There wasn't much to do at the archives. But then, it is the day before Empire Day, so I didn't expect many new and ancient acquisitions fresh from the hyperspace transport. The University has already shut down, so there weren't any students with wild eyes and deadlines. The postal service is also closed (as I learned only after I got there), but then, they are always the first to close. They did have a picture of the Emperor on display that kept baring its grey grave marker teeth in what I think was intended to be a smile. But I won't go on about that. I don't need to have a special, unannounced visit from a morale officer.
Anyhow, it might be almost Empire Day, but there were still patrons wandering in and out of the library for most of the day. The brown bird woman was amongst them—but Andraste had to listen to her flutter through her instructions.
I had just turned to return to my desk, making certain I looked too preoccupied, and too haughtily mean, to assist anyone, when I saw Erienne. He must have only just arrived, because he was talking with the woman at the sign-out desk.
I gave in to my worst instincts and stepped back to watch him. Of course, I did have a comm conversation with him last week, but I haven't seen him in person, at the archives, for several dragged out months, and I hadn't known to expect it. He nodded at the woman, and pushed some of his loose, gloriously messy hair back behind his ear. Then he turned and saw me, and I felt my mouth move into a smile.
Andraste smiled at me while the bird woman labored over a request form. Oh that Erienne, she said once. It's too bad they can't all be like him.
It seems obvious, and trivial, to mention that Erienne is beautiful. I noticed that the first time I saw him, when he approached my desk. He kept letting his long barkbrown hair fall across his face, and I thought (and I understood) he might be shy. It has turned out to be more complicated. He has dark cat-sly eyes, like another man in Aina's poems, and graceful, dramatic hands. Oh, I am still surprised, if happily so, that I have seen him naked.
Today, he had come to consult a book of historical essay-poems from Naboo. He does have somewhat of an interest in that world. He doesn't actually need me to assist him, but he does like to discuss varied literary opinions. He must have been a scholar once, if only back in the past, though he has told me he isn't with the university.
Since D. is already off on her holiday, we had the chance to socialize. The other patron in the arc hives, one of the university adjuncts, minded her own business. Oh, and he does like my blue hair. He made a reference to some night-goddess on Alderaan.
When I saw him through the dark air of that bar, he was sitting with a girl with grass-blonde hair and a plain potato face smiling in a fireworks glittering dress. Later, when we were wandering out in the park, N. had to say he must have a preference for blondes, but I think that was a coincidence. He still saw me, and I think he smiled.
But I had to blink to look back at him, and I'm not still certain. Then Lea wanted to dance, and she pulled me over to sway with her. I had to lean in to hear her as she screamed over the hard pounding music. When I looked back for him, he was gone.
But of course, I spoke with him only the next day. I don't have to worry about sleeping with him—since obviously, I already have. It just happened, naturally and happily, after I ran into him at the university square. I didn't have to figure out which rules to follow. But that was once, and seven months away in the past, and I would like to do it again.
It could happen. Before he left, I gave him a note, taken from the paper I use to write all this, and he put into his frockcoat pocket. I don't need to remind myself what I wrote. It should distract me at my parents' house—and I might need that during the hours I'll spend in the room that is still my bedroom, with the rose-pink carpeting my mother had installed the week after I left for university. She doesn't like to wait.