Fail in Persuasion (Open)

[Lyra Blackwalde]

"So what you're trying to tell me- please, correct me if I'm wrong here, alright?" Lyra said, flashing the student standing before her a quick smile before her gaze went back down to the book. Anyone who was paying attention could see the expression was more a flash of teeth than anything else. Lyra stood there, elbows on the counter with a book opened wide before her. Normally all the books in the academy's librarian were kept in relatively good, if not great, condition. This book was not. A good chunk of pages had turned into a darkish brown color having been drenched in some sort of liquid. As Lyra lifted up one of the discolored pages, the rest followed with low crackling noises.

"-Is that you had absolutely nothing to do with this, and you found the book this way? Looking like someone had upturned a pint of brown glue all over it?" Now her eyes flicked back up from the book and she let the fused pieces of parchment fall back down. She would've worried about damaging it in normal circumstances, but the book was essentially ruined at this point.

"Darling, you should've just come clean and said this was an accident. A book with this kind of damage? We would never check it out." Lyra informed them with a mild glare. A mix of frustration, anger, and mild disappointment mixed in her features. Guiltily, the student squirmed where they stood. They tried to recover with some sort of apology or further explaination, but Lura held up a hand. "No no no, none of that. You've said enough, and all of it pointless. You'll receive the charge for a new book. Out." With that she snapped her fingers and the student just vanished from the spot to reappear in the hallways outside. Lyra had enough of them.

Rubbing her temples for a moment, she shoved the book to the side of the desk. Frustration still remained in her expression, and understandably so. Fortunately she didn't see the student try coming in again. Instead she found someone else was standing before her desk. Meaning they probably just watched her bamf a student out of there. Trying for a kind, I-promise-not-to-teleport-you-too smile, her irritation still seeped into it a little. "Is there something you need?"

[Simon Finch]

"Just this checked out, if you don't mind," Simon handed the obviously frustrated woman a worn copy of This Side of Paradise - an old favourite. He offered her a warm smile to let her know that he meant no harm in approaching her. He really only wanted the book. Besides, the little show had been a little enjoyable, even if he, as a member of the staff, would never admit it. And the kid had it coming. Books never deserved to be treated like that.

He eyed the book that he had just handed her with an almost childish sense of excitement brewing. He had read the book dozens of times, and yet he was checking it out again. To him, rereading a book was like visiting an old friend, and this one was an especially close one. His eyes shifted from his Fitzgerald pick over to the one that the student had just handed in, and he felt a sense of duty sweep over him.

Simon cleared his throat and nodded his head toward the vanished student, a hint of a smirk on his lips, "any idea where you sent him? Not that I'm judging, of course; books should never be treated like that, but I mean, if he's somewhere dangerous, then we should probably send someone to get him, no?"

[Lyra Blackwalde]

Seeing this man, who was quite obviously not a student and one of the staff that Lyra had seen a few time but never interacted with, act so serenely towards her helped calm her down. She took the book he offered to her. Glancing over the title with a little hmm of vague approval, she scanned the book's barcode to register it. "Not at all." She mumbled before placing it before her. However she didn't slid it back to him just yet. "I'll just need your card so I know who checked it out." Which the man likely knew of course. So she took the card and swiped it fast before pushing both card and book over towards him.

"As for the student you don't have to worry." Offhandedly assuring him, she shrugged dismissively. "I don't have the range to send anyone directly to hell." There was an unsaid and joking yet at the end of that sentence, but Lyra only voiced it with a slight bit of a smirk herself. "I sent him into the hall directly outside. Although by now he's probably hightailed it out of here. If he's smart that is."

With that she glanced back over to the destroyed book. With a scoff and pulled it back in front of her and lifted the large chunk of fused pages again. "Although from what I've just experienced, I don't think that's likely." Lyra shut the book, which made a sickly crunch that had her wincing almost as if in pain. It was a horrible noise to hear coming from a book.

[Simon Finch]

Simon grinned and shook his head at her joke. “Well, good, I wouldn’t want to be the one to deal with that paperwork.” He strained his neck around the corner to where the door to the library was, attempting to see if the student was still there. There was no sign of him. "Looks like he's gone. Smarter than he seems."

He closed his eyes and winced at the sound of the book falling into the trash. It was a sickening noise, and definitely not one that should have ever come from a book. What exactly had happened to the thing was entirely unclear, but Simon was not about to put his money on anything good. He just prayed that it was something to do with his powers rather than... Something else...

Simon turned back to the librarian, trying to get the sound out of his head, and picked up the book she had just passed him. He pocketed his card and glanced at the woman. He racked through his memories and snapped his finger, as if doing so would help him remember. 

"You're - uhm - Lyra, right? The nurse?" He finally settled on a name, trying to make it look like he hadn't totally ignored the fact that they worked together. There weren't that many staff members, but there were several that he rarely interacted with, so names occasionally escaped him.

[Lyra Blackwalde]

"I can't even imagine what that sort of paperwork would look like." Lyra commented as she also strained her head towards the door. Since it was shut, any view of the hall outside was obscured. However she didn't recognize the same student anywhere inside the library, so Lyra figured they'd made off with their tail between their legs.

"Good because my next destination was going to be the basement." Remarking this offhandedly, she stared at the now destroyed book in her hands. It really was a shame to see any form of literature- bar a few personal selections- in such a condition. With a heavy sigh, she placed it elsewhere on the desk to deal with later.

As Simon lingered and abruptly snapped, Lyra glanced back up at him. She smiled a little and nodded her head. "That's me. Although I usually get remembered for being the scary librarian." She commented with a wry chuckle. "I can't imagine why." It was impressive that Simon remembered her given that she had no recollections of them talking before now. Which really was a bit of a wonder. It wasn't as if the school were enormous or anything. "Your name's Simon, right?" Unlike him, she'd gotten to cheat by scanning his card. "Sorry, but what do you do again?"

[Simon Finch]

Simon shrugged, deciding to continue on with the topic rather than let it drop, which likely would have been the socially expected thing to do. "Probably lots of symbols. Arabic writing. Ancient runes. You know, your basic, run of the mill demon-summoning garbage." A warm, signature grin spread across his face with ease, accompanying the joke.

"That's correct," he nodded at the mention of his name. For a moment, he was very impressed that she'd known it. After all, was pretty much a hermit by all accounts. But then it clicked: she'd seen his name on the library card. He was beating her in the area of names. For that, he was rather proud. It usually wasn't a strong suit of his. 

Simon toed the ground as he continued, "self-declared powers specialist. Basically, I help students sort out their issues with their powers. Whatever those might be. People usually come to me, so I don't bother to venture out of my office very much. You're not the first staff member not to know, don't worry." He finished his sentence and decided that he had filled his quota of talking about himself for the day. Maybe even the next two.

He tapped his book on the desk absently and glanced behind him. There was no one coming, so he allowed himself to loiter at the desk of the pretty librarian a little longer. "So I take it that you don't often get books in as bad a shape as that? Any other horror stories from your time spent in here?"

[Lyra Blackwalde]

Managing to surprise her, Simon kept on going with the funny little topic. Lyra glanced back up at him and gave a little smirk. "Oh definitely. Probably one of the 'burns up when you're finished writing' deals too. Just for that extra dose of class." She pinched her fingers together in a little sarcastic gesture to say "perfect" before dropping it. She could be silly but it usually only came in bursts.

After she'd put the book to the side, Simon gained her full attention. It was a little odd that Simon was still lingering around, and he might've gotten the sense that Lyra wasn't exactly used to the extended company. Nevertheless she didn't find herself disliking it, so she found no problem responding to him. "Actually that only makes me more curious that we haven't really seen or heard much about each other. I've dealt with so many power related injuries. Powers going haywire, side-effects kicking in, fights between students going to far..." As she spoke she ticked off each with her fingers before waving off. "Basically I've seen way too much."

As the subject came back to the ruined book Lyra felt her eyes drift towards it. A dry smile creased her face and her eyes flicked back towards Simon." Not usually, no." She said before turning her full head to him. "But this isn't the worst I've seen. Hell, I could probably write a book myself about all the different damages I've seen here. Someone tried passing off that their dog ate the pages, but they were a canine shifter and didn't have any pet to speak of. There was also the time someone left a book outside over winter. They racked up quite the charge for late fees and when they found the book it was a bookcicle." Lyra kind of chuckled to herself and shook her head. She gestured with a dismissive wave. "But I could go on and on about that."

[Simon Finch]

Simon nodded in agreement at her comment. "Well if you have something like that again, you can feel free to call me. It technically is part of my job to deal with stuff like that." He paused before continuing, "I'm actually a little surprised we haven't crossed paths before. We should really get something going to account for things like that." There were far too many times that students chose to try and deal with things on their own rather than see him. It would help to have another eye out there to send students that needed help his way.

He chuckled at her story about the canine shifter lightly. "I guess, it's a good thing that we have someone here to deal with things, then. I doubt we’d be able to manage without you. I know I wouldn’t be able to do your job.” Well, that was sort of true. He mostly just knew that he wouldn’t be able to deal with getting the damaged books back. He would probably just let the students leave without saying anything about it.

Simon glanced behind him and nodded to the student that had appeared behind him. How long they had been standing there, he didn’t know, but the look on his face suggested that it had been a while.

He turned back to Lyra and gave her another smile, and held up his book. “Thanks for this. And for the chat. We should… I don’t know… Talk more?”

[Lyra Blackwalde]

Simon's offer actually made a good deal of sense. Lyra was glad she wasn't the only one surprised that the two hadn't met more with all things considered. "You've got a good point there, darling. Of course, I'll fix them up before I put them in your hands." Lyra grea a wry smile at that. "But yes most of the injuries I see have to do with powers going out of control. If you could help them so that doesn't happen again, that would be great. The less I need to use my nursing skills, the better."

It was a little strange to hear the words "I don't know what we'd do without you" when it was about her Librarian job. The slight bafflement probably showed on her face from the way her eyebrows lifted for a moment. However praise was praise so Lyra's expression gradually morphed into a smile. There was still a decent amount of disbelief in it though. "I hardly think it's as hard as you make it out to be, but I appreciate the flattery." She responded.

Despite how attentive she was to the conversation, Lyra spotted the approaching student first. She'd simply chosen to ignore them until Simon noticed. Once he did she stood straight once more. Back to business as usual. The offer Simon made her was sweet if unexpected. Flashing him a smile, she gave him a definite nod. "I would love that darling. Maybe lunch sometime?" She offered in return before turning her attention back to the student. Much as she loved to chat, business normally came first for her. She just wasn't used to pleasant company while working.

[Simon Finch]

"Awesome," Simon's smile grew wider. Her use of 'darling' seemed to fit so well in regular speech, when normally it didn't. He stepped out of the way of the student and turned to leave.

Halfway into a step, he stopped and spun on his heel with his finger in the air, letting everyone around him know that he'd forgotten something. "Sorry, forgot to do something," he apologized to the student waiting with a simple hand gesture, to which the student simply groaned, resigning to the fact that he would be waiting a little longer.

Simon took a little slip of paper off of the desk and flipped it over. He wrote his number on the back and then handed it to Lyra. "Send me a... whatever the kids are using these days when you want to get some lunch."

"Sorry for making you wait," he nodded to the student and headed for the door.