Private In the Library of the Blind, the Tentacled Mass is Queen

[Zak Dymo]

[ obligatory post theme ]

In 900 ABY, a crack commando unit was sentenced to detention by a Jedi tribunal for a crime they didn't commit. These younglings promptly escaped from a maximum security after school program to the Coruscant underworld. Today, still wanted by the Jedi, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them before bed time... maybe you can hire THE ZAK TEAM.

"Dun dun duuuuun dun dun dun..."

Yes, Zak was singing.

Yes, Zak was dancing.

What part of Zak did you not understand?

But this was the library, so -- at least for the moment -- he was mumbling and humming the tune that was in his head aloud quietly. Hips swayed from side to side as the Nautolan bopped along to the melody. Shifting his feet in and out, the boy shuffled along down the shelf. His arms were full of holobooks and journals to be restocked.

Yes, he was in detention. Yes, again. He hadn't even done anything this time and the Jedi even knew he hadn't even done anything this time. But they thought he might know something and Zak was not snitching. Snitching was not cool.

...but also, Zak honestly had not a single clue who'd put a cherry detonator in the refresher. It had been up in one of the towers that he never went in. First Learning or Jedi Archaeology Lab or some boring ass chit like that. He'd been in the other side of the temple in the Halls of Healing at the time. Art of movement and Force speed aside, this was not a small complex. Plus, if he'd used Force speed, he'd have been totes busted because no way that wasn't to draw attention.

Anyway, Zak wasn't talking and so he was in detention because the Jedi just wanted to throw somebody in detention and Zak was the usual suspect. Why? He had no idea. Maybe Jasper Kai'el 's prosthetics had been adjusted too tight or Iris Arani had been having a bad hair day. Cherry detonators weren't really his style. Toilet paper, yes. Dye in the shampoo bottle, absolutely. Blowing out the temple intercom by plugging his electric guitar into it and jacking up the audio feeds to max, you know it. But cherry detonators? That was, like, seventh grade pranking at best. Zak was completely above that.

Maybe by only a year, but he was above that.

So here he was, performing unpaid child labor, as per the usual. Take the stack of returned books and place them back where they were supposed to be. Which, not to get to personal, but who the feth read this chit? Alkahest: Theory and Application of Force Imbue to Jedi Archaeological Research? Practical Pilgrims: A Guide to Ahch-To for Spiritual Reflection? Ilias Nytrau 's Annotated Jedi Sacred Texts, Fifth Edition?

Fifth Edition? There had been four more of these?

Nerds. He was living among nerds. With lightsabers. And access to the Force.

Not a good look, Jedi.

For the most part, the task was simple. Except Zak's attention kept getting pulled away by his imagination. And, also, some of these were not in Basic. Which, why did they books written in Shriiwook? On Kashyyyk, they'd had books written in Shriiwook, but when was the last time some Wookiee Jedi bro had strolled up in here and asked to check out a book? Was Z'k filed after Z or after Zk? Was that even an apostrophe?

Chit was getting filed where it was getting filed. Zak was doing his best (not really) and people were just gonna have to live with it.

Kassogtha Cthylla​

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

"No singing in the library, Padawan Dymo."

Kassogtha's voice seemed to come out of nowhere. She was in the aisle next to him, vague glimpses of her tentacled mass visible between gaps in the shelves.

"No dancing, either. You don't want to knock something over." It would just give him more work to do. Assuming he didn't damage anything, in which case he'd be in even more trouble.

Volunteers were supposed to leave color-coded flags wherever they filed a book or datacron, so that a librarian could check their work afterwards. But for some reason Zak was not doing that. Probably because it would require a few extra seconds of work and/or would draw attention to the fact that he was slacking off and making mistakes. This forced Kassogtha to manually follow his progress, checking to make sure he was filing things correctly. For the most part, he had done an okay job. But as time went on, he started slacking.

"Treat a prefix that is part of a name or place as a separate word, unless it is joined to the rest of the name directly or by an apostrophe without a space. File single surnames before compound surnames; file given names before surnames." Setting several misfiled books she had caught back on his cart to be re-filed, she flicked a tentacle toward another area of the library. "Our Shyriiwook collection goes over there."

Zak Dymo​

 

[Zak Dymo]

The Force, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Jedi Order. It's mission... to seek out fun and squash that chit at every opportunity. To boldly proclaim no music and no dancing where no Jedi has gone before.

The boy's head rolled back along his shoulder. He stared up at the ceiling, mouth agape and just uttered a heavy sigh.

He just could not even with these people.

"Treat a prefix that is part of a name or place as a separate word, unless...blah blah blah blah..."

The Nautolan just blinked. Even if he'd tried to pay attention to all of that, holy Sith it had been a lot.

"...file given names before surnames."

"Oh, right," the young Nautolan remarked.

Nope. No idea what she'd said. Should he ask? He should probably ask.

Did he want to ask? Not really, no.

A tendril then pointed him toward another area of the library. "Our Shyriiwook collection goes over there."

Saved by the tendril! Scurrying along, the boy's head-tails bounced as he let out a sigh of relief at getting a break from all that... whatever that was.

No, not the librarian. Though he did have half a mind to ask if she was aquatic. But that explanation for the filing system. Why did a random ass collection of books on a shelf have to be so complicated?

Kassogtha Cthylla​

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

Kassogtha gave the Pylantian version of a beleaguered sigh. She had a feeling the teen wasn't listening to her, but there was little she could do apart from continuing to monitor his progress.

Well, as much as she could, anyway. Someone new entered the library, laid eyes upon her, and immediately dropped the box of datacrons they had been holding all over the floor. Turning her back on the Nautolan, Kassogtha began picking up the mess with her numerous tentacles while the hapless newcomer stammered out an apology.

Zak Dymo

 

[Zak Dymo]

Did growl come before yip?

Or was yip after growl but before phlegm?

Also, why was there a Shyriiwook collection? This was like doing detention in the Silver Rest all over again. Well, the old Silver Rest, before it had gotten blown up.

Fun times had by none.

As the Nautolan was struggling to figure out the placement for the tomes, he heard something hit the floor. A lot of somethings, actually. When he turned his head, he saw some rando stumbling over his words, a pile of chit on the floor, and the librarian from the Abyss picking that chit up.

The Nautolan's eyes narrowed as he started to piece together what happened. "DUDE!" the boy uttered, setting down his armful of books and coming over to help the Jedi master. "Not cool."

Sure, the librarian's tentacles might be as fabulous as his, but few in the galaxy could rep some lekku like this.

Kassogtha Cthylla​

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

"It's all right," Kassogtha said, just trying to collect all the datacrons in as orderly a fashion as possible, given the circumstances. The human - a young Padawan, judging by his braid - was merely startled, that was all. She'd dealt with much worse reactions to her appearance before. It was something Pylantian females got used to when traveling beyond their homeworld.

To her surprise, the Nautolan ran over to help. Perhaps she had misjudged him as a careless punk. "Thank you, young man," she said. Soon enough the datacrons were all back in the box, and the offending Padawan who had caused the ruckus sheepishly returned to his duties.

"Right, now that all that excitement is over, would you sort and shelve these, Padawan Dymo?" she asked, holding out the box. "After you're finished with our Shyriiwook collection, that is."

Zak Dymo

 

[Zak Dymo]

He figured he'd be putting these away.

Ain't no labor like child labor. And the Jedi were rollin' in the deep with child labor.

"After you're finished with our Shyriiwook collection, that is."

"About that," the Nautolan began, glancing at the datacrons, then over at the shelves containing the Wookiee tomes, and then back at the mass of tentacles. "Could I file these instead?" Zak asked, indicating the ones that they'd just picked up.

"I can't even read Shyriiwook!"

Seriously, it was, like, the most confusing language of all time. Well, that and whatever the Sand People thing was. Because that was also hella confusing.

Also, Jawas...

Okay, so there were lots of confusing languages. Zak spoke two languages and that was his limit.

Kassogtha Cthylla​

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

Kassogtha seemed momentarily puzzled. "Oh," she said in realization, nervously wriggling. "All right, you may."

She traded him the Shyriiwook items, muttering to herself, "Sometimes I forget not everyone can read all the languages in this library..."

Zak Dymo

 

[Zak Dymo]

The Nautolan gave a sigh of relief.

"Sometimes I forget not everyone can read all the languages in this library..."

"I have trouble with Basic," Zak uttered candidly. He probably needed to sort out the one language he was supposed to know before he started adding more. Well, except he hadn't started speaking Basic. "I mean, I also speak Nautila, but it's just... you... you can't write with it," the boy remarked. After all, Nautolans took non-verbal communication to the next level with an oral tradition that required water for transmission of a pheromone subtext component.

He'd tried writing lyrics for songs in Nautila. It really didn't work.

It would for a live concert in the water. But only Nautolans would be able to understand him. "And you kinda need head-tails to even understand it," the boy added, at that thought hit.

"Maybe a Zeltron could learn it," Zak mused aloud. They communicated with pheromones, too, didn't they? Or was that Falleen? "But they'd probably have trouble with the whole breathing water thing."

Air breathing was over rated. And with that, the boy set off to go put some books on a shelf.

For great justice. Or reading. Or whatever.

Kassogtha Cthylla​

 

[Kassogtha Cthylla]

“Oh, Nautila! Fascinating language. I’ve always wondered about the things that might be communicated with pheromones, delicate subtleties which aren’t found in other forms of speech…”

She trailed off sadly. “It’s one tongue I can never learn, unfortunately. Can’t breathe underwater or detect pheromones.”

Zak Dymo