Sofya stretched in her bed, relishing in the lack of pain the Library blessed her with. Even though things had been strange, with the information Veronica had given the team and Beale’s inexplicable reaction (Sofya was going to have to have Words with that young man when he got over his snit and came back home to his team), she had to appreciate the extra time in the Library and away from her home universe. As much as she loved her home - it was where her cat lived, if nothing else - there was something truly restful about having clear expectations of what was needed of her, and it didn’t include chasing after a butterfly with ADHD like Jery.
She worked through her morning yoga stretches, slowly centering herself and bringing her full awareness to the day. As she did so, something started nagging her on the edge of her awareness. She continued through her morning ritual, ending with a tisane of tulsi with black peppercorn to wake her up fully and bring some clarity through the fog of morning. As Sofya sipped the tea, she felt the disturbance more strongly, and knew that something was wrong. She finished her tea, carefully washed her tea things, and set them aside to dry, then pulled out her divination implements.
Beale had always made fun of her for hanging on to whatever bits of string and yarn she came across, and even Nuereddin had grinned when he saw her picking up small stones while they were out and about on their missions, but Sofya knew that anything could be used for divination if approached with the appropriate attitude. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for in this case, so she decided a general “what’s going on?” type of forecast was the most appropriate. She had a piece of yarn from a scarf she’d made for Veronica, and another from a pair of gloves she’d made for Beale - she felt more than decided that those would be the most useful for the question she was asking. A stone from Nuereddin’s home universe, and a bit of gravel from a road in Niles’ home universe, as well as her favorite cat’s-eye marble (her favorite as the color reminded her of her cat Vanta’s brilliant green eyes) completed her implements.
Veronica had asked her once, when watching Sofya put together a divination question, how she knew what to use, or how to put them together. Unfortunately, Sofya hadn’t been able to give her a clear answer. “It’s like cooking something you’ve made a thousand times before,” she’d told the younger woman. “After a certain point, you don’t need a recipe - you just know that you need enough of something, and a little more of something else, and you put them together in the way that makes sense to you.” Veronica had looked skeptical, and Sofya had realized that she was probably the type of person who followed the recipe to the letter every time she made something, no matter what.
Sofya toyed with a few configurations of the items she’d pulled together until she felt them click into the right place, and she took a moment to breath and center herself on the question at hand. From the outside, she looked like she was starting to doze off over a table full of pocket litter, but internally, she was receiving news that something was Wrong. She took another deep breath and started to chase the news, working to get more details.
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Veronica had no idea how long it had been since she’d entered the report center. Stupid, so stupid, not to have checked that everyone was gone from the room before she just blatantly broke in! While she’d promised Sofya that she wouldn’t do anything rash, she’d done exactly that, and it had played out in the worst possible way. Well, not quite the worst - she was still alive, after all. As to what happened, however, it was all a blank.
She opened her eyes, feeling as though something was smashing her temple repeatedly. She went to feel her head to make sure there wasn’t something actually smashing her temple (it was the Library, after all), and found herself unable to do so - her hands were bound to the arm of the chair she was sitting in. Her legs were tied to each other, not bound to the legs of the chair, and she found herself oddly comforted by knowing she at at least a little bit of motion available to her.
After a few minutes, she realized that there was actually one source of light, though it was incredibly dim. A small table sat to her left, and on it was a hurricane lamp with a low wick burning. Veronica avoided looking directly at the light, but let her eyes become accustomed to the dim light to get a better sense of what was around her. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see - there was another chair in front of the one she was tied to, looking plain and unadorned, and a door to her right. There was no light shining around the edges of the door, so Veronica couldn’t tell if the door fitted perfectly into the jamb or if there simply wasn’t any light to be had outside the room.
The things she noticed most were the things that weren’t there - there was no bed, cot, or any other indication that she would be allowed to lie down to sleep, and there was no chamberpot or the like for bodily functions. Even though such things weren’t normally done in the Library (like in most narrative, if it didn’t serve to push the story forward, it didn’t show up on the page), there was usually some indication that it could happen should the need arose. There also wasn’t anything that indicated food or water was available in the room, and Veronica didn’t see a way in which she would be provided it other than someone coming through the door.
She fought to breathe. The room, the darkness, the way she’d woken up without knowing how she’d gotten there, even the way she was tied to the chair - it was all too close to the Incident for comfort. That, she knew, had been a specific circumstance that was due to many factors outside of her control, and had been orchestrated by people she had trusted, unlike this. This time, the only one who had put her in the position to be tied to a chair in a dark room was her. Well, her, and the person who had tied her to the chair, obviously. Without knowing who that was, however, Veronica could only ruminate on how she had found herself in the position she was in.
More than anything - more than the fear, the pain, the dry mouth and the rope burn around her wrists, the waves of memory and the worry about the people she cared about - more than all that, Veronica was angry. How dare someone tie her up and dump her in some oubliette in the Library, possibly to be forgotten? Who dared to manhandle her into this little space, and what kind of coward were they to leave her here alone when she woke up?
A scraping noise from the door got Veronica’s attention and gave her a place to focus her ire. By the time the door closed behind the visitor, her glare was firmly in place, waiting for them to say something and give her the space to vent her spleen. She narrowed her eyes in anticipation, and waited.
