With no strength at all, he pushed the doors aside. The gates, although beautifully ornate with the symbol of a winged Golden Triforce - the crest of the Royal Family - and carvings of a youthful man clad in green robes - a tunic unworthy of the Hero it represented - golden locks and pure blue eyes not unlike his own, were quickly cast aside as unimportant to the boy as he traversed the passageway for the fourth time this week. He had to admit that the North Castle Library was an amazing piece of art by itself, but, having spent so much time here in his youth, he no longer remained hours on end admiring the entrancing artifacts that served as a mere decoration for this place. Still, this place was nothing short of awe-inspiring, all the buildings surrounding it wallowing in shame. As one bypassed the double gates carefully hand-made during long and harsh months, one would be greeted with a sight fit for a King. At the end of a long and wide corridor, one would rest their eyes on a sight they'd forever remember: That of the three Hylian deities - Din, Farore and Nayru - carved in pure marble colored accordingly to what the legends foretold, reaching out to a statue of the Triforce, remaining afloat over a pool thanks to means unknown, who continuously irrigated the body of water below it. It was a magnificent fountain, constantly refreshing the heavy, dusty air of the Library.

Although this was already enough to make this place something otherworldly, there was still much to be admired: the bookcases, for example. They were tall and wide, as it was to be expected. But, if one was to glance more carefully, they'd notice these were made of wood supplied by the Great Deku Tree himself, possessing many statues of the Guardian's favourite children - the Kokiri - spread across the stands. This material wasn't chosen at random: it allowed to give the books protection from getting to dry or damp, thus allowing them to endure many more years. At the end of each near-endless row of bookcases were one of the teenager's favourite items from the whole building: statues of different personalities of Hylian history, carved and colored by the land's most renowned artisans and so well made that they almost appeared to breathe, to live. These stood by different rows, ordered by their first letter: for example, the Z rows had a Princess Zelda statue at its tip. The only exception to this rule was the G rows, who lacked a statue. Once, Ganon statues used to stand there, but was destroyed by the raging people of North Castle after the events of the Great War, wanting revenge for all the Dark Pig had done to their family and lives. The mage recalled many times these statues were mistaken for the real thing, especially with the King Harkinian statues: more often than not would he find people bowing courteously to them.

Walking along the main corridor, not taking a note on how the floor he's walking on has a long red carpet - not unlike the one in the Throne Room in the castle - he approaches the counter standing before the fountain this one too made out of the Great Deku Tree's wood - a wonderful water absorbing material. A few paper sheets lie carelessly scattered across the main counter, a man of Hylian descent - something proven by his pair of pointy ears - scribbling something on a piece of parchment. He has short dark hair with a quite slight tinge of red which is barely noticeable if one's not attentive, brown eyes - a feature common for the Human kin but not for his' - and a somewhat old fashioned pair of glasses with rectangular-shaped lenses who slowly rest on his nose. Acknowledging the boy's presence, he raises his face from whatever he was doing, before smiling vigorously at the youth before him. "Tayro! How can I help you today?" - he inquires, stashing whatever he was working on on one of the drawers besides him. "Hey Levaine!" - the youth spoke, replying to the elder man's smile with a grin of his own - "Still searching that same topic - haven't found what I wanted yet." - he adds. The clerk's irises raise slightly in intrigued. "You mean that? Hm... Have you searched in the History section, letters G, H, O, S and T?" The man lowered his voice slightly reaching out to the boy's ears - "For titles including Goldforce, Hakiems, Organizations, Secrets and Triforce?" The boy waved his head right and left, signaling a no. "Tried that already. I didn't find anything including the... two first keywords" - he said, making careful notion not to speak those out loud as they best remain secret - "and the three others didn't give me much more information either. I also tried the Archeology and Magic sections, didn't get much better results." - was the junior mage's response. The man behind the counter shrugged. "However..." - the orphan started - "...maybe if you'd let me into the lower floors of this place, I could possibly find more about what I'm searching." - he spoke, in a half-serious half-joking tone. Levaine's reply was a glare. "You know fully well that you're not allowed there, so don't even ask. You need permission from the Royal Family to do so." - he spoke. The boy shrugged, annoyed. Man... if only I knew this when I was in the Throne Room... I really shouldn't have wasted my chance! - he remarked inwardly.

Levaine quickly cut the silence. "However, I did find something about that assassin you were searching for." - he spoke, a mischievous grin on his face. The boy's lips turned into a snarl. "You could have told me that sooner." - he spoke out, nuisance present in his voice. The Hylian apparently didn't notice that tone - or simply disregarded it - as he casually pulled part of the counter towards him, revealing it to be a door. "I forgot." - he joked, sneering at the youth as he walked out of the counter and moved towards the elevator. Noticeably irritated, Tayro followed.

And so, they both entered one of Hyrule's most recent technological advancements - the elevator. This was a medium-sized square-shaped platform with a wheel attached to the wall, not allowing it to budge. In one of its sides lied a small handle which was what controlled this gadget: if one rotated it to the right, the wheel on the platform would rotate as well and the platform would "escalate" the wall, ascending to the upper floors. If one rotated it to the left, the platform would descend instead. However, seeing it was so strongly attached to the wall and so firmly built, it did require quite some strength to move it. That's why they had employed Zorock. This large-sized Goron was the elevator manager: he was the only employee in the whole library with enough strength to move the handle. Clad in a custom-sized suit, he'd control the elevator day after day - that's what he was paid for. "Good morning, Zorock." - Tayro greeted him, receiving no reply. That was another good thing about him - he was also apparently mute. "First floor please, Zorock." - Levaine remarked, the Goron nodding affirmatively with his head and proceeding to spin the small handle clock-wise, the platform budging and slowly moving upwards. The boy glanced at the sides of the Library - they too had a means to go up the old way - with beautifully ornate marble staircases spiraling up to the upper floors. However, the elevator was the only way to go downwards, so the chances of sneaking into the lower levels were quite slim.

They quickly reached the first floor, and the Library apparently ascended for two other floors - though those currently mattered not for the youth. The North Castle Library was quite neatly organized, so every casual user already knew well where to go. It was all organized in sections, like History, Agriculture, Economy, Legends, Magic, Religion, Weapons, Culture, and other important keywords. Each section was then divided into several rows ordered by letters - in certain cases, more than one row was necessary for one sole letter. If memory doesn't fail me, then Legends and Religion is on the ground floor, History and Culture is on the first floor, Agriculture and Economy is on the second, and lastly Magic and Weapons is on the last floor. - the boy mentally noted as he skimmed by a few History books, moving towards the F row. He passed by the P row into a small opening which had countless tables and chairs, many people of different races together, reading different tomes on different subjects. Each floor had a place like this near the further wall so that people could have daylight coming in from the windows to light up their reading - much more pleasant than torchlight. The only exception to this rule was the third floor which, besides the tables, it also possessed a large arena filled with dummies so that people could practice sword and magic-using. The first time the boy heard about it he was mildly surprised, thinking that if a spell backfired both people and books could suffer a terrible fate, but quickly calmed down: apparently, the arena had a magical barrier preventing any spells or weapons to leave and cause any serious damage.

"Here you go." - Levaine spoke out, picking a particular tome from the bookcase and handing it to the boy. It had a dark leather cover, with a black piece of paper with the words "Deadliest Assassins and Murderers of our Time" drawn in red ink - a trick to simulate blood but hardly believable. "Page one hundred and seventy-four had some information about that man. It's not much, but it should prove useful to you." - Levaine told him, before turning towards the elevator - "Happy reading. I'll be downstairs if you need me." - he let out, raising his left hand up as a goodbye as he walked towards the platform Zorock rested on. "Thanks!" - the boy let out before walking towards an empty table. He looked for a particular one with no people around him, which wasn't a hard task seeing it was still early morning. This place usually became cramped at the afternoon, after everyone had finished their own daily chores. Sitting down on a chair, he opened the book in the page Levaine told him. It's amazing how many assassins exist nowadays! Really, one can never be too careful... - he thought, noticing the tome had about three-hundred pages. Right at the top of the page, in black bold letters, the name Wraith lied in not-so-great splendor. Seeing Wraith's an assassin, last thing he'd want would be his name to be in big flashy words, eh? - the boy joked. Taking a breather, the boy started reading what the book had for him.

Wraith lies as one of today's greatest mysteries. This ghastly being managed to kill over five-thousand people in only the period of one year, using poisoned needles enhanced with magic to do it. After the man(?) had successfully killed two-thousand and five-hundred souls, a council was organized in Opelon to try and find a way to prevent more deaths, but nothing could be done. This assassin could enter any place, no matter how guarded it was, and successfully eliminate his targets silently and swiftly - and all that saw his appearance never lived to tell the tale. Apparently only people who had gone up in life due to corruption and blackmailing were selected as his victims, but this data is not confirmed. After that one-year period, he was unheard of again, and probably never will again.

Tayro sighed. "I knew all of this already... Argh!" - he let out, exasperated. Raising himself and picking up the book - ignoring the angered glares he was receiving from talking too loud - he went back into the F row to deposit the tome where it once laid. A few moments later, he was back with many more books, levitated by the power of an Elemental Burst Nature - in which he used the wind to act as a sort of moving mechanism - and dropped those into the table as well. "Let's see if I can find anything more..." - he spoke, before sitting down and opening up one book at random and starting to read.

OoC: Whew. Big post. Cookies to the person who finds a Wraith reference in the first three paragraphs. XD

The majestic library stands before him today, as it does every day for those who pass by the large structure containing such a vast depository of information and stories. The hours he has spent within those walls never ceases to amaze him, but any who used such time to read the tales of the Heroes of old, of wars both real and imaginary - and even some that no one could really say for sure if they happened or not - of far off lands and great countries. They boggled the mind; he himself had never been farther out of Hyrule than Calatia or Opelon, two of Hyrule's bordering nations, so stories of places like Tytinaria or Incinera always astounded him. And to think that he, Teral Hitanus, one of the many assistant librarians of the Great Library of North Castle, was paid to stride through these halls day in and day out. He could not have dreamed up a better way to live his life.

His foot steps upon the carpet leading towards the Fountain Desk, as the main desk is known to those who frequent the place, feeling it softly give under his weight. His eyebrows rose slightly in joy; the give was a hair more than normal, a sign that he had come to recognize as meaning that someone else has just been striding down this path a few minutes before him. How he is able to tell the minute difference in the way the soft ground gives way, and estimate how that changes means various things, is yet another thing that amazes him, but he has spent enough time walking along these routes that it has simply become second nature to him to be able to discern such remarkable things. Levaine, another of the librarians, had told him once that some librarians, the last of whom had retired six years ago, the same year he had started working here, had demonstrated the same talent. So he rarely thinks anything of it.

Still, always one to enjoy knowing who's the latest person to be enjoying his place of work, his eyes only brush over the intricate and wondrous details of the chamber and focus on the far end of the walkway. A boy, it seems, talking to Levaine . . . and the boy does look quite familiar. A grin strikes his lips as the visitor turns to follow his colleague as they head towards Zorock and his elevator, and he finally manages to catch a sight of the kid's face: Tayro Wind, an ever-common sight in these halls, even when the doors had been locked for the night. A laugh threatens to escape him as he thinks back to the first time he had held off their superiors while Levaine had had to smuggle the youth outside the library, lest he be caught in the place after hours. Sure, Levaine had been the one who'd let Tayro inside, but Teral hadn't shooed him out when he'd spotted the kid reading old stories from the L isle (Tayro had been surprised by the realness of the Laruto statue and had accidentally run into the opposite shelves; the resulting noise had been enough to reveal his presence). Plus, it had been a lot more fun to help the kid escape than to turn him in.

He nods in the pair's direction, but it doesn't seem like either had seen him. So he just walks up to the counter, taking Levaine's place behind the Fountain Desk. His job isn't to see after the readers in the library, but he's been here long enough that he's a familiar face, and he knows how to do what needs to be done. No one else approaches the waterworks, though, so he turns his attention back to where his own daily tasks await. He opens up a shelf in the back of the desk area, finding a few stacks of books ready to be replaced on the shelves.

'Let's see . . .' He quickly scans over the tags on each one before finding a pile that belong upstairs. He grins quickly; it's been quite a while since he's been able to talk with Tayro, and now sounds like a good opportunity.

His pointed ears perk up slightly as he hears the telltale sounds of the elevator descending again. 'Perfect,' he thinks to himself with a smirk as he grabs the stack and hoists it up onto his arms, then stands upright and begins striding over to Zorock. "Good morning, Levaine!" he calls out cheerfully as he approaches the librarian, not stopping for the few words of greeting that follow. The same words are used to say hello to the Goron elevator runner, and in mere moments he finds himself on the second floor. "Thanks for the ride, Zorock!"

A few harsh words manage to reach his ears, giving away the young mage's location. The moment his fellow library workers are all out of sight he drops the tomes on a table and scurries towards the source of the exasperated noise, being able to see the boy through a few empty slots in the shelves - probably where those books of his belong - setting a book of his own back in its place. He's gone before Teral can reach the row, and on his way after the kid he glances at the book in question. 'Assassins?' he blinks a few times in bewilderment before a memory creeps up on him. 'Oh yeah, I think I remember hearing him talk with Levaine about an assassin or something . . .'

Even with that little delay, it is only a few seconds later that he spots Tayro once again, sitting down to read at a table. "Hey kid, what's up?" he calls out, his voice friendly as ever.