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tamingthemuseTitle: Whitefall
Author: naughty_bangles
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Loop
Rating: Gen
Summary: Thilda loves working in Whitefall library. It's the best place to find calm and inspiration. But maybe not this time. [Prologue of a bigger story]
Camelia takes care of her library like a gardener with his plants. The small town of Whitefall might not have the best library in the world, but it has the best librarian. When she landed in that job, a long time ago, right after she obtained her certificate, she began organizing what had been little more than a room with a few piles of books, and after a carefully-done work of planning and collecting, she had turned it into a small but efficient municipal library.
I enjoy working there since I discovered the place. See, I am not from Whitefall itself – it is too small a city for someone in my kind of job to make a decent living, but a few years back, I had to go there to research one of my job assignements, and I simply fell in love with the small library and its tall librarian. Now, when I need inspiration, calmness, or some positive energy, I drive my car to Whitefall, and I push the library door, knowing I will find there what I lacked home.
The library was nearly empty when I entered it, that Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining outside, and most people were enjoying the weather, walking the streets or resting in the park nearby. I wasn't complaining ; more people outside meant less people inside, and I would be able to take all the place I wanted to work that day. I like the sun, but I have never been an outside person ; something with the wind, the sudden drops that fell from the sky, and the general noise didn't agree with me. I was happy to have work to give me an excuse to stay between four walls.
Camelia was putting some books back on their shelves in a bookcase near the entrance when I came in. She didn't take long to finish her task and greet me. Her curly white hair, witness of the passing year she had never even thought to dye, bounced just up her shoulders, contrasting strikingly with her dark complection. Her big brown eyes shone with her usual lust for life, and she smiled widely as she reached me.
"Thilda ! It's been a while ! What kind of juicy story are you working on this days ?", she said after a quick welcome hug, winking like a schoolgirl.
I am a public writer. I write people's stories for a living. When someone comes to me, I listen to their story, taking notes and collecting the documents they brought with them. I write down their recommendations and their limitations, and, when I feel I have got all they can give me, I begin my work. I like visiting the places they had been, trying the things that had been important to them, and getting to know their surroundings. That is how I had end up in Whitefall in the first place. I was working on the story of an old lady that spend her first few years there before marrying and moving in her husband's hometown. I had come to consult the archives, and, with Camelia's help, I had uncovered some wild details about my client's young years. After some hesitation for her part, she had agreed to include them in the book, since it was a long time ago, and nobody would blame her anymore – nobody alive, anyway. Her grand-daughter had emailed me some times later to thank me for having helped her discover a part of her grand-mother she would have never thought she had. Since then, Camelia considered me as a juicy story digger.
It was true sometimes, but today, I had to shrug. "Nothing, really. My new client seems to be a real white knight."
Camelia laughed lightly, her eyes sparkling. "Too bad. Maybe the next one will be naughtier."
"One can hope", I responded, moving a hand with emphase.
"You'll have all the space you want today", she added, more seriously this time. "There is only a girl at the table. I think she works on something furry, but she isn't the talking kind."
She shrugged, the way talkative people like her do when they are confronted to the quiet kind. She couldn't really understand why someone wouldn't want to communicate at every opportunity.
I thanked her, and we made quick plan for dinner after the library closure, and I made my way to the table at the center of the main room. As Camelia had said, only one chair was occupied that day. A young woman, probably in her early twenties, was sitting at the furthest corner of the table, surrounded by books like she was protecting herself from the rest of the world. For all I could see, she was my perfect opposite : she had fair skin where mine was latina-brown, and her hair was a deep chocolate shade when I had bleached mine a golden blond. Other than that, we seemed to share the same love for light-colored shirts and simple hair-do's. Writing about people gives you the somewhat disturbing habit to internaly describe every person that crossed your path.
I sat down at my favorite spot, and took my computer and my hand-written notes out of my bag. Setting everything the way I liked them, I entered the life of Herbert Rodger again, ready to give it my best words.
Troubles began when, two hours later, I texted my partner for no more particular reason than having thought about him while writing. When my phone vibrated less than a minute after, I flipped it open, vaguely wondering how he had managed to type a message so fast.
But it wasn't a response I had got. It was the message I had just sent. I frowned, and checked the number I had entered in the first place. It was my partner's. Rolling my eyes, I guessed he was messing with me, and sending me my own message back. I sent another one, stating that it wasn't that funny. A few seconds later, the same message came back to me. Annoyed, I went up and went to the bathroom to call him and tell him to stop being so childish. I didn't want to spend the next half hour getting my texts back.
"You're not being funny, you know ?", I said when it picked up.
"You're not being funny, you know ?", the voice on the other side told me.
Normally, I would have been pissed that he was still playing that stupid game on the phone. Except that it was my own voice I had just heard. After a second of silence, I spoke again, saying some gibberish non-sense I don't even recall. It came back to me in my own voice, loud and clear. My partner couldn't imitate voices like that. I am not sure anyone can. My phone was trapped in some kind of communicational loop.
Something was definitely wrong.
Author: naughty_bangles
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Loop
Rating: Gen
Summary: Thilda loves working in Whitefall library. It's the best place to find calm and inspiration. But maybe not this time. [Prologue of a bigger story]
Camelia takes care of her library like a gardener with his plants. The small town of Whitefall might not have the best library in the world, but it has the best librarian. When she landed in that job, a long time ago, right after she obtained her certificate, she began organizing what had been little more than a room with a few piles of books, and after a carefully-done work of planning and collecting, she had turned it into a small but efficient municipal library.
I enjoy working there since I discovered the place. See, I am not from Whitefall itself – it is too small a city for someone in my kind of job to make a decent living, but a few years back, I had to go there to research one of my job assignements, and I simply fell in love with the small library and its tall librarian. Now, when I need inspiration, calmness, or some positive energy, I drive my car to Whitefall, and I push the library door, knowing I will find there what I lacked home.
The library was nearly empty when I entered it, that Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining outside, and most people were enjoying the weather, walking the streets or resting in the park nearby. I wasn't complaining ; more people outside meant less people inside, and I would be able to take all the place I wanted to work that day. I like the sun, but I have never been an outside person ; something with the wind, the sudden drops that fell from the sky, and the general noise didn't agree with me. I was happy to have work to give me an excuse to stay between four walls.
Camelia was putting some books back on their shelves in a bookcase near the entrance when I came in. She didn't take long to finish her task and greet me. Her curly white hair, witness of the passing year she had never even thought to dye, bounced just up her shoulders, contrasting strikingly with her dark complection. Her big brown eyes shone with her usual lust for life, and she smiled widely as she reached me.
"Thilda ! It's been a while ! What kind of juicy story are you working on this days ?", she said after a quick welcome hug, winking like a schoolgirl.
I am a public writer. I write people's stories for a living. When someone comes to me, I listen to their story, taking notes and collecting the documents they brought with them. I write down their recommendations and their limitations, and, when I feel I have got all they can give me, I begin my work. I like visiting the places they had been, trying the things that had been important to them, and getting to know their surroundings. That is how I had end up in Whitefall in the first place. I was working on the story of an old lady that spend her first few years there before marrying and moving in her husband's hometown. I had come to consult the archives, and, with Camelia's help, I had uncovered some wild details about my client's young years. After some hesitation for her part, she had agreed to include them in the book, since it was a long time ago, and nobody would blame her anymore – nobody alive, anyway. Her grand-daughter had emailed me some times later to thank me for having helped her discover a part of her grand-mother she would have never thought she had. Since then, Camelia considered me as a juicy story digger.
It was true sometimes, but today, I had to shrug. "Nothing, really. My new client seems to be a real white knight."
Camelia laughed lightly, her eyes sparkling. "Too bad. Maybe the next one will be naughtier."
"One can hope", I responded, moving a hand with emphase.
"You'll have all the space you want today", she added, more seriously this time. "There is only a girl at the table. I think she works on something furry, but she isn't the talking kind."
She shrugged, the way talkative people like her do when they are confronted to the quiet kind. She couldn't really understand why someone wouldn't want to communicate at every opportunity.
I thanked her, and we made quick plan for dinner after the library closure, and I made my way to the table at the center of the main room. As Camelia had said, only one chair was occupied that day. A young woman, probably in her early twenties, was sitting at the furthest corner of the table, surrounded by books like she was protecting herself from the rest of the world. For all I could see, she was my perfect opposite : she had fair skin where mine was latina-brown, and her hair was a deep chocolate shade when I had bleached mine a golden blond. Other than that, we seemed to share the same love for light-colored shirts and simple hair-do's. Writing about people gives you the somewhat disturbing habit to internaly describe every person that crossed your path.
I sat down at my favorite spot, and took my computer and my hand-written notes out of my bag. Setting everything the way I liked them, I entered the life of Herbert Rodger again, ready to give it my best words.
Troubles began when, two hours later, I texted my partner for no more particular reason than having thought about him while writing. When my phone vibrated less than a minute after, I flipped it open, vaguely wondering how he had managed to type a message so fast.
But it wasn't a response I had got. It was the message I had just sent. I frowned, and checked the number I had entered in the first place. It was my partner's. Rolling my eyes, I guessed he was messing with me, and sending me my own message back. I sent another one, stating that it wasn't that funny. A few seconds later, the same message came back to me. Annoyed, I went up and went to the bathroom to call him and tell him to stop being so childish. I didn't want to spend the next half hour getting my texts back.
"You're not being funny, you know ?", I said when it picked up.
"You're not being funny, you know ?", the voice on the other side told me.
Normally, I would have been pissed that he was still playing that stupid game on the phone. Except that it was my own voice I had just heard. After a second of silence, I spoke again, saying some gibberish non-sense I don't even recall. It came back to me in my own voice, loud and clear. My partner couldn't imitate voices like that. I am not sure anyone can. My phone was trapped in some kind of communicational loop.
Something was definitely wrong.
