[OPEN] I've got ideas, but it's nothing I picked up at school

[misdirection_hex]

WHO: Vandelin and anyone else!
WHAT: Concussions. (Among other things.)
WHEN: Any time during the month.
WHERE: The library and the clinic.
NOTES: Always happy to add another starter!

1. Library

There's very little that Vandelin actually misses about the Circle, and still less that he would ever admit to missing--but the one thing he'd appreciate having back, even if he'd never cop to it, is a library that accommodates short people well. Perhaps Hasmal's library had been designed by an elven mage, or perhaps its low shelves and abundant stepladders were simply coincidental conveniences, but he'd never had any trouble reaching a book he wanted back there.

Well, there's nothing for it. He's not about to just ask someone for help. Checking carefully to make sure nobody's watching, he places a chair in front of the shelf, stacks a couple thick textbooks on top of it, and gets climbing.

2. Clinic

The chair had looked stable. Vandelin will maintain until his dying day that his makeshift stepladder had been a perfectly decent idea while it lasted. He has, in fact, been insisting this all the way to the clinic, with slightly slurred words, to the annoyance of the guy who's taken it upon himself to escort the poor concussed elf there so that he isn't wandering aimlessly around Darktown with a huge target on his back.

The walk has at least done him a bit of good, and he is slightly more lucid when he makes his way through the door, off-balance and bruised and leaning on his staff. "Is there a...wait, or can I just see a healer?"

3. Wildcard

Surprise me!

Comments

new official theme song

[misdirection_hex]

Vandelin's weight alone hadn't been impinging too much on the shelf's stability, possibly because he weighs about as much as a malnourished nug, but with Wren's agitation of it in addition to the viselike grip he's using to distribute his body mass between shelf and chair, it's all getting a bit hairier. It remains to be seen which one of them will let go before the whole thing topples over, like a very stupid game of bookshelf chicken.

"If ever anyone could figure out how to work blood magic with just a few stepladders, I suppose it would be the mages of Kirkwall." He might admire the hypothetical ingenuity, but honestly, blood magic is such a lazy outlet for academic talent.

He reaches for the sickly green cover of Walking the Fade: Frozen Moments before the templar can get at it. The shelf sways.

[limier]

"Terribly messy in a library, however —"

She sees he’s got it (Callistus, ugh), pulls back to step down. The shelf splinters beneath. There’s just time enough to affect an expression of deep regret before it’s all happening at once: Books plummet like small missiles, templar plummets like a significantly larger one, and she reaches out on useless instinct for the shelf — only to drag it further in the direction of her fall.

This is not a smart move.

Wren finds ground just in time to brace the toppling thing half-up, but it’s something of an effort and not one which affords an immediate glance to the fate of Vandelin-and-improvised-stepladder.

It affords plenty of time for a string of Orlesian curses, the verb forms for which almost certainly exist in Old Tevene, but almost certainly not in any published guide.

[misdirection_hex]

Any one of those heavy books, falling on Vandelin's tiny little birdlike body, could probably fracture bone at the very least. One could thank the Maker's providence that only the lighter ones do, if one were willing to ignore the fact that providence should probably have kept the shelf from collapsing in the first place if it really wanted to look out for them. But then, the Maker has never been said to have much patience for the hubris of His creations--and not even Vandelin, skilled as he is at deflecting blame, can pretend he wasn't at least fifty percent responsible for this entire debacle.

He does not have time to sort out who precisely is at fault for what in the midst of it all. While Wren is dragging the shelf down with her, Vandelin is executing a perfect, unintentional backward swan dive off his chair-and-book contraption, the Tevene dictionary and its companions sliding out from under his feet in such a way as to launch him off the chair and into the neighboring bookcase, which has done nothing to offend anyone, but which happens to have a painfully solid edge for Vandelin to whack his head on.

In the blurry-edged confusion that follows, it occurs to him--the reaction somewhat delayed, but insistent--that the librarians are going to be furious about this mess. He's got to fix it. He can't get away with blaming it all on the templar. She can afford to be banned from the library, probably, because honestly what do the pigs need books for anyway, but he can't.

"I got this," he mumbles, almost-coherently, reaching out to direct whatever magic feels like answering him at the shelf and the fallen books. It's like repairing a wall, or clearing rubble, isn't it? Things will move if you tell them to move, sort of, sometimes. Just charge it with enough energy, and--

--well, the books are doing something, at any rate, but slamming repeatedly into Wren's knees is not what he was going for, and the shelf is not standing itself upright again at all.

[limier]

Crack goes Vandelin's skull, she can only assume, and magic is dangerous at the best of times. Magic done by someone with a probable head injury —

A surprisingly lengthy tome on snofleurs batters her shins, and thank fuck he hasn't managed to reach the shelf with it. She shoots a look over her shoulder, the strain of motion and exasperation mingled with immediate concern.

(It needn't be said: Not for his sake.)

"Sit down," She hisses, knowing already how useless it is. Her efforts redouble: Best they get this thing up before he tries to help any further, and how is this going to look, Coupe? Braining an idiot in public, demolishing a workspace, great job. Stellar work, "Oh, for fuck's sake!"

A little louder as one manages to clobber another book out of the air, as though two fighting roosters. There's a figure approaching down the aisle at looming pace, a brick of a man in archivist's attire. He doesn't look happy.