[Wright Library] That Old Book Smell (Fallon)

[Talya]

Talya's eyes followed Fallon's hands. The way her fingers seemed to tense around her quill, the way they were held poised against it, as her wrist flicked, pushing the hand that eventually scrolled the letters upon the emptiness of her notebook. Or at least, that is how it seemed, by how her muscles bunched, and then stretched themselves out each time she was set to action. The Ethaefal left to idly wonder what in the world she could be writing down, although she didn't truly care. "Still," she said, "more than the others," was all that was left, and soon she finished, to look over her own pages as the woman continued her copying. Her writing, her note taking, whatever in all of the world it was that she was doing. But that didn't seem to last very long; only for a little bit, before Fallon began to speak again, and Talya was drawn away from her own reading, and the accompanying musings. She set her finger upon the page to mark her spot, as she looked up from it and blinked a few times as the woman continued to speak to her. Asking questions she thought she had answered; things she thought that she had discussed, and things she found simply, rather stupid. "Truth Fallon," Talya said. "Simply... truth." But that doesn't seem like something you can understand or appreciate, she thought to herself, as Fallon continued her little speech. Talya sighed. "You scarcely understand- there is always a right, and there is always a wrong. No matter what the mind may tell us. Until you understand that child, you can never truly understand anything," she finished as she slid her finger down the page and out of the book, before shutting it sharply, with a loud clap. Several people looked over; their eyes seemed sharp glares. But Talya didn't care, she scarcely noticed as she frowned, gathered her things, and pushed back her chair for her feet. "Thanks for helping me find these," she said as she tapped the book at the top of her pile, got herself up, and then pushed her chair in with her hip as she glared down the bridge of her nose at Fallon. "Happy hunting, until we meet again," she said simply as she forced herself to breath deeply, to calm herself, before she moved away to another quiet section of the University library to study what she had gathered with the woman's help. Talya shook her head. Humans, she sometimes thought, would always be heathens. They just didn't care about the layers; the deeper meanings as she, or some of the other Ethaefal, (she supposed), did. What was on the surface was enough, as were their opinions. They would never develop as a race in that way, she felt, but you couldn't much tell them that- they always got a little defensive. But no matter, you could not get angry at others for their own ignorance. Or rather, you could, but you shouldn't, and it was this that made her feel all the more sorry for Fallon, and for the humans, and for herself- as her search, although important, was so very, very painful.