Basilisk went and found Ignita not long after they arrived. He intended for those of the pack that had come to stay a few days in the Hallows. Which gave them time to mingle, and strengthen ties with the Hallows. It was growing late, but it was easy to find his fiery songbird. After all, he had set Larimar to keeping a close eye on her.

He hooked a paw lightly around her shoulder, turning her towards him. “Come on, I gained special permission from Artorias to escort you to the castle library.” He told her, knowing how much she had desired the chance to explore it from the moment she had heard it existed.

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"

Ignita was tasting one of the delicious treats when she felt Bas's mighty paw around her shoulder. She wasn't doing anything! Oh... OH! Her mouth full, her eyes made all the conversation. Swallowing her bite she bounced up and down on her toes, beside herself with anticipation.

"REally? Oh Bas! That's wonderful!" What was she going to look for first? Oh! Maybe instructions for smithing, or pigment and paint making! Or perhaps information on siegeweapons! Inventions! A whole library of books she had never seen before! Construction? Mining? Jewelry making? The list was endless!! Fairy tales?

"Lead the way!" She bounced on her toes, vibrating with excitement.

"Speech"

Artorias had asked them to respect the space, since his sister used the space as her den. He kept that in mind as he watched Iggy bounce on her paws, overcome with excitement. He flicked her teasingly on the ear. “Breathe, Ignita.”He said as he turned to lead her across the Plains. He'd only been here a couple times himself, so he kept Art's directions firmly in his mind as he led her. 


They reached the castle, and took a few turns to find the appropriate room. “Must be… this one” he said, knocking against the door in case he had it wrong, before pushing it open. And there was the library. He stared at the books, and felt more than a little lost. His grasp on reading was slow, he knew the basics. How many books could she even read in the time they had? “What do you want to find first?”

She had indeed forgotten to breathe for a moment with all the possibilities running rampant through her mind. So when he flicked her ear and reminded her she let in a rapid breath and made herself dizzy with glee. She hadn't gotten her paws on such books since she left the desert palace.

She followed him dutifully, marveling at the structure of the castle from within, just like she had when they were last here but that had been much somber business. He led her to a room and when he opened the door she was aghast. There were *more* books than she had ever seen in her life. The stars would be reflected in her dilated orbs as she slowly took in the vast array of subjects and spines.

She silently padded her way toward the towers with her mouth agape. They were all carefully organized, and she wouldn't dare just throw them willy-nilly everywhere and put them in disarray. She quickly read several spines in front of her trying to grasp the organization scheme. After a moment she pulled out one of her sketching papers from a temporary bag she was using for the festival and folded it in half. She pulled a book from a shelf and placed the paper where she grabbed it from so she could remember where it went back to.

"Look! This! This is the book for the human medieval period where they talk about building catapults and the like! They have the same one!" She said, her tail wouldn't stop. She could last forever here, she would die and this would be her heaven.

"Oh, I must ask if we could borrow a few to take home." She muttered as she skimmed through the pages of the book. She stopped on a familiar picture, "Here they show you how to make the catapult! I think I was lacking a few things back then, but I could probably rebuild it a lot better now." She said, showing him the page.

"Speech"

Basilisk sat on the stone floor and watched her explore the library. He had to admit, her trick with the paper was clever. It showed him that she was respecting the space, and would be returning everything back where she had found it.

He twitched a smile at her enthusiasm, and obediently moved forward to have a look at the page. He couldn’t follow all the words with ease. He would need more than a few moments to stare at the page to get it to stop jumbling around. But he could see the sketch of a ‘catapult’ as she called it. “A shame we wouldn’t have any convenient walls to place one.” He murmured as he ran through the Col in his mind. It looked like it would fire quite a distance if he was understanding the diagram correctly.

As for her comment on borrowing. “Just don’t promise more than I can repay” He said a little dryly, though perhaps he and Art could barter over borrowing some books for a length of time. He didn’t know how much the other wolf valued these books.
.

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"

She loved showing him the catapult diagram, on the page. She'd lived to borrow this copy for a while but she begrudgingly put it back as she saw another book on the shelf a few shelves up and apace away.

"You don't need walls to place a catapult. At full size, it's on wheels and can be pulled or pushed along the ground. Typically they built it on the site of the siege. Usually, the attacking army launches the ammo from the catapult over the walls of the home army. Human armies were a lot larger than packs typically, some armies were as large as thousands of people." She said as she took her paper after replacing the book and moving along to another book called "True Colors, master of Natural Dyes and pigments." and pulled it down. Her ease of multitasking, speaking and browsing came naturally. She could read a book like this in one day if it was all she did for eight hours. The words came easily to her as if they were old friends. Her understanding of every word wasn't always accurate, nor was her pronunciation if she ever tried reading anything aloud. She shook her head and put it back then pulled down another book called "Book of Earth" and quickly turned to the back blurb, then flipped through a few of the pages mid-way then near the end.

"Here we are! This will teach me how to make more pigments! Hopefully, they'll let me borrow this one at least! Shouldn't be too much of a hassle." She replied cheerfully. She was eager to try out some of the pigments detailed, but she wouldn't be able to get much done here during the festival, so she'd have to be satisfied with just reading it all first.


"Speech"

Ignita moved to put the book back, talking as she did so. Her knowledge of siege engines was impressive… he’d never even heard of wolves using them in battle. In what strange way would they change the shape of the world around them?

The next book she grabbed was one that she proclaimed would help her with paints. “That’s a relief, I wasn’t sure I could feed the pack if I had to buy you another set.” His voice was light, teasing. So she would know he didn’t mean it. He eased himself down on his belly, not bothering to touch the books. Instead, he watched her. Watched her find joy in the pages of whatever book she fancied. He was glad she could find joy, reach that happiness so easily. After her tears and his, he had been a little afraid of how it would change them.

"Basilisk" || "Iggy"