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[ Like any true blue rizzler, Midnight doesn't mind if Angela treats him like he has the appeal of an undercooked potato. He simply laughs the laugh of a man who has never once been fired from any position. Confidence.

He notes that — no perfect book, huh — but brightens, predictably, at the opportunity to talk about himself. The invitation, even! ]

I haven't regaled you on the many successes, through trial and error, that I experienced during my first job, have I? There I was, a teenage runaway, lost among the streets of the redlight district...

[ ... And, as far as she'll let him, he'll go through a beat by beat summary of his past as a prized escort of his host club. He has told this story a million, million times, and though it's certainly inspirational (and funny at times, because he's told this story enough times to know which parts are funny, and he doesn't mind describing how shy he used to be), it's a bit saccharine, to be honest. Very Chicken Soup for the Soul: Whore Edition. ]

( She switches from transcribing a bird tale to Midnight's, especially since he's as thorough a storyteller as he is a worker--if nothing else, certainly someone will find it thrilling fiction... since she's changing names. Midnight, become Twilight-- )

You've certainly grown since then, ( she'll say once he's done. Shy Midnight... she literally cannot imagine it with the way he acts. ) I'd never think you were anything remotely... hmm. Amazing seems too high of praise for you.

[ Actually, he'll specify that his title at the host club was "Ma-ou", Demon King, but yes, that. He'll be as pleased as punch to see her take down his story so diligently, peeking over to watch her work. ]

You can leave it at amazing, if you like. It's true enough, anyhow.

[ He's humble, too! ]

You're not so special compared to some people I've worked with. ( INSTANT REBUTTAL. ) Still, it was a thrilling tale. I'll make adjustments here and there, and I'll place it on our shelves to...

( ...wait.

She should ask first, even though he hadn't given her permission to start writing in the first place— )

If... you would have no objections to that, of course.

[ Hm? After his cartoonish clutch of the heart at her dismissal — oh, the pain — he'll look at her oddly. He will have far fewer questions about this after he rescues Netzach from his goo tree in a couple weeks, but for now, her hesitance is mildly out of character. Puzzling. ]

None at all. Now, I would like a book in return, but I was assuming that was par for the course.

[ He tilts his head. ]

Did you think I would have objections?

( Him, specifically? No. She's moving off to go find him a book, one of her more recent stories recorded so it's close by... thinking about it. What one should he get? ... )

Not you, but it's generally good practice to ask about editing and stocking stories before doing so. When people come in here for a story, they know they'll have to trade one of their own, but we weren't engaging in that sort of transaction.

( Well... not exactly, anyway. She'd just been curious, and they'd been good enough to record.

... ... ...Alright. She'll hand him a thin book—there's more details to this story than what's on that page because she's filled it out but do not make me write it right now. Good summary, though. ) Here. The story of the Warm-Hearted Woodsman.

We weren't? So this was pro bono... Well, my stories usually are, anyhow.

[ He says this like a man used to doling out his life story like he's a charity. Annoying. He does accept the book, though, and immediately thumbs through it, skimming the pages for key words, format. ]

The Warm-Hearted Woodsman... Well, you've done me a service, my darling. I've never heard of this story. Why have you gifted me this one?

No reason. I find it an interesting tale. That's all.

( Some parts of it ring close to her heart, but that's neither here nor there. )

I never had anything to fear from him either, ( she says, drumming her fingers on the counter, ) as he doesn't care for cold-hearted people. You would have been been ideal for him though.

[ Midnight looks up from the book, hands paused. ]

Are you being literal? I can't tell. Am I holding a biography in my hand, or...?

[ And in what way is he ideal for anyone, really? ]

( Haha. )

No, it's only a story... I wonder, which came first? The woodsman, or his story? ( She knows the answer, but that's company secrets. ) Regardless, I hope you enjoy it, for what it's worth. It isn't a happy story, but I confess, I don't know a lot of those in general.

( Abnormalities didn't tend to have happy existences. The City is full of tragedy. If she could write a better ending... no, she doesn't have the right to happy endings. )

Ah...

[ That statement gets a bit of a funny look, but mostly because this is a full two weeks before Netzach tells him how the library works, so he's still thinking about books in a rather literal sense. Anyway, he brushes the idea into a drawer to think about later, and occupies himself with flipping to the very beginning, frowning as he reads the first few lines to himself. ]

Sounds a bit like a fairy tale. The quest, the hero, the demon king... The inevitable fall. I do wonder why so very few fairy tales reflect any sort of happiness other than bittersweet. Perhaps happiness is a thing relegated entirely to the imagination, in the end...

[ ... So about Terran fairy tales, ]

( Netzach is spilling company secrets??? Not surprised this is why she doesn't LET HIM WORK IN THE STORIES DEPARTMENT here at The Bookstore. )

...It's because happiness is hard to come by, isn't it? Fleeting, but not impossible. One day it's there, drifting around you like dust, and the next it's gone. ( Things you take for granted. Happiness you earn, only to cast aside to greedily reach for something more. "Happily ever after" is for children, but even those are few and far inbetween in the City's records.

There's none of that in the records of Abnormalities at all. ) It'd seem our worlds' fairytales are similar though in that aspect—bittersweet at best. Do you have a favorite?

[ Okay but to be fair Midnight was cuddling Netzach REAL good. it was basically coercion ]

Mm. That's why one must keep growing happiness... It's frail. It dies without perpetuation...

[ Midnight pauses, thinking, his eyes lifted away from the book as he hums to himself. ]

Actually... Yes, speaking of growing. Perhaps it's not my favorite tale, but there's a Yanese one that stuck with me since I read it as a child. About a boy ordered to grow a seed by the order of the emperor... Does that one sound familiar to you?

[ ... Well, if worlds can share languages, he doesn't see why they can't share stories, either. ]

( hmmm. she searches her memory and comes up blank, slowly shaking her head. )

No, not exactly. The only one I recall right now about a boy and a seed is the one about the beanstalk—but he traded away his family's cow for a seed on his own, not at the command of anyone else. Why was yours ordered by the emperor?

[ Midnight grins, leaning back in his chair and collecting details about the story. He loves telling stories almost as much as he loves reading them. (He's sure he's read one about a beanstalk, but it would have been a Western tale, one that he would've only known in passing. The fairytales of Higashi and Yan are the ones he heard as a child.) ]

Well, it wasn't just him and the emperor. You see, this emperor was childless, and decided to bequeath his position to a child, who would rule after his passing. Regardless of position, class, wealth... All were invited to try their hand at becoming the new emperor. And the test consisted of a task. Each child was given a seed, instructions for the care of that seed. They were given six months to grow a plant... And the child who grew the most beautiful plant, the strongest plant, would inherit the empire.

Our child came from humble means, but he was an avid gardener, so he decided to follow the directions exactly, and to give his plant as much care as he could. So he did. For the first week, he cared well for that plant, gave it sun, the best sort of water, the richest dirt and fertilizers he could afford. But nothing grew. Nothing grew the first month, the second, or the third. He tried everything, switched the dirt, the water, spoke to the plant every day, slept with the pot so it wouldn't feel lonely... But nothing grew.

The day of the evaluation came, and in spite of the boy's best efforts, in 6 months, not a single sprout came from his pot. And on top of that, when he looked to the streets and saw other children in their best clothes, carrying their pots... Their pots were filled with flowers, with leaves, with strong stems and roots. They had all succeeded.

He almost decided not to go. Why would he? He'd failed... He'd worked hard for 6 months, but nothing came of it.

But he'd tried his best. His parents told him to go anyway, to see his task through to the end. Even if he hadn't come up with anything, he had to have the courage to look the emperor in the face and tell him that he had tried his best...

[ Midnight pauses for a moment. ]

When the emperor finally came to judge the plants, he walked among them, face emotionless. He looked at each plant one by one, but said not a word. Not until he came to our child's pot.

When he did, he finally stopped. He looked at the boy. "You brought nothing," he said.

"I know," the boy said, frightened. "This was the best I could do. I'm sorry. I tried my best."

Then the emperor smiled. "Finally," he said. "One honest child. You see, every one of those seeds had been boiled overnight... Not a single one would have ever been able to grow."

[ Midnight pauses and sighs. ]

I always liked that bit. Fairy tales, you know. A place where fantasies do come true, at least for a little bit.

[ This is actually where the Earth version of the story ends. The Terran version... well, there's a little more added onto it. ]

( angela listens with rapt attention, though it's evident by her expression that she has a few questions— )

Is that really how the story ends? Does the boy actually become the emperor? What does honesty have to do with the ability to rule a kingdom? How soon was the emperor to pass away?

( ahem. she looks away, briefly, then back to him. her expression.... spotless. perfect again. ahem. )

I... also like fairy tales for that reason.

( angela you can't hide your curiosity by lamely agreeing. she knows this. she is trying anyway. do not perceive her interest. )

[ Midnight laughs. A story enjoyer... A woman after his own hear. (Well, he falls easily, but it's in earnest.) ]

He did become emperor. But, you know... An honest emperor in a position of power can only do so much. After all, the old emperor somehow cultivated a kingdom whose very children indulged in lies... How much more cunning were the parents of these children? How unapologetically, viciously indulgent in their greed? It was a stopgap solution for a problem that was far too old, too stubborn, too deeply rooted for one honest boy to repair on his own.

[ He gestures. He really is the sort to talk with his hands. ]

That boy was the last emperor. When he finally ascended to power, he dying emperor had concocted a plan which, in the boy's honesty, he enacted to the last detail. When all of the smaller countries and protectorships fell apart at the ascension of the new emperor, calling him an unsuited and unworthy ruler; when the very council under him revolted, split into pieces as scattered as the fall of autumn leaves, tearing itself and every part of the empire apart... At a moment of prescience, the boy abandoned his post, dressed in his village rags, took his family, and used the old emperor's landship, the only one of its kind, to flee the ruins of that empire. The only honest boy left in the kingdom, spared by his honesty.

[ Midnight shrugs. ]

It drove the poor boy mad, of course. He was honest, after all. "What does mere honesty do to separate me from my fellow man? It did nothing to save an entire empire from burning." Nothing his family could do could console him. He drove the landship into an ocean, beached it there... And he and his family lived there, safe from the world, but trapped. They never saw the sun again.

The weight of an empire's demise and all of the war resulting wore heavy on his shoulders. That boy and his seed saved three lives, but set nations on fire. All due to one old man's despair, his dying wish to accomplish one small, good thing in the face of insurmountable wickedness.

[ ... The end. Midnight ends it there, with the finality of someone who knows fairytales inevitably end this way. ]

( And just as before, Angela listens attentively, though this time her expression slowly sours until she sighs, closing her eyes.

...yes, of course. Fairytales themselves are just a snapshot of a moment—hardship to happiness. In the grander scheme of things, every up has its down. The reverse is true too, of course. )

At least three people were spared. ( All things considered, that's pretty good. Keeping at least three employees alive meant you could keep going onto the next day. The manager could always hire more, anyway, and... ) They had one another, and I'm sure they loved each other. They'd be able to find their own happinesses even there, as long as they had one another.

( There's always the same ending though: someone leaves first. His parents would pass, and he would be alone, but...

............

That's how every story ends. One person, alone. )

Mm. Small comforts... But perhaps those are the most important kind.

[ Midnight grins. This story really did stick with him for a lot of reasons, but the faint happiness in the end was something one has to imagine. ]

I'm surprised you're a little more sympathetic with regard to the fruit of the old emperor's labor. A man of his age and wisdom could have done much to try and set things to rights long before he'd decided that the lives of a boy and his parents were his parting gift to the world.

[ He hums. ]

Or perhaps he'd been complicit in the fall of his empire. Some sort of figurehead, one unfit for rule long before illness took him. Or perhaps there was nothing he could have done, either.

If he was already that old and things hadn't changed, then I'm willing to believe there wasn't anything he could do—and so perhaps his decision was a final dig at those who came before him, who set his empire on this path in the first place.

( a final FUCK YOU... though she knows better than most it's only a momentary bliss. he got to die afterwards, though. how nice for him. )

After all, things hardly turn out that way because of one person—I've found there's something in the way things are run... the foundations that, say, a city are built on, that factor more into stories like this. There's nothing you can grow in soil that's been poisoned for hundreds of years.

( so to speak. )

Better to rip up the whole thing from the roots and start afresh... But that sort of paradigm shift takes a great many things to work, and luck on top of that. And it's a terrible risk in and of itself.

[ ... Midnight blinks after a moment, shaking himself from a thought and smiling. Phew, thinking. It really doesn't suit him. He holds up her gifted book. ]

Well, I am certainly looking forward to reading your selection for me. Prepare yourself, Miss Angela. I'll have plenty of questions for you in return.

( yes, it is, and to think you can is extremely idealistic—but it's not impossible, perhaps. angela still isn't sure where she stands on it even after all this time. )

And I'll answer them all as best I can. It is one of the things I'm best at, naturally.

( not to toot her own horn about her job she hated for ten (real time) years or anything. she'll leave him to it though, he is dismissed, this was... a nice conversation, again, with him. she keeps having those. )

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