And the Ways of the Worlds - for Eliot Spencer

[historicizing]

It's not easy, being the Librarian.

Tom didn't ask for this. Any of it. Saving the world, again, and apparently it's not even his world (but in some way, all worlds) but he has been chosen and there's no way around that responsibility.

Because there is a threat. A threat so great and unspeakable that apparently he and his Guardian have been called in from different worlds to face it.

Yeah, right. Tom finds that a bit hard to believe – he has served with men and women who have never seen battle before but reached past their limits when circumstances demanded it. To him, it's ridiculous and patronizing to pretend an entire planet can't stand up for itself, that they need people from alternate universes for it. He thinks something else is going on, something they are not telling them, but... he's keeping it to himself for now.

He's keeping a lot to himself for now.

To the Library, to his Guardian, he's Tom Mason, history professor from Boston. After the first few preliminary missions he tentatively trusts the Library to be what it stands for but... just in case all this turns out to be one long interrogation or fever dream, he will not let them have any intel about the alien invasion or his part in it.

Still, it's hard to adjust. Magic is a completely different set of problems than what he's used to and while he doesn't want to belittle the threat it poses to the world, sometimes... sometimes it's just that. Hard. They want him to use his smarts and his brain to solve problems but it's almost impossible to not translate it into pragmatical choices or war strategies. Maybe fighting is all he knows anymore.

He feels disquiet, restless whenever he tries to just sit down and read for leisure. He studies the books because he knows there is great knowledge in there – the knowledge to win wars, to inspire people, to build nations – but when the Clippings Book lights up he's usually the first one to push the doors to the Annex open.

"What's the situation?"