Library now, the elf's name is more important

You tell everyone you need to do something boring. "I need to go to the library and do some research, might take the whole day."

"Helping Gabrielle?" Clare asked. She didn't sound enthused about the idea of following you to the library for the day rather than going to the strip club.

"No it's," You waved your hand dismissively, "something the elf asked me to do. Don't know how long it'll take, but if I finish early I'll try and meet up with some of you." You plate is clean, thanks mostly to Lucia's efforts, so you stand up. As you leave you are given details on where and when to meet up with people if you find what you are looking for. Edin looked a bit upset you won't be helping him shop for his wedding but you're sure you'll have another chance.

Rather than leave through the front door you went through the sponsored section of the Dorms. History has told you there will be a royal carriage out the front awaiting your presence. That is also why you jumped the academy's wall and walked through the forest. On the way you came upon your crash landing sight, the place you'd met Clare. Looking at the tree a thought struck you.

"Sorry for crashing through then into you." You said, looking around to see if there was a response. The wind rustled through some leaves but there was no slightly aggrieved 'about time' from the elf. She said she'd grown throughout the entire city so even if these trees were of the standard non-sentient variety you didn't feel dumb for applogising.

At the bottom of the hill you headed to the library. Along the way you wondered if there were any elves around your home. Oh that was a bad thing to think about, you'd kinda demolished more than one tree in your youth. Really hope you aren't an accidental mass murderer or mass pruner as it were.

Enter the library you find a familiar face. That face doesn't not seem thrilled to see you. "Here alone this time?" The woman asked, the memories of the various bodily messes you'd left in your wake on, every single one of your previous visits.

"Yep, all alone and just here to look something up." You walked over to her desk trying to not be cowed under the woman's glare.

"I'm sure my husband will appreciate your solitude." She pulled out a small box. "What are you looking for this time?"

"A list of gifts given to the Royal family two to four centuries ago." You honestly didn't know if this would work but it would be nice if there was a quick way-

She pulled out a card and read it quickly. "Follow me." She walked out from behind the desk and down the corridor behind her.

Well that was easy. You followed after with a hopeful skip in your step. She lead you quite a ways into the building then opened a door for you. "Those contain every records of every gift given to Queen Julia, through to Queen Yia." You looked inside to where she was point.

There were more book in here than the genealogy and teleportation rooms combined and the sections she'd pointed out covered right bookcases filled with books. "So where should I start?" You asked that hopeful feeling collapsing very quickly.

"What, specifically are you looking for?" She asked

"The elf who teaches at the academy was given as a gift to the Royal family a few centuries ago, I was hoping the records would also have made a note of her name." As you spoke a flicker of hope tried to reignite.

"Then you'll need to search Queen Naria as well." She pointed at another three bookcases, crushing that flicker beneath her heel. "If you need refreshment I will have my husband come by in two hours." She walked back down the coridor leaving you with the room to yourself.

You sigh. Maybe only a day to do this was an underestimate. Getting to work you start with Queen Naria's gifts. Swiftly you found that while yes Queen Naria was obsessive with extremely detailed records of every gift she was given from date of gift to weight, however she got far to into detailed description. By the fourth page of the second book you think you had seen every possible description of a coin that could possible exist. By the eight page you'd found you were wrong. You started skipping through pages after that.

Finishing the book you rubbed your eyes and looked around the room. There must be a better way of doing this? Even skipping pages to only look for something plant related didn't seem like it would work all that well. You need to narrow your search. A record of when the elves spoke to the Royals would be ideal. Queen Naria's dated gift would incredibly useful in that respect.

Heading back to the woman at the counter you asked if there were records of diplomatic visits, specifically from elfs. Sadly that second part wasn't the case but you were presented with a much small selection of books. These books were a lot easier to go through. Queen Naria's level of detail extended to visits so while pages and pages discussed what each person was wearing, it was pages and pages you could skip through. All that mattered to you was the arrival of elfs and that would stand out, if nothing else becasue you presume they didn't wear clothes.

You found a few references and memorized the dates. Going back to the gifts you flick through Queen Naria's books until you find the dates. It works, in the sense that you find the gifts the elves gave, it doesn't in the sense that they didn't present any seeds, cuttings, or anything plantable in a garden. You do discover elves are a fan of presenting fruits they grew on themselves as gifts. You try to not think about how eating one of their fruits would come across, they did contain seeds after all.

You finish with Queen Naria and move onto Queen Julia. As you are making your way back to the diplomatic visits room you encounter the husband who'd been on his way to ask if you needed any refreshments. You ask for some water and bread and the time. It was almost midday already, you'd spent hours going through books and didn't really feel all that closer to a name.

Oh well only a few dozen more books to go through. You find all the references to the elf visits to Queen Julia and go back to the gifts. Thankfully the usage of dates was consistent so it was a lot faster going through hers. The water and bread arrived and the husband asked what you were looking for.

"The name of the elf who teaches at the academy." You said, taking a deep drink of water.

"Oh, what sort of name would an elf have?" He asked refilling your cup.

"No idea." None of the books you'd gone through so far had even had an elf's name it it, the given were attributed to 'Elven enclave in the Asta Forest', or 'Elven enclave of unknown location'. Even the diplomats were just, 'Elven delegate of so on and so forth'. That last part wasn't even yours, you think whoever was writing the descriptions got sick of writing out the full title for the twelfth time before describing a woman that looked largely identical to the other elves. Unlike your elf the other seemed more inclined to a single human form rather than experimenting. Maybe that was a quirk of her living with humans for so long.

"Well let me know if you need anything else. I'm making a soup for lunch so you'll need to join us away from the books if you want any." He said walking out of the room. You might be taking him up on that offer, if only to give you a break from reading.

You move onto the next Queen, who didn't even warrant a visit from the elves which is good for you. The next Queen however, was far from a good thing for you. Queen Vier, either the woman or the archivist she'd hired to write things down did not enjoy the concept of dates. All they put was the day in which the gift was given, not a date or month or even year, just Tuesday.

You aren't sure but as you read through this abomination of record keeping you think you are experiencing hatred for the first time in your new life. You aren't sure if time travel is possible in this world, but a very serious part of you is considering how long it would take you to learn just so you could go back in time and throttle this woman.

You decide to just skip through the books in the hopes the elves didn't visit Queen Vier. They did, in fact they did alot, and they gave her gifts with notes in the visitation book to refer to the gifts book for details of what the gifts were. Throttling seemed too good for this woman, maybe you'll go back even further create a religion specifically focused on good record keeping and have this woman burned at the stake.

You close the last visitation book and take a slow breath. Thirty-two visits, each with gifts provided and all spread throughout Queen Vier's reign. You're going to be asking Clare about time travel tonight.

You leave the room and stretch. From the entryway you smell something edible and your stomach grumbles. You had only gotten half of your breakfast so you follow your nose.

"Ah Lord Christopher, I see you couldn't resist my cooking." The husband says as from a side door.

"It does smell excellent." You say back.

"Please come in, I have a place set for you already." He left the side door open for you.

Following behind him you found a little dinning room, table for four in the middle with his wife sitting at it with a book, paintings and various bits of art on the walls, a rather plush carpet. "Haven't made a mess this time I trust." She said, not looking up.

"Sorry about that." You said a little sheepishly.

"Oh don't worry about it. Not the first time I've had to clean up, and I doubt it'll be the last." He sounded a little wistful, following his voice with your eyes you see a little kitchenette.

"So you both live here?" It was small certainly but a little surprising a library you hadn't exactly seen in use had live in workers.

"The library is required to have someone available at all times to assist however needed." The wife said turning the page. "As I am sure you are thankful for."

"Extremely yes." You answered. "Is there a reason I've never met anyone visiting the library?" You took a seat at the table where a bowl was set up for you and the chair was the least worn.

"Debut season just ended." The husband said carrying out a pot and ladle. "With the only marriages happening prearranged there is no need to check anyone linage or historical ties."

"And the academies researcher have already started their experiments." His wife added. "The Library will be extremely busy in a few weeks to prepare for the spring." She sounded exhausted at the very prospect.

"Will you have any help for that?" You ask as the husband ladles your bowl full of a thick soup that smells faintly of flowers.

"It would be nice if we could have someone to help clean up." The husband says idly.

The wife sighs and puts her book to the side as her bowl is filled. "I've told you before, getting someone who can be trusted to be discrete-"

"Would be more trouble than it is worth." The husband echo's his own bowl is full and he starts to eat. "You know at the very least you could be a little firmer on where they are allowed to have their assistants 'relieve the stress of research'."

This seemed like a long lived argument so you just ate without input. "Oh wow." Your expression of shock earned a sly smirk from the husband and an end of the argument.

"Good isn't it." He took his own sip and mussed for a moment. "No, I'm still not getting the pattern right."

"Pattern?" You asked eating a bit faster.

"Perk of being the Librarian's husband, enchanted cook utensils. The nobles do need to keep their record keeper happy after all. And what woman is happier than one with well cook meals." He beamed at his wife who smiled softly and reached over to hold his hand.

You ate the rest of lunch is light chatter. Mostly about the enchanted items in the kitchen, all give over time as gifts to previous librarians. You did get to poke your head into the kitchenette to look at everything. You remember seeing the enchanted cooking pot at the roadside inn you stayed in on your first trip to the Capital. These were more intricate. Clearly open to additional magic of the cooker that would impact the food in various ways. Once again your lacking when it comes to imbuing limited your ability to understand and you knew that spending time here was just a way to avoid the slog of going through the only person in this world you hate's records of gifts.

You do however insist on helping to clean up. Something both husband and wife found amusing for slightly obvious reasons. After that you returned to you work, though this time the wife followed you with an offer to help in your search. Something you were immensely grateful for. You were also grateful when she expressed his dislike of the record keeping.

Time dragged as you went through Queen Vier's records. By the end of it you were closer in the sense of having less to look through, but much further in terms of will power. The wife decided to take her leave at that point, hard to blame her, the fear within you that the next Queen's records would be similarly violence inspiring, was forcing you to try and think of another option.

All that came to you was to go to the palace and ask Aurora directly. "Why couldn't this be as easy as it sounded." You complained allowed. "'Tell me my name'." You echoed her words. "If this is so hard that favour is going to kill me." You rubbed you face and walked to the visitation room. The sun is still up and you are more than halfway done, might as well see if this day was a total bust or just most of one.

You pull out the next book to check by it's spine. The leather spine pulls free from the book and the pages to the ground, thankfully the pages don't scatter that far and you do see a date on one page so reassembly shouldn't be hard. Of course that is depending if you want to reassemble, right now you feel a desire to burn the scattered pages and just act like that hadn't happened.

If they hadn't given you lunch you might have considered it a bit more seriously. Kneeling down you start pulling the pages together, it's easier to keep them in order than you thought so you are able to get them in a stack and on the table.

When you put them down a few pages are sticking up. You must have folded a page or two. Opening the pages up to find the mistake you are presented with a letter, with your name on it, in your mothers hand writing.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to find that." The elf said from behind you. Turning around you see a face look back at you from where you'd taken the book out of the bookcase. "Went back a way further than you needed too as well." A book in the next bookcase pushed out a little ways. "I was given to Queen Yia."

You take in a deep breath and hold it for a count of ten. "Would you're name be in it."

"Nope. Just a description of a small tree." Her short-stack body formed from the bookshelf. An odd thing to look at as it grew in the sections provided by the shelves then merged together. "Points for determination though."

You looked at the letter from your mother. "So you knew this was here."

"Yep." She said walking over and looking at the letter.

"And you know if there are other letters around the city?"

"Possibly. But if I did I think your mother would have taken that into account when she hid them." The elf jumped onto the table and kicked her legs in the air. "So you gonna open it?" She was looking rather curiously at the letter.