Interleaved Fates: Fantasy

[penthius]

Their fates were interleaved with those of the books, but the books were what was most important, the structure without which their lives would flutter into the flame. So they sacrificed a few of their number, or allowed them to be sent into danger, to protect the books. Most of the monks fled through the tunnels when they heard tales of the arm on the horizon. They took the books with them, as many as they could carry--and that was a great number, for there had been plans in place for such a thing for centuries, since one of the minor monasteries had lost its library during an earthquake, where the second shaking had opened the ground and swallowed the library. They'd salvaged--

Inspiration: alisgray writing "interleaved."
Story Potential: High
Notes: High potential for somebody else, or if there's a book-specific story contest/anth. I generally steer clear of stories about books, or writers, because I find self-referential writing boorish. So--books hidden, ferreted away, brought out when the heir of the conqueror needs them? Or is the hiding itself the story?

Comments

[prof-vencire.livejournal.com]

I find self-referential stories about books/writers painfully masturbatory and either secretly Insecure (because they need to make a big show out of how what they do/love is VALID, damnit, IMPORTANT AND MAGICAL!) or Obsessive and silly-romantic.

In fact, they tend to make me angry. One of the only ones I actually liked involved a guy who kept getting installments of an encyclopedia that covered all knowledge, faster than he could read them of course, and he didn't have enough places to keep them.

[penthius.livejournal.com]

Exactly.