Tiyan Markon loved working in a library.
The soothing peace of silent people and the smell of books, were making him drift in a peculiar nothingness, hanged between hidden worlds inside the tomes – and his own responsibilities. His boss always told him he has head in clouds. And it was true.
When he was not showing books to people or register the borrowed ones in the system, he very often was brushing through them, trying to find one perfect one to take home. Of course he would return.
Or not.
Depends on how he liked it. He was coming to conclusion, that buying books should be reserved only to the best volumes. And his house was small.
And lonely.
He partially worked in library to catch on the bookish girls. He had no self confidence, almost at all, but he knew things about books. Bookish girls loved his energy when he talked about them, hyped, truly devoted. With red on his cheeks and shaking voice.
Maybe he was fooling himself a bit. Maybe they just found him funny.
But fooling himself was better than nothing. Maybe he was already one foot in a romance, which he would love to live through, but the reality was pulling him out with sharp claws.
“The mathematics. Thank you!” he heard a voice and he thought that the owner of the voice couldn’t choose worse. When he was still attending school, it was his most feared subject. Scary. He was bad at medium equations, not to mention something more complex. His pony was literature, always hopelessly drown in fantasy.
And horror.
Horror was terrifying him, but he never had enough of it. He even didn’t returned “Ritual” by Graham Masterton. It was so gruesome – eating own flesh – but somehow it was hitting all chords in him at once. His mother was always saying he is her lost fairy. And fairies were gruesome, in some way. Maybe he was a changeling, dropped by the mother’s door, like Harry Potter.
It was a nice imagination. Maybe that’s why he was so withdrawn. He didn’t fit this world.
He peeked over the shelf and saw a girl, taking the books from the counter and aiming the row of tables. He would give her sixteen to eighteen. Around his age; he just had to start the job earlier, to help his family, which struggled more and more.
She was a bit plump and short, one of the girls, who have hard at school. He had hard too – never got into football team, never played any sports, simply because he didn’t want to. But that was lowering him in the eyes of girls in his class. For him sports were boring, over-hyped and reserved for those who can’t read so they try to reach points by hitting others between the ribs, or roll a ball over the grass.
Besides, Tiyan was practicing. With a bow. So… he chose most sophisticated “sport”, and that suited him. As it was not sport. It could be used for hunting. Survival. Something that would help him in case of sudden world collapse… or a zombie apocalypse.
He decided to walk to her, but only when he saw other book laying on her table. He caught by the corner of his eyes dark fantasy novel, the ones he read too. He couldn’t stop being attracted to all those dark elves, fae, and dragons. Vampires and wild werewolves. All yearning to fuck you. He knew the appeal.
Maybe because he was a changeling and he would be fucked in fae realm, if he stay there and had a good luck.
“Can I join?” his voice wasn’t nervous. At least not that. He brought few book, caught in the move from the shelf. “Queen of the Damned” and “Vampire Lestat”. And “Psychology of Manipulation”. Perfect. He pushed the last one at the bottom of the pile.
The girl looked at him with a fierce glint in her eye.
“That depends. Who are you?”
“Tiyan… Tiyan Markon” he introduced himself. And sat, even, if she didn’t allow yet. The girl narrowed her eyes behind the glasses. She looked like all-knowing owl. “I work here.”
“You sat already, so I think you can” she replied. Her doubt still lingering, but Tiyan’s face had to seem friendly, because she smiled.
And owl with a smile.
“Talia Morawa. I didn’t see you here too often.”
“I am pretty new” he admitted. “They needed specialist with books, so they hired me.”
How funny.
Talia’s face illuminated even more. She wasn’t that scary, after all. Something in her, though… a weird aura of something… weirdly familiar.
“I see you like the dark romance” he mused and pointed at the pile. “I read them too, sometimes. I find them refreshing.”
“Oh. Oh, god” she blushed and almost covered the books with her hand. “I— I like to read all. Everything to separate me from school, mathematics and physics.”
“They erotics carry a lot of emotional weight” smiled Tiyan. Yes, and naked breasts, and hardened dicks. His favorite. But he didn’t have to tell her that.
“I like to delve into psychology” she became redder. “Dismantle the motives behind all the characters. Why there are like that, why darkness.”
“I like morally grey” agreed Tiyan. Because they fuck hardest. “And the struggles between light and night. You see, it’s the light that most of the time wins. Even if night seems stronger.”
Talia nodded, enthusiastically.
“Everything can be exposed to light. Darkness is not eternal. It just needs a good push.”
Tiyan would prefer his darkness not enlightened. Something to masochistically dive in… and never come back.
“What books you have there?” she bent forth and he showed her first of them. “Queen of the Damned.” “Oh, Anne Rice! I used to be a fan when I was fifteen… you know… there is a lot of tension, dark and intense, in them. I still think they are cool. Have you read all of them?”
“Yes, few times” Tiyan smiled sheepishly. “They are quite unusual, but that’s their charm.”
“Unusual?”
“After all, the vampires see world so differently. They are so different than us, inhuman. Even reality tries to show them how much they do not belong. I—“
Talia rose her eyebrow, curiously.
No. He won’t tell her “like me”. It would look like he wants to look more than he is. Like those vampires. But it was true. He didn’t belong. Stolen by fairies when he was just a toddler, to be returned as strange and lonely being.
Talia pinned him to his chair with her gaze. Tiyan wondered if she sees something in him, too, just as he saw something in her. Some unusual energy. That could be thrilling.
“You said they hired you as book specialist?” she raised a brow.
“I read a lot and I think they wanted someone who can advice better.”
“So cool. I didn’t even know such position exists in the library. I thought all here are after one book or more.”
I made it up, he thought.
The reader approached the counter and now, waited impatiently. Of course no one was there, so Tiyan knew it must be him.
“Job calls” he said – almost against himself. “Would you like to… hmm… maybe talk about books more often? I could recommend you something you still have never read.”
“Sure” Talia’s smile was bright… but something lurking beneath it… something tingled his changeling senses. Almost like Spiderman’s. Changlingman. “From someone who is so deep in the topic, it could be helpful.”
And Tiyan knew who’s face he will see at night.
Talia’s.
The girl surrounded by slight pink light.
*
Talia blinked, one time, second.
This boy… was strange. Something in him tossed and threw, like some force held on a leash. It scared her a bit… a tiny tiny bit. Not much.
She was more curious.
She could see a tiny thread of a darkness, attached to his head. Like a string which pulls and pulls, until mind snaps. It was weird but at the same time fascinating. She first time met someone who had a shadow in his head.
And it looked like only she was seeing it.