In Search of Home

Chapter 94

The librarian looked alarmed when he caught sight of Vok'Rul. He floundered around the desk for a moment before stepping forward, hands raised in a sign of peace. His words were the exact opposite of peace, however. "Uhh, excuse me, you - wow, I mean, you are huge - oh, sorry. Uh, what I mean to say is that the library probably... won't be able to fit you."

"No worries, book human, I am very mindful of my size," Vok'Rul told him. The librarian stared at him with confusion before looking at Oskar and Viktor. 

"Uhh, I can't understand him," he said, a bit sheepishly. "His language is terrifying, did you know that?" 

Viktor barely - barely - refrained from outright glaring at the man. "Yeah, I know," he said, a bit more snippy than he usually would speak to strangers. "And what do you mean the library won't be able to fit him? The ceilings are high enough." 

And they were. Vok'Rul stood straight, stretching out his limbs like a cat. Their apartment wasn't meant for twelve-foot-tall aliens, so the only place he could stand up straight was outside and at the grocery store they shopped at. The only problem Viktor could see was if the alien started running through the bookshelves with reckless abandon. Which he wouldn't. 

The librarian quickly lost his awestruck expression, eyes becoming a bit steely as Viktor's hostility ebbed over to him. "What I'm saying is that I won't allow an alien in my very human library, thank you. If he destroys books with his claws, it'll be brushed off! Who would make the actual alien pay for some library books?" 

Oskar stepped forward, settling a hand on Viktor's shoulder. He trembled with the urge to punch this guy in the face. He had a very punchable face. "Sir, he's not some senseless animal." How the tables have turned, Viktor thought. "He just wanted to look at the books." 

"Well, he can go look at books somewhere else," the librarian snapped, loudly. The patrons nearby had long since abandoned any courtesy of pretending not to eavesdrop, openly watching their interaction. 

"This is a public library," Viktor started, not even really sure why he was insisting in the first place. Maybe it was because Vok'Rul had been so excited to see some. Maybe it was because Vok'Rul would have done the same if their roles were reversed. "And we're the public!" 

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You're upsetting the actual public." 

"Come, Kohgrash, Kohgrash's sire. It is of no importance to me any longer," Vok'Rul said, a bald-faced lie. Viktor stomped on the urge to whirl around and yell at the alien for submitting to this librarian's unfair wishes, but it wasn't his fault that this guy was - was xenophobic! 

The cold air bit at his skin and washed away some of the hot anger coursing through him. "It's not fair," he whispered heatedly to the snow-covered sidewalk. Someone skirted past the trio with wariness in their gaze. He kicked a clump of snow onto the road, watching it slowly melt. 

"It is unrealistic to imagine that your entire planet would accept my presence," Vok'Rul said sagely, voice carefully neutral. "You did not know it, but your species fared much the same way." 

"I did know," he bit out. "They - They liked to linger in the warehouse, just to watch us." 

They had been new, something to look at with open-faced curiosity. Granted, most of their looks had quickly become cruel and sadistic. Viktor's nails scratched against the sleeve of his sweater, feeling itchy underneath his skin, somewhere deeper. 

Oskar hummed. At least Viktor hadn't been put on display all the time. Though, he probably would've preferred that over the arena.

"Let's go to the store," Viktor said suddenly, loudly. "We can get books there. And I can teach you how to write or something!"