“No. No, he didn’t tell me where it went. Yes. Mmhm. It was very unfortunate. I’m sure it will turn up later. He has run out of hiding places. I know. No. No, it doesn’t seem to help. Yes. Yes, they’re fine, at least, thank the gods. How are yours doing? Hmm. Hmm, yes. Yes, that’s never good. I hope the medicine works. He should be back to flying in no time if it does.”
Kismet watched Hector talk into the phone, her eyes drooped and her head crammed full of information. She heard the words, but, they just didn’t make sense to her at this moment. Her mind buzzed with new facts and new theories from the latest and greatest books to come out of the major publishing houses, as well as the research papers and reports written up by her older colleagues in the Society. She always kept up with them. She had to know what was new in the world, no matter how many came out in the same day. It was a personal goal she set for herself years ago and she’d never let her practice slip.
It helped that she loved to read. It was the best way to interact with the world, in her opinion. She didn’t have to focus on how to adjust common exploration methods to suit her less than ideal physique. Kismet knew she wasn’t strong, fast, or good at thinking on her feet. She knew it would take more effort than she could spare to learn to get good at any of those things. It would take away from her research, and that could not be allowed to happen. Research meant too much to her and she took too much personal pleasure from the act of it.
Honey and Flynn were better at field work. She could never be as good at exploring as those two were. She didn’t mind it. They all had different talents and skills that they brought to the table here at the Historic Society. That was one of the core ideals it was founded under. No one person can accomplish everything on their own, they need the help of their fellow creatures to start to understand the world around them and make it a better place.
“Yes, we’ve gotten more visitors than I expected recently. No, nothing that interesting. Just some young adults asking questions about things. No. No, nobody like that. Should we keep a lookout for them?”
Hector continued his conversation in the distance, but Kismet could only think about the new reports. Some of this stuff wasn’t even in published book format. It was just a scientific report someone made about the recent occurrences around the world. She hadn’t realized there were so many strange phenomena underway at the current time. This wasn’t supposed to happen now. These kinds of things sounded like pieces from historic novels and legends, not actual events in the world.
There were records of migrating storms and toxic beasts that sucked the life out of the world around them. There were reports on twisted figures and enigmatic figure heads and manipulators in places they did not belong. She read about Navroya’s issues with electricity and she picked up on leads of People who hadn’t made large moves in the past suddenly taking big steps towards action. Some papers implied that the gates were opened, and others had interviews with people who’d seen odd events. There was new information of movement of monsters and there were stories of species that had kept out of sight for decades returning to the surface.
She didn’t know what to make of this raw information, but she knew she wanted more. She had to find out what happened with the quetzal sited away from its natural habitat. She needed to hear who opened the gates and what drove them to do such a thing. She couldn’t sit still and not know more about what the strange beings so many civilians reported on had started to appear. All these reports combined with what happened with Flynn were too mysterious to not be indicative of something larger happening in the world. She couldn’t believe it was all a coincidence. Something big was in motion and she needed to know what was going on.
“Hmm, I see. Then, they might head here soon. I will pass the message along, thank you. Hopefully your night is peaceful.”
Kismet watched Hector hang up the phone. She hadn’t caught more than a dozen words of the conversation. It sounded longer and more in depth than his usual conversations with the other night librarian. Maybe she’d find out more about the strange world events sooner than she’d expected.