Grey light flushed over the mellow drawn city swarmed under the quaint bustling vibrance of populated city chatter mixed into the shrouded veil of morning jubilance, contrary to the dreary atmosphere of day the city itself seemed starkly accentuated by it, weirdly giving it a sense of morbid beauty if not just a little bit of fascination for the thrills of a new world. Beyond the neon haze of bright gold lights and flashy building advertisements, the place took on a different view of classic 19th century architecture mired under a gloomy day.
Delicately drawn hands tightly grasped at a large newspaper vividly detailing scores of articles spread along peculiar stories not the least bit hesitant in treading them gently through the still sinking realization of their dire affairs. She flipped through to a second page as they made their way down a busy street walk, either side of it parked and littered in a variety of cars and odd stores. Thomas gave the back of the paper a quick glance, reading over a few paragraphs before staring ahead whilst Nera's head peaked over and frowned, "You know, there's something odd about this"
He raised a brow, glancing at her in a show that he was listening, "We're in a new world, a different universe entirely and yet there isn't any kind of a language barrier between us and..them.."
Neither of them had a naively ignorant belief that the language they were familiar with was a basic human constant, not that it made much sense anyway, Ravinia flashed past her thoughts at that moment.
"Seems quite english"
"And that's the problem. A beastkin, a dozen stories in here rambling over nonhuman issues and it's all in perfect english, not a single part of this felt foreign" Thomas frowned, facts be given that did sound strange, "Then there's your girlfriend, regardless of whether she might've been taught it, what are the chances that another universe with demons, beastkin and everything fanatical including the human race would speak what we do?"
He didn't answer, so the possibility was statistically quite low, maybe even impossible. The easiest answer was a parallel universe, he'd heard of them before; other world's living alongside their own, undetected and similar yet different in certain aspects, race and the fundamentals of modern physics sounded far more than just a 'difference in a certain aspect' though. Turning a corner down a second distance of city pavement, further inspection left no room of questioning where exactly the rest of this non-human population coexisted. Carrying a bag for a woman in fur collared clothes, dark glasses and pale skin was the hulking image of a man twice his own height and size. Large like the trained physique of a bodybuilder in deep green skin with bulging muscles and tightly bound clothes that accentuated all that rather intimidatingly, its teeth or more aptly its fangs, overlapped over its upper lip and protruded there even when closed. One of the fangs held a ring whilst one of its eyes sat closed by the remnants of a scar running along the apex of his head to the edges of his chin.
"So what are you trying to say exactly?" He asked her, though the answer fell short to the fact that they'd arrived at their desired destination. A system of well rounded success cultivated from ancient times though increasingly difficult to implore as time went on was still present here, thrust into a new world, both lost and confused it was perhaps the only option available; ask for directions. The city's library, surprisingly not much of a mega structure of perverse ancient architecture, sat in the corner of an entrance leading from the sidewalks to a packed city mall center. The ground beneath was paved in bricks, far too narrow for cars to enter and surrounded on either side by quiet club houses or residential inns.
Nera pushed open at a glass door, stepping into the quiet atmosphere and the scent of paging books. It was as quiet as it was supposed to be, perhaps far more quiet than a lot of other library's she'd used to visit, a biased comparison considering she wasn't an avid member of the faculty. She took a step forward and glanced around the room, finding that at the end of it, adjacent to where they stood just a few meters away from the door was a rounded desk connected to the walls where a middle aged man sat on a raised platform behind it, one could only assume they were one of the librarians working here.
"Is there anything I can help you two with?" The man asked as they approached him, "We have a wide variety of genres even bordering along mystery"
He shifted in his seat, pointing towards a section of the shelves present past the reading section littered in desks and chairs, Nera raised her hand and shook her head lightly, "History books, we're here for history books"
A widened gaze of surprise shot between the both of them, "History..?"
Actually speaking, how many people went digging for a dusted pile of the past without the incense of education? Historians were an odd bunch of interesting people, turning a magnified eye to the stories of those either long dead or still living and reminiscing in the past. The man ahead of them however, looked no older than thirty five, the reminiscence of an old man was far from present on a physical sense and yet there was a subtle glint of passion behind being confronted with two individuals searching for the past, she wondered if he harbored the same behavior for students that probably wondered through here looking for the same thing. He pointed towards a section of the library and directed them there. It was a shallow walk down a short flight of stairs and the dozens of shelves lining the further half of the library, deep into the dozens of books they passed over a few areas quietly dancing with the activity of avidly focused readers in search of a new book. A small temptation nearly drew her into wandering over the kinds of genres that were popular. Would modern day fantasy back on earth have a different title such as realism here? Worse yet, how did writers spark the imaginations of people half living in a world of fanatical creatures, she couldn't imagine anything of interest especially if magic was a thing though it most certainly had to at this point.
They eventually stepped into a section of the library spread along tall, thickly paged hardcover books lined through high shelves which fell flat on world history. The titles on each had begun to fade on a few but were reasonably good enough to read, they trundled through and began browsing. Ten thousand years ago, that's how far they threaded through the past.
The world's history designated certain periods of time through aeon's, The first was the aeon of revelation or the furthest into the past that intelligent civilization was known to have existed. It lasted for a rough estimate of two thousand years, each aeon did, best described as a period of creation where the first kingdoms, kings and heroes were born.
"The first aeon of revelation, the second aeon of prosperity, the third aeon of god's, the fourth aeon of chaos and lastly the one we're currently in is the fifth of resurrection" The two of them sat along one of the shelves in the history section, sifting through the stacks of information they'd accumulated for themselves and mostly saw no harm in doing so when barely anyone visited this part of the library.
"An era—aeon of god's? Like the Egyptians, Norse, Greeks or any ancient civilization back on earth had their own beliefs in certain courses through history?" Thomas shook his head at the question, "Quite literally an aeon of living god's walking amongst men, it's described here as less of a belief and more of an..actual period in history"
Various texts detailing through historic events didn't tentatively backpedal on the idea of higher existences proudly charging into battle with their backs faced towards their followers, historic accumulation for future reference was done through an assortment of facts so either the people here were still stuck under some sort of religious doctrine or the god's they spoke off were real. She shifted on the parts of the shelf her back was leaned against and slammed a book shut, tossing it to a pile that had begun beside her "It's insane!" she whispered, earning an amused glance.
"Which part? Ours or the world?" She gestured tiredly at the joke and picked up another book from the shelves, "Both but disregarding ours, it's all rather something. Ten thousand years of civilization right? So the world's called Yorhdrahm and it's been all alive and well in that short period of time—"
"Not short, historic texts of any actual records of intelligent civilizations just go back that far. The actual world itself is much older, some of the books here even denote human beings as the most recent race as of late" Thomas chimed.
"Right, right. Then the religions they believe in, six churches for six different god's"
"The God Of Fate, The God Of Wisdom, The God Of Death, The Goddess Of Desires, The Goddess Of Change and The God Of Wrath"
She frowned, rubbing at the bridges of her nose, "And the most important part..?"
He shut his own book, picking up another rather distractedly. It was long obvious before the books had confirmed it for them, the people, the way they'd ended up here, everything else that in fact,"..Magic is real"
A long silence fell between the two, unbroken by the stillness of the room and the quiet atmosphere of those absorbed in a myriad of pages. The revelation of which they'd expected fell flat and deaf as he lifted his head to stare at her as she did the same. A moment passed, then two till the creeping form of a smile broke across each of their faces, exactly what allowed one to use magic?