The Librarian

"Pull up a pile of books and sit down, Yvessu," the librarian said with a sardonic smile. "We may not have much in the way of proper furniture here but one thing we are never short of, is books".
Yvessu assumed the librarian was joking, even though she was, herself, sitting on a stack of leather-bound volumes. Instead, she knelt on the warped wooden floor, trying not to sneeze as a cloud of dust, disturbed by her movements, drifted slowly back to the ground.
“You must stay here tonight, of course,” the librarian continued. “Returning to Triwellen would be dangerous now. I can offer you food and drink and a bed later, but first we should discuss why you came here.”
“MoonEyes has explained your quest to FellKiss, and FellKiss has explained it to me, so there is no need to repeat it.”
Yvessu wasn’t entirely sure that she approved of her cat consorting with the witch’s cat, but she was pragmatic enough to realise it may have been for the best. MoonEyes had effected an introduction in a perilous place and that was something to be grateful for.
“I may be able to help you,” the librarian continued. “The book you are looking for is in the stacks. It will not be easy to find. It lies within one of the miasmic regions of the library where getting in is easy but getting out is… shall we say, problematic?”
“I do not intend to aid you without some recompense. This library is not easily maintained. We need to take care of a variety of arcane problems. So, I must ask you whether you can pay the price?”
“What is the price?” Yvessu asked with a sinking heart.
“Nothing you can’t afford” the librarian answered…

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The Library of Leaves by DMFW with Disco Diffusion & Night Cafe

In the morning light the Library of Leaves no longer felt as frightening as it had the night before. The creaking that might have been distant bookshelves growing in the darkness and the long shadowy aisles under spare illumination that sometimes suggested movement half seen out of the corner of the eyes had been replaced with the slanting rays of warm yellow sunshine and a soft rustle like the wind blowing through unseen tree tops. It was nonetheless strange, though.
The deeper they walked into the regions the witch described as "more difficult", the odder it all became. The pale beige plasterwork of the walls, which was sometimes exposed behind the high shelves was prone to bending at angles that betrayed a very unconventional geometry and one which the stacks of books in front of them did not always seem to follow, as though there might be hidden spaces behind the bookshelves. Stained glass windows lent colour to dapple the bright light that played over the spaces below. Some of these windows were high above the corridors, but others sat on pedestals or lent at crooked angles on corner shelves and yet still shone as brightly, or even more brightly than the apparently true windows in the walls, although it was impossible for the sun or sky to lie behind them.
Everywhere there were books. Books with brightly coloured spines, big books as tall as Yvessu herself, tiny books like stamps and everything in between all mixed up together. Most disconcerting of all, there was something wrong with the scale of the place itself, or perhaps it would be better to say, something inconsistent. Here and there tiny corridors opened between the rows of shelves leading to tiny rows of minature shelves and books. In other places a cold wind blew from great openings that hinted at gigantic furniture and truly colossal books. The witch threaded a path between these extremes but Yvessu was always aware of their peculiar presence and wondered whether she was seeing something real or if it was a trick of the mind.
From time to time they came across pointed archways bent together in otherwise open gaps, simple affairs of wood supporting nothing and apparently with no purpose, but the witch explained that it was important to touch both pillars, "left first, then right", before passing through them. "It's a symmetry thing," she explained, "so that we keep to the paths where the books are written to be read from left to right. There are as many books in languages that favour other orientations and we do not wish to go there. Not yet, anyway."
It would be very easy to get lost here, to get lost and perhaps to wander forever. Yet in daylight the library felt peaceful and the books were a seductive attraction. Yvessu longed to stop and browse. What fascinating stories and hidden secrets lay bound between the covers of these strange books? And how many there were! The library was enormous. She couldn't even guess at the number of volumes that must be contained within it and of course she hadn't the faintest clue how it might be organised. There must be many secrets here that even the librarians didn't know.