1"Hello, cat, do you want to share my lunch?"
Answering him with a plaintive meow, the sleek black cat jumped up onto the wall to be on the same height level as him. He plucked a small fish out of his sandwich and dangled it in front of the cat. She snatched it out of his hands, dropped it in front of her paws, then devoured it. Once she finished it, she wrapped herself around his leg, purring. He idly reached down to stroke its silky smooth fur, staring out into space. It was the kind of weather that encouraged just sitting there and spacing out, pleasantly warm and still, with an hour's lunch break to fill with nothing pressing to do.
From his perch on the wall, he had a good view of the famous Brokenshire Astronomical Clock. As well as telling the time and displaying the positions of the celestial bodies, it also predicted the weather, kept track of the phases of the sun and moon, told everyone their horoscope and every day at midday precisely, one of the panels slid back and a little procession of minor deities, ancestral spirits and particularly popular Chancellors of Brokenshire paraded out of the clock to the national anthem. It was also precisely accurate. Since it had been built, 300 years ago, it had never been a second wrong and not a single part had needed replacing. The parts had been built by a blue dragon who not only had centuries of experience of horology but also no small amount of skill with time magic. The marble clock face was engraved with the swirling shapes of the Dragons of Heaven and Earth as they circled each other and intertwined to create destiny.
In front of the clock tower was Mrs. May's Tea Shop, where Scribe bought tea and cakes every day when he had enough of his tenure left over. Behind him were the enormous marble columned arches of the Grand Library, where a person could find virtually any book printed and records of everything that had happened, and where he was apprenticed as a scribe.
The cat's purring grew louder and more insistent. She jumped into his lap and pressed her face against his, giving him a stare that said Oi, where's the rest of that fish? I know there's more of it, I can smell it!
"I ate it already. It's just the smell that's lingering. Sorry," he opened his hands to show that they were empty. The cat wasn't buying it. She continued staring at him from close range, then tapped his face with her paw as if to check whether he was broken or not. He sighed, "Oh, okay, one more! But the rest is mine! It IS supposed to be my lunch, you scrounger, why don't you catch your own?"
"Waterloo…"
Scribe flinched and looked up. She had appeared without him noticing again. Now she was regarding him with those deep, dark eyes of hers, her mouth a flatline.
"Come, Waterloo." she said, her voice full of serene despair at nothing in particular. She reached a slim, pale hand out to the cat, who ran to her immediately, nuzzling her hand and purring, then jumped into her arms.
"Hello there, Tracy!" he waved at her. The expression she gave him was filled with the wrath of the Lady of the Setting Sun, willing generations of defeat and despair down upon him.
"Thracia." she corrected, her voice dangerously quiet. Then she turned on her heel and walked away, cat on her shoulder, the cowl of her Initiate's robe raised to cover her raven-black hair. He gazed at her, now, instead of the scenery, until she had walked out of sight, back into the courtyard of the Temple. I know you're not a real sacred animal, pure black fur or not, thought Scribe, trading a last Machiavellian stare with the cat, Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. If you just act like any cat does, walk through life as though every divine privilege in the world is yours, you'll be doing your duty and nobody will notice.
Now Thracia, she really was a sacred animal.
The clock chimed, signalling the end of his lunch break. He jumped off the wall and ambled back into the Library gardens. They were an elaborate affair, with hanging baskets of flowers, fountains, gazebos and topiaries of beasts of all kinds. Students sat on the white limestone steps, reading and arguing. They didn't look up as he walked through the main archway.
Mildred was curled around her chair in the reception desk. Her beady eyes watched him, her ears twitching to detect the slightest noise, waiting for him to make a mistake. She had always been there, so he should be used to her by now but she still made him nervous. Dragons were scary enough and librarians were even scarier, without there having to exist dragons who were librarians. He waved at her but avoided her gaze. She tapped her pen on her ledger at him, trapped between two scaly clawed fingers.
He walked across the chequered marble mosaic floor of the main library, its shelves packed from floor to ceiling. A short, stocky, harassed-looking old man in the tunic and cap of a senior scribe was using wind-elemental magic to levitate a book from the top shelf. It glided down and landed perfectly in his hands.
"Oh, there you are. I have an errand for you." he muttered into his thick white beard, presumably at Scribe. His hair was cropped short and kept carefully under control with a filing system of braids and cords but there was still a lot of it. Even his eyebrows were thick and busy and obscured his eyes. He wasn't purestrain human, Scribe knew, which was why he was well preserved for his age even for a healthy old man. For his species, old age put him somewhere close to one hundred and twenty. Scribe stopped to listen to his Master. He was surprised that he was being given an errand when there was so much paperwork to do. He supposed the walk would do him good. It was a good day to be outside, rather than sat doing paperwork in his cramped, dusty corner of the Library.
"Alistair hasn't been returning his library books again. I want you to go and remind him, bring the books back, collect the fine and tell him that Mildred is very annoyed with him."
Scribe gulped. If there was one thing worse than a dragon who was a librarian, it was the same dragon who was a librarian having an argument with another dragon, and Scribe finding himself in the middle of the argument, looking even slightly like he might be involved in one side or the other.
"Wouldn't it be better for one of the librarians to do that?" he asked, trying not to let his voice shake or sound like he was begging, "There must be an official book-retrieving person."
"The thing is, I happen to need some of the information in one of those books and we don't have a second copy." said Master Burgundy, "Besides, its simple work, not for bothering the librarians with on a busy day like this. It's a long walk and you young ones are always full of energy. I think it would be a good learning experience for an apprentice to go out and do something a little different. You know where Alistair's lair is, yes?"
"Yes, Master Burgundy." sighed Scribe.