Chapter Three The Library

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Jack's P.o.v

I stare in shock as the field around me turn into a valley that Snow and I stood at a cliff and stared at the beauty before me. The valley was surrounded by four waterfalls pouring down into rivers and lakes into the valley bellow the wall surrounding covered in greenery and caves where god knows where what lives in there. On the floor of the valley there is miles upon miles of forest and fields all connected by rivers. If I looked hard enough I could even see some horses in one of the fields although I didn't need to look hard to see the groups of birds flying everywhere. In the center of the valley was a huge and a beautiful castle made of some sort of of stone of maybe even marble, There were four Bridges one of which was painted in reds, browns and gold, all leading to the platform(?) that the castle sat upon from the tops of the valley which not to mention, was also surrounded in forest for as far as the eye could see.

Before I could look around more Snow had suddenly reared back onto his hide legs and quickly grabbed onto his mane shouting "Snow what are you doing!"

The horse obviously didn't respond and he took a couple steps back on his hind legs before launching himself over the edge which resulted in a scream from me. My heart was racing hundred miles a minute as I desperately clung to Snows back so I didn't fly off. Before I could freak out more though we suddenly stopped and when I hesitantly sat up a bit as I realized that we were gliding towards the platform which I can now see is covered in flowers and fountains that looked like the stone or marble is a natural formation, not created by people. I gasped slightly when I heard the sound of wings and the gust of air pull on my legs. When I carefully look back I see two large white feathered wings glistening like freshly fallen snow in the sun. I let out a small gasp in shock as I stare in awe wondering how this is possibly real and not just a dream.

As we descend I see someone rushing out of the castle entrance without running rushing to where Snow was landing. As he landed I could see that person was indeed Liru who for the first time since I met her, was not wearing her cloak and was wearing a wine red button up blouse with a ruffle and black dress pants and 'god she looks gorgeous'. I quickly hopped of Snow before he was even fully knelt and before I could gain a proper footing she tackled me in a hug shouting, "Jack!" knocking us both to the floor.

I let out an oof as I hit the floor with her landing on top of me with a small yipe. We look at each-other for a second and I can feel my cheeks heating up before she giggled and got up pulling me with her.

"It's good to see you again Πυγολαμπίς." She says with a smile on her face as she walks in front of Snow who hand bowed his head down as she began to pet his snout.

"I trust Snow treated you well?" She said running a hand along his snout looking just as comically small next to him as she does next to Stella.

"Yeah, gave me quiet a scare a minute ago but other than that, he's been great." I see her smile and my heart stutters for a second with my cheeks turning pink.

"Good." Her voice held an amused tone and she held up a red apple that I remember being a Honey-crisp apple, that she seemingly pulled out of nowhere, which Snow happily ate. I cocked my head slightly wondering where she pulled it from because she didn't have a sack on her nor were any of the pockets big enough to hold an apple that size. Before my mind could ponder on it anymore Liru's voice brought me out of it.

"Stella's in the field, she's waiting for you." I look at her in confusion and before I can ask what she meant, Snow had let out a small whinny and had turned around and took off running before his 'wings' appeared and he took off into the air and made a sharp turn around towards the field before disappearing from view.

"So," I quickly turned to her and she had a kind smile on her face as she spoke, "I bet you have a lot of questions." I just nod and she hooks one of her arms with one of mine and I can't help but smile at the familiar action.

"Well then we lets eat first. I'll answer you questions." She pulls me inside with a smile and I can't help but look around at the architecture. The entrance was a large room with two staircases, one going up and the other, below the first, was going down. Around the large room, which might I add seemed to be larger than a house from the village, three doors that couldn't possibly lead to anywhere and they were all made out of some sort of wood and they were all painted different colors mainly reds and browns. The ones I could see properly had gold symbols on them, one was painted a deep blood red with a stack of books in gold with the only spine with words on it said βιβλιοθήκη which if I remember correctly means 'Library' and the other was a dark brown with a plate that had Τραπεζαρία on it following the circle but I'm not sure what it means.

"So would you like to go the long way or the short way?" I look at her confused before replying although it sounded more like a question, "The short way?" She just giggles and says, "Alrighty then, lets go."

She pulls me over to the dark brown door with the plate on it and opened revealing a large dinning room and to be honest I didn't pay attention to the room I was more focused on the food that was covering the table. There were three different types of meats on the table, ham, fish and chicken along with bread and some greens and ham and potato soup along with a gravy for the ham and chicken, and last but not least was the chocolate cake in the center of it all. I could hear my stomach growling and Liru giggling at it which caused my face to heat up.

"Well," I hear her say from beside me, "eat up." I feel myself get exited and rush over to the table immediately grabbing one of the bowls of soup and a plate to put some meat and sat down in one of the chairs before digging in. I ate pretty quickly before moving on to the next thing to eat and I noticed that Liru was sitting across from me with a smile on her face as she ate slowly while watching me. My face heated up as I tried to sink into the chair. "S-sorry."

"It's no problem Jack, I know what it's like being that hungry. Just try not to choke, Okay?" I nods slightly and dig into the food again eating as much as I can before finishing feeling fuller than I ever had in my life.

"You fully finally?" Her tone is light but I can hear the laughter she's hiding. I nod a bit leaning back into the comfy chair. "Yeah, thank you it was really good."

"It's no problem my Πυγολαμπίς." I blush at that and sink a little into the chair when she calls me that, feeling my heart flutter. She wipes her mouth with the napkin before standing up and grabbing two plates and putting slices of cake on them and a fork on each plate.

"Now," She says turning to me "Lets go to the library while we eat the cake and you can ask your questions there. Okay?" I nod dragging myself up and she hands me a plate.

"No eating until we get our selves situated." I pout but take the plate trying to ignore the rising blush at her small laugh. I follower her out the door and too the one that said 'Library' in Greek and pushed it open revealing the library to be lit only by candles and probably fifteen feet high book shelves going as far as the eye can see. One thing I noticed as I walked in was that there aren't any ladders to reach the books on the higher shelves nor anything else to step on or climb up.

"Why is it so dark in here?" I can't help but ask as she leads me through what seems like a maze of book shelves that I noticed also had little trinkets on the shelves as well and I swear I saw something watching me and Liru from the upper shelves and I could feel a headache forming the longer I'm in the castle but seems to get worse in here like the thing was freaking out, afraid of the knowledge in these books.

"What do you mean?

"Well this place only seems to be lit by lanterns and candles, and there doesn't seem to be any windows either. Why is that?" I ask as we get to one of the corners and I see that there is a 'fireplace?' that instead of a chimney there were just more books and bottles filled with softly glowing liquids of some sort. Along with the fireplace(?) there were two comfortable looking love seats both burgundy red and small dark brown wooden table in the middle of them as they're both turned part way to the fireplace.

"Oh I more often than not prefer to read like this but the upper level is all light, maybe I can show you soon." She sets her plate down on the table sitting in one of the love seats sprawling her legs out as I sit in the other one also putting my plate on the table.

"Now that we are both situated, lets hear those questions."