Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Quiet Room

You open the door to the little room but can see nothing. The room is dark. You step  in, expecting to find whatever the fairy equivalent to a light switch is, but when you pass the threshold the door creaks shut behind you and you are temporarily lost in the darkness. After a moment your eyes adjust and you notice that the room is not completely dark. There is a blue glow gently falling from the ceiling. You turn your head up and find yourself staring into an expanse of starry sky, swirled and streaked with clouds and comets. They twinkle gently. You draw a deep breath. It is beautiful but impractical for a reading light.

"Welcome to the quiet room," and ethereal voice suddenly echoes about you.  "Please step forward to the reading interface." The moon comes out from behind the clouds and casts a concentrated beam upon a low table upon which rests a single book, a large book with an ancient, cracked leather cover and golden buckles binding it shut. Beside the table is a cushioned chair. You sit in the chair and the book opens itself unbidden. 

The pages the book opens to index pages, lists of familiar and unfamiliar works. The book is large but not nearly large enough to contain all the volumes it claims. Still, you remember that this is a fairy library and accept that the book, like the rest of the kingdom, is imbued with magical properties, perhaps allowing it to host every book in the world. 

You thumb through the book and find it responds to your unspoken desires, leaping from picture books to poetry and back to the index page as you desire it to. You play with the book for awhile, gently flipping the pages back and forth. The pages crinkle and have a pleasant, aged smell like musty vanilla.

You could stay here forever, but  you know you  are desired elsewhere.

Perhaps you should return to the  map?

or

Maybe it is time to get back to your mission and go see Frynna?

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