LTVS: Silence in The Library

*Do not read beyond **this point** if you want to avoid being **spoiled!***

***Layla the Vampire Slayer* episode**

RandomTuesday

Bentham

**Silence in The Library** is the fourteenth episode of Layla the Vampire Slayer.

## Synopsis

After that Layla and Imogen have had a very strained relationship. They try to avoid each other and things between them (which includes Robert often times) seem tense and awkward. Barnaby seems to be falling out of favor in the jock crowd and seems to notice Layla and Imogen’s distance. Imogen sees Barnaby at the end of the funeral and offers her condolences to him. She admits that she tried but says there is nothing she could have done. Barnaby, while it pains him, says he doesn’t hold Imogen responsible for anything regarding saving his life. They have a conversation about trying to bring James back and Imogen isn’t sure that she can. She isn’t sure right now how to proceed with this or if she can deliver on the promise to revive James. Imogen also admits that Penemue, despite being their enemy, might have been their best resource. Barnaby had an idea about that and wants to study Penemue’s books for clues on how to resurrect James.

Robert expected James to talk to Imogen and goes over to Layla to mention it. Robert is concerned that Barnaby is in a bad place and might do something in desperation. He asks they keep an eye on Barnaby and make sure that he doesn’t try any magical solutions that might be dangerous. Robert will be in the workshop and Layla will keep him focused on patrol. They agree to try and keep their friends under control. Robert and Imogen peels off from the group and leaves and Barnaby and Layla joins the others in the wake.

Layla talks to Barnaby and he asks why she didn’t see Imogen more than once. She points out that Barnaby wasn’t seeing them either and he claims to have been busy with a plan to help Layla. He talks about financial stuff and then taking Penemue’s books. He’s going to make a significant donation to the library to replace the books in the library. They take the books including Penemue’s collection and confiscate it for themselves. She agrees to the plan and then Barnaby notes that on patrol she seems very agitated.

At the wake Layla steals two bottles of wine and hides the contents in a water bottle and she and Barnaby join the wake. The rains pour down gently and thunder rumbles in the distance as they walk around in among the headstones.

Robert walks around the library with Penemue’s books and look for volumes of books for anything of interest. He tries to make it look like nothing is lost. Imogen goes back to her replacement dorm and tries to make it her own. She sorts through her volumes and considers where to put the chalk lines. Violet knocks on the door to talk about removing the sight sigils. Imogen insults her and chides her about using sigils to spy (as well as being a 200 year old pervert spying on teens) and she walks off in a huff to her own room. Layla and Barnaby return to their dorms and Robert steals the books away to his room to hide them. Layla and Barnaby come back and head up to Layla’s room to continue drinking. They go back to Layla’s room and get absolutely hammered. She admits that she kissed Imogen to him and  goes on about how everyone who they love gets hurt. Also she’s worried Imogen doesn’t feel the same and isn’t sure how to what to do to avoid damaging their friendship. Barnaby tries to allay her fears about hurting Imogen and they hug while sprawled out on the floor.

Barnaby stumbles into his room to find Imogen on James’ bed. She asks for his help to talk about something she can’t talk to the others about. She asks Barnaby about what to do about Layla’s affection towards her. She says she was confused when Layla kissed her and isn’t sure about her own feelings. Imogen feels like she isn’t anyone special and isn’t anyone worth Layla’s time. Barnaby suggests she talk to Layla herself and figure it out for themselves. She thanks him for his advice and decides that she will talk to Layla about their feelings. Imogen leaves and in passing Barnaby mentions that he’ll look for more information.

Robert is busy at the metalshop welding some sort of contraption together. He works over pages of diagrams, notes, and blueprints. Layla stands over John the Frog and drunkenly bounces questions off of him before walking out to try and find Imogen. She walks over to Violet’s room in a stupor and knocks on her door. It swings inward and she stumbles in where she sees a disheveled room of a person trying to learn how to be human. Violet is clearly not here and she walks inside. She sees the book from Penemue open to a page and she takes a look at it. She looks around and suddenly she notes that there are bookshelves all around Violet’s room. But then she realises she isn’t in Violet’s room anymore. Bookshelves line the walls and seem to go on without end.

Imogen walks back to her room and notes that Violet’s door is open. She peaks inside and sees the book on the floor. Seeing the book on the floor she looks inside and sees an illustration of Layla among the texts and illustrations. Suddenly the illustration grows more lifelike as she focuses and soon she finds herself in the same room as Layla. Layla is surprised by Imogen and thinks that she’s dreaming. Imogen explains they are now in Penemue’s book and they get into discussing their relationship. At first Layla thinks that Imogen hates her and Imogen admits that she doesn’t hate her but is just confused about why she would like her. Layla, drunkenly shifting topics, finds it funny that they are trapped together much to Imogen’s annoyance that she isn’t taking the situation seriously. Suddenly they hear some sort of thing clicking and Imogen tries to get her to be quiet.

They try to leave and despite their best effort Layla rattles a bookcase and are set upon by a shadow. Layla tries to impose herself between Imogen and the shadow. A crawling spider like monster with quills for legs, leathery skin stretched over it, jewels for eyes, and pens for fangs crawls over the bookcase and sets its sight on the girls clicking its fangs in anticipation of killing the intruders….

Enter Initiative. The library guardian drops down and crashes into the girls knocking them over. Layla tries to talk to the spider in an attempt to stop it. There is apparently the decapitated head of a person on it and the spider continues to approach menacingly. Imogen crawls behind Layla and tries to apologize to the spider for being so loud. The spider ignores her and rears back to try and stab her with its quills. It almost misses her and dirties her shirt and hair with ink. Layla tries to awkwardly step forward and smashes the spider in the face. Imogen readies her telekinesis and in a rage taps into her core of magic and slams into the spider with kinetic force sending it flying over the book shelves. They take the opportunity to run away but Imogen, suddenly being dragged by Layla, trips over and runs into more spiders. Imogen tries to pull Layla into a small nook in the shelves to hide from the guardians. They however fail to hide and clumsily run into each other allowing the spider to hear them as it passes. The spider swipes at the two and claws at the small space slashing them both. Imogen is stabbed below the ribs and Layla in the collar.

Layla grabs the bookcase and kicks the spider to flip it on its back. She looks to Imogen for the next step who is not sure what to do herself. Imogen then gets the idea to illusion the books being on fire which might distract the guardians long enough to get them away. She casts the illusion successfully and Imogen takes the opportunity to escape with Layla. They run out from the nook and try to hide from the guardians. Soon after dodging the spiders they settle down in another nook between the bookcases. Exit initiative.

Looking around the library they see nothing but the massive bookcases stretching infinitely up and out. They seem to be trapped in an alternate dimension that is a massive endless library. They start brainstorming ways to get out from the dimension and want to try and send some sort of message to the outside world. They look through the books and see that they are in the section of the library organized with “DA” in the titles. She takes a book and reads it only to see that it’s a book that writes people’s lives as they happen. The life of a baby named David Hawthorne is being written in the book. Imogen sees a tiny quill with wings and an ink quill come up to them. The Quill writes some in the book and then flies off again. Layla looks around to tries to find a logical way to another section. They come out in the ‘R’ title section. They decide to look for Robert’s book and get some message out to him.

Barnaby sleeps in his bed and Robert works away at his workshop into the night. Layla looks around the library for “RO” with Imogen and they talk some about what happened earlier. They find the section with Robert Davidson and start looking for their friend when suddenly hear a spider in the next section. They look over and find Violet and a little black furred rabbit. She asks if Layla can throw it away before it turns back into a spider. She chucks it away and it turns back into a spider in the air as it flies over the horizon. They get back to looking for Robert’s book and finds it. Looking at the book they find Robert was planning some sort of radio signal to another dimension to allow Barnaby to talk to James one last time. Layla asks about his dreams while Imogen writes the note that Robert finds in real life. As she does a small earthquake rocks the room and it appears that the library guardians are angered. Robert finds the note and panicked races to Violet’s room to find the book. Books and dust fall around them and the book writes out that Robert runs to help them. They try to wrench the book way from its chain and the chain snaps as it unleashes a thunder clap. The room shakes violently as the group runs away from the spiders.

The group run away as dust and loose books fall around them. Violet stumbles over herself and Layla picks her up and sprints forward to Imogen. They reach a small cul-de-sac a good ways away from the place they took the book. Enter Initiative.

Layla puts Violet down and readies to dodge. The Guardian strikes at Layla and slashes Layla twice cutting her up. Violet draws a quartz crystal and throws it at the spider and casts a glamor on it making it easier to hit. Imogen tries to illusion herself into looking like Penemue and manages to get a perfect copy on his look. She puts on Penemue’s voice and orders the spider away. It complies and skitters up the bookshelf at a safe distance.

Robert runs past Barnaby’s room which wakes him and the two run to Violet’s room. Robert looks around with the magical goggles and sees the book which he keeps at a distance from. He tries to touch the book with a ruler and flips the page. He sees Layla, Violet, and Imogen on the page but also a scratched over picture of Penemue on Imogen. He then sees the spider confronting them. He pokes a page on the book and gets a flagstone flung in his face from the book. In the book the flagstone disappears from the floor in front of them. Barnaby pokes the picture of violet which teleports her from the book and on top of him. Before Violet has a chance to explain he pushes her off and taps the other two pictures.

The other two fall out of the book and collapse into each other. They all try to explain what happened with the book but Imogen suddenly confronts Robert about the books he stole and his plan to use them to build a portal. They tell Robert about how the library had books on every person alive and they have his book with them. They look over the book and see that it is writing out Robert’s fate. Imogen storms off angry that Robert didn’t want to include her in it. Layla then hands the book to Robert and pockets Penemue’s pen. Layla tells Robert to keep it safe and he looks through it. He sees the narrative has stopped writing itself at the point that it left the dimension. He closes the book and Violet confronts him about his dreams about Janet. He gets flustered about it and tries to take the book and yank it out of Violet’s hands. He also mentions she’s spying on people with the runes before he storms out with the Library book and his Fate book.

In the hall Robert and Barnaby talk about Robert’s plans to set up a portal link to James. Barnaby admits that he wants to resurrect James and Robert is severely against him doing it. Barnaby is insistent about bringing him back but Robert wants to err on the side of caution using Penemue’s library. Swayed by his words he offers to at least talk to James about what to do first and then they will decide if resurrecting him is a good idea later. The boys go to bed and Imogen goes to the common room and dejectedly sits on a chair. Layla joins her later and talks to her. Imogen admits that she feels both of her friends betrayed her by lying about their intentions. Layla counters that Robert was trying to protect her and she rejects that thought that she needs help. Layla tries to get to the real core of her insecurity and how when they were fighting against Miller she was especially feeling sadistic. She feels responsible for the students he killed and for James and Layla tries to dissuade her from that line of thought.

She then asks Layla again for a reason why she kissed her. Layla admits that she likes Imogen a lot and she tries to put herself down as not being good enough for Layla. Layla insists and Imogen admits that she is too stubborn and doesn’t like relying on other people because they get hurt when something goes wrong. Layla insists and Imogen makes her promise that her feelings are not a joke. Finally accepting her feelings Imogen kisses Layla and she returns the kiss. Robert passes the common room and sees a chair in front of the door and unblocks it. He sees Layla and Imogen kissing and interrupts them and makes a hasty exit. The girls go back to their room and Imogen and Layla curl up on the bed together. Robert returns to his room to find Violet sitting on his bed. He demands to know how she got in and then talks about how her spying habits are creepy and wrong. She admits that she’s here to settle her accounts in her previous life as a demon and she also knows that Layla and Imogen are romantic with each other. She then talks about how she’s bored since becoming mortal and that she is interested in him. Robert is very hesitant to accept her advances. He is worried that at one point she was their enemy but she says now that she’s human she probably won't return to that. Robert refuses her and sends her away.

Looking over Penemue’s books in the coming weekend and her own she sees that Penemue has changed the books back posthumously. Penemue was created as one of the lower orders of angels and sent to lord over humans. He fell in love with a mortal and was cast out of the heavens for sin. He gifted humanity writing and pens. For his punishment his lover was erased and his mind was set to degrade until he died as he was imprisoned in the earth. He spent ages getting free and then feasting on the brain power of others and eventually came to Little Rosewater drawn by the Hellmouth. He then became the librarian of the school and stayed for 20 years on….