Carry You

Weiss soon found herself approaching the library and looked around. There had to be hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million books or more. She would never be able to read all of this even if she lived a full fae life. Holy Father, she didn’t even know where to start! History? Law? Fiction? Science? She had no idea. This whole library was her playground. Then again, she did have some questions about changelings and magic. Those would probably be the best places to start. But where would they be? The library was five stories tall. She hesitated before approaching a desk with a woman behind it. She didn’t look up from what she was doing. Weiss shifted uncomfortably before speaking up softly. “Um, hello.” She assumed this had to be the librarian or at least one of them. She wasn’t sure if there was more than one or not. Still she wasn’t being rude. Or she at least hoped she wasn’t. She simply needed help. It was a librarian’s job to help, wasn’t it? The woman sighed and looked up. “Who are you and what—” She adjusted her glasses. “Wait. You’re a human. What’s a humandoing in the manor?” This woman was really quite rude. All Weiss had said was hello! How could she react so negatively to a simple greeting? She was just trying to ask for help! “I’m Weiss Schnee. The Belladonnas…adopted me a couple of days ago. I was wondering if you could help me my way around.” Well, more like kidnapped, but that didn’t sound good. She really wanted to read already. Dealing with this rude woman was not high on her to-do list. Blake should’ve warned her the librarian was so rude. Hadn’t she said fae were big on manners? How could one be so rude if manners were that important? Weiss was trying… The woman let out a breath. “Ah, I suppose you’re that changeling I’ve heard about from the servants. Real piece of work. Insulted the Varela dutchesses. I can’t believe the nerve.” SHe was never going to live that down, was she? She had made her apologies to the women. She sincerely hadn’t known or understood about that stuff. It simply wasn’t part of her worldview. She would do her best to better to not repeat her mistakes. “So what do you want?” The woman folded her arms. So rude! “I was hoping you could help me find some books. I wanted a bit more information on changelings and how fae blood effects humans. I also wanted to see if there were any basic books on magic.” She paused for a moment. “Oh. I’ll be starting from an Undine perspective.” She wasn’t sure if that made any difference or not. Her blood was Misum in nature, so that might have an effect. Would Lider even have books from the Misum court? She really wasn’t sure. She had never seen Valian books in Schnee manor’s library. The woman pushed her glasses up. “All right; I know what titles to get. Would you mind waiting here?” Weiss shook her head and the woman left. Weiss stood there for quite a while until the woman came back. She had five books, one of which was thick and incredibly dense. “Feel free to find a table. I won’t put back books away if they’re clearly being studied. But do notmark these up, you hear? I’ve had to replace books because changelings like you ruined them!” Weiss felt the blood drain from her cheeks at the raised voice. The woman was yelling at her for something she hadn’t done. All she knew was that she needed to get away. So she nodded, then hurried off a fait bit away, finding a table nestled among the bookshelves. Weiss sat down and let a sigh of relief out. People were terrifying. She reallywanted to avoid that woman in the future if she could. She was a Sylph, based on her amber eyes. Her hair had been bright pink. She had been incredibly pale, about on par with Weiss herself. But that didn’t matter too much as she had her books now. Two covered changelings and getting one (including the absolute doorstop at the bottom), two covered magic, and one covered partially blooded fae. She was pretty sure there would be more books cover these topics, but it wasn’t a bad place to start. She wasn’t sure which one she wanted to start with. It was hard to choose… Then again, building a knowledge base about changelings in general would probably be the best place to start… That doorstop would notbe a book she could read in a single sitting, though. With that done, Weiss settled in and opened the books, starting to look at the table of contents. Today was going to be a long day…

§

Weiss blinked and looked up when she saw somebody approaching. She tensed, but relaxed when she realised it was only Blake. “Good afternoon, Weiss. I apologise for interrupting your studies, but it’s about time for lunch. I was wondering if you wanted to join us.” Weiss blinked. It had been that long already? She had hardly noticed time passing. She had her pocketwatch, but she hadn’t thought to check it. She’d been so intent on reading that she really hadn’t though about anything else. “I suppose” She flushed brightly when she heard her stomach growl loudly. Apparently she was hungrier than she thought. She wasn’t really one to pay attention to her body, though. It served its purpose and that was it. She was still trying to make up for the caloric deficit President Jacques had put her through. Still, she couldn’t have told him about her aura; it would have given Winter away and she never would have seen her older sister again. Weiss stood up and Sayaka fluttered onto her shoulder. She followed Blake out of the library then looked at her. “By the way, why didn’t you warn me about the librarian? She was rude to me.” She frowned. “I thought manners were important to fae. This woman didn’t seem to have any.” She really couldn’t get over it. That woman had been absolutely terrible to her. She hadn’t even done anything wrong! At least not as far as she could see. Blake frowned as well. “She was rude to you? You’ll have to tell Mom. Evelin is always kind to us. I couldn’t imagine her being unkind. She’s been in my family’s service for ten thousand years.” Weiss nodded a bit but frowned. Apparently anybody could act rude and unkind even if one had know them for thousands of years. Weiss fell silent until they came to the kitchen. They met up with Kali and Ghira and Blake nudged her a bit. Weiss hesitated before speaking. “Um. Blake told me to tell you that the librarian was incredibly rude to me.” She hoped she wasn’t going to get the woman sacked. She didn’t want to cause upheaval in the household. But servants should know their place so… She was torn. She saw Kali frown, then look at Ghira. “I suppose I’ll have to have a word with her. What all did she say to you?” Weiss relayed what the woman had said, the frown still etched on Kali’s face. “I see. I think I know why she said that. About eight thousand years ago, my family took in a changeling who turned out to be rather bad to handle. He refused to get along with anybody. I mean this was long before me, but my grandparents remember it. Evelin was just starting off as our librarian. Apparently, he destroyed some really rare manuscripts.” “I see.” Yeah, that probably would be enough to make anybody frustrated with changelings. But books were sacred to Weiss. She refused to mark up books in any shape, way, or form aside from maybe folding the page down. The crease would be there forever, but she did it when she had to save a place in her book when she didn’t have notes or anything available. But she hadn’t brought a notebook or anything, so she had to try to rely on her own memory. “Like I said, I’ll have a word with her. Probably after we eat. You’re a guest here and a member of the family. I won’t let her treat you like you don’t belong here. You should be able to rely on on our staff the same we do. I don’t blame her for holding onto memories, but she shouldn’t use that against you.You don’t seem the type to hurt books…or anybody in general, really.” Weiss honestly didn’t like to hurt people, but she had to protect herself. Atlassians would only hurt her, so she had to beat them to the punch. Fending off people was swift and decisive. She had no room to watch out for herself. But she really didn’t like it. It was hard to hurt others… “Okay. Thank you. You aren’t going to sack her, are you…?” She really didn’t want the woman to lose her job despite her rudeness. She had been in the family’s service for so long. Would she be able to find work if she was sacked? She really hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Kali shook her head. “No. At least not yet. If she continues to be rude to you, we might have to find somebody else, but I would rather not do that. Librarians take centuries to train for their specific collections. She was acting out so she does need a stern talking to regardless.” Weiss nodded a bit. At least she wasn’t getting the woman tossed out on the streets. Especially if they took so long to train. President Jacques would have just tossed her out and not thought about it again. People were incredibly expendable to the man. “So what did you spend your time learning about?” Kali smiled at her. Weiss looked down at her utensils. “I’m starting studying on changelings and magic. She gave me a pretty thick tome on changelings.” It was huge and like a thousand pages. It was pretty thick legalese too. She was glad she had studied legal documents in Atlas or else she would be completely lost. “I didn’t realise there was so much to changelings.” Kali nodded. “There is a lot. In the old days when the gods still walked Koiria, changelings were taken willy nilly. But now there are processes. It’s not something to be undertaken lightly.” Yeah, she had definitely noticed that. She wasn’t a fan of reading legalese but it was still giving her an idea of what was involved. She was mostly skimming but she was still learning quite a bit about everything involved. “So where does that leave you guys standing with me?” She really didn’t want to inconvenience the Belladonna family. The book she was reading was the general foundation for changelings and where they stood within fae society. There was a lot to consider when taking one on. It wasn’t really something to just do… Blake had made an incredibly snap decision, not the usual long decision process that went into taking on a changeling. She also wondered how Auria was doing. Going from this society to Atlas couldn’t be easy. If she hadn’t blown her cover by this point, Weiss would be surprised. “Don’t worry about that too much, dear. It’s on me and Ghira to deal with the paperwork and repercussions. We’re heads of the family.” Kali smiled and Weiss nodded a bit. Well, that was good. But she felt like she was responsible for causing them so many headaches. She was trying to not be a burden to them, but she felt like she was failing pretty hard. She really, really didn’t want their lives to be any harder than it already was. From the sound of it, they were already social pariahs due to their marriage. She really hoped their presence wouldn’t make things any worse than they already were. “What about Blake?” She glanced at Blake whose ears flattened a bit. That was right. Blake had been the one to start all of this. Would she have any major issues in society for having brought a human to Serlia? She really didn’t know. Again, Blake was already an outsider. She had told Weiss outright that she was an outcast due to being half Misum and half Lider. She really had no idea what would happen to Blake in regards to social standing and government-wise. “She’ll get a reprimand from the government but that’s about it. She’s still a young child, so it’ll be seen as a rash decision made by a child. Any punishment will be allowed by us. But we don’t think she really did anything wrong, so it’s really just that reprimand.” Kali shook her head. She was glad Blake wasn’t really in any trouble because of her. It would be horrible if she had to be thrown in prison or something for this. She really was glad things weren’t too terrible here. “Okay.” She paused before looking back at Kali. “By the way, did you think about what to do with me moving?” She really didn’t want to be thrown around thee world between two different cultures every three months. She really just didn’t want to have to be forced to readapt so often. She’d rather stay in the Lider court, maybe even at this manor in particular. She had her falconry lessons and switching teachers every few months probably wasn’t ideal for her. But, at the same time, bein gin the Misum court at some point would be good. She didn’t want to keep Turi from her family forever. Though maybe they had a teacher for Blake’s magic or something… Kali’s expression turned contemplative. “Well, there are positives and negatives to each. You probably have some good reasons to want to stay here. From what little I know of your history, you haven’t had much mobility, have you?” Weiss hesitated before shaking her head. “No, not really. I’ve always been under somebody’s eye. I basically haven’t left my family’s manor.” Yes, she’d been on a hunting trip, but she still wasn’t allowed to do anything. She’d made a break for it, sure, but she really hadn’t been out from anyone’s view for too long. Kali frowned. “I see. I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave a specific manor. For the first few years at least, it might be best to leave you here. We will have to find you a magic teacher, though. I don’t doubt Turi can teach you, but having a dedicated teacher would be good.” She blinked. “Well, first… Do you wantto learn magic? Or do you want more time to research and decide?” “I would rather have some more time. A few chapters in one book isn’t enough to decide.” She really felt uncomfortable trying to decide on something without more information. “Would you have any more books in your Misum manors?” She wasn’t sure how their collections skewed on any given topic. She really was trying her best to learn but a few hours to study wasn’t anywhere near enough. She loved learning and would do whatever she could to extract information out of books. Having unfettered access to the library was a dream she thought would never come true. “That’s perfectly fine. Take whatever time you need. And you are right; we do have better access to Misum magic in our Eflia collections. I’ll be sure to contact our other librarians to see what we can find on Misum magic. That will probably help you decide on things better. There are manuals for each race on how to achieve certain paths. It’s really the advanced magic that extends your lifespan. The basic elemental magic won’t do much for your lifespan. Have you learned that yet?” Weiss shook her head. “No. I only got to read the first chapter of the magic book. I was more concerned about changelings as well and learning about how fae blood effects humans.” Magic was pretty low on the list of things for her to check into. She wanted to see what would happen with magic but seeing how magic would play into her bloodline was more important than the actualmagic for the time being. She would get into magic in due time, but bloodline and such mattered a lot more to her right now. “That’s entirely fair. You’ve only had a few hours. Though, for the time being, we don’t have any teachers lined up for you. That’ll take a few days at least. Are you okay with having that much free time?” That…was a good question. Even on weekends, she had classes for ten hours a day. It was really difficult to get any time for herself. What little time she had to herself was usually dedicated to studying dust or practicing for Beacon after Winter had given her the acceptance letter. She was not used to having free time. “I suppose I’ll use that time to study in the library then.” It was her standard go to—studying, at least. She would at least have one lesson a day with Lilyana, but that was about it. She wanted to get to the bottom of this stuff. The legalese was taking the longest to get through one due to its sheer density. But she didn’t mind too much. Books were entertaining enough on their own for her. The Belladonnas all glanced at each other, but Kali nodded. “If that’s what you want to do.” Weiss nodded. That waswhat she wanted. She loved learning and never really grew tired of reading. Having access to a library like this was one thing she’d wanted her whole life. A library was a sacred place for her. To desecrate it would be unthinkable for her. SHe really couldn’t imagine harming books or their keeper in any way. Oh, right… “Also I’ll need notebooks to keep notes in. I forgot to grab one when I went there earlier.” She would return after lunch and hopefully not forget the things she wanted to write down or ask questions about. It wasn’t a huge deal to be without a notebook, but still. It sucked to not be able to write anything down. She really wanted to be able to record her thoughts. “Same with sticky notes.” Those were invaluable in her studies… “Oh yes. We can get both for you. We have a large stock of notebooks in the library that Evelin can get for you. Though I can show you were they are if you’d prefer that.” Weiss nodded. She really didn’t want to do anything that involved talking to the librarian. She had been so rude and mean to Weiss. She would try to avoid the woman as much as she possibly could. Still, having an endless supply of notebooks would be really good. “What if I want my own copies of the books?” She knew she couldn’t mark up the library books (not that she would)but she used tons of sticky notes in her studies. She could basically mark up books without ruining the pages. She had so many sticky notes in her books to record her thoughts. “Oh, that’s not too hard. Like you have copiers, we have people that specialise in making perfect copies of old manuscripts. Buying copies of older documents can’t be done, but they can be copied with relative ease. It sounds like you might be using more modern manuscripts, though, so we can buy new ones for you.” Weiss nodded. She was glad for that. The changeling book was one she really wanted to be able to put sticky notes on all of it, but this was a library copy; she didn’t want to do that. “Okay. Well, I would like copies of the books I”m working in now if it’s not too much hassle. I do have thoughts I would like to not lose.” It was then that she noticed she finished her food. Everyone else had finished as well. Lunch was done. Honestly, for the most part, things had been so pleasant that she hadn’t really noticed the passage of time. Meals were usually so unpleasant that she felt like they took forever. Much like breakfast that morning. But this felt…comfortable actually. It was odd. “All right. I’ll have somebody go get you some copies of those books. Blake, could you take an order for those books as well as the sticky notes, then hand them off to somebody to buy?” Blake nodded at Kali’s words. Then Kali spoke again. “And would you show her where the stock of notebooks is?” “I will.” Blake smiled at Weiss. “Shall we head back to the library?” Weiss nodded. “Okay.” She and Blake stood, then headed back to the library. Blake showed her a room with all sorts of office supplies. It was basically a treasure trove for Weiss. “You’re free to come in here as you need. Until you get your book copies, you can put the sticky notes in the library copies. It won’t ruin them or anything.” She supposed that was a fair point. She saw a huge stock of them in one of the drawers, but she went through them like crazy. She really was a fiend when it came to sticky notes. With all of that done, she grabbed the supplies she needed then started trawling through the manuscripts again.