Tales of Interest!

A lot of things can happen to library books. Adventurous things. Fantastic things. Horrific things. And some just plain silly things. Here, you will find some of the secret tales of the library.

A/N: I love this section because it's the only section on fffffnet where the genre tag can double as the pairing tag.

Anyhow! THE PAGEMASTER. My favorite childhood movie and not one that gets overmuch attention. Not many people are very likely to read this but that is okay because I enjoy writing it so much.

This is a collection of oneshots about the books' life in the library. You see, I'm tentatively planning a long, chaptered thing that revolves around Horror getting sold in a book sale and Adventure and Fantasy going on a quest to get him back. In my tentative planning, I realized that said story takes place some time after the movie, and since sentient library books don't live in a vacuum, I would hope that they did something between the movie and some vague time after the movie. I started making up past incidents for the characters to refer to, to show that they did things with their lives, and then I realized those past incidents would be fun to write about in and of themselves. Plus, it would give me good writing practice, since I've never written for this fandom before.

So, without further ado: Tales of Interest! Title totally stolen from Futurama.

(CAUTION: Contains a little bit of odd fanon, but I can get away with that because no one will read this.)

Tale 1: The Tale of how a Little Girl Wrote Her Name on Adventure, Thereby Mortally Offending Him For Life

A/N: PSYCHE! YOU THOUGHT I WAS STARTING THE STORY! First, I have something to say about this specific Tale of Interest.

A while ago I checked out a book from the library and it had some kid's name in it. This normally wouldn't bother me much- kids do things like that and parents don't always notice in time to stop them- but I know the child in question. I also know that she's well old enough to know not to write her name in a book that's not hers. So it bothered me. So, our First Tale of Interest comes straight from my heart, as I vent my spleen in the socially acceptable form of an anthropomorphic book that talks like a pirate. HOO-AH!

I am a MAN!

~Linkara, Atop the 4th Wall

Fantasy woke up that night with a feeling of suppressed excitement.

She pulled herself off of her shelf, shook out her wings, adjusted her pantyhose, stretched, and tried to think of a reason for the feeling. It wasn't Christmas, it wasn't the night before the start of the summer reading program, it wasn't the night before Saturday, the day Richard Tyler usually came to the library. It was just an ordinary night, wasn't it?

She fluttered up to the top of the bookshelves and alighted on the top shelf, absent-mindedly playing with the tip of her wand. She had the nagging feeling that something good was supposed to happen tonight, a feeling which can be just as annoying as the feeling that something's going to go wrong, if you can't think of a reason for it.

Then, she snapped her fingers in remembrance. Adventure. It was the day he was due back after long weeks of being checked out!

In his absence, she could fully admit to herself that she missed the crusty old book, if only because he was one of the few fiction books in the library that didn't spend all their time dormant. Before she'd met Horror, Adventure had been her only companion after closing time, unless you counted that obnoxious copy of Sam the Cat: Detective that kept following her around trying to 'pin' her for nonexistent crimes before finally being permanently lost by a sticky child with a large nose.

She stepped off the bookcase and headed for the Adventure section. When she got there, she found an empty space on the shelf and Horror standing there below it, looking nonplussed.

Fantasy alighted beside him. "Hey, handsome!"

The other book turned to her, his face lighting up. "Good morning, Fantasy!"

It was actually evening, but she felt no need to correct him. "Good morning! And how are you this fine night?"

"Oh, can't complain," Horror said, and then his gaze went back to the empty shelf. "Err…"

Fantasy studied the empty space herself, then said: "Huh. Must be overdue."

Horror turned wide, anxious mismatched eyes towards her. "What if he got lost?"

Fantasy refused to consider it. "Maybe he's still in the book return. Or misshelved. Come on, hunk, let's check and see."

"Okay!" he said, and they headed towards the front desk together.

The book return was a little compartment built in to the huge, awe-inspiring front desk. Fantasy rose into the air and peered into the return slot. It was too dark in there to see much- but she could tell that the return box hadn't been emptied that day, as she could make out the shapes of a pile of books.

She hesitated, a small, foolish part of her not wanting Adventure to hear her calling for him, not wanting him to know she had missed him. But after all they'd been through together, that was just immature and plain stupid- it wasn't like she was implying anything by just calling his name- so she called: "Adventure? Are you in there?"

"Adventure!" Horror called from the ground. "Adventure!"

There was no answer for a good while, and Fantasy was starting to think the other book simply hadn't been returned on time when there was a sound of movement from inside the box. She peered inside.

"Leave me be," a voice growled. "I'm in no fit state to be seen by a lady."

Fantasy rose her eyebrows. Horror crowded closer. "Can I see you?"

"What? Horror? No! Belay, ye lubber!"

Horror retreated, pouting. Fantasy peered in through the slot. Adventure was sitting in there with his back to the opening. Judging by his posture, he was sulking.

She lit up the tip of her wand and pushed it in through the slot to light up the interior of the return box. She now had a great view of Adventure's back, which looked exactly the way it always had.

"I don't see anything wrong with you, unless you mean that thing you call a face just isn't cutting it anymore," she said.

Adventure turned and glared at her. His front looked as normal as his back. "Begone with ye! I'm sayin' I don't want you lunkheads sniffin' around here!"

Horror recoiled. Fantasy scowled.

"If there's something wrong with you," she snapped, "then instead of insulting us, you get out here and let us help you like the loyal friends we are!"She coughed. "Please."

Adventure huffed. "I ain't lettin' no one see me in this disgraceful state o' affairs!"

Fantasy rolled her eyes. "Fine. Come on, Horror. Let's go see the new arrivals."

She turned away.

"Hold up there, lass," Adventure growled. "If ye really think ye can handle it, I'll show ye what happened. But it ain't for the faint of heart!"

Horror shuddered and backed away. Adventure started climbing out of the return slot and Fantasy backed up to give him room.

Adventure jumped down to the floor, standing with his chest thrown out and his lips pressed together in a thin line. There was a wild, defiant look in his eyes.

Horror screamed and cringed away with his hands over his eyes. Fantasy blinked. "I… still don't see anything different."

"Nothing different?" Adventure scoffed. "Feast yer eyes on THIS!"

He whirled around so his back faced them, and he threw his front and back covers apart, opening to a full-page illustration.

Fantasy leaned forward. Something was written in Adventure's margins, in pink ink.

It was the name 'Holly Dourk', written in a scrawling, childish hand and surrounded by little drawings of hearts and flowers.

"Aww, how sweet," Fantasy said.

Horror crept closer to see what she was looking at. He smiled, revealing crooked, yellow teeth. "D'aw. She liked you!"

Adventure whipped around to face them, sputtering. "SWEET? LIKED ME?" He stomped his peg leg. "This is willful defacement of a libr'y book!"

"Aw," Fantasy said, "what was she, six?"

"She was old enough to know better!" Adventure snapped. "And besides, she had no business checkin' me out in the first place!"

"And why not?" Fantasy prodded.

Adventure drew his sword and pointed it dramatically at the ceiling. Horror looked up at the ceiling, apparently found nothing interesting there, and turned his attention back to Adventure.

"I am a MAN'S book!" Adventure proclaimed.

Fantasy snorted. "Really."

"I was written BY men, ABOUT men, FOR men!" And he shook his sword emphatically.

"D'ah, you should be careful with that," Horror said "You could cut yourself."

Adventure just gave him a scathing look in reply.

Fantasy leaned back, folding her arms across her chest (or rather, under her chin, since she didn't really have a torso). "Well, I don't see what the big deal is. It's just a little signature. It's a compliment. She liked you."

Adventure scoffed. "It's graffiti! She shouldn't be claimin' a book that ain't hers!"

Horror scuffed one foot on the floor. Fantasy couldn't remember the last time he'd been checked out. He probably wished someone would sign him.

"She drew bloomin' hearts on me!" Adventure added.

"They're cute!"

"She didn't even read me! Jest looked at the pictures!" Oh, now that really was an insult. "And her fingers were sticky!" He waved the sword wildly and Fantasy reflected that he really was likely to cut himself. "If I ever see her again I'll, eh, I'll…" He lowered the sword.

Fantasy rolled her eyes.

Adventure cleared his throat.

"You were going to fight a little girl?" Horror asked.

"NO," Adventure muttered.

"Oh."

Fantasy shook her head and fluttered into the air. "All right, if that little signature really bothers you…"

She flew over to the front desk and pulled out a drawer, taking out a tube of Wite-Out.

"What's that?" Adventure demanded as she flew back over to him. "What's that there?"

"It's correction fluid, I'm going to get rid of the signature for you. Turn around and lie down."

Adventure blinked, then wiggled his eyebrows at her. She pulled back.

He turned around and lay down, opening up to the page with the signature on it. Fantasy wrinkled up her nose, then leaned down and applied Wite-Out to the signature. Then she pulled back, raising an eyebrow.

"Stay there," she said, and then she went back to the desk, put the Wite-Out away and got out a ballpoint pen. She went back to Adventure and leaned down over the page again.

He had some fantastic illustrations, she reflected. She had to give him that. Of course, they were illustrations of pirates and skeletons- not really her cup of tea.

"Whoa, belay there! What are ye doin'?" Adventure demanded, his voice somewhat muffled from his lying down on his face.

"I'm fixing it," Fantasy said, and silently beckoned to Horror. He shuffled closer, blinking. She handed him the pen and gestured at the page. He grinned.

A few moments later, Fantasy returned the pen to the drawer. "All right, her signature's gone," she said.

Adventure got to his feet. "Ahh," he said. "Thank ye, mate. That little scalawag! Now her evil work is undone!"

Fantasy smiled. "Don't mention it."

T-H-R-E-E - W-E-E-K-S - L-A-T-E-R

Micheal flopped down on his bed, dragging his library bag up beside him and pulling out a book. He studied the title:

The Book of Adventure: Treasure Island and 3 Other Daring Tales

He opened it up and flipped to the Treasure Island section, the bit his stupid teacher had assigned him to. He rifled though it, stopping when he got to a large, detailed illustration of some pirates looking at a skeleton.

Micheal blinked. The illustration had some weird stuff written above it.

Flights of Fantasy: A Collection was written in loopy, fancy, girly handwriting, and under that HORROR: A DISSERTATION was written in Gothic letters, so evenly that it looked typed, though it was clearly in ballpoint pen.

All around the names were drawings- smiley faces, fairies, curlicues, hearts, flowers, stars, and ladybugs.

Gee, it was nuts what some people would do to library books.

A/N: So, there's my first oneshot. A FEW NOTES TO END ON!

Note 1: About the titles of the books: it would be really weird to title three books after their genres, so I decided those were nicknames for their more clunky full titles. Yes, let's lend some more realism to the talking books!

As for the contents of the books, it seemed at first to make the most sense to give them the stories we see in the movie, but that didn't quite work out for the most part. Here is my long-winded and weird rant why. If you don't care why I picked the books' contents the way I did go ahead and skip to the review button! 8D

ADVENTURE: The adventure sequence of the movie contains Moby Dick and Treasure Island. We see Adventure's real-life form at the end of the movie and he's a big thick book. Treasure Island is not a big thick book. I own a copy myself and it's really quite short. Moby Dick is longer, but it's not known for its pirates. Adventure is obviously a piratey fellow, and he seemed much more familiar with the events of Treasure Island than with Moby Dick, recognizing Long John Silver and such. So it makes sense that he contains that story. But, the story is too short for the thickness of book that we see, unless he also contains other stories, as an anthology. That made the most sense to me, as it would also explain the generic genre nickname.

THAT'S LOGIC!

FANTASY: The fantasy section of the movie has all kindsa random stuff in it. All I know for sure is that Fantasy apparently contains part or all of the 1,001 Arabian Nights stories and looks like a fairy. I was as vague as possible here because I have no clue. But she's another anthology of some kind.

HORROR: 'A dissertation? Wha? That's, like, an essay! That makes no sense at all!' Yeah, I'll explain that one in another oneshot. OBSCURE MOVIE! I DO WHAT I WANT!

Note 2: Horror's handwriting: At first I was going to give him bad handwriting, but then I decided everyone would expect that so I gave him crazy good handwriting!

Well, he's a book, so he's probably pretty literate. And he doesn't really give any sign of being unintelligent anywhere in the movie. A little immature, but not dumb. He's probably smarter than Adventure, who probably has scrawly pirate handwriting.

So yep, that's all I have to say. Until next time, on TALES of INTEREST!