Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 9)

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He started into the maze. "Have you found her Ky?"
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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Ky flinched, even though he wasn't particularly close, startled by his intrusion into her already-intrusive thoughts. "Um... no. Did you?"

That was a dumb question. If he'd found her, he'd be gloating, not asking if Ky had.

She blinked and shook her head, trying to clear it. Gods. What was wrong with her? Why was her mental health this precarious these days? Fine one moment, unable to breathe the next.

Then again, maybe this was a reasonable response to learning that the entire world was on fire, despite the icy hell that surrounded them.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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"Nope! I'll keep looking!" he shouted, still checking shelves and under chairs.
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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"Shh!" she reminded.

Ky decided to keep wandering. She clearly needed something to get her mind off of things. Perhaps she should continue using a four-year-old child to regulate her emotions, she thought dryly.

She rounded the corner of the shelves and hesitated as her brain processed what she was seeing: the entire Ash history. The journals were still there. She'd expected Gaius to move them after her slip up at dinner, but he hadn't. Maybe he'd forgotten. Or, well... she didn't know what other explanation there may be. But they were still there. At her full disposal.

She glanced around, feeling watched, even though she wasn't sure if she was or not.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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Mattathias was deep into the maze of shelves at this point; he was quiet for now.
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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Ky took a step nearer the shelves, then stepped into the aisle on her right instead, thinking through her move. She was morbidly curious. And yet it felt so wrong. Intrusive. She had no right to know.

...Only, she sort of did. In a way. All the other kids knew what had happened. Not a concentrated account like this would be, no doubt. But they'd had a lifetime to learn about their strange, complicated, messy family. She was already fifteen years behind.

And she was much more interested in rectifying this deficiency than she was memorizing forty years' worth of nonsense legends about the gods.

Still.

She glanced back at the shelf, conflicted.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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(*cues up Gaius playlist, licks keyboard in lieu of a pen nib*)

He crawled through a couple of empty spaces, giggling quietly to himself. A few librarians walked by, frowning at him.
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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(xD dis gon be an angst-fest I can taste it)

She didn't even know which ones were the ones that would be pertinent. She couldn't very well go searching through every last journal in hopes of finding the monsters' journals. Someone would tell Gaius, and...

She shivered thinking about it.

That. Right there. Her conscience.

If she didn't want Gaius to know, then she shouldn't do it.

... but, well... he kept telling her to be assertive. And he also wasn't going to be happy when she insisted on going home. Maybe this was her first step toward independence. She could snoop very lightly, then put it back, no harm no foul. Then finish her letter. Gaius wouldn't even need to know.

That thought twisted her gut into a knot.

Gaius always knew. About everything. Ever.

And he could see straight through her.

This was a dumb idea. Possibly the dumbest she'd come up with yet. Which was saying something, seeing as how she'd become the newly minted friend of Rönn.

She needed to just stop.

... and yet she didn't continue her trek.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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Each journal had a small ribbon sticking out of it, labeled with initials and years. The oldest was close to the start of the Settlement Period and latest was one of Gaius's from nearly fifteen years ago.
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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Ky squinted at them from across the room, not quite able to make out what they made, but guessing it was probably chronological. So the ones on the end. It'd be Michael's. Then second to that would be Septimus's.

She glanced around, then looked at the shelf in front of her. Should she take one of these books to replace the journal she took, so there wouldn't be an obvious gap? Or would that solidify, beyond question, her guilt should she be discovered?

It probably would.

No, she needed her plausible deniability to get her through a decision like this. A claim that she was told she had free reign of the library, and didn't know that that wasn't true. If she tried being sneaky then it'd be proof that she knew she wasn't allowed to be doing that.

Gods. This was a bad idea.

Just a little peek.

That's all.

A quick skim.

She didn't need to know details -- just the gist.

She glanced around again to be sure no one was near enough to see her, then strode to the shelf and pulled the newest one. Then immediately put it back down like it'd burned her when she realized it was Gaius's.

Absolutely not.

Even if she wouldn't get in trouble.

She may be a sneaky bitch -- the insufferable rat that Aleth had turned her into -- but she had more respect than to read a living person's journal, if Aleth wasn't holding a sharpened knife to her throat. No. She wouldn't disrespect Gaius's privacy no matter who he was -- a family member or random beggar at the gates.

She pulled the one next to it off and cautiously looked to see if it was another of Gaius's.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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It was labeled "M.A. 368-369 S.E."
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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She decided to take her chances. The initials were right. The years. She tucked it under her arm and moved the journals on either side of where she'd taken it to make the gap less apparent, then quickly -- but not suspiciously fast --started towards one of the opposite corners of the room. One that she thought she'd have fewer witnesses in.

As she neared the reading chairs, she pulled several more books off the shelves and added them to her stack. Then she sat down in one of the chairs with her back as close to a wall as possible. She cracked open one of the random books -- an account on medicinal plants, apparently -- and laid it on the left arm of her chair. She discovered she'd also pulled a taxonomy of various berries of the region, and settled that down on the right arm. She tucked the journal down beside her lap on the chair and decided to quickly read the open page of each of the books beside her. Building her alibi.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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(Clever girl)
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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(hahah Aleth has made her smart if nothing else lol)

Once she had a gist of what she could talk about if pressed, she glanced around to be sure no one was watching still, then slipped the journal into her lap and cracked it open.

"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus
"From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf
"A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni
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1st Day of Spring, 368
Bored again. Started a new journal. Today I wrote to Lorry telling him to come here so we could go whoring together. The apothecary has been off limits for ages and I'm tired of spilling seed into napkins. Maybe I'll see about that place I took Gaius to a few years ago; they ought to let me in again now that I'm Lord. I wonder if the dame remembers me. I'll make sure she does. Lorry will be more of a riot I bet; he knows how to have a good time. Maybe I'll have him stay awhile longer so this damnable fortress hears a little merriment for once.
It's so quiet now that my brother and the rotten one are gone. Cecily stays up in her room all the time so there's no sport to be made there. I've had to play with the pigs and dogs, for all the fun that affords me. They just aren't the same when they don't talk back.
Better see about finding my brother sometime soon; I miss him.
Don't tell anybody, journal, or I'll burn you til you curl.
Til tomorrow,
Michael
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik

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You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.
— Rod Serling