Lost Destinies

↳ 03: Let's Rehash This Again, Shall We?

Sicilienne Verelia spun in circles about the library, bouncing up on her toes to reach higher shelves and swinging with one arm onto the wheeled stepladder to slide across rows that seemed to go on endlessly. She would probably never manage to read through every book as there were millions, maybe billions bound in leather, thick paper, and cloth. And this was just one section. There were infinite books written by the citizens of Fairytaletopia—nonfiction and fiction alike, in the genres of fantasy, thriller, politics, mathematics... on and on and on. The Writer was something of a collector, and Sicilienne was his prodigy, ever ready to learn from any new addition to the shelves or any new task he decided to put her on.

Oh, but that was just the ordinary books. The truly extraordinary ones were all upstairs; the other level of the library, what the Writer liked to call the Library of Life. Although many called them fairy tales, he and Sicilienne often called them life-books, stories that were entirely real and true. Stories that wrote themselves with only a bit of nudging and adjusting along the way. Stories powered by magic, filled with wonder and hope. A book you could hold in your hands and watch as shimmering ink filled the pages. One for every person who had ever lived. That was where the Writer spent nearly all his waking hours. Keeping all the stories in check... she couldn't imagine bearing that weight on her shoulders. She knew she would have to eventually. But it all seemed like such a large and terrifying responsibility.

Sometimes she worried that she hadn't fully understood what she was getting into when she became the Writer's apprentice. That couldn't have been more than... what? Two, three years ago? Somehow time had flown by, even though it simultaneously felt as though her old life had been... well... a lifetime ago. Her days had been filled with constant movement, traveling in what felt like circles through Fairy Kingdom, jumping from inn to inn, hovel to hovel, homeless shelter to homeless shelter. Just her and her brother against the world. Now they had diverged on separate paths, Sicilienne embarking on a new kind of journey—the stable kind. She wondered which was harder: to leave everything you've ever known behind in exchange for the stability you never had, or to continue chasing the wind only because you'd grown so accustomed to it you didn't know where else to go?

She fingered her necklace, thinking of Claude, and wondering, selfishly, if he, too, was thinking of her.

Around her neck, resting just above her collarbone, sat a thin gold band which emanated a very soft humming noise you would only hear if you were standing very close and remained silent enough to notice your own heartbeat. Its purpose was frankly quite silly, but she was far too attached to it to even consider parting with it despite the fact that she was probably a bit old to be playing with such toys. It was an enchanted voice corrector—straight out of Tech Zone, if her brother was to be believed. Those things that made you talk like royalty. She figured after all those lessons in literature and language she didn't need it anymore, but perhaps it was slightly sentimental. For a girl who'd never had so much as a day of traditional schooling, as she was when she received it, it was a wondrous gift. She'd always cherished it.

It was truly a wonder how her brother delivered her such nice things. But he was a traveling merchant now, which was good, because she'd always felt slightly guilty for leaving him. There was still that little nagging worry at the back of her mind, even though they regularly wrote letters, that maybe Claude was a little lost, a little sadder without her. Surely that wasn't the case, him being a grown man and the older brother and perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but... well, perhaps she wanted him to miss her.

Sicilienne suddenly tripped, the feather duster flying out of her hands as she fell. Thankfully, she miraculously clutched onto the ladder rail at the last moment. She swallowed, eyeing the floor far below her and suddenly felt a bit queasy. She really needed to be less—