Chapter 18: Chapter 17.2 - Library Encounter

Standing up after having pulled herself through the hole, Kira glanced around at this new section she hadn’t seen before. The room up here was circular in shape, and had a dim orangey glow illuminating from bulbous ceiling lights above. Dozens of oddly curved bookshelves lined the room in a direction, all pointing towards the center hole.

‘Cursed Potions… Horrors of the Dark… Nightmares… The Blood of History… Black Wands… Monstrous Books…’ Kira read some of the aisle signs, getting more curious about the types of books that sat on these shelves.

“Ergh, why’d you have to bring me up here as well?” The Misadventures of Marty Morr groaned. “There’s a reason they separate these books from the rest, they have some real nasty personalities, I’ll tell ya.”

“You said you’d show me what I’m looking for.” Kira said, “Once I find the right book, I’ll quickly read through it, then bring you back down, okay?”

“Ya? Well good luck with that.” The book returned to its snarky behaviour, obviously angry about being dragged around. “It should be in ‘The Blood of History’ section, that’s where all the not-so-nice records of you wizards are.”

Kira hesitated for a moment before stepping into the aisle. Most of the book titles here seemed to be related to the wars that had plagued the continent for the thousands of years before this peaceful century they were in. There were books here as thick as a dictionary, that detailed a single battle that took place over 1500 years ago. She really had to carefully look through the book titles as she searched for the one that might have what she wanted to know. Her finger rubbed against the seams of the books, until she stopped on a wide black cover with gold painted edges.

She pulled the book out from its home and read the full cover, “The Dark History of the Noble Households.”

This was most likely it. Well she had to look through it first and make sure it had what she wanted to know. Before she could open it, Caspian emerged from her core and materialized on the floor beside her.

“Hey bud, what’s up?” Kira asked her familiar.

‘I want to look around! Can I?’ He excitedly hopped.

“Sure, just be careful, okay?”

‘Okay!’ And her cute capybara galloped off on his own little adventure.

Now she could crack open the book. In its table of contents it had 8 chapters, each one listed a different noble household. Oak, Frost, Gryphon, Lock, Trinity, Terra, Rose, and lastly, Thorn. She flipped to the page where the Thorn’s started, ignoring the other households. It appeared there weren't many pages about the Thorn’s.

Was it because there were only 4 Thorn’s? And one of those was barely over a decade old.

‘Not much is known about one of the most powerful wizards to live, Thorn, as is the case with all the founders, but his household is easy to keep track of since only two more have appeared in the last ten thousand years. The apprentice of Thorn himself, Horris Onica Thorn, is the only wizard still alive to have been around since the founders were still around.’ Kira read to herself.

Before the Wondrous Society was built, and without any Elders to guide them, wizards back in the day were governed solely by the noble household in which territory they lived in. It was a divided land. Nobles didn’t work together like they do now, and instead they fought against each other for territory or monetary gain. Not only were wizards fighting each other, they were up against the might of entire kingdoms who wanted their magic for themselves, and the Temple of the Sun who sought to eradicate all magic from this world.

It was a bloody time. Death and destruction were commonplace. But there was one thing the noble households feared more than the wizard hunters from the Temple, and more than the armies of humans: it was Horris Thorn. Her duty, as she called it, was to make sure the noble households that her masters' friends had created, didn’t fall to corruption or greed, because if they did, she was sure to remind them of her strength.

‘So even back then she was like an adjudicator, just not officially.’ Kira surmised. The next few pages depicted incidents in which nobles did exactly what Horris feared they might, and how she ‘corrected’ their behaviour. Entire noble families were erased, just like what happened to the Oak’s ten years ago.

Kira hadn’t met her grandmaster yet, but the more she read, the more she was starting to understand why people feared her so much. Horris was too strong, and simply didn’t care what others thought. She did whatever she thought was right, even if they meant mass death.

Then, surprised when she really shouldn’t have been, she began to read about her own master. Over 500 years ago, Rynus made his debut in a war that spanned the entire continent. He was nicknamed the Rain of Death after wiping out an entire human army by himself, using his fiery rain and his magical combat skills. The land he fought would be blackneeded and charred afterwards, creating mass wastelands where life was sparse. To fight back against the armies of mankind vying for the wizards, Rynus had no issue spreading his rain of fire to the crop fields of these kingdoms, stifling their food supply and causing starvation among the population.

She read another story about her family lineage, and another tragedy, and it just kept going. The world was just a bloody horrible mess in centuries past, and the amount of death her master and grand master had brought about wasn’t little, especially towards noble wizards. The last thing recorded in the book was the Oak family incident.

Alexander had explained it to her, but she wanted to see if there was more here she was missing.

“Oi, get back here you furry beast! That’s my notebook!” A girl's voice loudly shouted, stirring Kira from her concentration.

Kira watched as Caspian came bolting down the aisle towards her with a notebook lodged in his mouth. Turning the corner with an angry face was none other than Ashley Oak. The girl had tunnel vision, focused solely on the capybara, and didn’t see Kira until she was right in front of her.

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“Ah.” Ashley let out a sound between surprise and anguish.

“Hey…” Kira greeted with an awkward wave. “Didn’t think anyone else was up here honestly— wait did Caspian steal your notebook?” She turned to her familiar, “You better explain yourself mister, we don’t go around stealing others things do we?”

‘She had drawings of you in here, that’s why I took it.’ Caspian defended his actions.

“Drawings? Of me?” Kira shook her head, “Why would— wait hold on, let me see it.”

Kira reached down to take the notebook from Caspian, but was interrupted by a ghastly blue hand that snatched up the notebook from the capybara. Kira’s eyes shifted over to the hovering hand and saw dozens of glowing trails of mana coming from Ashley’s back, with hands materializing on the ends of them all. Like a peacock of hands.

“This is private.” Ashley spat, “Did you get your familiar to steal it for you, huh?”

“Not at all.” Kira said, then questioned the girl, “Why do you have drawings of me? Can I see them?”

“W-what, no! These are private!”

“You can’t just draw others without their permission.”

“Yes you can, it’s just a drawing!”

“So you do have drawings of me?”

“That’s not— urgh, stop asking!” Ashley yelled.

Kira was about to say more, but stopped herself. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to push you or anything. I was just curious.”

She paused, then bowed in apology. “Also, I’m sorry my familiar stole your notebook. I’ll need to teach him better than to steal from others.”

“Stop.” Ashley gritted her teeth.

“Stop?”

“Stop being so… so… nice.” Ashley breathed out, “You're supposed to be… I don’t know, like angry and mean.”

“Uh, well I can be angry if you like, but I’m not great at being mean though.” Kira replied, sending Ashley into a chorus of groaning.

“Why aren’t you angry at me!” Ashley asked, stepping closer to her, “I spoke bad about your family. I called you a murderer… you're supposed to get mad when someone does that!”

Kira shyly scratched her nose, “I was more surprised, than angry I guess. I had no clue what you were talking about at first. It was only until my friend, Alexander, explained some of it to me that I somewhat knew what you were talking about. I haven’t even met my grand master before, so I can’t really say anything about her, but my master, well he’s the kindest person I know.”

“That’s actually why I’m here.” Kira held up the book, “I keep finding out things about my lineage that I never knew before. Like I had no idea my master was known as the Rain of Death a few hundred years ago.”

Ashley came right up to Kira until they were almost nose to nose. “You… you didn’t know? About any of it?”

Kira nodded.

Ashley’s face contorted into a series of conflicting emotions. She grabbed Kira’s robes by her chest and squeezed it tightly, before letting go. A tear fell from her eye.

“Oh, ah, oh no, are you crying? Are you okay?” Kira panickedly asked and wanted to pull her into a hug, but knew that it wasn’t the right move.

“I’m fine.” Ashley wiped her eyes. “I’m just… I’m sorry.”

She hiccuped. “I’m sorry for calling you a murderer, and yelling at you. I knew you didn’t do it— you didn’t even know about it— but… it’s hard not to get angry when your household name comes up.”

“It’s okay.” This time, Kira gently reached out, going slowly, and made absolutely sure Ashley was on board, before she pulled the girl into a hug. It was awkward at first, Kira had her arms over Ashley’s stiff body, but eventually, Ashley leaned in with a silent sob. “I forgive you.”

The two broke apart and giggled seeing each other's reddened eyes. Yes, Kira couldn’t help the tears from falling. It was a normal reaction when one saw another crying.

“Are those hands your innate magic?” Kira pointed to the ghostly hands still hovering behind Ashley.

“Mm, that’s what I used to get up here. They’re pretty handy— ah, that wasn't an intended pun.”

Kira still chuckled. “I'm still a little curious, do you actually have drawings of me in your notebook? I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just wondering.”

Ashley nodded, before answering. “I tend to draw whatever's on my mind— not that your on my mind a lot— well I guess you are because I’ve been wanting to apologize— and now that we have—“

“It’s fine, I think it’s cool you like to draw. Do you mind showing me?”

“Sure.” Ashley replied shyly. She readjusted her glasses then gingerly opened up her notebook. She flipped through five or six pages before turning it over so Kira could see.

They were immaculate. Kira swore she could see more detail in the drawings of her, than she could see in the mirror. They were black and white, hyper realistic, and had her posed in various stances with different spots of the academy campus as backgrounds.

“Woah! These are amazing!” Kira’s eyes popped seeing the beauty of Ashley’s work. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Ashley gave a quiet thanks and silently watched Kira scan her works with eyes of admiration and joy. It felt good to have your work be apprenticed. She had never shown her drawings to others before, only the nanny’s back at her orphanage had seen some of them.

“I don’t mean to interrupt this lovely scene here, but it’s getting quite late and I’d like to get back to my home if you would.” The Misadventures of Marty Morr spoke up.

“Oops, sorry Marty, I forgot you were here.” Kira said.

“Marty?” The book grumbled, before letting it go.

“Let’s get back down, it’s getting late anyways.” Kira announced, then turned to Ashley. “Do you think you could use your hands to help me down? I don’t think I really thought my plan out on how to get down.”

“Mm.” Ashley walked side by with Kira until they got back to the hole in the center of the room. “A ladder? Where’d you get that?” Ashley asked.

“Uhhhh well, I kinda maybe dispelled one of the ladders near the shelves and moved it over here.” Kira twiddled her fingers in guilt.

“Are you crazy?” Ashley gasped, “Mr. Bobo is gonna freak out on us!”

“Not if he doesn’t know it was us.”

“Your saying…” Ashley gulped, “We lie to him?”

“No, silly. We escape before he catches us so he’ll never know who did it.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“It is, isn't it?” Kira said, “I’ve never done something like this… but isn’t it kinda exciting? I feel like my body is twitching with energy.”

Ashley eyed her up and down, “Maybe I thought wrong. You are a little bad aren’t you?”

“Hahaha, well we’re friends now, so you're stuck with me.”

“Friends?” Ashley’s brain melted at the word.

“Mm, friends! Let’s go Ashley, no time to waste!” Kira laughed.

Ashley’s mind was going through a hurricane of mixed emotions, but the one that stood out the most was joy. Someone had called her their friend. Her first ever friend. The rush of endorphins that came with the newfound knowledge of a budding friendship easily outclassed her feelings regarding rule breaking. She had thought Kira would have hated for how rude and angry she had been, but that wasn’t the case at all.

The two girls used Ashley’s ghostly hands to get down to the level below, before they took off running down to the main floor. They snuck past the front desk where Mr. Bobo was still sound asleep. The noise of arguing books didn’t even make a dent in his slumber. Kira didn’t forget to return the Misadventures of Marty Morr to his spot on the desk as she escaped, giving him a quick thank you and bye-bye before departing.

The two girls broke out into a run onto the grass outside, the moonlight shining down upon their laughing faces.

“Hah, we did it… we got out.” Kira plopped down next to a tree and leaned back against its trunk. Ashley sat down beside her, her face red and sweaty.

“Hey, I never asked—” Kira inhaled a big gulp. “—What were you doing up there originally?”

“I like to study or draw there. It’s quiet. The books don’t talk to you unless you address them first, unlike the levels below.” Ashley answered. “But those books, you really don’t want to talk too. Trust me.”

Kira nodded, before saying. “If you don’t mind… me and a few others are doing a little study session tomorrow in the Common Center, if you want to join.” Kira asked.

“Would they… I mean, do they mind? They don’t know me or anything, and you’ve probably told them how I yelled at you— and earlier today in dodgeball, I was kind of pathetic—“

“They will love you. It’s totally fine.” Kira cut off her ramblings. “Just be yourself, okay? You don’t need to worry about being good at dodgeball, or not knowing each other… just go into it with an open heart and a curious mind.”

Ashley nodded with a faint smile.

“This is kind of funny.” Kira said.

“What is?”

“I’m usually the shy one in the group. The others are usually the ones to bring in people to meet, not the opposite way.”

“You, the shy one? I don’t believe it.” Ashley shook her head.

“Hah, you gotta meet Abby. She’s my bestest friend, and she’s the most energetic outgoing person I know. She could probably befriend a rock if she tried hard enough. Though once you get to know her, she can be a little bit of a crybaby sometimes, but don’t tell her I said that.”

“I won’t tell a soul.” Ashley swore. “She seems like a fun girl. I’ve seen her in class obviously, but I’ve never really talked to her. I guess I’ll get to know her… tomorrow.”

“So you are gonna come!” Kira exclaimed. “This is gonna be great, I can’t wait!”

The two sat together under the tree for a couple more minutes, talking about whatever came to mind. They watched the stars twinkle in the cloudless sky, and let the warm nighttime breeze brush against them. Only when it felt natural did the two get up and depart back to their dorms for some much needed rest. But sleep didn’t come easily for the two. One kept replaying the last few hours over and over in their mind, while the other could only think about the hours to come tomorrow.