Nikita Valesta - Stranger IV

The little library bird led Nikita back to the old building and straight inside. Now Nikitas hands were free, but still she kept Glabro, mostly because she did not think about taking Lupus, she was a pretty agile runner after all and she followed the bird into the dim light inside the bulding. It was getting late and the bird flew swiftly in and out between the shelves untill it landed on a particular one. Tilting its head sideways, it read a label and then it spread its wings again and slowly moved down along the shelves while Nikita caught up, a bit short on breath after the long run.
The owl stopped its movement and hovered in the air by a shelf in a way that no owl shoul be able to. It reached into the shelf.. and it reached through the very gauntlet, pulling a book into the Umbra and with the book, easily its own size, tightly in its claws, Parchflight flew over and held the book out for Nikita. She took it and read the title. "Alice in Wonderland" She had heard about it, but never read it before. Halfway through the book, a bookmark, a slip of paper with a grinning cat, marked where someone had reached before returning the book to the library. The bookmark caught Nikitas attention. The cat sitting at the top was lean and black with large golden eyes, a wicked looking grin wiht a mouth full of sharp teeth stripes facing from red on the head, over purple, to blue at the tip of the tail. It was a remarkably well drawn cat and Nikita looked into the book at the chapter being marked with it, and standing in the middle of the library, she began to read.

As she got further into the chapter, she noticed something odd. Even as she read, characters from the book appeared around her like spectres and they fed... somehow they fed on her words, and by the time she came to the part where Alice attempted to play croquet with a flamingo tucked under her arm, trying to hit a hedgehog in quite a mad setting where everyone were playing at once, she read the name Cheshire cat for the first time.
A ripple went through the story crowd and Nikita kept reading as she saw a grin appear in the middle of the air. She kept reading and even as she did, the figures all the way around her gained solidity.

Through the power of the words, as she imagined the scenario take place, the figures around her enacted it, fed on it and became stronger, more solid as she kept reading. The story kept entangling and Nikita did not know how she could imagine half the figures, they had not been described in the part of the book that she had read, but the story kept unfolding and she picked up on the new-old characters, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar and the Duchess and even as she did, the Cheshire Cat stood out the strongest amongst them, appearing exactly like the cat did on the bookmark she had pocketed not to dop it by accident. As she kept reading, she did not see the spiders encroaching upon her and the merry group of characters huddled around her like people crowding around the campfire, afraid of the Darkness outside and behind them. Only character even vaguely familiar to her was Alice herself and the King and Queen of Hearts that appeared with some of the same features as she had imagined them when she had read Through the Looking Glass, having picked it up at random earlier in the week.

The story was quite mad, making very little sense and Nikita found herself immersed in it, throughoutly enjoying it, and as she neared the end, she looked up, watching the characters move around with a smile... and that was when she saw the spiders lurking.
The feeling of order adn calm that she had found nice and calm earlier had turned stronger. now it was more opressive, comming in from all sides, sitting and lurking, getting closer as Nikita came closer to the end of the book. She looked up and saw a whole flock of the owls sitting ready, perched on the top of the shelves, like avian predators, ready to strike down. She saw Parchflight amongst them, but now, with it being a part of a whole in stead of a single, isolated spirit, she saw that it was more than an owl. it was a part of a pattern, it was part of the order, of the Weavers pinnacle in the library, the quiet, ordered place. The only thing that kept them from swooping down and entangling the characters in a web of order and chategorization was Nikitas reading. Soon the book would be done reading and the Black Fury had no certainty on what would happen, but with the amount of spirits gathering, she had a very good idea.
Slowly, she began to move, and now she spoke out the words. She read out loud to her self, nice and slow while she drifted towards the only entrance she knew of, but it was far far away and it seemed to be an ocean of spiders just sitting and waiting, blocking the way for her. When next she flipped a page, she looked around and as she did, she saw the Cheshire Cat again. It was as solid as the rest, but in stead of taking an active part of the play and the feeding, it moved and as their eyes met, it grinned wider and subtly beckoned Nikita to follow him.
The Theurge moved slowly while reading and one eye was kept on the white grin, the one bright shape she could see clearly in the dimming twilight and the cat lead her deeper into the library building, and around her, the characters from the book moved with her.

The court trial against Alice in the book went on and in the Umbral library, Nikita had reached the end of the library building. A small window was there, up over the shelves, but it was a far way up and there was no way she could keep reading and climb the shelves. Around her, the characters huddled closer... all except the cheshire cat. once again, Nikita looked around when she flipped a page, and she spotted it again, a little further down the row. A ladder was there. Exactly what the ladder was doing there was anyones guess, but this was the umbra and Nikita had long since learned not to ask questions. Fact was that the ladder was there, and through careful edging, she got ahold of it. The spiders and the pattern-owls were everywhere and Nikita only could push the ladder so far. As she kept reading, she made her way up the ladder step by step and the characters climbed with her... except the Cheshire Cat who was already at the top of the steps.
As they climbed, the story was rapidly nearing its conclusion where Alice wakes up and her conversing wiht her sister. They had reached the top of the ladder when the last sentence was spoken out loud and with a roar like a thousand waves crashing at once, the library owls rose to their wings in such a perfect unison that any odoubt of them being wpisits of the weaver was washed away. The Cheshire Cat cried over the roar of the spirits moving in on them "Bring the book!" and Nikita flipped it into the air and dug ingo her soul. In there, she found the rage and it was the rage that she channeled into her body to explode into Lupus form just in time to snatch the book out of the air in her jaws and she leapt out of the empty window frame.

The air was cold outside and Nikitas jaws were locked around the book. The characters from the book were fleeing the library through the window and just outside, chaos reigned. Nikitas sharp wolfen ears caught the sound of wings and mechanical limbs and she dodged into an alley and weaved in and out of the shadows. She was far from familiar territory and she was alone. She sent a quick message through the pack link and then she ran east. There was no way in hell she was going to get straight back to the Sept or the Haunt with a trail of Weaver spirits following her. She weaved in and out between the shadows, adopting Chimeras disguise and changing it more than a few times as she ran the fastest she ever did, always keeping the book in her jaws.
The bright grin and the black cat with the oddly coloured stripes appeared again, its sharp teeth parted, letting it speak. "They are following the book".
She snarled, short of breath "Then why did I have to bring it?"
"Who said you did?"
"YOU DID!" she gasped and dropped the book. She tried snatching it it up as she ran and even as she did, it was only the rigorous training with Felix and his crew of alley cats that she managed to stay on her paws. "They need the book to trap you?" The cat nodded. Nikita was becomming a quick learner as of late and what she had seen in the library all added up - the library categorized the spirits as they appeared, milking power out of them like ants would milk plant lice, power that the spirits would get from the books being read in the real life. By having her read out loud, the Library had used Nikita, used her imagination to give birth to the spirits that someone else had begun creating, but had never finished, but by bringing the book with her, she had robbed them of the chance of trapping these spirits.

Nikita understood. At once she understood. The Stranger was the unborn Cheshire Cat.. so to speak. A cat, and yet not. A character that was so much like the alley cats in his wisdom, but trapped i a way that the spirits could do nothing about it. For a moment, she felt her anger rising that she had been used, but this was the umbra, this was the way... and even as she ran, she knew that she was being used by the spirits, who were fleeing the library. As long as she helt the book, the Library could not ensnare them and the weaver spirits would follow her. But it was not nessecary that she was running any further. Stopping, she looked at the cheshire cat and put the book down onto the ground "Will it matter to you if they find the book but not you?"
He grinned "No" and Nikita licked her wolfen lips "Run and find Lord Mrow. He was the one asking me to find you"
The cheshire cat tilted his head lightly to the side "And what about you? If they capture you, you will not be let go". Now it was Nikitas turn to grin "I got my ways"

They parted ways, the cat fading away slowly, leaving only the wicked grin behind, but Nikita found comfort in the crescent shape. This was meant to be, and then she picked up the book and stepped around a corner. She did not have long.
The book was put carefully down on a crate. Its bright red cover with the colourfull picture of the front almost shone in the light and the spirits would easily find it, but they would not find Nikita, nor any trace of her direction, for she rose to Homid and took off the braided shimmering bracelet braided out of five naturally brown leather straps and held together with a little clasp in the shape of a rearing pegasus.

She was fleeing the Weaver's servants, so it was only poetic justice that a different kind of Weaver would let her to safety.
Holding up the shimmering bracelet she whspered a prayer to Pegasus, and then she enacted the Rite inside.

---

The world wrapped and folded and the Gauntlet opened. It was not out into the fleshlands, but into a tunnel. Nikita stepped into the tunnel, leaving the book and her trail behind as she sprinted through it and a moment later, she appeared in the room where the spider sat in the Weave, impassive as always. She shivered... and then she laughed. She had made it.
Stepping out of the isolated room and into the fleshlands, she felt a tingle running down her spine... she had not been this exited since she had become Fostern. She had risked and she had won. it was good to be her!