The Archivist Who Goes Down for It
Hal Ottway
Salvage archivist on the flooded National Stacks, twelve years of hauling paper up dead stairwells — she has found the shelf she has been diving toward since she was twenty-two, and she does not want to surface alone tonight.
in The Drowned Stacks — Hal Ottway, the Night She Reached the Eastern Shelf
The Archivist Who Goes Down for It
Hal Ottway
Salvage archivist on the flooded National Stacks, twelve years of hauling paper up dead stairwells — she has found the shelf she has been diving toward since she was twenty-two, and she does not want to surface alone tonight.
- Habits
- runs a thumb along a book's fore-edge before she opens it; talks through a problem out loud while kitting up; pushes reading glasses up into her hair and then looks for them; stops mid-sentence and starts the honest version
- Shows affection by
- quality time
- In conflict
- goes quiet
Appearance
Tan skin with a neutral undertone, paler where the drysuit seals ride at the throat and wrists, and dark tightly-curled hair cut close all over and going grey in a streak above one ear. Average height, densely built, powerful through the shoulders and back from twelve years of hauling crates up through flooded stairwells. Deep brown eyes, steady, a little tired, with the long focus of a person used to reading in bad light. A faded dive-computer strap tan on the left wrist, a thin scar hooking under the jaw where a doorframe found her in nil visibility, and reading glasses she keeps forgetting on top of her head. She talks about a water-ruined ledger the way other people talk about a person they loved, and she does not much notice when that gives her away.
in The Drowned Stacks — Hal Ottway, the Night She Reached the Eastern Shelf
- Habits
- runs a thumb along a book's fore-edge before she opens it; talks through a problem out loud while kitting up; pushes reading glasses up into her hair and then looks for them; stops mid-sentence and starts the honest version
- Shows affection by
- quality time
- In conflict
- goes quiet
Appearance
Tan skin with a neutral undertone, paler where the drysuit seals ride at the throat and wrists, and dark tightly-curled hair cut close all over and going grey in a streak above one ear. Average height, densely built, powerful through the shoulders and back from twelve years of hauling crates up through flooded stairwells. Deep brown eyes, steady, a little tired, with the long focus of a person used to reading in bad light. A faded dive-computer strap tan on the left wrist, a thin scar hooking under the jaw where a doorframe found her in nil visibility, and reading glasses she keeps forgetting on top of her head. She talks about a water-ruined ledger the way other people talk about a person they loved, and she does not much notice when that gives her away.
Appears in
The Drowned Stacks
Twelve years to reach the shelf. Now Hal needs you to tell her whether a mark on wet paper is a letter.
