The Scrollery Staff

When she heard the large wooden door creak open, the girl in the maids outfit dusting the top scrollshelves almost toppled off the ladder in delight.

'Welcome! Welcome to the scrollery!—uh…'

The door had barely moved, but she could hear loud thumping noises from the other side…and yelling too.

-------------------------------

'Che, you really are weak,' Kyo sneered.

'Well I'd like to see you try,' Yuki retaliated.

'Fine then, since you're so incapable.' The peasant then ran up and did a huge flying kick to bust down the door. An 'OWWW!!!' and swollen foot later they figured he couldn't get the door open either.

'Dammit!' said Kyo, still in pain, 'you sure this is the right place, Bovine?'

'I'm positive this time,' Haru the Wise stated.

'Just like you were positive the last five times?' Yuki asked.

'Well, I'm sure I'm positive this time,' came the reply.

'And I think Haru's right too!!' bounced Momiji, his red cape flying out from behind him.

'What makes you say that, Momiji?' Yuki asked.

'Well,' said the knight, 'it has a sign just there!' and pointed.

All four of them looked over to where he was pointing and saw, above a small bed of chrysanthemums, a large neon sign with flashing lights (someone came in a time machine and put it there with some Super-Ultra-Extra Heavy duty batteries) which read:

THE SCROLLERY

Please turn the handle upon entering.

You could almost hear the tumbleweed roll past at that moment, until Sir Momiji went up to the door and turned the handle. It swung open with ease on well oiled hinges to find a huge area filled with rows upon rows of shelves filled with countless numbers of scrolls, and right in front of them, a desk and young lady with spectacles and a feather duster.

'Welcome to the scrollery! My name's Mine and if I could help you in any way...'

'Guests!!' a voice interrupted. From behind some shelves, out stepped a handsome young man with spectacles perched on his nose. In his hand was a calligraphy brush and had the faint smell of coffee.

'Author Shigure! What brings you out here?' Mine asked. 'It wasn't your editor was it?'

'No no, not at all. T'was guests of course that brought me out here this fateful day. We have to make the feel at home don't we? Come, come this way! We shall have tea and biscuits! Oh my gosh, that was so poetic I think I should write that down. Shall you come forth to the office?'

'Oi!' yelled Kyo, 'we don't want friggn' tea! We want a ma--'

But he just got hit squarely in the forehead with a plank of wood that had suddenly materialized.

'A tagalong can't dictate what we do or don't do,' said Yuki without a second thought.

'Hey!! I just want you to pay me back, you stupid rodent, you think I want to come on your stupid journey?' but everyone was ignoring him.

So Haru was the one to answer Shigure's question. 'I want biscuits.'

'Yaaaaay! Sugar!' squealed the knight, temporarily forgetting that he was a knight and going hyperactive.

Yuki sighed, 'I wouldn't mind tea but can we make it wheat biscuits or something?'

The author lead them in and out of a maze of scrollshelves until they realized that they could hear voices from around the corner.

'I say, we need to overhaul this place, put some new drapes up,' said one flamboyant voice. 'We should hire some contractors.'

Another voice let out a weary sigh. 'What for now?'

One could almost imagine the look on the first voice's face. 'What for? I thought you were more intelligent than that! To do our contracting of course.'

Momiji could keep it in no longer, wanting more sugar so badly, he ran past them and around the corner yelling at the top of his lungs, 'Kyaaaaaaaa!!!! Sugarsugarsugar sugarsugarsugar sugarsugarsugar sugarsugarsugar!'

Yuki shut his eyes trying to prevent the oncoming headache. Needless to say, it didn't work. 'Calm down Momiji, you haven't even had any sugar yet.'

Kyo piped in, 'You don't plan on giving him more sugar do you?'

'Of course not, that would be stupid,' he replied dully.

'Stupid like your FACE!'

'What kind of comeback is that? You really are the fool.'

'Where's my biscuit?' Haru had rounded the corner.

They had entered a cleared, carpeted area that had a green leather couch at one end with a coffee table in the centre and a large oak desk beyond that. The desk was littered with quills and parchment, and many ink blots were stained into the wood, results from a certain flamboyant persons extravagant hand gestures meeting the unsuspecting open inkbottle. The floor space next to the desk had scrap bits of parchment lying around what seemed to be a bin, even though it was cleaner than the surrounding area. Behind this desk was a scary, stern looking man with hair covering half his face and a quill scribbling on the paper before him. Peering over his shoulder was the long, silver haired owner of the first voice. He blinked. Momiji was running in and out of the aisles.

Shigure then appeared from around the corner. 'We have guests!'

In the scrollery they were,
And very hyped-up was the Sir
Will they ever get their map?
Or will they eternally suffer the unbearable wrath?

Mine then appeared out of nowhere, most probably hearing all the ruckus, came to find out what was going on. 'Hush now! There'll be no excessive noise in the scrollery!'

'Aaaaaahhhhhh! Gomen!!!' and Ristu rushed outside before Mine could usher him out.

'So who are you anyway, not that I care of course,' as Kyo always reminds us when he shows the slightest interest in something.

'Well now that you ask…' Aya started, 'I am Ayame, the scroll keeper here and this is Mine, as you know who is the scrollarian.'

Mine made a little curtsy before exiting once again to guard the front desk and watch out for Ritsu.

'I am Shigure, the author of all the wonderful volumes you see on these shelves,' he indicated to the masses of shelves with an arm.

'Wow, did author 'Gure write all these? He must have a sore arm,' Momiji felt like saying, now over his sugar high and not puffed out in the least regardless that he just ran a marathon around the shelves.

'No, I did.' The last stranger spoke.

'And Ha-san is so very kind to!' Shigure beamed.

'I am the calligrapher,' he continued, ignoring the last comment.

'And that's that, now who might you young gentlemen be?' Aya asked.

'Oh oh, let me go first, me!' Momiji jumped up in the air with his hand waving. 'I am the brave knight, Sir Momiji!'

'Ah, are you now?' Shigure mused.

'Uh huh! And this is Haru the wise.'

'Yo'

'Lord Yuki'

'Hello there'

'and some peasant who keeps following us'

'I have a name you know!'

Momiji laughed, 'and that's all of us.'

'Hey, don't I get a proper introduction?!'

Yuki gave him a dull look. 'You are the one that followed us, baka, no one is asking you to come.'

'What? I will do as I damn well please, and I'm especially not taking orders from you!'

Yuki sighed. 'Do as you please, I just don't know why you're obsessed with us so much.'

'Damn…you…rodent…quit avoiding the topic. You still have to pay me back and until then I will follow you 'till we get to … wherever you're going.'

'So you admit you're following them then?' Shigure asked.

'Oh stuff it,' Kyo now obviously irritated, not like he wasn't before. 'Where the hell are we going anyway?'

Momiji answered, 'to save Princess Tohru!'

'Huh?' Kyo blinked.

'Well,' he continued, 'One day, the Eval King Akito decided to be especially eval and so he kidnapped the unsuspecting Princess Tohru and all the chrysanthemums from peoples gardens. Word spread throughout the land until it reached the ears of a brave knight who ran to the side of a noble lord and his wise advisor only to be stalked by a mere commoner as they embarked on a dire quest to save the innocent Princess Tohru!'

'Stalked!?!' Yelled Kyo, but they all ignored him.

'My my, this does sound terribly exciting. I now have ideas for my next publication. Ha-san, get the quill ready!'

'I need to get some more,' he said, getting up from his seat. 'This one broke.'

'You shan't worry 'Gure-san, you can always use my quill,' Aya chimed in.

'Oh no, I couldn't do something like that. Your quills will always be too special for use.'

'No matter, I would give up a hundred of my quills just to see the creativity pour out of your head!'

'But you're so kind, Aya.'

'Anything for you, Gure.'

…

'PSYCHE!!!'

Yuki gave another of his dull looks, so tempted to hit them with the interdimensional-suddenly-appearing wood. Kyo was off sulking in the corner, annoyed at being ignored even though he should be used to it by now. Momiji was happily munching on some biscuits and Haru was lounging on the couch. Aya and Shigure were heaven knows where, and Ha'ri had just walked back in with a large roll of parchment and several quills in hand. He took the parchment and unravelled it on the table for all to see. It was a map, and on it was a large arrow pointing to the scrollery reading, YOU ARE HERE.

'It was the tourist information poster outside. 'Gure's always been too lazy to draw a map himself so you can have this one,' Hatori explained. 'To the north there is a large, dark forest you must pass through, but you must be wary of ruthless bandits and gypsies, or alternatively, you can pass through the valley of happy bunnies, daffodils and rainbows.

'Hmmmm, we'll go the forest way, because if we go the other way, the author will be bored out of their brains,' said Haru. ('I have brains?' thinks the author)

'Yes, well, do what you choose, but either way you will get to The Village. Just past that is the Eval King Akito's castle.'

So now they have directions and map,
Our heroes set off to what's bound to be a trap
How exactly did Hatori know,
The precise whereabouts of the troupe's foe?

'Dammit, come here you!! How did you get in here??' Kyo chased the apologizing Ritsu out of the scrollery.

Momiji, Yuki and Haru took their leave and bid a farewell to Mine at the front desk who was rather busy trying to console a devastated editor sobbing all over the floor, Haru taking the map. All the while Momiji intently watched a shadowy figure just underneath the neon sign acting rather suspiciously and kneeling close to the ground.

'So where to now?' Yuki asked.

Haru consulted the map. 'North, that's where the forest is.'

'And we want the valley of bunnies, so that must be right.' Yuki thought. 'Alright, let's go.'

So the group headed north, looking forward to a relaxing next leg…

------------------------------

Thanks once again for reading : ) It makes me happy to think that people are actually reading what I wrote. Is there anything I didn't do as well as I could have done? If so, please tell me! Also, it's in the early hours of the morning so I don't think my editing job was as good as it could have been. I'll go over it tomorrow, but if you spot any typing/spelling/grammatical errors, please tell me.

'Till the next chapter…you think bunnies? Yeah, right. The protagonists always get themselves into trouble, the story won't be interesting otherwise, ne?

--- Your Editor aka. Charcol

PS: I'm so sorry it took so long to get this out. I've been busy, but I haven't forgotten. Far from it… I have plans. Mwahahhahaha…-cough, cough, hairball-