(no subject)
The Clayr were born with many traits; bright eyes, Dark skin and pale icy hair as pale as their glacial surroundings. Most importantly, the Clayr were born with the Sight, the ability to see a single future or many different futures; they could untangle the strands of the silky web of time and often, make a difference in it by the telling. Lirael, fourteen years old, born with a dead mother and no father to speak of, possessed none of these things. However, that was not to say she had none of the traits of a Clayr. One thing she did maintain was the insatiable curiosity and desire to have the Sight; to know the future, to See what would come. Unable to See, well that made a bit of a difference to her life, didn’t it? Yet on her fourteenth birthday she had been given a gift. The gift of being noticed and the gift of a job, just for her.
Her first time in the Great Library Lirael had felt a tingle, an itch of what it might be like to belong. Being a Sightless Clayr was worthless, but a Librarian, that at least was something. However, in her study a few weeks later she was left mostly to her own devices. After weeks of hiding behind a curtain of swinging hair, writing notes rather than holding conversations and generally imitating a statue, Lirael found that the friendly Librarians had all but faded away. It was easier this way, she told herself, but in truth the pangs of loneliness left her with fits of melancholy and self-pity. Perhaps it was this, more than old-fashioned curiosity which set the third assistant Librarian to figuring out how to unlock the extra key spells in her bracelet. If she {no mother, no father, no sight} could at least get into the restricted areas of the library, she wouldn’t be bored.
The more she worked on the spells in the bracelet, probing at Charter Marks with her mind, putting them together, un-puzzling them, the more she found a love of it growing inside of her. For the first time in Lirael’s life, something came easy. The marks flowed, warm, simple and unerringly complex all at the same time. And she could understand them, change them, and make them work for her. It was a delight. She could lose herself and forget all about her failures; past, present and future.
She would never have the Sight, not when it mattered. Ever forgotten, ever un-Seeing, she would never be a proper Clayr. But, Lirael resolved, she would watch and she would learn.
She would explore the library,