Backdated to March


She’d come armed with cleaning supplies. Lots, and lots of cleaning supplies which included two buckets filled with sponges, rags, cleaning products of all sorts, and a few dusters. It wasn’t like the Wonder provided such things for her. If it did, the place wouldn’t have fallen into such disarray, or at least she felt that way. Then again, there was the problem of anyone actually having the capability to utilize said supplies. Cashel certainly couldn’t. So, that left the duty up to her. Not that a few hundred years worth of dust, grime and...whatever else was much for a single person. Nope. Not at all.

Hy-Brasil stood on the top floor of the library with a bucket in each hand. It was the floor that had needed the most work and love. Standing there at the entrance, the ginger found herself feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that was required for this floor alone, let alone the subsequent ones below. The amount of books alone...It had all sounded so easy when she had talked to Cashel about it, but now...well she was having second thoughts on her approach. The question was, what else was she going to do? The place wasn’t going to fix itself. Well, not in any timely manner that she could accept, so what else was there?

Depositing the buckets on the nearest desk she sighed. Unlacing her sleeves, she rolled up the fabric to keep it from getting wet whenever she began scrubbing. What she needed to do first though was begin emptying the shelves and that would require a place to sort the books. A quick glance around the room found her another desk, one larger than the rest of them. Grabbing a dusting rag she walked over and rid the piece of furniture of the most thickest of the dust. Cleaning it thoroughly before sorting the books on it would be a waste of time considering the state some of the tomes were.

“Geez. If only I had brought something to play music of something. It would have helped.” She mumbled as she walked over to the first shelf. The wood was bowing under the weight of the books that were, quite frankly, in terrible condition. Hy couldn’t even bring herself to attempt to open them as she pulled them from the shelf. They were in such a mess, considering they were on the shelf closest to the compromised part of the roof. These ones she stacked carefully alongside the desk, leaving the desk for those few she found that were at least safe to open. Not that she’d found anything she could even remotely attempt to read. If it wasn’t the ruined ink it was the language itself. Maybe I won’t be learning anything from these.

A cloud of dust sprouted up in her face causing an immediate sneezing fit that left her stepping back and away from her project. She waved a hand in front of her face in an attempt to rid the cloud Finally, after more sneezing and a bit of coughing it began to subside and Hy finally noted the progress she had made and felt disheartened. It was like she had barely touch the tip of the iceberg of what needed to be done. There were certainly more books on shelves than off the shelves. How long had she been at it so far? With no time piece on her it was hard to tell, but the sun certainly had shifted since the light was now coming from different windows. “Perfect” She sighed out, exasperated. “Why did I think this would be easy?” Because she never had to clean something like a library before. One could easily loose scope of how much stuff was loaded onto shelves.

Stepping back she leaned against the desk, half sitting on it as she assessed her situation fully. There was so much to do in the larger scope. How was she going to do it all? Considering how large the castle was and how much love each and every room, hallway, nook and crannie required...well, she’d be at this for a large portion of her life. Assuming she ever truly finished. After all, anyone who has ever cleaned anything can attest to how quickly dust and dirt seemed to just recollect on the clean surfaces. It always felt like the cleanliness attracted dirt like a magnet.

Stepping back she half leaned, half sat upon the edge of the desk It was about the only bit of surface not taken up by papers and books. But Hy let herself relax as she mentally worked to prepare herself for the work ahead of her. It was a lot. It was daunting. Almost completely overwhelming. It was a mental battle taking place inside of her. Apart of her wanted to give up on the task, callit impossible and let the wonder deal with it itself over time, while another part of her wanted to whip through the room like a tornado and get things done. It was….it was…

She was being childish. Here she was with this beautiful and interesting Wonder and she already felt down about working on it. “Grow up.” She huffed at herself in anger as she pushed away from the desk. There was nothing else to it. She needed to get s**t done one way or another. If it took her years. Fine. She’d do it. Long term goals were good to have. Plus it gave her reasons to visit as often as she could and that was always a perk in her own opinion.

Hy always found the Wonder as a relaxing and almost healing space for her.

In a way, she felt like she owed the Wonder for that peace of mind. Somewhere she could run away to and just be herself and forget her woes on Earth.

“Ok. Gotta get back at this.” She walked back over to the shelves and systematically began to pull things from the shelves as carefully as she could. Assessing the range of damage and categorizing them as such.

“Good thing I brought enough food incase I decided to spend the entire weekend, because it might take me that long just to clear this space out.”

WC: 1024