Walking and Thinking

[River Yates]

River walked into the library and went straight to the fiction section, with one purpose in mind. She fully intended to determine if this school library was worth anything. If it wasn't, River was going to have to find a different way to borrow books or start using wht little money she had to buy books, read them and then sell them, or give them away to the library at the school. That idea didn't appeal to her in the least.

She walked down the fiction section looking, first, for Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It was a largely dull book, but half the literary world considered it a Classic and most libraries had at least one copy, if not more. River would be more surprised if this one didn't have it than if it did. Upon finding it, River looked through the A's for Clan of the Cavebear by Jane Auel and after that, Isaac Asimov and his robot books, which River counted. Then she found Piers Anthony and his Incarnation of Immortality and his Xanth novels. They didn't have many of the Xanth series, but those books were a dime a dozen with only one or two good ones. River didn't even pause at the V.C. Andrews books. After that, she moved on to the B's for Dan Brown, Terry Brooks, and John Bellairs.

Contrary to the way River could normally be found, her headphones were not in her ears and her Ipod was not turned on. In order to get a proper feel for a library, River felt, one had to have as little noise going into her ears as possible. After all, a library was for quiet introspection and reading.

River still found herself humming the "Ode to Joy" by Beethovan, though.

[Landon Castillo]

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid languages. Landon was already well-versed in two, but apparently that wasn't enough, and his mom had decided he could "broaden his language experiences" and take French. French! If only he could have taken Spanish, now that would have been an easy A... But anyways, even more annoyingly, he had already somehow managed to lose his French-English dictionary. His parents had bought one for him to prepare, and now it was... Somewhere. He hadn't even had it for a week yet, so he couldn't bring himself to admit to his mom that it was gone.

Now, he was checking out one from the library instead... Err, trying to. Landon couldn't remember the last time he had set foot in a library, and the sight of so many books in one place was almost enough to send him running. But he had timidly continued into the daunting place, bravely ventured towards a computer, and found a strange number that apparently was supposed to direct him towards the 'foreign language' section of non-fiction. After scribbling it down on a piece of paper, he started hunting for this mysterious area where he could find his book.

Naturally, he was utterly lost within a couple of minutes. Even the normally laid-back boy was becoming almost panicky, unable to find anything or anyone except shelves and shelves and shelves of books, with his guiding call number nowhere to be found, and the thought that he had accidentally made his way into the fiction section never occurring. Rounding a corner, he found another student within his line of vision, and relaxed slightly at the relief of actually seeing someone else breathing. She was also looking at the shelves of books with interest rather than the disgust and horror that his expression usually held, so he figured maybe she'd be able to help him. Anyways, she was also humming, and in general he had found that people humming to themselves were generally of a pleasant sort.

He slowly inched his way over, nervous about approaching a stranger on his own.
"Umm, umm..." He said in means of greeting, his voice squeaking a little with obvious nervousness. "I don't want to bother you, but could you... Help?" He gave a slightly forced display of his braces-covered teeth, still feeling - and probably looking - totally lost and out of place in the library.

[River Yates]

River looked up from the books and the boy who stood before her asking a question. Her first thought was something along the lines of: What? The guy had an obviously terrible dye job which made River doubt his intelligence if he couldn't even decently dye his hair. The fact that he was asking for help of some sort also made River doubt his intelligence, but at least he was polite about him. But who did he think she was? Library staff?

Who knew? Maybe he saw the violet-colored hair and thought that she was a kindred spirit. That'd be a little odd considering she knew exactly what she was doing and he was completely ignorant.

"How?" River asked looking the boy up and down still.

[Landon Castillo]

The blunt response and the way she seemed to be scrutinizing him did nothing to ease his nerves, and his awkward smile faded a little. He shuffled his feet a little and stared down at them, slowly turning into a picture-perfect example of "nervous freshman" despite the height which would suggest he was an older student.

"U-Umm..." He stammered out. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for Landon to suddenly forget what he was about to say and just stand there for a few moments, trying to remember, but since he was obviously wasting this girl's time, he felt even more like an idiot than usual. He was just lucky that blushing didn't show easily on his darker skin tone.

After a few long seconds he regained his bearings, and glanced at the paper he was holding.
"Well I need to find this book, but I don't know where it is..." He held up the little scrap of paper and waved it around a little, then realized he was probably still standing a little too far back for her to read the messy handwriting. He took a slight step forward and extended his long arm with the paper, managing to raise his gaze from the ground to stare at her with wide, hopeful eyes.

[River Yates]

River waited for him to get over his initial nervousness. then she listened to what he had to say. Once he offered the paper, she took it out of his hand and looked at it. She could barely read what he'd written down, but it looked like he was looking for a non-fiction book which meant he was totally in the wrong section.

"Okay, first of all, I can't really read this. Second, it looks like you're looking for non-fiction, we're standing in the fiction section," River explained cooly and calmly.

She reached forward and grabbed the guy's arm and led him to the non-fiction section. "Mmkay, now tell me exactly what you're looking for. However, if it's bad poetry I refuse to help you."

[Landon Castillo]

"...Oh," was the only response Landon could get out when he found out he wasn't even in the right section, a look of dismay slapped onto his face. As any respectable gamer would comment on the situation, he thought to himself: Epic fail. But, as always, he quickly moved on from his slight remorse at his failure to becoming rather entertained by it. A small, more genuine smile than before came to his lips before he could stop it, and he bit down on his lip to stifle a giggle.

"Ahh, the paper says..." It says... What the hell does that say? He started to squint at it for further inspection, but then she was leading by the arm like a slightly retarded puppy. He followed along meekly, still a little entertained by the whole situation as his embarassment over it faded.

He looked around the section as she stopped, hoping he would be able to find it again if - or, rather, when - he lost another book at some point. Oh, he saw numbers on the sides of the books now. That was good.
"No! Not poetry!" He looked slightly horror-stricken at the thought, and then scratched his head. "Umm, I just need a French-English Dictionary..." He said slowly, and took another glance at the paper. "It says... Four four three point... Something something."

[River Yates]

River stared at the guy a moment, thankful he wasn't looking for bad poetry, but looking for a French-English Dictionary? What the heck would he need that for? Well, this was a school. He probably needed to do a translation for French class. Dur. Now she felt stupid for even wondering that.

"Well, We're in the one hundreds right now, so we're going to need to go at least one row over, depending on how much they have on psychology and religion and true crime," River informed him with a shrug, "Since you have the call number, you just have to follow the numbers. All of the four hundreds probably have to do with foreign countries or foreign languages. I'll show you the way, if you want."

This kid probably needed all the help he could get. It was really hard thinking of a guy as a kid when he was probably the same age as she was. It was hard to think of herself as a kid. Oh well, that was life.

[Landon Castillo]

Landon nodded to what she said, looking with a still-present air of nervousness at all the books and numbers around him. Follow the numbers... Just follow the numbers... I can do this. Maybe. He thought, chewing on his bottom lip. And with all the four hundreds having foreign language books? This library was a nightmare! This was going to take forever. Well, one thing was certain, even if he did (which he would) lose books in the future, he would never, ever...

Realizing she had offered to show him the way, he nodded eagerly, smiling again.
"Yes! I mean, please." He really did feel a little bad about making her spend her time showing some random boy around the library. But she just navigated the scary mountains of books so easily... He might've been a little jealous, if he actually cared to go to the library on a frequent basis.

In his own way of apology, he decided he would attempt to strike up a conversation... Until he realized he didn't even know this girl's name. Oops.
"I'm Landon, by the way." He offered, still sounding a little shy, but his voice slowly gaining in confidence the more time he spent with her, even though her obvious superiority in the way of the library was enough to make him feel insecure.

[River Yates]

River looked at Landon a moment and then said, "I'm River; we go this way." She pointed to the bookshelf to her left and then walked that way, this time not grabbing th guy and dragging him along.

"Yeah, I can see just find and I only lay in a bed at night," River offered as she walked looking for the 400s. Hopefully the kid would relax. The tension in him was palpable and it was making River nervous. Yes, he was a bit of an idiot. Who didn't know how to use the Dewey Decimal System and simply follow the numbers? He had a call number, after all. He only had to follow them to their destination.

[Landon Castillo]

River? Well, there was an interesting name. He had never quite understood the idea of people naming their children after inanimate objects and whatnot. But maybe it was just a nickname, not a real name... Before he could ponder over it much longer, she was already walking off in another direction. This whole navigating thing... So complicated. Seeing as she didn't grab onto his arm or anything this time, he didn't catch on to the fact they were moving immediately, but with his long legs it only took a stride or two to catch up with the girl.

"Err... Is that so?" was all he could come up with for an answer, and he swallowed hard, then let out a deep breathe. "Alright, alright. I'm kinda all uptight right now, I dunno why. Sorry." Well, alright, that was a lie. There were a lot of reasons he was uptight at the moment. Namely, he was scared to be at a new school, he was also scared to be staying away from his parents, and he really needed to smoke some pot. But none of those seemed appropriate at the moment, so he just shrugged it off and smiled sheepishly. "I don't really do the whole 'library' thing a lot... Although I'm sure you can tell that..."

[River Yates]

"You must not read much, then," River observed as she stood in front of the 400s. she shook her head sadly. "That's a shame... some books are better than most people." Some books were also worse than most people. Those books deserved to be chucked through windows and those stupid TVs... and at the person who invented the television... but River wasn't about to say anything like that outloud. If this kid didn't read much, he probably watched a lot of television.

"Then again, in a world like this, a lot of people are a little on the crummy side," River added as she looked up and down the row of books in front of her for a French-English dictionary. When she was done with one shelf, she'd side-step over to the next. Some libraries were really bad about keeping things in order. It was best to check the general area as well as the place where the book ought to be found. However, this library seemed pretty good about it.

River squatted on the ground and grabbed a book off the bottom shelf and tossed it to Landon. "I believe this is what you're looking for."

[Landon Castillo]

"Nope, not really." He admitted, with the good grace to sound a little guilty about the statement, since she obviously revered the pastime. His alternative, instead of television, was none other than video games. Concerning loss of brain cells, video games probably weren't any better, but at least they were interactive, right? "And I guess, I mean... I like people." That was true, also. He sincerely enjoyed being around people; his love for partying went hand-in-hand with a love for people.

"Well, geez, somebody's a downer." His voice took on an obvious teasing tone with that reply, beginning to venture out a little from his shy shell and start joking around with her. "What's so wrong with people?"

As River found the book and tossed it to him, he looked a little surprised, and then stared down at the book with awe.
"Yay! Yay!" He exclaimed happily, shuffling his feet around vaguely in a little dance of celebration for obtaining his French-English dictionary. "You're my hero."

[River Yates]

River didn't answer the question about people. Did she really have to? After all, people lied cheated and did any number of bad things. River knew this from experience. This experience included not only being a person but dealing with other people.

She couldn't help but giggle at his little dance in response to her finding a book. It wasn't that hard and it turned out this library was actually pretty good for belonging to a private school Maybe this place wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm a hero so much as a huge nerd," River said, feeling uncomfortable with the term. After all, true heroes didn't accidentally kill their sort-of-step-fathers. Though, the nerd-term didn't exactly work out either. Most nerds River knew didn't have violet hair.

[Landon Castillo]

Landon was glad to see her laugh, even if just a bit, at his dance. At least she wasn't holding grudges about their distinct differences in choice of pastime, right? Anyways, he would've been horribly embarassed if she was some way overly serious person who would just stare at him for goofing around like that. Maybe they could manage to get along, even if she was one of those booksy types.

Completely oblivious to her uncomfortableness with the word, Landon shook his head empathetically.
"No way. Definitely a hero. I mean, you certainly saved me from an hour's worth of yelling from my mom. She turns into Satan when she's mad at me, I swear." He widened his eyes a little to emphasive the point of his angry mother's scariness, and then smiled some more.

"Losing one of my books is probably a bad way to start off being at a new school, though. Darn." Despite the negativity of the statement, he didn't look all too appalled over it. In fact, he had to admit that it was kind of amusing. Anyways, now that he had another book, everything would be just fine... So he might as well laugh at the situation.

[River Yates]

River didn't want to argue with the kid about whether or not she was a hero. She knew she wasn't and if he was going to insist that she was, then maybe in his stupid little reality in which River didn't nearly murder a guy, she was. Though she could certainly relate about the evil mother bit. Her mother could be the Wicked Witch of the Western Hemisphere sometimes.

"I'd suggest that you don't lose that library book, but that'd probably jinx you," River joked with a raised eyebrow and a snort.

Despite the fact that River was quite the bookworm, she wasn't one of those who worshipped the written word and considered it blasphemy for someone to lose or destroy a book. Afterall, a lot of books were crap. Crap wasn't sacred; it was crap. That was the end of it. Goodbye.

"You could put all your books in one place in your room and keep them there unless you're using them. Then, when you are using them, tie them to you," River said with a shrug. She giggled after the suggestion because the idea was just funny.

[Landon Castillo]

Landon laughed sincerely at River's joking statement, looking at the book he held and hugging it against him protectively.
"Ah, well, I'll probably end up losing it somewhere in my room, then when I look at the massive fine because I've had it out so long I'll freak out, go on an epic cleaning adventure in my room, and find it with half of the pages ripped out and vodka spilled on it." He predicted with a bit of a crooked grin. Or, maybe he would decide in a drunken stupor to cut out pages and try to hide drugs in the book. No way to tell, really. But the poor book was most probably not going to emerge from his room again in the same condition. He would just have to try not to lose it anywhere other than his room, and/or totally mangle it beyond repair.

He laughed again at the mental image of him walking around with books tied to him, and shook his head a little.
"Well, I could try the first one, but... Well... Let's just say you haven't seen the condition of my room." He said, thinking about the complete mess it was always in. "As for the second one... That could definitely work, but I'd look ridiculous. I don't have a lot of dignity left as it is, but I'd like to keep a little of it." He was glad to see her giggling, too; his opinion of Superhero/Library Master/River was quickly climbing up the ranks. Maybe he could even find a friend in her... Or maybe once she found out about the kind of 'activities' he enjoyed she would think he was scum and refuse to talk to him. It was hard to really gauge reactions like that.

[River Yates]

"You don't need any dignity. I mean, if you keep a little bit, some jerk or woman's going to come along and take it all away from you. Then you'll be left with nothing," the violet-haired and -eyed girl responded with a shrug, looking at her feet and then breaking into another giggle.

THe funny part was the picture of someone running around with books tied to their ankles then having someone use those poor books to horribly embarrass the person with the books tied to their ankles.

"You could put the books in a bag and nail them to the ceiling. Then, you wouldn't lose them in whatever mess your room is in," River said after a moment. It seemed like a good idea.

[Landon Castillo]

Landon's grin widened even further, if that was possible. He knew he was giving a nice display of the braces he hated so much, but he was much too amused to care, at least for a little while.
"Yeah, true enough. I mean, I've probably lost just about all of it throughout my life... But maybe moving to a new town where no one knows anything about me helps me get some back. I dunno." He shrugged and smiled. In truth, he was quite aware that he didn't have to worry about any women stealing his dignity. Not in that way at least. But his preference for boys usually wasn't something that he enjoyed discussing during his first conversation with a stranger.

He considered the idea of nailing his books to the ceiling for several long moments before answering.
"You have some good ideas. Except, I would probably forget the books were up there." He admitted with a nonchalant shrug. "My memory's awful. Maybe I could paint in huge letters on the wall 'books are here', with an arrow pointing upwards? I don't know if the school staff would appreciate that, though." He laughed, imagining the administration's reaction to seeing a room like that.

[River Yates]

River actually laughed, her grin wider, if it was possible. She liked this guy. She didn't know why, because someone with that faulty of a memory had to have something wrong with him, but maybe it was just the fact that he was good at this sort of joking... for a simpleton who didn't know how a library worked.

"That's why you get removable stickers," she said, "Then, if they get mad, you just take the stickers down... or a really big sign... with glitter."

Glitter, especially purple glitter was such a wonderful thing. River could just picture a glittery sign that said, "Books There!" in big letters and an arrow that pointed to the ceiling. She could also see Landon completely ignoring said signs.... and there was the mental image of the stunned, shocked, and freaked out roommate. River's imagination was just running wild!

[Landon Castillo]

"Stickers!" Landon repeated, sounding slightly appalled. "No, no, not stickers. Didn't you ever put stickers in your locker in middle school? When you take them off they leave that gross sticky stuff behind! That's even more annoying than having to paint over something!" He was rather pleased with himself for thinking out the idea that far, actually. Then again, she was probably older than him, and therefore her memories of pointless middle school things like that were further into the past.

The concept of a glittery sign, however, effectively caught his interest. He looked at River with wide eyes as if she had just showed him the pathway to holy enlightenment, imagining a big, pretty, shiny sign like that in his room.
"That... Would be... Amazing." He said, and then giggled. "Or I could even get one of those cool neon glowy signs!"

Ahh, imagining stuff like that was way too much fun. If he had the resolve, the money, and the consent of his roommate, Landon would go crazy with his room. It would be full of strobe lights, neon signs, black lights, and loud techno music. It would be just like any good rave, it would be... Mind-blowing! But unfortunately, even common sense lacking Landon realized it was never going to happen.