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Post by Tyme on May 19, 2009 22:58:00 GMT -5
Old Miss Zorryktha hobbled down the long aisles with her rickety antique coral cane in tow. Her once vibrant purple hair was now faded to silver the exact shade of dust that hid in the corners of long abandoned books. She still had plenty of hair though. It wa settled in a high bun that pulled on the edges of her face and gave her a queer expression. Most people kept away form the old librarian. It wasn't surprising, as most of the book brats did as well. Zorryktha herself had been a book brat in her younger days and she was still quite proud of it.
She would hobble around with her old cane and lecture the young ones that had no clue as to how to treat the books and shelves. The arrogant old hag had never found a suitable man in her younger days, and in the blink of an eye she was now old and the men who had courted her dead for the most part. Some said Zorryktha was at least 70, others said 80. Zorryktha herself wasn't sure. Perhaps she was even 90. Either way she had lived to a phenomenal age, and the younger staff members joked about how she hadn't died yet.
She had passed the aisles of stories of the fire land, Pyria, and the ones on Terra. She now approached the dark end of one of the vast library's walls. Old Zorryktha always felt slightly upset when she reached one of the walls creating these stories. They were stories without endings, some without beginnnigs, and other without a middle. Her wrinkled old hands carefully picked up one, created by an author famous for one work. The rest of his brilliant masterpieces were chucked into this section after a few sentences. One story went along the lines of "There was once a magical princess in a beautiful mountain. The princess went away from the mountains to live with her prince happily ever after. The end." They were hideous. She'd told herself that this section needed to be cleaned out, but no one wanted the job of sorting through miles of paper.
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Post by arrasailsup on May 28, 2009 5:46:48 GMT -5
Khirishi liked to write. Biblia, with its endless rows of books, fascinated her. She would spend hours in the library, sometimes even forgetting to come home. Her mother often scolded her for it, but Khirishi didn't care. She was going to become a writer and her works would have an honoured place here.
Mostly, Khirishi spent her days in the section on 'Other Places'. Her mother told her it was all nonsense. Other worlds aside from this one? Pah. She was lucky not to have been burnt for heresy. If you're going to read, my girl, read about something useful. Again, Khirishi didn't care.
This day however, Khirishi figured she might as well explore around. She passed the section for Terra and lingered for a while, until she spotted a place more shadowy than the rest.
Curious, Khirishi started forward. What could this be? The place was completely deserted except for an old lady with a coral cane.
"E-excuse me..." The young girl said awkwardly, brushing a strand of silvery hair out of her green eyes, "Where is this?"
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Post by Tyme on May 31, 2009 21:52:14 GMT -5
"Just tells you how much you young ones know now days," she muttered shifting her weight so that she was leaning more comfortably against a solid bookshelf. She tapped her cane near a pile of manuscripts before she settled down enough to answer the little girl's question. She wasn't awfully little, but when you got to be as old as she was everyone looked young and spritely.
"Well you take a look for yourself. It should come to mind once you read." Zorryktha said handing a tightly bound sheaf of papers to the green-eyed girl.
"What are you doing here anyway? Did you come with your parents and lose them? There are an awful lot of idiot children wandering along these shelves. And I was speak of the horrendous crimes they commit." she said. Her cane shook a bit as her eyes darkened and she remembered grubby fingerprints on ancient books and toppled over shelves.
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Post by arrasailsup on Aug 16, 2009 3:23:52 GMT -5
"N-no, I like being in here....It feels like home." Khirishi took the sheaf of papers tentatively. This old lady was strangely frightening. Khiri doubted that the woman would just cane a random passerby like her, but one never knew.
"My name's Khirishi. Please, call me Khiri. What's yours?" Khiri figured she might as well be polite. She glanced down at the sheaf of papers, squinting at the faded text. It was written in a rather antique form of Aquarian, one she couldn't read well.
"The Tales of Beedle the Bard?" She asked uncertainly. "What's so special about it? It seems just like the rest of the manuscripts out there..."
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Post by Tyme on Aug 16, 2009 21:00:27 GMT -5
"Home eh? In Biblia." Zorryktha let out a cackling laugh and her body shook so much it appeared she would topple over. She caught her breath and leaned heavily on her cane for a moment before she recovered. The old librarian watched the young girl take the manuscript from her crinkled old hands. She looked a bit scared, but if you weren't scared of Zorryktha you were probably half mad. The librarian was known to be a bit unpredictable and occasionally dangerous when she was in a bad mood.
"Khirishi. It doesn't mean anything in particular does it? Most youngster's names are just garble that doesn't mean anything." Zorryktha grumbled her mind digging past several memorized volumes of origins of names. Perhas it did mean something but if it did it was a more recent name and would most definitely not be in the books that were thousands of years old. Hardly any Aquarians chose to name their children from the ancient books now days. It was a sad departure of old tradition.
"I'm Zorryktha. Zorryktha Meial. Although you'll be calling me Miss Zorryktha if you've got your manners." she said waving her cane around the girl's feet threateningly for a few seconds. She noticed the green eyes squinting as they glanced down at the elegant calligraphy. It used to be standard to learn how to read and proficiently write all forms of ancient writing back when Zorryktha was in school, but apparently standards had changed.
"Children these days. Yes it is Beedle the Bard Khirishi. Read what is inside and you'll know." the librarian pressed reaching out with a shaking hand to turn the title page over to reveal the first page.
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Post by arrasailsup on Aug 19, 2009 10:47:12 GMT -5
"W-well, my mother did say it was a name of a grandmother....Who got it from another grandmother...Who was named after some sort of dragon. Or a dragon gave the name to her. But mother said she wasn't really all that sure anymore, and grandmother's dead, so I can't really ask her." Khirishi had been deeply saddened by her grandmother's death. Old Katya had been the source of most of the stories she knew.
"I think it means...'Fireflash' or something?" Khirishi offered. "I did run across a few mentions of Kirichi, which is pretty similar..."
She started to leaf through the manuscript carefully. It seemed extremely fragile, and Khiri didn't want to have Miss Zorryktha angry at her. Midway down the page, Khirishi stopped and frowned.
"Miss....I don't understand..." Her voice faltered. "Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like this is just an ending to a story. A long, long story that hasn't been told."
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Post by Tyme on Aug 19, 2009 12:06:09 GMT -5
"Fire flash?" Zorryktha's silver brows rose in question giving her a fearsome expression for a few seconds. She'd never heard of such a name but who knew. Perhaps her name wasn't pure Aquarian. There were plenty of those names as well. Perhaps it was even one of those terrible Pyrian mernames that had apparently been the trend about a decade ago. She shivered to think of exactly what sort of wrath that had brought from the blessed Goddess Larantia.
"So you aren't quite as daft as most of them are now days." Zorryktha said letting out a wheezing chuckle before holding out her hands for the manuscript.
"Yes little girl this is an ending to an untold story. This is the hall of unfinished stories. Every author has them. Poor sad things these papers are. Some of them are endings, some are beginnings, and others are random things in the middle."
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Post by arrasailsup on Aug 21, 2009 9:33:15 GMT -5
"Oh, uh....thanks?" Khirishi said weakly, wondering if it was really a compliment. Oh well, she might as well look on the bright side, like her dear cousin. Pity her cousin wasn't completely right in the head, but then and again, no one was, in a way of speaking.
"Hmm, yes, poor things..." She agreed vaguely, continuing to leaf through the pages. Everything in here was quite fascinating. The only problem was nothing made sense with so many parts missing. Khiri frowned.
"Miss....I don't understand...Why doesn't anyone clean this section up? Everything's just so....neglected....and maybe, if someone tried filling in this missing things....lots of these stories would be wonderful..."
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Post by Tyme on Aug 22, 2009 10:50:13 GMT -5
"This is the hall of unfinished stories. Partial manuscripts are usually thrown away by the people who wrote them, and these stories have never had a proper ending or beginning and thus never will. Most of the authors who wrote the manuscripts in this section are long dead. I remember meeting dear Lew Retor when I was a girl only your age. He was a poor old thing and couldn't even write anymore because his hands shook so much." Zorryktha said her mind conjuring up a shaky old man who had allowed her to shake his hand. What Zorryktha didn't know however, was that she was probably lingering on the brink of that age herself.
"Although if you'd like to clean it I invite you to try. The book brats don't have time for it and the librarians are busy with other things." Zorryktha sighed her hand wobbling a bit on her cane. She stared down at the dark hallway filled with piles and piles of paper that weren't in any particular order. There was supposed to have been a crazy librarian a century or two back that started collecting these manuscripts. It was rumored he snuck about trash cans and authors' houses just to catch a glimpse of one of these papers. Sadly old Unte died before he got around to organizing any of this. He was the only one who was supposed to have known where anything was in this place.
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Post by arrasailsup on Oct 10, 2009 10:34:39 GMT -5
Khirishi laid down that manuscript gently, then picked up another one, looking at the title. The words were strange, but she could understand them...just.
"MI?" She muttered. "What a strange title..."
The young girl opened it, leafing through the pages until something of interest caught her eye. Absently, she began to read aloud.
"The little squirrel was nodding off to sleep in the last rays of the day. The teacher was talking on. His white bleached hair flew out behind him in an eery way and his staring owl eyes took in all the students at once. He was speaking of the tale of Siyth Tinayth. He was telling of the beginning.
"Once children there was a mask-maker," he whispered."
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Post by Tyme on Oct 10, 2009 21:59:14 GMT -5
"That's the one with the spelling error isn't it? Eery instead of eerie. That one looks like it was written by a youngster. Most of that manuscript has different penmanship in each story. A fine collection it is, but it doesn't make any sense. There are demigods in some of them, gods in others, and mortals in all the rest. Sometimes one of the immortals comes down and fools with the mortals. " Zorryktha's crown of white hair bobbed a little as she craned her long neck over to see what Khirishi was looking at. She had seen that particular manuscript as a book brat. Youthe, who had been one of the section keepers had supposedly been Unte's assistant in his young days. Her mind fumbled as she tried to remember exactly what MI had stood for.
"Momentary Incubation? Tch that can't be it. Medal of Immortality?" Zorryktha muttered these things to herself as she tried to remember. What could it have stood for? She remembered being a bit astonished at what they stood for as a young girl, so it wouldn't have been anything too plain.
"Medd...meddling?" Zorryktha asked out loud. She stomped her heel on the ground in frustration. Why would she have forgotten? The memory was unclear, almost as if someone had erased it for her. Now it would bother her until she remembered. The only thing she could rely on these days was her own memory. She had seniority among the bookkeepers, and as the oldest one, she remembered the most as well.
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Post by arrasailsup on Oct 11, 2009 10:57:54 GMT -5
"Immortals. A dangerous subject to write about." Khirishi mused, keeping her voice low and reverent. It might be the most dangerous subject in this world to write about, but it certainly held the most fascination for her. She flipped back to the front.
"Then...shouldn't the 'I' stand for 'Immortals'?" She pondered, then looked more carefully at it. There, in extremely faint lettering just underneath, so faint that she hadn't noticed it...
"Six Hundred Years Ago...?"
Quickly, she flipped back inside, careful not to tear the fragile parchment. She located a new story, another unfinished one.
"New Buildings?" It was as if a spell had taken ahold of her. All these strange and fascinating titles, and their equally mysterious stories...
Again, Khirishi began to read aloud.
"Kiyah sat crosslegged on a mountain, unbothered by the cold and intense winds. Although she wouldn't know it, the mountains would be called the 'Rushwind Peaks' much later. Right now they were simply 'the mountains that were around a snowy plain smack in the middle of nowhere'."
The young girl whirled around to face the old librarian. "Kiyah? Rushwind Peaks?" She asked uncertainly. The names had a faintly familiar ring somehow...
But where could she have heard them?
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Post by Tyme on Oct 12, 2009 23:09:13 GMT -5
"Ahh yes that would be it! Meddling Immortals. Quite a rude title, considering that they are looking over us at this very minute." Zorrytha replied, her grumbly tone improving a little at her pleasure at figuring out the title. Old Youthe had read the manuscript to her himself back then. She'd just been a book brat, but perhaps he'd known that Zorryktha would be the sort of librarian he ended up being. She lived in the halls of the library, and ate hardly anything but words and knowledge. Most of the people in Aquaria, even those who worked in Biblia, didn't understand exactly why people like her chose to live the way they did.
"Kiyah you ask? The Black Falcon I believe. You've heard of Keyiarathanas, Whitefather, have you not? The two are related quite intimately. The stories go that they're sisters. Kiayh was daughter and servant of Vera, but departed the plane of immortals long ago. None of the stories are quite clear as to exactly what happened. And Rushwind Peaks? I've never heard of that before. Or maybe I have in one of these other manuscripts. A Detailed Writing on the Progress of Research on the New World? Was that it?" she frowned again and leaned a bit more heavily on her cane.
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Post by arrasailsup on Oct 13, 2009 11:07:19 GMT -5
"Keyia...tanni?" Khirishi asked nervously. Some of the immortals had really hard names to remember. Lucky the Pantheon's names and titles were relatively simple. She wouldn't dare cause offense just because of forgetfulness.
"I...don't know much about her." She ventured. Khiri had been interested in the immortals, yes, but there were just so much of them...She had focused more on Larantia and Her kin. "Um...Keyi, right? The White Lady? She was the opposite of Laverna. Order and chaos."
She thought hard, trying to remember. "Kiyah...I've never heard about her before. It still sounds familiar, somehow..."
Khiri trailed off, deciding to focus on something else. "Th-the New World?" It was amazing how much she still didn't know. "What New World? Gath? I haven't heard much about it?"
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Post by Tyme on Oct 15, 2009 20:29:35 GMT -5
"Yes, yes that's right. By all accounts they never get along quite well. Of course Vera probably never enjoyed Larantia's tirades either." Zorryktha paused to catch a breath. She had read every single book on immortals there was in existence, and the rest of her knowledge had been pried from different scholars and traders. When it came down the Pantheon she always knew what was being spoken of. Of course, that did hold the exception of stories that had not been written yet, or events that were occuring this moment. The old librarian seamed to puff a bit, similar to a peacock, before she lowered her feathers again and continued.
"Perhaps you read it somewhere and forgot. Youngsters' minds work that way. Most of them can't even remember what their mother told them to do in the morning, much less the name of Lady Blackfeather." Zorryktha replied smartly, tapping her cane for emphasis," It is still a field that has very few researchers in it. The subject of going to the New World is a matter of popular debate among those with magical abilities. The little scraps we have are mostly stories that were collected through immortals'." Zorrytha whispered the last bit, allowing a bit of a smile to leak through her old wrinkled face for a moment.
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