The Librarian’s Diary

Hello Reader! Welcome to my diary. You must be reading this from another world; if you were here on mine, you would be inside the diary now. But you’re reading this, so you must have an echo of my diary’s words that transmitted through the Dream. Did you know that all books do that? Echo through the Dream, I mean. Books get repeated in a thousand worlds, dropping into someone’s mind and out into their universe. It’s one of the million wonderful things about books.

I should introduce myself. I’m called The Librarian of Foxbridge, but really I am the Library itself. I’m a god, and I am five years old. Depending on where you are from, it may seem odd that a building is a god, but it’s not so strange here. My older brother is a goat and a mountain at the same time, and I have a cousin who is a bridge, and another who is an urchin (the street kind, not the sea kind). And that's only the beginning of my weird relatives.

Foxbridge is a university, that is partly named for a bridge with a statue on it of Tod the Fox. The statue is of a human, but he was probably a fox person who was pretending to be human; we have fox people in our world called kitsunejin, and they can be tricky like that. The other reason for the name is because it’s an echo from inside the dream; maybe you come from one of the worlds that share that name or something like it? Or maybe not. I like how things echo around all the worlds, which is one of the reasons I wrote my diary; I am waving hello to all the other worlds.

Now that you know who I am, let's talk a little bit about my diary, which is what you are reading right now. If you were here in my world, you would have found this on a shelf somewhere inside my library. I don't keep it in the same place all the time, but it's always in there somewhere. It's not a fancy book, just a slim daybook with brown leather binding, and nothing written on the spine or the cover. But when you open it, you wouldn't see any writing. Instead, you'd be pulled into the book, and into my personal memory palace.

Once inside, you would find all the things I collect. I'm a big collector - there are so many interesting and strange things in the world that I love to study, and I collect ideas about them here. I've recently thought up a cabinet to hold some of the curiosities, but ideas are hard to keep in boxes and they tend to wander about the palace. The black ducks are particularly tricky, and I find them in the most surprising places!

I've got my desk in there, with the reports and letters I'm currently working on - my priest-parents are always asking me to write up one report or another, and I sometimes get letters from other gods or even from other worlds. Reader, if you wish to send me a letter, you can! Think about what you want to say and then let it loose into the dream realm, and it will probably find its way to me. I like getting letters.

Then there's the map table, with the movable islands. The atlases are a little fuzzy about the exact location of the islands, so I've made up my own coordinate system and I'm trying to figure out where everything actually is. I suspect some of them are moving, or maybe the cartographers aren't very good? Anyway, I've got actual water and ships on my map table, and miniature islands I can move about. Since it's all dream stuff, I can even look really closely and see trees and people sometimes.

Depending on what else I'm focused on (the library takes a lot of my time), I'll pop into the diary eventually to see who came in. Sometimes, I have to clean up a mess they made; that makes me mad, and those people get thrown out of the diary. Sometimes I even bar them from the library after that - I don't like being yelled at, and it isn't my fault they got into my diary! Other times, my visitor is polite and we have a fun talk. I like answering questions, although I'm only supposed to give answers to my priests. But I'm the god, so I get to say who is a priest and who isn't, so it's pretty silly of the Lorekeepers to try and tell me I have to keep secrets I don't want to. Besides, I'm getting the feeling I know what is better for the world than my priesthood does - they're focused only on Bernicia, and I'm getting a much wider perspective. My best friend, Princess Cyneburh, is pretty sure I'm right. I would make her the head priest, but she doesn't think I should yet. She's gotten to visit lots of countries, and she's the one who asked me to write Report #1459 - that one worries me a little.

Oh, I'm rambling a bit. Well, if I can't ramble in my own diary, where can I? But let's get this introduction back on the right path. My diary is a book in the physical world, and a place in the dream realm. Because it is a book, it can have book (or book-like echoes) in other worlds. So that's why I'm writing this introduction, Reader. You can't get into my diary from your world, but this introduction can get out to you. And it did, if you are reading it. If you want to, send me a letter! I like getting letters.

Thanks for reading. You can close the book now, or whatever is right to do when you're done in your world. Goodbye!

P.S. If you send me a letter, I will try to send one back.