Chapter 128: Day 127

Day 127,

Hadn’t been paying attention to the moon lately so the mists being out this morning caught me by surprise.  Still, Maiko took my statement yesterday evening that I meant to leave early today as a request to be woken up early regardless of the mists.  Or perhaps because of them.  It did mean slightly better visibility on my trek into the Village.  I should thank her properly next time I see her.  I fear that in my groggy state I came off as less than appreciative upon waking.  

Speaking of that lightly-misted walk back, since I was leaving the basket behind I wound up emptying out the camping pack and shoving my clean laundry for the coming week in there.  In hindsight, that works way better.  A bit more wrinkled?  Yes.  Significantly easier to carry?  Also yes.

Being a mist night, I didn’t have much to do at the archive with no visitors.  Cass seemed to have figured that would be the case too for she wasn’t here today either.  There was a stack of requests that had been brought in yesterday, but it’s only noon now and I’ve already dug up everything needed to fulfill those and the mists aren’t particularly conducive to running deliveries.

What to do with the rest of my day?  I’d hoped to talk to the others about coming over for dinner next market day, but that’s out.  As is stopping by Melaina’s workshop to ask about progress on the blackboard.  Actually, that might come across as rudely impatient, so probably for the best that I can’t right now.

Oh, I could finally get around to writing down the second half of the story of the Merchant and the Blacksmith’s Daughter.

 

I did not get around to writing down the second half of the story of the Merchant and the Blacksmith’s Daughter.

Oh, let’s be honest with myself, I deliberately procrastinated to the point of foolhardiness.

Every time I started thinking about putting the story to paper and going through it in my head I’d drift back to that miserable performance at the equinox festival until I distracted myself into a loop of berating myself for being a terrible storyteller and fretting that the story wasn’t worth bothering anyone with again, much less writing it down.

Seeking anything else to do instead, I wound up gathering up the request fulfilments and heading out into the mist-filled streets.  In retrospect, even though nothing bad happened, that was pretty dumb.  At the time I rationalized that if it started to get too late and I was having trouble finding my way back to the archive I’d just use the bracelet to find my way to a friend’s house.  Or, in a worst-case scenario, knock on the nearest door and ask to be let in.  Shades don’t knock and I truly can’t imagine anyone here knowingly leaving someone outside on a mist night (except maybe Theo).  Looking back on that first mist night, it seems almost silly of me to not have thought of just knocking on a door and asking to be let in.  Then again, I suppose I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time.

Speaking of differences since then, this really was a testament to how much better I’ve gotten to know this place.  Back then I still struggled to find my way to the library on a clear sunny day.  I still get the occasional passerby recognizing me and jokingly giving me directions to the library.  But today I was able to make my way back and forth across the Village while rarely able to see more than a few feet in front of me and get most of the requests delivered.  It occurs to me that at some point I stopped recording every single time a visitor comes to the library or I spent an afternoon delivering requested books and information, but it’s been enough that the maze-like layout of the streets makes a familiar sense to me now.  And while I still don’t by any means know where everyone lives, I was able to start with a few familiar names on the list and ask directions to the rest when I got there.

Once upon a time I would have hemmed and hawed and gazed around helplessly, too embarrassed to say anything until someone took pity and asked where I was trying to get to.  This time around I think I left more than a couple of people surprised and confused, first at my showing up on their doorstep while the mists were out, and then by chipperly asking for directions, seemingly eager to go back out into the mists.

I’ll admit though, it was in large part a forced cheerfulness, a confidence more show than act.  As much as I just went on about how far I’ve come and better I am these days, it truly is downright eerie to walk down dead-silent, empty, grey streets alone, and doubly so when they’re normally so vibrantly alive and bustling during the day.  I swear, at times it seems that the villagers spend more time out on the streets than they do in their homes or places of work.  Or perhaps it’s just coincident with the times of day that I tend to leave my sunless hole in the ground.  But once more I digress.  The point I was getting at is if I hadn’t been so heavily putting on the persona of the eccentric Archivist oblivious to mundane practical concerns like getting dragged down to the underworld, I probably would have lost my nerve after the first time I got lost and fled back to the archive without a single delivery complete.

Personas.  It’s funny, I’ve come to do about the same thing Lin does with people outside her usual social circle but going in the opposite direction.  I wonder how many people in this Village see me as anything other than a light-hearted, absent-minded academic prone to episodes of outsider weirdness.  While I’m pretty sure most people in the Village these days recognize me by sight - or if not me then the pendant I inherited - I doubt many of them know me by any name other than the Outsider or the Archivist.

 

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