The Art of Weaving Fate [Slow-Burning Dark Fantasy]

Stealing a fate was not supposed to be possible — and yet, Kaelen found himself chasing after one.

The thief had taken off with one of the tomes of the Great Library, and with it the written fate of a poor soul somewhere out there.

Failing to recover the tome would mean lifelong uncertainty for whoever it belonged to. Worse yet, finding the tome destroyed would simply erase its owner from the threads of existence, like a candle hushed by a cold breeze.

Rushing through the maze of dark corridors, Kaelen had to stop and listen for audible clues at every intersection. But while his throbbing ears tried to hone in on the thief's trail, the sound of speedy footsteps grew quieter and more distant. He ran as fast as he could, panting, wheezing, as his lungs struggled against the violent drumming of his racing heart. Skipping over the smooth stone floor, the violent echo of his steps bounced off the rugged walls in distorted ways.

After a few moments that might have been minutes, he reached the end of a long hallway. The gray wall that came into view showed a small but thick-looking wooden door and a stained-glass window next to it — except the glass had been smashed in, and the colorful shards on the floor were reflecting glistening moonlight onto the surrounding walls. The cold breeze rushing in carried the sharp scent of burned pine wood and lavender, coating Kaelen's lungs with a smoky film.

The glass under his feet crunched as he came to a sudden halt in front of the window. The opening wasn't big, but large enough for a short thief — not for Kaelen though.

He hastily unlocked the door next to the broken window with a key from his bulky key ring and dashed through it. Without expecting it, he found himself at one end of the central courtyard. The night was at its darkest, and the few torches along the walls did little to change that. Their flames were hissing and struggling against heavy rain that must have started mere moments ago. Visibility was poor, and the crescendo of droplets hitting cold cobblestone and patches of mud further numbed his senses. There was no trace of the thief — there was no trace of any living being.

He must've stood there for some time, not moving a muscle, like a predator waiting for prey. With his eyes, he was scanning every corner of the atrium, every pillar, and every door frame. But there was no indication where to go from here, and the rain was growing stronger with every minute that passed.

He could feel the water seeping through his clothes and draining his warmth. Goosebumps were forming in his neck, but he knew they weren't from the cold — they came from the slow realization that he had failed.

After another few moments, Kaelen finally relaxed his body and let his head sink. He looked at the puddle that had formed just in front of him. The dark reflection showed a young man with black, curly hair and a skinny face: Kaelen Dor, apprentice of fate, supposed protector of tomes. His long orange robe was looking ragged from the chase, and the brown jute belt was about to come loose.

"How could this happen?" he whispered into the night. "How could I let this happen?"

He looked up to the sky and saw the moon peek through an opening in the gloomy carpet of rain clouds. It was a lot bigger than usual … and it had a mouth. Without warning, the moon started talking. The words were muffled and seemed to come from far away, but they gradually got louder and clearer, until …

"Kaelen!" Elara's voice was rich with impatience and louder than it had to be. "Wake up already, we are going to be late!"

Kaelen slowly opened his eyes, but was blinded by harsh sunlight. It took him a moment to emerge from the depths of his subconsciousness, like he'd been diving in murky water and was trying to return to the surface. His senses awoke sluggishly, one at a time, but eventually he found himself back in the present.

They were sitting under an old olive tree in a picturesque grove in the backyard of the Great Library. A chill breeze was rustling the pale green leaves above, and the morning dew still glistened on the short grass in between the scarred tree trunks. A few steps away, a rocky cliff dropped off and commanded a wide view over the azure-blue water of the bay.

Kaelen was slow to move. The scarred trunk he was leaning on had not been kind to his spine. He groaned regretfully as he rolled over, only for his gaze to meet Elara's stern look.

His sister showed clear signs of annoyance.

"You were asleep for half the afternoon," she rebuked.

"Was I?" Kaelen murmured distantly.

"While you were getting your beauty sleep, I finished most of the exercises we were given — and then some," she continued.

Kaelen cursed silently.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tried. A little, at least," she shrugged. "Seemed like you were deep in slumber."

"Not a peaceful slumber, I can tell you that," he sighed and massaged his temples. "I just had the weirdest dream. But it didn't feel like a dream. It felt … real. Except for that part with the moon."

"The moon?" The momentary confusion seemed to numb her anger.

"There was a," Kaelen began, then paused. "You know what? Forget about it," he surrendered.

They quickly packed up their books and blankets, most of which Elara frantically stuffed in her backpack to save time. She then proceeded to rush back to the main building, with Kaelen following a few steps behind her. His mind still felt shaken, and his thoughts were scrambled like a tangled ball of yarn. He usually didn't dream — or at least he could never remember his dreams.

Once they were back inside, they followed a winding staircase to the second floor of the library. Other members of their order were passing by, greeting them as they rushed up the stairs. They ran past countless wooden doors, all of them leading to archives full of ancient tomes and books, mythical scrolls and chronicles as old as time itself. It was said that the Great Library of Amareth was the biggest in the world, which Kaelen did not find hard to believe. Of course, it was not just a mere library, and the books and tomes it housed were more than just words written on paper. But common folk yearned for common terms, and thus it had been called a library from the day it was built.

Following a tight, carpet-covered hallway, they reached a small foyer with slim doors adorning the walls. Behind one of them, they would meet Master Zerath for their daily lesson in Fateweaving.

#

It did not come as a surprise to anyone that yet another member of the Dor family was bound to be an accomplished Fateweaver, maybe even a Master. It was in their genes, some would say, preordained from birth. How else could they have brought forth such an astonishing number of esteemed representatives of the Great Library? And even though the current Elder did not have Dor blood in his veins, nor did he have much appreciation for the family, the annals of the Fateweavers were full of Dor family members who had risen to the highest ranks and shaped the order into what it was today. One day, surely, this next prodigy of the Dor family would ascend into the topmost circles — and Kaelen would congratulate his sister when she finally did, while he would remain in her shadow. Under different circumstances, he would've been the prodigy. But as it stood, Elara just always managed to excel a little more, be a tad more successful than Kaelen, most notably at the core business of their studies: Fateweaving. Kaelen sure had his strengths, sometimes even an edge on Elara, and yet his overachieving sister dominated the overall perception of the Dor siblings. But while she had her flaws, vanity and pride were not among them — Kaelen knew that he would've been a lot more insufferable with equal amounts of success.

Halfway through their current lecture, Kaelen's thoughts had gone adrift. Contemplating the future and the present, he had zoned out, with his mind and gaze escaping through the colored window on the wall. Now, however, his mental absence was being noticed.

"Snap out of it," Elara quietly hissed at him, as if her performance was tied to his. But then again, maybe it was, especially since they were sharing private lessons with their mentor ever since they were accepted by the Great Library.

To Kaelen's annoyance, Master Zerath hadn't even noticed his lack of attention — until now.

"Hm?" he muttered as he turned away from the blackboard he had been writing on, "Kaelen? Are we boring you today?"

He put the charcoal aside and gave Kaelen a stern look. His voice was indulgent, though.

"I thought this more practical exercise would be rather interesting to you."

"I'm sorry, Master Zerath," Kaelen grumbled. Then, straightening his posture, he added: "My mind is a bit restless today."

Zerath studied him for a moment, like a parent deciding whether to scold or support.

"I see," he said and nodded slowly, "something troubling you?"

Kaelen hesitated. "It sounds silly, but I had quite the unsettling dream."

He could see Elara roll her eyes and look away. Zerath curiously raised his bushy eyebrows. "A dream, hm? In the middle of the day?"

Elara scoffed quietly, and Kaelen immediately regretted mentioning it.

"I was resting my eyes for a brief moment after lunch."

"Yeah, right," Elara hissed to herself.

"Well," Zerath chuckled, "a busy mind needs lots of rest. Good for you to get sleep when you can. Wouldn't you agree, Elara?" His gaze turned to Kaelen's sister, whose cheeks assumed the color of ripe tomatoes.

"Of course, Master Zerath," she hastily responded.

"Dreams can be a wonderful thing," Zerath continued, "but also a great burden." He looked at Kaelen again, his dark eyes full of wisdom. "Say, what dream rattled your mind? Indulge us, if you would."

Kaelen was as surprised as Elara that his afternoon digressions were turning into a subject for today's class. Clearly, his sister would've preferred to start the next chapter of their studies instead.

Zerath could see their puzzled faces.

"Don't worry," he encouraged, "we've got time. And who knows — maybe we even learn something from your dream."

"I doubt that," Elara muttered, and immediately bit her lip. Zerath let it slide.

Kaelen sighed, then started elaborating on what had turned his peaceful slumber into a troubling mental voyage. Zerath was listening carefully, keeping his gaze fixed on Kaelen. When he finished, no one said anything for a long moment.

"I see," Zerath concluded pensively. "A troubling dream indeed. A thief in the heart of our sacred archives?" He shook his head. "I can't recall an instance where someone was bold enough to steal from the Great Library. That is not to say it can't happen, of course."

Kaelen looked down at his hands.

"The thing is," he said, "it felt so real. All of it."

"Some dreams have that ability," Zerath said while stroking his white beard. "It almost feels like they are trying to show us a glimpse of the future — or make us remember what we chose to forget. I, too, have dreams like that from time to time."

Sharing personal insights was something Master Zerath rarely ever did. Kaelen and Elara exchanged looks, but Zerath continued without hesitation.

"The ability to dream is something we should cherish. They offer us unique perspectives of what could've been — or still could be. Most of them are nothing more than amalgamations of thoughts our subconscious is struggling to process. Sometimes, however, they hold a truth we often only see in hindsight. But then again, is such a dream a prediction of the future, or is it a fantasy that makes us turn it into reality by heeding it? Such dreams become a self-fulfilling prophecy — and are not unlike Fateweaving, if you think about it."

He paused and let his gaze rest on both of them for a moment.

"At any rate, realism does not make a dream more likely to come true, but it intensifies the experience."

"I could've gone without that experience," Kaelen growled.

Zerath smiled at him.

"Well, if nothing else, it will serve as great motivation to take your next night shift in the archives very seriously."

Kaelen sighed at the prospect, but didn't say anything.

And with that, they moved on.

"Well then," Zerath said, collecting his thoughts, "As I was saying: up til now, we focused on predicting the fate of lifeless objects. While that is a crucial step towards learning Fateweaving, and an integral part of Fateweaving itself, it is much simpler than predicting the fate of a sentient being."

Kaelen thought back to all the hours spent trying to predict, no, read, when a certain leaf was going to drop from a tree or which way a crack in the stone wall was going to spread as the seasons passed. More challenging tasks would have him describe the precise way a picked flower would wilt, while stating the exact number of dropped petals before decay. Then, there were the candles, whose fate was largely divided into burn time and remaining height after their flames had extinguished. Kaelen had spent countless nights in dark rooms watching flames dance in front of his eyes, only to be off time and time again by inches and minutes. It was a difficult business, and seeing Elara succeed so effortlessly at every Fateweaving task she was given did not make it any easier. But Kaelen was tenacious, and he eventually got the hang of it. It was hard-earned, but it filled him with pride to see the cracks in the wall form exactly the way he predicted, and find the leaves of trees fall in the precise order he said they would.

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"Weaving the fate of a sentient being, say, an animal," Zerath continued, "requires a far greater level of foresight. You have to feel their fate rather than observe it." Zerath put his right palm on his chest. "You have to listen to their thoughts and all they are and will be if you want to reach out through time and grasp their fate. You will find that even the smallest beings can have the most complicated minds."

He walked over to a brown coffer that had been sitting in one corner of the room, picked it up, and placed it carefully on the desk in front of Kaelen and Elara. It was made out of leather and wrapped with thick string.

"The most important difference, however, when you want to weave the fate of a living being, is the timing: you have to do it the moment life begins. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to read the future this new being is going to have. The strands of destiny turn from a well-formed bundle to a woven knot that will soon be impossible to untangle. That is also why so many Fateweavers are out there traveling the world, ready to weave the fate of life as it happens. Only then do they travel to the Great Library to safely secure the tome they forged in our vast archives."

Kaelen thought about that for a moment. He had always wondered what it must be like to roam the world in the name of fate. Surely, those Fateweavers had seen it all. And wherever they went, they were treated with the utmost respect and hospitality — after all, you never knew when you needed their services again.

"Master Zerath?" Kaelen hadn't even noticed Elara's raised hand.

"Yes, my Dear?"

"Once, you explained to us that any living being is bound to their tome. How exactly did you mean that?"

For a moment, Zerath's gaze rested on the brown box in front of him. The silence was only disturbed by the crackling of embers in the nearby fireplace. When Zerath spoke, his voice was low and meaningful.

"The connection between a living being and its fate tome is twofold. It is like a pact with destiny itself. Once fate has been foreseen and woven into written word, it binds and commands the one it belongs to. They can not stray from their path, just like a river can't stop flowing. All that is written must happen, for that is what the god of fate chose for mankind — and weaving fate into these sacred tomes is the gift he bestowed on us."

He let his words be felt.

"Again, we don't predict fate, we read it. With the foresight we were given, we get to see what the future of a living soul holds. That is what we record, and thus the pact is forged, and the soul is bound by this very fate."

He put one hand on the box in front of them and slowly started untying the ribbon.

"The fate tome," he continued, "becomes a part of its owner — a vital part, in the most literal sense. Once bound, the soul can not live without the manifestation of its fate. Destroy the tome, and you destroy the living being it belongs to."

He cast aside the string that had kept the leather box shut and began to open it.

"Much of this you have heard before. And like many times before, you now know a little more. However, our craft is a complex one, and it will still take many years for you to fully understand all its intricacies. I shall reveal its secrets in due time. But for now, we are going to let the theory rest, while you try your hand at something rather practical." And with that, he pulled two tiny round objects out of the box.

"Are these —"

"Quail eggs, yes," Zerath finished Elara's sentence. "And we are going to practice with them."

Kaelen felt his jaw tense up. Weaving the fate of a candle was hard enough, and this would be way worse.

"Our goal for today is quite simple: we want to read the fate of these little birds. You are to write down their fate as you foresee it. Each of you will get one egg. I have a feeling they are going to hatch soon, so you'd better make haste. But you will need this," he said while reaching back into the depths of the leather box. "Call it the secret ingredient, if you will."

He pulled out two small inkwells and held them up high. The ink in it looked very thick and was radiating with a faint green shimmer.

"This ink is unlike any other," Zerath said ominously. "It is only to be used by Fateweavers who know of its true power. It's the ink of truth, and we exclusively use it to weave fate." He reached out with his left arm and let one inkwell get bathed in the last sunlight of the day. It started to shine like an emerald and cast colorful reflections across the entire room.

"This is what turns a piece of paper into a binding spell and a written word into inevitable destiny."

He handed one inkwell to each of them and watched as they gingerly inspected them.

Kaelen frowned. "Why have we not been using this magical ink so far?"

A fiendish smile tugged at Zerath's lips. "I was expecting that question," he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "You only need the ink of truth when you are weaving the fate of a living being. You can use it on inanimate objects, but that would make the task a little too easy."

Kaelen bit his lips when he recalled all the pages he'd written using normal ink, and how his words had turned out to be hollow more often than not. So, apparently, there was an easier way — but it had been kept from them.

Zerath's face turned more serious again. "This ink is not magical, but it is sacred. Never use it lightly. And for the foreseeable future: never use it unless I tell you to."

He looked at a clock that was posted on his desk.

"Well, I hereby tell you to use it. You have 30 minutes," their Master concluded, and put one quail egg in front of each of them.

After a moment of hesitation, Elara and Kaelen both picked up empty tomes from a nearby shelf. They dipped their quills in the thick ink Zerath had given them, and Elara began writing. Kaelen, however, was alternatingly staring at the blank page and the dotted quail egg in front of him. He tried to focus all his thoughts on the task at hand, hoping that fate would speak to him and let the words flow out of his feather. Studying the egg thoroughly, he was hoping to somehow get a feeling for the being it contained. And after what felt like an eternity, he started to have an inkling, to hear a whisper in his head that was telling hazy tales of a bird's life — his bird's life. But the words were hard to hear and even harder yet to understand. He caught glimpses and fragments, never the whole picture. The pieces were out of order, scrambled, and chaotic.

He took a deep breath — and started writing. Words of birth and life soon started filling the paper. A first flight, a journey, threats, and survival — he tried to be as detailed as possible with what little he was given. It wasn't easy, and he had to use all his mental strength, but it seemed to be working. Like in trance, he was writing down everything his mind perceived. And maybe a little more, because surely one had to fill in the blanks with some creative freedom. But even so, it felt like he was actually weaving fate. It was a good feeling.
Kaelen had just put down his quill when Zerath's deep voice broke the silence.

"Time is over. Let's see your work."

Elara reached out and offered him her tome for reading, but he shook his head.

"No, my Dear, you will read to me as this bird's life unfolds."

"But," Elara looked confused, "that's going to take a long time."

"I'm sure you know exactly how long that would take," Zerath said with a smile, "just as you know how long this bird is going to be examined in this room. At least, so I hope. After all, that was your task."

Elara seemed to blush slightly.

"Of course," she said.

Sometimes, Kaelen still had trouble wrapping his mind around the whole fate thing. Technically, he knew exactly how long he would be talking about his bird by knowing the fate of the bird itself. At some point, it was going to be put back in the box, so much he knew — and he presumed that's where the lesson would end. But since fate was written from the perspective of its owner, he didn't know what was going to happen outside that box, just that the quail would spend a long time in darkness.

"Whose bird is going to hatch sooner?" Zerath asked.

Kaelen and Elara exchanged looks.

"I believe mine is going to hatch in a few moments," Kaelen said slowly.

"Mine is still going to take a while," Elara continued. This was truly a bizarre situation, Kaelen thought.

"Excellent," Zerath said.

He seemed to be used to this kind of obscure talk.

"Kaelen, would you do the honors then?"

"Sure," he said quietly, even though he wasn't sure at all. He looked at his tome, then at the egg. Then, he started to summarize what he had written.

"So … my quail will hatch as a chick with yellow feathers and three black spots on its back. Its beak will have the color of … sand?"

"Be sure of your words," Zerath cautioned.

"Right. When it breaks free of the shell," he started, but was promptly interrupted by a quiet cracking sound. A few moments later, the quail egg in front of him began to crack like porcelain. Not long after, a fragile head covered in what looked like goo breached the shell.

Kaelen gasped. The chick's head was coated in yellow feathers. And as the quail tossed and turned, he could see that the beak was, in fact, the color of sand.

Zerath smiled. Elara looked surprised.

"Good, Kaelen, good," Zerath encouraged. "What next?"

Kaelen took a deep breath and continued.

"The quail will trip and fall trying to get out of the shell, then walk three steps and," he wasn't sure if he had gotten the next part quite right, "then look around for its mother."

The voices in his head had been a bit chaotic then. But he felt like what he wrote made sense.

The three of them watched as the quail struggled to get out of its shell, as Kaelen predicted. And just like Kaelen had said, its back showed three black spots spread across the body of the little bird. When it started moving, Kaelen anxiously counted the steps. One, two, … and three. He sighed in relief. But then the bird took another step. And another.

"I -," Kaelen began, but broke off. The excitement left Zerath's face.

Without a warning, the quail started moving in unnatural ways. Its limbs and head twisted more than they were supposed to, and its eyes seemed to lose color.

Next to him, Elara shrieked and covered her mouth with her hands. Kaelen stared at the bird, horrified and confused.

Then, when the seizures that had taken hold of the chick started to fade, the little body suddenly lost all its tension and sank to the surface of the desk. There it lay, motionless and silent.

No one said anything. Then, Elara found her voice again: "Is it … dead?" she asked while keeping her voice low.

Zerath sighed. "I'm afraid it is."

"But … why?"

Kaelen felt like he had a lump in his throat.

"Because," Zerath said, "the fate that was woven in the tome was not truthful."

He watched Kaelen's horrified face for a moment.

"I told you the tomes are binding — yet that is only the case when the fate that is recorded in them is what the God of Fate showed us. If we stray from the path, we put the soul whose fate we are weaving in an impossible spot. They are torn between the fate they were meant to have and the one we recorded. The effects of this peril can take many shapes — some of which you just witnessed."

They fell silent again and stared at the dead body. Kaelen felt like he was close to throwing up. Meanwhile, Elara was past her initial disgust and back to her curious self.

"So, that means fate can never be changed by a Fateweaver?" She asked.

Zerath did not respond right away. He looked pensive when he finally said: "Not anymore."

Elara raised her eyebrows.

"It was possible, once upon a time, in the old days."

Zerath spoke slowly, and every word seemed to carry sorrow. "But it was never endorsed or even accepted. They called it Fatebending, and it led to some of the most tragic events recorded in our history books. But even back then, only the most skilled Fateweavers were able to perform this dark art. How they did it remains a mystery to this day — and we can only hope it stays that way."

Despite Zerath's explanation, Kaelen still did not understand what had just happened. It's not like he had been actively trying to bend fate. Soon, though, he realized that his moment of uncertainty when writing the tome had led to his. He knew now that Fateweaving left no space for extrapolation. He shivered at the mere thought of trying to read and record the fate of a human being. Seeing the lifeless body of that chick would already do enough to haunt him in his sleep.

Then, Kaelen came to a realization.

"You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?" He asked, looking Zerath directly in the eyes. A sense of anger rose in him. He felt deceived and exposed.

Zerath held his gaze. "I did. Or at least, I was hoping it would."

His response was not what Kaelen expected.

Zerath continued: "What you just experienced was the most important lesson of Fateweaving. We are no artists, we are scribes. We record, we don't create. Knowing the consequences of our actions, especially the bad ones, is vital for becoming a true member of our order. I know it hurts, but there is no way around it."

Kaelen wanted to be angry, but he could already feel his rage subside. What Zerath was saying made sense — in a cruel but honest way.

"But I'm afraid this is not the only fundamental lesson today. Elara? Could you please continue, my Dear?"

Elara seemed like she had completely forgotten about the egg in front of her. She quickly collected herself and flipped open her tome.

For about ten minutes, she went on and on about every little detail of her baby bird. And of course, everything happened exactly as she said. Its appearance, its sounds, and movements — everything was just like she described it. Kaelen had expected nothing less, and still, it left a sour taste in his mouth.

In the middle of describing a stroll along the outskirts of the desk, in which the quail would trip a few times, Zerath interrupted her.

"Very good, Elara." Elara looked surprised by the sudden interruption, but very pleased with the feedback she'd gotten.

"But I'm afraid now it is time for our last lesson of today," the old Master said with a sorrowful voice.

Elara looked at the bird in front of her. She seemed scared on behalf of the chick she'd been bonding with.

"Yes, Master?" she asked cautiously.

"I will now ask you to burn your tome," he said calmly, pointing at the fireplace to his left, where the flames were dancing around some charred logs of firewood.

Elara looked at him, then at the fireplace. "What?" she asked bluntly, even though she'd understood him just fine.

Zerath sighed, but not because he was impatient with her. "The art of Fateweaving is not one to be wielded lightly," he said in a soft voice. "If the two of you want to master it, you need to know and see all facets of it. I'm afraid that is not always pretty."

Elara gulped, and her eyes seemed to tear up ever so slightly. Without taking her eyes off her little quail, she slowly got up and took the tome over to the fireplace. She turned her back on the other two and seemed to stare into the flames for a while. She shrugged, or maybe was shaken by weeping. Then, with two trembling hands, she gently placed the tome on top of the scalding hot logs. The flames reached for it immediately.

Elara sniffed loudly, straightened herself, and returned to her chair. Her eyes were red and her cheeks rosy, but she didn't say anything.

Kaelen was not used to seeing his sister like this, at least not in front of a Master. She was always calm and collected, and rarely would she show more emotions than she was given points for.

"Now watch," Zerath said and pointed at the chick.

Whatever Elara had written in her tome, it didn't come true.

The baby bird stood motionless and seemingly confused. Then, without warning, his orange feathers started to come loose like leaves in fall. They didn't drop to the ground, but instead drifted away gently, eventually dissolving into green, sparkly dust. The quail's body was soon to follow, turning into a shiny, bright ball of emerald light. There was no sound, but a last flicker, and then the bird and everything that belonged to it was gone — even the eggshell had disappeared.

Kaelen couldn't help but think that, however tragic this was, it had also been beautiful. Way more so than the passing of his bird. The thought alone immediately brought back the nausea.

Elara seemed almost consoled by the pretty ending her bird had had. There didn't seem to be any suffering involved. In a way, it was a clean, unexpected death.

Kaelen wondered, though, if the dissolving of the bird into green dust could've been part of its fate all along. Or was the destruction of the tome the fate of the tome itself, not the quail's fate? He understood why the apprenticeship for becoming a Fateweaver took so many years to complete.

"And with that," Zerath concluded after a moment of silence, "you have learned about the responsibilities of weaving a fate."

#

It took Kaelen a long time to fall asleep that night.

His mind was busy processing all he'd learned — he was mourning the quail he had essentially killed, and, in parts, was still mulling the dream he'd had earlier. Like with most dreams, the details were already starting to fade into haziness, but the feeling of chasing the thief, breathless, heart pounding, was still very prominent in his head. A part of him didn't want to fall asleep in fear of another episode like that, but his eyelids gave him clear signs of tiredness.

He rolled over in his creaking bed, tossing and turning without comfort, pulling up the blanket chin-high, only to push it away again moments later. Outside, he could hear a night owl hoot — it was the only sound that found its way through the thin glass window, as the rest of the Great Library was covered in a mantle of deep silence.

Eventually, he could feel his breath slow down, and his body come to rest. Watching the glistening moonlight on the cobblestone floor, he could sense his conscience slowly drift away from the plane of reality.

Soon, a restless sleep overcame him, shrouding his jumbled mind and dissolving his thoughts into ethereal mist.