Cryptic Information

Prompts: Cryptic & Information

Jared frowned at the book. The characters on the page weren't making any sense, no matter how long he stared at them. Occasionally he thought he recognized a word or two, but their relation to each other never seemed right.
Sighing, he closed the book with a soft thump and dragged another volume in front of him. This one was newer, its pages cleaner and binding less worn. He opened and flipped lightly through it, scanning the pages for anything useful. Unfortunately, this one was just as cryptic as the other. He could understand the letters and the words, and most of the sentences made sense to him, but there was no cohesion to the information. Instead of a professional book explaining the connections between several old legends that Jared was studying, it read more like the scribblings of a madman.

by Lilliana Casper

He slammed it shut and banged his head on the table. Why couldn't anything in this library be straightforward for once? From spellbooks to legends to freaking recipe books, everything he'd come across in the last few days was scattered and coded and mystical. Absolutely nothing made sense.
After several minutes of sulking with his face in his arms, he decided to make another go at it. He reached for the first book he'd been studying, checking the title to be sure he had the right one. Secrets of the Elementals, it said. Supposedly, it had information about the Elemental Celestials: Celosia, Naida, Fadilah, and Oralia. They appeared all across Celestial legend, but nothing was really known about them as people other than what was written in the popular myths.
Of course, everyone knew Celosia married the Commander and that he killed her after she discovered the copy he made of their

daughter Rohana, and everyone knew Celosia and Oralia were as close as sisters and that Oralia had a son named Celebrant, but no one knew exactly how Celosia and the Commander met and fell in love and no knew who Celebrant's father was.
There was even less about Fadilah and Naida than people thought. Fadilah apparently had six children, the most children any Celestial had other than Alvacia with four, but again: no information about their fathers. Naida supposedly wrote a lullaby for Oralia, but nothing else was known about her life.
Sure, Tales of the Celestials might have information about them, but some of those stories were hard to read. Plus, Jatrina had already said a few of them didn't line up with what she knew personally. Something about the Lady Spider one missing details and there was one about Love that didn't match what her grandmother said.
So, here Jared was, poring over other old books about the Celestials and trying not to get too frustrated with his lack of progress.