The Forgotten Library

by Ponyess

Left Behind: 9

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”I need to go up, before they miss me!” Risa pointed out.

“I'll follow you up, your sister can easily find her way, when she feels she likes to go!” Luna declared.

“Just two levels to keep track of, so I'm sure I'll make it up. Finding the lift should be just as easy!” I replied as my sister followed Luna out of the room.

I followed my sister with my eyes, for as long as I could see her, before the doors closed behind the two of them. Then I follow the sounds of them as they continue towards the elevator, but about this time I lose track of them, not because of noises but just because they are simply too far away.

Now I cast a glance back at the book I had just red from, before my sister walked out of the room, with Luna in tow.

I guess Luna's mere existence amused me, just as it is fascinating. I had a few questions for her, though these will be for later. Right now I had an entire library to myself, and none to tell me what book I could, or couldn't read. Yet, I decided on keeping all the books within the four walls surrounding me right now.

In all of the library, there are way too many books to look at, how was I to choose. I ended up looking at the one book I had been reading. It may have been the one phrase in Equestrian, but I had red it. I have no idea what I had said, but I imagined I was saying something that had to make perfect sense. I had to have been a very clear point. Or it could never have made this to me. Unless I'm dreaming, or just out of my mind and utterly crazy? I refused to take in this final possibility for now.

Placing my hand on the still open book, allowing my fingers to taste the fabric, the texture of a book I know to be ancient. Possibly older then human history, for all I knew. I could accept that the history I had been reading about and thus taught may have been distorted or even flatly wrong, maybe in part, because it didn't challenge me in person, I have no invested interest in what happened more than a millennia ago.

I feel what I had taken for regular paper, but taking the age into consideration, I was starting to question the initial notion of the material, but lacking references, I allowed the notion to fade, in part because it changed nothing. What I felt is a fairly smooth surface, so it could have been paper all along, which could have changed history a great deal. The indents of ink in the fabric made me think it had either been written by hand, or printed old style, rather than modern means, but this made perfect sense, considering the age of the document before me. Only I had no idea as to the actual, or physical age, in part due to how this room had slipped sideways in time, permitting it to stay as it is, for untold amounts of time, ignoring time, until someone, just like me entered the room.

Looking only to see the vivid colours, as if it had been written a mere few days in the past, yet knowing it couldn't be the case, even if I knew nothing of how the choices of hues changed with time, or how time itself did change them. Maybe I could ignore all these quandaries and details, at least for now.

What baffled me, is how the book doesn't feel as if there are pages onto pages, but merely a solid mass, almost as if it wasn't an actual book, but something very different, and something that is entirely out of time. Maybe my only clue is magic itself, since it was clearly imbued with a great deal of fairly powerful magic in the first place. In the end, I close the book and leave it where I had found it.

There are so much more to see here, even if I had next to no time to actually see it all. For now, I could make due, just looking over the room itself, it is enough for the time I had on hand.

Just this reading pulpet alone. What kind of wood had it been crafted out of? I have no idea, in part because I did not know woods. Then again, it looks good, feels solid. I see a crafter behind it. Someone had put great effort into the craft I found the book on top of. I guess I should have expected this, considering the book alone, not to mention the setting in which I find myself within now.

The room now completely silent, since I stand in a single place, not moving around, putting a hoof down or even moving my hands. The moment startled me for a short while, then I came back to myself. Staring into the room.

I had seen everything about the book, so it felt as if it was the time to move, to walk around the room for a while. Hearing the sounds of my very own hooves wouldn't ruin the moment, now would it? I just couldn't see it happening.

Once I started to walk, something in the sounds of my hooves woke me up, not so much that I had been sleeping in the literal sense, but I suddenly felt more alive. The sound isn't that of the shoes I had been wearing, just as it isn't that of a pony, or even that of Lunas' hooves as she walked out. It may be the same sound as my sister made, just more and stronger, since I'm taller and heavier than her, but it definitely is the same sound to it. There is something radically different from what one had expected, if not for the fact I had already heard my sister walk around.

My walking makes an excited 'Clip, Clop, Clip, Clop', as I move around the room. What I had not realized, until now, is just how much these sounds express. How am I to explain it, since I probably would never have even noticed it before I changed, and unless I was on my own, alone in a room like this. Just walking alone lifts my spirit, if only I could ever put words to, or explain how it could possibly work.

Knowing I am under ground, there could be no windows, but it is almost as if the light in the room tried to make me believe I'm on the second floor. This could only be due to the strange magic, keeping the room in the pristine order, in which I had found it.

I had found three groups of baroque furniture in comfortable group arrangement. It is almost as if it had been a room where I could read a decree to gathered friends, if I was to go by how the furniture is arranged. Yet, the chairs are also standing in groups, in such a way as to allow separate groups converse intimately, while sitting in divine comfort. It is a room belonging to someone with great wealth, and someone who is holding great taste, for all I could see.

I walk over to the group of chairs to the right of me, opposing the door through which I came. Standing before the elaborate table for several minutes, just gasping at what I had before me, before I chose the first seat to the right.

Only once I had sat down did I notice the odd thing about the chair in which I am sitting, it is as if it had been crafted for someone just like myself. Someone born with a tail, just like mine. It would have been intended for people who have an equine tail, not a feline or any other tail. I also found the chair quite comfortable siting in, it holds me comfortably in place, without encroaching on me, or feeling too tightly. Just the same, my arms rest comfortably on softly padded armrests.

Comments

[Sir Top Hat]

Yes yes yes! see sometimes it's great too slow down plots and just explain. I love!

[Ponyess]

4021705 right now I was having the older sister exploring the room where her younger sister found the enchanted book.
I just cn't quite see what to do with the scene right now, so I'll just allow it to wait till I can continue.
guess my muse is restless, never staying in one spot for all that long.

Letting her sister in may make it easier to explain a few things.
she will see things different from her sister.
hope the names chosen doesn't bother you, or any others. I tend to take names like these.

[Sir Top Hat]

4021977 I like the names. When writing try listening to music. When I'm writing I listen to music that would best fit the scene! I also say to myself "it's time to get creative!". I think you should just sometimes do this, it helps me a lot. I listen to Legend of Zelda themes a lot but every one has a different feel. Just do what you can to get yourself pumped for it! Be like that one pony that goes YYYEEEAAAHHH!!!!!

[Ponyess]

4022046 yeah, I commonly try to do just that, but I'm aiming for about 'Pi' tunes in a kin of harmonics, in part because modern music feels so flat. I'm trying to make it richer.
I commonly don't need to say it, the muse will simply hit me on the head, as it were.
I've seen the original NEC version of a game by the name, but I'm not sure if it is even the same.

Putting names to a story would take the reader closer, and once you have more then 2 characters, it starts to be problematic to address them, unless you name them.

Good names also make the story more enjoyable, than less well considered names would.

Edit: I went over the story for what ever that could be made better, before I finally did add a new chapter here.