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"THIS one," Taji said suddenly, chubby fingers closing around the thin spine of a children's book as she yanked it unceremoniously from the only shelf she could reach: the bottom one.

"Okay," said Cianan, who looked up from his own book andreached out to take it, but Rhine (the immortal enemy of every library ever) promptly snatched it from both his siblings and dangled it up in the air in front of him by a corner.

"Why?" Rhine made a face at the bright red dog plastered over the front cover of the Clifford book. "Look, every Clifford book ever is all 'THIS IS CLIFFORD. CLIFFORD IS A BIG RED DOG WHO STARTED OFF SMALL BUT GREW LIKE AN ELEPHANT ON CRACK. EVERYBODY LOVES CLIFFORD BECAUSE HE IS GOOD FOR DOING MENIAL CHORES AND FOR GIVING PONY RIDES, AND NO ONE EVER HAS TO CLEAN UP AFTER HIM.' You are not getting Clifford." With that, he promptly shoved the book on a higher shelf somewhere where it did not belong.

Taji, who had started listening intently but had gotten bored halfway through (and only understood half of it anyway), looked properly relieved at the end of Rhine's tirade. "Yeah!" She obligingly agreed with him, and then hopefully, "Magic School Bus?"

"No. No Magic School Bus. Here, you can read The Crucible. Everybody who doesn't die is evil. It's a good book."

"Except for the wife," Cianan pointed out cheerfully, tucking his own small pile of books underneath one arm and taking Taji's hand in his other. "Come on, I'll go find you Magic School Bus. At least it will not give you nightmares -- and it's educational."

"Beep beep!" The star spirit sang happily as she wobblingly followed after her brother to the reception desk, where they waited patiently behind a young woman holding an unhappy sounding baby.

"Educational -- but delusional!" Rhine howled after them, jabbing a finger accusingly at Cianan's retreating back, "You are deluding her into thinking busses can actually go inside volcanoes and human bodies and twenty thousand leagues under the sea!"

"My apologies," Cianan grinned lopsidedly at the woman, having the decency to look somewhat shamed, "My brother -- um. We don't get out much."

"Sor-reeee," Taji echoed anxiously too, dropping her voice to a mere whisper, and checked to make sure that she had no cookies that could be taken away. When Serra introduced herself, Taji stood up on tiptoe and leaned forward (pulling on her brother's arm for support) and raised a finger to her lips. "Sshhhh!!!"

As an afterthought, Taji rocked on her feet and then announced in a loud whisper to the other girl, "I am Taji! I like Magic School Bus." She beamed proudly at what was her most complex sentence structure yet.

"And I am Cianan," her brother likewise echoed in an attempt to humor his little sister, "I like Shakespeare."

"Serra!" Taji chirped happily, rapidly forgetting to be quiet, "Like the Little Princess! I like Serra." Though it was ambiguous whether she meant the name, the character, or the other spirit herself, it probably didn't matter to the young toddler, who practically radiated (well, she did glow in the dark) love for everything all at once.

"I haven't ventured very far into genres outside of classic literature," Cianan admitted, "I've only been here twice before, everything else I read was through my family's library. I did like what little fantasy I could find, though -- Gulliver's Travels, and of course A Midsummer's Night Dream... One of my personal favorites."

"Has got fairies," Taji, feeling vaguely left out of the book conversation, said helpfully to Serra.

"Yes." Cianan grinned and let go of her hand long enough to ruffle her hair before returning his attention to Aderyn. "Of course, if you have any recommendations...? --For Taji too, if you're familiar with children's books. We don't have any of those at all."

"Taaaa!" Taji said too and flailed her arms, mistaking it for a happy cry of some sort. "Taaaaaa! Do you like books, Serra?" Rhine was still sulking over by the children's book section, but perhaps he would not object to Clifford so much if she told him it was for her friend. "I can show you all the good ones with.. with pictures!"

She waited as patiently as she could, hopping from one bee-booted foot to another, as Aderyn talked a lot and finally placed Serra down on the ground. Taji wiggled her fingers and waved her hand, indicating to her new friend to follow her.

"Really?" Romance still had very little personal appeal to him, young as he was -- though he certainly didn't mind reading it -- though the time travelling bit sounded promising; it was ultimately the mention of necromancers immediately piqued his interest. Her last suggestion finally brought him out of his book reverie, "Oh... right."

He quickly located a nearby table, and half-hoping that Taji would go bother Rhine now, he shuffled out of his obvious place in line and gestured to it with his free hand. "Would you like to sit, then?"

Taji patiently led the way, hopping from one foot to the other with arms flailing as if crossing stones. Thankfully, it was not that far a distance to the children's book section -- a small 'circle' fenced in by short bookshelves and filled with beanbags and other scattered soft plushie toys. Rhine was sitting in the red beanbag chair, reading the Clifford book he had snatched from Taji earlier, and started and guiltily tried to hide it when the two girls arrived.

"This is my brother, he is a poopyhead," Taji politely introduced him to Serra with a large wave. To Rhine, she warned him with a "Gimme!" before running over and tackling him for claim of the book. Not wanting to be found with it anyway, the older boy easily surrendered it to his overeager sister and, sinking even further into the beanbag, tried very hard to become one with the library floor.

Taji victoriously skipped back over to Serra with Clifford book in tow and plunked herself down next to her (not so much sitting down gracefully as she fell calculatedly down on her butt), holding the book out for them to both look at. "This is Clifford! He is a Bigreddog."

"'n this is Emily Elizabeth," Taji continued, flipping the pages and allowing Serra to look at each one as she introduced each character, "She lives with Clifford the bigreddog, who started off as a tiny puppy," she gestured to the appropriate illustration, "And then he grew as big as a house! Rhine said it is because of... rad... radyoaktivity." She nodded solemnly.

She watched carefully as Serra leaned forward to touch the page and make a noise. It took the star spirit a moment to process it, but finally Taji grinned widely and laughed, "Your da is a bigreddog? That is so--" she had to pause to think of the proper word, and finally settled on, "--Cool! Does he give you rides?"

Without waiting for an answer, she continued faux-reading the book, completely making up the narrative and often interjecting with random facts that had absolutely no relevance to the story at hand, like -- oh, did you know the moon was made of cheese? And when she was done with that book, Taji went for another, and then another, until a small stack of completed Clifford books lay at the feet of both girls.

She would have moved on to the Magic School Bus series, except by that time it was late afternoon and only an hour until the library was to close.

"We have to leave," said Rhine, looming over his little sister. "OR ELSE WHAT," screeched Taji, her inherent unhappiness at having to do something she didn't want to do (in this case: leave her new friend) overriding her knowledge of the fact that the library was a shush-shush place. "Or else mother's going to have me arranged to be hit by a bus," continued Rhine breezily.

This made Taji stop and consider, and at last she had to decide that no, not even if the bus were the Magic School Bus would she really want her older brother run over and made forevermore flat with big tiretreads all over him. So, waving goodbye to Serra after the pair had made sure she was properly returned to her own guardian (and somehow managing to wrangle Cianan, equally reluctant to leave as Taji, away from the conversation), they left, and Taji proceeded to jump and yell at Rhine to hide whenever a bus came into view all along the way home.