Something New

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/NaM8wES.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Enelen loved the library. He had loved the libraries on his own world as well, but this library was something new. Every book here had no equivalent back on his home world. There were too many differences. Too many details. Even if a book seemed similar to him, the finer details would make it a completely different reading experience.

He could have spent his entire life writing comparisons and analyses about how things compared.

At that moment he was in the process of archiving every book in the library. It meant finding each book, casting a quick spell, and then simply reshelving it. The book's entire contents were magically added to his own book, and he could call them up as needed. If he was good about it and stayed on top of the books, it would mean never having to actually come to the library for anything other than the atmosphere. It would mean a book never being unavailable.

He'd already gone through the majority of the library, but was still trying to track down a few books that had been out when he'd first gone through. One had recently been checked in, although when he went to find it, it was out of place.

Someone had it.

Without an ounce of shame, he started to scout through the library, searching for the book.
</div><div style="text-align:center;font-family:arial;font-size:10px;padding-bottom:10px;opacity:0.5;"> @open </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/DlQE189.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">He was, in fact, looking for just that book. His eyes bounced between tables and the few books that had been left out there, and then finally bounced to the table where a young girl was sitting, her nose quite literally buried in a book. She glanced up at him, and he held her gaze for a moment before his eyes wobbled down.

He couldn't say for sure if that was the book, but it did seem to look like it, and he cleared his throat, grinning widely. "That wouldn't happen to be 'An Illustrated Guide to Tropical Birds' would it?" From the two pages he could see, it certainly did look like it. "If so, I was just hoping to borrow it for a moment - just a minute." It wouldn't take very long at all for his purposes, but he was hoping he wasn't going to have to pry it out of her hands. That might leave a very poor impression with his underclassman.
</div>[/thoth] @"Poison-Star" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/VYU5nsB.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">People often thought that Enelen lacked self awareness, but that wasn't quite true. He knew that he often came on too strong. He knew that people expected him to be shy, considering how academic he was. But he chose to ignore it. It made it surprisingly easy to make friends, because he could simply push back the general awkwardness. He could get straight to the chatting.

He reached out, taking the book carefully before taking note of the page she'd been on and setting it down, closed in front of him. "Just a second." He said, hustling back towards the entrance before returning with his staff. A compromise. They hadn't wanted him running around the library with a staff as tall as he was, but he needed it for magic - so he had to tuck it away when he wasn't actively doing magic.

"Oh, I'm not looking for a book. I'm archiving all the books in the library so that I can read them later." He was an extraordinarily fast reader, but even so it would take a while to get through all the books. Even with magic, there still had to be a certain amount of actual reading done to make sure his brain was processing it all correctly.

He reached out, trailing his finger in a circle around the book, mumbling to himself. It was not a particularly hard or complicated spell, and with a quick tap of the tip of his staff on the book, it was done. There was no flashing lights, no indication of anything being done at all, but he carefully set his staff against the chair beside him, picking up the book and passing it back to the girl before digging into his bag and pulling out an ornate leather bound tome, flipping it open easily.

"See?" The book he'd just drawn out was now showing an exact replica of the very page she'd been looking at before she'd been interrupted by him. "So that way I won't have to be constantly taking out books."
</div>[/thoth] @"poison-star" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/VYU5nsB.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Enelen was indeed a lot like Gandalf, although he'd never heard of the man.

He found himself feeling vaguely surprised when the girl asked if he was a wizard. He'd assumed it was obvious. But then he'd also assumed that the girl had been there a long time - that she might have even spent her whole life there, or at least several years. He wasn't used to that kind of awe and surprise. Not when magic had been such a normal part of his everyday life.

"Well, yes. That's my 'special talent'." He had only been at the school for a few days when he'd been introduced to the idea. Almost everyone who went to the school had some sort of special talent. Sometimes it was who they are - a dragon or a fairy or a ghost. Sometimes it was what they could do, whether it was magic or summoning lightning. But there seemed to be next to no one on the island who didn't have a special talent, where from what he'd been told, almost everyone on the outside had no such special talent.

"Are you new to the island?" Or was she just unlucky enough to have not met a wizard in however long she'd been on the island?
</div>[/thoth] @"poison-star" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/DlQE189.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Enelen was not being entirely clear on the whole 'skill' divide. He'd been told by one single person that everyone on the island had some kind of special thing about them, and then that person had demonstrated their talent to him. He'd taken to calling everything a 'talent', even if lots of them were more like a 'species'.

He could certainly understand her point that magic was more 'flashy'. He got that comment a lot. In his world, magic was used for everything. It wasn't seen as some grand gesture like it was here, where people often acted surprised when he used small bits of magic.

"Oh. Well - I'm from someplace else, and everyone has magic there - but we don't have technology, so all the little things that you would do with technology, we do with magic. Magic is just everyday stuff." No more unusual than someone calling someone else on their phone in this world.

He scratched his head bashfully, still grinning despite himself. "Never really thought of it as 'cool'. It's always just been normal to me. The things everyone else here can do are cool though."
</div>[/thoth] @"Poison-Star" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​