Something Interesting

Poppy’s footsteps were the only sound as she meandered through the air ducts. Every now and then she’d pass by an opening and peer through to see what room lay beyond. She’d already mapped out the entirety of the royal wing, and had slowly begun verging towards the main body of the castle.

It was a large building, and Poppy was pretty sure the guestrooms alone reached the hundred mark. It was obvious how the quality of rooms slowly deteriorated the further away from the royal wing she went. That morning she’d been observing the most beautiful and intricately lavish chambers. Now the rooms were singular and modest, yet never distasteful.

Even the lowest quality rooms on the opposite side of the castle were neat and pretty in a plain way. These were the quarters of the castle staff, as well as guards who were no longer required to sleep in the barracks.

Once castle guards reached a certain position, they were given the opportunity to choose different lodging, as sleeping with half a dozen other men in the same room was not a particularly tantalizing idea. Poppy was a light sleeper, something she knew from sharing a sleepspace with her siblings as a child. Her youngest brother had been a snorer, and it never failed to stir Poppy from her dreams.

It wasn’t often that Poppy thought about her family. The fonder the memories, the more painful they were to bear. She preferred to reminisce about the more distasteful events of her childhood; it made living her everyday life far simpler. Poppy found that surviving was easier fueled by rage rather than sadness. So she remained angry and bitter.

As time went on, however, she began to forget certain things. Like the way her brother’s hands shook after he woke from a nightmare, or how her sister’s eyelashes were long enough to leave stark shadows across her pale cheekbones. They way her father lost his temper over the fall of a hat, or the look of disappointment written across her mother’s face.

Two years ago and just the thought of them would have made Poppy’s lip wobble, but now all she felt was grim remembrance. It seemed time really did heal all wounds, even if there was still an ache where the knife had pierced.

Poppy sighed and squatted in front of a vent set into the wall. Well, this was interesting. It seemed she found the library.

Countless darkwood bookcases formed rows upon rows of paper and dust. The cases themselves were high enough to require a ladder, and some of the books were thick enough for Poppy to read the titles all the way from her vantage point. Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and they would have been the perfect picture of luxury had they not been covered with clustered strands of cobwebs.

It seemed she was on the far wall from the entrance, but it was difficult to tell since the library was so grand. She could hardly see past the bookcases to see where the library began.

There was no one in sight, but Poppy made sure to wait for several minutes. Assessing the coast was clear, she began to cast the humming spell which would allow her to float to the floor unharmed. While making the descent, she made sure to hold down on her shirt, lest it come pulling upward.

Today she was wearing a loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirt the color of fresh grass. Her trousers were a bit short, coming up to her mid-calves, but they fit just about everywhere else. Poppy could hardly complain about her ill-fitting wardrobe when the prince had gone out of his way to procure it for her. However, recently he’d been asking her why she hadn’t been wearing any of the dresses, and she had no excuse to give, save for the fact that she didn’t enjoy the cold breeze which accompanied skirts.

This was something men were entirely unfamiliar with, unfortunately, so Poppy was forced to educate the prince. When she explained the chilly uncomfortableness of wearing a dress he stopped asking her to wear one. That shut him up, she thought smugly.

Although it was the middle of summer, the castle was made almost entirely of stone, so it kept fairly cool even on the hottest of days. However, this also meant that during the wintertime, it was downright freezing and practically inhospitable. Of course, Poppy’s guestroom had been uninhabited, besides herself, so there hadn’t been a roaring fireplace to keep her warm. She typically survived the winters by making her own small fires, using heating spells, or simply bundling up beneath blankets.

Just remembering last winter made her feel chilly, and she absentmindedly wrapped her arms around herself. Hopefully I’ll still be in the prince’s chambers around that time. Poppy paused her thoughts. When had she begun to plan on staying with the prince for so long? She shook her head.

The library was even larger when looking up from the hardwood. It was almost dizzying, to glimpse up from one of the aisles and see apparently endless books stacked all the way to the ceiling. Poppy was forced to crane her neck in order to see them all.

While Elven Lore and Magic certainly had a large assemblage of various spells, it seemed to lack the more advanced incantations for higher-level magic. To Poppy’s dismay, she recently read the author’s biography located in the back of the book, and as it turned out, the author was no elf but a giant who studied elves. It had been a highly disappointing moment for her.

Poppy had to give the author credit, though. For a man who could not practice magic, he surely knew a thing or two about beginner and intermediate spells. It was due to his lack of magic, however, that he was unaware of the more complex, even arcane, spells.

She tapped her lips as she observed the leather-bound books. It appeared she was in the medicinal herbs section, which was useful in its own right but also not what she was looking for. How advanced of a spell book would be in a library meant for the magickless? It appeared Poppy would soon find out.

While she doubted she’d find anything on the arcane, it would be useful to find a text more intermediate. Since Poppy had nothing else to do but practice magic all day, she’d mastered most of the beginner spells already. Well, the useful ones at least.

Poppy wasn’t going to remember every last incantation, especially when some of them ranged from reducing the size of one’s fingernails to making the sun appear less bright for fifteen seconds. The prior could be solved with a pair of nail clippers, and the latter with sunglasses.

Useless spells, those. Not to mention, a waste of pixie dust. At this rate, Poppy was going to run dry. Her stomach already had multiple cut marks across it. Sometimes she was too tired after a day of magicking to heal herself, and the one spell she found that worked on open wounds required to be used within thirty minutes of the incident.

To be frank, some of the minute details with these spells pissed Poppy off. But there had to be balance in the world, so nothing could ever be easy. This was why Poppy gave her blood, after all. Or her spit.

Since the library was relatively empty, Poppy spent a large portion of the day wandering through its twists and turns. She found it relatively out of order, the names unorganized and the shelves themselves untidy. Several times Poppy found herself so irked with the situation of a shelf that she cast a brief strengthening charm on herself to quickly tidy up the books it held.

After doing this for a third time, she found herself quite exhausted, so she decided it would be fine for her to take a quick rest. The prince would be returning to his chambers in about three hours, so she had plenty of time for a short nap.

Poppy found a cozy little alcove to rest in, a spot hidden between two shelves in the corner. The ground was hard and the alcove a bit dusty, but Poppy was used to such things and sleep found her quickly. Little did she realize that staying up late the night prior, playing blackjack with the prince, would cause her to sleep for much longer than she’d intended.

It was one of those naps which can leave a person entirely disorientated and unaware of their surroundings once they wake up. Poppy sat up in a half-dazed worry, hair askew and having absolutely no idea of where she was. It wasn’t until she emerged from her hidden napping area that she remembered her place and that it felt like some time had passed since she’d fallen asleep.

“I need to find a clock,” she muttered to herself, eyes bleary. She used the heels of her hands to wipe her eyes and glimpsed around.

The library still appeared empty, although the lighting was slightly different. The massive windows which overlooked the courtyard were a distance away from Poppy’s alcove, yet it was obvious they were letting in far less light than before her nap.

“Shit,” she sighed and deliberately stretched a crick out of her back. Had the floor always left her this uncomfortable? Or had using one of the prince’s down-stuffed pillows as a bed for the past several weeks left her soft and demanding of comfort?

Poppy gritted her teeth and hurried back in the direction of the air vent, or what she thought had been the correct direction. After several minutes, she discovered she was certainly not going in the correct direction, as she was in the literary prose section, or at least a jumbled version of it. It seemed all the books on these shelves simply had poetic names, even if their contents weren’t for enjoyment at all.

She knew for a fact that A Fateful Night was not a collection of love stories but rather a scientist’s grim recollection of the night he lost his index finger to an acidic experiment gone wrong. Poppy humorously wondered what the author would have thought, to see his bleak warning to fellow scientists on the importance of lab safety in the romanticism section.

Despite the circumstance she was in, Poppy couldn’t help but snort. It seemed the giants weren’t huge fans of books, much less knew anything about fiction. She hadn’t spotted a single giant since she entered the library, and she wasn’t so sure if she should feel thankful anymore. It was quite sad, really.

It seemed the prince was the only giant she knew of who could enjoy literature, that is if he truly read all those novels in his sitting room.

Poppy continued her search for the air vent she entered through. She found other vents, of course, but these wouldn’t have her marking spells nearby to lead her back from where she came. It’d be great to be in the safety of the air ducts once again, but there would be no point if she couldn’t find her way back to the prince’s chambers. She’d end up trudging through the vents all night, unable to find her way back through the stone maze.

She passed another section and something called out to her from the end of a long, old shelf. A light-blue book with simple, white writing: Magick for the Predisposed.

This book was not like any other, because it felt as if it were literally calling to Poppy. Oftentimes in the world of magic, like would call to like, and perhaps this book had a spell cast upon it to do just this. Merely glancing at the baby-blue spine caused tingles to flitter from Poppy’s toes, all the way to the roots of her hair. This book sung to her.

It was even conveniently placed on the bottom shelf. Was this what people called fate? Because it certainly felt like it.

Poppy peered towards the windows but could no longer see them, nor the light they offered. Standing directly beneath a wall candelabra with golden light radiating from it, she could only guess at the time.

She looked at the book. Well, since it seemed she would already be late, it couldn’t hurt to stay and read a few spells. Besides, it wasn’t like she was committing a crime. If the prince found out she was traversing through the air ducts and spying on people, well, he’d just have to deal with it.

Poppy used the strengthening charm to yank the book from its place, and when she touched it, her fingertips tingled as if shocked with mild electricity. She let it fall to the ground, and it landed open on a page. Seeing as it was a magical book, Poppy sensed she’d better read whatever contents these two pages held.

The book had opened in the potions section, and there were three different recipes listed on these pages with varying ingredients as well as effects. One in particular caught Poppy’s eye.

“A love potion?” she smirked. She hadn’t thought those were real, just mythical tales spun by shady peddlers and greasy sorcerers. But it appeared this book actually held a recipe for such a thing.

Poppy scrunched her nose at the ingredients. Frog’s tongue was on the list, as well as several unsavory roots and herbs. It seemed love potions weren’t made from rose petals and virtue, as the tales had claimed.

The next potion was called dhormir, and it allowed the person who drank it to see clearly at night as if it were broad daylight. It lasted for twelve hours, which was far longer than any spell would grant. This was one of the main differences between spells and potions; potions lasted far longer because they lingered in the bloodstream, unlike spells which only brushed the surface of a person or object.

The last potion was one called vnuembr, and this was the most interesting one of them all. Poppy analyzed the ingredients with great interest, valuing how difficult it would be to gather each and every item. It wasn’t impossible, but it certainly wouldn’t be easy.

After reading the recipe in its entirety, Poppy decided this had definitely been the potion this book meant for her to find. She lightly patted the pages in thanks because she had no idea how else to show her gratitude. The book didn’t respond and Poppy blushed for having petted an inanimate object.

Well, Poppy certainly had an objective now. She wasn’t sure when exactly she’d need such a potion, but it simply appeared too entertaining to overlook. Poppy grinned to herself.

She imagined the look upon the prince’s face if he were to see her not the mere height of a pixie, but the size of a giant like himself. He’d probably turn a stark shade of white and maybe even grey. She snickered at the thought of it.

Vnuembr was a transmogrifying potion, one which specifically increased the size of the drinker. With some simple math, the person brewing it would be able to calculate how much of each ingredient they’d need in order to achieve the size they wished.

Very interesting indeed.