[Indigo]

Natalya would not normally be out in the field under these circumstances—not that these kinds of baffling magical disasters happened often, but if they were going to happen she'd prefer to be safely at home during them, or at least in the museum. But she already was in the field when the thing hit, so that was out of her hands. Now she was trying to get back, but it was going to take quite a while to find the jeep again, so she might as well do a little mapping on her way, just so she had something to show for this trip other than a fine coating of dust and a hole in her tent.

[Indigo]

For the most part the landscape hadn't varied much as she walked, since she preferred to work at some distance from the trenches so she could avoid, you know, radiation poisoning. Because of this, Natalya noticed right away that there was something unusual up ahead. She didn't stop or change direction, because she had more curiosity than sense and would admit as much, but it did put her on her guard.

There was a large white box ahead of her, maybe the size of her old apartment, the studio; it was positioned at a slight angle against some rocks, as if it had been dropped by some careless giant. Below it, splattered across the ground for some distance in every direction, was a stain of bright yellow, so brilliant to her eyes after all this dark gray that she squinted a little to look at it.

[Indigo]

As Natalya stood there, at the edge of the yellow, staring, an outline of a door drew itself in the side of the box. This was startling enough, but she hardly had time to react to it before the door swung open and a rollaby fell out of it, as a consequence of the door being two feet above the ground.

The rollaby scrambled to his feet and stared around himself wildly. "Wh...what? How did—there's no door here! There's no, no space to occupy!" He looked up at the white wall behind him. "I guess that explains that, but that just raises more questions! What is going on?"

It was also notable to Natalya that the rollaby bore faint traces of color—not as vibrant as she imagined he ought to be, or as the patch of yellow on which he stood, but more than anything else around him. She didn't know what to think about this. "How did you get here?" she said.

[Indigo]

His eyes widened when he saw her, but he was perfectly jovial in tone when he spoke. "That's an excellent question! I don't know. Normally the Library can only appear in communities, places where there's a sensible spot for it to slot into, but in this case..." He chewed the nails of one paw, tapping his tail lightly against the ground, thinking. "I really have no idea. I've never experienced anything like this before. I'm Roderick, by the way." He extended his other paw toward her.

She crossed the weird yellow patch to shake it. The ground felt normal, at least. "Natalya. This building is a library? It doesn't look big enough."

[Indigo]

"Well, it doesn't entirely exist in physical reality, which is probably why I look like this instead of being completely colorless like everything else. Almost everything else," he amended, gesturing to the yellow patch. He sounded much too cheerful for the situation at hand, but the words came out in an absent sort of way, like he'd explained this many times and was thinking about something else.

"I think I heard something about there being colors in a few places," Natalya offered. "But I was expecting, I don't know. Some kind of mystical object or something. Not just a stain on the ground."

"That is a little odd," Roderick said, "but there isn't much here to be mystical. Unless you found something in one of the trenches. Very...polite of these creatures not to put the color there."

[Indigo]

"Creatures?" She hadn't seen anything alive since she'd packed up camp this morning, except of course for the trees, and a single distant zipala that seemed to be in a hurry to get wherever it was going.

"Probably! Can't you hear them?"

"...no."

"That's fine, don't worry about it. I'm very good at hearing things most people can't." He paused. "Real things, not hallucinations. Maybe sometimes hallucinations, if I don't take—sorry, wow, I am getting very personal and I have no idea who you are. Just shock, I guess! Anyway, what are you doing out here by yourself? I always thought people didn't really like to camp out here because of the radiation."

[Indigo]

"That's...definitely true," she said, electing to ignore the rest of it. The fact that she was having this conversation was weird enough that it was hard to know how to behave in it, what was appropriate to say, and it didn't surprise her that Roderick felt similarly. "I was mapping some mineral deposits and their correlations with certain plant species, sort of technical, sorry. Normally I wouldn't be here by myself, but my partner got the flu the day we were supposed to leave."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Roderick said. "Also that your expedition has been so thoroughly interrupted! That doesn't seem like much fun."

"At least I was planning to be here."

"True!" He laughed, and glanced up at the door. "But I'm not by myself, so it all evens out. Although I have to tell you, I don't really want to wake Al, I don't think he's going to be very happy about this."

[Indigo]

"Al?"

"Oh, my boss. Well. Sort of my boss. Really the Library itself is my boss, but he makes a good effort!"

"The library...is also a person?" This was a lot of weirdness she was being asked to absorb at once.

Roderick looked surprised. "I guess! It doesn't really think of itself as one, and I'm not sure you can be a person per se in the absence of a society, but I'm not much of a philosopher. I think I might have a talk with it and see if it can take us somewhere more...normal. We weren't supposed to move for weeks yet! I wonder if...hmm."

"You wonder if what?"

"Just that it might be related to all the technical problems I've been having. Hey, do you want a ride? In a manner of speaking. It doesn't move through space."

[Indigo]

Natalya looked up at the featureless white box, and down at the yellow dirt in front of her, as if either of these things had answers for her. It was a tempting offer. The walk was really very long. But it would probably mean leaving the car behind, and it was officially museum property and unofficially belonged to Fex, so she'd certainly catch several kinds of hell for doing that. Not to mention that, while Roderick seemed nice enough, climbing into a building that had appeared from nowhere without the input of its occupants and that was apparently alive in some nebulous way...didn't sit right with her. She was incautious sometimes, but she wasn't stupid.

"I'll pass," she said. "But thanks for the offer."

He gave her another surprised look, but then nodded. "I understand! This is a bit much for most people even when we're in the right place and I've had breakfast already. Good luck on your travels, then. Maybe I'll see you again sometime, if the Library meant to set down here. Who knows?" With this cryptic proclamation he climbed back up and through the door, which he closed behind him.

[Indigo]

She watched the building for a little while, but it didn't appear to do anything, and as it had no windows she couldn't check what was happening inside. Maybe that was for the best.

Before she left she pulled an empty water bottle out of her backpack and, with a furtive glance left and right that she immediately felt ridiculous for, scooped up some of the bright yellow dirt. She didn't quite know how this whole restoring color thing was supposed to work, but she'd found an opportunity to help and she wasn't going to squander it. That settled, she continued on her way across the plains.

[Color Harvested]