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It wasn't so bad, picking her way past a tarp that surrounded what Amaravati guessed could only be the front desk of the library. Given that she'd never been in the library before now (not the city library, at least, though she had visited Crystal's library before), she thought that she was doing pretty well. Libraries, on the whole, made her nervous. She didn't like the smell of old books, the combination of dust and ... and just wear and tear, whatever it was that made used books smell off. She had insisted, year after year, upon owning brand new textbooks. Her father had complied, and that was that.

Maybe it was that she could smell the age coming off of them. Some of the books were new, but all of them were used. And not all were new enough for Amara's standards. She wrinkled her nose, giving the stacks a rather dismal look as she made her way up the stairs. Even her papa, dear as he was, couldn't give her an old issue of a publication that he had never read. So, it was up to the second floor to find what she could. Research papers sucked, for the record. She never wanted to do another $%*#ing one again. That didn't bode well for college.

Whatever. Ten minutes later, and Amaravati was almost homefree, almost ready to take the right volume off of the shelf when the $*#@ thing pulled right out of the bookshelf. Cursing loudly (because she was most decidedly not going to be quiet when a %*#$ing wooden shelf came tumbling onto her head, rules or no rules), she tried to fend off the entire shelf full of books. ... Books, magazines, whatever was there, because she couldn't be bothered to care. It was just too much. "Bloody libraries," she hissed, aware that it had been her own fault in the first place for tipping the shelf, but also uncomfortably aware that the library was otherwise completely silent. Her words dropped like pebbles into a still pond.

She covered her face with her free hand, the other still holding the volume she had wanted. With considerable frustration, she brought the hand away from her face and smacked it audibly against her forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! It was one thing to cause upheaval in the mall, where no one really much cared who fell down, or what... but another thing entirely to do the same in a library. Especially one that had already seen its fair share of chaos, from the looks of things. Smack. Research papers, grades? They weren't worth this sort of trouble.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Amara said distractedly, warding off any potential further abuse from the shelves. "It's just this shelf. I didn't mean to knock everything off like that." Of course. It was blatantly obvious that it had been an unfortunate accident. And oh, she was so incredibly embarrassed! "I... can I even check this volume out? Or is it one of the ones that I need to make copies from?" She waved the heavy tome around, looking utterly out of place in her designer clothing, various books and things on the ground around her, the shelf in obvious need of righting.

Girls in designer boots should not engage in battles with dusty volumes... but this girl hadn't had a choice. She glared down at the aforementioned boots, sure that she would have to send them out to be cared for. Ugh. How incredibly irritating. Wrinkling her nose, she brought her gaze back up to the librarian, trying very hard to ignore the fact that she was being stared at. They were hardly alone in the library, after all. "Do I... need to pay for damages, or something?" If so, she could. Already, she was reaching into her purse as if to withdraw her wallet, her hand hovering just above it.

All of this, all of it, was that stupid research paper's fault. If it hadn't been for the research paper, she wouldn't have needed the book, and if it hadn't been for the book, she wouldn't have needed to go to the library, and if it hadn't been for the library, she wouldn't have had that shelf practically fall on her! Her teachers needed to learn to come up with topics that could be researched using current literature, and whatnot. If only that had been possible now! But of course it wasn't, which meant that here she was, looking like a fool in a place that she had never stepped a foot in before now.

Worse yet, from the look on the man's face, he knew it, too. He looked like he was trying not to laugh at her, or something. Or possibly just crack the wrong sort of smile. Well, ha ha. Verrrry funny. Although, if anyone knew what it was like to have books fall upon you from above, it was probably a librarian. It made sense, really. She wondered, briefly, whether she ought to be stooping down there to pick up the materials, but... there was a serious risk involved. Amara had this awful, awful tendency to fall down without anything there to trip her. When there were actually objects on the ground, the likelihood increased exponentially. Really, it was probably best not to risk it.

Looking rather chagrined when she realized that she had really upended the entire shelf, she shook her head a little. "Are you sure? I've made a dreadful mess of things." Her hand remained hovered over her wallet for a moment before she gave in finally and just closed up her purse. What a %#*$ing disaster! And what was with all of the handsome men all over Destiny City? She couldn't even go into a library without finding one. It was simply ridiculous.

"Err. Yes, I do need one of the books. The one I have here, you see." Amara waved the book around with some difficulty-- it was, after all, quite heavy. Had she been powered up, she would have been able to heft it, no problem. But not when she was just plain old Amaravati Priti, student extraordinaire. "I don't have a library card, though. Is there a form that I'll need to fill out?" Assuming, of course, that one could check out this sort of volume?

He had never clarified that point, and she waited pensively, shifted her weight from foot to foot. Moving out of the pile of books and associated debris was going to be tricky, to be sure. It was almost asking for trouble, and-- and he was picking them up. Hmm. Shifting the book over into the crook of her arm, she moved to help him with the job. Maybe it wasn't her job to clean up around the library, but she was still so embarrassed for having caused the trouble in the first place.

"Whether or not I want to be near them right now, I'll have to be. I've got a research paper due sometime next week, and it really cannot wait." Not for her sensibilities. As much as she hated research papers and the groundwork they required, she didn't hate having reasonably good grades. %#$, she got extra perks for having them. Her parents tended to disapprove when they dropped below a certain range, and she really couldn't have that. It was just too much of a hassle.

"Son of a %$*@#!" Amara yelped, before she could stop herself. "Sorry, sorry. Oh bloody $*#@." When she'd jerked away from the impact, the contents of her unfortunately open purse had spilled out onto the floor... at least some of them. The movement had been violent enough to make an even worse mess. Gritting her teeth, she rubbed her forehead, and then scrambled to pick up everything that she could. "Oh... oh crap. Where is my wallet?" Oh no. Oh no, this could not be happening to her! Really? All in one day? Really? Crawling around on the floor in a truly undignified manner, she searched rather desperately for the wallet that she'd had in her hand only a minute or two before.

Oh, of all the...! "I would lose my wallet after a spectacle like that. Oh dear." Cheeks flushed with shame, the girl sat back on her heels, and tried to sort things out. Most of her things were gathered up now, but her wallet was definitely missing, and possibly her cell phone. She wasn't sure, exactly, considering that her neatly organized purse was now in a complete disarray. "I'm so sorry about this," she repeated, feeling totally at a loss. Was the poor Librarian used to this sort of trouble? She tended to be accident prone, but this was ridiculous even for her.

"I really... do you... h-happen to see a purple wallet anywhere? It's leather, and has a cursive A stitched across it?" Custom made, in point of fact. How terribly, dreadfully embarrassing. Was he sure that she couldn't pay him for the damages? Surely some of the materials were mucked up from the fall. She was beginning to develop a headache, and she didn't know whether it was from the giggling of a nearby Library-goer, or from the hits to her head that she had taken. "Library card. Yes, that would be good. But I think I need my ID, don't I? And it's..." Well, it was in the wallet. Bloody $*@#.

He seemed to be nearly as embarrassed as she was, at least, no longer appearing to be amused by her misfortune (which was rather considerable, in her opinion). She wasn't the most graceful young woman ever, but before today she hadn't realized quite the depth of it. "I seem to be... rather a terror in libraries, don't I?" Flustered, and trying to ignore the rude tittering that the situation was inspiring, she tried once more to find her wallet, hoping that her cell phone would soon follow if she managed it. Sadly, her wallet was either underneath a book somehow, or tucked away near (under?) a shelf.

"I beg your pardon!" Amaravati said indignantly, while the Librarian (the %*#@ably attractive Librarian) used her chest to balance himself. It didn't immediately appear that that was his goal though, when he flopped back over. "This is simply too much." Getting up in a hurry, she twisted to see what he was looking at... and panicked. "You cannot seriously be recording this!" she snapped at the library-goer, gathering up what she could of her things. In her haste, she tripped over Tony, and fell full across him, the only thing stopping her from being pressed against him her hands which held her up from the floor in something resembling a push-up.

"Err. S-Sorry. Didn't mean for... I mean..." Amara sighed, well aware that usually she was not this flustered, that she did not get this flustered. But then again, she had never before met someone who was quite so accident prone as she was. Scrambling back, she tried to avoid any more awkward touches, cheeks positively flaming with embarrassment. "Are you absolutely sure that I cannot make reparations in some way?" she asked finally, looking dreadfully out of sorts.

When she sat back, it was with a muffled exclamation-- something beneath her was terribly uncomfortable-- Oh. Wait. That was her cellphone. Well, that was good, at any rate. Now if only she could find her wallet. "... ... Oh no. I've lost that book!" The book that she had came to check out, which was now somewhere in the haphazard pile. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Why did this sort of thing seem to always happen to her? More so now than ever before, %*#@it. It didn't seem fair.

As pleasant as it ordinarily would have been to be spending so much time with a handsome man like Tony, Amara found that it was rather... less than that, of current. But then again, she was without her wallet, and the reason she had come here in the first place. And there were people laughing at her, and someone was videotaping her. At this point, she was nearly on the verge of tears, as red as she could get given her dark complexion. How terribly, horribly humiliating! On any other day, she would have been quite amused by the state of affairs, but certainly not today.

Tony, for his part, had come rather dangerously close to being slapped, poor man. She felt a little bad about that, about assuming the worst of him, but considering where his hand had been, it had felt completely justified at the time. That was, until she managed to land sprawled across him. At that point it had become quite clear that it hadn't been his fault initially. Of course, it was a little too late to be thinking about such things. If only she could find her wallet in this mess!

Amaravati buried her face in her hands when she noticed the flash of a camera. ... That wasn't from a phone, $*@#it. "You should make a rule about taking photos in the library," the girl said miserably, pausing only to put the wallet and cellphone safely away. Oh dear. Why did these things continue to happen? "Ordinarily, I would invite you out to tea, or ... or lunch, or something, to apologize. But I don't think that that will work out very well in this situation." Cheeks still ablaze, for all of Tony's kind words, she drew her hands down into her lap, where surely they could do no harm.

She dreaded reading the next morning's paper, visions of headlines flashing before her eyes. 'Librarian seduces Heiress', came the first... and shortly after, something about unsanctioned afterschool activities, and she needed to stop right there. It was just simply awful. Little did she know that rather than going to the papers, people were much more likely to put such things up on youtube. "You're terribly kind, but I... really have imposed quite a bit on you. Are you sure there isn't any way that I can repay you?"

Oh god. She was going to be quoted on that, she just knew it. Darting wild eyes around, she caught sight of someone paying a little too close attention to the pair of them. ... Auuugh. Was that a notepad in his hand? "Thank you for my wallet, by the way." She wouldn't want him to think that she had overlooked it. Kindness ought to be repaid in kind, and she only wished that she knew what to do to make it up to him. He was being so gentle with her after all of the embarrassing things she'd done, and she wasn't so sure that she had earned it.

She could just see the headline now: 'Elicit Meeting in the Library: Destiny City's Love Lorn Librarian'. She rubbed her temples, trying to figure out how best to handle the situation. She wasn't used to being in mix-ups that were quite so ... involved. Usually, she just ran into someone, and that was that. It didn't take much more than an apology to sort things out. True, she had occasionally followed up by purchasing something for the person in question. "Can't I offer something in return for your kindness?" she asked, unaware of how incredibly suggestive the remark was.

Perhaps it was because Amaravati was already off balance. ... Or perhaps it was because just when Tony moved to help her to her feet, the heel of her very high strappy sandal gave out. Maybe. Either way, when the Librarian grasped Amara's hand, she lost her balance completely, and inadvertently pulled him along with her as she windmilled, falling down onto the ground with a rather noticeable crack. Blinking dazedly up at the man who was perhaps two or three inches away from her, the young woman tried to sort herself out. "... Think I've maybe hit my head a few too many times," she said rather vaguely, her eyes looking a little glassy. Or maybe it was because the very handsome Librarian was very much too close for comfort.

Well. Okay, so there was definitely comfort involved, but it was the wrong sort entirely, and now was not the time or the place for it. The camera flashed again, catching them in another compromising position. "Oh blast," she said when she realized that the heel of her shoe had broken. So that was why she'd fallen, then. Trying to think through things, she brought her hands up to help him off of her, and then just... stopped when she realized how that looked. It didn't seem innocent at all, which was hardly fair. They hadn't meant anything by all of this, after all.

It was decidedly uncomfortable on the floor, with a book or two prodding into her back, her purse flung a little ways away from her. "We... I should get m-my library card. So that I can... ch-check that book out," the normally collected young woman stuttered, averting her gaze from the man's face. She couldn't quite budge him, and certainly not without looking all the worse for it. If those photos hadn't been destined for the papers before, they certainly were now. Bloody #$%#ing $#$%. How on Earth was she supposed to do something about that? "It's not at all like taking pictures in a park," she accused, glaring in the vague direction of the man with that bloody notepad, and camera.

Where was the book, anyway? And why wasn't anyone moving to help them? It seemed odd that in a library such as this one that there wasn't at least one other staff member to assist a pair of unfortunates like themselves. Really, it was strange. Or were the library staff also staring at them like a gaggle of school children? Her brows drew together in a faint frown, and she decided that she would give whoever was there a piece of her mind, if she got the chance. For now, though, her head was hurting, and she was tangled up with Tony in ways that she didn't even want to think about.

It was moments like this one that made Amaravati regret wearing skirts. Ever. Well, if she couldn't get up, she could at least smooth the $*#@ thing down, so that she wasn't making more of a spectacle of herself than she already had. Trying to avoid being as flustered as by all rights she should be, she hoped that at least the photographer hadn't gotten a shot of her laid out like this. That was the last thing she needed! It was surprisingly hard to focus, really. Not eased at all by the fact that Tony had been on top of her, his nose nearly touching hers.

She was going to die of shame, really she was. "I liked those shoes," she said sadly, wiggling the affected foot to see if she'd somehow injured it. ... Right about then, she noticed that the $*@# thing was pulsating like a $#$*ing binary star, except for the whole pain thing. There was definitely pain. "Oww." Right, so... moving? Not such a good plan. She ceased trying to move her foot, wincing a little. She didn't immediately share with the Librarian that she'd managed (or so she thought) to sprain her ankle. That was information for another time.

Or maybe it wasn't, considering that between the ankle and the knocks to the head, she was definitely feeling considerably under the weather. "Um. I think I may have twisted my ankle when w-we fell." Which was really not helping things, given that she had to drive herself back home after she got the library card and book. It was shaping up to be a truly miserable day, and really, she was having trouble not becoming upset. More upset than before, in any case.

Not only was there some man with a notepad full of tidbits, but a camera full of pictures of them. On top of that, she was now the subject of quite a few pairs of interested eyes. As though that weren't enough, she'd managed to hurt herself in the process, and it was just getting worse. If she so much as moved, she risked causing herself further damage. "This isn't how I had planned my day to go," she muttered to herself, looking absolutely pathetic, especially for Amaravati. Most things didn't phase her, but it seemed that her being humiliated so thoroughly was one of those things that would.