For the first time in almost six months, Torram felt utterly at home in his environment. Though one of the servants had directed him here, and assured him it was open to all, he still cast the occasional nervous glance towards the library doors as he meandered through aisles of books. He'd already amassed quite a collection at a nearby desk, nearly all of them focused on the world he now found himself in, but he'd been unable to resist the pull of more books, more information, more knowledge just waiting for him to find them. He trailed his fingers along spines cracked with age, his smile so filled with innocent, genuine pleasure his face all but glowed with it. Torram's father had always encouraged his children to embrace words - how to use them, both in writing and in speech, had been one of the lessons he'd insisted on handling personally - and being in this immense library made him feel closer to home than he had in far too long. Even before the Falverin attack and subsequent transportation here, he'd begun his Grand Tour and had left home with only Birch for company. Though he'd written countless letters they'd had no way to return them because his schedule had changed so frequently, and now... Now he had no way of getting in touch with them at all. That thought had Torram sighing, his finger dropping off the shelves and a melancholy look slipping into his gray eyes.
Remembering, after a second or two, that Birch would come and find him again shortly, he turned his attention back to the task at hand. Birch had been very clear in that aspect; while she was off finding someone to explain her newly developed wings (Birch with wings, the picture had Torram snorting a little with amusement), he was to research as much as he could on the beast he'd encountered. One of the people he'd bumped into earlier had called it a Nalim, and Birch had insisted he march his bottom up to the library and get studying so that he could avoid another mishap. His earlier tangle with a hungry male had left him with a lingering limp; Birch was hopeful it would heal up entirely over time, at least. Sneaking another guilty glance over his shoulder, Torram bent until his nose nearly touched the page of a crumbly yellow book titled Bestiarum Vocabulum and focused on his lesson. In seconds he was enthralled, flipping through page after page of strange beasts like he'd never seen or heard of before. He didn't even notice when the door slipped open behind him... |