To The Library!

[Lora]

Timestamp: 22nd Winter 514 Lora walked down the stone path that lead to Opal Temple. It truly was a beautiful building, white walls shimmering in the winter sunshine. It wasn't a big building, at least on the outside but it did have a sort of impressive,almost intimidating air around it. It was one of, if not the most important buildings in Mura. Training place of the Opal Order and the religious central point of the city it could hardly be overlooked. Surrounding the temple and the path Lora was walking on was a beautiful park. The grass was a bright green and was perfectly cut. It seemed more vibrant than any grass Lora had seen anywhere else but that could have just been her imagination. The temple seemed to make everything around it more vibrant and warm looking. Despite how warm it looked, the air was actually rather chilly. Wrapped up in her olive green cloak she tried to stay warm as she made her way down the stone path. Regardless of how cold it seemed, the island never got near as cold Syliras had in the winter. A chilly wind blew across the park bringing Lora a warm smell. It smelled sweet. Lora could best identify it as the smell of honey mixed with fresh cut grass smell. While Lora could imagine that mixture in tangible form would be strange the smell was nice. The wind blew through Lora's hair, chilling her face. Pulling the hood or her cloak further around her face the continued down the path leading to the entrance of the temple. A pair of towers stood on either side of the Opal Temple. The north most tower was the real reason Lora was there. She wanted to go to the medical library. Honestly, Lora knew nothing about medicine, though she was interested in learning, but more than the fact she would learn about some medicine, she wanted to read books. Back when she lived in Syliras she had loved reading but when she came to Mura she had never really gotten into it. Now, she was making her way to the library to take up reading once more. Lora wasn't exactly sure how to get to the library. She thought it was likely she would enter through the main building so she was making her way there. She didn't doubt that if she was entering from the wrong place she would be able to find someone to help her get where she needed to go. Her problem would be if she got lost before finding that person. Approaching the door she placed one hand on the spiral metallic door handle. She looked up at the white doors of the Opal Temple. She had never stepped foot in the temple before. It had always seemed like such an important place for talented healer and extremely religious konti, of which Lora was neither. Now she was determined not to be deterred by the beautiful pale building's importance and to enter. Slowly she pulled the door open. Entering into the reception area Lora's attention was drawn to a woman sitting behind a desk. "Welcome to the Opal Temple. How can we help you?" The woman seemed to be staring off into the distance past where Lora was standing. Suddenly Lora noticed the woman's eyes. There were two things she noticed when she looked into her eyes. The first was they had a glossy sort of film over them. This woman must be blind. Lora decided. The second was that the woman was exceptionally talented at personal communication. Her second realization came from the activation of her Konti gift. Usually when it was activated Lora's brain was filled with the knowledge of the person's skill. It was just a fact, something she knew. This time it was more faint. Not a strong feeling of knowing so much as a recollection of a memory. She suspected the woman's blindness was to blame the less effectiveness of Lora's konti gift. Even though the woman couldn't see her, Lora thought it was rude to leave the hood of her cloak up. Pushing the hood back, Lora pulled her long hair out from the cloak. The room was warm. Far warmer the the chilly path that lead to it, so there was no reason for Lora to keep it on. "I'm looking for the Medical Library?"Even though the comment wasn't exactly a question, Lora's voice rose at the end , allowing it to become one.

[Lora]

"That’s in the North Tower.” The woman said kindly. Lora felt her cheeks turn a bit red as she realized she had gone to the wrong place. “Sorry to bother you.” Lora said quickly as she turned to go back towards the door. “Its fine.” Lora turned back around, not wanting to be rude in walking out on their conversation. The receptionist gave her an understanding smile and Lora got the feeling she wasn’t the first person to make that mistake. “Just go back along the path you came in with and when you come to the part that divides, go along the smaller path. That should lead you to the library.” Lora smiled even though she knew the woman couldn’t see it. “Thank you.” With that Lora continued out the door and back into the chilly air. Wrapping her cloak more tightly around her body, Sarina started walking down the path once again. There was no one else in the park so the only sounds were the wind blowing through the trees and the sound of Lora’s feet hitting the cobblestone path as walk. Becoming conscientious of the sound of her feet Lora tried to walk softer. Despite her efforts she could still hear her feet on the ground. The sound seemed to disturb the tranquility of the place somehow. Lora stopped walking allowing silence to fill the park. She stood, for a few second, just listening to the sounds of nature that surrounded her. She heard the sound of the wind running over the grass and the songs of the birds flying over head. It all sounded so nice. After a while of just standing and listening, Lora remembered why she was there. With a start she started walking again. Before long Lora had made it to where the large path she was on split into a smaller one. Tracing the path with her eyes Lora saw that the path lead up to the tall white tower. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed that path before. She assumed she had been too busy admiring the garden to notice a small path leading away. Making a U-turn off of the larger path and onto the smaller one Lora started towards the North Tower. The path was smaller but still plenty wide for Lora to walk down. Now that she didn’t have to look for a path she was able to walk faster and thus made it to the tower in to time. There were a few large steps that lead to the door of the library. Lora walked up the steps while staring up in awe at the tower. It was a very beautiful tower indeed with tall white stone walls and a large metallic looking door shining in the light of the sun. Approaching the door Lora was almost afraid to touch it. It looked so majestic reflecting the morning sun. Reaching out, Lora pulled on the large door’s handle.

[Lora]

Lora stared in awe as she stepped into the library. There so many books, more books than she had ever seen before, each one lining the magnificent wooden book shelves. The room was large and completely filled with book cases each one was holding a multitude of dull colored books with different words labeling each on. The room was dimly lit by sun light from windows that lined the walls and smelled musty; much like Lora had expected it to. Lora’s awestruck face turned into a smile as she began to make her way to the stair case of her right that she hoped would bring her to the next floor of the tower. There were a variety of other people in the library, mostly konti, and each one was looking over the massive collection of books in silence. There was absolutely no sound much like when she on the path outside, Lora tried to make her foot steps as quiet as possible. The deep maroon carpet that covered the floor certainly did help with her quietness as she made her way to the stairs, walking around a variety of book shelves. The stair way was wide and covered in the same carpeting as the rest of the room. It curved slightly with the side of the circular tower and was lit by a window on the wall and two torches. Lora ran her hand along the smooth surface of the wooden railing that ran up the left side as she excitedly bounded up the stairs. It wasn’t far to the next floor and with Lora taking the stairs two at a time she was there very quickly. The next floor was almost identical to the first one with book cases covering the round walls and rows of them filling the center. Even the windows appeared to be in the same place. Lora pondered stopping now and reading one of the many books that filled the room but the stair case, which had flattened so people could get off at this floor, continued a bit ahead. Overtaken by curiosity Lora decided to continue to the next floor. The next floor was much like the last ones but on the far wall of the room, where on the previous floors there had been books, there were plants being grown in the sunlight of a large window. Lora walked over to look at the plants more closely. Most of the plants were ones Lora recognized from having seen around Konti Isle. They were all unique with varying shapes of leaves, colors and flowers. Each plant was in a pot with a label on saying its name and some other statistics about it. The plants looked like they had been growing there for a while because there labels were yellowing with spots where it looked like someone might have gotten water or dirt on them. Lora looked down at the label on a shrub with thick green leaves. The label read: Ashwadha Unlike many of the other plants, which had care instructions of other information on their labels, this one only had a name. “Ash-wad-ha.” Lora slowly tried the word over her tongue. Despite the fact she was the only one on this floor she kept her voice just above a whisper so as not to disturb the peace of the place. Lora smiled. She liked the way the word sounded; sort of made up and yet sort of nice in a way. Wondering if she could find out more about this plant, she wandered over to the nearest book shelf to look for a book with information concerning Ashwadha.

[Lora]

Lora could tell the books of the library were sorted in some sort of order but she couldn’t quite figure out what that order was. She first thought they might be sorted in alphabetical order of the title but that theory didn’t seem right and after a few chimes of trying to figure out what the organization pattern was, she decided it was best just to look for a book that contained what she needed. Going over to the nearest shelf she slowly walked along it running her finger over the spine of each book as she passed it and reading its title. She continued until she had made it to the other side of the shelf and when she did she hadn’t found any titles that stood out to her as what she was looking for. She had been going along the shelf that was at eye level for her so she moved to the shelf just above that one and did the same thing, reading each title and deciding whether or not it might have something to do with ashwadha. By the end of that row of books having read so many, the titles had started to lose meaning and were just a bunch of words in Lora’s mind. She realized this plan wasn’t going to work. Standing back a bit from the shelf Lora tried scanning it with her eyes looking for key words like ashwadha and plants. The problem was Lora wasn’t too great at reading so she couldn’t read fast enough for this method to work. She had done some reading when she had lived with her mother but books in Mizahar were few and far between so only the books that were in a small library down the street from where Lora used to live were available to Lora. She had read some of these and enjoyed them but without much practice at reading, Lora wasn’t very fast at it. As she looked over the books a large red book caught her eye. On the spine of the book engraved in golden letters was the words:[b]Common Flora of Konti Isle[b]. The book was on the bottom shelf so Lora had to squat down to select it. Taking care to remember where the book had come from so she could put it back, she slid the book from its place in the shelf. As she did the smaller blue book that was next to it leaned over into the now empty space. The book was rather heavy and Lora was glad she didn’t have to take it far to read from it. Sitting down cross legged on the floor Lora opened the book in her lap. Opening the book felt good. Lora hadn’t opened a book since when she was much younger and the smell of the paper as she opened the book right to its center made her smile. Looking down at the random page she had turned to, Lora noted that the top of the page had a title, what looked like a plant’s name-this page said Jupin- the page then had different statistics about the plant followed by a few paragraphs. To the left of the paragraphs was a colored drawing of the plant, this one was a sort of bush with small berries. Flipping through the next few pages of the book, Lora saw that each other page was set up in a similar manor. Turning to the front of the book Lora looked at the first few pages. She knew there was often a table of contents at the beginning of a book that showed where things were in the book. Lora hoped she could use that to locate ashwadha. Sure enough, there was a table of contents and Lora began scouring it, looking for the plant’s name.