The Librarian never truly understood why he constantly sought solitude in his life The castles he had resided in had always given him an unusual sense of comfort. The general shroud of mystery and knowledge surrounding his library quickly made him content. No matter which version, he could always be found in his library hidden in the bowels of its respective castle. The same could be said about the library in the village. He had personally requested that he select its location. He was rarely picky, but this was one of the few things he cared too much about. In the outskirts of town, his library was located on top of a large hill to dissuade anyone from visiting. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the occasional bouts of company, but he was a man of thought and only a select few creatures could even potentially keep up. Usually the Belmont dominated his upper tiers when it came to who to converse with on a massive variety of different subjects. However, the man's intelligence, unlike his charisma and harsh wisdom, wasn't the Belmont's best quality. The Librarian knew that this was to be expected, since Richter never actually had an education. From what the Belmont had told him, his childhood consisted of rigorous training sessions; physical and magical practice was his only "hobby". While this was the reason why the Belmont was so determined in day-to-day activities as well as his active duties, it was also responsible for the Librarian's few intellectual conversations with the man. If there was anything he missed about having Dracula ruling his domain, it would be the Vampire Lord's intelligence. Dracula knew what he was talking about to the extent that the Librarian found himself listening in awe. He guessed it came with the lifespan.
It had been a few days since the Librarian last received any form of guests. It was to be expected, though. The Altar Villagers were almost always on the Surface ever since the Village Project was finished. He didn't blame them. He would be up there with them, admiring their new world; however, the Librarian was much too old to find comfort in that (particular) lifestyle. He had spent too much time in his books and he couldn't break the habit despite his efforts. This hobby of his had driven many away from visiting him. No one held any negative feelings towards him though; they just felt out of place when talking to him. The Librarian remembered Richter coming into his quarters an afternoon not too long ago with an issue he had recently noticed. Apparently, he had grown concerned with how the other Altar Residents had addressed him. The Librarian had to assure Richter that they meant no harm when describing his vast knowledge; it was just them simply stating the fact that they just couldn't relate. Thus, he was thoroughly surprised when he heard someone rapping their knuckles on the door to his private quarters in the Library. After overcoming his initial shock (an emotion that was unfit for one of his stature), he began to analyze who it possibly could be. It wasn't Richter for he, well...The Librarian mentally moved down the short list of regular visitors. He deemed his choice to skip Richter to be one with a reasonable backing to it. Moving on to the next one, he remembered that Death didn't use doors; this eliminated him. A short temper due to age finally bested him as he gave up trying to figure out who his potential guest would be. He honestly had no remote clue as to who would be knocking on his door. He waited for a few moments to see if they would just give up. Yet, he was the one who lost again. He had grown tired upon discovering that the person wouldn't leave far too quickly
Giving in to his ever increasing frustration at the knocker's presence, he called out. "I'm here, just come in. I'm too old to be moving around." He knew that he was spouting out a blatant lie, but hopefully whoever was behind the door didn't know it. His age had always been a mystery to most of the Village Inhabitants. He was a human that had been with the castle since it was "passed down" to Dracula. Despite everyone knowing this, they expected him to fall over with the simplest gust of wind. It provided a decent excuse in case someone became angry with his hesitation. It rarely, if ever, occurred, but the few times it did happen was enough to ingrain the concept of hiding behind his own lies into his mind. Richter's particular outburst after finding out that the Librarian's frailty was a lie wasn't something he wanted to live through again. The fires of hell behind that man's eyes always found a way to get under the Librarian's skin and force him to feel like he had to run several planets away from Richter just to be safe. He knew it wan't necessary and Richter wouldn't dare hurt anyone in the Village. However, the man could be intimidating when under the right circumstances; the right circumstances being all circumstances.
The door slowly creaked open and and a head adorned with a sizable amount of blond hair intruded; the face was completely covered. He heard the woman quietly curse before adjusting her hair so she could see. The shining emerald green eyes instantly gave it away that Maria had decided to pay him a visit. He wasn't quite sure as to how to feel about that, but that problem would come later. She shouldn't be in his quarters at this time since there were more important things for her to handle. He first needed to solve whatever Maria was having a problem with. It wasn't like he had anything better to do...and it was technically his job; not that he would tell her that though. An excuse without context is the best excuse in his book. He hadn't survived this long by not taking advantage of his situations. Then again, he was only alive from the magical bond sealing him to the Altar. He guessed his life had always been the Altar, even before he became one with it. He chose to not focus on his dark past and instead maintain his emotional presence in the room. His disassociation would become too noticeable if he just sat there in the recesses of his mind.
She didn't hesitate to speak almost immediately after entering the room. She strode towards the desk and was leaning forwards unconsciously. Maria was wearing her green robes this day, which worried the Librarian. It had been a gift from Richter to her and she had sworn that despite his effort into making it, she wouldn't want to tarnish it by it being worn. She was clearly tired and exhausted. Her voice solidified this. Despite her laid back vocabulary, she spoke with a very worn down and solemn tone of voice. "Hey, old man. How's life?" She certainly acquired Richter's lack of patience from living with him before their new world. While Richter had changed with time and outgrown this problem, Maria's patience was further lowered. It was fate balancing the scales, some might say. Their roles had switched immensely. It was unusual to see a reversal of this magnitude since both of them were in their adult years. It probably was to be expected though, like most things the Librarian thought of. Maria had always been an outlier and Richter had gone through more than what was probably good for his sanity. To be honest with himself, the Librarian was surprised that Richter hadn't turned into a dictator from mental trauma. It was easier to fall into the pit of vile thoughts than it was to stay afloat and be the leader everyone needed him to be. The Librarian knew that was one of the main reasons why everyone respected Richter. His power wasn't the only thing that was impressive. His indomitable will had always been something to be admired.
With a heavy sigh, he responded. The Librarian, in his youth, didn't understand the point of such pleasantries until aging had no effect on him. It had showed him that there was more to life than just work; something that had taken Richter longer than most men to figure out. Then again, Richter wasn't like most men. "Rather quiet, Maria. Usually this is about when Richter comes by to give me his construction report. Didn't he know that they were useless ? I wasn't leading that construction project, he was. That's not mentioning the fact that the Village Project has been finished for several years."
Maria nodded before pulling up one of his chairs. No, they weren't exactly his. The Librarian observed that it was the one Richter had made after accidentally porting random monsters over too many times. How Medusa had managed to get ported with the chair around the sixth time baffled both Richter and Medusa. Sure, it wasn't as comfortable as the ones with the plush backing, but it was his. She spoke right after she sat down while leaning back heavily. She sighed and somehow sunk comfortably into the chair. Maria was clearly stressed. "I'm sure he did is just to provide you company. You are rather secluded up here. I mean, all you do is just sit here and work." She indicated towards a large open book on the Librarian's desk; it being partially covered with rows of unfinished text. The quill and ink rested a dagger length's away from his left hand. When the Librarian looked up, she rose on of her eyebrows in question.
"Oh, I was just writing about Richter's minor and major endeavors in this universe. I felt like I had to give back to him somehow after everything he had done for all of us. It helps that some of his stories were incredibly amusing. Did I ever tell you about how he accidentally scared a group of campers in the forest by clipping their tents with his Holy Beam? He was just testing his item crashes after a period of inactivity when he miscalculated the empowerment level on the Holy Book. Set the fools on fire. They're alive, mind you, but I'm not too grouchy to not appreciate a comedic situation when it's in front of me. I was there at the time and I hadn't laughed that hard in ages."
Something about what the Librarian said brought a dark haze over Maria's eyes as she stood up from the chair. Her stance was eerily rigid and when she spoke, her voice was strained; he noticed that her gaze never left the ground. "I...I need to go. Just wanted know how you were dealing with things. Some of us aren't fairing as well as you are." The Librarian considered himself to be friends with Maria, so hearing her in a state like this was horrific. If only he knew what was bothering her. No, he knew exactly what had caused her mood. However, so many things had happened recently that it was almost impossible to correctly identify anything. While the Altar creatures quickly learned to carry on no matter the situation, the surface monsters and Maria still struggled. She slowly shuffled over towards the door and opened it. The door's creaking echoed through the room as she began to leave. She only turned around once she was almost completely through the door. Her voice projected through the room, yet he couldn't see her face. She refused to look into the room. Her shoulders slumped further as she spoke. Her mood was rapidly deteriorating.
"Hey, will you be joining me at the-"
He wasn't going to let her finish that. No one needed to ask him to attend. He would always be there, no matter the circumstances. It was his duty to see it through. Only few could boast the cultural experience the Librarian had gone through as he had aged. He was the most experienced and he knew his attendance was thus requirement beyond the normal specifics. He'd been to many weddings, funerals, and festivals in his youth. He simply waved her off before returning back to his work. He heard her sigh before shutting the door. Maria's footsteps away from his quarters signaled that he was now alone again. The Librarian returned his thoughts to what Maria had been talking about. He was already working on it even before hearing about the service. Hell, he'd been writing ever since he arrived at their new world. His progress had only been slowed with the Village Project. With that done, all he could do now was serve Richter in the only way he could: Writing. Looking down to the massive tome on his desk, he picked up his quill and began.
Richter had no idea that planning a birthday party could be this chaotic. Not on his side, of course; Toriel's side was having all of the issues. He had heard that Frisk was certainly a handful when hyped on cake...which didn't make any sense since the main cake was with Maria. The children had to leave Undyne's house simply because Toriel was afraid that some of the children would get into the equipment. The sheer amount of people who had attended was shocking to the parents. While Richter hadn't actually seen them yet, he took her word when she meant "a lot". Richter knew he should have suspected something when Frisk just simply smiled as a response to Toriel's question: How many people are supposed to show up? Yeah, he was glad that they had gotten away from the lab. Their death by chemicals wasn't something anyone wanted to explain to their parents if it had happened. Now the kids were on their way to Richter's location while he prepared. He had gone ahead about an hour or so and met with Grillby. They were planning on moving the party's location to Grillbys. He was glad that the fire elemental was so accommodating for them. Opening the bar on a non-work day showed how much the monsters of Ebbot-town cared about Frisk. The child was something, that was for sure. Who knew that the savior of monsters was basically a ball of wires and childlike wonder. Now thinking about it, Richter should've guessed that Frisk would be like this. Richter hoped that Undyne and Mettaton could keep the children from straying onto the street while Richter talked to Grillby. Despite what he had expected, Grillby wasn't even slightly aggravated about the change. Hell, he sounded remorseful for the guardians of the children. Of course Grillby had to be the true gentleman out of the bunch.
Richter instinctively rubbed the back of his head, where he usually tied the bandanna back when he was actively fighting. Apparently six years of playing sheriff had taught most of the protesters to take their signs and protest somewhere else. The stress of today had brought Richter back to his roots: Constantly aware of his surroundings and tense, yet maintaining a face of pure concentration. Maria never ceased to find some form of amusement from his face, which slightly bugged Richter. His face wasn't that funny. He internally debated whether or not to ask some of the older Village Monsters if he could still be intimidating. It was a pride thing, mostly. Despite now living a peaceful life, he still trained and tried his best to keep his commanding facade up. It was getting harder every year and he was pretty sure he would just give up this year. He just wanted to last until then.
The supposed coughing of the fire elemental brought him back to his conversation. With a nod on both of their parts, they continued conversing. Grillby had been asking if Richter could help him cook since he had some control over fire magic; this meant that Richter was safer than most in Grillby's kitchen. Having a kitchen that worked solely off of fire magic was probably a safety hazard to most. He had naturally agreed, of course. He had been wanting to use his fire magic for a while now, and he quite enjoyed cooking. So many times in his life he was forced to eat the meat from a wall. His reprieve from that was short lived initially since he had no idea how to cook. He promptly fixed that and taught himself how to make the "Wall Porkchops", as he called them. They were quite famous among the locals on the surface. There was a cooking contest his third year on the surface and he introduced it. He was only bested by Toriel's Butterscotch-Cinnamon pie. Richter was man enough to admit that they were absolutely delicious and blew his food out of the water, or walls; it really depended on how he wanted to prepare the food.
"...Richter, are you ready to get started on this? I'm going to need as much help as I can get..." Grillby's voice was still slightly groggy from just recently waking up. Today had been a free day from his bar and he had decided to sleep in. How a fire elemental's voice could sound tired was beyond him. His ability to talk was certainly a curious subject that Richter often talked to Grillby about during his lunch breaks. His answers usually revolved around "Magic", which made sense in a broad sort of way. However, he wanted specifics and Grillby wasn't too keen on answering those questions. It had become a small game between the two of them. Richter would find the strangest ways to get Grillby to talk about it while Grillby thought of the most unusual answers. The cycle repeated the next day. It was an easy way to stay focused on the day-by-day experiences instead of the bigger picture; something Richter had been all too worried about for the last six or so years. Maria would disagree with that increment of time and would probably say something about his entire life being spent worrying. That wasn't an argument he was keen on getting into with her. If there was anything he regretted passing on to her, it was his stubbornness. Their debates were like throwing a brick wall at an iron one: While one was stronger, neither of them would give in without an army and a half poised and ready.
"Let's get this over with. I would prefer that we have the food ready before they get here. I can't imagine that they would be too calm on Frisk's birthday." Richter's tone of sarcasm was obvious, but hid an underlying feeling of worry. He wanted this to go well for the child. More importantly, he wanted to make sure that the surprise that he and Maria prepared wouldn't fail. If everything went according to plan, it would certainly be a show stopper. He hoped that he wasn't being to literal there. Frisk deserved something from Richter. He had missed each birthday party since he arrived except this one. Richter had only stopped working on being an enforcer of the law near the end of this year. Luckily, none of the children knew about his surprise attendance this year. That included Frisk, which baffled Richter. The child had always been too nosy for his own good. He had the ability to know everything about everyone and it bugged not only Richter, but practically everyone the kid knew. It was a talent that made everyone's lives harder; they didn't mind though. He suspected that Asriel was on to him, but he knew that he would keep it a secret. The young goat monster had always been too nice to ruin an excellent surprise. If only Richter could figure out his birthday without asking; asking about holidays had always been a bit awkward.
Grillby gave Richter a brief nod before entering the building, his head flames trailing behind him. Grillby had always been a man of few words. That was a shame too, since his voice had the ability to pacify most patrons; even humans weren't immune. He assumed that the general aura of monsters could calm most organisms, which explained how they could be around animals without causing them to flip out. Richter quickly glanced down the road to see if anyone was on their way. To his surprise, the streets were abnormally empty. Not even the daily joggers were on the move today. Richter blamed the cold. As the Belmont pressed his hand against the door, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong. That feeling instilled an irrational sense of fear into his internal being. The feeling that the incoming apocalypse was about to arrive slowly lowered itself onto his shoulders, giving him another thing to worry about in his life. Fate seriously needed to pick a better target to test. If he could beat Death, he could certainly beat Fate;that is if Fate was actually something he could fight.