As the two of us walked, I was able to see Calico’s features from the side were less cat-like than from the front, but the slope of his forehead to his nose, the shape of his upper lip and cheekbones, even the slant of his eyes and eyebrows were all angled slightly to give that feline edge, but I was also able to see that he had two small beauty marks under the outer corner of his right eye, there was a matching one past the left corner of his mouth.

              “I’m…sorry you were pulled into…taking me in.” I said quietly, he laughed softly

              “It’s nothing, Quinten, it’s far from the first time my grandfather has pulled me or one of my siblings into housing a wanderer for a bit of time.”

              “Wanderer?”

              “It’s the general term we use for people of the other realms” he shrugged softly before tucking one of his sleeves back as he swirled his fingers in an arcane gesture as soft warm, ivory toned light seeped off his fingers and out of his sleeve erupted this swirling mass of glowing ivory papers that formed this sweeping magic circle that glowed before it seemed to rip through the middle like an opening eye as he gestured towards it and stepped through. I breathed deeply before I stepped forward and felt the similar, ripping/pulling force of going through a teleportation circle or other teleportation magics, even pocket dimensions kind of have that same feeling. As I stepped out of the circle, I felt the slightly alien, but weirdly familiar feeling of being in a massive city; like when you spent a long time in a big city, that way where all cities feel similar, but alien at the same time. None of the buildings looked normal in any regard to their shapes, structures, styles and all other possible aspects; there was so, so much color that it was almost sensory deprivation. The sound of traffic from the magic vehicles, people flying and other methods filled my ears in a cacophony din; as I looked around I saw flocks of people flying around between the buildings, various forms of transport like some sort of monorail along with what looked almost like a cable car system, flying creatures and the almost static like sound of teleportation magic was a constant around me.

              “Sorry, it’s a lot at first.” Calico sighed before motioning, “Anyways, here’s my place” he said

              As I looked where he was gesturing, across the street from where we were was this…tectonic, wedding cake like structure: the base building was a three story hexagonal building, the next tier up was pentagonal then the last tier was diamond shaped topped with twin glass pyramids mimicking the diamond shape in barely blue tinted glass, the floors below had no roofs, only large wraparound open terraces that perfectly matched the shape of the tier it was on, the terraces all covered by a large glass awning that had the barest hint of blue tinting to the glass, fixtures of crystal and magic slowly swirled and floated about the tiers, not connected or really serving any purpose from what I could see, just purely decorative masses of crystal the size of a large car or small house. All of the tiers were covered in these massive, tall and thin vaguely art-deco like windows with gold decorative frames, each window was flanked by fluted white marble pillars capped in gold at the top and bottom of each pillar, the buildings themselves were a softly warm beige marble that was veined in gold and warmer brown tones throughout the stone, there were these colorful glowing spheres that seemed to be on a set orbit around the roof edge of each tier that crackled and sparked with various colored magic. If I had to guess, the entire structure was a minimum of ten or so stories tall. There was a massive pair of open, dark wood and golden doors that had a wide sweeping pathway leading up to it, the entire structure was looped by intense gardens that included some maybe thirty or so foot tall trees, impossibly thick and softly glowing canopies of pastel tones. A long plinth slowly revolved around the property edge, dark wood and edged in gold with lights around it that read Emberholde Library. Off the edges of the terraces spilt endless flora in forms that I couldn’t recognize and some I did, light was everywhere as much as there was color and life and ceaseless magic

              “That…that’s a library though” I said gesturing towards it, he just softly rose a hand, using his fingertips to push my wrist so my gesture was to something that I had only brushed past…off the point of the flush glass pyramids was a massive golden chain, each link as large as my leg and thickly wrapped and twisted with vines that hung almost in a curtain along it: I followed the chain up to where it was set into. The chain fastened to…a tower: it floated above the library, maybe two-three stories above the apex of the pyramids, no stone base visible from this distance, entirely edged in hanging vines and plants that crawled down the gilded chain in flashes of silver and other colors. The tower itself was perfectly vertical with no off-shots, wings or pieces, made of dark and rich toned stone with a flared out, slightly concave green tilled roof, wrapped in silver trellis and more plant than visible stone. A large gold telescope piece seemed to shoot out at an odd angle from the green turret. “…oh” I said quietly

              He just laughed quietly, “Most people are confused as to where my tower is” he shrugged as he started walking, I followed behind/beside him. As we looped around the library towards the tower, I saw other fixtures were on whatever foundation the tower was built on: there were…wings off the sides of the platform: they spread out fifteen-twenty feet out; bronze and creamy linen colored fabric between them as they beat as if in slow motion, a vertical rotor like fin was off the back and other pieces of bronze, gold and that deep ivory colored fabric adorned the tower making the tower look more…almost ship-like.

              “Can it…move?” I asked

              “It can; my family, my parents have this…massive floating castle that just aimlessly moves about the kingdoms, floating on the winds to wherever it takes them, the castle was built upon for all of us and over time…we detach our towers off it and float off on our own before we eventually find somewhere to lash down our towers.” He explained, “So when I got my job here at the library, I lashed my tower down…though if I ever wanted to move it around or something I could easily unfasten it.”

              “Wow” I whispered, he smiled softly as he nodded to the side, “How…how do you get up?” I asked as we were almost under it, he just rose a hand towards it, glowing ivory pages swirled forming a swirling spiral staircase that churned on its own like some sort of escalator. He stepped up and I hesitated before stepping onto one of the paper steps. The staircase swirled before leveling out as Calico stepped off onto the slightly large projection on the front of the tower’s base. The tower was even more beautiful this close; there was a green glass bell shaped awning overtop where the front door was and there was a looping garden around the towers base, a single door wide round-topped door of dark wood with an inset stain glass window central that depicted tiger-lilies. All of the windows had overflowing window boxes, vines grew up along the walls and the grounds were filled with a very, very thick blanket of flowers that were all…for the most part orange. I’d say maybe two-three yards of space was between the base edge of the tower and the edge of the platform, a thin stone pathway along the edge with a high railing and the rest occupied by the gardens, there were glass bells, wind-spinners and all sorts of accessories like that about the gardens and a single massive dogwood tree off to the side of the tower. As I looked around the gardens, my habit of constantly staying in libraries and reading kicked in as I was able to point out flowers one by one, knowing exactly what there were: begonias, bird of paradise, chrysanthemums, marigolds, orange roses, tiger lilies, tulips, carnations, daisies, daylilies, iris, ranunculus, bulbines, cosmos, aloe cacti, alstroemeria, canna, poppies, lion’s tails, zinnias, dahlias, orchids, lantana, crown imperials, heleium, butterfly-weed and tall torch lilies in this…organized chaos of orange and green, speckled with other flowers, shrubbery and plants.

              “Come on, I’m sure you’re starving” Calico said as he opened the door to the tower.