Posted March 14, 2023, 5:38 p.m. by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) (Lindsay B)
Posted by Civilian Karilan Massat (Owner, Quill and Parchment Books) in Unpacking More Than Books -
Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Unpacking More Than Books -
Posted by Civilian Karilan Massat (Owner, Quill and Parchment Books) in Unpacking More Than Books -
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻(snip)
Tears sprang to her eyes as she read, overcome as she read the words aloud, letting them seep deeply within her. She set the poem down carefully and hugged Karilan again, kissing their cheek. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “It’ll go by my desk where I see it regularly.”
Laughing lightly (at herself), she sighed. “I feel like my emotions are on a hair trigger and sometimes that’s unnerving but at the same time I’m starting to realize how little I’ve actually allowed myself to feel these last years. So I’m warning you it’s a little all over the place.”
~Eela
Karilan smiled and said “Feel anything and everything you want. I don’t judge.” They bent down and picked up their toolkit and said “Alright, then. Let us off to see these imprisoned tomes of wonder and delight and, perchance, free them from the confines of their current jailers.” and they laughed softly. “Oh how I do love new book times.”
Karilan
Eela laughed with delight. “Well, you know now just how many I have.” Karilan would have found her father’s book of remedies in the blue create in her bedroom, but that crate had not been alone. There were a good dozen more stacked neatly against the far side out of the way. But it was clear as she led Karilan out of the foyer that all the crates had been moved into the dining room and her office.
“Okay, so I had help moving stuff”-she gave Karilan a sideways glance-“Jal’na would have given me hell otherwise- and we’ve grouped all the fiction together, with poetry separate. And the rest is divided into biographies, sciences, history, and a whole section for psychology and sociology, plus other health and spiritual matters. Then there are food related books. Diplomacy. Umm, of and I have a small section for Starfleet related things.”
She stood there with her hands on her hips, tapping her toes in her sheru on the floor. “You know I didn’t realize I had so many books until they were all in one place.”
~Eela
“Its a good problem to have.” they said and then set the toolkit aside. “Ok… first we look at the condition of the books. We will divide into three categories. One for good, one for needing special care, and one for me to take with me and repair and restore.” and they gave her a wink. “So, you pull them out and I will help sort. We will keep subject matter as separate as we can.”
Karilan
She grinned and nodded. “Sounds like a plan. By the way, the office is really amazing. Better than I even imagined. It was really lovely to come home to, so thank you, and please extend my sincere thanks to Fren and the rest of the workers.”
Eela went off and grabbed a couple cushions from the living room and dropped one on to the floor in the hallway in front of the dining room, setting the other nearby. “if you need a cushion, that’s for you. I definitely need one, because these are not the softest floors,” she said, kneeling on the cushion and opening a crate. Kneeling was the easiest thing for her back because it prevented her from hunching forward.
Examining the titles, Eela smiled. “Aha! These are my psyc and sociology texts. But there are memoirs from practitioners in there was well. I think it makes sense to keep them together,” she said as she handed them one at a time to Karilan. Most were in good to excellent condition and it was clear that Eela had done her best to care for them well. A couple were a lot older though, and while not rare books, looked worn through use. One was an autobiography from a psychiatrist who worked at a penal colony for over a decade that had been obviously read many times.
~Eela
Karilan nodded and took book after book. They set most in one group, but a few were set aside for needed care and restoration. The process took several hours, and the two laughed and talked through it all. At one point Karilan stopped and just stared at Eela for a long moment as she worked inside a crate and they smiled and then went back to work.
Eela was just immersed in the books and it provoked such a joy in her that she happily focused on that feeling. It was nice to keep feeling that again when it showed up.
Finally, they finished… the first part. “Alright, step one is done. Now we move on to step two… displaying and storage. Do you have any idea of how you want your shelves and cases arraigned? Subject, name, material of construction… I had one client who did everything by color. I wasn’t a fan at first, but it looked beautiful. You couldn’t find a damned thing, of course… but the library was gorgeous.”
Karilan
She laughed. “While that sounds lovely, it would drive me crazy. So I think let’s keep subjects together and maybe alphabetical by author if the section is really big. If it’s only a handful of books, that’s easy to skim.’
Eela considered Karilan for a moment. “I’ve been feeling the need to say things that are really obvious but should be said anyway, because…” She shook her head for a moment unsure how to qualify her words. “Save for one person, it’s been a long time since I’ve had really good friends at my side, Karilan. Mine went on with their lives after my accident and I left Starfleet, as they should. And I’ve been wandering alone, afraid for reasons I wasn’t aware of. Just know that meeting you, and having you in my life means so much to me.”
~Eela
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