the color of infinity

[freewolfmoon]

Characters: Fenris (freewolfmoon) and Colette Brunel (wingsofvirtue)
Location: The library
Rating: G or PG if Fenris is enough of a jerk, but still sugary-sweet.
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed
Summary: Fenris tries to learn to read. Colette helps out.

Comments

[wingsofvirtue]

The library intimidates Colette. Paper, like many other things, is precious in Sylvarant, so few people in Iselia owned books, though of course the Brunels were privileged enough to own quite a few. But every book in Colette's house is religious, many of them not even written in the modern language but in the ancient language of the angels. Palmacosta Academy had been full of dry, stuffy books about math and science and other hard things, and they hadn't even been there for long.

So books in this number and variety that exist not just for learning, but for the sheer pleasure of reading? Genis and Professor Sage do it, but to Colette it's a foreign and strange idea. She trails a finger along the spines of the books, turns a corner around a bookshelf, and stops in surprise.

"Hello, Fenris," she says, smiling. She tilts to the side as she approaches, craning to see the book. "What're you reading?"

[freewolfmoon]

He realizes he's being watched at the faint sound of footfalls, at the shadow crossing the edge of his vision. Fenris is a man who knows when he's being approached. He has had to be. But usually, when he's worried about someone disturbing him, he can reassure himself with the knowledge that if there's any danger, he can surely kill the intruders. In this case, it's going to be a lot more difficult.

It's not until she speaks, revealing her identity, that he realizes just how much more difficult it's going to be.

He slowly pauses in his halting attempts to parse the words on the page. "I'm studying. It isn't your concern." But it's a large book in height if not in thickness, and he can only do so much to hold it so that the colorful pictures don't show.

[wingsofvirtue]

Oblivious to the fact that her presence is unwanted, she reads the title. The Littlest Pupu.

"What's a pupu?"

[freewolfmoon]

That's not so bad, as questions go. He stares fixedly down at the book. "It seems to be a foreign visitor in need of help. I've never seen anything like it; perhaps it's a creature of fantasy."

Says the creature of fantasy. What is his life?

(Other than horrifically traumatic, of course.)