Nail continued down the main path until the road turned from dirt to stone. That marked the beginning of the administrative district where the elders lived and operated. They said that hundreds of years ago this district used to house several companies of Roman legionaries, but now it was just another market square for the growing number of villagers. He did not know the people that lived in this district as well, but he still smiled when he walked passed them. They returned the smile, but Nail knew it wasn't for him, it was for his uniform. Everyone, rich, poor, man, woman, child, foreign merchant or native tradesmen, they all loved the sense of security the guardsman's gambeson brought.

He made a left turn and went into the old district which housed the magic-wrought stone buildings. These were the oldest structures left in the village, and Nail could tell you that even if he hadn't been taught it in Stories. He could just look at them and see it. The stones had been weathered smooth and the door that led into the library was rotting. Nail believed the smoothness of the stone is what sparked this idea that they were magic-wrought, and he accepted that because the idea that this place, so sacred to him, could have harbored something or someone so rotten, disgusted him.

The library exterior was twice the length of any other building in the village and only two stories tall. There were no windows on the second floor, though. On the first floor there were many windows to let natural light fill the space. The smooth stone had been painted with a stylized scroll, unrolled with runes on the revealed parchment which read, "Library of Caesar." The name had seemed odd to Nail as a small boy, but then, when he was finally allowed in on his sixth birthday, he began to learn the history of his people and the name made sense.

The door, that stood below the "of" on the scroll, opened when he pushed it to step inside. The interior could have been in much greater disrepair, given how old and unused it was. Tables were dotted across the commons, several with scrolls, parchments, leather-bound tomes and one of the surfaces was filled with a smooth stone, a chisel, and a small mallet. All of these had remained stationary for the last... well Nail had heard from his grandfather, the year before he passed away that all of these things were exactly as they were when he was an unnamed child. What did that mean? Nearly ninety years? Even longer? Did it matter to Nail? Not really. He was just there to clean and preserve. Until he returns... The rest of the library was filled with lines upon lines of shelves of books that all looked like they were shelved yesterday. The restricted section, upstairs, had been forbidden to even the cleaners when the witch moved in.

The task was a slow one, knowing that and knowing that today would be Nail's last day doing the duty, the elders had assigned him the task of cleaning and preserving the documents spread across the tables. Nail couldn't know that was why, but that had been the assigned duty of each of his other siblings on their Naming Day, so pattern recognition implied that there was method to the madness. Nail retrieved a set of special cleaning supplies from a closet to the right of the commons. With practiced precision he took to the meticulous task of dusting each parchment, cleaning out the grooves in the stone tablets, oiling (or at least that's what he thought it was) the leather-bound books, and wiping down the tables themselves.

During the hours-long process he spotted several of his friends who would be named later that winter working in the stacks. He envied them, the simple task of dusting and sweeping the large shelves was what most nameless children did until they were ten years old. He longed for the simpler days of bird feathers on sticks and sliding ladders. Those days, however, were forever gone from him.

While he worked, Nail's mind wandered to and fro. First to his friendship with Beathan. They had spent their childhoods playing at being guardsmen in the woods, sword fighting with sticks and mocking one another in battle-tongue which was Latin. Then his mind landed on Analise, the cobbler's daughter. She was very pretty and well behaved. He and she had spent a great deal of their childhoods chasing one another each taking turns being the one who pretended they did not fancy the other. Nail had a good life in the village. He was excited to take the next step and become Named of the Village.

He perked up when he heard the door open and another few children walked in. He recognized all of them, of course. Some went to get cleaning supplies and some went to get writing utensils. They could not take anything out of the library, but there were enough empty tables in the commons to allow the children that needed it space to write. They would likely be practicing Letters.

One of the children that collected a set of brushes and a feather duster was Analise. For a cobbler's daughter, she wore plain shoes. They were a simple set of grey sandals over white hose that disappeared quickly behind her dress. The dress she wore was a long white linen with a blue half apron draped across the front of it. She also wore an over-shirt stood out. The blouse was a beautifully embroidered piece of red cloth that wrapped her up like a bow. Falling down her back was a freely hanging length of slightly curled blonde hair. Her eyes, like rings cut from the endless skies above, met his and they both looked away quickly. Her cheeks were still slightly tanned from her time spent that summer repairing nets for the fishermen.

Nail did some thinking and calculated that, according to their ongoing game, it was her turn to pretend like she didn't like him while he fawned after her. He was happy to do just that, she is so beautiful. Setting down his own cleaning supplies, he followed her into The Stacks.

"What section did you get today?" He asked while approaching her in the histories section.

"They gave me the third shelf of biography today." She looked at him with a humor in her eyes, "Can you make yourself useful and get me a sliding ladder? Maybe even hold it for me?" They were both bad at the game.

"What would I do that for? I've got work too, you know." Nail crossed his arm as she got close enough to reach out and touch.

"But, I know you want to help." She placed a hand on the boy's crossed forearms. Her fingers were soft and cold, sending shivers down Nail's spine at contact.

"I mean, I would like to help but..."

"Hmm," she removed her hand and Nail regretted not immediately agreeing to anything she wanted from him, "maybe I should just ask Grannd, I think I saw him a moment ago-"

"No, no. That's just fine. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of you." Nail liked the way her cheeks flushed, as the warmth in her eyes filled his chest.

"Thank you, Nail." She gave playful shove and he turned to grab the sliding ladder and dragged it over to her. "Happy Naming Day, by the way," she said with a smile.

Those words caused a tornado to spin to life in his heart. She meant nothing but pleasantry by them, but inside it felt like she was torturing him with a reminder of his lingering apprehension.

"It certainly is, I get to spend some of it with you, and that makes any day a good day." Nail held the ladder, politely averting his eyes, while she climbed it and began to dust books and scrolls. Stories of great leaders and heroes of the past; men who fought against the Romans, men who fought against the Fae, and even those who fought against other Calendonii. Their people hadn't fought amongst themselves in nearly a thousand years, but these book remembered those men of old. Nail only wished that they would be allowed to read them. But everything must remain, everything—

"Catch." He looked up and found Analise dropping a book from nearly the top shelf.

Nail let go of the ladder and caught the book. He could be held liable if there was damage to the book. The book rested in his hands as Analise slid down and landed behind him.

"Come on, let's give it a read."

"Us? Wha-, no we..." the boy tried to make protest.

His resolve melted when she approached, "What's the harm? We'll be careful, won't we?" She was close enough now that they looked eye to eye and he could feel her breath alighting on his skin.

"Of course. But the rules say," he said, "they say we can't read anything in the library. It's not meant for us, its a Roman library."

"Who's going to stop us?" Her voice was playful and alluring. This was wrong, and Nail knew it, but it wouldn't be the first time they'd done things they weren't supposed to. Last time he had enticed her into it, so it was only fair that she was now pulling him into whatever this scheme was.

"What about the witch?" Nail asked.

"That hag won't come out of her hide-y hole with so many bodies around."

Her arguments were flawless to the boy's completely fogged over mind. He let her pull him along as she went towards the back of the library where there were a few chairs. He sat down and as he opened the book she nestled into the chair alongside him. Nail said, "You know, Ana, you're not doing a very good job at the game today."

She scoffed and nuzzled her head into the space between his neck and shoulder. "That game is for children, Nail, we are both almost Named."

Nail was unable to move, she was so close, Had she been this close before? He couldn't risk doing anything that might make her want to pull away from him. "But—" Nail tried to speak but she put a finger against his lips, silencing him. He froze again, his breath caught in his chest. She was suffocating him with a finger.

"Nail, just read, we've got hours and hours before your oaths tonight," The girl seemed to be worried, or mournful.

"What is it?"

"After you take the oaths, I will be alone for a year."

Nail glanced at the first page of the book he held open, it was a story about a Roman Caesar surviving an assassination attempt in... He realized that the book Analise had given him was a biography of Caesar's first year as dictator perpetuo. He closed the book and turned to her.

"What makes you think that I'll leave you alone for a year?" He asked.

"The rules—"

"Because, we," he interrupted her with a scoff gestured between them, "you and I are so well known for following the rules." To emphasize his point he shook the book slightly.

They quietly laughed together, resting their foreheads against one another as their closeness grew. There was something he'd like to do, something that he'd seen his father and mother do. Something that he'd seen other couples do. They would make their lips touch and... was that all there was to it? His mother called it "kissing". There had to be something else to it. But the lips touching business was a good place to start, he figured. Just as she closed her eyes and he bent his face towards hers, someone coughed nearby. Nail pulled away from Analise in fear, and looked around. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it was just their friend Grannd.

A lanky child, Grannd stood about ten meters away. He had a duster in one hand and a swipe of brown dust-mud on his sweaty cheek. "Gross, guys, come on. These shelves aren't going to clean themselves. Nail, you've got the big stuff in the commons today, don't you?"

"I do," Nail dropped his head and sighed, "he's right, Ana."

She had removed her eyes and looked back towards The Stacks from their alcove. "I know, I just..." She looked back into his eyes and Nail felt a deep desire to ignore the presence of the other boy and do what he was about to do any way. He would take the lashings if Grannd decided to be a nark. He... Analise took the decision away from him when she slipped off his lap and put her feet back on the floor.

They broke eye contact and Analise went back to her ladder.

Nail looked at Grannd and imagined what the look must have been. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and shook his head. "Sorry about that, Grannd. We'll get back to it."

The boy huffed and walked away shaking his head. After he had disappeared behind a few shelves Nail pulled the book off of his lap and stood up. He gave the book back to Analise who carefully climbed the ladder and put it away. She smiled down on him from her place a top the ladder looking like the Lady herself. Nail offered a silent prayer to that goddess in thanks for the beauty of this girl he wanted to marry one day.

He smiled back at her before turning and leaving her to her simple task of brushing and dusting the books in the library. Finding his way back to The Commons, he found himself back at his station, preparing oil for the next book's leather, in short order.

Nail was wrapping up the last bit of oiling on one of the leather-bound books when the library shook with the entrance of another cleaner. The older boy looked to the door and saw Fin standing in the doorway. The boy looked confused and a bit out of his depth. The baker's son spotted Nail and appeared relieved. The blacksmith's son carefully corked the bottle of leather oil that he had been using before setting it on his tray of supplies.

"Fin, welcome," Nail said.

He then stepped in front of the table he was working on so it was no longer between him and Fin and caught the boy by the shoulders as he approached. The lad was wearing a shirt of brown cloth, grey pants, a belt that was a bit big around his waist, and had a bit of dirt on his face. Nail thought he may have been crying on the way to the library as his eyes were slightly red and puffy.

"Are you alright?" Nail asked.

Fin sniffed, "I'm fine. What do we do here anyway?" the boy asked. "The elders just told me to come here and find something to do."

Nail nodded and said, "Come, I'll show you something to do." He put his arm around the boy's shoulders leading him away from his current delicate work, towards a large parchment spread across a table. "This," the older boy gestured with his arm and presented the document to his young colleague, "is the Pax Romana et Caledoniae." He let the term, which the boy had most certainly heard before in Stories, settle on the boy's shoulder. "How have you fared in Letters?"

"Teacher Eòin says I am too distracted to get to where I should be," Fin said sheepishly.

"Ah, you're more of a Sticks lad are you?" Nail had been the same when he was Fin's age.

"Yeah," the boy shrugged, "it's just hard to sit still sometimes you know?"

"I do," Nail pointed the lad back to the parchment and smiled, "but this is what changed that for me. If you have had any success in Letters so far you will be able to read the opening lines of this, our history. I want you to memorize it. Just the first sentence, mind, start somewhere."

"Meh-" the boy tried the word, "Memorize?"

"Right," Nail patted him on the back, "take the first nine words and commit them to memory."

"How?"

"Read them three times, say them three times, then close your eyes and try to say them without seeing them."

"Wha-"

"Look, Jay, just give it a shot. I have another twenty minutes of work to do before I am done for the day. That should be more than enough time for you to memorize those opening words." Nail rested his hand between the boy's shoulder blades and pressed slightly, reassuringly. "You've got this."

"'Kay, I'll try."

Nail left him and smiled.

Almost exactly twenty minutes later Nail finished dusting the last parchment on the table furthest from the door. He returned to the table with the Pax Romana et Caledoniae. There the older boy found Fin still muttering to himself.

"Well, how goes it, lad?" Nail stepped to the boy and Fin finally turned away from the parchment.

"Should I say it to you?" Fin asked.

"Yes, but the proper term in 'recite' you should 'recite' them to me. The nine words that is." Nail stood in a relaxed attentive posture the guardsmen had taught him.

"Well, here they are." Fin closed his eyes and quoted: "We, the elders of the Caledonii, submit to Rome."

"Well done!" Nail gave the boy a small shove in the shoulder. "Now, get to memorizing the rest of it. That will be the sum of your duties in the library, until you have it down. Welcome to one of the most sacred duties a youth can have. At least, until Caesar returns.

"Until he returns." The boy said quickly. Nail knew the response, even at such a young age, was instinctual.

"I'm leaving for the day, Fin, but keep an eye out for Grannd." Nail called into the library, "Grannd," an older boy, 11 if Nail remembered right, stuck his head out of the stacks. "Keep an eye on Fin here," he pointed a strong finger at the boy, "don't leave him for the witch, alright?"

"Got it, Nail," the other lad went back to dusting the shelved books and gathered scrolls.

"Wait, the what?" Fin asked.

"Alright, see you at The Naming tonight." Nail set his cleaning tools back in the closet where he had found them and went for the door.

"Nail, who's 'The Witch'?"

"Hmm? Who? Oh, don't worry about it, or if you do worry about it, make sure you tell me if you spot her."

Torturing the new children was a rite of passage for both the older children getting ready to leave the library behind, and it was a hazing the new kids went through, every time. What Nail didn't tell Fin was that he had seen the witch, out of the corner of his eye, deep in the stacks. Everyone had. Fin would too, soon enough.

Nail left the poor boy with a grave look of concern on his face as he stepped out the door.