An Evening in the Library (Open)

[Ashfalcon]

The library of the Grey Tower was overwhelming, a maze of shelves all full of books, dim light save for the circles of brightness from the lamps on the study tables, the constant hush broken by the soft sounds of gentle movements: footsteps, turning pages, the faint scratch of quill on parchment, a whispered conversation somewhere nearby...

Illanova Restrov hunched over her book and forced herself to read another paragraph. It wasn't that she was bad at reading -- in fact, she was getting better with practice -- it was just that it had never been among her favorite activities and the fact that Tavera Gaidar kept assigning her the driest accounts of military history ever recorded in ink was not helping.

She sighed and leaned back, stretched, and then added a small note to the parchment at her side: Cordal Gaidin, 842, led a band of mercenaries and soldiers to flank trolloc force raiding Malkier after his Aes Sedai died. Disrupted the attack and lifted the siege. Died to a man.

[Kenny]

Malin drifted between the aisles of the Grey Tower’s library like a ship gliding through mist, the faint lamplight brushing against his Sea Folk skin with every careful step. He had no real destination—he often let the Pattern tug him toward what he needed before he knew he sought it. His fingers traced the spines of old volumes as he passed, and the low hum of whispered voices and scratching quills filled the air like the murmur of distant waves.

A soft sigh caught his ear, sharper than the ambient sounds, drawing his gaze across the room. Near one of the study tables, a girl hunched over a book, frustration plain in the set of her shoulders and the quick movement of her quill as she jotted something down. Malin paused a moment, considering, then approached in the same silent way he would have approached a seabird perched on a spar—careful, respectful.

He stopped just short of her table and tilted his head slightly, the silver cords in his hair catching a glint of lamplight.

"Hard reading?" he asked gently, his voice low and even, carrying no judgment—only understanding. His storm-gray eyes flickered to the tome she was working through. Military history, by the look of it. Dry as sun-bleached driftwood.

Malin offered a small, wry smile, the kind that suggested shared suffering rather than amusement at her expense.
"I find battle records harder to endure than a becalmed sea," he added, folding his arms loosely. "But you read it anyway. That speaks more for you than the writer of dry ink."

[Ashfalcon]

"It speaks for me not wanting Tavera Gaidar to set me with extra chores," she muttered, then broke off from her reading and looked up. The man on the far side of the table was considerably taller than herself, darker-skinned, and dressed in the manner of the Sea Folk. "Hello," she said, taking in the shape of those shoulders and the stormcloud-grey eyes through her own mismatched gaze. "You're a bit far inland for an Atha'an Miere, aren't you? I'm Illanova."

Carefully placing a marking-strip to keep her on the correct page, she closed the book and sat back with a sigh. She was still going to have to finish the reading, but her eyes and her brain were both getting tired, and the new arrival -- at least, she didn't think she'd seen him around the Tower before -- was a welcome distraction.

[Kenny]

Malin allowed a small, genuine smile to form, a subtle lifting of the corners of his mouth rather than anything bold. He inclined his head in greeting, hand brushing lightly against his heart in a gesture borrowed from his people’s formal customs.

"You are not wrong," he said, voice carrying the soft cadence of Sea Folk speech, a lilting rise and fall. "The shore is far behind me now. I am Malin din Tomares Rising Wave, late of the Wave Dancer."

He settled into the chair opposite her with a fluid, careful motion, as though measuring the currents of the space between them. His silver-threaded sashes shifted slightly as he moved, catching a muted gleam from the library lamps.

"I find," Malin continued, lowering his voice to match the respectful hush of the library, "that the Tower’s walls are thick enough to dull the call of the sea... but not to silence it entirely." A trace of wistfulness colored his words, but only briefly. His gaze returned to her, steady and attentive.

"It is good to meet you, Illanova." He hesitated, glancing briefly at the thick book she had closed. "May I ask, what histories are you wrestling into obedience?"

He left the offer open, resting his hands loosely atop the table, patient, never pressing.

[Ashfalcon]

Illa glanced down at the book's cover. "It's called A Comprehensive History of Borderlands Battle Strategies, Volume Two, As Recorded by the High Captain Shoto Otarii." She looked back up, meeting Malin's eyes. "I don't know how you make battling fades and trollocs and keeping the Blight at bay sound boring, but -- well, actually, now I do. You use twice as many words as you could possibly need, analyze everything to death, and completely ignore the fact that most times the people involved in these battles had insufficient knowledge and no good choices. Which I'm going to have to figure out how to explain to Tavera Gaidar in a few days, hopefully without offending her."

She hesitated, looking at the Atha'an Miere seated across from her. "But what of you? What have you come to the Tower to study? And when brings you to the library?" Sea Folk were not so unusual in Tear, however unexpected it might be to encounter one here. She'd had very few dealings with them, and reminded herself to tread carefully; being unfamiliar with their customs and not particularly long on social graces in general, it might be far too easy to give offense.

[Kenny]

Malin listened closely, his head tilting slightly as she read the title aloud, the corners of his mouth lifting in a brief smile that was almost conspiratorial.

"You’ve given a more honest summary than the title, I suspect," he said softly, the storm-gray of his eyes warming with quiet humor. "And perhaps, you’ve already answered your own assignment better than you realize."

He didn’t laugh, laughter felt too large a sound for the hush of the library, but there was an ease in his posture now, a slight relaxing of the shoulders that only came when conversation began to feel like shared water, not uncertain tide.

"I suppose I’ve come to the Tower to study... everything," he said after a brief pause, his tone more cautious than grand. "But in truth, I am new. A Soldier. Only just arrived from the west coast. My knowledge of the Power is still... like the sea under moonlight, seen but not yet understood."

He glanced at the shelves around them, eyes lingering on the ancient spines and the flicker of lamplight on leather bindings. "I come to the library not with one question, but many. My people taught me that words hold weight, but here..." he gestured subtly, "they seem to shape the very way we live, train, and even channel."

Then, catching her hesitation, he offered with sincerity, "You need not worry—I do not offend easily. Your questions are well meant. And you speak plainly, which I find refreshing."

He smiled again, smaller this time, and looked down briefly before adding, "May I ask, how long have you been here?"

[Ashfalcon]

Illa paused, counting back. "Feels like forever, some days," she said, "but it's been half a year, more or less."

This was where she would have spun some unlikely tale, just to see how far she could get before he noticed. And if he'd been Tairen, or Cairhienin, or born anywhere in the Westlands really, she would have. Instead, though, she was looking at an Atha'an Miere, born of a world very different from her own: one of ships and travel and trade, of clans and duty -- or so she had always been told. Not only was he unlikely to care about her origins, matters of status and social class might be... well, not lost on him, but at least beyond his immediate experience. That rather took the fun from the game, and looking again at those storm-cloud gray eyes she admitted to herself that she also didn't want him to think her a liar. So, "I came here from Tear, to join the Warders -- or at least discover if I could. But I'm having to learn everything from the ground up, and that takes time." She gestured at the book. "I mean, I expected a lot of training and practice, I just didn't realize there'd be so much bloody reading as well. That's the part that's slowing me down."

Her friend Birno had done a token few weeks as a Soldier, and then a month or so as a Dedicated, before being raised to Asha'man... but Birno had been a refugee from the Black Tower, already practiced both in channeling Saidin and hiding his ability to do so. He'd taken to the Indigo Ajah like a duck to water. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but... how did you learn that you could touch the One Power? Or is that too personal a question?"