A wooden sheet unfurled from the desk leg, peeling away the marks, and leaving the leg unbranded, like new. With the sheath rose the beads, holding onto the symbol and their glow. They merged in the air, the glow overpowering my sight as they joined. When things came back into focus, I was left with pages bound by that same thread I used for the necklet. How that joined the commotion I did not know.

Now there was more words I didn’t know, and more diagrams, all decorating pulpy white pages, wound firmly together.

A character was weird enough but a book I couldn’t read, or even learn to read felt wrong. When Velma taught us languages she did several in succession, forcing us to load up on vocabulary so we could effectively translate as soon as possible. Reading in those scripts was something we would do for ourselves. Books were like proofs to the languages, giving definition and meaning to the their abstract. But now this book just felt like a question. It was the culmination of more craft than I’d seen in fourteen years of my life. I didn’t even know what could or couldn’t happen, let alone what I should or shouldn’t do with it.

For a second, I tempted the idea of leaving it be, leaving it for Velma, playing ignorant or lying my way out of being involved. Not much time later though my hands were back to licking the pages. I was more cautious now though, I didn’t want to ruin any. If Velma wanted to keep this book a secret, I couldn't quite guarantee I mattered more than its concealment. Especially if it involved more craft.

The book started with a couple dozen pages, each with only a few lines in their centre. After there were hundreds of diagrams in the book. They contained figures similar to the meditator. However, this time the poses all showed actions, sometimes a succession of diagrams and captions showing a movement and sometimes a single diagram with walls of text surrounding it. It looked like an art form, like some of the dances I’d seen by circus folk during festivals. Powerful poses demonstrating skill and practice, just much more elegant, even more of a dance. I could even see the poses acted out. Individually they looked sharp, controlled. But thinking of some of them together, back to back, I could see a warrior dancing into enemy lines and playing them like a flute.

The Gramians were old buried languages. The kind spoken when the Avatar conquered our lands. I’d see hints of them in some books, maybe a character or a short passage, but never full scripts of it like this. It was frustrating. Who knew what the book said. My hopes were many but they all just really came down to something useful. Something that could me see more than just the quite of Tomav in this life. Noticing my grip start to bore into the page, I took a few slow breaths to calm down.

I would have to learn the language? There were not many books I had seen involving a gramian hand. It’d be harder still to find any teaching it. Then again, there were still parts of the tomes I had yet to really read, there were just too many books.

If this was one of the cities tomes there’d be a section dedicated to each hand. Probably experts of the tongues too. I wanted to see it, at least to see how wide things really were. When you are stuck in the same place for too long, that becomes your world.

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Boosh! The room was thrown into light along with the slamming of the entrance door.

Flames. Was it lunar? She'd never come through the doorway though, and the slam was too abrasive for Velma. I didn’t waste time looking. I clamped the book shut, hurrying to chuck it into the drawer. But I was too slow.

“Over there Jiren! The boy,”

I turned from the desk and froze. Two giants in black, both built like boulders and large enough to tower the book stalls, had entered. Neither of their faces or skins were exposed. One of them I wasn't even sure was a man, even his eyes were hidden by the black of his robe. But the other carried a sinister aura and wicked green eyes.

Green eyes and all black. It was the guy that fought the ascetic. Why would he come to the Tomes?

I wanted to scream. Or run. Or hide. But I couldn’t even bring myself to blink.

There was a brief second were Jiren, the black brute, nodded and I stood stuck staring, not even able to think. All I could hear was my heart pounding.

Fwoosh. I felt like I was under Lunar’s craft once more: The scraping and shifting of foot on carpet, a rush of wind, and the pounding of an arm on neck. My eyes were wide and wild. I had barely seen him move. A sweaty, gravelly stench pervaded my noise. Jiren had lifted me by the neck.

I no longer had control over anything. My lips let out a muffled scream and my limbs begun flail for freedom, waving the book’s pages in hand like the white flag of Riedan. When Velma told me his story I could never understand why he cried, but now I knew it to as the pain of the powerless.

“Kill the boy and grab the book Jiren.” The green-eyed man said impatiently.

A cold hollow fear took me. In the same way the ocean consumed its victims, I felt I was drowning. Completely overwhelmed by Jiren's strength.

I tensed up all over, bracing death with my small act of resilience. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched the book close. I thought about offering it up but my words would be too slow, and my life had no value to them. My hardened muscle felt like a blanket. The more my fear rose, the tighter I tensed, the warmer I was.

I didn’t know what the great Sage done to those unworthy of the afterlife, but consumed by a mortal fear, about to die for falling into a world not of my own, I rebelled as much as I could. I didn’t plead to the great sage for help, I had already I cursed him for all the things I was never able to try, and never would.

Scene where he get’s into an altercation with embers and Edric saves him. He’s grateful but Edric reminds him of his place in society.

Jiren had begun to squeeze hard at my neck. My skin pierced then started to burn. My larynx was going to pop. A crack then searing pain spread through my neck. This was it. I’d barely lived. And with all my time spent learning, I wouldn’t even get to understand why I died.

I felt all the heat escape my body. I presumed it was a result of the hypoxia. The warmth of my body was replaced by a heavy tiredness. My arms felt like they’d gained tonnes of weight in seconds. I’d been losing senses too. All I could feel now was the dull scorch of fire on my neck, then even that stopped.

“Stop! What did you do?”

My last sight was the alarmed eyes of the green eyed man running towards me.