The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country,

and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

Theodore Roosevelt

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She had climbed the tree in heels, which already proved Clint wrong. It was harder than she thought it would be, but she had managed. One precarious placing of her foot to a branch after another. There was nothing quite like the view she had now. Perched upon the highest canopy, Goldie could see a manicured garden below, the golden gates of the Márona palace, and to the far horizon on her left, the silhouette of her home. It was a view meant to be shared, and yet, all those she might have shared it with had declined attending the sweet sixteen party for her royal highness, Princess Dahlia.

However, technically, she was not attending either. If she had been, she would have walked willingly and freely through the front entrance. But she and the group that declined helping her had a cause that took priority. The son of a leader of the Spellbound was a sympathizer. Goldie could relate to him, because she was one of them: a sympathizer. Even though humans had done much damage to her world, she still felt for them in their suffering.

The sympathizer who was getting a lot of attention lately, had discovered a foretelling of a solution to the Elven communities versus human problems. There was supposedly one book that contained the secrets of the universe, and the means to resolving the age old conflict. The sought after book was in the royal library. To find it, there was a riddle that came only to the one who needed it most. The powers that existed saw fit to bestow the riddle to the famous sympathizer. During his covert activities and wandering through the human world, he had uncovered it.

There was no way to know if he really found the riddle until they tested it. They assembled Goldie and a team of spellbound to do just that. However, as the day had approached, the team got smaller and smaller until it was only Goldie. She had her doubts about the riddle, but she had more doubts about the validity of the book. Goldie was adamant in her belief that the book could not solve their problem, but could be a source of insight.

Her need to mean something more to her spellbound relations beyond being a half-breed. It was the spark that called her to the mission at hand. She volunteered along with a few others to fetch the book that had been stirring hope that human and Elven kind could co-exist without one snuffing out the other. So she climbed the tree that encompassed the royal library, perched herself above its skylight. She began her work.

── •✧• ──

Her heels went through the skylight first. She had learned her lesson from the first time she dared traipsing from safety into potential danger. Goldie now knew to check for wards and other safety measures, although most had no effect on her. Being half-spellbound had its perks. Her red bottom heels aided her in checking what wards existed. She was well-versed in which of the ward like enchantments would cause her harm and which ones she could slip through unharmed.

She tossed her heels through the opening she made in the skylight. Then she waited for the sound of patent leather ringing against the marble. If it was void of all other sounds, it bode well for her as a good sign of wards that would not cause her harm.

The heel bounced off the wooden rails of the staircase until it took the full three-story drop to the marble flooring on the ground floor. The screech of the heel material against the marble floor was music to her ears. Goldie waited for another few beats of her heart before she ventured in after her footwear. Her gown hiked up to her waist, and then looped into a knot, making it easier for her to lower herself through the opening using a pulley system. She tested the sturdiness of the rope, yanking it several times, ensuring it would hold her weight.

The executed plan was several weeks in the making and was a few people short of what it was supposed to be. But Goldie kept to the timeline. There were few opportunities like the one she was in. She would have to wait another entire year for it to come around again, and in a new year, it was not a guarantee that what they sought would still be of relevance.

Her speed of lowering herself down to the ground slowed. The woman hovered over the floor a few paces from where her heels had landed. One foot at a time touched the cold marble floor, and Goldie kept to her tiptoes to minimize the sound she created. She untied the rope from around her waist, then tiptoed over to her heels. Goldie then hung them from the bag that rested over her shoulder. She expected more from the private library of the Márona high elves. The library from the inside looked like a massive hallowed out coast redwood tree. The Royals of old made the bookcases and stairs of carved, twisted wood, branches, leaves, and vines. Everything spiraled downward from the skylight. Even the shelves in the dark looked as if they were reaching towards the light and falling into the darkness.

Goldie's eyes scanned every inch of the library, looking for her designated way out. She needed to know where her exit was. It was her means of escape once she had in hand what she came here to retrieve. It didn't take long for her to find the path. A large sequoia door sat just beyond the spiral staircase. It supposedly led through an underground pathway beneath the palace. In the past, they used it for smuggling the high elves in and out of the palace when duress existed between the dark, the light, and the high elves of Márona.

If she had been there to investigate the intricacies histories of the palace, she would have wandered. There was much knowledge and unfathomable histories kept safe enclosed in the tree library of the palace. Her next move, now that the location of her escape, was etched in her mind. Goldie took out the riddle that guided her current mission. She had dressed for the exuberant celebration, but also had a touch of practicality to her attire. Goldie took stock of her surroundings. She referenced the number system with the memorized riddle:

Three from the back,

Then seven rows down,

Look up, look up,

Before you look down,

Then reach for what comes to you.

The shelving in the library spiraled out from the center space she stood within. It took a moment for her to orientate herself to what was in the library's front and what was in the back. But once she did, Goldie began counting under her breath. Even though she was whispering, her voice echoed. "One, two, three from the back."

She could still hear her voice counting to three as she began walking the seven rows down. "One."

Her bare feet slipped against the cold marble flooring. She was now counting to seven, row after row. "Two. Three."

None of the shelves had any markings. "Four. Five."

Then suddenly, in the old tongue, the one many beside the druids had forgotten. There were words etched on the side of the bark of shelves, five and six.

Although she could read it enough to translate the calligraphic patterns into notable lettering, she did not understand its meaning. For it was partial, an incomplete sentence. "Be, Ground, Connect, Bend, Grow." There were many words in between the ones she knew.

The tiles seemed to slant downward as she came closer to her count of seven. As most normal people would do, she was looking ahead to where she was going until the next part of the riddle dawned on her. "...look up, look up, before you look down." Goldie said it aloud and created a new echo that resonated through the quiet space with an envious collection of books. She fought her instincts and looked up instead of down the darkened path. The skylight and the spiral of bookshelves rendered light upon a column of books. The bottom row of the column lived in the shadows.

"That must be it." She concluded as her gaze trailed from looking up to looking down. Goldie searched around the area first, examining up and down the aisle and the surrounding bookcases. She trailed her hand down the spine of the last well lit book into the shadows that existed like a curtain made to devoid light. Her fingertips stung as they slid over the prickly spine of the hidden book upon the darkness cloaked shelf. She grabbed hold of it, and the thorns that donned its spine pierced her palm.

"Ow!"

She pulled away, releasing a trail of blood that dripped into the blackness beyond. Her hand throbbed. And yet, she examined what she could glimpse of the book. Goldie disregarded her own discomfort in her efforts to see and learn more. There wasn't any obvious damage or anything that would give her reason to believe something was wrong. Not wanting to waste too much time, she reached for the book again. This time, Goldie pulled at the book.

She endured the pain the book inflicted upon her palm as she held it again. "Then reach for what comes to you." It had not come to her, and yet she reached for it still. Even if it was not the novelty she sought, the book was a peculiar find. Such a discovery enticed her to continue her effort to behold the text in a better light.

Goldie could feel the essence of her silken blue blood dripping to the ground. When it reached the marble, the sound rippled through her surroundings. But she kept hold of the book. She was now blood bonded to it. Slowly, she wedged the book from the shelf, inch by inch. Eventually, it slipped out of its enclosure. She pulled the book into her chest. "Ouch, ow, ouch, ow." Goldie howled, her voice ricocheted through the library like a forceful gust of roaring wind.

She looked down at her arms, half cloaked in shadows and light, with welted redden brown skin on each of her forearms. The cover of the book now reflected the spine with its own offering of thorns. Her exclamation of pain echoed as she added to it once more. The same words repeated, again and again. "Ouch, ow, ouch, ow."

Regardless of how much it hurt her, she would not let the book go. Goldie was too close to her goal to give up the moment it started to get interesting. The thorns kept sprouting from the book's cover, and each dug deeper into her flesh than the one before it.

As the little droplets of her blood fell to the marble, she felt a tingling sensation creep up her arms. When it reached her biceps, it started to burn. A film formed over her skin, glowing gold with raised veins like branches lurking on its fringes. Her deep brown skin was shimmering gold and developing into translucent. Her blood vessels became visible upon her forearm as the burning sensation kept rising up her arm.

The darkness of the bottom row of the shelf crawled towards her. As it came closer, the slithering darkness became branches and vines, an extension of the shelf she took the book from.

Goldie held tight to the book and slid herself backwards. The further she went away from the shelf with the book, the greater her discomfort and pain. A faint glow of muted gold became brilliant. The vines wrapped around her from torso to hairline. Meanwhile, the branches and its darkness increased, wrapping around her fleeing limbs.

As the branches wound around her legs, they became thick, like rope constricting around her ankles and twisting up her calves. The branches inhaled and exhaled as it pulsated and moved along her limbs. Vein like vines of rusted red entangled with her hair and latched onto her gown. The thorns of the book seemed to reach for the branches and vines of the shelf. Her body was the barrier that kept the two separated.

Still, she refused to let go. And the library did the same. It would not surrender the book to her or let her leave with it in her possession.

Goldie kicked and squirmed under the hold the shadows had of her, a twisted rope of branches, vines, and gold tightening on her the more she fought against it. Midway pushing herself back up the slanted ground, the tension in the rope of nature pulled tight. She could no longer make any progress back to the center. The book in her grasp, its thorns elongated. The burning sensation increased. Goldie's maintenance of reasonable theft like silence was an impossible task.

She groaned, winced, and held back tears as the book and the bookcase now held her. "I won't lose my grip!