“Why am I shaking?” Thitavee asked himself as he waited outside the glass-roofed office. All around him were books, specimens and all sorts of unusual items. Mostly books though. Occasionally, he’d see a Θ–Class Ksa wander by. Some would wave, some would look confused. Some of them, Thitavee wondered if they were the same person, just checking to make sure he was still there. Thitavee couldn’t explain his own feelings though. He was nervous. He shouldn’t have been nervous.
Finally, the office door slid open. Standing in the doorway was Veeksiar, the Keeper of the Great Library. By his side were two Ksa, the twins Renth and Seth. It took a moment for him to acknowledge the winged Ksa. Once he did, it was as if a light bulb lit up in his mind.
“Thitavee-En Photeianos. I forgot you were coming! I apologise, I have several meetings, and I’ll be taking these two with me. Nenth is waiting for you inside, he will get you sorted.”
Veeksiar marched off, and his Ksa followed. Thitavee waited for them to disappear down the stairs, before entering the office himself.
Nenth was sitting on a stool, transcribing written notes into text files to be stored in the digital database. He seemed to be vaguely enjoying himself. The second Thitavee stepped inside though, Nenth immediately looked up.
“Good afternoon!”
“Uh, hello…” Thitavee didn’t know where to look. The walls in here were different from outside, lined with what looked like priceless artefacts of gold and silver.
“Please, grab a seat and sit down!” Nenth didn’t get up, but he telekinetically pulled over a chair for Thitavee to sit on, despite his previous statement. “Let me just finish this aaaaaand…. Done!”
Thitavee sat down, unsure where to put his hands. There was a lot of paper on the little desk. It seemed disordered, but Nenth knew exactly where everything was. He put away his current notes and pulled a sheet of paper out of a small stack on the edge of the table. Glancing at the small stack, Thitavee noticed that it was filled with things concerning Ksa, but mostly about him.
“Sorry about that. Been busy here. So much political stuff going on with the elections, we’ve not only got to get it all transcribed and into the archives, but we’ve also got to set up a system in case someone else takes over as Keeper of the Great Library. You though, you’re not here because you want to be here.”
“No, uh…” Thitavee hesitated. “Do I have to call you ser?”
Nenth grinned. “No, not at all. You have to call Veeksiar ‘ser’ occasionally, but don’t go overboard with it. Have you ever done this sort of job before?”
Thitavee shook his head. “I’ve only ever done protection work. We have other Ksa for that.”
Nenth nodded, then started reading the piece of paper he’d retrieved. He muttered to himself a couple of times. Thitavee used this time to size Nenth up. He was clearly a lot smaller than Thitavee, about 1.7m tall, short even for a Threan-type. But he wasn’t skinny, he was quite well-built. His pale skin and white and silver armour made him seem a little more threatening than he needed to be. But the most interesting thing was that Nenth had a small dagger strapped to his upper left arm.
“Nenth, may I ask a question?”
“Sure,” Nenth replied, not looking up from his paper.
“Are you married?”
“Yep.”
“Who to?”
“Arksi Theanon. Surprised you don’t know that. Since you were at our marriage ceremony. Pretty sure you were sitting next to Geekay and Veekay.”
Thitavee fell backwards, out of his seat. How did he not remember that? Thitavee wasn’t one to forget important events, and he used to be a good friend of Veekay’s, so how could he have forgotten?
“You okay?” Nenth asked as he went round to help Thitavee up. “You look like you’ve been smacked in the face with a book about quantum mechanics.”
“No, I am not! I should remember that!”
Nenth shrugged, then wandered across the room to where a small, metal tray was. He poured a glass of something and handed it to Thitavee. Thitavee sniffed it, unsure what it was, then realised how rude he must have looked.
“Sorry, force of habit.”
“It’s fine. It’s lemon sherbet squash. The Keeper drinks a lot of it to calm himself down when he’s stressed.” Nenth looked Thitavee up and down. This winged Rethan looked terrified. As if he hadn’t slept in weeks, too scared to close his eyes. “Do you genuinely not remember?”
“I do not! It is as if the memories never existed!”
Nenth grabbed his stool and put it next to Thitavee. “I’m genuinely concerned about you.”
“It is not-”
“Don’t lie to me,” Nenth snapped. “I think you have a genuine problem and I’m glad the R-Class sent you here.”
“You’re assessing me?” Thitavee was feeling more confused every second.
“At first I was just assessing what job you’d have working with the Θ-Class. But now you’ve sat down in front of me, I think we’re going to have to keep more of an eye on you.”
“Why?”
“Have you seen yourself?” Nenth exclaimed. “You are constantly looking around. Not the standard threat-scanning observations that most Ksa, even I do. You’re expecting someone to attack you. I’m not giving you a job.”
Nenth pulled out a small communicator and wrote down a message, sending it to someone unknown. After a few seconds, another Ksa appeared in the doorway. This one had black skin but wore bright silver armour, complemented with a little white.
“Kseth?”
“Yes, Nenth?”
“I have a new job for you.”
Kseth glanced at Thitavee, then smiled at Nenth. “You want me to protect Thitavee?”
“Yep. He’s staying with you. And you’re the calming sort of vok he needs right now. When Veeksiar gets back, you and Venth will take over guard duty and will protect both Thitavee and the Keeper.”
Thitavee looked down at his feet, feeling somewhat ashamed. He shouldn’t need protecting. Really, he just wanted a job to do to distract himself.
“We need to keep him busy though,” Kseth seemed to be reading his mind, but Thitavee realised he wasn’t. They’d both noticed how Thitavee was feeling.
Nenth got up and headed over to a set of draws. He opened the top one and rummaged around. Eventually, he pulled out a small digital tablet and stylus.
“You can write fast, yes?” Nenth asked.
Thitavee nodded.
“Good. Congratulations, you are now Veeksiar’s new scribe. If he wants something noted, you write it down. Can you do that?”
“I guess…” Thitavee sighed. “Thank you…”
“No worries!” Nenth smiled, as his wrist-communicator beeped. “Alright. I got stuff I need to do. Kseth will keep an eye on you until Veeksiar comes back. Is there anything else you need?”
Thitavee shook his head. “No, Nenth.”
“Good. Now head out there, let Kseth show you around. It’ll help calm your nerves.”
“Yes, ser…” Thitavee sighed as he got up and left, not sure how to feel about what just happened.