The day after meeting Joz, Lolotaru almost didn't return to the Guild. He debated returning to Wineport, laying low in the country. But his curiosity was piqued. He needed to know what was being said about him and he could best control the situation from nearby. Reconciled with the fact that there was no satisfactory course of action to be taken just yet, he went to the Guild. He breathed a small sigh of relief to see that Joz was not there, then entered and lost himself in his notes and books.
By the time he left late that evening he was almost disappointed not to have encountered her. It was hardly orthodox, but the ways of the Arcanists' Guild, while official, were newer than those of the thaumaturges and conjurers; writ less in stone, more flexible. If he decided to take an apprentice, he could reconcile it with the system. If it became problematic, there would be paperwork to do; a semi-official recognition sanctioned by the Guild itself. Nothing insurmountable. Nothing to bar the Thaliak-given right to learning and education. He began to look forward to their lessons, frustratingly basic though they may be at the start, and wondered if he wasn't still a fool for it.
The following day was much the same. The sharp edges of his feelings eroded somewhat and he spent the whole of it again in his books. And in the book, tracing its sand-yellow pages, his eyes following the dancing script that so entranced him, despite his complete and utter lack of understanding. Nothing calmed him so much as the presence of his book. Nothing so excited his mind with the imagination of possibility. And yet, nothing frustrated him quite so much as its perpetually impenetrable mysteries.
He had allowed him to become so distracted, so detached from the events of two days prior that when he saw Joz there, waiting for him just as she had been before, he was shocked and taken aback all over again. Well, at least it wasn't quite so hot today.
"Good morning, Miss Joz," he said. And waited.
By the time he left late that evening he was almost disappointed not to have encountered her. It was hardly orthodox, but the ways of the Arcanists' Guild, while official, were newer than those of the thaumaturges and conjurers; writ less in stone, more flexible. If he decided to take an apprentice, he could reconcile it with the system. If it became problematic, there would be paperwork to do; a semi-official recognition sanctioned by the Guild itself. Nothing insurmountable. Nothing to bar the Thaliak-given right to learning and education. He began to look forward to their lessons, frustratingly basic though they may be at the start, and wondered if he wasn't still a fool for it.
The following day was much the same. The sharp edges of his feelings eroded somewhat and he spent the whole of it again in his books. And in the book, tracing its sand-yellow pages, his eyes following the dancing script that so entranced him, despite his complete and utter lack of understanding. Nothing calmed him so much as the presence of his book. Nothing so excited his mind with the imagination of possibility. And yet, nothing frustrated him quite so much as its perpetually impenetrable mysteries.
He had allowed him to become so distracted, so detached from the events of two days prior that when he saw Joz there, waiting for him just as she had been before, he was shocked and taken aback all over again. Well, at least it wasn't quite so hot today.
"Good morning, Miss Joz," he said. And waited.
