Welcome to Gaia! ::

"It's the largest collection of books anywhere in this world," Sir Valdemar nodded. "One of the few collections that exist. Books are a rare thing, after all, though I understand there are millions where you're from."

He selected an enormous tome from the shelf, a thick black one that seemed as if it was nearly falling apart with age. He grunted a bit carrying it, it was so heavy, and brought it to the front of the library where there was a large oak desk and a chair. He set it down gently, then lowered Lin to the table.

"This," he murmured, brushing his fingers over the dusty cover as if it were a holy object, "is the first book that was ever written in this world."

Wonderful.

Gion picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder, then started off towards the mountains again, making sure to keep a bit north of the shrine where they had entered. He had seen how uncomfortable Nadya was there, and he knew this journey would be hard enough on her without adding stuff like that to make it even harder.

He beckoned for everyone to follow, then took Nadya's hand and gently tugged it to get her going as well.

Donovan followed wondering what this whole war thing was about, though he supposed either way it would mean fighting. Just somehow it might mean more annoying people on his part.

"This," Sir Valdemar smiled, "is a book of magic. I don't mean that it tells about magic ... though it does. But it was created out of magic, and is magic itself ..."

He could feel it through his fingertips, the energy that lay within it, just waiting to be used, to be set free.

"The history of the beginning," he murmured, "made by Manwe himself ..."

And with that cryptic comment, he opened the front cover. The pages turned on their own, flipping quickly as if a wind was whipping them; and indeed there was the sound of a rushing wind, though the only breeze was that created by the pages' movements. Voices seemed to be coming from the book, short and clipped, and in many different languages, and then sounds of events: fighting, cheering, celebrating, weather ...

"Never heard of it," Donovan muttered.

History was never his strong point anyways, and certainly not the history of a world he had never been born in.

"The First Age," Sir Valdemar replied, completely unfazed by what seemed to startle Lin so much. The book opened to a specific page and fell still, and all the sounds stopped. The ancient historian leaned forward and followed the lines of words with one finger, reading aloud in a language that only he understood. Indeed, the language no longer existed, and was known only by he and the Valar who had created both the language and him.

But as he spoke, something strange happened: the light in the room grew dim, as if the sun had disappeared, then grew brighter again, and slightly silvery, as if the moon had taken the place of the sun and grown brighter. But the moon was not the source of the light either - it was a tree that had appeared in the distance, that seemed to have silver bark, and the bark was glowing, and it was that silvery glow that was filling the room.

But the room had disappeared now, and it appeared as if they were outside, at the shore of a silvery sea, between a sandy beach and a forest of beautiful trees. The trees were not like the trees that anyone alive today other than Sir Valdemar knew: these trees were enormous, as wide as any house, and solid branches grew out of them like stair steps, the perfect size and positions for the tall elves who appeared, glowing faintly in the silvery light, walking up the branches. The top branches of the trees were interlaced so perfectly that they were like wide platforms, and they curved up at the edges as if to prevent anyone from falling off.

Nadya's eyes grew shadowed and vision-free as they passed near the Shrine.

"The war was begun by Prince Riordan," she told the others, "but not the Prince Riordan that you know. This one was Lord Garrick's brother, Elnara and Gion's uncle. Lady Serenity's brother-in-law. He hated Serenity for what she was, even when he did not know about her shapeshifting ability. He hated her for the fact that she came from another land, and he thought his brother had committed sacriledge by marrying her. He hired a band of dwarfish assassins to kill her, but they failed. Instead, they destroyed the plantation."

She faltered briefly at that moment. She had been there. She had been one of the seven survivors. She cleared her throat and continued.

"They were given a second chance - the prince had offered them a substantial amount of gold if they succeeded, and they wanted it. So they tried again, when we were living at the palace. They failed again ... instead of killing Lady Serenity, they killed Queen Regan. Prince Riordan saw an opportunity to take over and become king, and he became ever more obsessed with killing Lady Serenity and Elnara in order to place himself first in line. He allied himself with the dwarfs, who promised that once the elves had been conquered, he could rule over those who were left."

Grim fact when family would go that far... but power is a dangerous tempetation and we already know how the ideal family is anything but.

Daemon commented softly.