Welcome to Gaia! ::

As you enter the library, it looks fairly mundane. Check out desk, tables, carts of books, a couple ancient computers...nothing outstanding. And then you notice that the book shelves are high. Looking up, most can't even see the top shelves, they just disappear into the darkness above. You can hear things flying overhead, and a shift in the room's lighting reveals that it's not a bat, bird, or student, but rather...books flapping about, some with wings and a few glowing ones simply floating.

A glance from side to side, and just like the ceiling, the walls cannot be seen, what you can see through the maze of shelves is that everything extends into a kind of limitless darkness. Soft snarls, and clinking chains can be heard around every corner. The more aggressive books have been chained to the shelves with very little slack, but that doesn't keep them from at least trying to bite off the hands of unwary students.

Created and fed by the fears and anxieties of human school children over the centuries, every nook and cranny of the Academy is imbued with extra FEAR, and it's at the library where this is most apparent.

Oh god.

Books.

Arcadia flicked her tail uncomfortably, drawing her wings in close and grimacing. There were so many of them. She'd obviously taken a wrong turn somewhere- she was horrible with directions and indoor spaces - and found herself in what she could only assume was a li-dairy. Where you... milk books.

Yeah, she was pretty sure that was how it worked.

At any rate, this was certainly not the kind of thing she'd been looking forward to when Gladys had told her about the infamous Amityville Academy. She'd come mostly to see the Bruteball team, and maybe talk to some of the FEARleaders. Or any sports team, really. She'd also kind of hoped that the event would merit some kind of buffet. With food. Lots and lots of food. Just the thought made her salivate a little, and she was pleasantly distracted from her literate fate - until she heard the sound of someone YELLING in the distance. Hurrying past the rows and rows of ancient tomes, she tried to decipher the message. Flies? Books? Walls? Oh god, were the walls covered in FLYING ATTACK BOOKS?

She slowed down considerably, peeking around the corner at a really odd looking little girl. She had bear arms. That was kind of cool. Cady wondered if something so small looking could be so loud. She had half a mind to ask- so she did.

"HEY! You. How are you so loud? Are there book monsters? I think we're in a li-dairy. I don't know how to milk books, but it might make the monsters go away, do you? By the way, my name is Cady." She ended her tirade, gasping for breath. Peering around, she added, "I don't see any monsters, anyway."

Cady grinned. She wasn't TOTALLY sure what the other girl was talking about, but she seemed to know a lot more about - libreddies? - than her. PLUS, she was reading a book.

"A book?! Like...a whole thing? With like, the pages n' everything?" She looked properly horrified. "Does it...y'know...have pictures?" she added hopefully. They weren't so bad when they had the pictures. It was almost bearable. Haha. Bears.

Oh! Coming out from behind the bookshelf, she moved a little closer. She didn't correct her about being quiet, she remembered something about that in...Libreddies. Whatever they were. "Undead...New for me." She leaned forward, sniffling a little. She did smell something funny, underneath the scent of clothes and bandages.

"Gladys says we're not monsters, we are just misunderstood," she rattled off automatically. She was still leaning forward. Taking in another deep breath, and maintaining eye contact just above Owl's shoulder, she commented absently, "You smell...different. Not food." The thought brought her back to her predicament, and she moaned unhappily, straightening a little. "Do libreddies have food?" she asked. grimacing.

Twenty. Pages.

Cady was stunned into a momentary and uncharacteristic silence.

"That is..." She held up her hands, opening and closing them twice. "THIS MANY?" Even with pictures, she was impressed. Gladys had given up on her reading a long time ago, and instead worked on coaching her how to speak properly. She might be able to inflect well, or have better grammar, but it was mostly thanks to lots of rewards- based memorization.

She had to admit though, it sounded like an interesting book. She'd never heard of cows shopping. But this girl had read a book. She must know what she was talking about. Obviously.

She didn't know what to say about her inability to smell. Cady would be LOST without her nose. More lost. Whatever. "Maybe it's because you have bandages over your face," she commented helpfully. She reached out to touch one curiously.

While obliviously attempting to invade Owl's personal space, she added. "What's a Groanspring?"

"Yes, this many!" Owl looked as smug as she could with a lack of nose and mouth.
"My nose it lack the smelly stuff. No smelly. I try, not work! All rotten."

Ooooh, Cady asked a question that Owlen knew EVERYTHING about. She was basically a groanspring PRO.

"Groanspring is computer page. I asking questions to student at this school and they are asking me question. I NOT EVEN HAVE TO MEET THEM IN LIFE!"

Owl, where can I get your genius? Seriously. Forget being a student. BE A TEACHER.

"DO YOU HAVE GROANSPRING?" She whispered loudly to the person hiding. She needed someone else to confirm the awesomeness of groanspring.

Rotten. Oh. Right, the undead thing. Cady wondered what that would look like.

"No smelly stuff? Does it look cool? Your arms look cool. Did you get them from a bear? I saw a picture of one once," she added proudly. "It was big. And brown. And it had teeth and claws, like me. I think it had a nose though."

She listened to Owl's informative lecture on Groanspring. She could talk to other students?! Her excitement was dampened by the fact that it was a page on the computer though. That would require...spelling. And reading, to boot. Although she'd noticed the internet had A LOT more pictures, and some of them got her into trouble with Gladys.

"Does Groanspring have pictures? I am really good at pictures. I could look at pictures all day," she declared confidently. Maybe if she broke open the computer, she could find the page Groanspring was on and pull it out. She just needed to know the picture to look for. Cady had never understood how it held so many pages in such a small box anyway.

Owl's stage whisper alerted her to the presence of another girl- who was staring a the ceiling. Following her gaze, Cady finally noticed that there were, indeed, flying book monsters. With a yelp, she dashed away, running full tilt and flailing her arms above her head defensively.

"NO! YOU CANNOT HAVE CADY'S EYEBALLS! THEY ARE FOR PICTURES NOT SQUIGGLY LETTERS AND WORDS OH JACK OH JACK OH JACKDAMMIT!" The tirade faded as she ran further and further into the maze of shelves.

The other two had resumed to their conversation...... about pictures and how they liked pictures? Edel tried hard to grasp the topic of their conversation but to no avail ovo ;;

She did pick out that the cute little girl was a rotting bear and that the other girl was called Cady.
Cady who was afraid of flying books it seems. Edel watched in silence with a D: face as Cady screamed and disappeared into the maze of shelves, with the rotting bear following behind yelling for her.

D-Did she say something wrong? Edel bit her lip and twiddled her fingers around. Ahhh but why? Flying books were so interesting!

The little rotting bear had made her way back. She was looking at Edel pretty eagerly and confidently - like she was about to say something.

"H-hi, I'm Edelweiss.....you may call me Edel :> "

"I Owlen but my name is Owl. My name nick." She was excited to eat- meet so many people! "What is your favourite color?" Her mother had told her that starting conversations was good.

Owl heard a jingle
and another jingle

She grabbed Edel by her arm and pulled her down to the floor to hide. That jingle thing was scary.
What noise WAS that?

"NOT BE ALARMED, EDEL! THIS CREATURE MAKE NOISE! SHHHH NO YELLING!" she yelled