[[ From The Enfolding Abyss: Prologue ]]

The first time she visited the Great Library, it was with her grandmother.  Soleil was old enough to navigate the directories at will, and Celeste watched with a benign smile.  She was allowed to create a tableful of stacks according to childish whim, though not all for children – pretty, neat sounding, nice seeming, interesting, linked.  She discovered at least five books which were listed, but not available.

There’s one she can recall, of which she has still not seen the inside.  She wondered about it.  Its title included the word, Movements.  She’d been sure it was beyond her reading level at the time, but that was how she challenged herself – picking up something that lay outside her realm of understanding.  It meant she might gain something, that she would grow up a little.  With certainty, that was something she wanted to do.

The Vedani didn’t have books.  They had cords, trunks, and netbranches bearing a never-ceasing flow of words that one arranged oneself, with focus.  She missed the feel of a tome, but perhaps that meant no book was ever closed, or missing.