Welcome to Gaia! ::

When they stepped into the room, Earendil couldn't help but stare at the scrolls. There were more than hundreds, there were thousands of them in there!

"This is amazing!" he breathed. He looked at Alena. "You did this all yourself?"

Alena smiled. "And more. This is but one of the archives, where we keep the most important works. The highest point of the highest tower, the gnomes could never destroy them."

Kelirahc was stymied by the rows of rolled up paper. "What is this?" he asked, reaching out and tapping the end of a scroll. "Why are they so important?"

Leyenda smiled and put one hand on Kelirahc's, lowering it so that he couldn't touch, since she wasn't sure if they would be allowed. "Writings of their people, so that everyone can know what they have learned."

Kelirahc blinked at her. "Writings? Like what Shiro does?"

"Ah, I see," Kelirahc murmured, nodding wisely as Alena searched through the scrolls for the one that she was looking for.

"Here it is," she murmured, plucking one of the scrolls carefully from the shelf. She turned to a small table in the middle of the room, high enough that they didn't need to sit to read the scroll, but big enough that it could be rolled out to be read.

"Lin, you wanted to know where the gnomes came from, did you not?" she asked, looking over at her.

The runes on the scroll were a completely different type of runes than were used in the Southland, and even Earendil had not seen them before.

"Your runes are different from any I have seen," he said to Alena politely, "would you be so kind as to read it to us?"

Alena nodded and continued to shift through the scroll, searching for the passage that she was looking for. "It will just take me a moment to find it," she murmured.

Alena glanced up at Lin. "Shiro?" she repeated curiously.

Earendil wasn't sure how to explain the concept of a neko without one there to show her, and so he quickly answered, "The scholar of our group. With Aethos-sola's permission, I'm sure he would love to visit here and study your writings."

"Ah," Alena nodded. "I see. Permission granted. I'll let Aethos-sola know later."

Alena shook her head. "Aethos-sola does not know. His father knows only the basics. No one else knows anything. Only I have delved deep enough into their past to have learned their origins. You may be surprised to know it."

She found what she was looking for and spread out the scroll so let more light fall on it. "Here."

She put her finger to the runes and began to read. "The year eight thousand seven hundred four and thirty of the Second Age. The year four hundred seven and eighty of our self-imposed exile. At last, I have discovered the nature of the creatures that have set themselves against us so ferociously. There is no other word for them but 'gnomes', the ancient word referring to the spider-like creatures that once crawled from the depths of Udún and filled our lives with terror. Yet they are not that same creature, for they show an intelligence and an affinity for the earth that no creature of Morgoth would ever exhibit."

Alena glanced up at Lin and shook her head. "No, affinity as in love. They care for the earth. Not in the same way as the elves, though. Elves care for the earth in that they care for it as a child. The gnomes care for the earth in that they feel comfort from the pure ground, to work with the earth, within the earth."

Sliding her finger down several lines, she continued reading. "It is with great astonishment and yet only small surprise that I must conclude ... that they are descendants of the dwarfs, but dwarfs who have changed, adapted to their new land."

Alena rolled up the scroll once more and moved to return it to the shelf. "That is one thing that I have not been able to ascertain. I know that even on the continent, the dwarfs were a violent race, but admittedly they were never so violent as the gnomes."

She sighed. "If we knew why they were attacking us, we might better be able to end this war."

"Something I'm quite sure your people would like very much," Earendil murmured softly.

"Of that, there is no way to know," Alena said apologetically. "The lifespan of the gnomes is only about one hundred years, and they have no written history, and from what we know of them, they pass nothing on orally either. It is doubtful that even they know."

"So it's one mystery that will never be solved," Earendil commented. "Shiro will be disappointed."