No one disturbs her. The light gradually increases, long before dawn, so it's a pleasant, soft level to read at, but it doesn't seem that the outside light has gotten any brighter.

It takes some time for her to notice, but she does, eventually, and reflexively listens to her surroundings to determine what's going on without giving any external sign of it.

It's quiet. There's a soft sound of books turning in the distance. A few candle flames. The hum of electric lights. Someone muttering poetry to themselves, far off.

That's not good, actually. It's bad. Very bad.

The exit is missing, and that's even worse.

The bathroom is still there, and still unoccupied. She leaves the book on the chair and brings her coat and backpack to it; it'll do as a temporary refuge while she figures out what's going on.

The library is rather polite about leaving her to her thoughts!

It's also quiet library sounds for a long way around her -

Except she can hear voices, soft chatter, now, midway through her range. They don't seem to be moving, but are rather talking about someone recently returned from the depths.

She keeps half an ear on them, more interested in mapping her new surroundings for the moment but not wanting to miss it if they begin discussing something more interesting.

The layout is definitely different than it was when she came her. Larger, stretching both far above her head and far below her feet. As far as she can hear, it's books.

Somebody's pocket dimension, presumably - a big one, if it stretches all the way to the edges of her range. It's really weird that she got sucked into it without any warning or confrontation, but there's nothing she can do about that now.

She turns her attention more fully toward the people still talking off a couple miles away; she picks a bolthole closer to them, but not too close - maybe half a mile from the reading area they're camping in - and sets off on a path that mostly doesn't take her too far from defensible hiding places.

This is doable!

This area of library quickly becomes far less modern, fading into heavier woods and cloth bound books, which give way for solemn leather spines with no lettering and collections of twine-bound pages. It sounds different, of course, the echoes softer. The edge of her range reveals somewhere more open, with a lot more than eight people, as she approaches the small group near her.

She doesn't touch the books, but she does look at them, as they change to unfamiliar materials, hoping for clues as to what sort of place this is. The lack of titles is a little worrying, but she continues on, holes up in her chosen alcove, and turns her attention to the nearby conversation in earnest.

Discussion of food stores for the next expedition, discussion of trade with the nearest village, discussion of Kamilin swears she saw a ghost in the depths... Do they want to go to the village for food, or try seeing if any of that book of poetry still has its sparkle - that poem Peneli loves to read for them is really beautiful, but it's just started making such bland food...

Con...cern? She keeps listening.

Also, none of them have the talent for reading out proper medications; she doesn't care what you think, Amati, we need antibiotics, not just bandages, if we're risking injury...

It's so hard, though, finding an engaging medical text, really, and it's almost never that something comes up and they can't just get to the nurse-witch...

Bad!

The conversation winds down a bit from there, looping back to things they've recently read and enjoyed.

She keeps listening for a little while, backs off to a slightly more defensible nook, makes a light meal of things from her emergency supplies, sleeps.

No one approaches her while she sleeps, though a few groups of varying size pass by the edges of her range.

And, several hours later, she wakes up.

She's still here, wherever here is. Are the people where she left them?

They're all awake, now, instead of just two of the eight, and seem to have decided to head over to the village for supplies. 

She follows, at a slightly slower pace, keeping an eye out for anything that looks like a poetry section.

Shortly before reaching the village, they pass by an area with colorful cloth spines stamped with metallic lettering, and narrower books - and indeed many of them seem to be poetry. Miss Agatha's Collection of Whimsy; A Pocket Full of Poesy; The Collected Poems of Erilion Iyinti; several other volumes of 'complete works;' The Wolf at Red Dawn Hill, and other poems; Odes and Epodes... Plus some Rescue might recognize - Emily Dickenson cozies up next to Emil-yani Arrel; The Wasteland shares a shelf with The World in the Lens; Beowulf glares across the aisle at Ides, Aglaecwif.

She's not nearly well read enough to recognize any of those but Dickinson. She stops to go through the section, picking books nearly at random and reading the table of contents, and then a poem or two if there's anything that looks likely to be the sort she likes, evocative of both emotion and sense. Between books, she checks the area, being careful not to lose track of her location again even as she reads.

The people she'd been following mostly stay on the outskirts of the village, not really entering too far in as they negotiate knowledge for listening rights - 

Until there's a feast called, which the new people are welcome to. They'll be reading a new composition, even! They've been experimenting with designing new foods, lately...

That gets her attention. She sets her book aside and listens in.

The words are normal, though the poetry is lovely, evocative and detailed -

And the food it's describing start to appear before the people listening, fading slowly into existence, the first senses described becoming apparent first, the first foods described starting to appear first -

Including in front of Rescue.

She backs away, startled, when it begins to appear near her.

The food sits there, delicious and innocuous and hovering in a sort of unreal state if she doesn't keep listening to the poem.

She retreats a few stacks away and turns her attention back to the group - not the poem, but its effects and their reaction to them.

The poem seems to bring the physical things described in it to life, in front of each person listening. The listeners are quiet as it's recited, though hardly spell bound - more than a few are fidgeting, or doing something else quiet. They react like suddenly appearing food is quite normal.

Uh huh.

She peeks back at the meal that appeared by her, when the reading seems to be winding down.

It's faded, and is barely perceptible.

Okay. That... works, as far as it goes, at least if the obvious guess of how to make it finish becoming real does.

She sits and closes her eyes, broadening her awareness to the very edge of her range: are there any other villages around?

Yes! They don't seem very densely placed, and most of them are very small - only one of the three others she can sense has more than a hundred people. Still, those three seem to be in an active trade network, given people passing between them.

All right, this works, at least if she ignores the part where she's trapped in someone's pocket dimension or whatever in the first place.

They'll eat again in a few hours, presumably. She wants to find someplace to charge her phone, in the meantime, and there don't seem to be any outlets nearby - or any electrical wires, or electronics at all other than the lights, which don't seem to need them. Maybe there will be some in a different part of the place; she heads toward the cluster of villages to 'look'.

There's an area with modern books and outlets on the far side of the nearest village, though some parts of it are in use.

There's a much wider open area, like an enormous cylinder, dropping into the depths of the library, past the farthest village. She can only hear the edges of it, though it seems to have a good amount of traffic.

There's the sound of electronics, that comes in at the left edge of her range soon after the open area - it sounds like a bank of computers.

That cylinder is a little worrying, but she doesn't have to get too close to it. She heads toward the modern books, pacing herself so that she can run if she needs to.

Nobody comes too close to her while she walks. 

The cylinder continues, though by the time she reaches the modern area she can feel where it starts to curve back around, though not the opposite side. 

The modern area is fairly large, and there's some less trafficked corners. Past it is an area that sounds like it contains dirt and plants, like a small grove in the middle of the library. To the right of that is another, smaller village. Between the plant area and the cylinder is a large series of rooms with doors, apparently designed to be fairly sound-resistant (though not sound proof). A few are in use as sleeping areas or trading halls.

Whatever that cylinder is, it's huge.

She finds a relatively hidden corner to plug her battery pack in, and then backs off again to somewhere less trafficked to sit for a while and, carefully, read.

Reading quietly doesn't seem to trigger things to appear.

It's still a decent way to pass the time.

She's paying enough attention to notice when people begin to assemble for lunch, and sets her book aside to listen.

It's not a feast, this time, or at least not a fancy one for visitors, but the poetry is still lovely and evocative and heartfelt, if a bit worn from repetition. 

A hearty meal fades politely into place, conveniently arranged.

Even expecting it, she can't help staring suspiciously for a few seconds before she takes a bite.

She listens to the meal in progress in town - does everyone have the same food she does? Do they seem to think anything strange is going on?

The food: is charmingly delicious and filling.

No one seems to think anything strange is going on, and portion sizes and exact compositions vary a bit - children have appropriately smaller portions, for instance - but are mostly like hers.

Okay, good.

She eats, paying more attention to the town than to the food.

People gossip, mostly, and mostly about mundane things - who's dating whom, who got into a fight with whom... But there's a few people, and then increasingly more people, fretting about a few children who went out to explore a level or two down, and haven't returned yet. They're more overdue than usual.

Huh. She listens below - with a focus toward the hole, at a guess - for any small groups of children on their own.

No isolated, small groups of children, no - there's some single children, mostly a bit older, and some pairs, and one hollow of about twenty children apparently playing and reading, but no one who seems at all lost or tardy or dawdling about intentionally.

All right. Well, this isn't exactly what she meant to be a superhero about, but it's not so far off. She hurries up with her meal, and then heads toward the pit, listening for them as she goes.

The cylinder's far edges fit into her sensory range, at least. It seems to contain multiple variously massive spiral staircases, many of them containing some manner of shelving and frequent landings. A few are wide, gentle ramps, rather than stairs. The larger staircases in main area of the cylinder are well-trafficked, but as she approaches she hears the shape of a few scattered small staircases tucked away into the stacks, where she'll be able to avoid people.

There's many, many levels of the library both below and above. Above, things seem to be mostly convenient and regular and very well behaved, and the library's increasingly crowded as the levels ascend.

Below - starting about a mile down - things get weird.

Shelves that move, ever so slightly, when she's not actively paying attention to them. A lake with no apparent bottom despite having another floor right under it, and the ceiling between them not being unusually thick. An area of humming crystals. Far, far fewer people, especially farther down.  

And, about a mile and a half down, and a mile from the cylinder itself, there's a group of four children, apparently about age ten. One of them's sniffling. Two of them are arguing about taking the wrong turn a bit back. One's dragging her feet, shoulders hunched.

(Farther, near the very, very bottom of her range, there's a whisper like thousands of pages rustling.)

The cylinder continues up about two miles, though a few stair cases go past that and there's library in her entire range, and down past where she can hear.

 She picks a path that keeps her away from people, and heads down.

...The stairs aren't behaving like they should.

It's subtle.

But either the rest of the world is on a very silent elevator, or this staircase is spatially warped.

She seems to be getting farther than she'd expect, just from the number of steps she's taken.

Fine, that's fine, this is fine. Maybe it explains how the kids got so far down there. She keeps going.

The effect grows more pronounced the further down she gets.

Also, by the time she's level with the children, the very bottom of her sensory range is increasingly bizarre. There's spaces that are bigger than they should be. There's books that seem to be rustling on their own. There's shelves that curl and move about.

The children have wandered a bit farther away from the central cylinder, but not by too much.

She doesn't like that very much, but it doesn't matter, there's nothing she can do about it. She pauses at the base of the stairs to prepare a few sentences in her phone's text-to-speech app, and then heads for the kids.

The kids seem to have stopped moving, at least, huddling together in a little nook, talking in hushed whispers about whether it's safe to settle down for the night. They think they're not too far down...

She stops when she gets close enough to talk to them, staying out of sight until the last moment purely out of habit. "Hey," she has the phone say.

They startle!

The oldest one steps between the others and her, peering suspiciously at her.

"Hey," he says, cautiously.

"I'm a cape," the phone says when she taps it. "I have super hearing. I can guide you up, if you want."

"What's a cape? How'd you get magic hearing?"

She seems a little surprised at the question, and spends a minute tapping at her phone. "Cape means I have superpowers." More tapping: "Sometimes people get superpowers when bad things happen to them."

"Haven't heard of that. You must be from a pretty far off part of the library."

"How'd you know we were here?"

Tap tap tap tap tap: "I heard you saying you were lost."

Tap: "I'll leave you alone if you want."

"...No. We're - really lost."

She nods. "The stairs are this way." "Tell me if you want to stop."

She sets an easy pace; it doesn't hurt that she's already pretty tired herself.

They follow, though they've been wandering for a long while by now, and a few quickly flag.

She stops when they ask, or when they seem to be struggling even if they don't ask, and listens for anyone who seems to be about to do a reading.

There's some reading or another, usually minor, happening somewhere at pretty frequent intervals. Some people seem to be practicing, their voices often faltering. The large, cinematic readings seems to be a thing of the villages, and they're not near any, but there's a few small groups who're making fresh food, or warm drinks, or cold sodas...

She can't really tell what she's going to get from listening to a reading before she starts, but random supplies are better than nothing; she takes the opportunity to listen while they rest.

The kids are a bit surprised the first time something appears in front of her, until one makes the connection that her super hearing means she can listen in to readings. They're apparently pretty hungry and thirsty; they brought some supplies, but nothing to read for more, and they're not super good at reading stuff out anyways...

She keeps listening, then, and doesn't take anything for herself until something goes unclaimed by the rest of the group.

These are pretty well fed kids normally, with a lot of picky eaters, so there's a couple of things less appealing to children that're left. (They don't seem concerned with 'what about waste', either.)

That's fine, really.

She doesn't stop until they seem satisfied, and lets them rest for a while afterward.

They're pretty hungry!

And pretty tired. One's clearly trying to stay awake, though she has a stubborn set to her jaw.

"We're not going to make it back tonight," she has the phone say when she stops listening for food. "And this place seems okay to sleep in, I think."

There's some uncertain shuffling and then some reluctant nodding.

"We didn't pack sleeping bags..." one kid says. "And people don't tend to read that stuff out too much. Guess we could try to find an adventure book, or write something..."

"My hearing doesn't help much with that."

"There are a couple more sitting places nearby that we could take cushions from."

"Yeah, I guess that's good enough. Though we gotta stick together. The shelves shifting's how we got lost, and we don't wanna get split up again."

She makes a face about that. "They don't move when I can hear them." "And I can probably find you anyway if they do."

The kids exchange looks. "I heard that's why people do patrols, 'cause they don't move when you're looking," one girl volunteers. "So I guess listening's the same, there."

After some quiet argument, they agree it's okay for the less tired kids to split off to find cushions.

She leads the way; it's not far to the first one.

Then the kids will be pretty efficient, if a bit subdued, at collecting bedding.

She gets some rope out of her backpack to tie the cushions together with, to make more manageable bundles, and does her share of carrying on the way back.

Then the kids gather in little piles to settle down for sleep.

She stays up for a little while, listening to the area - she wants to find out if things will move around while she sleeps, if she has a mental map of them beforehand - and making a few more snacks, so they don't have to wake her if someone wants something in the night, but before too long she nods off too.

The kids sleep and wake without issue, and they aren't disturbed in the night.

The library has indeed shifted while she slept - putting a modern section with a good-sized elevator in reasonable walking distance, or a clear path to some gentle stairs if she wants to avoid the elevator over in a more traditional section. Both can be gotten to and followed without a high risk of interacting with people.

Well. On one hand it's going to be really inconvenient if she can't leave things to charge without risking them disappearing; on the other hand, elevator: awesome. She guides the group to it and lets them sort out among themselves who goes with who.

They don't seem to find random elevator at all strange, and are quickly able to sort into smaller groups, though they need confirmation from her how many floors up they're going.

All the way, on this one, and then there's another elevator off that way that gets them close, and a third one for the last handful of floors. She travels with the last group each time.

And that'll get them to the right floor. Several of the kids pat the elevators, especially the really long one in the middle, and thank them for being helpful.

That's cute. She pats the elevator too.

"Will you be okay from here? I can draw you a map but I don't want to get too close."

"Yeah, I think I recognize where we are, mostly," says one kid. "This's a more stable area."

She nods. "I don't know how long I'll be staying in this area, but if you say 'hey Rescue' and I'm still here it'll get my attention."

"Okay, thanks!"

"Bye."

She goes down a few floors and approaches the town, wanting to know how the kids explain her and how the explanation is received.

She's from some really weird part of the library where people get superpowers when bad things happen! Kind of like a really depressing comic book? (One of the adults wonder if another world-source has sprung up nearby, or maybe if she wandered pretty far.) She was helpful, and apparently counted as watching the library so it didn't move around.

(The explanation is believed, and the adults are extremely grateful the kids are back, if a bit exasperated at them for going farther than they said they would.)

They can probably work out if she's still here, knowing that, if they really want to; she doesn't like that very much. It shouldn't be enough to pinpoint her, though, and she should notice if they start looking; it's not an emergency. She'll stay, at least until she knows more about how this place works.

She goes to check on her charger.

The charger is findable - the path to it's shifted a bit, but the area itself has recognizable landmarks still.

(No one seems to be looking for her, though the kids are now speculating which superhero she's most like from their comics.)

Oh, good.

Time to make herself a nest somewhere, then. Somewhere a little lower than the towns, ideally with electricity, but not being too close to any busy areas is more important than that.

That's certainly findable. A very convenient library, this.

The next day, a little farther into the depths, in a very deserted area nearby her nest, she hears a girl - at most thirteen or fourteen - calling out: "Hello? Ell? Saturday? Halloween? Anyone?" and wandering restlessly. It's unclear where she came from.

If this is that regular of a problem, maybe she should just move down there, eesh.

She goes, anyway, packing everything important up again first.

The girl doesn't seem inclined to stop moving, continuing to wander the stacks, but she's doing so fairly slowly, so Rescue will be able to intersect with her path.

She's probably closer to thirteen than fourteen, in a faded and dusty orange dress, wavy black hair loose. She has a stubborn set to her jaw.

She still has her phrases set up from yesterday, conveniently. "Hey."

The girl spins around, clearly surprised. "Ah! Hello!"

She stopped a little ways back; she's not close enough for her presence to be alarming.

She taps at her phone, and it speaks again when she finishes: "I'm a cape. I have super hearing. I can guide you, if you want."

"What's a cape?"

"Like a superhero."

"What's a superhero?"

"Sometimes people where I'm from get special abilities when bad things happen to them."

"That happened to me, and I got super hearing."

"People with special abilities are called capes."

"Most of them are good guys or bad guys. The good guys are superheroes and the bad guys are supervillains. The rest are rogues."

"Huh. I'm used to special abilities being just magic, and caused by all sorts of stuff. Are you from Fairyland, then, or somewhere else?"

"Else," she speaks.

"Neat! Though do you know if this is Fairyland? I'd been assuming it was the Grand Library in Pandemonium, since it's so large and it's not Earth and I saw a fairy before coming here..."

She squints a bit at this and taps at her phone some more.

"I don't know."

"I'm from Earth."

"I guess this is some other place. There are people who live here. I think they're human but you don't sound different."

"Earth didn't have superheroes... Though I know Fairyland sometimes does time and place weirdly. I guess this could too." She makes a face. "If this isn't Fairyland, Ell and Saturday probably aren't here..."

Tap tap tap tap tap "I haven't found a way to get back but I've only been here for a few days."

"In Fairyland I just got pulled back on my own after it'd been enough time. But I think it's a different amount of time each time I go..."

"Then maybe that will happen here." "They make food here by reading about it, you'll need someone to read to you if you need to eat."

"Huh. And there's people nearby? You said humans?"

"Yes." She points up and a little to the side.

"Are fairies dangerous to humans?"

"Like how any people are, I guess? Some are hard to understand, though, and that can make them worse."

She nods. "Okay. I'll show you the towns if you want."

"Thanks. I might stop in and out of those. Do you know if there's anything to do here other than read?"

"There's weird stuff below us but I haven't gone to look at it. It's all library other than that."

"Huh. At least sounds like there isn't an evil Marquess to fight or anything..."

"I haven't heard of anything like that." She starts walking, heading for a sitting area.

She follows. "That's good. I was hoping to not have any adventures, this time in Fairyland, though I guess I'm not actually in Fairyland anyways..."

It's hard to type and walk at the same time; she doesn't respond immediately.

September kind of starts chattering on her own about the first time she visited Fairyland, which was at the time ruled by an evil Marquess who was trying to make Fairyland safe and nice for visitors, but in the process kind of being a really big jerk. She met A-Through-L, a wyverary - the son of a wyvern and a library, or so he claimed - and Saturday, a marid, and Gleam, an intelligent lamp, and they had adventures all through Fairyland, and September ended up trapping the Marquess in an enchanted sleep, but then she got yanked home so she doesn't know what happened next...

They get to the sitting area; Denice takes her phone out again and taps at it. "Your earth doesn't have capes and my earth doesn't have fairyland and I don't know what that means."

"We also don't have things like that talking thing you're using, at least not that small, though I guess some radios are similar. I haven't heard of multiple Earths, even in stories, but I think some of Fairyland was weirder, so... It's not the type of thing I can't believe? Especially since Fairyland in stories sometimes does weird things with time, and you enter and when you leave it's a hundred years later - time didn't pass back home, for me, while I was in Fairyland, but I wouldn't be too surprised to run into a medieval knight or someone from the future or an alien there."

Huh.

"Maybe I'm from the future. We didn't always have capes."

"What year's it there? It's 1943, where I'm from."

"Two thousand and eight."

"Huh! Capes are kind of a weird thing, for the future to have..."

She's got a copy of wikipedia stored on her phone; she navigates to the 'history' section of the parahumans article and lets it read the first paragraph, about how Scion appeared in early 1982 and other parahumans started to trigger soon after. "Parahumans are capes," she has the phone explain afterward.

"Weird." She frowns. "I actually hope you're not from my future... A lot of that doesn't sound nice, and I dunno if I'd be able to go back to my time if you were..."

"I don't know."

"I thought this was some cape's pocket world but I think it's too weird for that. I don't know what it is."

"You could ask the people who live here."

"Yeah, might try that. See what they know and all before I start exploring."

She nods.

"It's kind of a long walk, but we can start now if you want to."

"I'm fine with long walks! And wasn't tired at all when I got pulled through."

"Okay." "Tell me if you want to stop or you get hungry or anything." She puts her backpack back on and leads the way.

September gets hungry after about an hour, though she seems to be enjoying the walk and isn't particularly tired. She's also counting shelves they pass, looking for organizational cues.

They can stop and get a snack, then; Rescue listens for two and gives the other girl first choice of them.

"Thanks," September says, settling in with the one more foreign to her. "How long have you been here?"

"A few days."

She nods. "How much have you explored?"

"I can hear things for a long way, I don't really need to go see it." "A little, though."

"Huh! I'd probably want to see things anyways..." She shrugs. "Do you know if there's any sort of order to what books are where?"

"Not really." "Different places are differently old, old places have old books." "And books on the same stuff are together usually."

"Is it all - like, human books? Are there cool future books?"

"All human so far and I haven't seen anything from my future." "There are computers, those are like future books."

"Cool! I want to read all the future stuff, that'd be neat."

"Okay." "I can play more of wikipedia while we walk, it has lots and lots of things." "Wikipedia is the thing that explained cape history."

"Cool. Who writes it?"

"Lots and lots of people." "Anyone can write but they have to say how they know things. That's why there are numbers, there's a list of sources at the end that says what every numbered thing is from. Sometimes it will say something else instead and then you know that that thing is maybe not true."

"So... Like a library anyone can stick a book in, or like an encyclopedia anyone can edit? What happens if someone disagrees with what someone else wrote?"

"I don't know." "I can probably find out when we find a computer."

"Cool. How do you use a computer?"

"Different ways for different things but usually there are buttons to press to do things or places to write words and then you press a button to do things with them." "If I wanted to read something about computers on the computer I would go to the search page, it's called google, and write computer there and press the button to tell it to find me things about that." "You can write anything you want but sometimes it gets confused."

"Huh! That sounds really neat."

"It is really neat. And there are lots of things to read, not just wikipedia."

"It's really great that people invented that."

"Yeah."

"What is your world like?"

Apparently just about indistinguishable from Rescue's Earth in September's time, except Fairyland, which September's more interested in describing anyways. Fairyland, when September encountered it, was being ruled by the Marquess, who passed a lot of really mean laws while trying to make Fairyland more safe for visitors. September met a wyvern who had to wear enormous chains around his wings so he couldn't fly, and there were Marids being kept in cages because if you can beat one in a wrestling match you can force them to do magic for you, and there were regulations on changelings, and there were guards who'd steal away children and shadows if you crossed their river (September gave away her shadow to protect a Pooka child who the guards had demanded)... But there were wonderful, fairy-ish things, too. An island of people who were only half a person, cut smoothly down the middle, and they could join with a matching other half to do things that require two hands, and an island of things that had lived to be a hundred and gained magic, and a forest where it's always autumn and they celebrate the same wedding every day, and a forest where the death of all things lives, and herds of wild magical bikes that roam the plains, and a city made of cloth, and a bathhouse that can wash your courage...

Rescue goes distant and sad at the description of the Marquess' laws, but perks up a little at the rest. "Sounds neat."

"It is. I really miss it. Earth's just - not the same."

"I would miss the internet. But it has all the other good things, probably." "The internet is all the things the computer can find when you tell it to find you things."

"Neat! And I didn't have that to miss, so, though Fairyland might someday get its own internet. They have radios and stuff."

"Radios are pretty good. Do you have TVs? They're like radios but there's a part you can watch."

"...You mean a television? I think some rich people in New York or at the World's Fair have them. We have films, though. I got to see Casablanca at the theater! Though I liked the Jungle Book and the Thief of Baghdad more. Fairyland has films, too, though most've their stuff's still silver screen, not technicolor."

"I don't know what silver screen and that other thing are. I've seen the jungle book, though, that's a good one." "I don't know if there's a way to watch movies here. The internet has them but you have to pay for them."

"Silver screen is movies that don't have color, and technicolor stuff has more than one color. It's new, for my world at least."

Blink blink. "I've never seen a movie that didn't have color." "No, that's not true, there's one where the first part doesn't have color. I don't remember what it's called."

"Wizard of Oz is the one I know that does that. It was neat! With the bluebirds song and the yellow brick road and the tin man."

"Yeah, that one." "Sometimes old things are free on the internet, maybe we can find it."

"And libraries are supposed to have free information, too."

"There were some movies near the computers, I think. You could go look, I think it's too close to the people for me."

"I don't feel a huge rush, but maybe sometime."

"It's close to the people I was going to show you."

"Oh, okay. Do you want to split up when we meet them?"

"Yeah. I'll draw you a map when we get close and meet you afterward."

"That works. Thanks."

"Ready to go?"

"I think so, yeah."

Tromp tromp tromp. She plays wikipedia readings as they go, hitting 'random article' at the end of each one until it gives her something passably interesting.

September seems to have attention span problems when listening to something, and keeps missing large chunks and needing it rewound, but does seem to enjoy the information.

Rescue doesn't seem to mind the repetition; she doesn't seem to be paying much attention to it anyway.

She calls for another break after a couple hours. "Do you want lunch?"

"Yeah. I get hungry pretty easily..."

This gets a very concerned face, briefly, before she zones out to listen for food again, and again she gives the other girl first pick of what appears.

"I will always make food if you ask me to. It's okay to do that."

"Alright! There were some weird rules around food in Fairyland - here it's just listening for stuff?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"I don't know if the people have rules but I don't."

"But their rules aren't, like, if you eat even a single seed you'll be bound to return every summer, forever, type deal."

"I don't know." "I don't know anything about magic rules."

"This doesn't seem super like Fairyland so far? So I bet it doesn't have fairy rules."

This doesn't seem very reassuring, but, "okay," she taps, and then puzzles over the phone for another minute before coming up with "ask them about it when we get there, please?"

"Yeah, I will. Asking about the rules isn't usually dangerous."

"That's good."

"I think I've got a pretty wide risk tolerance, too? Wouldn't have gone adventuring if I didn't... So I'm alright even if the rules are weird or mean."

"I don't know what that means but it sounds good."

"Just - I don't think it'll be bad for me, if asking about rules is dangerous or if there's unfair food rules."

She puzzles over the phone again, gives up, shrugs.

"Some rules are really bad."

"Yeah. That's why I fought the Marquess. Her rules were mean."

"I don't know if we can fight magic rules." "If there's not a person."

"Dunno either."

Sigh.

"In Fairyland I'd be pretty sure there'd be some kind of quest you can do to make things better, but that feels like a world rule, too."

She nods and curls up in the chair, bringing her knees to her chest; this slows her typing considerably.

"That's not how my world is."

"Yeah. It wasn't how my Earth was, either."

She nods again and stays curled up; tucks her phone away after a minute.

"You okay?"

Shrug.

And then she starts crying. Quietly, and holding as still as she can, but she's not really trying to hide it.

....Oh no.

"Do you want a hug?!?!?!"

She nods and scoots over to make room in the chair.

She climbs up and hugs her friend.

She leans in, and the crying slows after a few minutes, though she doesn't seem any happier. She does take the phone out again, though. "I wanted to be done with that." "Bad rules." "Food rules."

"I'm sorry I made you sad. I'll find out any rules, though, okay?"

"Okay." "I guess it's better to know fast." "Let's go."

"Yeah. Let's."

And so they set off. She doesn't think to put wikipedia back on right away; when she does think of it, she fumbles the phone, dropping it, and hisses softly in annoyance. It seems to be fine, though, and she sets it playing again.

September doesn't make her talk, and does listen to wikipedia, and keeps an eye out for anything too weird or threatening.

Eventually they get close enough to the people for September to find her own way.

She finds them a card catalog with slips of paper and little pencils, and draws a little map on her phone for the other girl to copy. "I'll stay here but I can find you somewhere else if you need me to." "Don't try to bring any grownups back."

She copies it, with some apparent artistic skill.

"Okay. Thanks for all the help."

She nods and curls up in a chair again.

And September goes to find the other humans.

She's very quickly able to find out the known rules and observations, at least.

-Food is free, or at least only at the price of listening. They've never heard of anyone leaving but they don't think eating here is what changes that.

-The library shifts when you're not looking. It behaves more the higher you go. No one knows if there's a top or a bottom or any sides.

-If you go deep, the library stops behaving. Odd people live down there, and some people think there are monsters.

-The library is helpful, at least high up. You'll find the books you need, is the most common thing. The library tries to help people not get lost, and it tries to make sure everyone has bedding and food they like and safety.

-There's debate about whether the library is intelligent, or if it's people subconsciously doing magic to the library, that makes it be helpful.

-People are from different worlds. Some of them have magic other than what the library does for everyone.

-Conflicts between groups of people around here are usually solved by the shelf-witch, who lives on her own and also works as a provider of medicines - reading medicines out of a book is tricky, and you need someone who knows what to do with them.

-They think only people can wander into the library, but some of those people aren't human-shaped. One person swears he saw an orangutan, another a tall, willowy alien with terribly bright eyes. Still, people from similar worlds seem to cluster together - it's mostly humans from Earths, around here.

-Some groups hold enough territory to really have a concept of 'law', but they usually try to signpost the territory they're maintaining. The library is only sometimes helpful about this.

-You need an audience to read items out of a book. Reading to yourself doesn't work. If you listen to a passage for the same stuff a lot, its magic wears thin - food gets bland, medicine less effective, and eventually things stop appearing for you. That's just audience, though, not orator - some people make their living traveling and reading the same stuff to different people.

September gets food and provisions and a little book of provision poems that's gotten all worn out to their ears, but it'll be new to her, and starts making her way back to Rescue.

She's still curled up in the same chair, but looking considerably more relaxed, watching something on her phone. She doesn't look up until September gets very close, and then taps at her phone a couple times: "That all sounds good." "What do you want to do?"

"I kind of want to explore more? And learn stuff. The depths sound neat but I should probably get used to this place before trying to go down there..."

She nods. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"Having friends on adventures is - really, really nice. But I don't want you to do stuff you don't feel's safe or anything."

She nods and taps at her phone. "I won't. But most things that aren't people are safer than people, I think. With my hearing, anyway."

"Yeah. Then - I'd like you along, if you wanna come along."

"Okay." "We have a few hours before I'll want to sleep, I don't know how tired you are." Also: what sounds interesting, nearish by?

"I'm not very tired."

Within an hour's walk, two levels below them, is a smaller technology section, and someone's discussing a section of shelves with some new adventure books that sprang up near them - which Rescue should be able to narrow down the vague location of through landmarks - and about two hours away is a small movie parlor, comfortable chairs all arranged for viewing a medium-sized screen.

"We could go see a movie. There's a big screen place for it. It's a little far but we can sleep there after."

"Oh, cool, yeah! That'd be neat."

"Okay." And off they can go, detouring a little here and there to see interesting landmarks and pick out a movie.

September wants to watch a more modern movie, and seems really interested by ones with a lot of bright colors and computer involvement - CGI is such a cool concept. Does Rescue have movie types she doesn't want to watch, because some of these animated musicals look cool but so does this other live action movie about a dragon and the people fighting him - it says it has 3D options!

She doesn't like things that are too scary but the dragon movie looks fine! 

Dragon movie it is, then, which runs until September's actually tired enough to sleep. Still, she's captivated by the screen and the cinematic effects and the music -

Denice makes it through most of the movie, but falls asleep before it's over, snuggled up in a sweatshirt from her bag with matching pants for a pillow. September may have to figure out how to turn the show off herself at the end.

She manages that after a bit of poking, then curls up to sleep herself. Maybe they can listen pillows and blankets into being before tomorrow night...

Denice sleeps a little restlessly, but quietly. She's still asleep when the other girl wakes up in the morning.

September eats a quick breakfast out of her supplies, and spends the time paging through her provisions book, bookmarking stuff that'd be good to read out soon. This one actually has an ode to camping supplies, which makes her grin.

At some point she'll notice that the other girl is awake and quietly fiddling with her phone again.

"Good morning!"

She looks up and waves, and goes back to her tapping, until she has a list of nearby landmarks for the phone to read out.

"I wouldn't mind watching another movie? But adventure books would also be neat."

"We can go get those, and then I want to listen to people for a while."

"Okay! Should we listen for breakfast, too?"

She doesn't answer, but gets the now-familiar far-off look that indicates she's listening, and food begins to appear.

She waits to say 'thanks' until Rescue seems done listening, then picks out her favorites plus some stuff she's never seen before to eat.

Rescue eats the rest, and then they can set off for the movie racks, looking at the books along the way to see if there's anything interesting.

September ends up with an armful. (There's adventures from across the multiverse, ones written by aliens or about aliens or from times well after or before their own - September really really really wants to read alien fiction, that sounds so cool - )

Rescue picks up on her excitement and chooses a couple of books for herself, too.

"Do you like to read aloud?"

"I haven't really before? Guess I could try."

"Only if you want to. But I like it."

"Yeah! I'm definitely willing to give it a shot."

"Okay. Thanks." She puts her books and a few of September's in her backpack, and they can head back to the movie theater with their haul.

And September can read alien adventure stories out loud!

Rescue enjoys it...

...but gradually tenses up...

...and withdraws, shaking, before the first chapter is over.

She stops.

"Are you okay?"

She makes an ambivalent sort of gesture and brings her knees to her chest.

"Can I - do anything?"

"Nh."

She closes her book.

"Would talking help?"

She curls up tighter and whimpers.

She curls up on herself and stops talking or making noise.

That doesn't make things worse, at least.

After a few minutes she slowly moves to get her phone out. She's not fast, typing, but eventually it says "not your fault".

She nods, miserably (it feels like she could've done better).

"Not your fault," she repeats, and goes back to typing.

"Where I was was really bad."

"Sometimes things remind me."

"Not your fault."

"Is there - stuff I can do to help?"

"I don't know."

"Don't try to make me talk."

She nods.

"I was actually offering to talk to you. In case it helped - I don't know. Distract you?"

"Oh." Type type - "I don't know, but maybe."

"I can try? If it happens again."

She nods. "It might." "Thank you."

"I - like helping." She really doesn't like feeling helpless.

"I know it hurts not to be able to help."

"But I don't know if there's a way to help with this."

"I'll feel better in a while even if you don't do anything."

She nods, slowly. "Okay."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Or - not your fault."

She nods and curls up again, zoning out as she does when she's listening to something somewhere else.

September starts quietly reading her book.

Rescue stays that way for a while, occasionally manifesting objects - a change of clothes, a water bottle, a blanket, and eventually, lunch, which she doesn't immediately move to eat.

September gets through a few slim books, takes her portion of food, but looks, worried, at Rescue before eating.

She looks back, when September looks at her, and shrugs, but goes for the rest of the food.

She does seem to perk up a little, eating, and takes her phone back out. "I'll be okay."

"You can ask me about it if you want to."

"What - happened?"

"The place I was at before was for kids who were bad at things." "I'm bad at talking, and they thought they could make me talk anyway." "I can a little but it hurts." "So they tried to hurt me more so I would do it anyway."

"That's horrible!"

Nod nod nod.

"Capes are not supposed to get their powers when they're little but I did."

"Why are people so mean."

She takes a while with the phone, this time.

"They thought they were helping us." "They thought it would be okay if we learned to do things eventually." "That it wouldn't matter how."

"Lots of people think bad things are okay if the eventually looks pretty."

"Yeh."

"They're wrong."

"They really, really are."

She nods.

"There isn't anything bad about reading to me. But one of the other kids used to and it felt like I was there for a minute."

"I'm sorry. Not - I don't think it's my fault or anything, but I'm sorry the situation's bad."

She nods. "I think it's getting better."

"Hopefully..."

"I think it is. It's definitely better than when I first got out." She shudders slightly as the phone reads out the words.

"I want things to be better for everyone."

"I was going to but now I'm here." She tucks the phone away and curls up again.

She nods. "When we figure out how to get out of here, we'll also figure out a way to make everything better, everywhere. At least eventually."

"Mh," she acknowledges.

She glances at Rescue again, then goes back to reading.

She takes her phone back out again after a few minutes, but not to talk, apparently.

After another hour, she says "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back for dinner and you can talk if you need me."

"Alright."

She comes back after a little less than an hour, from a different direction, looking calmer, and waits for September to notice her before she has her phone speak. "I don't think we can get back, and it hurts to think about it if I don't think we can. I want to if we can find a way but I don't want to talk about it before that."

She nods, slowly. "Alright."

Tap tap: "I don't think you did anything wrong and I'm not upset at you. I'm hurting because they hurt me, that's all."

"Do you want to do something else today?"

"Hm... I wouldn't mind watching more movies, or reading more - I think I'm gonna wanna explore more tomorrow, though, and maybe find people I can go talk to?"

"Sure." "I'm not ever going to want to get close to grownups but I don't mind waiting while you do."

"Yeah. And then I can gather information and stuff."

"Okay."

"Wanna go pick out a movie?"

"Sure."

She picks something fluffy and light-hearted featuring animated cats.

September is just as enraptured as she was by the action movie.

Denice enjoys it too, and in the morning they can go look for another group to talk to.

The people in the slightly lower levels still know the people September was talking to last time - there's trade routes, as best as anyone can manage, and the groups try to keep in some level of contact, even if most groups don't get really big. There's a 'city' about forty miles that-a-way someone describes to them, on the same level - mostly a really big loose association of people staying near each other to trade a lot, which probably doesn't even top 'small village' sizes, but it's huge as far as local groups go. This group has a shelf witch near them who does technology - which isn't as tricky to read out as medicine, but still can be pretty tricky - so they've got a lot of things like motorized scooters.

They trade with a group from deeper down, too, sometimes - some of the weird stuff in the depths stays weird even if you bring it up, and that can be really useful. 'Weird' is mostly 'really magical,' as far as trade goods go - they have glowing stones that never stop glowing, and someone blind got a ring that lets them magically know what's right around them even if it's not exactly sight. Magical stuff's expensive, though - that stuff's heirloom goods, pretty much, and they had to trade a lot for it. Mostly good quality provisions books.

They help September fill out a bit of a vague guess map, at least as things were last time they heard from a trader. The map goes out past Rescue's hearing range.

That's all pretty interesting.

"I want to go listen to the city," Denice says when September gets back. "And maybe go into the depths once we know more. What do you think?"

She hums. "Yeah, I think that's best, the city'll have a lot of people..."

"Yeah." "I don't want to go in but we can get close and I can listen." "You can go in if you want."

"I'll want to, yeah. I like people."

They can head in that direction, then. Rescue pokes at her phone a bit to see if she can get podcasts or something rather than more wikipedia.

There's a massive archive of those, once Rescue digs a bit. Fortunately, the library has a podcast app that has highly convenient search features!

Hmmmm... does the library have podcasts on itself?

That takes some sorting... But yes! They seem to have been produced by locals, and some are actually recordings of radio programs. There's news and exploration reports and reviews of different library areas and reviews of works authored by library inhabitants...

News is always good. She finds something fairly recent and puts that on, making a querying noise at September about it once it's played enough to be clear what it is.

She looks over. "Hm?"

She has to pause it to type. "Is the news okay, or do you want something else?"

She shrugs. "News is fine."

News it is, then. Walk walk listen, does the news have anything interesting to say?

Not a lot in the first segment - though there's some possibly interesting hints as to how local cities and politics work. There's talk of trade, and scouting, and recent useful discoveries among the numerous books, and one mention of a doctor who was pulled through recently and has, after recovering from her disorientation, agreed to not only practice but teach medicine, and they'll be establishing admissions criteria to the first of the classes soon...

How about less news. How about that. What if... music. Music's pretty safe.

The music seems to lean really heavily toward 'soothing,' though of course there's every genre of music imaginable and then some. But locally produced music especially involves a lot of stringed instruments, woodwinds, and soothing, crooning voices.

She pokes at the offerings until she finds some peppy pop music from outside, and leaves the phone playing that while they walk. She seems distant, in contrast to it.

September glances at Rescue a lot, brow furrowed, but doesn't prod.

She catches September's eye after the third or fourth glance and shrugs, unhappily. "La'er."

She nods. "Okay."

They can keep moving, then; Denice leaves the music on until they stop for lunch.

She's still distant, after she's materialized them a pair of meals, but types anyway. "I'm probably not going to stop being weird about weird things." "You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to deal with it."

"I don't mind! I'm weird, and I'm used to weird." She frowns a bit. "I guess I'm mostly used to - other humans being the normal ones, while I'm the weird girl who likes dreaming and climbing trees and mechanics too much, and who doesn't have any human friends... But all my friends are - a wyvern who swears his dad was a library and who knows all the words from A through L, and a Marid who can jump around in time and whose shadow stole my first kiss once, and my own shadow who's the queen of Fairyland Below where everything's a shadow who once tried to steal all the magic from Fairyland, and reindeer people who live underground, and a lamp who got smart after turning a hundred and rescued me from the Island of Lost Things, and the Green Wind who's always traveling and who stole me away from my family so I could go to Fairyland, and his leopard, and a lady who herds magic bicycles... I met my future daughter once while she was time-traveling, though we didn't really talk... And others, too, Fairyland is - everyone there's weird."

"You're - very normal, actually, compared to everyone I know." Thoughtful frown. "Just - sometimes you seem upset or like something's hurting you, and I want to help."

She doesn't respond when September finishes talking, but spends several seconds just staring off at nothing, and then begins to type, spending much longer on it than her eventual result would suggest.

"I don't think it's bad to be scared of things that hurt people." "Even if they don't hurt most people."

"Yeah. Different things hurt different people. And even if it's not something that'll hurt you, it's okay to be scared of that if you're not really sure yet, or to be scared of it existing because it might hurt other people. Or - want it avoidable and talked about, since some things that hurt some people help other people. Most everyone from Fairyland Above would be hurt by Fairyland Below, but - I don't really like being in Fairyland Below a lot, but that doesn't make it bad if the shadows like it - and my shadow's started being a good queen so the shadows like it a lot now..."

"Oh and also there was that one time I had to explain to a Marid that I can't breathe underwater, and lots of shadows can't go out in sunlight - so my shadow's trying to make some parts of Fairyland Below good for us both so we can hang out, but that's kinda slow, and like sometimes there's other stuff that's harder to explain to people or more complicated, like the Marquess was forced out of Fairyland and trapped on Earth which was horrible for her, so she pushed her way back into Fairyland, but she had to hurt a bunch of people to stay, so she had to be stopped, but she didn't like that and was really hurt so instead me and her panther agreed she can be in an enchanted sleep until we figure out how to fix it - probably that wasn't the best solution but I hadn't actually grown my heart all the way yet... The Prince of All Fairylands might be able to do something but he's kinda useless, even if he did end the shadow wars... Mostly just by waking up though, he'd been dead and that was causing some instability, but apparently if you die as a baby and wake up as an adult then having royal blood doesn't make you automatically a good ruler, just acceptable to the magic. Probably he'll be more useful when he's not actually a year old."

Okay, sure, this can happen. Denice eats her lunch.

September does run out of ramble about different peoples in Fairyland eventually.

And after lunch they can get moving again, or at least Denice seems to think so - she doesn't say anything, just puts the music on again and sets off.

She's keeping a little more of an ear out for interesting landmarks, now.

September's scanning the titles they pass, picking a few out to carry with them for their next stop.

Landmarks aren't super densely packed, but they come nearer what sounds oddly like a forest or park after an hour.

Dusk changes course to go see it; after a few minutes she remembers to fill September in about the change.

"Oh, that sounds neat! I haven't gotten to be outside in too long, we've been cooped up in school for the winter..."

"We can probably stay a while." "I'm not in a hurry."

"I'd like to stay a bit then, yeah."

Onward to the forest, then.

The shelves give way after a bit to an open area, something like fifty stories high, and the ground turns from warm hardwood with a low carpet to a wide stone walkway tracing the border of the open area. There's comfortable, organic-looking benches in a mix of wood and stone around the walkway. Thinner walkways curl from the main one into the park - the bit immediately near them seems more 'botanical garden' than 'forest.' Sight lines aren't very good, since there's a lot of tall screens with climbing vines, but there's definitely at least a bit of a forest past the garden, since there's large trees reaching up through the area's height, including one enormous one with walkways spiraling up it. Several trees have treehouses perched in them.

The garden is in full bloom, a riot of color including many flowers Rescue's never seen before. There's pillars and statues and at least one plaque in the garden, many with images carved into them.  

What a good layout. Rescue finds a comfortable-sounding bench to lie on and checks the tree-walkways to see if there's an obvious way to get up to them.

This bench is so wonderfully comfortable!

All of the walkways can be accessed from the ground eventually, though you might have to navigate through a lot of other walkways and bridges first. All the other floors exposed to this park also have at least one walkway from them into the network around the trees. There's a ramp, a bit narrow around a thinner tree, just inside the boundaries of the forest proper, that rises a bit more than two stories before it has a landing with a bridge to another tree (and the ramp also keeps going up the tree, ending in a ladder to a platform at its top about twenty feet higher).

She keeps an eye on September, too, while she idly maps the network.

September is having a lot of fun looking at plants, and she says at one point, coming over toward Rescue, "If I go explore, will you be able to find me? I'll head back here when I get tired if I haven't seen you."

"Yeah. I might... up... but talk, I come back."

"Okay!"