[AW] | liminal spaces

[Muirne]

 

 

Muirne
 

 

 
 

The space was echoing, a massive, whispering room filled with endless tomes and carefully hidden secrets. High above the quiet bustle of patrons collecting the knowledge they sought and the quick, handsome vulpine figures darting between shadowed shelves, the vaulted ceiling was veined with ancient branches bent into the facsimile of elegant, arched supports. No sunlight filtered through the dense canopy mimicking a roof constructed with stone and architecture, no dappled golden light to fill the cosy reading nooks dotted throughout the trunks and shelves. Rather, the space was lit with row upon row of dancing fires flickering within their protective lanterns. 

Honeyed lantern-light bounced off scintillating scales and elegantly carved horns with brilliant pastel tones. The warm glow caressed a handsome face, lingering upon high cheekbones and long, white lashes like candlelight upon the pages of a freshly bound book. Every brush of the comfortable, tempered fire over the kirin’s refined frame was like as if the whispering tomes and dull light were welcoming the Librarian home. They paused upon the threshold of Novus’s great, ancient Library. An apparition of paper-white and shimmering, faceted metaphors, the rainbow shine of poetry and prose, brought to a Library they simultaneously knew, and did not know.

Muirne breathed in the ancient dust of worn pages and heavily handled leather covers, and they felt, for a moment, as if the subtle caress of the lanterns’ comforting glow was indeed their Library welcoming them home. Twitching ears listened for sighing pages, for whispering tales they knew so well. Their Library breathed with them, every tome spoke to them with the soft turning of their pages and the fluttering sighs of histories long forgotten, lost to languages remembered by their Keeper. But the only whispers they heard were those of studious patrons delving into the myriad of topics available. 

Novus’s grand collection was silent to them, the space familiar and unknown, eerie in the silence from the books stacked neatly upon their designated shelves. 

The silence settled into the upturned letters of prose and poetry, muffling the elegant words constructed within their mind. The world was changed. The Library was gone. And this was what was left. This space that did not know them from any of the other patrons taking from the shelves. Perhaps this library did not breath as theirs once had. Perhaps it was merely a shattered echo of the monument that had stood for eternity, though it had been buried, burned and fallen to ruins time and again. It had always had its Keeper. It had always emerged from the long millenia of disuse to open heavy wooden doors to the public. And it had never been silent. 

Tightness constricted their throat, wrapping their spoken word like the oppressive silence weighed upon the poetry they wrought from their knowledge. They stood on the threshold of the Library, and stared into the space that was not theirs, that had never been theirs and never would whisper to them, guiding them to the exact tome a patron needed. 

Shimmering light slid over their scintillating scales and Muirne turned their handsome profile to an approaching stranger. 

”Might you be able to assist me?”

Coder | Artist

[Aeranas]

We'll leave this empty room, into the air we'll climb

"Might you be able to assist me?" Foreign words slip from his tongue. They taste heavy, their weight pulls his ashen labrums down like an anchor. His companion is chiseled from delicate opal. Explosions of pastel vibrancy decorate their tresses. Elegant scales scatter across their pale back. He imagines they breathe worlds while they slumber. His dreams writhe, his imagination coils to strike. Stories are quickly woven by the poet, taking the two of them to unimaginable worlds. His lanky, pale configuration glows with warmth beneath the honeyed lamps. Aerie is a luminous figure; a fleeting fae. His eyes adjust to the shadows quickly. A smile forms on his porcelain visage. It is quiet; soft. It is nearly imperceptible. Aerie ravenously hunts the stories of Delumine. Of worlds unknown; treacherous. Each inhale bestows promises of these tales he mercilessly hunts. Aerie feels the muscles of his facade tighten; his smile grows wider. Aerie is no hunter.

He hopes his companion is. They bleed pastel aesthetic. A kirin. Aerie feels the weight of his nape lighten, excitement flits in bursts through his configuration. Stories churn like smoke. They fill his skies quicker than he anticipated. He need only pluck one from the array of them to satisfy his hunger. Aerie has nearly forgotten his original intent here. He wonders if Delumine will appreciate her foreign-born child. His eyes sweep over their adeptly molded frame. Whoever has designed this creature was an artist whose work consisted of only masterpieces. This pregnant pause transitions into an awkward silence. Rose lenses sweep downward. He is not shy, usually. "I wonder if these pages breathe for you? Delumine buries the secrets she's whispered in these depths. I believe the very creation of her existence is carefully guarded here." These words spill from his mouth, saturating the atmosphere. Honeyed light flickers over the pair of ghosts. 

Aerie gazes upon the opal creature with wonder. His rose lenses sparkle in the dim light. "Perhaps, this ghost seeks a story for you. The story of the Opal Dragon and the Ghost." Aerie offers with a mirthful laugh. The sound echoes through the dark rows of ancient texts. Lether holds no mirth. His levity is absorbed into the dusty, ancient pages. "I'm Aerie, the storyteller." He introduces himself in dulcet tones that blend into the setting. "Or perhaps, the Opal Dragon might like to hear a story?" His eyes crinkle until they become crescent moons. Rose lenses still twinkle with unbidden excitement. His lithe frame stands at attention for his companion. The opal dragon breathes stars into the sky of stories that canvas his sky. Aerie whispers fondly to his companion; the fondness that comes with eons of friendship. It is his nature. His love is boundless; inclusive. The entertainer anticipates his companion's response.
 

"Speech" Thoughts

@Muirne | I'm sorry Aerie is so weird haha. I am excited to write with you! c: 

[Muirne]

 

 

Muirne
 

 

 
 

”I wonder if these pages breathe for you.”

The words were uttered into the comfortable quiet of the library, tones muffled by ancient pages, sound absorbed by well-kept bindings. Within the shelves, the voice of the stranger settled into the soft whispering of poetry, collected in the upturned hollows of prose. The expansive collection breathed in a collective gasp, as if the library itself was waiting for a response. Shifting scales, warmed by the honey glow of the dotted lamps, flash like inspiration on the tongue of a mad poet, glittering with elegant phrases scrawled desperately upon fresh white parchment.

”Assistance is freely given to those who require it. What do you desire?” A lie, smoothly spoken from lips that rarely knew dishonesty. Delumine’s Library did not breathe for them.

Yet, the fluttering pages of stories were given life upon the tongue of their companion. He was ghostly pale, as if an apparition of a prose-addled mind. A creature spun from poetry and madness with the seeds of innumerable worlds upon his silvered tongue. Muirne heard his name, the notation to scrawled into their mind in stark black ink, underlined thrice. A name, if only to define the erratic collection of observations they made.

Aerie. The Ghost. The Storyteller. Words spun by a silvered tongue, his every exhale giving life to the dandelion seeds of innumerable worlds. They were entranced by the very prose he crafted, fine enough to be written in their neat script, bound in gilded spines and kept upon the shelves of their Library.

”My Dear Storyteller, you may call me Muirne, for I am neither the gem of which you speak, nor am I a dragon. I merely am, as I have always been.”They held their companion’s soft pink eyes in a mirthless, fractal gaze. Every word was spoken with a fractured superiority. Their world had shattered around them, their Library lost to shadows and time. These pages did not breathe for them, and they never would. Delumine’s Library was not theirs, these books were not theirs. But the histories they had witnessed and penned in neat letters upon flawless pages were theirs. And they were not forgotten.

”What strange, fickle things stories are. Perhaps a Storyteller would like a trade? One story from a Ghost, exchange for the tale written by a Keeper of knowledge. You may learn something, dear Ghost.”

Coder | Artist

@Aeranas