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The Language That God Speaks Author: AJ Hall "Oook!" "Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook!" "Oo-ook" "Oook!" Picture my world, a world in which all of language, all of expression and thought, is distilled down into one, infinitely expressive, monosyllable. Picture me, if you will, how different I was in the days before my life changed. In those days, I was at one instant the driest of the dry, and the most verboastful of the verbose, at one with every Thesaurus Roget ever dreamed of in his infinite Platonic fantasies, overflowing with vocabulary in which I could express nullity in infinite permutations of nothingness, in which ever more elaborate baroque edifices of synecdoche would be piled high upon metonymy, and still equal - Nothing. And then, picture me bereft of language, but closer in my wordlessness to the one true Word than I had ever been in all my windy wordiness. The Word, sometimes, that I touch on the shadow of the uttermost edge of thought in the very darkest depths of the night, in my deepest dreams. For the Word is what we librarians dream of, and what we see in our waking hours is a pale shadow of our dreams. And I am always and forever the Librarian. Ook. World without end. Libraries without end. Shelves without end. Danger, and peril to the soul without end. For so it is known among those who have eyes to see, and perception to heed, and hearts that are not too hard to encompass the longing of those who run heedlessly onto their fate in the bright morning. And so then - picture her. Picture her soft brown hair, her bright eyes. Picture her forever young. And, without help, forever lost. In the deeper labyrinths of L-space I have encountered her like often, poor lost souls. And they will never get out. There is no-one to call them back from the wild places of the worlds between the worlds, because for them nothing matters except the Word. And they will see traces between the shelves, the hints that a moment before the Word was here, but is no longer. Or, that it may be here, if one waits just a moment more. And they will search forever. But my heart tells me that this one is too bright to perish here, not here, not down in the dusty limbo that is the cold dead end of L-space. Not to perish like that other one, the one with the hair like the joyous flaming of an autumn forest, and the green flash of her eyes, like spring come again, who left part of herself in the library that is part of the endless Library, and never found it again. Many have forgotten her, but the books - the books remember. For she loved truly, and was not forsworn. But that was in another country, and, besides, the wench is dead. And so I spoke to my tall colleague Lucien whom I meet from time to time here in the endless stacks, and asked, if perhaps he might keep an eye on her. Two eyes, maybe, if he could spare them. Because her sort, if they will it enough, can find a way even out of the waking world, drawn by the dream of the Word. But it is infinitely harder for them to find their way back. Since Lucien's promise I can sleep easier of nights. Upside down from my shelf, of course. My body demands certainties, even where my mind still doubts. But this is not my story. <space> In the nightmares which came ever more frequently after the end of her fourth year, once it became clear to Hermione that it was no longer a question of if war with Voldemort came, but when, she frequently dreamt that she was retreating to the Library. Waking in the illusory comfort of the soft sheets of her own bed she wondered, sometimes, why it should seem to her that a library would be any refuge in time of peril, since her enemy had been able - even bodiless and dispossessed - to inhabit a book, turning it into a weapon of war. But in her dreams that knowledge retreated. By night, she found herself increasingly ordering kick-stools and card-indices into defensive barricades; marshalling grimoires into attack formations, or mourning with Madam Pince over the valiant last stand of the codices. And sometimes she merely ran on, endlessly, until she woke sweating and aching-limbed at dawn. In those dreams she was pursued by faceless horrors beyond her imagining: past stacks of volumes and round turnings in dim aisles of books which waking hours never revealed to her, but which she knew, somehow, however the night went and for howsoever long she fled, were still always part of the Library. And, during her waking hours, she found herself ever more drawn to the Library as to a sanctuary. She was not, it was true, much presented with alternatives. For their own good reasons, neither Harry nor Ron seemed to have much time to spend with her that autumn. Harry had been withdrawn ever since summer: that she understood. And Ron's evident delight at making the Quidditch team at last, had driven him to a orgy of practice, which Harry had, unfairly and unexpectedly, decided to participate in with almost as much enthusiasm as Ron. So that when Harry was not sitting upstairs somewhere, he was frenetically practicing moves and passes on the Quidditch pitch. And she was left alone, again. Alone and dreaming. It was even before Halloween that it occurred to her that, rules aside, she could make yet another panicky check of the Library's strong points by night as well as on waking, at midday, and before supper. And it surprised her that she had not thought of doing so before. In the quiet of the nights the smooth cold flags were as velvet to her bare feet, and sometimes as she made her anxious sentry-go around the stacks she felt an evanescent caress across her furrowed brow, like the brief touch of a long-fingered hand upholstered in chamois leather. It was her domain. Her realm. Her sanctuary. During the Christmas vacation she discovered it had been a sanctuary for someone else before her. The wards protecting the hidden place within the second floor had been well crafted, but now the magic was starting to leak, creating small distortions in the air around them like the shimmer of petrol fumes above a hot summer road causing the world behind it to change. Once she knew that there was such a secret place, getting into it became a priority. It would be a strategic asset for her side when the attack on the Library came. It took time and skill, but she was over-gifted with both, and her need was very great. And after she had taken down the wards she recast them, working from the inside out. And, safe at last in a place where, at last, she felt able to sleep she stayed awake from choice, not fear. She wanted at first to learn about who had crafted this place so long ago. As moonlight or starlight bathed the Hogwarts grounds and her fellows slept, she used probing fingertips and every skill she had learned; every skill she had seen hints at in parchments she had read. The sanctuary revealed its ultimate secrets at last. In the end, too much information: a cache of fading photographs, a broken badge, a lost tie, part of a letter which had been started, but never sent. Colours, heraldically bright. Argent, vert, gules, or. Improperly quartered and cross-hatched together in that most secret of places. She knew, at last, who the two were who had come here once, and who had been parted at last by fear, and war, and death, but who had left an echo of a dream of sunlight in the Library. Too long alone, too embarrassed to pry further into secrets she knew she should never have known, and which were not something she could ever share (not with Harry - oh, God, never with Harry), her mind turned to the final things those two had left in this place. Plant samples - magically preserved for freshness - a strange plant, dubbed dreamweed by one of the young scientists, but previously, it seemed, non-descript (her researches were thorough on the point) and a description of a potion, concocted twenty years before. A description of a potion and of its effects. A potion which gave the power, it seemed, to dream true. She told herself that it was for the coming war, that it was inconceivably wrong that she should have the access to such a thing and not use it, not see if it could be used. Any weapon - any weapon at all which could help the Light stand longer against the assaults of the nameless evil. Anything she could create that could be pressed into service in defence of the Library was right, was necessary, was her bounden duty. And it was all true, but not wholly true. He had been sixteen, she worked out, when he devised it: a brilliant boy, clearly - and now, a bitter, twisted but still brilliant man. She recognised Snape's brilliance even as his bile made her want to vomit. His daily taunts had acquired almost the flavour of habit, now, but still she burned to show him, show him she could beat him on his own ground. She was that good. She knew it. Think of the potions she had brewed unaided before. Only give her the opportunity. New magical plants came less than once in three generations, but refining and perfecting the uses for known plants - it might take less courage to use them in the first place, but to do it right - ah, that - If the potion had been made - and the notes described its specific effects, so something at least had been made, and drunk, it seemed - and not persisted with, maybe there had been flaws. Maybe it would lie with her to correct them, to hand it to him, a flask of refined revenge, a distilled reply to five-years worth of assorted taunts. There was only one place to start. She studied. She brewed the Oneiros Potion. She drank it. And waited. <space> The dizziness induced by the potion dissipated, and Hermione woke to find herself sprawled on the smooth cold floor of the library. She was no longer alone. A slight girl with the face of the young Edie Sedgewick - as sketched by Botticelli, but as painted by Dali - was perched on the very edge of a high shelf, regarding her with interest but not surprise. "Have you seen my doggie?" The stranger had a high pitched, breathy, little girl's voice. She was dressed, Hermione noted vaguely, as though she was a refugee from a fancy-dress party themed around not being able to remember the Sixties. "I'm sorry?" "My doggie? I was talking to him only a week ago - I think it was a week - there are seven thingies in a week, aren't there? - and then I noticed he'd gone. I wondered if you'd perhaps seen him. Do you need a word for what day it is when you start off feeling yellow, and suddenly a great purple bit opens up right in the very middle?" Hermione looked down at the empty glass by her hand with sudden dubiety. Knowing who had been its deviser - and who had assisted him - it had not occurred to her to wonder if it might have been concocted simply for recreational purposes. The experimental notes on the parchment she had found - scientific, specific, above all dispassionate had caused her to overlook that possibility. The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. The girl smiled disconcertingly and said, "Perhaps I'll go and see my brother instead. He's very good at finding things. He'll find you, you know. Do you want to be found or do you prefer finding him? Or do you want me to choose? Unless you say, I will tell him if I remember. What's that word for when you think you know somebody, and all along it turns out you've been talking to someone you don't know at all?" Without a pause, she was suddenly not there. Hermione pulled herself to her feet and set off through the library. There was a book she must find, she knew. It would be important for the war. If only I knew why. Or the author. Or the title. The stacks moved onwards, endlessly. There were, it seemed, others in there with her; always on the outer edges of her vision; a brief glimpse of a tall man with pointy ears, gone when she turned round. An impression of orange-brown hair, brighter even than Ron's, and far more plentiful. A sound of sobbing, of something lost on the edge of knowledge, with millennia of exile in its voice. Brief glimpses of people she thought she knew, always with their backs to her, always moving away. She took to turning more swiftly as she heard noises, but the things behind her pulled out of sight even more quickly. She had passed out of the realm where she walked on stone, into one where she walked on polished oak. She had almost stopped taking books at random out of the shelves; she recognised some authors, no titles. In one supremely disconcerting moment she had spotted her mother's maiden name as the author on one book and she had taken it down only to replace it less than a page later, blushing in horrified fascination. And overcome with a wild surmise. I would desperately like to read more. Panting sounded suddenly behind her, with an accompanying scrabble of blunt claws. She spun faster this time, and the large black dog - caught full in her accusing glare - skidded to a halt, its tongue lolling, looking up at her in a would-be winning fashion. If a dog could do so, this one radiated embarrassment. Who, me? Surely not. You must be thinking of some other mutt. Hermione's eyes widened. "Sirius? Snuffles?" The dog yawned, its whole body a picture of frenetic laziness. "Not me. Not on this plane, at any event. If they ask for my name here, I'm known as Barnabas. Don't forget it." At the sound of its would-be bored, perfectly human tones emerging from its Alsatian/Labrador features - and it did sound exactly like Harry's godfather, she thought rebelliously - she took a step back, fetching up against the bookshelf. The dog somehow managed to arrange muzzle and ears into an attitude of patient tolerance, putting its head on one side, and moving a paw up to brush the side of its jaw plaintively. "Though, you might not be wrong. Azkaban certainly has soft borders with the realms of Delirium and Despair. Not to mention Death's realm. Not that his Lordship's big sister needs any soft places. She makes her own ways through, that one." The dog paused; trying to look crafty, but merely, Hermione thought, looking rather as though it had stolen the remains of the Sunday joint, and was hoping to bluff things out. "Mind you - but don't tell them I said so - if one were looking for a place to send your sanity, to keep it safe until it was needed again - you could do a lot worse than getting it through to the Lady Del's realm. No-one would go looking for it there, now, would they?" The dog paused again. "You wouldn't happen to have seen her, by any chance - ? Small, looks young, bit of a fruitcake. And her brother asked me, himself, to keep an eye on her. Specially." Hermione gulped. "I met a girl who'd lost her dog," she admitted. The dog looked sardonic. "I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow." Hermione drew a deep breath, but she was not about to be bested in conversation that easily. "I think, somehow, we're probably talking about the same person." "Ah. Good. So we understand each other. Which way - ?" She shrugged, helplessly. "She said she was off to look for her brother. That he was good at finding things." The dog barked, once, and dashed off; the very picture of canine enthusiasm. She shrugged, and turned another corner. Somehow, she had at last reached a sunlit part of the library. The walls as well as the floors were oak - there were bays with mullioned windows looking out over tranquil parkland, bathed in the July heatwave of a perfect English summer, loaded with drugged humming of bees and occasional fleeting snatches of birdsong: but no distant traffic rumble, or white contrails in the serene blue of the sky. It struck her, at the back of her mind, somewhere suitably inconsequential, that she had drunk the potion near midnight, and surely so much time could not have passed. In the afternoon we came unto a land where it was always afternoon. "Hermione! You got here at last!" At the sound of her name she turned. In the window seat in the adjoining library bay a dark haired, black-clothed girl apparently a couple of years older than herself put down her book. Hermione noted title and author automatically: The Return of Casmilus, by Stevie Smith, not one she'd come across. Though it made sense. Someone dressed like that would be almost bound to be reading Satre or Plath or someone like that. It was amazing, really, that it was someone as accessible as Smith. The girl came towards her, smiling. With a pang, Hermione wondered what it would be like to be able to achieve effortless cool. Even though she'd never considered adopting the Goth look before. Hermione, aware she was gawping inelegantly, shut her mouth hurriedly, and the girl's smile widened; no malice, in it, though. I have no female friends she thought with a sudden
inner wail, rapidly followed by: "Oook!" The howl of primeval rage seemed to come from no-where, and everywhere. The black-clad girl, still smiling, raised a bare arm clasped with antique and elaborate silver bracelets. As if frozen in time, a red-brown, skinny, muscular arm, swinging aggressively at the girl's face from behind a bookcase stopped in mid-air. "Ook?" Even Hermione could detect the air of reproach in that monosyllable. The dark girl's expression was one of deep reasonableness. "No. Yes, of course I can. Normally, I just choose not to. Substitutions are highly irregular, and rarely end well. As you are well-read enough to know." "Oook." The other speaker was, it appeared, unconvinced. The dark haired girl continued, unmoved. "In this case, however, your offer is quite irrelevant. This time I am here only to give advice. Though, since you seem in a self-sacrificing mood, I wouldn't say no to a somewhat under-ripe banana, if you happened to have one going spare." The previously immobile fur-clad arm vanished suddenly behind the bookcase. The black clad girl lifted an arm, lazily, and plucked the thrown fruit out of the air from behind her without looking, peeled, and bit into it. "Thank you. And if you should see Lucien, might I ask you to tell him that my brother should be informed that he seems to have an unannounced visitor to the Dreaming?" Hermione, unexpectedly, felt moved to speak. "I met someone else - who said she was going to tell her brother I was here - if she remembered - " The other raised her eyebrows. "You've seen Del? She called on me earlier - I understand she's lost her dog - again - ?" It would not have occurred to Hermione, earlier, that it could have been possible to smile in this world. "I've seen the dog. He seems to be on the case." "Ah? Good." The girl retreated back to the window-seat, and patted it invitingly. Before she knew why, she was sitting next to her, and the Goth girl had drawn up her knees, confidingly. Ah. Invitation to girl-talk. I see. Now - how does it go? It was, however, the stranger who spoke first. "I know who you are fleeing from. And I hold the book you seek." Briefly, her hand - fingers elegantly bound with fluidly crafted silver rings - gestured towards the floor in front of them. Hermione stretched out her hand towards the volume she saw resting there. It sang to her - it sang along the capillaries of her body - it was bound in light - She could never, in any circumstances, resist a book. It had been the family joke for years that in strange cities other members of the family would keep a sharp look-out for approaching bookshops, and cross the street and talk loudly in order to get Hermione unknowing past and on to their intended destination without the several hours delay entailed by her actually being allowed to enter such a place. She knew, even as she stretched a reverent hand out towards the volume, that this was not permitted. Not allowed. But even to touch it - She picked it up, felt its welcome weight across her knees, delicately opened it. Her breath was coming hard and fast. The pages whirled up at her. She could not read. Not, she noted even through her screaming panic, that her mind's voice was saying: "I cannot read this". She had seen texts in Ancient Icelandic, Mediaeval French, demotic Greek. Hebrew. Ancient Runes. Goblin scripts. For all of those, she had said: "I cannot read this. Yet." And she had, inevitably, assumed that eventually, if she needed, she would be able to command the skills which would unlock comprehension. Not here. Not ever. Not no way. Not never. It had been not been until her second year, when she heard Harry at the Duelling Club address a cobra in syllables of hissing incomprensibility, that it occurred to her that there might be languages she might not be able to learn, whatever the effort needed. And now a book - written language, this time - had betrayed her in the same way. The first tear hit the open page before she snapped the covers shut in an instinctive, protective gesture. She sobbed inconsolably for some time before it became apparent that a lace-edged white handkerchief was being held out to her. She took it and snuffled inelegantly, before looking up. "That's - such an exhibition I've made of myself. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The other looked at her, serenely, dispassionately. "No. I am sorry. That is not a book any mortal can read. I am - sorry. I did not realise how closely a mortal might come. To being able to read it. In their longing to be able to read it. Or how much that gulf might hurt." No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a You don't know, do you? Who are you, anyway? The dark-clad girl's voice was light, reflective. "The fates of stars often hangs on a hair's breadth." And then the Goth girl - who was, it seems, not a Goth after all, nor a girl, slid an arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she leaned, inevitably, it seemed, into the reassurance, and the Goth girl whispered in her ear; "You need to get some sleep. You've been having too many late nights, you know. Not good for you. Trust me, you need your sleep. You need your dreams. But before that, I said I would give you some advice." Hermione's eyes widened. In the irises and pupils of the other there were galaxies strewn with stars. And with pity. "I know who you flee from. And you should know this, for you will be asked to stand before him and defy him before the end. Whatever they say of him, he is both less wise and less brave than you." The deep contralto purred in her ear. "Do you want to know why?" Dumbly, she nodded. "He fears to see me. To look me in the eye. The whole purpose of his life is to avoid that moment. And he will fail." It was not a threat. It was a statement of the unquestionable, as if it might occur to water to say one day: I am wet. There was amusement in the contralto purr now. "And when we meet, he will realise then that for all his efforts, he has done no better or no worse than anyone else. He will have had a lifetime from me. No more. No less." There was another voice, far above her head. For a moment, she thought it was Professor Snape's venomous purr. But it was even more beautiful than that, and it had at least an echo of charity in it. "Sister? I did not expect to see you in my realm at this time." The lithe figure, who moved like a rock star who expected hear the homage of stadia merely by stepping on stage, who moved with all the aura of a God on earth, dressed simply in black jeans and T-shirt, had an unearthly pale-skinned dark-haired beauty, and his eyes - oh God, those eyes - Red eyes had dominated her nightmares, and these eyes were not red. These eyes were what one saw, late at night, looking out of a train window, when the bright reflections of the carriage on the glass of the window had become intolerable, and the only way of finding any sense of the outside was to find the twin spots on the glass where the dark pits of one's own eyes were reflected, and look out through those. They were black holes through which one could see the world. And in their dark heart blazed supernovas. The tall figure moved through the library and sat down at the table in the bay. The Goth girl emitted a giggle, sitting up straight, disengaging her comforting arm from Hermione's shoulder. "In the first place, I dropped by to borrow a book." Her hand indicated the volume - bookmarked, Hermione was startled to see, with one of the faded Muggle photographs she had discovered in the secret place. In this one, the girl's red-tawny hair was being blown into a storm about her face, obscuring everything except her brilliant green eyes, and the broad, adoring smile aimed straight at the photographer. "She dedicated all the other ones to me. One way or the other. Except this one. This she dedicated to you. I wanted to see how it might be different." "And?" The amusement in both voices was deeper now. "The one she dedicated to you was more respectful. Might she have been nervous? After all, after sleep one wakes up. And will have to face the night again." "I see. Well, sister, what did you have to say to the little witch? She is in my domain, after all. Surely I should have had the first opportunity to speak with her?" "I gave her some good advice." "She will not remember it on waking. They don't, you know." "True. But they always know it anyway. Sometimes they are able to remember that they know it. And perhaps it may make a difference this time. He defies me, brother." "And in what he calls his mind, even in sleep, he shuts out me, too. He dare not dream, in case he sees the shadow of you, sister. Tell me, have you ever before met anyone so frightened of you?" Those eyes that were infinitely beautiful but still, in no sense of the world, eyes were troubled. The bright dark eyes of the Goth Girl were easy to meet by comparison. "Plenty. But this one is determined and has some talents. And draws others to him: otherwise one might just let him have long life, and ask him at the end what he'd made of it. But this one thinks to overturn me altogether. It will hurt them all. It may take some time." "But what of the little witch?" "She wants to know of a book she was searching for, that she found and could not read." "Really?" The Goth girl slid a book bound in light across the table. Hermione emitted a small, wordless whimper. The voice was troubled, compassionate, firm. "You should not have seen this. Not have known it existed." Her lips were dry. Nevertheless, in the face of the Lord of the library - who was, it appeared, also Lord of Dreams, she was brave enough to tell him what she thought. "I wanted to read this. I wanted to see if it would help in the war." "Wanted? Little witch, by being here you threaten the very fabric of the Dreaming. He you fear, wishes to bind my sister. And we of the Endless can be bound. And were she bound, death itself would stop. Imagine the cancer patient - your father, mother, husband, screaming with the pain of the tumour that drugs have failed, and time itself will not stop. Imagine the soldier on the battlefield, contemplating his own spilled guts for years on end. That is what you risk by your meddling. That is what your enemy seeks. So why, with your spells and little potions, do you seek to trouble the Endless? There are rules upon you; restrictions and boundaries for your own safety." Her lips were still dry. She passed a dry tongue over them, and spoke, nonetheless. They were not her own words, but they would do, she thought. "I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself the king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Those things that were not eyes looked down on her, still with compassion in them. His power, however, she felt building against her to screaming pitch. It sounded in her soul. "HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT, LITTLE WITCH, HOW IT MIGHT BE TO BE BOUNDED IN A NUTSHELL, AND NOT BE ABLE TO DREAM AT ALL?" The impact in her mind made her reel. Still she sought to counter it. "Have you ever thought how it might be to be mortal?" There was a pause which hung in the air of the hall. She was not sure it was a good sign. But before the Dream Lord could respond, another voice put in. "Lord Morpheus. I ask you to forgive the girl. She is my student, and sometimes her arrogance about her talents outweighs her discretion." And that makes the difference between us what, exactly, Professor Snape? The Potions Master stood behind her, the anger outweighing the fear on his face. As she turned, he moved smoothly, so he was now face to face with the Dream Lord. The Dream Lord ignored the implied challenge. "That potion - should never have been created. The bounds between the realms of the Endless and the waking world are there for a reason. If it had not been for watchful eyes upon her - my librarian, Lucien, for one - she might have come to serious harm. And she does not leave my realm unscathed, as it is. She will carry with her a lasting regret, and longing." His eyes dropped to the book bound in light, and Hermione felt the prick of tears behind her eyelids. "I am sorry, my Lord. I lay her foolishness at my door. The potion was - flawed. And I should never have left the notes where the foolhardy might stumble upon them. I offer them to you, for destruction." Snape held out a familiar bundle of parchment. On the top leaf of it Hermione recognised her own handwriting. And beneath it the four copies she had made, for safety. The tattered edge of the oldest one, the one she had found in the Library, protruded from the base of the pile. "And what about the other one?" The deep voice had a warning edge - the Potions Master looked up, his face twisting. "The other one?" "Twenty years ago I was imprisoned. The Dreaming began - in my absence - to crumble. Without that, the potion could not have had the effects it did. But what of the other little witch? When I returned to my realm and started to set it to rights, I felt a touch of something that had been, and was now no longer. She had already started to create shared dreams. I felt them, and destroyed them as I needed. But you could have destroyed more than that. You were within a hairsbreadth of creating a Vortex, wizard." Hermione, suddenly, found herself unable to look at Snape. The pain and self-loathing in his face was too apparent. "I see you understand what I mean. It need not take either great evil or great purpose to destroy the world, wizard. Remember it. But take your pupil. Take her back to the waking world." <space> Lucien had discreetly shown me out before his Lord's attention might be drawn to my presence in his Library - it has always been tacitly understood between us that the traditional freedom of librarians to wander where they will in L-space flourishes better for his Lordship's apparent ignorance of it. From my concealment in the Restricted Section I saw them safely return - sleepwalking through to the threshold of the Library; falling down and curling in slumber before they passed beyond its bounds. I saw them being gathered up gently, and carried elsewhere to have their sleep out. I waited for days to see her come back to the Library; subdued, but no longer shadowy eyed. I see her from time to time. Lucien tells me he does so too. We both know what book she goes looking for, sometimes. The book that contains the Word. The book no mortal can read. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. She will be a librarian, that one. If the war spares her. If the war spares any of them. And the books know her touch, respond to her presence, are calmer for her passing by them (not at night, though. Not any more.). But she will be a librarian. She loves truly, and has never been forsworn. For the Word is what we librarians dream of, and what we see in our waking hours is a pale shadow of our dreams. The End Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to their owners/creators/copyright holders. This fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights. |
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