FMH ~ 7!

- Taylor -

“What just happened?” Taylor was panicking, her lifelong friend had suddenly vanished, and no one appeared to know why. In fact, Master Don said he was dead.

“I’m honestly not certain.” The Archmage admitted, but simply moved on from there. “This has never happened before, Taylor. To be frank, I do think that he was killed instantly. I am sorry to be blunt, but sadly the facts do not care for your feelings like I do.” 

He motioned to his retinue, and gave specific orders for them to attempt all magical means of pulling Luke back if - no matter how unlikely - he was in another world. Still, he didn’t countermand his order to tell Luke’s family that he had died. “Taylor, I’m sorry. We can’t wait here though, there is simply too much for you to learn. I have chosen you as my apprentice, therefore it is my duty to personally train you; which means that I need to give up some of my duties to the King.” 

“You may not understand how much this will affect the realm, but please know that we need to begin your training now. Grieve during downtime. Come along.” He shifted the portal, opening it to a strange-looking place none of the others had gone into. Don stepped through, impatiently awaiting her on the other side. Much more hesitantly, Taylor stepped across the threshold and looked at what her future would hold.

“What is this place?” Her eyes were already roving the world around her.

“Taylor, it is my great pleasure to be the first to welcome you to ‘mundi sunt nominibus singulorum’ or, roughly translated: ‘The World of Names’. Literally translated, it is: ‘the names of each of the world’.” Don chuckled at a fond memory, taking a deep breath. “It is good to be home.”

They were standing in what appeared to be a living library. A short distance away was an extremely tall bookshelf, where thousands of books were neatly stacked in rows. Orderly calligraphy swirled and shifted across the ground, flowing like a river to the south. Animals made of all sorts of different materials for writing roamed the moors of the Library, which seemed to stretch forever with its orderly stacks.

“Oh… wow.” Taylor’s fear for her friend had been completely overwhelmed by the vastness of the new world around her. “This is… this is amazing. This is home?”

“Isn’t it, though? I’ll never forget my first time here, I imagine my face looked just like that. Well, no time like the present. We need to get you a spell book, and teach you how to tame spells!” Don started toward a distant stack of books.

“Okay, let’s - wait, what? Tame spells?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Good! I’m being purposefully unhelpful. Let’s begin.” With this frustrating conversation as the starting point, they started walking toward a bookshelf. Don ignored all of Taylor’s questions, until she finally stopped asking. Approaching the shelf, he finally started to explain what they were going to do.

“To entice your first spellbook, you need to slowly release your mana into the air around you. It will be much easier in this world, and as such you need to be very careful when you do so. Here, mana is to creatures what blood is to sharks. When you release it, you need to know exactly what you are trying to entice, or everything in the area will try to feast upon you.”

“If they succeed in overpowering you, they will only stop when every bit of your body has been consumed. First, you make this hand symbol, which means ‘release mana’.” He motioned with his hands, and had her repeat it until he nodded. “Then you focus on what you are trying to lure, and relax the control you have in your brain. Literally try to relax your ‘brain muscle’.”

“Why am I doing this if everything is going to try and eat me?” Taylor shook herself, and grinned wryly. “I bet Andre would be great at relaxing his brain.”

Seeing her try not to laugh, Don snorted, “Laugh it up, but if you find a better way to describe it, please let me be the first to know. I get laughed at every single time I say it, though I admit you hid it better than most. Now, Taylor, I want you to focus on those books and try to convince them to be your friend.”

She looked at Don, trying to determine if he was messing with her. Noting his serious demeanor, Taylor shrugged and got into the position he wanted her, made the symbol with her hands - pinkies together like she was holding a book - and tried to release her mana. Feeling foolish, she looked at her Master, but quickly refocused after he gave her a dark look.

“Convince them to be my friend,” she whispered, trying to relax. “Never been good at that. Come on, mana. Come on!” 

Taylor aggressively attempted to breach the barrier in her mind. With that push, she felt punctured; like a water skin with a dagger stuck into it. Feeling like her hands were gushing blood, she opened her eyes in a panic… only to see mana dripping from her hands, looking like blue-tinged water. Upon contact with the air, it evaporated and rose like a cloud into the air.

“Too much already… try and stop.” Her Master calmly ordered. She tried to pull the defence in her mind back, but was distracted as a horrendous shriek filled the air. The cloud had reached the first row of books on the shelf.

They erupted into motion, exploding into the air like a murder of crows. The covers were flapping like wings, and they literally flew above her, crashing into one another and fighting in an attempt to be the only one to feed on the free mana source. Taylor panicked, and the mana redoubled its explosion from her body, getting caught by an updraft and reaching almost all of the higher shelves. The air was suddenly teeming with flying books, some of them larger than she was by a large margin.

“Help!” she cried to Master Don, who was still calmly watching.

“You’re fine. If you can’t overcome this fear, you will never make it as a higher level Namer. Hurry up, one of them will win soon. You want to be ready for it.”

Breathing deeply, Taylor tried to regain control, building a dam to slow the rushing ocean of mana. The flow cut off as suddenly as it had begun, making her stumble as though she had taken a blow to the head. She looked at the swooping books and cloud of mana still spreading, and tried to focus all her thoughts on gaining a new friend and partner. Her intent reached out to her mana, and released a concussive wave that knocked many books from the air and nearly flattened Taylor. 

“Good, you gave your mana a purpose.” Don was still calmly looking at the hurricane of books above them.

Taylor ignored him and kept her thoughts on her need, looking up to see what was happening. Books returned to their places on the shelves, quivering in apparent fear. Some flew away as fast as they could, and Taylor felt an echoing concussion rebound on her. It knocked her to her knees, and it took her a long moment to find what had caused it. Then she saw it. The mana had reached the highest shelf, and the only book upon it had just peeked over the ledge.

“Oh, dear.” Master Don spoke, still in an infuriatingly calm tone. “This should be interesting.”

Several of the books were still bickering when the top shelfer started to tumble down. About halfway between its starting point and the ground, it opened its covers, gaining speed like a raptor and attacking the still-flying books viciously. The few that hadn't returned to the shelves or flown off were quickly reduced to confetti; which was somehow feasted upon by the victorious book. When the sky had been cleared, the book circled Taylor once, then came down and floated a few feet in front of her face. Words scrawled across the open pages, adjusting themselves until she was able to read them.

<Delicious mana. More.> It read.

“Make a deal with it. Agree to feed it mana and spells, so long as it allows you to cast from its pages.” She repeated what he had told her, and the book halted in its floating, as though considering. It bobbed, agreeing with the deal.

<Fill my pages with the tastiest. No disease, or I leave. Allow me to read you?>

“Yes, sounds good!”  She spoke even as Master Don shouted in a voice suddenly far from calm.

“No!” 

Too late. The pages swirled with color as she re-lived every moment in her life, the book recording it all and reducing the story down to a single page. When she was finally able to look away, it was well past dark and they were in a different location entirely.

“What?” she croaked, trying to stand, swaying, and falling to the ground.