Between Time, Before Space (part of a full-length novel idea)

Medanit Ubenna looked left. Looked right. Sighed. He was lost. The thick Book of Every Other Thing jeered at him from around his right shoulder, waving its yellowed pages with a shuffling guffaw. He slammed it back onto the shelf.

He had been the Library's Guardian for eons now and he still got lost. It was a major blow on his immortal ego. With a lopsided bowl cut, the left side rebelliously short and the right side droopingly long, eccentric is the closest word the English language has envisioned when it comes to Medanit Senna Ubenna. He hardly laughed, but when he did, it was a high-pitched raspy giggle. Like a school girl with a sore throat. When he smiled, a row of razor-sharp teeth, meticulously kept, invited you a bit closer.

However, he was a peaceful man; he couldn't be the Library's Guardian otherwise. Before he had been granted the title of Librarian of the Cosmos, and thus made immortal, he was a farmer on the Human Outer Ring colony Andrios, located in the southwest edge of the Milky Way. With no skills besides growing organic soy beans and potatoes, he was the last person who would be the sole keeper and protector of all knowledge in the universe.

His pale gray eyes caught something in the back corner of the room, which resembled a high school locker room, except all the lockers would have books crammed into it. There was a flower pot on one of the lockers. Not a very magnificent flower, and his allergies warned him from getting too close, but it was modest, white, and bell-shaped. It reminded him of Flaxis Rat tail; except, the flower-shaped ligament exuded a very powerful stench when the Flazis Rat felt threatened. This pale, drooping counterpart stood still, leaning a little to the left.

In all of the countless decades Medanit had not seen any sign of life besides himself and the bewitched items that clinked, shuffled, and howled throughout the Library, presents left over from the previous Librarian who had dabbled in the magick books in the cellar. Medanit had the north stairs blocked off by giant, flying gargoyles because the suits of armor had almost dissevered both of his arms last millenia. The age-long battle was still in its prime, rocking the north side of the Library with occasional earthquakes.

It was very pleasant to encounter something living that didn't want to kill him for a change. Inspecting one of the petals, curved into a small S like a little organic ladle. The stem was thin at the bud, which is why it drooped, but thick at the base, all the stems merging into one green clump, wedged in dirt.

Dirt. He had not seen, smelled, or touched dirt since he was mortal. The sand in the sun room did not count, mainly because it counted the remaining lifespan of mortal lives across the universe.

Yes, even Dr. Death kept his knowledge here.

Suddenly, the locker started to shake, dislodging the dirt that clung around the rim of the flower pot. The bells swung to and fro, and Medanit imagined a small jingling sound as the flowers slapped together. A light, bright and sizzling, burst from the cracks of the locker and the man, millenias old, jumped back with the nimbleness of a young boy.

Thud. Crack. Slam!

Enter Rodney, the future Librarian and soon-to-be ruffian Apprentice. From Earth.