Know Thy History...

She runs up and hops up on the ledge forcing herself up shoving Dante over to make room for her big ol butt when suddenly she hears “Took you long enough..” She frowned and wanted to stick her tongue out at Dante but she refrained as she teased him “I got stuck in mud.” Dante laughed “its all good, I always forget you mortals have that stamina thing, need to stop every once in awhile to catch your breath,” he suddenly pointed to Brianna behind them who had a small piece of candy in her mouth which would appear to some as a cigarette “Heard those don’t help much either, something about lungs?” She leaned back to Dante holding back her giggles “Its Pocky.” Dante looked to her confused as he leaned back against her “the heck is pocky?” She smiled “its a Japanese candy, its a little bread stick coated with flavored sugar.” The look of confusion stayed in Dante’s eyes as he leaned back to look at Brianna completely “Japanese?” She blinked suddenly watching Dante and listening to his words ” Dante, hun how much do you not know?” Dante looked down at his hands and then up to the night lit sky before turning back to her “Uhm, how much IS there to know? This language is messed up, alliteration, G H to make that eff sound…whats next? World wars?”

She immediately knew she had to do something she smiled and jumped down grabbing ahold of one of Dante’s hands “I think you should come with me…Field Trip!” Dante nodded as he extended his arm to an unknown direction “lead the way” She ran with him hot on her trail all the way to the library in the northern part of the city. She smiled as they walked in the door, the scent of older books filling her senses. She was content right now. She motioned Dante to follow her up the stairs and instantly started towards the first book shelf. She started to run her hands slowly along the spines of the books as she looked over her shoulder at Dante “How fast do you read?” Dante looked along the shelves at the multiple titles and colors, seeing a few from his previous visits with Blue, he shrugged to her “I went through eight of them in an hour with Blue last I was here, is that good?” She smiled “Perfect,” she pulled out a thick volume looking back to Dante “Hold out your arms while I toss?” Dante blinked and held out his arms in a zombie like fashion “Okay?” She smiled as she started to hum to herself, the soft tunes filing her mind with warmth as she walked through the shelves tossing him the first book ‘World War 1′. She reached up on her tippy toes and pulled down a second book passing it back to him ‘World War 2′. She over heard Dante mutter in disbelief “holy dam…” She turned to her left and ooh as she walked over to the next bookcase pulling down a book tilted ‘Civil War’ as she did she noticed another and jumped up for another one “Oh my the Alamo,” she tosses both books back towards Dante. Dante leaped forward with a giant stride to catch the frisbee’d books. She was on a roll as she walked down the aisles “Ohh, ohhh, the Kennedy Assassination,” she tossed the book lightly behind her as her eyes started looking for another one suddenly stopping and smiling “A personal favorite of mine,” she held the book tightly to her chest as she beamed at him “Lets find a table.” Dante gave her half a smile while shaking his head “okay..” unsure if he should be scared by her excitement.

Dante settled into the seat while spreading the books out in front of him and checking over the titles once more before looking up to her “now what?” She set her one book on the table across from Dante and smiled “I figured I’d start out easy..” she nodded slowly towards him “okay first things first, start with the Civil War.. its about north versus south and a fight for slave rights” she nodded towards the correct book “that should also covered the Abraham Lincoln assasination.” Dante shrugged looked down towards the books, waving a hand across his chest to force a shadow swiftly cross it’s cover in order to reveal the first page.. “if you say so..” he hunched over and dropeda finger to the first word of the page and began to follow it steadily at a good pace, freezing at parts and then jumping to other paragraphs and stanzas, cross referencing previous pages for confirmation. He looked up at her suddenly nods as he shut the book quickly slamming it on the table “next..” She couldn’t but smile with excitement as she watched him “World War 1,” giggling lightly she started to feel like a school teacher. After a few brief moments Dante leaned back in his chair and held his hands behind his head “What else you got for me?” She reached over and tapped the World War 2 book as she asked “Did you learn something from the WW1 text?” Dante nodded keeping within his mood and falling to silence once more as he buried himself back into another volume. Just as before he waved his hand across the cover allowing the shadow to drift and shift to cover across, allowing his eyes to hungrily scan and retrain the knowledge within.

She let her eyes drift over Dante as he read “This one is going to tell you about a man named Adolf Hitler, and an era called the Holocaust.” Dante looked up and lazily swatted the back cover of the book causing it to swing and collapse shut on the table “gas chambers, firing walls, purification process…gives me a few ideas.” She smirked “You know most would be disturbed by that reading..” Dante kicked back in his seat ” well..” he allowed both hands to rest on the chairs sides keeping his palms up. Shadows freely juggling between them “you see…” the shadows suddenly sparked and rushed over the table to clean up the sprawled books into a tide pile before rushing back into his chest.. “I’m not necessarily human, or mortal, in that sense” he simply shrugged and pointed towards the selection “whats next?”

She hummed lightly as she slide the book containing information about the Alamo to him, she flipped the cover open for him “You know, a little out of order, but from a state I used to reign from..there was a battle.. ironically enough it was called The Battle of the Alamo and it was from February 23 to March 6, 1836.. it is one of the most famous battles of the Texas Revolution. After an insurgent army of Texan Settlers and adventurers from the US drove all Mexican troops out of the Mexican Texas, President Antionio Lopez deSanta Ana led an invasion to regain control of the area. Mexican forces arrived in San Antonio, the home of the great Alamo and open fired.. to make a long story short it is a powerful story that can relate to groups and families even here in this city..” she paused as she whispered to him and looked him dead in the eye “Remember the Alamo.” He canted his head to the side a moment as he studied the words flowing from her mouth as if dancing around his head..this place having some sort of odd educational trance set upon him each time he enters. His eyes settled and gained focus once more as he nodded slowly “wow..” then eagerly dove into the books just like the rest before hand, this time using two fingers to cover the lines as he sped across the pages.

She rested back against the chair as she watched Dante, an undistinguished smile across her face, it had been a long time since she had the opportunity to share her wealth of knowledge to anyone. She felt content as if she was proving something to herself. Dante sat back and threw his head in continuation to look up at the ceiling as he blinked a few times “holy shit… that was..” he jumped minorly in his seat as he falls back into reading position and cut off his very own train of thought blurting out “kee’m coming!” She smiled once again and let out a light laugh as she picked up the small book about the President Kennedy Assassination. ”This dear brother is about President Kennedy, he made alot of changes for the US when he was president and is probably one of the most morned presidents that was assassinated.. President Kennedy served the US from 1961 to 1963. His assassin to this day still I believe involves several conspiracy theories..but either way.. this man lead the US in the space race.. he helped make it what it is today.. on the main land that is.” His chin settled to his hand as he nodded rolling his shoulder back and then forward as he leaned into the book.

Dante re-read the last few pages and looks up to catch her shuffling slightly in her seat “oh, I’m done already, next?” She smiled as she lowered her eyes and let her hand run softly over the leather bound book in front of her, she looked back up to Dante “and now a personal favorite..” She slowly let her fingers open the binding as she smelled the old paper, her senses alerted and alive “have you ever heard of Miyamto Musashi?” He watched her as her fingers delicately played along the book, his facial expression changing to curiosity, now intrigued more so then the rest of the volumes already by her own reactions to it.. “no, I haven’t.”

It was at that moment that she heard her sisters voice “Vish? your in a library? Who are you trying to curse?” She ignored her momentarily as she proceeded to tell Dante what filled her mind “Musashi was a Japanese Kendo artist, he lived in 1584, he is famous for his duels and distinctive style. He wrote a book, yes something that was completely unheard of for the time period on strategy, tactics, and philosophy… this book.. still means everything to anyone who is a warrior today.” She let her fingers trace over the pages softly as she closed the cover and pushed it across the table to him “This book…is called the Book of Five Rings.” She looked up to Devi as she tapped the seat next to her “Please join us.”