It exists between realities, this library. It is unfathomably large and winding and, though no one works in it, new shelves always appear in it and are promptly filled. No one reads these pages, though there are those who would remember them wistfully. In many ways, it is beautiful. It seems strange to think of it as such, because sorrow hangs heavily in its halls, like a dense fog. But perhaps, it is a familiar sorrow and one that has a certain sweetness to it.
Even before the pen first kissed the paper and the first word was written, their fate was decided. These books would never see the light of day. No eyes would read them, no tongues would speak of them. They would be abandoned. Yet, they were not without their moments.
Their authors had spent countless hours picking the perfect words, the perfect ornaments to adorn them with. For a while, it seemed like they would succeed, these would-be magnum opi. But alas, they were doomed to fail.
The first ill omen would come in a form we know all too well – the inability to continue. All the pieces were there, yet they wouldn’t fit together. This masterpiece they had thought endlessly about… was it not as grand as they had envisioned them to be?
The authors would press on, still holding on to hope, but the words would only sour further until reading them would become unbearable. The sheen, the luster they once had… where had it gone? What was the blasphemous abomination before them?
Eventually, they would put them away, those once-grand writings, intending to return to them someday, having learned new things. But that day would never come to pass. So, they end up here, in the Elegy – a graveyard for long-forgotten books, incomplete musings and abandoned ideas. And here they will stay, in the dream-library of countless writers.
The Archives of Ash 