Seph let her go, and went back to his desk to continue translating. The Libra was often used like this, he noticed. Like a library, that is, or at the very least like some huge study center. He wondered if maybe he had his interpretation of The Libra as a "store" wrong in the first place.

Once he saw the reddish hue of the wires, Seph reached for the paneling behind the desk. All the wires in the building were sourced in a knot braceleted with levers and wheels, one of which he twisted uncertainly. It made the light in the entire store flicker a brief pattern that he recognized as the correct one to signal everyone to get out, and after a while of waiting people began to emerge from the bowels of the building, in a stream at first and then in trickles, some of them nodding at him before going off into Low's evening. After an interval of no one leaving, Seph reached down beneath the desk for a jar, which appeared empty but became full of buzzing when he shook it.

He unscrewed the lid. There was a fine gauze stretched over the mouth of the jar.

"Search for anyone still left here," he said, clearly, and the gauze distended outward as if something were pressing through it, then began to unravel, the strings floating up and dissipating into the building, carrying the buzzing with it. He watched the mouth of the jar and hoped for once it would reform completely.

It didn't. After a while the gauze began to rewind itself, but there were some looseness to it, and when he passed his hand over the air above the gauze, it caught on near-invisible strings still stretching out into the store's quarters. Sighing, he began to wind the string around his fingers, following the lengths to various students who had fallen asleep amidst the stacks. He prodded them awake, and they quickly gathered their things and left while the string rewound itself into the gauze, and finally there was only one string left, and this one led to the ungu girl, who was curled up in a chair. He poked her and she yelped instantly, and he jumped too.

"You're not asleep?" he said in surprise.

"What?" she demanded, and he started to rephrase his question, then explained, instead, "I'm closing The Libra. It's time to go home."

"Oh," she said, and looked confused for an instant longer, than embarrassed. "Sorry about that. I'll head out."

"You can come back tomorrow," Seph suggested, a little needlessly, and she nodded.

"Yes, I probably will," she said, also needlessly. They looked at each other and then nodded and smiled faintly in recognition of their awkward premise, and then stood there, Seph waiting for her to pack up before leaving and she waiting for him to leave before packing up. When they realized what was going on there was a sudden jerk of movement from both of them, which started in general for the books and then to withdraw from them, upon seeing the other move for them, and then everything was still again.

The ungu girl rubbed her head.

"In the interest of getting things done," she said, "I suggest you look for other stragglers while I arrange the books."

"You're the last one," he said, and she grimaced.

"Alright then," and so he watched as she gathered the books. It occurred to him that he should help her just when she was reaching for the last one, and when he leaned toward her she looked at him, and he withdrew with a shrug and decided to close up the jar, whose threads had finally rewound. Then he decided to head back, and ended up walking ahead of her a bit, and then thought that felt weird, especially since he found himself walking at exactly the same pace he was, which he knew because her hooves were clipping against the ground with every step he took.

He could not think of a non-awkward way to mend this, however, and in fact was not sure if the situation was really awkward at all or if he was just too tired to think logically.

"You probably are," the ungu girl said, and he stopped and looked back at her in confusion. He stopped so suddenly that she crashed into his back.

They apologized simultaneously and then he asked, "What did you say?"

"I said, 'You probably are,'" she repeated. "Too tired to think logically, that is."

"Oh," he said, "did I say that out loud?"

"Um," she said, "evidently," and they stared at each other a moment more before shaking their heads and finally, finally leaving.

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