Palom glanced up from the textbook between them, setting aside his quill to study Leonora's face. Careful, quiet creases drew themselves across her brow. Her pale blue eyes lingered over the middle of the page, scanning a single sentence over and over again. Their shoulders touched at the edges and he could feel the warmth of her each breath. The wavy, blonde locks of her hair fell over his shoulder, trickling past his striped scarf, brushing his neck in soft, little kisses. They had been huddled over the text like this for the past hour. A pair of butterfly wings fluttered in his heart. His nose crinkled; his frown deepened to a scowl. He sat back in his chair, a safe distance away from the world of her.

"Question, Leonora?"

"Oh, ah…" She looked up at him, then away from him. He felt a heat rise in his cheeks as hers began to glow an apple red. Somehow, she managed a stiff and solemn expression. "Yes, actually. But just one this time." She cleared her throat, tucking a wisp of hair behind the shell of her ear. "Do you think poetry could be used for those purposes? I mean, I suppose it's practically the same as using incantations, since those incantations are what help us project images, since they evoke memories and feelings, which we then… project… to reality." She twitched her shoulders, sinking into herself, eyes fleeing to the text. "I guess I answered my own question."

He shrugged, the typical frown on his face stubbornly immobile. His gaze flicked to the textbook, and with a careless hand, he flipped it shut. "You did, and you're applying what you learned. What you don't know is that this was a common practice during the Old Age. Incantations from the earliest part of the era were often poems and songs written about the Elements. That was before the Elements were venerated in prayer. Most of them were preserved by oral tradition..."

Reaching an arm across the table, he grabbed a book, twice as big as the one between them. It slid carefully across the surface. Pushing the first one aside, he placed the second directly before her.

"This is an encyclopedia of all the incantations used for potions and spells from the Old Age," said Palom. "If you find time to poke around, you'll see some examples of those poems you were just asking about."

She bit her lip and traced the first letter of the title, which was twice the size of the rest and shiny, kinda gold-ish. Mysidian Spells and Spell Casting, An Encyclopedia, Old Age Edition. So crisp. So matter-of-fact. Wonder twinkled in her eyes.

"So, yeah," he said pointedly, "you learned something. Even if you took your sweet time."

Three hours and forty-six minutes, to be precise.

"O-Oh, w-well...yes." She swallowed and hung her head. "I'll reread the chapter tonight to make sure I've got it down! Not just the words, but the actual ideas, too." She gathered the books and rose to her feet. He watched as the folds of her himation fell around her soft, curvy waist - then looked away, drumming fingers on the tabletop. It wouldn't do to stare, no matter how good she looked in those Troian chitons. (Much better than that old priestess habit; a little leg never hurt anybody.) "Thank you for your time, Palom."

"We'll be discussing the next three chapters the day after tomorrow," he said simply. "Make sure you've got those read. Most of it's Old Age theory, anyway, so now you've got an extra source."

"Oh! Yes, alright." She took this surprisingly well for someone who was about to reread a hundred and twenty two pages, then read three hundred on top of that. Cheerful… somehow. It could have been a cheerful smile, anyway, even if it was small and thin and tight. There was something warm about it, distantly. She hadn't met his gaze. Maybe she was playing it coy.

Leonora stood up and pushed in her chair. Palom watched her lips, his eyes searching for the words hidden between them. She didn't look up. His frown was (indestructible) resolute. Suddenly, she spoke, a lilt in her voice, her eyes far off, in a world of their own: "See you the day after tomorrow, then."

"Yeah." He was so confused, but hell if he would show it. "I've got some work to do back at my office, so I probably won't see you tomorrow."

He stood up and pushed in his chair. The wood floor creaked as the chair slid into its place at the table, sending echoes across the high dome ceiling of the archives. Aside from the records keeper down below, they had been the only two in the entire building. Bookshelves towered above them, waiting for the whispers of creaking wood to drift out the windows, into the red sea of the setting sun. A silence followed. So heavy it was that Palom swore he could hear his own breathing. Had she not moved? He glanced over his shoulder.

She was just standing there, this tiny woman, supposedly two years older than him, her countenance stiff and pale with anticipation. He raised an eyebrow in askance, crossing his arms. She blinked, then blushed darkly, her eyes dropping to the floor. Ten years ago, he would have wrapped his arms around her and squished her tight. She was a squishable, round thing, short and plushy, like a human pillow. And they had been closer then. Back in the days of childhood.

Where had the time gone?

The butterfly in his chest fluttered its wings. He cleared his throat, feeling the heat rise to his own cheeks, and decided to speak up. "You got something else you wanna tell me, Leonora?"

"Ah…" She swallowed, her wide eyes locked in his that were narrowed. She stood stalk still, shifting only to tighten her grasp on the books in her arms. Her lips quivered for an instant, as if starting to form a word - but then, quickly, she shook her head. "H-Have a good evening, Palom."

He had wanted to say something. His feelings lay on the floor, a vulnerable, amorphous pile of hopes and disappointments. All he could do was watch as she bowed her head, turned around, and began to walk toward the stairwell. To no one in particular, he muttered, "Yeah, you too," and let her disappear into the lower level.

Well, that couldn't have gone any more awkwardly.

Collecting his notes in his satchel, he made his way downstairs, too. As he passed the records keeper (nice lady, if a little anal retentive), he gave her a stern nod. She solemnly bowed her head, a hand on her chest, as though to say, 'Good evening, Lord Elder.' He openly scoffed, as usual, and shuffled past her, glancing only to look back at the maze of bookshelves he had left behind.

The runes of this place filled the walls and parchments with the scent of magic. So thick was the smell, anyone with the barest hint of magical perception would pick it up instantly: freshly cut grass to some, a hint of something burning to others. Depended on who you asked, really. It tickled the nostrils and itched his skin. Energy, like pure energy, something you could feel, inexplicably, instinctively. The rush had made him want to reach for the skies, to call down lightning and fire and wind for a dance, to sing the songs of thunder and rain! The things that mages of the Old Age had written of, before they lusted for power and standing. What a waste of their talents, he sighed. Or maybe he'd been born in the wrong era.

So, naturally, he was reluctant to leave, but the sun was setting, and he knew Porom must be waiting for him at home with dinner on the stove. Tomorrow would be his turn to cook, but if he was on time for once, maybe he could persuade her that he cook in her stead again (it was easier to persuade her that they eat like pigs if he was the one armed with a spatula).

Down the road he walked, briskly and eagerly, hunger twisting up his stomach. Vegetable vendors shouted the names of their wares. Tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cauliflower, peppers, and gourd! Over and over again, in that order, the words woven together to sound like the fancy name of a foreign king. As he hurried on, he recalled Porom enthusing that morning about zucchini balls and bragging about the cloves she had harvested from her garden. This time, he hoped, she would get it the way Lana had taught them last year, for he could not stand the thought of having to pretend indifference to another massive failure. (And Porom was a slow learner.) His stomach tossed itself in knots and wept like a wounded beast. He stumbled forward, wishing his feet would go-a-little-faster-please.

Until, of course, he found himself at the intersection just down the street. One way lead home within a matter of minutes; the other took a detour through the neighborhood where he and Porom used to live with their parents. Detour, he said to himself. Never a destination. He had never been invited to her house; they had always met at the Hall of Prayers or at the Archives. Her home was intimate. She was a single woman, after all, living by herself. Somehow, by some ironic twist of fate, she had ended up living again at the house in which she had been born. Where her parents had once lived, before the War. Where they had played together every other day. It was like a piece of her heart anchored to reality. A piece of her heart he could visit and admire without needlessly drawing her attention.

Had he always been this shy?

Insecurities slinked their way between his thoughts. He dragged his feet down that dusty road, mulling over each one. What if she could see through the scowls? What if she could detect the embarrassment or even feel the flurry of butterfly wings beating in his chest. She'd always said she'd been able to see it. Two years ago, at the Lodestone Cavern, she'd returned in the knick of time, poking a hole through his mask. Ten years ago, before she'd left for Troia, he remembered how she would raise an eyebrow, poke his nose, and giggle between breathy gasps of No way! He could not help but wonder what she believed and what she knew for certain. Was it possible to believe someone was Sage-in-the-making material while knowing that their boasts were overzealous? A conundrum, really…

He drifted down the footpath, the weight of his shyness like a pebble in his throat. All he wanted was a glance at the yard. He wanted to see the patch of mud in which they used to play and the tree under which they used to sit. Relive the moment.

The Spring air was cool and reassuring, but cautionary and anticipating. Birds didn't sing. Crickets didn't chirp. It was an oppressive silence, accompanied only by a wind that whispered into his ear like the comforts of a grandmother's memory. A strange, little moment, this evening in the Spring. Time stood still, his the only body in motion. He was as a thought drifting across a sea of nothing. He could not hear the twigs snapping at his feet. He did not see the lines of stone houses or the hills that rose and fell. Reality trickled into his mind only as he began down an alley, into a world that seemed an endless corridor made up of sandy walls. Suddenly, a short, black, metal fence to the right broke the monotony of silence. Her fence.

Quietly, his breath stuck at the bottom of his lungs, he made his approach.

"You sweet, little thing!"

A shiver skipped down his spine. Palom froze in place, eyes wide, heart pounding. Heat rose to his cheeks. She had never said that to him before.

She sat in the grass at the muddy border of a flower bed, her legs crossed, her elbows to her knees. Her fingers stroked the petals of a pink camellia as though they were the fingers of another human being. She'd never even glanced his way.

"You're pretty sharp, aren't'cha, Cammy?" she giggled, setting her hand on her lap. Palom stood silently at the fence, saying nothing, his tongue sitting numbly in his mouth. "Yeah, well, not a lot of people are as astute, ya know. I'm glad we see eye to eye on this one. He's kind of a stinky brat, isn't he?" She tittered and rubbed her rosy, red cheeks. "A big, stinky brat! What a stinker! Oh, but you smell pretty good, Cammy. No! No, he's not skunk levels. That'd be mean to the poor skunk, now, wouldn't it?"

Dammit, Leonora, he frowned, clenching his teeth, feeling his face heat up like a furnace. Is that what you really-

"No, no, you're right. I should be nice. It's not true…"

Well - well - good! Ya slimey toad... The knot in his chest melted away as quickly as it had hardened. Absently, he, too, rubbed his cheek. Was it getting hot out here or what? Where had that cool, Spring wind gone? He swallowed, wondering if he should be standing there, worried she would notice him. Leonora, his apprentice. A silly thought, sure, but the worry wiggled around his chest like a worm in the rain.

So she hadn't grown out of it after all, talking to a flower like a little baby. Maybe she hadn't changed as much as he'd thought. She even called him stinky, like before, way-back-when. A stinky brat.

"I'm just not feeling so good," she sighed, hands cupping her cheeks, elbows to her knees. "The truth is, I tried to tell him today. Which is silly, I know. Stupid-silly. Why even bother?" Her restless arms drew around her. As she tucked her chin into her collarbone, locks of blonde fell around her face. "Apprentice. I'm the apprentice. And it's been two years." Another sigh, this one quieter but longer, weighing heavy on the air. "And he hasn't said a word. I don't think he really remembers. He's never said a word. And... if he doesn't remember, why would he feel the same? And-well-apprentice. I'm the apprentice…"

He could not feel himself standing there, anchored in the realm of the physical. He felt instead a soul out of his body watching a dream unfold. Her feelings were his-at least, he'd thought they were, because never until that instant had he felt such a bitter loneliness or so consuming a helplessness. That was the power of feelings, he figured. Only as she began to sob did he remember his body. His fingers began to quiver; his rings clinked together. Thank the gods, she heard nothing.

"Things'll get complicated if I say something," she said. "And even if I did, so what? What then? It'll get weird. I know he doesn't feel the same. It'll just get weird..."

Maybe it would, hissed a snake coiling around his heart. Ten years was a long time. She had left without a word. How could he know she was the same person? She had grown from a girl to a woman, bursting into hips and breasts and long, cloudy hair. She spoke of Troian goddesses and sang the hymns of the Earth Crystal. How could he know Mysidia was still in her heart? He had never been invited to her house. She had never spoken of her parents. Or the past.

"I know, I know it's stupid. It's just a crush."

She sounded miserable. Like a stack of tragedies sat on her shoulders, unpublished and unpublishable. The classic tragedy of a dumb, little crush, he figured. She was sensitive. A little prick to the skin of her heart, and it scattered, falling to pieces at her feet.

Leonora sighed. "But they're all crushes. I don't have anyone here. Not-a-one, Cammy..."

Her voice grew quiet. It sounded like the echo of a far-away cave.

"He was my best friend. I had friends here, in Mysidia. Had." She curled into herself, her arms hugging her legs, her face between her knees. She spoke slowly and softly, like her voice was carrying a porcelain dish with shaky, old hands. And muffled. Like her heart was stuck in her throat. "I don't think I have anyone anymore. Not anywhere. I don't feel it, Cammy…"

Suddenly, it dawned on him that he should not be hearing a word of this. He was on the Moon again. The same pounding-in-his-chest feeling. Emotions on the horizon. His chest laid bare. For so long, he had tried to hide that he had known. To himself, to her. These past two years, it had only grown more apparent. Whenever he walked into the room, her eyes darted to him and her cheeks glowed a rich rose. During their study sessions, she seldom looked up to him at the beginning, but stole glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking. The way she smiled, partly coy and mostly polite, had confessed everything to him. As for himself, he'd never been quite certain how he felt.

Yet, to hear of her misery, and that it had been spawned of some distant, irrational reason, he felt as though he were stumbling in on someone taking a shit. A heat spread to his cheeks and he suppressed an exhausted (soundless) sigh. He wasn't supposed to be seeing this, but she quite obviously needed to get it out of her system. It was ambiguous and irrational, but maybe she couldn't help it. Maybe it was just a nasty piece of her that her mind was filtering out. The way that the body filters out the things that could make you sick. Yeah, that made sense. She was sick. She was sick with loneliness.

He didn't know if she felt better. She decided to sit up abruptly and let out a deep sigh. He hadn't heard her crying, but she was rubbing her eyes vigorously. His heart twisted itself in knots. His mouth went dry. Abruptly, he stepped back. The grass crunched under his heel. Shit…! When he glanced back to Leonora, her eyes were on him, glossy and wide.

Time stood still. His heart boomed in the silence. Thump, thump, thump. You're-an-idiot, you're-an-idiot, you're-a-creepy-fucking-idiot.

"H-Hey, Leonora," he said weakly. "You… alright?"

"Huh? Oh-" She stumbled to her feet, her hands furiously dusting away the dirt from her chitons. "Oh yeah. Yeah, I just." She bit her lip. Her eyes searched the ground for the words. "I just… I miss my parents."

Big tears for a little lie. They trembled at her eyelashes, like welling drops of rain on a windowpane in delicate barely-a-balance. No, he knew it wasn't the truth. He'd been the creeper, the eavesdropper. Was she testing him? Was she giving him the chance to run? Should he comply, pretend to comfort her? Should he contradict her, pursue the truth? Questions on questions on questions. The answer was buried somewhere deep within himself, but he couldn't muster up the courage to look.

They were secrets, those tears of hers. Scary secrets. The whole damn thing was scary. He was supposed to be at home, anyway. With Porom and her poorly made zucchini balls. Not here, standing in a puddle of thrown-up secrets.

Quickly, Palom threw a hand in his satchel and fished out his notes. "Oh, well, I came to drop these off. Since you said you wanted to reread. The notes will help you review what we discussed earlier or whatever. Yeah?"

"Yeah…" She blinked a few times, her eyes wide. Her eyes flickered between the notes and him as she took him in her hand. A smile, small and thin and tight, curled her lips. "Thank you."

"If you want." He wasn't sure where he was going with this. As soon as he felt the pause begin to grow awkward, he forced the words through his lips. "You could, you know. Join us for dinner tonight."

"H-Huh?"

"Yeah." He scratched the back of his neck idly. His question twisted up his scowl, skewing it to the right. He twitched his shoulders."If you want."

"Oh, well… No, I…" She smiled small, but this time there was a warmth emanating from her. The blues in her eyes flickered, soft and comforting, like candlelight. He held his breath. "I'll be okay." She nodded. "But thanks anyway. For thinking of me."

"No problem." He nodded, too, feeling the moment uncoil his throat. His heart thumped wildly, freely, like frenzied-fluttering butterfly wings. He smiled small, his eyes away from her. "Anytime."

Another silence. That had gone better than expected. Though the breeze was chilly and the starlight had begun to twinkle, he could not help but feel as though he were basking in the Sun. In the middle of winter. Extra, extra warm. Serene and certain, comforted and welcome, as though beckoned from the cool shadows of the dark to step into the light of heaven. And underneath that, thump, thump, thump. She's-an-angel, she's-a-fairy, she's-a-Sylph.

"Palom?" whispered Leonora.

"H-Huh?"

Suddenly, she burst into giggles, her hand cupping her cheek. "Porom must be cooking up something amazing tonight, huh?"

The heat rose to his cheeks. He scoffed, waving his hand, shaking his head - until his eyes snapped wide open! He broke from her and stumbled down the path, a flurry of pumping arms and jogging legs. "I'll see you later, Leonora! Tomorrow, okay?"

"The day after, like you said! I've got quite a bit of reading to do, you know!"

Fuck, that was right. The wind whooped and the rustling leaves snickered. Laughter, loud and rolling, broke from his lips, letting his passions carry him over the hill and down the winding path. He knew, then, inexplicably, instinctively, like Porom's breakfast schedules or the language of Fire, that, distantly, certainly, she had heard him.