In all the years prior to his joining the Sanctum, nothing would have prepared Xelannis for the sheer volume of books one building could hold. Their library was expansive. Rows upon rows and shelves upon shelves that were far too high off the ground to be able to reach without assistance. He'd once been told that the Sanctum's athanaeum contained at least one of every tome that had ever been put on record in all of Yael, and even though the task sounded quite impossible, he found he believed it. Even if it wasn't 'all,' it looked, by sheer virtue of sight, to be very close.

What it didn't have were very many selections from the mainland. This wasn't so much a surprise as it was disappointing. It seemed very few of Yael's residents were willing to leave their familiar island, and certainly none of his own comrades were.

Those who did only very rarely came back. Whether that was due to an inability to do so or a lack of want to do so, he couldn't say, but Xelannis expected most who strayed from the lands of their gods probably didn't last very long. Those who did come back, apparently, weren't very interested in writing about it. It made for an unnaturally small collection of choices to learn of the mainland.

Xelannis did, however, manage to find two.

One was as thick as his forearm and as broad as his torso, with still-crisp pages and a bright, ornate binding. It recounted the adventures of, not a Yaeli, but of the Oban woman who'd captained the ship that brought the banished Alkidike from the mainland to Yael after their war. It looked a bit too clean-cut to be a captain's log, and Xel expected this was a rewritten copy. It was probably all the more heavy because of it.

The second was twice the size of the first in terms of girth, but less decorated and duller in color. It was weathered from the touch of many hands and time spent in bags or outside. This one was a history of Yael's beginning, written by nearly a dozen different people and as old as the day was short. There wasn't much about the mainland in this one, but it did start off on the sandy beaches of Matori. That was enough to keep him occupied for now.

With both selections in his arms, he started on the path through one of the outer buildings and out toward one of the outer courtyards. Xelannis didn't consider himself weak, but the short trek somehow felt longer while carrying a dozen pounds of aged literature.