taxonomites | 007 || [Location:Taxon Library/Accidental Visual] || Seven For Avalon

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007 || [Location:Taxon Library/Accidental Visual] || Seven For Avalon

Corwin has definitely learned his lesson in “be careful what you wish for,” and instead of wandering the city aimlessly and complaining about how dull it is here (or hacking at trees), he’s managed to find something to occupy himself with.

He has always enjoyed the company of books—something about being surrounded with so many words had a calming effect that nothing else could even come close to matching. He spent a good deal of time simply wandering through the shelves and taking in the smell of them. It had been a long time since he’d been near so many. Too much to do…

It took a lot longer than it might have before he finally made his decision, sliding an obviously old, rather thick, and doubtless dry piece of literature off the shelf it sat on and retreated to a chair to sit and read it, cigarette in hand that he rapidly forgot about, lost as he was in the world of words.

And all of it for the enjoyment of the tablet. Evidently, it didn’t like him today.

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Alexis blanched as the man she hadn't noticed before approached, looming over her. While she'd had plenty of experience staring down her dad when he was being weird or unreasonable, Alexis had much less experience staring down strangers. "Sorry, I didn't mean to," she apologized, her voice squeaking a little. A blush began creeping up her cheeks. She waved to the shelf above her head. "I was just trying to get another one."

"And you didn't think that maybe you'd better put a few of them down first?" Teenagers. And it had been long enough since he'd been one that he felt he had every right to think what he wanted about them. He'd never particularly enjoyed interacting with children, even if he and most of his siblings were just as self-centered and little better.

Despite the spreading blush, a little frown tugged at Alexis' lips at the question. Her initial embarrassment slowly began to turn towards irritation at the patronizing question. She took a breath before answering, and her nose wrinkled at the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. "Aren't you not supposed to smoke in a library?"

Corwin ignored the irritation in her voice--she was just a kid, after all (but then, really, everyone here was to him) and he didn't exactly care what anyone else thought of him, angry or not. "I don't make a habit of throwing things on fire into things like books. I do actually care about them."

"But accidents can still happen," she pointed out. The looming man was intimidating, true, but Alexis pressed on. "Like falling ashes, or people dropping books."

"I'll be careful," he assured her with a well-concealed roll of his eyes. Being told off by a kid? Not an experience he particularly enjoyed.

Alexis gave him a look; something about that reminded her of dealing with her dad. Or maybe she just missed her family and was imagining things. She took a step back into the row of shelves, nearly tripping over one of the books that had fallen, and hesitated. There wasn't anyone else around. Or a step stool.

She glanced at the man, then at the shelf. "Could I borrow your chair to get the book off the shelf, Mr...?" she asked. It didn't hurt to ask, right?

The kid's attitude set him a little on edge, though he managed (somehow) not to glare outright at her and grabbed his chair without looking, swinging it around with one hand. "Corwin. Have at, kid."

Blinking in surprise, Alexis barely managed to suppress an audible 'eep' at the casual display. "Thank you," she said, perhaps a little meekly, and scrambled up for the thick volume of Chaucer, which got added to the pile of classic literature that was turning into the world's most thorough AP English reading list. Alexis hadn't wanted to borrow Dr. Reid's books, especially since she was already intruding his apartment, but she was starting to regret that particular decision.

"Sorry for interrupting, Mr. Corwin."

Corwin almost couldn't help looking at the volume that she'd pulled off the shelf or any of the rest of them in her pile and he was at least a little impressed by the choices. He may not have been all that fond of kids, but she's managed to garner a little bit of respect for her choice in reading material, at least.

"Heavy stuff for a kid."

Gathering up the pile again, Alexis managed to shrug without the books toppling out of her arms again. "They're on the AP syllabus," she answered, as if that explained everything. For some people, it probably did. "And we never have the chance to go through everything I'm interested in in-class, so I thought I'd get to the rest of it now that I have time to keep up."

"Not many kids who'd do schoolwork when they didn't have to." Because there was so much else to do around here. At least books were something a litle more healthy than hacking at trees or fighting off zombies.

"I do." It was a simple statement, spoken without pride or awareness of its oddity. The polar opposite of her father, in fact. Maybe that was how she'd learned it. "If I'm lucky enough to get home, I don't want to be behind in school. Or with my violin or fencing lessons."

"Fencing" had him paying a lot more attention than even the books had. This girl was getting more and more interesting and he wasn't sure that he was particularly alright with that. "Sounds like you have wuite the interesting life."

Alexis smiled tentatively, offering Corwin back his chair. "Not really. My dad's a writer, so I get to see all the stuff he researches." Like how to escape being ducttaped to a chair. "If what he researches looks interesting, I try it."

"That's one way to do it," Corwin shrugged and put his chair back in place, returning to it and idly turning a few more pages in his book, thoughts obviously elsewhere.

Then, out of nowhere--

"How's your fencing?"

She had turned back to her books, trying to decide if she was being overambitious or not ambitious enough, when the question came out of nowhere. Alexis turned back, perplexed. "My instructor says my footwork is good, but that I get too carried away." That was, all things considered, not surprising. Her grandmother had a tendency to get carried away, and so did her dad. It was probably genetic. "Why?"

That brought a smile to his face--of course she would. The young often tended to get carried away. Who knew how many times Benedict had had to say that to his siblings as he trained them? With some, probably, more than others. Random came rather rapidly to mind.

So he ignored the incredulous "why" and went back to the first statement. Why, exactly, he was even thinking this...

"I could fix that." No, it certainly wouldn't last very long around him. He'd been fencing to survive for longer than her entire family had been alive, and that was always the best motivator.

Her brow furrowed in a confused frown at Corwin's response. She had gone to the library for books, not for a fencing instructor, but if he was offering (and Alexis was pretty certain there weren't that many ways to interpret 'I could fix that'), why shouldn't she say yes. It wasn't like she could keep up with fencing from a book.

"You could?" She tilted her head, confusion turning to curiosity. "You know how to fence?"

"Don't sound so surprised. It's not entirely uncommon, believe it or not." So maybe it was and that was a lie, but it didn't exactly matter. He was, perhaps, not the easiest or greatest teacher, but he was experienced and offering and that was what counted.

"It was pretty uncommon back home," Alexis couldn't help pointing out, but a hopeful smile was lighting up her face. "Would you really teach me?

"What is the world coming to." Admittedly, it wasn't required on a lot of Earths for survival as it had been in his, but still. There was a finesse to these things and it was saddening in a way that it was being lost slowly to the deterioration of time.

"I would," he relented, not really sure why. "Though I have to warn you, it's been a while since I've done it in any formal setting."

That wasn't really a question. Nor was it something she could really answer. It was more like the sort of thing her dad (or her grandma) would say when things changed. So she shrugged. "I'm assigning myself homework out of the library, Mr. Corwin. I don't think 'formal' matters."

"You say that now," he countered with one of those "looks" that kids knew rather intimately. "Wait until we're actually sparring and I miss." Or got overexcited and forgot to pull back. He could do some serious damage without realizing it if he wasn't careful.

Given that Alexis was used to being the responsible one, getting the look instead of giving it was change, and she bit back on a giggle. "I think that's why they invented padding." And blunted foils, but that part was obvious.

Right?

007 || [Location:Taxon Library/Accidental Visual] || Seven For Avalon

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[location: Taxon Library] - argh sorry about late tags, life ate brains

[location: Taxon Library] RL > RP bb~ I understand~

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