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   She’d been given permission to explore the woods as much as she’d liked. This permission came from the queen of the Black Forest herself. So naturally, she visited whenever she felt the urge.    She loved the way that she was able to explore even in the daytime, the thick canopy of leaves and branches obscuring sunlight, except for the little rays that shone down like knives of gold piercing the gentle darkness that the place had. Of course, she did her best not to go too high, avoiding the rays of light and dancing in the shadows.     It was nearly a hundred years- though she looked only a year older- since she’d encountered the Queen until she’d learned how to send out the shadows to do her bidding, using them to roam the place she hadn’t fully explored herself quite yet. Through the shadows’ eyes and with their dark, alluring voices in her mind- so soft, so gentle, so full of snake’s charm, not yet manipulative, but oh so close- she learned of the faerie world.    So many creatures hidden by magic, so many new playmates yet to be found.     Then they told her of a library. She was riding atop Azazel’s back, who was now the size of a pony and easily ride-able, laughter ringing through the woods as they slid between tree branches and darted through the light’s rays with enough speed to not be burned, but slow enough to feel the warmth. Then a whisper in her ear. A library, so large and grand and full of so many hundreds of thousands of books.    She leapt off of the dragon’s back and out into the cool air, diving into the nothingness into a pool of shadows awaiting her.    A dark world, of so many subtle shades of black, mirroring the world, but oh so much darker. She floated in the pitch black ‘sky’ before everything shifted and made itself so that her feel rested on the ground. It was so silent and yet there were so many voices, whispers from all the shadows in this world yet to be born to the world of the living. Creatures of shadows, not visible to the world of light and dark, ran free and wild, unafraid of the light. She walked among them, part of them and yet also part of that other world.    She walked the shadow realms as though it were the realm of light, though nothing was solid for her. She passed through trees and wove the world of shadows to bend for her into new shortcuts, and slipped from them into the world of light as easily as stepping through a door.    She found herself in the library, her eyes wide with awe as she took in the sight of so many books. She immediately ran about to find one that first piqued her interest and took it from its shelf, slipping into an unseen corner to read.