Free Mira's View by Erin Elliott Page A

surroundings.
    Galena started up the stairs, noting the
beautiful details grown into the banister. She climbed through the
hole in the ceiling and beheld what must have been a bedroom, for
it had a bed in one corner and a study area in the other. Across
from the bed, was another doorway, which Galena found after further
exploration, led to a small room made for bathing. The stairway
continued through this room, up into the ceiling into yet another
room. Galena followed the stairwell until it ended high up in the
air with a wonderful library full of books and scrolls. There were
chairs that looked like they had been fashioned the same way as the
living area chairs on the bottom floor. Altogether, Galena had
walked through at least five full sized rooms, not including this
incredible library.
    Each of the rooms had several windows in them
to let in a great deal of light, but this room had a window between
each bookshelf that grew out from the trees. They too contained
incredibly detailed designs on the outer parts of the shelves.
Galena glanced at some of the books, but having been written in the
old languages, the symbols were unfamiliar to her. Touching some of
the scrolls and books gingerly, she walked around the room looking
at the wealth of information that lay literally at her fingertips.
How amazing it must have been to live in such a wonderful place as
this.
    Twoit poked her tiny head out of Galena’s
pack to sniff at the surroundings. She wriggled free and began to
explore the room on her own, going up and down on the many shelves,
pawing at the scrolls and causing some of them to fall to the
ground.
    Smiling fondly at the mischievous little
creature, Galena stooped down to pick up the fallen scrolls and
returned them to their proper place. She caught her tiny friend,
bringing her to eye level. “Even if you are considered sacred, I’m
sure they don’t want their treasures destroyed.” She carried the
ferret to the room below, placing her gently on the floor where she
watched Twoit explore this room for several minutes before
returning to the library above and leaving Twoit behind.
    As she completed her inspection of the great
library, Tark’s head poked through the hole surrounding the
staircase.
    “Amazing, isn’t it?” he asked, while taking
in everything in this room. “This room alone holds wealth beyond
any in Tomeka.” Like Galena, he looked through some of the books
and eyed the scrolls. “Can you imagine what we could learn if we
had as much time as we wanted to stay here?”
    Galena just nodded, smiling to herself. She
selected a book that described some of the cities of old and how
the elves had worked together to build them. It described the work
that went into those buildings and the planning that took place in
preparation.
    To shape a tree, an elf must be able to
concentrate on all the details and designs in order for the tree to
move and shape the way one expects. When several elves work
together to grow a building, they should create elaborate drawings
with all of the necessary details in place. Those drawings should
be studied by every participating elf until every minute detail is
memorized. Working as one, the tree can be adequately shaped to fit
the needs of all. Only after such measures have been taken, can a
home be deemed worthy by a family before they dwell in it.
    Galena found the writing in all of the
scrolls to be oddly formal. Everything had an air of importance to
it as from a time of old. She vaguely recalled her father telling
her that before Rau, when the elves lived for centuries, they were
always this formal to one another. They fought over small things
and held on to grudges for years. However, since the fall, and the
shortening of their lives, elves learned to live in the moment and
to forget and forgive. Smiling grimly, he had stated that at least
one good thing had come from their enslavement. Reading this scroll
made Galena realize that she was glad for at least that