The Venus City Library was a three floors tall rectangular building that held all of the city’s writings, documents, maps and records since its founding buried within.

Layers upon layers of scroll cases and bookshelves lined every floor, what divided them was subject matter from history to geography, a few books on biology and many things more.

Naturally if one wanted to learn something then this was the place where they would have to go, for while the building was open to the public not a single piece of paper was ever allowed to leave it.

Furthermore, the knowledge was divided by class on each and every floor. Thus it was that only those of the Gold Class who could access wisdom on the topmost floor, which covered politics and matters of equal import, while everyone could access anything that was kept on the first floor.

For reference, the first floor had things like basic healthcare and fishing, anything to do with matters one would encounter in their daily lives or the jobs that the Bronze Class were expected to do was covered here.

Around this time, in a certain section of that very first floor, a young woman stood clad in a silken white dress and shoes. Her gaze was fixed awkwardly upon the bookshelf before her. She looked around with a start when so much as a laugh met her ear.

There was a reason for this, the book she sought was one that was popular with women who were either soon to be or recently had been wed, to the point of being a so called “must read” by the circle she frequented.

From this fact, it could be gleamed as to what kind of contents this “guide to a functional marriage” could contain. The girl, Rusalka, stomped her heels. She took one last look over her shoulders to find that no one was looking at her and few people even cared that she was there to begin with.

Those who had seen her turned away knowingly, their warm smiles hurt like rusty knives. She sighed and lowered her guard somewhat. Their reaction was only natural, after all every one of the women here had likely read at least one of the books on this section of the library at some point anyway, if not then they were eventually going to do so when they came of age.

From the lowliest of commoners to even one such as herself the contents of this small corner were instrumental to any married lady’s future happiness, as well as the happiness of her man. When she reminded herself of this fact, it only stung her cheeks a little less than before.

Finally, she reached out and took the book from its shelf. She turned on her heels to leave the shelt quite swiftly, but then, perhaps due to her being so on edge and uptight, she caught notice of a certain sight.

The young man she’d met but the day before, her master’s master’s son and her originally intended groom to be, Rapture, walked in through the door.

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Rapture’s gaze wandered in awe as he looked upon the endless bookshelves stacked with tomes and scrolls floor by floor.

Every writing, every document that had found its way to Venus City since the day of its founding was locked away within these walls. He walked forward ever closer towards the centre of the hall where a large table lay.

His gaze was drawn down from the bookshelves towards that table’s frame. He stared blankly at that table or, rather, the artwork that was painted upon its surface.

He did not know what this artwork was meant to be, it had lines used to depict nine uneven shapes, one in the centre and the others in each of the cardinal and intermediate directions.

His gaze strayed across it, lost on the northern shape shrouded in black, the western shape depicted in grey and then finally the eastern shape depicted with odd tent-like structures to its own north eastern side.

The boy reached out and combed the table’s surface with his hand. There were many people present there, around five women and three men of various ages that found his current action rather odd to behold.

Every one of them gave him a glance, some cold, come curious, but he noticed them not until one of them finally could stay silent no longer. 

“Is this the first time you’ve seen it?” The boy stopped. He turned his head to face the source of that voice, which was familiar to him. There, by his side, was the heiress, the future Lady of this city, Rusalka of Venus. “It’s pretty big when you really stop and think about it, isn’t it?” She asked him.

“What is?” The boy replied.

“The world,” She said. Her arm stretched out and pointed towards the artwork on the table. She combed its surface with her finger until it settled upon the southernmost shape, depicted in the colour of rust. That shape had a label upon it, and that label said its name. “Here’s our home, the continent of Muspelheim.”

She moved her finger to the landmasses’ eastern side and settled it upon the northern beaches. Many cities were depicted here as black dots with labels, this one’s label too was familiar. “Here we are, Venus City.”

“I see,” Rapture said as he gazed upon the vastness of the table and its artwork. This was a map, as she said, it was a map of the world. “So...this thing has every city’s location on it?” He asked.

“Yes,” Said Ru, “It’s all here, the Capital of Jupiter, the nineteen Gold Class settlements, even the Silver Class and Bronze Class settlements too, they’re all here.”

“Then...what about the Sanctuary, the place where I grew up?” He asked. He was curious, why would he not be? The place he’d always known, the place he’d called home, just how big was it compared to the world it was a part of?

Rusalka glanced his way for a moment and then pointed towards the south west from her city. There was no label there, perhaps because the knowledge was not open to the masses.

“This is the general area of that place,” She answered him honestly, hiding nothing. The boy stared towards that spot in silence. Not even a dot, nor a label, his home, to this vast city, wasn’t even worth writing down.

He knew nothing of the library’s rules, he knew nothing of the fact that the Sanctuary he grew up in was held to some level of secrecy in its records, thus, to him, this could only be insult.

His heart ached, his vacant stare turned hollow. The place where he grew up, the place where his mother died, was invisible. He stared at it in silence long enough for Rusalka to realise something heavy was on his mind. “What was it like?” She asked him.

“What was what like?” He replied.

“Living there, in the Sanctuary?” The girl curiously inquired. What was it like to live in that place, that forest domain? Rapture thought not on it and answered her only from his memories.

“Dangerous,” He said, “Everything we ate, we had to catch, everything we had, we had to make, from the house we lived in to the clothes on our backs, compared to this city, compared to this sense of safety...it was dangerous.”

“Then aren’t you happy to be here now?” Rusalka wondered. Truly if the place he came from was so dangerou as that, why would he not welcome the comparative safety of a city’s walls?

“I don’t know yet,” Rapture replied. He closed his eyes. Truly he had not been here for a very long time, far from long enough to make up his mind. Footsteps resounded loud in the hall. Everyone raised their heads to their owner’s call.

“That’s certainly no easy question to answer, is it?” Descended the voice of a man in clad in black robes. Everyone was silent in his presence, everyone but the crickets outside in the thickets. Rapture looked to him in confusion for a time. Who was this man? He didn’t have a clue. Fortunately for him, there was someone beside him who did indeed know.

“Master Rudolph, fine afternoon,” Said Rusalka, who bowed soon after. Rapture was stunned, he looked back between Rusalka and this man for a moment and then copied her, he performed his own bow.

“Fine afternoon, indeed,” Said the man. His gaze turned directly towards Rusalka’s form.

The book she held in hand caused him to crease his brow.

The two glittering earrings she wore made him frown.

The two boots she wore with slightly thinner and higher heels than the practical but stylish ones she was used to made him sigh.

Her dress which had a higher hem, nearing her knees whereas before it had hugged her very ankles, made him ponder.

All of these changes that she had made, caused him, her mentor, to want to find Alexander and punch him only once. The man felt bitter, as if he was giving away his own daughter. “I’ll take over from here, Ru,” He said indifferently, “You just go, find a place to sit down and read in peace.”

“Thank you, Master Rudolph,” Rusalka said with a bow. She then turned away, her heels resounding loudly upon the library’s marble floor. Rudolph could not but shake his head as he watched her walk away. His gaze then fell upon Rapture, who looked back towards him in silence.

“You are Rudolph?” The boy asked.

“Yes,” Rudolph replied, “and I suppose you should be Master Rapture, correct? I am deeply in your mother’s debt.” These words were far from lies, but Rapture had grown immune to them after meeting Amelia, Melany, Rusalka and especially Lady Nymph. They did not make him feel anything, be it good or bad.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you about. Many things, in truth.”

“Naturally, why else would you come here seeking me out,” Rudolph replied, “What is it you want to know?” Rapture had many thoughts on his mind, many questions he wanted to ask, but the first and most pressing had been itching away at him for some time.

Amelia knew next to nothing about it, about “their kind”.

“What can you tell me of the Gods?” He asked, paying no attention to the atmosphere his words created, “What of Rognir in particular?” The library was already quiet until now but those words froze everyone in place.

All of them, regardless age, sex, class or profession, turned their gazes upon him. Even Rusalka raised her head to glance. The silence was only briefly broken when one of the librarians on this lowest floor dropped several documents as she fainted dead away.

Rusalka and Rudolph locked eyes, that alone was worth a thousand words. The girl closed her book with an audible thud bringing everyone’s attention back and drawing it towards her. She stood up and walked towards the fainted librarian, whose body mass was significantly less than her own.

Rusalka was by no means tall, at least not amongst the Gold Class, but when comparing her to a Bronze Class girl the difference stood out clear as day. Rusalka lifted the comparably tiny girl easy as any man and then carried her out of the hall.

The crowd starred, it was only now that they recalled their princess was not the pampered kind. They turned their gaze back Rapture’s way, their hearts still trembling all the while.

They had every reason to be alarmed. The Gods, their existence was no trifling thing to speak of, even Rudolph’s gaze had long since turned into something stern.

“Let’s talk somewhere else,” The scholar said as he turned on his heels and climbed up the stairs from whence he came.

“Sure,” Rapture replied. He too had taken in the shocked and horrified gazes around him and could bare them no more. Even if his confidence had grown somewhat since this morning, it was by no means enough for this. They could certainly not stay here and talk.

The people down below kept staring in shock, even long after Rapture followed Rudolph up the stairs. The world’s greatest taboo had just exploded in their ears. Their gazes turned then from shock to horror as a figure revealed itself before them.

From thin air she appeared and with coldness she glared at them. She looked to them like a demon out of hell, if Rapture were still here, even he would not recognise her. Her gaze made them tremble, especially when they recalled her title.

“Listen well,” Said Amelia, “loose lips sink ships...understand?” The air in the hall chilled cold as ice.

The men and women present started to look at each other, each confirming the thoughts in the other’s eyes. Eventually they either stood up and left their seats or pretended to resume their reading activities with fear plastered across their faces.

Before Amelia, the city’s enforcer and “problem solver”, none of them wanted to become a “problem” in need of being “solved”.