Lofi Library

Chapter 3: Introductions "I'm Lain." Kaori squirms a little. She is a little anxious to ask questions. She knows some of Dante's story, and he even gave her some information on his people's culture. Being this close to more people makes her nervous, but her natural curiosity gets to her. Lain pauses as if this were her full introduction. Dante and Lain looks at each other and then gives Lain an urging stare. Dante speaks up, "She's interested in our story. I haven't had time to tell the full thing. I figured you'd be the best one to tell it." "Hmm," she puts a finger to her lips thinking. "I guess that's fair. This is my story, but I reserve the right to leave certain stuff out. My twin sister and I had been grieving our brother since he..." She sighs slightly with a sad look in her eyes but continues, "My sister had been acting weird for a few weeks since then. We were constantly going to a friend's house. He is a Kitsune named Cline. He was the previous owner of the staff that changes appearances. To him it worked fairly differently, but that's besides the point. My sister and him had apparently gotten some information that could bring my brother back. I didn't understand fully what they were doing, but the thought that we would be able to bring him back brought my spirits up. One night while my sister was working on her research a loud crashing sound come from my sister's room. When I found myself in her room my brother was standing there. Over-joyed I ran towards him only to have my sister stop me and yelling for me to run. Confused, I took a better look at my brother to find blood on his clothes. I look at my sister and saw her on the floor behind him with blood on her shoulder that she was clutching. I realized that my brother had bitten my sister. I yelled at him and asked why he had done that. A duplicate of my sister came running up to me and put this staff into my hands and told me to run. Once I had the staff, the duplicate disappeared. I ran to the only person I knew who knew what was going on. What I didn't anticipate was that Cline's town would be under attack. I saw people I knew being attacked in the streets, but I made my way as quickly as possible to his house. When I got there. No one was home. He was usually in the basement so I went to check there first. Things were scattered around and almost all the drawers and cabinets were open. At that time of night his daughter should have at least been home. I decided to wait. I closed all the doors and windows and waited. No-one came. I found a bag with dried meats in it, and next to the bag was Cline's staff. I stayed for a few days until the noise outside died down. I figured he surely wouldn't leave without his staff. So I took the staff and the food with me. I decided to try and find him if he was still alive. It has been roughly 90 something years. I lost count really. I still haven't found him. Though that can be in part that I had to find some type of safety. Me and Dante recently just came from his home town again. I didn't even come up on a dead that looks like him or his daughter." At this point Lain starts sniffling. Kaori gets up, sits beside her, wrapping her arms around Lain, and gives a glance to Dante. He looks down as well. Kaori kicks a pebble at him and he looks up. She gives him an urging look as if to say "lighten the mood dummy." "I guess it's my turn. Mine is a lot shorter though. As you can probably tell. I'm kind of a half breed. My mother is a harpy, my dad was a human. Note, WAS a human. Humans tend to do this thing where if they get desperate they will raid another's area for food, companionship, etc. My father was one of those fools. He and a bunch of other humans waited for when our daily hunting party went out to raid the harpy nest. They broke eggs, had their way with a few of the locals, and got as much food as they could. They made it out alive as well. Most of them. But as soon as the hunting party came back and saw, they were hunted down and killed. I'm not at all attached to my father. He got was he deserved. I was raised normally even though I looked weird. They though, 'well he has all the parts, maybe they'll work right.' Well they never did. My feathers don't come in fully so I can't fly. That means I couldn't hunt or even get down from the cliff side and was just a burden to the nest. I decided a couple years ago to try and make it in my own outside the nest. First person I run into is this girl. She was up near the north east of the Dryad woods where it meets the mountain." He pats her hard on the shoulder. His story is a little different from what he told Kaori earlier, but she doesn't press the issue. "By then she had already found this fire staff and tried to use it on me! Guess I can't blame her. Most things are wanting to kill, torture, eat, or what ever else out here. She looked like a demon in the middle of the woods. I thought maybe she was a stupid dead that wandered into someone's camp fire. I managed to pull the staff away from her and poof, I go up in a ball of flames. Color me surprised when I start screaming thinking I'm gonna die. I throw the staff back at her and she laughs. After that we realize we didn't really want to hurt each other. Strength in numbers and all that, you know? We been traveling for... What 2 years?" "Yea, It doesn't seem like it but, yea. Well maybe not exactly. Winter has only went by once." Lain smiles as she says this. Kaori sighs very lightly thinking that she may have stepped in on a couple, but quickly throws out the notion when she remembers how old Lain is. "It does make this world a bit more bearable. Oh yea! That bag of dried meat she was talking about had these things in..." Dante tries to let out. "We'll get to that," Lain said as she looks towards Kaori with a somewhat serious look on her face. Kaori can tell that Lain is trying to decide if she can trust her. "I guess I should share my side," I say. "Well I guess about a few months ago now me and my father found this place. It being overran with zombies means it probably hadn't been looted. We figured we could sneak in get some valuables and when we find someone to trade with, we could get some decent gear. My father tried to hide it, but I knew he was trying to get me something nice for my 5th birthday. He was always trying to impress me. Anyway, the place has this big oak on the outside that has grown into one of the towers. We used that to get in without having to run through the crowd around the structure. We got in fine. It wasn't until I found this staff that things went down hill. It was set up on some pedestal. As soon as I touched it the floor froze. My dad was on the side of it, lost his balance, and slid towards the group that had been following us slowly. They got him, but I got away. A few days later I met him." Both of them look at each other and then me. In unison they say, "Wait." "5th birthday? You're a human?" says Lain. "What's a zombie?" says Dante. Lain looks at Dante, "That's what caught your attention!? She has got to be referencing the dead. Aside from that, at her height she should barely be able to speak much less run or survive!" "What? It was at the beginning and after that I couldn't concentrate. I found myself confused when a word I didn't know came up! Plus, I was able to walk around and even fight at that age. What makes her so special?!" Lain sighs, "Humans don't have a society anymore, so that means no school. She's talking like she is an elder. Either her father was a scholar or she's a prodigy. Not to mention she was just talking about losing her parent less than a week ago. Who can do that with a straight face?" "Hey! Not everyone can be an old lady like you and if you were paying attention you'd notice you just made her cry~!" "What? I'm not crying...?" A cold stream pores from her eyes as she checks her face. "Why? I thought this didn't effect me much." She thinks to herself. (It's not like he was my real father... Well... I guess he really was, but...) Her mind trails off. Flashes of her previous life come to mind. Her life, so planned out, took a U-turn when she had an unexpected pregnancy and ended just as abruptly leaving her own child alone in a chaotic world. Flashes of her new father's face. Growing up, she always thought he looked so apathetic, but at the end she can clearly remember. His face was in immense desperation. He was trying to save her at all cost... At his cost. Then the final image of her father that she had suppressed came to. When she looked back as she ran away and the scream of her father had faded, yes he was no longer in pain and yes the light had faded from his eyes, but the faint smile on his face told her that he was glad she was able to get away. With a shocked expression Lain rushes over and pulls Kaori close. "I'm so sorry! I was insensitive!" Kaori's eyes still leaking and muffled sobs pour from her as she slumps over into Lain's lap clutching at her clothing. (Did all this just not register yet? I've been so preoccupied with surviving for the past few days, I haven't had a chance to sort out everything. I thought I was just numb to it all since this isn't my world. Thinking back, my father from this world has protected me the entire time. I may not have had an attachment to this world's mother, but my father was there for 5 years. Two of those years I couldn't do much. After that I made myself as useful as I could be. In my father's last moments, I did reach out to him. I was crying. I remember now. It's possible I had been crying every night since then. Lonely... scared... that's how I feel. Does my own child feel the same way? Who is there to take care of them? They are the same age as I am in this body, but they didn't grow up knowing me. How could they miss me? How could they know? But... lonely.... that word I understand. I hope... they never had to feel this way.) After a bit Kaori calms down. Lain stays sitting beside her stroking her head. Kaori keeps her head in Lain's lap. The warmth soothing her cheeks in the cool night air. "Actually my mother was apparently an elf. I'm sorry I kept this from you. She didn't make it through my birth. I'm told things like that happen often now a-days. Like you said, society, households, all that is gone. Communities that were normally divided ended up trying to survive as much as they could. My father used to tell me that elves and humans didn't always have the best relationships. But, after the collapse, humans had it hard. Densely populated areas went the fastest. Elves were barely effected, but due to low birth rates, the elves ended up dwindling too. My father told me of when he grew up in an elven village. In the whole village only 1 elf was his age. It was the same elf that had begged her father to bring him into their home when he was found passed out in the forest. He had apparently eaten something he hadn't and as a result gotten sick and dehydrated. He was all alone. He and that elf became best friends. They would play every day; though, he would often get hurt because he would try to do the same things the elf would do. One day a group of humans came to the village. He wouldn't tell me what happened, but told me that after that day he and his friend were all alone. They set out to find their own place in the world. He used to tell me a bunch of stories like that. He taught me a lot about this world. I've never met an elf, but I know that because my mother was one, if I make it to old age, I'll live a bit longer than a normal human. And that there are different types of elves, but only one kind of human. He named me after a seashell, because my mother loved the sea." Kaori sits up, "thank you. I'm sorry about all that." Dante had lain down but was looking at the stars. She then notices something off. Neither of them are holding their staffs and the staffs are also nowhere to be seen. "Um, where'd your staffs go? I don't see them anywhere." Dante's face goes from solemn expression to an excited one and pipes up, "Oh yea! That's what I was gonna mention earlier!" "The explanation is one of the things that was in the bag I grabbed." Lain says calmly still stroking Kaori's head. Lain leans over and rummages through her bag, Dante holds up his arm and his staff appears in his hand. "Pretty cool right?!"