The Stacks | Early Morning
The best hills, he'd promised.
For what, Leyenak had wondered.
Today, the young girl who'd not understood why anyone would ever want to play in the snow at all was about to find out.
Lips against pale skin and murmured assurances he'd be back for lunch, Naul slipped from the comfortable warmth of bed to dress for the winter outside, remembering an extra layer because he knew that he'd mostly end up just as wet as he would cold, even if almost a year in Gior had at least made him a little more tolerant of such frigid temperatures. He took his time, considering what tea to have with breakfast and which sled he'd choose out of the three he kept in the garden shed for just such a snowy occasion—usually with his students instead of with a Gioran fugitive-turned-ward.
Still quite tangled up in how he wanted his eggs, he opened the door to his bedroom and almost crawled out of his own skin in surprise, stopped short there in the threshold. Staring at him with her albino eyes, just barely shorter than him despite being half his clocking age, the former youngest daughter of the Da Huane's matriarch was waiting for him, arms crossed over her chest, dressed and ready to go out with just a hint of quartz dust gracing her pale, refined cheeks. She was pouting.
"Oh, gods—h-how long have you been standing there, seedayar?"
"Half an hour." Leyenak's Estuan was deeply accented, her rich voice dwelling on all the vowels in a way Naul coouldn't ever hope to reproduce, "You said we would leave an hour ago, Nauleth."
"So you just—you've just been—" The redheaded professor waved his hands in helpless frustration, indicating for the passive child to step back so he could close the door and give Athrym more time to sleep if she wished. Where he was flustered, the albino girl finally smiled, gracing him with some mockery of a bow,
"—I have been praying. Standing here. It is fine. Now, are you ready for this—what did you call it?—sledding you have promised me? I do not understand how you can be telling the truth about it being entertaining to do anything in the snow."
"Begads, I was going to eat breakfast, but—shi—fine. Can I at least make some tea?"
"There is some waiting for you. Kaelum is as good a friend to you as he is a brother to me."
"Uh-huh." There was something mischievous in Leyenak's voice, some hint of chiding that he'd come to recognize from the former priestess. He rolled his gold-rimmed eyes and shuffled down the hall, aware that she followed him, gliding like some beautiful little pale ghost, all full of carefully-contained sass, cultivated cunning, and well-bred intelligence. She was, despite being born non-magical, just as much a brat of a child as other galdori children—perhaps more-so because she'd been the daughter of one of the most powerful galdori families in the Six Kingdoms, because she'd been told she was worthy to worship the gods themselves—something no Anaxi would ever allow a passive to do.
Escape half a year ago had taken its toll on all of them, it was true, but out of each of the fugitives, the youngest of them weathered it all with enviable cheerfulness. She'd been a bright, warm light of confidence and poise, a voice of prayerful hope, even when Nauleth had felt at his lowest. Was he still uncomfortable with what she was? With his decision to offer her is guardianship despite knowing she wasn't even born a galdor?
Perhaps a little, but perhaps he'd just come to realize he wasn't as sure about the defectiveness of her kind now that he'd spent so much time so close to others like her, worked along side capable, educated passives in the University of Qrieth who were just as quick with their calculations as he'd been.
Those memories of his experiences made him dizzy, and he didn't look over his shoulder to see how close Leyenak was behind him, vaguely aware that he'd begun to note her presence in ways he hadn't thought possible but had been told by a particular monic theorist—by Professor Moore himself—was something to look out for. In the kitchen, Kaelum was waiting. The middle Huane would have been tall and imposing had Nauleth not known him so well, folded so carefully into a dining room chair with a still-steaming tea kettle and one empty glass, waiting for the Anaxi.
He even smiled, but his blue eyes were cold, equally thick accent deriding the other Physical professor like he was just another sibling, "She's been waiting for you."
"I'm aware." Naul grunted, pouring tea, murmuring his gratitudes in Gioran while he fixed it how he liked, not even bothering to sit down, "Some of us are catching a bit of sleep after our first month of classes again."
"Where did you lose it to?"
"Shut your head." The pair laughed and he heard Leyenak make some soft noise of impatience. Grabbing his cup of tea and shoving a piece of toast between his teeth, the redheaded sorcerer tilted his head and made his way for the foyer, leading the pair to get ready for the out of doors. Between eating and sipping too-hot liquid, he tugged on boots and wound himself up in a scarf and pulled on his coat and a knit hat. He shoved gloves in his pockets and held the door open, mouth full of buttered bread without the luxury of jam because he'd been in a hurry, steaming cup held delicately over his head, pinky out, in some hilarious display of propriety,
"Let's go choose your sled, hmm? Come on. To the garden—"
Leyenak slipped out beneath his arm as if she already knew exactly what she wanted, barely bundled as he was against the weather, skipping across the crusty snow with a giggle. Before he even met her at the shed, she'd retrieved the blue-painted sled that had once been his sisters, violet eyes bright and eager,
"This one."
"Perfect. So you are excited."
"N-no. I am not convinced this will be fun at all, but I know this one is heavier and I hope it goes fast."
"Clocking hell. C'mon." Out of the gate to the home he'd once rented and now owned, comfortable as it was just at the edge of the old red walls in the shadow of the aqueduct, Nauleth hefted the sled and led them both out onto the street. This neighborhood was always one of the last to be cleared of snow, anyway, and with the amount that had fallen a few days ago, it probably wouldn't be shoveled until the first, just in time for the professor to get to class.
Down another block, a couple of other faculty children were having a snowball fight, laughing and catching Leyenak's quiet attention. She'd hardly been given a chance to be a real child, even before it was discovered she was a passive, considering she'd been practically born into the Gioran equivalent of royalty (that and Giorans never did seem to good at relaxing enough to have a good time in the opinion of one Anaxi). The going was slippery and the snow was deep, but it felt good to be out in the early morning, watching their breath in little puffs of clouds and crunching along in contented silence.
"We can certainly toss some snowballs later. It's no fun either, mind you, but perhaps we can calculate velocity and impact based on size or something challenging like that."
He heard some stifled giggle again, there next to him, and he smiled, face mostly hidden by his scarf and unwilling to fully admit how much he'd come to enjoy her company as if Leyenak was just as enjoyable as any of his other students.