Gnomes

TLC 01/10, et al

Gnomes

Were appointed thousands of years ago to be the librarians of the Light Elves library. They were no more than a couple of feet high, each wearing a small suit and a black bowler hat they kept pulled down to their ears. Their faces were set in a perpetual scowl over large, bent noses. Their oversized feet were bare. They never forgot anything ! The suits were the idea of an elderly Light Elf who lived over a millennia ago who had spent some time on Earth at the turn of the last century. She was always delighted with the simplicity of the humans back then. A small red flower was affixed to the band of each hat. At that moment, all the flowers on the hats were hissing and folding their petals back to reveal sharp teeth, upset over the flying books, and worse, their destruction. The flowers were the gnomes’ early warning system. The gnomes were believed to be older than the Great Treaty, from the last Gold Age, well over thirteen thousand years ago and were prized for their ability to keep secrets, no matter how long, no matter who was asking. The library was conjured to their exact specifications and the vault at the back contained all the mysteries and secrets and history of every kind of creature in Oriceran. Tucked in among the forbidden books were rumored to be relics and artifacts from ancient times and a forgotten tribe that originated on Earth, the Atlanteans, who had died out around the time of the Great Treaty. It was rumored that within the vault was another, smaller vault that contained the darkest magic of all. All of the objects inside were too powerful to be let loose. It was forbidden for anyone but the gnomes to venture back there. Even the prophets were forbidden entrance and they had tried over the centuries, many times. The prophets were feared because of their knowledge, as much as they were revered by everything that flew or walked or crawled on the land or swam the seas, except for the gnomes.

Gnomes TLC 02/3

I may be from another planet altogether but family operates pretty much the same way everywhere I’ve ever been. Well, maybe not for the gnomes. They don’t talk as much and they all look alike. I’m not even sure how they manage to tell each other apart. And they share everything…”