked him about his work and he had answered, easily, without really questioning. He saw that she got a bit uncomfortable at the subject of surgery and blushed a little. He forgot that sometimes people weren’t as used to it as he was by now. He smiled a little at her comment though and tilted his head ever so slightly in question. ”You went to medical school? I mean, I don’t mean to pry, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to” he added quickly at the end. He was surprised it had never come up before but now he was a bit curious to know more.
Words: 625 Muse: Good Comments: Haha he babbles a lil |
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Post by Naomi Moriah Danforth-Ericson on Jun 1, 2013 7:36:00 GMT -5
“I was planning to; I was pre-med and doing an EMT program on the side before I switched to library science,” she said with a shrug, “my dad was an ER doc, so I thought I’d follow him. I, however, have an unfortunate aversion to blood and gore, first day of EMT training, they showed us some car crash scenes and I was reduced to hugging the nearest trash can.” Seriously, worst vampire in the history of vampires. All the others that she had met were at least comfortable around blood. She had to close her eyes tight and think about anything other than what she was doing when she was out chasing down squirrels. Thankfully, she was azure and so she didn’t have to have as much blood as her counterparts. Still, it was a bit of a pain while pretending to be human. That and the whole reflective eyes bit. She loved her sunglasses more than just about anything else. The aversion to sun thing was easy enough to pass off, she was naturally pale and avoiding sun was generally a pale human habit as well.
Talking about college made her remember, ever so briefly, what life was like before the war. She had been doing the same thing she was now, hiding among humans and indulging her love of books. It was a bit of a disappointment that she hadn’t been able to hack it in med school. She’d have been a damn good doctor, but it wasn’t in the cards. Between the aversion to blood and the fact that she knew that she would constantly be tempted to use her affinity on everyone that came through and ease their suffering, she would have had a very hard time. It was probably better that she was a librarian, even though everyone had told her it was a useless degree. In the new world, she was fairly sure that some of the more mild mannered librarians had caved, which meant she might just be the last standing qualified person for doing her job. It was a depressing thought.
The whistle of the kettle interrupted the talk and the process. Pleased with herself for actually hearing it, Naomi got up from her chair, headed over to the tea station, and poured the hot water over the waiting leaves. This was her one real luxury, other than having her own place to sleep (a necessity and accepted because she filled the space that would be otherwise filled by another person with books for everyone). The first whiff of tea hit her and she smiled. Ritualistic or no, tea was always something good to have on hand. She dropped the lid onto the beaten ceramic teapot and picked it up in one hand while grabbing a couple of equally battered mugs and heading back to the table.
“There, give that a few more minutes and it’ll be tea,” she said with a smile. She personally felt that she could do as much for the soul with a good cuppa as she could with fiddling with a person’s hormones to get them to calm down, not that she did that much anymore, but it worked. In addition, serving tea meant that she didn’t drain herself and screw with her own emotions at the same time. It was a nice compromise. Not always a perfect one, she’d seen more than her fair few people crying and so distraught that tea was no solace, but then, she did not want to feel that kind of emotional pain, not again. She’d gone through enough when she was in college and watching the war. It had been a difficult time and when the war invited itself to her doorstep, well, it had not been ideal. She preferred not to think of that time in her life. The good times before it? Always. The good times after? Sure. Everything in between? Not so much.
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