Everything Changes (A Sonic Boom Fanfic)

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The library was nestled against the foot of Mount Safety, at the end of what appeared to Kay to be the main road of the little village. The area was actually rather quaint and picturesque – a small water fountain stood just a short distance from the library entrance, and the area all around them was green with blue and pink flowers popping up here and there. The sky was still very blue and nearly cloudless. Kay took it all in for a moment before continuing to follow Amy up to the front steps.

Suddenly her guide stopped, turned around, and gestured dramatically. "Here you are! Welcome to the village library."

Kay looked at her companion. "Are you coming in, too?"

"Not today. I'm afraid if I go in I'll walk out with another handful of books, and I already have two handfuls at home. I don't want to lose track of them all."

"Right."

"I'll just hang out in the courtyard and wait for you. Unless you think you can find your way back easily enough?"

Kay looked around at the village, contemplating. It was rather small, and the way to Amy's house from here was a pretty straight shot. If all else failed she could probably find her way back there with no problem. So she shrugged and said, "I think I'll be okay. I'll catch up with you later."

Amy gave her a thumbs-up. "Sounds good! Have fun. I'm going to see if I can find Tails. Remind me to take you to his workshop sometime." And with that, she was off.

Kay turned her attention back to the massive wooden double doors at the library's entrance. There was a handle on only one of the two doors, and it opened inward without a fuss. She took a brief look around upon entering. It was a smallish building, but what it lacked in size it made up for in quantity. Kay marveled at how many books the place seemed to hold. Surely there had to be something in here that could help her catch up on where she was both geographically and historically.

"Can I help you?" a nasally voice came from the front desk a few paces from the entrance. Kay closed the door behind her and stepped towards it. She couldn't see who had spoken, but she ventured to answer the question anyway.

"I was hoping to look at an atlas," she said, "and maybe a history book or two?"

"History of what?" the mysterious voice inquired. A moment later she saw a beaver's head poke up from under the desk – what he'd been doing down there she couldn't begin to guess.

"Uh...a history of the island? And maybe some of the continents surrounding it?"

"Hmm." The beaver muttered noncommittally as he waddled out from behind the desk and down an aisle of shelves. Kay followed quietly, unsure if she was supposed to. Several moments later the beaver pulled a small paperback from one of the shelves and handed it to her. "Atlas. Find a seat, and I'll bring some history books."

"Oh, thank you," she replied, glancing around to find a table so she could do as he suggested. There was one further toward the back; she walked to it without a sound, glancing down the rows of shelves as she went. Am I the only one here? she wondered. It's so quiet.

Once she was settled Kay opened up the atlas, stopping at the first world map she found. She stared at it – it was so unlike the Mobian world map she remembered. The continents were mostly all there, still, but it was almost...backwards from the way she remembered them. Like this wonky anomaly she'd apparently caused took all of the old continents, jumbled them up, and spilled them back out across the globe like a game of Yahtzee. She frowned.

A bigger, hardback book plopped onto the table in front of the open atlas, startling her out of her reverie. The beaver was back. "History of the island," he grunted, before heaving another, even bigger book onto the table as well. "History of the nearest continent. Leave the books on the table when you're done, please."

"Sure," Kay replied, still a bit stunned by the size of the books. She'd been hoping for history – she honestly hadn't expected this much of it. "Thank you again."

She turned her attention back to the world map as the beaver waddled away, trying to pinpoint exactly where Bygone Island was. There were so many small islands she knew she had no hope of finding it unless she either sat here for hours or tried to seek help from somewhere. After flipping through the rest of the atlas with all of its mini maps and ultimately finding it not very useful, Kay turned her attention to the smaller of the two books before her and pried it out from underneath the larger one. Thankfully, within the first few pages, she found a map of the island itself.

Bygone was really small, all things considered. She would have been surprised if it was as big as Angel Island, in all honesty. It seemed the center of the spit of land was Mount Safety, with smaller mountains and hills surrounding that, all eventually bleeding into either deserts or grasslands that bled into beaches. Geologically Kay wondered how it made any sense, but she suspended her disbelief for a moment in order to find out what the name of the nearest continent was so she could maybe find it on the world map.

It took some reading and puzzling, but eventually Kay did find out – to her surprise – that Bygone was actually located off the coast of Chun-Nan, a name that she recognized but had not heard very often. She knew that on the Mobius she remembered Chun-Nan was the name of a province on the continent of Eurish, on the opposite side from the Dragon Kingdom. Apparently in this world, however, Chun-Nan was Eurish.

Kay thought back to her earlier conversation with Amy and again wondered how she had no idea what the continent was called when it was so close by. Didn't they get import from the people there? They had to, to sustain themselves, right? It was all very strange to her, but she decided to move on for the moment.

The next thing she did was look back at the world map to find Chun-Nan, which she did easily enough. After that it was just a matter of trying to figure out which tiny island was Bygone. Eventually she found one that she thought must be it, and her thoughts turned in a different direction. This island, from what she could tell, was mostly tropical with the exception of Mount Safety – but even then the mountain didn't have a lot of snow. So what was Chun-Nan like?

She was pulled from her thoughts once more when the beaver reappeared and announced that the library was closing soon. Kay was surprised – she couldn't have been here that long, could she? But she pushed the atlas aside and gathered up the two history books, moving towards the front desk to check them out. The beaver busied himself by putting the atlas away, then realized she was still there.

"Can I help you?" he asked again.

Kay was confused. "I'd like to check out these books, if I may."

"Noted. You can just go."

"Don't they need to be put on a record or something?"

"This village is too small to worry about that. I know what you look like; if you don't return the books I'll find you and take them back."

A library that didn't have cards? This new Mobius was getting weirder and weirder. Still, Kay gathered up the volumes, thanked him again, and exited the building. She had much more reading to do.