Two entire seasons seemed to pass in a week. Ellis had spent his time either spending time with her or working. She hadn’t realized ten, but he’d spent more and more time performing his occupation, something about protecting the creatures of the wild. Why anyone would spend effort doing that, she had no idea. But he liked doing it, and that’s all that really mattered.
As the weeks went by and temperatures rose, she spent more time outside actually getting used to a city. She didn’t think she would spend so long in one place since fleeing Natrai and the rest. It was nice. Old habits never left her. She shadowed the neighbors to make any future… endeavors include more intel. She would not do such a thing, not without betraying her Atho. But she always planned for the worst. Should she be kicked out or something happen, she would be sure not to land on her back, but her feet.
That’s probably why she didn’t notice his increased absences. They had such a good cadence. Wake up, he would make breakfast and bread for them before leaving. He would be gone for a time and she would do things that she found entertainment in. Sometimes that was the shadowing, sometimes crafting odds and ends --tools mostly--, hunting, mock theft, reading, and other things she didn’t realize she would ever have time to do. Then she would return sometime before her Atho would come home. They would eat together and talk about what they did that day. Then, they would play games or do other fun things before going to bed.
This rhythm broke one day by her Atho announcing, “I quit my work today.”
They packed only necessary belongings. For Yaro, this meant her ring and nothing else. For Ellis, it was a whole two cases of clothes, hygiene care, money, tomes, potions, medication, the works. She didn’t really care why he had quit or why they had to move so suddenly, she was just happy to be with him.
With a simple voice that had her heart singing, he said, “Let’s go find out a way to be together.”
She realized then, he must have truly wanted her. He would leave the place he grew roots, the reliable livability of work, just to go on a fool's errand. She didn’t believe, and didn’t think he would have either, that they would find a way to cross the invisible barrier that separates their persons across worlds. Yet, there they went off on an adventure to find one another. She laughed with him, bringing up the absurdity of it all. They were together, had been, yet he would drop everything to become closer. This was not a gesture she was able to reciprocate. Yet.
He’d prepared more than just with his belongings. All those long hours culminated in a small stowed fortune. Neither knew how many years it would take, so he planned for a few. Beyond that, he said they would become accustomed to nomadic life and that they would not need to rely on his savings. This, Yaro expected would be her meal to bring to the table, so to speak. She would be his guide in that style of life, though she would yet still learn how to without the things he, and the greater society, frowned upon. She too knew this evolution would come gradually, a buffer provided by him to achieve it. She kissed him as they closed the door to his apartment one final time.
A few blocks became a few districts became a few cities and towns. They would stop for the night, sleeping in the closest motel or inn, surprisingly the more dingey ones were the ones he picked. He said that they would need to save where they can, and a few mice wouldn’t impede their ability to sleep, a surprisingly utilitarian view coming from him.
The course they followed faded from the optimistic let’s just go to a more calculated and conversed plan for how they could possibly find something that, as far as they knew, was not possible. Stories told of other worlds, fantasies. How could they possibly find a way to apply science to fantasy?
They started with sight brokers, not one of which could help. They went to psychics, an attempt to probe into her Atho’s soul and identify something. Anything. Still nothing came about. They were happy, however, just being able to be together in this quest. She continued to be happy, in the rain and through a sickness that choked Ellis for a week.
Giving up on the use of sight brokers, they decided the best path forward would be to follow one another. Surely, letting their souls guide them would bring them to, well, the other’s soul. They may have pierced the veil, but they still existed separately. The blind led the blind.
This path actually had some progress. Over the span of a season, they walked, took wind gates, bartered, and sailed east to the mountains, south past the burnt lands, and west into the chilly forests south of Kexist. It was a city under the forest, a warm town recently developed, that they found the clue they had so desperately sought. With a hood, Yaro had picked up a brochure at the local Tukk House and read a small blurb about how the town would not exist if it weren’t for the help of those at Koaga.
Koaga, that name sounded familiar to her. Not the familiarity of having researched or been told about something before, but the familiarity of having heard something discussed by others without much context to it. The context that was there, she was sure it held enough significance to bring up with her Atho.
With some more research at a local library, Yaro did something she would have gotten killed for. She yiped aloud. Her cloak kept her hidden and being with Ellis shielded her from further scrutiny. But the blush on her face burned hotter than her tattoos. It was the perfect thing. Koaga, the place, was a small university town. But the university, the place of learning, was no normal school. What made Koaga so great, so perfect, was that the primary resource there was the Great Koagan Library. This library, according to so many sources, held the most amount of information to any other place in the world. Articles described it as having near omniscient knowledge, ascribing it a personality of a wise elder. The more technical descriptions told of a library that collected and maintained as many tomes and pieces of collected information as was possible. The funds unending from some long dead drake before the war.
Excitement lifted their feet higher, but yaro tempered their pace. Koaga would not go anywhere and they had no pressure of time beyond what they would set for themselves. Another season and a half passed them on their way. Just as well, the oncoming cold would be negated if they were accepted into the library.
---
Koaga was more grand than she had read. She knew what to expect, but the presence of it all had her gawk. Her hood nearly fell, having been pulled up by her Atho. She kissed him before returning to taking in the grandeur of the library.
The building was primarily made of marble, columns held bronze roofing that blended into the largest tree Yaro had ever seen. It had to have been large enough that she would take from sayk-rise to at least midday to walk its circumference. The size didn’t seem possible, that it wouldn’t fall in on itself. But the contrary loomed over her as the building carved into the still living giant. The branches spread far, creating a twilight lit by posts along the walkways.
Roads of brick were tread by no vehicle -vehicles seemed to be relegated to the outside of the twilight. The brick crossed every which way to too many entrances to the building, some paths lead to doors carved into the silver-green bark. It didn’t take long for one of the people in white with green lined robes to scurry up to them. Yaro and Ellis were welcomed as outsiders, a spial provided detailing the history they had read and the rules they were to follow. Do not take anything without asking. Always be within view of one of the scholars. If you have any questions, they would be happy to help.
Ellis took the lead from there, not that Yaro would have wanted to. Within a few minutes, they were inside, lead down carpeted corridors to an archivist. The stout muzoval, all four eyes rimmed with glass due to poor eyesight --she assumed from reading so much-- greeted them with a cough.
Their question piqued the interest of the archivist. Soon, more archivists and scholars were brought in. Further discussion lead to a philosophical debate Yaro strained to keep quite through. She knew not to bring attention to herself, but the droning of these stuffy robes had her ache to get up and find the yon-bound tome herself. Things settled down when the philosophical debate of other world, proven by her Atho presenting his aura in the ring that cloned hers, morphed to discussions of lodging.
This, they archivists agreed, was not something to be done swiftly. It would take a long time for them to find anything on the subject matter. Yaro and her Atho would need to either come back in a year or to assimilate. Without anywhere else to be it was an easy choice to work for the stuffy robes.
---
It was back to that cadence Yaro though they had left. Back to her Atho leaving for “work”, or to transcribe old brittle tomes to new enchanted ones. But this time, she too had something to do. With the emphasis on her dreulbe faith, the scholars had no issue with her constantly in a robe. She had to offer something of herself, however. Her strengths lied in things they couldn’t use, subversion, sleight of hand, whips of fire… all that would assuredly have her thrown out. What she did have was strength. She would not expose herself, so the presentation involved grabbing a chain into her cloak and pulling several of their guards onto their faces in a swift tug.
She found herself to be a guard. She supposed a place with such delicate things that would go for such a large price if sold on any black market needed some kind of protection. The fact that they had an entire tree warded and enchanted to the tips of its branches seemed like having any living guard a little useless. They were just that crazy about keeping their things safe. Even Yaro, since she was new, had a guard buddy in the rarely-used section she was to survey.
The muzoval, not bulky and kind of lazy, did not find it necessary to talk to her. They would make their rounds, greeting as they crossed paths, and that was that. She would not take any chances of being exposed. Being run out of a place that may be the only one to contain the thing they needed was not an option.
The routine wasn’t quite the same after their work. They did not have much time to play games, to relax. They needed to use all the time they had to scrub the endless library for any hint of what they needed. And endless the library felt. Tomes reached stories high, needing ladders or special archivist-alloted murn that granted hovering.
The tree had five stories in it, each floor having sections for one type of knowledge from fiction to history to sciences. These sections were then divided and divided, a great system for finding exactly what you needed… if you knew exactly what you were looking for. Deep underground, however, among the roots and past the living quarters and kitchens laid the places they searched. These places held the odder things, the things uncategorized, the things strewn and archaic.
When they were down in the depths, lit by manufactured lights, they had to perform more work, sending what they found to a nearby archivist to be sorted into the proper area. So they would find something that looked helpful, skim it, find it out wasn’t helpful, and turn it over at the end of their daily search. That is, if they didn’t have to ring it sooner to be translated; something that used what little pittance he was awarded for his services. Stooges. This, as one could imagine, did not leave much time for chatting either.
Yaro found that while one of the most hopeful times of her life, this was also one of the most lonely.
What moments they did have together, in their quiet bedroom, they would either quickly fall asleep from exhaustion or chat lightly on the day’s humdrum. These were the perfect times to be intimate. Yaro could not bring herself to do so. Not because it was in a strange palace with possible strangers coming in and spotting her form. No, she had never been intimate with him at all. Her form. She would not be with him while they could not fully be together. This was reasoning he used as well, knowing full well her truth. She loved him all the more.
---
Their search felt in vain as yet another season passed. That was until her Atho came to her during her shift. He waved wildly, whisper-shouting that he’d done it, he’d found the next clue. He held in his hand a child’s tome.
He brought it out without letting her find a place for them to sit. “Splendiferous Life and the Monsters They Coddle,” the title read, a book by Aldr Fetzh-kyuru. She’d heard the author’s name before, he was quite famous. He had penned the treaty of the Sophont and helped bring an end to the bloody war. And here was a piece by him, forgotten by the world for who knew how long as it slowly rotted in the depths of Koaga.
Her Atho scrolled to the page marked with a clip. It seemed a normal fable, a cautionary tale about the folly of arrogance. A small hare, haughty after outmaneuvering the tricky fox, decides to turn the tables and try to capture the fox instead.
It was the ending that had the deafening silence of the space seem oppressive. The hare opened a door for the fox, telling him that there are many more delicious hare on the other side, much less stringy than he. The fox entered. Then, the hare slammed the door on it, trapping it. The hare called to the fox “see now, see how I have tricked you.”
The fox responds, “yes you have. And I thank you for this. A bounty of hares live here, I will not need to come back.”
The hare, who knew not to cross the threshold, became worried. Had he unwittingly sacrificed so many just to rid himself of the threat? The hare was to be a hero, so he opened the stygian door once more. The fox was waiting there and pulled the hare through. Neither were heard from again.
The moral didn’t make sense to Yaro. The fox was still trapped, even if it had a single meal of the hare. As she pondered the moral, her Atho brought up the thing she had missed. The stygian door, a veil, lost forever. “Don’t you remember, what the archivist said?” She didn’t. No, she did, but she would not jump so far for logic. That was for her Atho as he continued, “the Tuumon Kova is like the opposite of us. While we traverse beyond limits, the Tuumon Kova is the limit. A door that cannot be changed, a black door that prevents any kind of egress. The door in this story, it has to be the Tuumon Kova!”
“And if it was, where does that get us? Aldr has been dead for centuries, so it’s not like we can go and ask him.”
“We don’t have to, we have everything ever written right here. If he’s aware of a way to open a door that traps people somewhere else forever, he must have written more than just a fairy tale about it!”
“Your logic is flawed, and you know that.”
“That’s why we’ll continue looking while also looking into this!”
---
Time mattered little to them, in the grand scheme of things. So, with the three cold seasons passing, they decided to bid their temporary home farewell -on their fools errand. The tuumon kova, things of myth to most, were in fact real. With the help of some friendly archivists, they found several locations of tuumon kova. The tomes were both recent and old, but that did not matter as they would not degrade nor move. They decided to just go to the closest one. They would need to travel north for a bit, entering the City of Sornata.
Without any remaining funds, all spent as a charity ot the library, they walked. Yaro didn’t understand why they needed so much from them when they had all the money in the world it seemed, but a mandatory charity might as well have been their rent.
The tuumon kova were never in accessible places. Any that were, due to their rarity, mystery, and whatever politics the area provided, were all locked away by whatever government that occupied the area they resided. This one in the city of Sornata, among a scant few others, were too far away from any established civilization to warrant that grand protection writ. So they were left alone, photographic trophies for any wilderness-wanderer.
