Peter Shanks
Equinox Athenaeum
“So rude,” Peter muttered again, watching as the book Quintin had picked out dropped onto the ground with a firm boom. “But at least you got a bit of information.” The moment his friend had brushed past him, he’d moved to stick behind the latter: partly to catch a bit of information from Quintin’s reading, partly because it appeared that the Athenaeum was debating starting to throw things Peter’s way. A simple deduction made from the way several books were already whipping the shadows in the corner. He shot them a sorry look, before turning his attention back to Quintin.
Visibly, the latter was having an easier time handling the whole place, which even seemed to answer his assumptions with much friendlier signs. He shot the ceiling a glare, distinguishing parts of an old painting that faded into the darkness. Judgemental b@stard. He had charged head-first into the Athenaeum, thinking of nothing but the blood boiling under his skin. Now he was second-guessing that decision. Not that he didn’t stand by what he said: if it took turning this place upside down to find what he wanted, that would be done. But maybe it wasn’t the only way to obtain information: the way Quintin’s collected speculations did not beget a book apocalypse told him as much.
“Alright.” He paused in the glaring, shrugging off his jacket and hurtling it towards the books that were still lashing at the corner.
As Peter shuffled towards the left shelf, he felt anxiety fizzing through his veins. Where they just supposed to flip through all the papers until they miraculously found something? That was uncharted territory. Disconcerted, he reached for a scroll first, because at the very least, it was a single paper. Mother of- how long is this? The scroll unrolled all the way down to his feet, but Peter barely even had the time to catch a word on it before it flew out of his hands, propping himself much further up on the shelf. Furious, he tightened his grip on Ezekiel’s sword, the hilt ice cold against his palm. He could see the top of Quintin’s silvery hair through the bookshelves, probably plunged into further reading. Peter couldn’t tell. Still, he seized the wooden leg with his free hand, casting away the sting of splinters digging into his skin.
“She hurt someone I loved,” he muttered, slowly, eyes set on Quintin. “So I plan to chop her into tiny pieces and feed her to my fish. Those are my sole motivations. I-” Peter broke off. He felt wretched. Wretched, and exhausted. He’d messed up by leaving a friend alone last week, lost his opportunity with Evarius, couldn’t gain anything from the Athenaeum.
But then something floated down on his head, uncharacteristically light, and Peter heard the shuffling of paper. The scroll had dropped back to him. His heart leaped -the parchment didn’t contain much, merely old lore, some interesting, some less, but at least the books were no longer screaming at his face. Peter took care of placing the relevant volumes on a dusty chair nearby, until it eventually felt relevant to call back at Quintin.
“Did you find anything?” he asked, skirting around the upright to get a better look at what his friend was doing.
@BlueInferno - Quintin