[Najmi] spend our vacation at

[mr_gaeta]

Despite Azimar's assertions otherwise (and Gaeta's own firsthand experience, now), he still wants to learn how to decipher the language he sees around him in occasional signs and charts. Considering the maps they'll soon have on hand, he thinks it doubly important. You can't navigate if you can't read.

So, for the time being, he's taken to the manor library. Gaeta nearly upended a tiny dish of ink as he was pulling down a couple of texts, but caught himself in time; now, he's trying to puzzle over the written language as Kaya taught him. Under his breath, he sounds out each word as carefully as he can, with the halting uncertainty of someone far younger.

Comments

[no_thief]

She shakes her head. "Only where there are a lot of books in one place. And where somebody's feeding them."

Beat.

Lower: "My old house had some. Not this many."

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh." Softer.

Another inkyface leans over the inkwell a little too far, reaching to scrape the bottom, and topples headfirst into the well.

[no_thief]

Kaya covers her mouth with both hands again, strangling on suppressed laughter.

[mr_gaeta]

She's not the only one: the other inkyfaces make a tiny, chittering noise that sounds a bit like rustling paper. One of them darts forward to grab the legs of the fallen inkyface, hauling it back out onto the desk.

Its entire body stained black, it blinks open its eyes and stares dolefully up at Gaeta, who has his whole hand pressed to his mouth now.

"Poor thing," he says. "Here -- "

He starts to dig through his pocket in search of a scrap of cloth or tissue.

[no_thief]

It doesn't prove necessary, though; the other inkyfaces are now crowding around the soaked one to lick it clean, like cats grooming each other.

"They don't want to waste it," Kaya whispers.

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh," he whispers, the way someone might exclaim at a revelation; Gaeta withdraws his hand and settles it back on the table.

The display's a little odd to watch, considering they look a lot more humanoid than feline, but...it's also not doing much to dispel the cuteness of the whole scene.

[road2najmi_npcs]

It seems like this signifies the ending of the party, regardless; one at a time, they're slipping away and disappearing over the edge of the desk.

By the time the one that fell in the inkwell has been licked clean (it's done a great deal of the licking itself), only three or four others are still there. One of them is peering at the desk, scraping up a few half-dried drops of ink.

[mr_gaeta]

Gaeta considers it, his faint smile lingering.

"Will they go after the books themselves to get ink if they can't find any?" he asks.

[no_thief]

She nods. "Sometimes. That's why it's good to feed them. They like fresh ink better anyway."

[mr_gaeta]

The last of the ink dispelled, two more inkyfaces hop down to vanish amid the desks. The one that fell into the inkwell peers up at Gaeta, then trots over to turn the same scrutiny on the book they're reading.

It lets out another paper-rustling chirrup at what it sees.

[no_thief]

"That's the river of iron," Kaya whispers to the inkyface. "We found it."

[mr_gaeta]

Cautiously, after another glance up at them, the inkyface sticks one foot into the gutter of the book and hefts itself onto the page. The other remaining inkyface scurries after it, crawling up to sit on the upper left corner.

(Even now, it still looks a little strange to Gaeta when he sees corners that meet at ninety-degree angles.)

The first inkyface walks across the page to the very center, right in the middle of the depiction of the river.

[no_thief]

Very tentatively, unable to resist, Kaya reaches out a hand toward the little creature.

It moves so fast it seems to blur, streaking across the desk and gone, along with the second one.

Her shoulders droop with disappointment.

[mr_gaeta]

Gaeta's don't, but one corner of his mouth does pull to the side, rueful.

"Maybe we'll get to see them again before we leave," he offers in an attempt to comfort.

[no_thief]

"Maybe." Her tone's hopeful.

But her gaze goes back to the page recently vacated by the inkyface, and her back straightens again.

"We should study this. That's what's important."