Chapter Text
Dust floats in the air, suspended in sunbeams that stream in between the hanging curtains and the thick stone pillars that hold up the roof of the Royal Library of Alexra. In Saria’s opinion, seeing those little specks hang still in the light, in the silence, makes it seem like time has stopped. The noise of the carts, horses, and people in the city beyond never reached that deep into the building itself, muffled by hundreds of bookshelves and thousands of tomes and scrolls and pages. Being situated on one of the many hills of the city, it is elevated above the lingering smells of civilisation, from the sun-baked city streets to the ocean port’s stench of fish, which Saria appreciates greatly. There is only the musty smell of old paper and ink to keep the Librarians company.
Saria isn’t a Librarian. Not officially, with a capital L, at any rate - to become a Royal Librarian, one needed to pass a number of tests, exams and such, and then you would get a lovely certificate from the king, and you could boast of having met him and, more importantly, your ability to handle all the rare books you could ever dream of.
No, unfortunately, to take those tests in the first place, you need to have proof of citizenship of Alexra. Saria doesn’t have that, or proof of citizenship of anywhere, really. She considers herself a citizen of the world of literature, but only in the way that you have to have something slightly witty to say to people when they ask where you’re from, and don’t want to tell them you’re an orphan with no roots or documents to speak of. She finds the latter response rather spoils the mood and makes things unnecessarily awkward.
Speaking of awkwardness…
“Saria!” An echoing call punctuates the silence of the library, accompanied by a chorus of “shhh!” noises. The owner of the voice, typically, doesn’t pay much heed to these chidings, or indeed to anyone else’s feelings in particular. And being as she has currently secluded herself in what she knows to be a dead end amongst the library’s maze of bookshelves, Saria realises with a sinking feeling that she has nowhere to hide. “Saria, where are you?”
“She’s in the maps section, your highness, but please stop shouti--”
“SARIAAA!”
Her poor ears. The poor books. Reluctant, but willing to sacrifice her patience and hearing for the sake of the Library - as pretty soon if he couldn’t find her, he’d start pulling books off the shelves to look behind them for her - Saria steps out from her corner to meet the prince.
About half a head shorter than her but carrying himself at all times with the same pompous air as a conqueror sat atop a mighty steed, Prince Midias of Prash can frequently be found at the Royal Library of Alexra. Very rarely is his purpose ever to actually read the books there, and even rarer is it that he has official business. No, he mostly just likes to strut about like he owns the place, which he doesn’t, yet. The day King Obion passes the kingdom (and more importantly the Library) to his son is going to be a one for the history books… in a variety of likely unpleasant ways. Hopefully that day will be a long way off, as the king is still barely in his middle years, and in good health, may the gods preserve.
Midias catches sight of Saria and immediately smirks victoriously, tossing his long, greasy, wheat-coloured hair out of his face as he saunters up to her. He stops in front of her and leans against a bookshelf in a manner that she’s sure he thinks is casual and friendly, but actually comes across as thoughtless and disrespectful. Those poor books… getting his skin oils all over those antique leather hardback covers! She’ll have to clean them after he goes away.
“Hey babe, come here often?” he grins at her. She cannot muster anything more than a stiff, polite smile back.
“I live here, your highness.”
He laughs at that like she’s told him the best joke he’s heard in weeks, which she hasn’t, because they have this exchange nearly every time he comes in here. He says some obnoxious, weirdly obvious statement, and she replies politely but dryly, and he always laughs for some reason she doesn’t understand.
“Listen, Saria, I had a question I wanted to ask you,” he says, running his hand through his hair and she swears, if he touches any of the pages with his hair grease all over his fingers… gods, he’s so gross. Wait, he’s talking. He’s been talking a lot. How long did she zone out staring at the grossness? “... so what do you think?”
“... I’m sorry?”
“About my idea! Father won’t leave me alone about the whole thing, says it’s a bad plan, but what does he know! I think you’re super smart, though, you gotta be after being around all these books all the time. So, who else would I ask? Anyway, what do you think of it? You’re being so silent it’s making me nervous.”
“... yes. Sure. Sounds great.”
“Hah!” he shouts, pumping his fist and grinning. “I knew it! I always knew!” Suddenly, he grasps her hands, with his gross gross gross sweaty squishy sticky hot hands ew ew ew-- “-- won’t regret this, Saria, you really won’t!”
“I already think I do,” she wheezes, her skin crawling.
“Hahah! You’re hilarious, Saria, it’s the deadpan way you tell ‘em!” he releases her hands, and it’s all she can do not to immediately wipe them on her cotton tunic until the feeling goes away. Thankfully, Midias is already leaving. “I’ll be back to finalise everything tomorrow evening! Don’t go anywhere!”
“... you know I won’t,” she mutters. Even having known Midias since they were both very small children, Saria can never quite calm herself around him. He unsettles her, not in the way that she read about in romance novels where the character’s heart beats fast and her face gets hot with embarrassment. More like, in adventure stories when the hero faces a particularly ugly monster with a bad smell, but they have to endure it anyway.
Not that she is any sort of hero, or adventurer, or protagonist, she thinks to herself as she kneels by the fountain in the courtyard, and scrubs and scrubs her hands and then her wrists and her forearms until she starts to feel slightly less gross. If she were anything, she would probably be the advisor, the character in the background who gives the protagonist a needed piece of advice or part of the plot. Or, she would like to think, perhaps some sort of wise old magician, if she ever lived to such an age.
“Another encounter with the prince?” comes a reedy old voice from across the fountain. Saria looks up and sighs in relief. It’s only Milya, the oldest Librarian. Her is hair sheer white and her back is crooked from time spent bending over desks copying manuscripts so the Library would always have at least one spare version - as per its mission. She squints her fading eyes through half-moon glasses at her. “Your hands are turning red, girl.”
Saria stops scrubbing. “Why won’t he just leave me alone…”
Milya raises an eyebrow at that, stepping further out of the shadow of the high wall that separates the courtyard and librarian living quarters from the rest of the city. Despite the hustle and bustle of town being just a small way beyond the stones, the height of the wall and the sheer cliff beyond it meant that even this little sanctuary was silent. When Saria was little, she used to sit on top of the wall and watch the people move around down below, like little ants but with carts.
“Why do you think?” Milya says, breaking her out of her musings.
“I don’t know! I’ve never understood why he does things! His head’s too full of his ego to fit anything else in anyway,” she scowls at the distorted reflection of herself in the water. Wiry, dark hair, brown skin, yellowish eyes blinking behind round spectacles… it’s not like she possesses any particular beauty that someone would go out of their way to find. And she isn’t socially graceful by any means, so it couldn’t be her charms or flattery. “He’s just weird. He’s weird and I don’t like him.”
By now, Milya has moved around the edge of the fountain to sit by her, but not too close. She knows that Saria doesn’t like being touched suddenly at times - one of many facts that she’s carefully observed and noted about her that Midias hasn’t, despite knowing her for a roughly equal amount of time. Still, her presence is a comfort, and it banishes that skin-crawling feeling all the more. The two sit in silence for a while, until Saria feels calm again.
“... stew for dinner?” she offers, and gets a nod of approval from Milya. “Did Naima get more carrots in…?”
“No, but she did get those sweet ones that are similar. You know. The ones the traders are bringing in from the north east.”
“Parsnips? Orpa will complain again.”
“Orpa is a grown woman and can eat around the ‘parsnips’ if she’s that fussy about it. Namia will happily finish what she doesn’t. Really now. Back in my day, we were glad for whatever we managed to get, doubly so if it was exotic and came from so far away! All the recent improvements in our nation’s seafaring abilities, not to mention the trade agreements with those new settlements abroad… if it weren’t for King Obion, it would still be what I had to put up with as a little girl: wheatcakes! Dry! With perhaps some cured meat if you were very lucky!” Milya sniffs, shaking her head in disapproval at the youth of today. “None of this sweet stuff, none of this fresh meat at a price you can actually afford more than once a month. And you know what? We didn’t know much better, so we liked it! Wheatcakes, every day, without a single complaint.”
Despite Milya going on and on for just as long as Midias usually did, Saria never once tuned out or got bored. From the very beginning, Milya’s voice, with its slightly scratchy quality and droning intonation, was something that she could listen to for hours. And she used to - asking her to explain difficult concepts she found in books, stories a little too complex for a little girl, and even random miscellanea.
“... do you want wheatcakes with the stew?”
Milya flaps a hand at her and pulls a face, standing and moving towards the kitchen. In colder months, this room was often the focal point of the librarians’ quarters, thanks to the nice big oven, and the large, old table they all sat around. “Gods, no, I’ve eaten enough of those to last me my whole life. Let’s have proper bread.”
Saria moves to a cupboard as they enter the room, opening it. “... ah. The bread’s gone all…” she picks up the previous day’s loaf, which has turned an odd blackened colour, starting to crumble in Saria's hands. Milya does a double-take at it, and comes closer to inspect it.
“What on…” she mutters, taking it from Saria’s hands and turning it over. She spends an unusually long time just looking at it, but Saria agrees that it’s odd for it to have gone off so quickly. “... well, nevermind. The grocer’s already been and gone, could you go down to market and buy a new loaf?”
Anxiety seizes Saria’s throat in an iron grip. “... do I have to?”
“It’s only down to the docks, Saria. Just a straight line, there and back, broad daylight,” Milya pats Saria’s arm sympathetically. “It’ll take you maybe 20 minutes. You can do that.”
She can’t. Leaving the Library is always terrifying. It’s noisy, and loud, and there are people that try to talk to her and she can never find her words in time to say something back. The sunlight feels heavier out there, and the air thick like soup, exhausting to move under. It's much easier to read about Alexra, or to watch it from a distance, than it is to move through it. A beautiful and thriving port city, capital of the Kingdom of Prash, home to millions and now a great trading superpower… she could rattle off the statistics all day, but it didn’t make it any less intimidating.
“I’ll give you a little extra coinage,” Milya says, rummaging around in a small purse tied to her belt. “And you can buy yourself a jam tart. Hm?”
Bribery. Drat. “Milya, I’m not a little girl any more…” Saria says, trying not to be immediately swayed by the concept of fresh, sweet tarts.
“You’ll always be little to me, Saria, 18 summers passed or not!” Milya declares, pressing three silver coins into one of Saria’s hands, and a wicker basket from a pile in the corner into the other. “Now if you hurry, you’ll get there before the bakery closes. Hop to it!”
Resigned to her fate, Saria ventures out into the streets.
-----
All in all, it isn’t terrible. She counts among her victories that she managed to force herself to raise her head two entire times. Once while on the way down the hill towards the bakery, in order to look at the view over the terracotta tiled roofs of the city to the sparkling sapphire ocean and the hundreds of merchant ships bobbing on its surface. And then, again, to actually speak to the baker, a friendly woman who insisted on giving Saria an extra tart to add to the one she already bought, and the bread. Despite Saria not saying anything about it, the baker said she was sorry about the blackened bread, and that apparently an entire batch from the previous day had turned unexpectedly rancid. Saria had mumbled something like ‘don’t worry about it’, and then fled the scene with heart pounding. But no stumbling over herself, no choking on her words today. It went as well as it could, for her.
Still, returning to the Library is like surfacing from the depths of the unforgiving ocean, and she heaves a huge sigh of relief once back in the shade of its pillars and drapes and tall roof. Depositing the fresh bread in the kitchen for Namia and Orpa to make dinner with, she steals away into her own living quarters with her real prize of jam tarts.
Being as she isn’t, and never would be an official Librarian, Saria did not get an actual room in the Librarians’ Quarters, like the others did. Above the normal living spaces, there is a small attic, usually used for storage in times passed, but long since transformed into a cosy living quarters just for her. Cooled by circulating air in the summer, and warmed by the fires below in the winter, Saria’s corner had accumulated a lot of blankets, pillows, and other assorted ornaments over the years. A large mound of pillows provided her bed, and at least one of the sheets was currently being utilised as a curtain for some privacy.
Saria didn’t keep books in here - it would be all too easy to knock them over in her sleep, or otherwise damage them. Instead, she had collected other strange objects that had found their way to the library - a stool she used as a table since it was so oddly wide and yet low sat; a metal goblet that refills itself by means of trickery; a strange device made of gears that, if you turned it at the correct speed, sounded like it was making music. And that was just the start. The origins of all these items were by and large a mystery, but they couldn’t be categorised like everything else in the library, nor were they wanted or needed by anyone, so it seemed fitting, to Saria, that they stay with her.
Dinner goes as expected - Orpa complains about the parsnips, Namia eats them for her, Milya rolls her eyes at the whole display, and Saria chews in silence. At the end, she washes up while the others speak about matters to do with copying and preservation. Three more scribes had submitted applications to lend their services to copying texts, but only one has even slightly passable handwriting. Orpa wants to hire one of them because he’s attractive. Saria swiftly leaves the room and crawls back into her attic corner before she can get dragged into the argument.
Saria goes to sleep, as she often does, to the sound of voices that, even when bickering, never shout.
-----
She awakes in stages. First, the crackle of fire. Then, the heat pricking at her skin. Then, the smell of smoke.
On her feet quickly, Saria blinks her eyes clear of sleep as fast as possible, knowing she doesn’t have much time. Fires in the Royal Library are rare, but in a place with this much old, dry paper, a single ember from a wick of a candle could set an entire section alight. She slides down the ladder that leads up to her little corner of the loft, and runs straight to the courtyard, grabbing a bucket from beside the fountain and filling it with water.
“FIRE!” she yells at the top of her lungs. “FIRE! EVERYONE UP, FIRE!”
As she strains her ears for the sounds of people getting out of bed to come grab more buckets and help, she realises she can hear something else.
People are screaming.
Not in the library, beyond it, in the city. As she looks up over the courtyard wall, she can see the entire night sky tinged orange and grey with flame and smoke. Horses bray and whinny in a panic, the clash of sword and steel makes her hair stand on end, the desperate cries of people dying fill her ears.
The books are burning behind her. She can’t allow horror to paralyse her at a time like this. No matter what is happening over the wall, she has to save the Library. The Library is everything, every book that comes through Alexra on any ship of any kind is copied and stored here, all the knowledge in the world, all the history, all the meaningful stories that would be lost--!
Her attempt to dash into the library with a bucket of water is barred by a familiar figure.
“Milya, thank the gods, the Library, get a bucket-!”
Instead of grabbing her own bucket, Milya takes Saria’s, and then upends it over Saria’s head, drenching her to the bone. She yelps in surprise, but doesn’t have time to do more than that, as Milya grabs her wrist and runs--
“No, the Library--” sobs Saria, “We’re going the wrong way!”
“Quiet, girl! Be quiet and run!”
“But-!”
She can’t argue and run at the same time, her lungs aren’t good enough and the smoke chokes her anyway. Ash sticks to her clothes but the flames that lick close enough to singe Milya’s white hair, the flames--
“Milya!”
“Go, go, go!”
-- don’t hurt Saria, they can’t, her clothes are sodden and skin too wet to burn. A great groan fills the air as she can hear the wooden shelves of the Library collapse under the heat of the fire, and Saria can’t help but sob.
This isn’t happening.
This can’t be happening.
She isn’t really here, this can’t be real, this isn’t--
A sharp slap brings her blinking back into focus. Milya has burns all down her right side, and her sleeping tunic is almost singed off her completely. Large blisters are forming on her old, wrinkled skin. She isn’t wearing her half moon glasses and her hair has come loose from its usual bun. Her fingers, rough from years of papercuts and binding books, grasp Saria’s face.
“Look at me! Look at me Saria.”
“I- I am-! Milya, you’re--”
“Never mind me, I’m old and dying anyway! You, you have to live, Saria. You have to get out of here and live!”
“What are you talking about?! Where would I go to! The Library is--”
“It’s gone, Saria! The Library is ash! It is only in our hearts and our memories now! But it doesn’t matter, a library can be remade, rebuilt, a life cannot!”
It occurs to her that they’re standing in the street, a street she doesn’t know, an unfamiliar road leading up away from the city, towards the dark hills that surround it. She’s never left the library before, not for long. Never been this far away from the only home she’s ever known. There isn’t much smoke here, but there are people, hundreds of people, running or limping or dragging something, trying to calm horses and donkeys, trying to quiet screaming children.
A wagon pulls up next to them. The old man from the market who brought groceries to the library every day hops off the front of it, and tries to take Saria’s arm. She jerks away from him. “No! Milya, I don’t understand, I don’t get any of this!”
Milya’s wizened old fingers grip Saria’s face hard enough to hurt. “Ilra Ka!” she whispers the word - name? - low enough that the chaos around them almost downs it out. “Remember. Ilra Ka did this. No warlord, no conqueror, no ruler we recognise. Ilra Ka, from the shadows, did this !”
And she forces Saria to look. She turns her head so she can’t help but gaze across the burning city below, the ocean full of ships escaping, full of bodies bobbing on the surface, the streets awash with blood and embers, no building untouched, no park or green space spared from the indifferent wrath of the flames. Even the palace, up on the hill across from the library, is burning bright as the midday sun. Is Midias inside? Is King Obion? Would there be anything for them to rule over, after this?
Isn’t this how the books always described Hell?
This time, when the merchant grabs her arm and pulls her into the wagon, she’s too frozen with horror to resist. Milya’s nails leave little half-moon crescents in her skin when she lets go. She presses something heavy into Saria’s arms, and Saria reflexively draws it close. A familiar shape. A book?
“Please be safe, Saria. And never doubt your worth.”
By the time she realises the wagon has started moving, Milya has completely vanished into the churning crowd.