Shiritori greets the bird mage graciously, serves him some tea, and 
takes the package he has delivered, unwrapping the paper and 
opening the box to find several gold pieces tucked into cloth 
padding. She smiles at the metal, murmuring something about a 
divine bow, and tucks the gold pieces into her sleeves. The sleeves 
are rather wide, Sylvain notices, to accommodate the scythe-like 
spikes that slant delicately from the master's forearms. He has never 
seen her in combat, but few mantis-kind battles are long enough to 
attract spectators. She turns towards the stove where a teakettle is 
still steaming, and Sylvain sees wings folded neatly at her back. 


Sipping his tea, Sylvain reflects on his unusual luck. Z.S. of famed 
Hand lore was said to be a fabled apparatus-maker, a master of the 
crafting arts and item enchantments, and she’d praised the excellent 
condition of his spirit staff. Perhaps hearing that was worth 
wandering through path-less mountain scrub and needing to stop 
more times than he remembered for directions. He’d had to call 
several birds out of their daily routines, including one or two rather 
shady-looking ones with beady eyes and sharp beaks— 


Snapping back to attention at the movement of something being 
pushed across the table towards him, Sylvain breaks through his fog 
of thoughts in time to hear Master Shiritori inquire as to if he’d be 
willing to make a delivery to a dear friend of hers in the forest on the 
western mountainside. It is some paper made of pressed leaves, 
nothing fancy, but it is something the friend has asked for many 
times. Sylvain agrees before he completely processes the 
information that said friend is roughly a thousand years old, 
somewhat eccentric, and also the relative of many beetles, so 
please don’t eat any during your visit. 


“...how many years, again?” He repeats when the silence has 
stretched just too far for his liking, and Master Shiritori just laughs, 
her voice like the wind chimes made of bones over her home’s door. 
“Do not worry about meeting her. A journey born of friendship is 


always worthwhile.” Her black compound eyes twinkle as she begins 
to clear the tea things. 


A small figure is crouched before a large mossy rock, eyes fixed on 
what looks like an empty jar with small holes poked into the lid, 
sitting atop the stone in a cushion of lichen. Dressed in a tunic and 
long skirt fashioned from small, multicolored and interconnected 
metal pieces, the beetle girl Julodis is a bright spot of color in the 
otherwise dark undergrowth of the forest. Her metallic hair gleams 
with a blue sheen, which emphasizes the small but noticeable pair of 
antennae that sprouts from the crown of her head. 


It has taken nearly three hours for Sylvain to find her, but fortunately 
the bundle of paper he is delivering is light. Still, he could use a nap, 
Sylvain thinks. There are many other things he would like to think on 
as well. What sound does a beetle make when it flies? 


The bird mage pauses, setting his foot down carefully so as to not 
startle the girl who is so intent on her observation that she does not 
seem to move, to breathe. He approaches, slower, more steadily, 
and when he is close to the beetle girl he peers intently into the Jar. 
He stares. 


“...what are you doing?” is the first thing that leaves his mouth, 
though other questions in his mind are vying for recognition, 
questions such as “Where did you get that spider” and “Where did 
you get that large ant’ and “Why are you staring at them climb 
around a jar.” 


Flapping a hand at him silently, the beetle girl whispers back, “Shh. 
I’m writing a love story.” She smiles a dreamy smile, and continues 
with a slightly faraway look, “She’s a queen ant. He’s not that special 
so far as spider kind goes, usually he just barely captures enough of 
the regular ants to survive, fate threw them together...” she trails off 
and prods the side of the jar, knocking the spider back to the bottom, 
where the queen ant is pacing restlessly. 


“Much as he admires her, much as he intrigues her, he will be her 
tragic end.” She tilts her head, and the faint, muted sunlight catches 


on the iridescent beetle wing ornaments that glitter at her ears. 
Sylvain blinks as he processes this tragic storyline. 


A few heartbeats of silence later, Sylvain is fiddling with the twine 
adorning his spirit staff (and also discovering pocket lint in his coat) 
and he almost timidly offers, “If it’s meant to be a tragedy, | can ask 
one of my friends to eat them both. Birds eat bugs...” he breaks off, 
wondering how to word the rest of the statement politely. “That way 
the spider doesn't have to kill his, erm, love.” 


The beetle girl turns around and stares at the bird mage from where 
she sits, her antennae waving back and forth in agitation. “No. It 
must be their own nature that tears them apart. The heartbreak is 
more tangible—” 


“| think,” Sylvain interrupts mildly, “You should stop shaking the 
jar...?” 


Julodis’s head whips back to the mossy stone, where her hand is, 
indeed, clenched around the jar and jostling it. She gasps. “When 
did the spider catch the ant? He must have been spinning web all 
this time they were walking in circles around each other!” She holds 
the jar up to her eyes, chattering on, “The spider isn’t even moving. 
Just resting on the web, isn’t moving, just—‘the spider holds his 
hapless victim close, mourning the law of nature that has led him to 
kill his queen.” She sighs as she regards the jar fondly. A passing 
blue-gold beetle in flight lands on a leaf nearby, and begins to 
warble an aria in a high, tinny flutter of wings. 


Sylvain somewhat spoils the effect by muttering, “Actually, | think the 
spider’s eating.” 


“She had gnawed on his heart for too long! Artistic license. Look at 
how the spider cradles the body.” 


Sylvain manages an awkward chuckle, but quickly stops when he 
sees Julodis’s expression. 


“Are... is that a tear?” 


“Shut up,” is the brisk response. 


Sylvain directs his eyes skyward (or in the forest’s case, canopy- 
ward) and stifles an exasperated comment. He withdraws the stack 
of leaf-pressed paper from his coat, and places it carefully on the 
mossy stone, in the space vacated by the jar. “Here. From Lady 
Shiritori. | wonder if these will soon bear words of tragedy and love.” 


Julodis eyes the paper and grins, and Sylvain is reminded that a 
thousand years is young for someone who can live to be ten times 
that age. “Thank you, bird mage,” She says politely. “When you take 
the path back, take the turn that is lined with mint. Sing your avian 
songs as you walk, and you will find yourself at a wooden house. 
Please visit my brother at the foot of the mountain and let him know | 
have a new story for him. He will ensure the journey is worthwhile.” 


The words are familiar. “A journey born of friendship is always 
worthwhile. Sayonara,” Sylvain bows slightly, shoulders his staff, 
and beats a hasty getaway before he starts to feel too uncomfortably 
sorry for a spider and an ant. 


“Ah, still writing, is she? That live-action as-it-happens tragic 
fanfiction stuff?” Vansoni, preferred name Vans, smiles a smile that 
showed a mouth full of unnaturally sharp (and spiny) teeth. “My 
sister was always a dreamer. Perhaps that’s why she sees more 
than most.” The beetle man chuckles as he organizes a pile of 
assorted small debris on a table that he and the bird mage are 
seated at. 


Vans continues to sort through a series of small dark pellets as 
Sylvain looks around the inside of the house. There are no walls that 
separate the space into rooms, but small wickerwork contraptions 
are suspended from cut tree branches that crisscross the ceiling like 
a web. Metallic beetles crawl like an ever-undulating blanket of color 
along the network. Vans himself, clad in a colorful loose-fitting 
coarse-cloth robe, seems to blend in well with them. 


“In any event, it is good to hear from my little sister again, and good 
to hear that she has the means to remember her stories. Things are 
easy to forget over a thousand years, if one cannot write them 
down.” Vans reaches for a shelving unit under the table and takes 


something out of one of the drawers. “Please, accept this from the 
two of us.” 


Sylvain accepts the cloth sack, hearing whatever it contains rustle 
as the pouch changes hands. “Thank you.” 


Vans grins. “The beetles around here are on good terms with the 
birds. The smaller the limbs, the more delicate work can be done, 
the more food can be gathered. This blend convinces the birds 
around here to leave the beetles alone so they can keep gathering 
the ingredients.” 


“Blend?” Sylvain inquires, though he feels he knows what the 
answer will be. 


The beetle man nods, his stubby antennae bending once in a nod of 
their own. “Birdseed. Hope you like it.” 


Sylvain walks through the dwindling light of dusk, holding a bag of 
birdseed, nigh-identical to the one he’d taken from his coat pocket 
less than a turn of the sun ago. 


A hundred steps later finds him at the base of a magnolia tree his 
feet have led him to without his head being aware of it. Sylvain leans 
his staff against the tree and looks up. He shrugs off his coat, tosses 
it onto a low branch, and scrambles up the crisscrossing sections of 
wood at the trunk. Leaning back against smooth bark, he opens the 
package. A moment later he is eating small handfuls of birdseed and 
humming snatches of avian lullabies as he chews. 


He hears twittering from somewhere near the large white flowers on 
the eastern side of the tree. Smiling, the bird mage shifts to the side 
a little, and pours a neat pile of birdseed onto the three branches he 
can reach without getting up. 


The chattering of birdsong lasts long into the evening. There are 
many words for the sounds of birds, Sylvain thinks, before dozing 
off. 


Prisoners 


Family » 


"You know she's going to die, right? That you'll be asking a probable 
god to die?" 


"Well, hell." The woman ground out her cigarette. "Better than an 
Earth-shaped hole in the universe." She stood. "Let's get to it.” 


Present Day 


The woman known as L.S., infamous leader in the Serpent's Hand, 
known to the Foundation by the name of The Black Queen, read a 
book by candlelight in the Wanderers’ Library, and thought about the 
end of the world. 


Here in the East Aera Wing — the Library was big enough to have 
wings named this way, like countries — it was night. 


Technically, the Wanderers' Library did not have day or night. But 
day-night cycles were key to maintaining the healthy magical and 
psychological function of all manner of beings. As a great many 
books within the Library itself could tell you. 


So, many of the Library's wings had day-night cycles. Bright light 
during the ‘day’, darkness and dimmed lights at ‘night’. Variations on 
the theme in the stranger, farther-out wings. Illusions of meteor 
showers. Hovering alien planets. Dim gods peering through the 
chandeliers. 


‘Night’, here in the East Aera Wing, meant swirling star-patterns, 
black and white in a purple and gold sky above the fog masking the 


file dragged offscreen. 

Results: Cursor changed into "hourglass" icon for 13 seconds. 
Camera reappeared, still recording, missing approx. 2 square cm of 
casing surrounding lens. Between "Trashing" and reconstitution, 
camera recorded 60 minutes of video, all blank. 


Test 84 

Date: / /20 

Subject: "Trash" function, D-713-233 

Procedure: D-713-233 dragged into the Recycle Bin. Disk 
Defragmenter program initialized; main hard drive defragmented. 
File containing D-713-233 located, opened, and read; contents 
noted. File closed. D-713-233 dragged back offscreen. 

Results: [DATA EXPUNGED] 482 GB, significantly larger than 
SCP-713's stated hard drive size [DATA EXPUNGED] spreadsheet 
format. Listed biochemical data were confirmed to correspond to 
[DATA EXPUNGED]. Upon reconstitution offscreen, [DATA 
EXPUNGED] nerves rerouted, several joints dislocated, and [DATA 
EXPUNGED] massive exsanguination and pulmonary distress 
[DATA EXPUNGED] expired twelve hours later. 


Note: Future testing should avoid all file operations as long as any 
personnel are stored in SCP-713. 


[DATA REDACTED] 


Test 112 

Date: / /20 

Subject: Effects of computer crashes 

Procedure: Testing chamber cleared. D-713-234 instructed to 
exploit a previously-discovered bug such that SCP-713’s word 
processor would “lock up” and stop responding. SCP-713 “cold- 
booted”. 

Results: Cursor froze in place and did not respond until SCP-713 
was turned off. Cursor reappeared as normal when computer 
restarted. 


Note: About what we’d expect from a normal computer. —Dr. 


top of the stacks. A vision from another world. The night sky of Sarra 
Mello. 


L.S. had once taken a Way to Sarra Mello. An awful place, with air 
like breathing lava, and hordes of fae insects trying to eat your 
succulent eyeballs. But she'd always loved that sky... that sky like a 
Van Gogh painting. She came here, sometimes, to think. 


Tonight, she considered how her old enemy, the SCP Foundation, 
the shadow organization that had stolen her father from her, was 
about to end the world. 


She'd had advance warning. Lucky. One of the birds had whispered 
in her ear. Another Little Sister, sending her a message from 
another world. 


L.S. watched the clock of her pocket-watch tick down to exactly 
twenty-four hours remaining before the end of the world. 


At twenty-three hours and fifty-nine seconds, she snapped her book 
shut and headed for the Archives. 


Two Months Ago 


Kendra Campbell stared at the interview subject seated, handcuffed, 
across the table, and hated her. 


It wasn't just the subject, one Joanna [Middle-Name-Redacted] 
Cross, that Campbell hated. She hated working on Mobile Task 
Force Tau-9. She hated being called a "Bookworm". She hated 
investigating magic, she hated researching a fucking magical library 
she'd never even seen, and she hated investigating a magical 
organization almost entirely made up of self-righteous magical 
pricks. 


But just for right now she probably hated Joanna Cross the most. 


INTERVIEW t356y-SH-CROSS-CAMPBELL, NUMBER 
35 


Interviewer: Dr. Kendra Campbell, MTF Tau-9 
Researcher, Clearance Level 2, Gen. Special Access 
Program Tau-9. 

Subject: Joanna Cross, Serpent's Hand operative 
Observers: ae 


[Note: Dr. Campbell shows signs of frustration. Takes an 
unnecessarily long time to begin reading assigned list of 
questions.] 


Dr. Campbell: Is it true that your first and last name is 
Joanna Cross? 


Operative Cross: Yes. 
[Dr. Campbell pauses again. Signs of frustration evident.] 
Dr. Campbell: Is it true that— 


Operative Cross: This is your thirty-fifth interrogation of 
me, Doctor. You already know what | will say. What 
makes you think this time will be any different? 


[Dr. Campbell pauses for a lengthy period of time.] 
Dr. Campbell: Interview terminated. 


[Operative Cross does not speak. Dr. Campbell exits 
interrogation room.] 


"| don't understand why we're still interrogating her," Campbell said, 
slowing to match her pace with the leisurely strides of Dr. Gears. 
She was in trouble, she knew she was in trouble, but she'd found 
that Gears didn't even notice jokes, let alone the petulance she was 
feeling right now. "She's said the same exact things in all thirty-four 
previous interviews. What was the point of number thirty-five?" 


Gears took his time answering. Campbell resisted the urge to try to 
figure out what he was thinking. Gears bore the same facial 
expression that he always did, a cold look of bland calculation. 
"Gears," indeed. That too-perfect name. Joke? Code? Fortuitous 


coincidence? 


"I'm a researcher, not an agent,” she continued. "I have exactly zero 
training in interrogation."