Goodfellow

Lolo cringed visibly. The rubedo character of his cheeks deepened further still and he became tense, nervous. His face contorted with clear confused struggle. After an interim filled with uncertain half words he motioned Joz over to an empty table. Pushing aside bottles and tankards he set two books before him; one completely nondescript and the other small and thick, screaming its age with every stain and crack across its aquamarine surface. The first he laid down carelessly, the latter with great intention, his hand lingering over it once it was set. He opened the newer, nicer seeming book, and indicated with a wave of his hand the words and letters within. "This is the Eorzean alphabet. I've read it all my life. I can recognize a few others, as well." He opened the aquamarine tome gently, the tips of his fingers almost dancing across the page as he traced the lines of the shapes and characters within. "This?" he began breathily, "I...don't...understand." The screwed-up look of his face was unreadable, not for any clever opacity, but for baring too much at once.

His cheeks reddened suddenly. "Because...er...well...I can't even read it," he stammered, chagrined.

He looked from the book to the girl and back. "No, this wouldn't be much good for that," he said softly.

Lolo's eyes widened and his ears twitched at Joz's snipe. She had accomplished so much in such little time that her own frustrations were incomprehensible to him. With a point to his mouth and a brandishing of the book from his pocket he shot back, "Yes, by talking. That or reading."

He cocked his head to the side and raised his hand to his chin. He answered without looking directly at her. "That...may not be entirely the point." He paused, then proceeded hastily. "Be that as it may, I suppose you'd improve in much the same way you would any other area. In your...er...former work, how did you become more adept?"

No problem. Double check my claims as you run through the SCH line, because I've been wrong before, but I don't think I'm too far off base and I'm glad to be of help.

I'm not nearly so well-versed as some of the others around here, so there may be some corrections incoming, but I'll answer to the best of my knowledge. 1) That's a safe assumption, to a degree. Obviously there have to be more fairies in order for people to rp scholars, but my understanding is that they're not simply found out and about. They were contemporaries of Nym and haven't really been seen since then, at least until the PC finds Lily in an old Nymian tablet. I've seen some pretty creative solutions for the finding-a-fairy problem. 2) I don't think we have that information, but considering they can be confined to objects (e.g. Lily in the Nymian tablet), I'd venture to say they're more similar to other aetheric beings than to the beastmen. 3) Again, I don't think we have any of that information. All we know about fairy culture is that it was apparently pretty cozy with Nym. Again, that's assuming that they have a "culture" in the same way as the playable races or beastmen.

As I understand it, it is as follows: 1) Yes, fairies are individuals. This is a spoiler, so skip to #2 if you want to avoid it, but the SCH quest line revolves around trying to restore the memories of the fairy, Lily. 2) I'd assume so. It's not addressed directly, I don't believe, but my understanding of the fairies is that they are in more of a partnership with their respective scholars. 3) I don't know. While we summon two mechanically, they're really both the same fairy. See #5. 4) Also don't know, also not addressed to my recollection. 5) Eos and Selene are not fragments or pieces of Lily, they are two different aspects or roles of Lily, or of any fairy for that matter. Whatever the individual fairy, she can manifest both in Eos-form and Selene-form. Selene and Eos are functional identifiers, not the names of individual fairies.

"I'm not sure I follow the question," he replied. "Exhausting? Difficult? Confusing?" he asked before answering, "If any of those are what you mean, then yes, it was each of them in turn."

Joz's success had thrilled Lolotaru and he vicariously felt her enervation. After she had gone, he took a brief nap on a rock in the shade until a light misting kissed him awake and he returned to the city and his room. All his earlier talk of reading and manifesting of magics inspired him to pull out the book from his pocket and read (or stared at, rather) it until late into the night, each page turning heavily with uncertainty and fascination and a deliberate, almost amorous care. The following day he was still engrossed in his reading when he was interrupted with word that Joz was there. He almost absentmindedly sent for her to come up to his room, having taken so to their academic relationship, but he thought better of it and with a long, final glance at the frustratingly, addictively indecipherable symbols before him hopped down from his seat and descended to meet Joz. Gods, she does look uncomfortable, though, he thought to himself as he stepped out from the staircase. "Feeling better, Miss Joz?" he asked.

Spoilers for the scholar quest line. Only one fairy pops up in the cut scenes and only that singular fairy is ever referred to, and her name is neither Eos nor Selene; it's Lily. Eos and Selene are two different forms or aspects of Lily or of any other given fairy. So you can address them however you like. My main's fairy is named Ariel, for example, whether I've got Eos or Selene out. As for how you became a scholar, that's up to you. The most general solution I've seen (including my own) is that the character found a Nymian tablet with a fairy inside, but you can get creative.

"Go home, Miss Joz. Rest, recharge. When you feel your aether has replenished itself, we will meet again. If you don't wish to return to the Guild just now, leave word at the Mizzenmast and we will meet out here again," he said softly. "It's nice," he added, casting a glance at their surroundings, and at the rock.

Lolo nodded. "And pay attention."

Lolo looked down at his palms. "Er...well, you're enervated now--tapped...er...tired and dry, in a way. As your aether supply refills it might feel like inflating, like waking up, perhaps." He furrowed his brow and thought hard. His own aetherflow was as familiar to him as the palm of his hand, as natural as the pumping of blood in his veins or air in his lungs. "As you begin to feel less like you do now, and more like you did before, the details, the background of that shift in the way you feel is what you'll be looking for." He paused before proceeding, "You know how, when you're very tired and very quiet you sometimes here your own breath or heartbeat in your head? It's not dissimilar to that...er...sort of."

Lolotaru nodded. "Pay attention to that empty feeling. You've been full of aether your entire life, you just weren't aware of it. Now as your depleted reserves regenerate, you'll feel it. Focus on the flow of it inside you, now that you know what to look for. Awareness of and familiarity with one's personal aetherflow is of paramount importance to any arcanist."

"Can you do it again," Lolo asked. "Can you cast Ruin again?"

A look of concern, or consternation, dimmed Lolo's countenance. "But don't you see? You're already becoming a good student. I don't think for a moment that I made you do that," he said with a wave toward the rock. "You did that, Miss Joz. I merely showed you how."

"That, Miss Joz, depends entirely on you," he said before raising his hand to delay any commentary on her part. "I don't mean your aetheric potential," he continued with a gesture toward the rock, "you've demonstrated that sufficiently for a novitiate." He pointed at her chest and added, "I mean your commitment."

"Whatever I could, Miss Joz. Knowing what those other things might be, how one might advance, that is the work of books and of teachers. It's why I read so much, and it's why I enrolled at the Guild," he replied with a slightly dismissive chuckle.

Lolo lowered the raised book and gripped it almost bashfully between his hands. "Yes, among other things," he responded.

He nodded vigorously in response. Placing his hand fully into his pocket he turned on his heel and said, "Oh yes, yes, of course. We can work around your limited capacity for letters just now, but eventually--soon, in fact--you will need to learn to read much more proficiently." Then more quietly, almost reverently, "Books, Miss Joz, represent everything. They are our best connection to all the things we could never discover or think ourselves and they allow us to climb higher and higher on the shoulders of the great minds that preceded us and to carry their theories and formulations further even than they themselves ever dreamed." He pulled a smallish blue-green tome out of his pocket and brandished it before her for effect. "I did not simply change my life for books; books, in short, change the world."

Lolo considered Joz and decided that something was off. Was she simply enervated or was it aetheric exhaustion? He would have to try to teach her Aetherflow at some point. "Those books--my books--were the final cause of me...re-purposing my life; without them I'd still be in Thanalan, running my company full time, traversing the desert routes endlessly and struggling alone to grasp increasingly obtuse theorems and principles of arcanima." A short pause, and then, "I'm much happier now."

"Hm? Oh, no, not at all," he responded, continuing with nary a thought. "My acquisition thereof wasn't really of any aid to me. It serves me now more for...erm...inspiration than for any practical purpose." He was still palming the outside of his pocket. "There is simply so much to learn in this world. And learning it is its own purpose, as often as not," he added pointedly.

Unnoticed by Lolo himself, his hand came to rest on the outline of the book in his pocket as he turned and looked back towards the city. "When it became clear that I had reached something of a plateau in my personal studies, I made a very particular purchase, a collection of codices and compendia and other books of the like, and decided that my studies would proceed more...efficaciously were I to enroll formally in a course of study with other and more learned and accomplished arcanists than myself." He turned back to Joz and continued, "True understanding can never be fully reached with the efforts of but one mind."

Lolo tilted his head to the side, his hand on his chin. "Well, it makes you an arcanist, I suppose. Or at least, it does once you can do it more...er," he droned off momentarily. More what? Instinctively? Immediately? Reflexively? Fluently? "...well, more naturally."