Of all the possible survival items that could make it into her backpack, a stolen book from the private Solari Library was by far the most useless.
She ripped a thick, beige page off the back half off the spine.
A stupid book of archaic translations, most still up for scholarly debate and nicked from the private Solari Library, were never going to be useful on a climb up Mount Targon.
No one ever reads citations anyway.
But the book was in her bag, and her bag was by the door, and the moment to leave was tonight.
Diana grabbed as much as she could from her room, not even bothering to leave a note behind.
She had no roommate and Leona…Leona wouldn't understand why she was doing this. And what good would it even do if she tried to justify it?
Who would it comfort to explain? And anyway, if..when.. this trip was successful. When Diana found the answers she sought. Then they could talk and she could apologize for her tactless exit.
She was so confident that she would return, she refused to bring anything overly sentimental. Her diaries and paintings stayed beneath the floorboards, she left the paint set and love letters in the chest at the foot of her bed.
But the library book was an accident.
---
Diana jumped at the question, startled out of the trance of reading a thin, dusty book in her lap.
"It's just an old book I've had for a long time."
The voice belonged to her new travel companion she had met only two nights before. A Lunari spy named Lyra.
A small campfire separated the two as they rested in a Targonian cave for the night. Diana was a little wary about starting a flame if they were in hiding, but Lyra assured her this particular cave and the runes it offered would protect them from any Solari hunters. Not even the smoke wafting up through the tall ceiling crevices would be seen.
Lyra lay on her side with her head resting on her hand, watching Diana with a relaxed, but curious expression. It was unnerving to Diana who felt like a bug in a terrarium being studied for amusement.
The Lunari girl shrugged.
"I guess it doesn't. The words on the cover are some language I don't recognize."
Diana snapped the book shut and looked over the worn cover and traced the runic shapes with her fingertips.
"It's an old dialect of middle Rakkoric. No one's spoken it for hundreds of years"
"But you can read it?" Lyra asked. "Did you study it somewhere or was that something you learned from the Moon's gifts?"
"I studied a little when I was young, but I can't read it well. I've been translating it slowly over the years."
"Where'd you get it?"
Diana shut her eyes, trying not to lose patience with the first real live Lunari she'd ever met. It was just small talk afterall. Innocent questions to stave off boredom until they arrived at the Lunari's main encampment in a few days.
"It was stolen from the library of Aurorial Triumph"
---
"The book is clearly missing a second volume, Leona, I can't find it anywhere in the section where it should be."
"Do you even need it? It's not part of the assignment."
Leona leaned against the library bookcase chewing on a piece of candied ginger, yawning into her hand as book after book came off the shelf, flipped open and returned to their spots by her agitated girlfriend.
"Isn't it strange to you that the second volume of a history book is missing? And during the first epoch of Head Priestess Natassa, which you know was a tumultuous period for the Order. I'd think there'd be scribes and scribes tripping over themselves writing books."
"Maybe it was chiseled in stone."
"Leona," Diana responded in a flat, warning tone.
Leona held up her hands in apology, standing up straight and scanning the section of the bookcase Diana had been pouring over for the last fifteen minutes.
"What if someone just checked it out? There doesn't always have to be a conspiracy. Come on, let's go ask the librarian."
"Don't you think I already - hey!"
Leona turned on her heel and practically jogged down the row of bookshelves, eager to get out of the library for the day and on to something more interesting. Diana hissed at her in a loud whisper that she had already asked about the book, but Leona was out of ear shot and at the reception desk before she could stop her.
"Don't you ever get tired of trying to read that old thing?"
The light glistened through the trees in the late afternoon light and reflected off the steady mountain stream of their quiet meadow. Leona's head rested in Diana's lap and instead of drifting off into a nap while her partner read, she was wiggling and itching for some attention.
"Also, are you ever going to give it back?"
Diana rolled her eyes and snapped the book shut.
"Why? It's been three years and no one's reported it missing."
"That's just because it's from the private section acolytes aren't allowed to frequent."
"Even more reason to hold on to it. I don't want to wait another six years until I'm an ordained Solari to get some answers."
"But you can't even read it, Diana."
"So? I'll translate it eventually. Once I figure out the rules for this weird dialect of middle Rakkoric, it'll be easy."
Leona rolled over and wrapped her arms around Diana's waist and buried her face into the soft fabric around her belly.
"If anyone can figure out what that says, I know it's you. But it's such a nice day, and we could be doing so many other things."
Diana ran her fingers through Leona's hair and couldn't help but smirk.
Leona grinned and pushed herself up straight into Diana's lips.
Maybe she should abandon this quest and return in defeat.
The wind howled and raged outside the mouth of the small, icy cave half way up Mount Targon and Diana huddled for warmth over a meager fire. At least she thought she was half way up. In truth she had no idea how far away from the summit she might be yet.
Dreaming about climbing the mountain for months was completely different than actually putting her foot to the path with a plan, but the actual night and decision to leave was decided on a jolt of impulsivity.
She was talking with Leona, making arrangements to join her for an evening meeting with the other acolytes nearing their vows, when it struck Diana that she couldn't go through with it. She couldn't commit herself to the Solari, and staring at Leona she almost burst into tears because that meant she couldn't commit to her either.
The world shifted in that moment and a fissure opened between them.
Or rather, the distance of the schism that already formed, maybe always been a feature of their relationship, shook and split apart as Diana fell away to one side of the crevice and Leona stood blissfully unaware of the earth rupturing between them from her carefree foothold of idyll.
Diana knew the moment to go tonight, or else she would never have the courage to leave.
There was hardly any point to her packing.
Up on the mountain she pulled out a few of her supplies, warm clothes, some food snagged from the kitchens, and a few other utility items she saved in her war games locker, all collected in her school bag.
But one extra item made it in though without her intention.
“I still don’t know why I let her steal this for me.”
