[video; open to both courts]

[athousandcurses]

Why... why would anyone do something like this?

[Someone has just found out about the library after returning to Caer Glaem, and judging from the stricken, teary state of her face and hushed voice, Grainne is pretty broken up about the attack. She honestly cannot understand why anyone would deliberately set fire to history.]

Why would you try to destroy something so valuable?

[She shakes her head. How could someone take something like books for granted, even so far as to burn them?]

So many things are lost to the ages that we will never retrieve, never regain, and that is with verbal history and story telling. We do not have "books" in our culture; over the years people have forgotten the histories we have passed down to our children because our history is only retained in memory. If someone is selfish or does not pass down what they know, it can be lost too easily! For everything that has been lost, we will never again know it!

[Don't mind the heartbroken, she just has Very Strong opinions on this.]

Do you not understand how wonderful such things are? How precious it is? Recording history in this way is almost a miracle! Can't you see why the loss of even one scroll is denying not just everyone living now, but those who come after us?

Why would anyone even attempt it...

Comments

[athousandcurses]

A secret... That is a terrible way to keep a secret. What could they be hiding?

[menelluin]

For some, destruction is the only way to keep knowledge hidden. I do not know and I do not know if that is why the fire was started. It seems likely.

[athousandcurses]

[She pauses for a long moment on this, thinking it over. She hasn't had much of a chance to acquaint herself with books and the ways someone can use it, but surely it can't be that much different from the ways they used ogham.

Books were by their very nature objects that can bestow great knowledge, perhaps she should take it that way instead of simply seeing them as magical or sentient. That had been her impression in youth of the stories people told of the far off lands, but it didn't seem quite as true close up.]

The Romans use written knowledge to conquer and occupy much of the island to the east. I understand all too well the power of knowledge and foresight, and the desire to keep it hidden. But I do not understand why someone would burn entire histories just to do that, though much is still new to me about books. Surely not all of it is relevant to the war.

[menelluin]

[Idril smiles gently, a little sadly.] No, it cannot be all related to the war. I believe that I saw a book of children's tales burned in the fire. If, though, whoever had come in had only burned the one book that held the secret he wanted kept, then we would have a clearer idea of what to look for, would we not? We would simply have to look into the history of the one book destroyed. Power is held through secrets kept and there are those who would destroy far more than books to hold such power.

[athousandcurses]

[Grainne sighs.]

I have already thought of that, but to me that is like slaughtering a whole village just to keep one child from being born.

[menelluin]

Some would take such drastic measures.

[athousandcurses]

I do not doubt that now from what I have seen in my short time here. This truly is a horrendous war.

[menelluin]

So it has proven.