dead girl walking - er, reading

Motivated. Sure. He could go with that. But it was hard to be motivated for things you don't exactly enjoy wasn't it? Raphael was no reader; he wasn't fond of reading though a multitude of text just to be able to find one passage that would have relevance to his cause. Raphael watched Aswan as she paced about, explaining further. He wasn't sure if he was daydreaming or actually listening but he was sure enough that he could still hear Aswan's words. That and, her looking up at him also seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he had been in, startled by the seriousness of her gaze. Haah... she was really into this. Raphael thought that he really liked that about her, but he decided to shove that thought away into the back of his mind. That aside. Aswan was giving him way too many options to chose from with how vague the "more recent conqueror" part was. He could chose from the few that he knew, but even then, Raphael was sure that was only the tip of the iceberg. "I think I could go with the emperor, after all?" Raphael responded, his answer sounding more like a question than a declaration. "I'm guessing everyone else is going to study on the recent ones. And it being a less common study; it might be better if I go with something like that, don't you think?" ...Right?

Raphael's eyebrows gradually went up, awaiting Aswan's response to his decision. Part of him seemed a bit worried and perhaps just a bit nervous from now intense her gaze was -- or maybe it was just him thinking that? In either case, the horseman only stood there, subtly fidgeting for a second that felt way too long for comfort as the girl pondered on. His shoulders finally relaxed once Aswan took a step back into the shelves. Raphael would say he'd matched her pace, but Aswan was quick on her feet when it came to books books. Whereas Raphael took a while scanning through the titles from the spines, Aswan was already far ahead as if she knew where to look. Raphael would have thought that she did. His blue eyes went from spine to spine, making sure he maintained the distance with Aswan so he wouldn't lose her in the rows of books. He hesitated to pull out any from their shelves, thinking none of these would possibly have this emperor considering how old this guy was. Not that he would actually know, but he trusted Aswan to know her history books well enough to know which book has which man and she hasn't paid any attention to the ones he'd passed. Raphael heard Aswan's voice across the hall, finally realizing she'd gone farther ahead while he was lost in through and trying to figure out the book titles in one particular shelf. Flailing for just a moment, Raphael picked up his pace and caught up to the ghost girl. "So uh... which book-- or, books-- are we looking for... exactly?" he asked, returning to scanning through array of books as he walked a few steps behind.