The next morning Tate woke up to the faint sound of rain outside his window. He sat up in the bed and just as he suspected the view outside was grey and opaque.
Perfectly timed a knock came to the door. Without waiting for an answer one of the guards poked his head in the door. "I'm to inform you that your training today has been canceled due to unfavorable conditions." With that short announcement, he closed the door.
"They don't ever say much do they?" He grumbled to himself. It was true, he'd only recently found out the names of the guards who stood on a rotating shift at his door day and night. There were six of them Linax, Zeb, Sherin, Koda (not the Koda he already knew), Jesswin, and Lull. He'd been told that they were trained to stay silent unless absolutely necessary, it was Koda who had told him that. The dragon had been very into the topic since it had to do with someone who had the same name as him.
He thought the one who had just spoken was Lull, but he still hadn't matched the names to the faces.
He got out of bed and dressed despite the message. He'd been thinking lately and he had something he wanted to do while he had this rare day off. While he dressed, he considered asking Lou to come with him, but ultimately decided against it. Maybe later in the day, he'd see what the younger man was up to but for now, he kind of wanted to go by himself. Besides, now that Lou knew he was allowed a little more freedom within the Nest Tate didn't want to accidentally limit him if there was somewhere Lou wanted to go.
He nodded to himself at his decision. Yes, he would go see Lou later. First, he would go in search of answers to some of his long-held questions.
He opened his door and was amused when maybe Lull jumped a little, clearly not expecting him to come out at all.
"Um, Lull and Koda right?"
The one he'd thought was Lull nodded but the other shook his head. "I'm Jesswin." He corrected in a matter of fact tone.
At least he didn't seem offended. "Sorry."
The dragon shrugged.
"Is there a place where documents, scrolls, or books are kept?"
"You mean the library?" Lull asked confused.
"Uh, yes," Tate replied, to be honest, he wasn't sure if what he thought of as a Library was the same thing here. The culture was so different he'd not even dared to assume that there was such a thing as a "library" at least not in the sense that he thought of.
"Sure, would you like us to escort you there?" Jesswin asked matter of factly.
"Yes, thank you," Tate replied stepping out of the room entirely and closing the door behind him.
Jesswin didn't wait and marched off at a fast clip. He looked at Lull who lazily gestured with his arm to follow.
Tate walked as fast as he was capable without breaking into a run and just barely managed to catch up to him.
Jesswin led them through the labyrinth that was the Nest. Tate was relieved to discover that he was beginning to recognize a few corridors and a map of the building was very slowly beginning to form in his mind. There were still huge blank spots but it did make him feel better that he was pretty confident he could get from his room and Lou's room to an exit if the need ever arose.
Jesswin finally came to a stop in front of two ornate doors. These doors appeared to be made of solid rubies. Tate stopped short he was so stunned by the beauty of them. While he was gaping Jesswin took his place on one side of the door.
He felt a hand on his shoulder apply just enough pressure to get him moving again. The contact by Lull woke him up and he walked towards the doors. Jesswin reached for the handles when he was close enough and opened the door on his side. Tate nodded in thanks to him as he stepped through the door. The last glimpse of them he had out of the corner of his eye was Lull moving towards the other side of the doors.
The doors must have been very heavy because the one door closed itself with a loud thud behind him. He stood still for a moment and just looked around. Well, he'd been both right and wrong. He could tell from a glance that this was indeed a library, but he could also easily tell that it was something he'd never seen before.
The room he'd just entered seemed to be circular, he wondered if he was now standing in the bottom of some kind of turret. He bent his head to look up and counted five floors of shelving. The size of the open space in the room was massive, big enough for four of five fully grown dragons to maneuver at will if they wanted. For a human, it looked like his legs had a lot of walking to do if he wanted to succeed in his endeavor.
On the ground floor, there were no shelves. The room looked to be divided into two parts. On one side of the room were regular tables and desks that one might see in a library in the human realm. Lamps were lit on every surface waiting for anyone who wanted to sit there.
On the opposite side of the room is where things became foreign to him. All along the wall spaced about fifteen feet apart from each other were some sort of stone pillars. The pillars were uniform in size and were about three feet tall. In front of the pillars was a large plate of what looked like glass that just hovered in the air. He stared in amazement at the clear example of magic. To finish off the strange set up the floor looked to be dropped down lower than the floor on the regular side and was piled with pillows and cushions, massive ones in all shapes sizes, colors, and materials.
He was intensely curious about this section but had no idea what it could be for and as his eyes finished sweeping his surroundings he saw no one he could ask.
Deciding not to waste time he promised himself he'd explore that section later. He looked to the regular human familiar side and saw a staircase leading up. He walked towards it and climbed the ornate railing.
The whole place was just as dazzling as its doors. The floors were made of more polished stone in various colors. The railings of the staircases and the railings to keep one from falling into the middle of the room looked like they were made of gold.
He climbed to the first landing and got a good look at the primary lighting fixture of the place for the first time. He couldn't help himself he went to the railing and looked up.
It could be called a chandelier he supposed. It was made of gold as well and studded throughout with random gems. The most amazing part was that the light seemed to be coming from stones themselves. Crystal-clear stones that tipped thousands of spikes flared out from the chandelier's center. At this level and facing the lower floor were thousands of twisting vine-like structures that ended in points with one of the clear gems in it radiating soft light. As he looked up he saw that the spikes receded into the middle of the light and it looked like climbing yellow vines twisting around a pole up to the second landing above him. At the second landing, the viney spikes again twisted out by the thousands to light up the second landing, however, none of them pointed down. This pattern continued up until the top floor where at the apex of the pointed roof it looked like the vines spread out across the ceiling in mesmerizing patterns, lights scattered throughout the structure. He couldn't wait to reach the top to inspect it up close.
However, when he turned to look at the shelves he wondered if he'd even make it to the top with the sight that was before him. Shelves that looked like honeycombs went from floor to ceiling, all containing scrolls that looked so old he was suddenly very hesitant to touch anything. The last thing he needed to to make some ancient dragon text disolve. Still, he couldn't help but look at everything, every shelf. Thankfully this library was incredibly organized in that each slot had a label on it for what scroll was contained within. For the first twenty rows, all that was said was "Histories of the Qillin Conteintents" followed by dates that started at 0 and went to 1500. They were all labeled as having been written by someone called "Castillion the Observer."
Next to these histories were scrolls of philosophers from that period as well. Next to that were agricultural reports and documents from the same period, the section next to that was the largest of all. Thirteen rows of military records. in these slots he could see more masses of papers all rolled together as one, many of them looked to have been combined by subject like the one that read "Accounting of Campain Supplies for the Greshon War Circa 375-401."
Lastly at the end of the first landing were fictional writings organized by author and genre. Many of the titles grabbed his interest but he felt he had to move on. He had reached the end of the shelves on the first floor and looking up he wondered how high he'd have to climb to find what he was looking for. He also knew that the likelihood of finding what he was looking for was low, now that he had seen the volume of documents here, without some kind of help.
For now, he decided to keep climbing. Either he'd stumble across what he was looking for or maybe someone would eventually come in who he could ask for help. Either way for now he could stop climbing even if he'd wanted to. Information, all the information he'd wanted to know about dragons, about the history of the world was right here. He just had to find it.