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It’s a shame the realm’s libraries don’t permit coffee while perusing some of the rarest texts in the world, the Warrior mused.
Beside her, Y’shtola was skimming through a thick, weathered manuscript, its pages carefully illuminated and transcribed by hand. Across from her, Alisaie placed upon their shared table three more tomes, more modest in pagecount than Y’shtola’s imposing find. Beside those tomes was an appreciable pile of four more. And across from the Warrior, Alphinaud mirrored Y’shtola’s efforts, paging through one that he’d declared was created using a press, rather than being transcribed by hand.
“Does that mean it’s newer?” The Warrior tilted her head just slightly.
“Not necessarily,” Alphinaud said, a contented smile playing across his lips, glad to be able to impart knowledge. “While it’s true that printing in this manner has become widespread, many of the volumes kept in Sharlayan’s care are quite rare, or not in high demand. Those in the forbidden section, of course, carry information that is not widespread. Volumes like that are still copied by hand.”
The Warrior crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, her gaze tipping toward the vaulted ceilings. Despite each of the large chamber’s fireplaces being kept at a healthy blaze by the attending mammets, there was a distinctly Sharlayan chill to the room. Not nearly so biting as Ishgard’s, but still present in the character of the island, and still permeating into every corner of the place.
“So you’re saying,” she said, tone calm and contemplative, but not confused, “That the information we need is more likely to be in one of the volumes that is written by hand, due to its rarity.”
“Yes,” Y’shtola agreed, pausing to focus on turning a thin, delicate page without tearing it before continuing. “However, some of the printed books may have references to other volumes that will give us a lead.”
Although her eyes no longer beheld the world, the ink used to mark the tomes, enchanted against fading and tampering, allowed Y’shtola to use her aethersight to read. The Warrior was thankful that the scholar had been spared that cruelty, but still felt a bit rueful in turn.
Her own eyes allowed her to see the heartbeat of the world around her, a foe’s intent and an ally’s fears. Her own senses allowed her to feel how others did, and to experience an echo of the immutable past and the future yet to come. She had a preternatural grasp of nigh any art that required muscle memory, and her affinity for aetherial manipulation through magical arts was undeniable. She was quick to size up situations and people, and was no fool in comprehending new information and subject matter.
However, despite all of that, the Warrior of Light could not read.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, but true literacy is a skill that takes many years to learn, alongside an abundance of time set aside for instruction, study and practice. Any time she had the bandwidth to learn her letters, something came up that demanded her attention and mental and emotional energy. Compared to learning new arts, confronting new foes, and traveling to new places and meeting new people, it just hadn’t taken priority. Particularly not when she was surrounded by people who could do the task quickly and fluidly, and there remained an abundance left undone that only she could shoulder.
With that being her reality, any progress she’d made was stilted, often halted, and usually half-forgotten during the time where her attention was demanded elsewhere. It typically didn’t bother her, save for moments like this, when there was naught to do but research.
“I realize we’re looking for leads,” Alisaie frowned as she dropped into her own seat and pulled one of the books to herself, “But we’re on the third afternoon of this and the most we’ve found are books referencing each other in a circle.”
“It’s true,” Alphinaud lamented, closing his own tome and pushing it several inches away. “This one, as well, references one Lord Valequois, who in turn referenced this tome, and the Lady Archambeau who initially penned it.”
The Warrior leaned forward in her seat, casting her gaze over the assembled tomes, as though that alone would be sufficient to know their contents. “If that’s the case, perhaps these authors were all in close correspondence with their research, and these volumes are interconnected advancements or corrections on that research, rather than independent accounts of their life’s work.”
A heartbeat of silence, then Alisaie rubbed her face with a groan. “Like how the guilds will send out missives about new techniques, only to have some other master of the craft quickly reply and rebut.” There was a definite note of dejection in the young Elezen’s voice, some combined ache of realizing that they might have spared themselves some time had they only caught on sooner, and that the Warrior had surmised as much after only a half-bell’s attendance.
The Warrior heard the faint sound of Y’shtola’s tail lashing one, twice, in some combination of muted frustration and impatience. This, she supposed, must be one of the main reasons the Scions’ research breaks tended to take so long. In the sundered star’s long history, peppered by the rise and fall of civilizations and the Rejoinings as it was, she figured it only followed that the provenance of many of these schools of thought was just as fractured as Allag’s shattered ruins.
“Alright then,” the Miqo’te said at length, tone resigned even as she audibly didn’t like the taste of some thought she was mulling over. “Perhaps it’d be best if we shifted our full attention to the hand-transcribed volumes.”
There was a silent shift in the room, and the Warrior realized that the three others knew which books were now excluded from the search. A heartbeat later, as Alisaie lifted the books she’d just put down and Alphinaud moved to mirror his sister, it became apparent that it was nearly every book they hadn’t read yet.
She pushed the most recent book Alphinaud had been reading back toward him as the young Elezen reached for it, which earned her a small smile.
Just as the Warrior returned the smile and their shared expression became conspiratorial, Alisaie’s voice cut in. “No—aren’t you supposed to be resting?”
It was true. The Warrior was supposed to be resting. After the battle with the Endsinger, and a truly intimidating dressing-down from the indomitable Raya-O-Senna, who had seen to the Warrior’s initial triage and treatment, the order had been “bed rest”. A few weeks after that, the Padjal had consented to “light duty”.
Upon hearing that the Scions’ interpretation of “light duty” involved traversing to the 13th and combating various Voidsent, she’d been unceremoniously downgraded to “bed rest”, likely with the (somewhat vain) hope that this would achieve the “light duty” that the Padjal sought.
“Surely she can help us find books?” Alphinaud asked, which only caused his sister’s frown to deepen.
“These tomes weigh a tonze, ” Alisaie said, placing extra emphasis on the last word as though she was the only person in the room who had ever lifted one. “The Seedseer was very clear about her limitations for the coming weeks.”
The Warrior knew both twins quite well and could see the concern on their faces, but she could hear something more in Alisaie’s tone. In an instant, she understood that this had shifted away from a debate about her health.
Alisaie had long struggled with her own sense of powerlessness and guilt over being unable to help with the most dangerous tasks the Warrior undertook.
Gently, she smiled and stood in a single, graceful motion. It was true that she could shoulder things no one else could, and that fate had oft demanded that she must do so. It was a role she’d come to accept, and she’d welcomed the sour with the sweet - how else could she live with herself?
“I’ll tell you what,” she said, her voice soothing for Alisaie, yet still with a playful lilt on Alphinaud’s behalf. As she passed behind Y’shtola’s chair, she noted that her tail had stilled and relaxed, the Archon likely having already espied her solution to this conundrum.
Slowly, the Warrior began to walk along the towering bookshelves that lined the wall behind Y’shtola, considering their spines before coming to a pause. “I’ll choose a book, and one of you can tell me if it’s what you need.” She held her gaze on Alisaie as she spoke, and she didn’t need the Echo to sense the girl’s anxiety.
She knew this was what Alisaie had been protesting in truth, fearing that they had to rely on the Warrior even for this. The power of her Echo could not be denied, however, and in embracing this reality, she hoped to set an example of what she needed from her closest companions: acceptance.
It took but a moment, but Alisaie’s shoulders relaxed, Alphinaud following suit a hair’s breadth after.
“Alright,” Alisaie exhaled, forcing her frustration to remain present in her voice even as it drained from her, lest she lose face. “Tell me which one.”
The Warrior tilted her head back to the rows of shelves, each of them indistinct from the other. Truly, they meant nothing to her. She relied on intuition, and when her whim landed on a thick, weathered text near the bottom of one of the book shelves, she motioned to it with her foot rather than her hand. “This one here, with the tanned spine.”
Alisaie pursed her lips and walked over. Her first few steps were stiff, but she knelt down and retrieved the book with deliberate care. It took only a moment for her to read the cover, and her exasperated sigh told the Warrior that her intuition had, once again, led them in the right direction.
“The author is familiar, but it appears to be about…Sharlayan history.”
“Bring it over to the table and let her open it,” Y’shtola encouraged, pushing some tomes out of the way and motioning the Warrior over.
Alisaie placed the book on the table with the same deliberate care, and they immediately understood why - the binding was weathered and flaking. The Warrior distantly wondered who in this library was in charge of repair, and whether they knew what state this volume was in.
She was on Y’shtola’s other side now, and after a moment of considering the faded cover and its title, delicately embossed into the leather, she reached out with one hand. Her fingers traveled along the worn edges of the pages, though there was no deep scuffing or warping she could feel along their surface. Her index finger caught on a page and she opened the tome with care.
From there, Y’shtola leaned over the book, taking a few minutes to read through the newly-exposed pages, then turning the page and reading through that, as well. When she smiled, the other three knew they had a lead. “I admit that I often wonder at the extent of your Echo,” Y’shtola admitted with no small degree of open admiration. “That it allows you all it does, and even to find things like this.”
The Warrior returned to her seat with a rather self-satisfied smile and a shrug. “It’s a gift.”
Alphinaud laughed as Y’shtola went on to explain, “There’s a direct reference to another book here, one that will be in another section. If this author is correct, the information we seek will be elaborated in great detail there.”
Alisaie closed her eyes, smiling despite herself. “Here we were, hunting through these books for days, and the answer was—quite literally—under our noses.”
“I’ll call us even if you buy dinner tonight,” the Warrior grinned in response, earning a genuine laugh from both twins.
“Fine,” Alisaie declared, struggling to keep a severe tone through her smile, “It’s a deal.”
After all, it wasn’t as though Ameliance and Fourchenault would protest their family’s coffers being depleted on behalf of such a worthy cause.