Reading in the dark (closed)

Tebryn nodded along as she spoke.

"I think a lot of the people here are like that.  On their own, I mean.  Lakeshore has a lot of orphans and runaways within the town limits."  He ruffled her hair and paused when they came to an intersection in the corridor.  

"You'll get used to the castle.  It doesn't always make sense, but you get a feel for it.  After a while."  He looked down each of their choices, then at Mollie.  "Which route shall we take?  East will take longer, but we're less likely to run into a crowd. South is much fast, but we'll be passing by the mess hall, which tends to be a busier area."

At the mention of crowds she got nervous. She bit her lower lip and moved a closer to her guide. "I'm okay with taking a longer route. A-as long as you don't mind."

Mollie didn't like being around too many people, just like she didn't enjoy being in total darkness. Too many auras blending together made it hard for her to see anything separately. She felt like she would be closed in on.

Tebryn noted Mollie growing tense at the mention of crowds, and filed that information away. "I don't mind. I prefer avoiding the louder groups myself."

He turned down the east hallway, which turned into a winding secondary corridor with several staircases branching from either side.

She smiled and looked up at him. "So why don't you like crowds? For me they just make me nervous because it can make it hard for me to see. Too many auras running together and too many colors."

She had to be told when the stairs were coming so she didn't trip and fall. Though she was sure that Tebryn would have been able to catch her if needed.

Mollie didn't want her new friend to think of her as boring so she tried to find a new topic of conversation. "What do you enjoy doing when you aren't helping somewhat blind girls through the maze of Dunehelden?" She giggled softly.

"I just don't like all the noise."

He kept one hand at the small of her back, making sure she was steady on the stairs. He smirked. "A little here, a little there. I like cooking, and reading. And sparring. I go for long walks in the woods when I can't sleep and I tend to go inside my own head when I have nothing to do."

"Pretty boring. And yourself?"

She smiled, trying to reassure him, "That doesn't sound boring. I do some of those things myself. I'm used to being alone most of the time so I tend to do things like read, think, study... I sometimes just watch people, trees anything that I can see. I've been learning piano recently so I won't need help whenever I want to listen to music so I can make my own."

She also liked playing with her dolls, they were some of her best friends when she was younger but there was no way she was going to tell that to someone. She had learned from being laughed at in the orphanages that playing with toys wasn't done by someone her age.

"Are we allowed to walk around in the woods at night? I thought someone told me that it shouldn't be done."

Tebryn gripped her elbow to guide her around a curve in the stairs between landings. "We're not allowed. Not as Academy students, anyway. But I haven't gotten caught yet."

It was more likely that the staff as a whole knew he was less likely to cause trouble than any of his siblings and hadn't bothered to stop him if they noticed his passing, but oh well.

"It's not really safe in the woods at night, more than anything because the borders are always shifting and it's easy to slip into Arcadia by accident." Or the human realm, which was actually worse for some of Dunehelden's inhabitants.

There was a long moment of quiet. Tebryn waited until they reached the bottom of the stairs before asking, "So where exactly are you from?"

She nodded slowly as she listened to him. Arcadia Mollie wasn't sure exactly what that was but all of her teachers had warned her against it. She had not had any unpleasant encounters with the Fae and she definately wanted to keep it that way.

She smiled. "I'm from Ulm, Germany. It is a small fishermans town, though it has gotten more popular over the years. It has the tallest cathedral spire in the world, or that is what I have been told. What about you? Are you from this Arcadia place that I keep hearing so much about?"