Taking Back

The Library

Eddie was later guided by Alisha to the castle library. They remained in their pajamas because she thought it would be easier for the tailor when he measured Eddie. The reason sounded logical.

Eddie's eyes widened as he took his first step inside the library. It was huge. Books lined the walls this way and that. Each hall was decorated with scrolls, scriptures, or tomes of all genres and lore, as far as the eye could see. It looked like a maze of knowledge and unknown, wherever which way you looked.

There were even tapestries, which looked as if they had existed long before the library was even built.

Tapestries of kingdoms young and old, with rulers described in faded texts, whose knowledge was probably lost to time. Their origins of how they were made, and how they ended up in this library, most likely lost to time as well, as the passings of each keeper of these archives were passed on, the knowledge slowly being forgotten.

"Ee, come on, let me have wisdom," grumbled a familiar voice.

Eddie saw Alisha rush to the sound and he followed her close behind to see Rilys, straining his tiny body as best as he could, reaching for a book on the top shelf. He stood on a big rolling stairway ladder railing just inches from the massive books he was trying to grab.

"Here Rilys, let me help," called out Alisha, climbing the ladder.

"Oh, thank you, your highness," replied Rilys as he jumped off the railing. "I've never seen so many ancient-looking books in one place. Especially ones like those."

He pointed to a big silver and blue tome, the very one he was attempting to grab for himself.

"Tell me, Princess, did that one perchance come from another kingdom of sorts?"

Alisha chuckled as she pulled the book off the shelf and climbed back down, kneeling to hand it over to him.

"To be honest, I'm not sure I could even tell you," she replied to him. "Most of these books and scrolls are pretty worn and tattered. Some were even slightly torn, their pages barely strong enough to stay on the spine. It's hard to say what books came from where."

"Oh," Rilys sighed sadly, then perked up. "Well, at least I'll be able to figure it out for myself then, hehe."

"Yadda Yadda Ya," Shoutmon whined in the corner, leaning on a bookcase. "Ya complainin' over some simple pages stacked on more pages. Besides, if ya don't know where it's from, how are you supposed to read it? It could be filled with some weird Glyphs or tiles, or even maybe baby gibberish we never heard of."

Alisha walked over to Shoutmon and leaned against his shoulder. "You know," she began. "There are some old combat scrolls here too, some even made for children's entertainment. We even have old warrior books filled with pictures."

This made the corner of Shoutmon's mouth twitch with interest.

"But, I suppose since they're so 'boring', you won't want to read them down there, down the passageway, to the right, and it's the fifth stack of books past the metal book display–"

Before she could finish, Shoutmon had already dashed away to the scriptures, rapidly yelling, "On-second-thought-perhaps-this-place-ain't-so-bad-afterall-yaaaaargh!" as he left them all in a flash.

Alisha simply chuckled. She then turned back to the others and said, "Well, guess he changed his mind."

Eddie and Rilys couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah," said Eddie. "He's REALLLLY into combat stuff, in case you haven't noticed."

Some time passed, and the group continued their time in the library. Rilys had collected enough books to almost build a fort around himself. He happened to be reading through another blue and silver book. Its pages were filled with symbols and diagrams of the most interesting creatures, still thought to only exist in just that: pages. But the idea of these creatures he saw on each page existing and living at one point did intrigue him.