The Price of Knowledge

This place smelled nice. Books everywhere and, since it was a Friday afternoon, very few students around, other than that one girl who was always shelving books or going through the archives. In the entire library, Elisha could have counted the number of people on one hand. And that was exactly how he liked it. Unlike a normal day, he had brought none of his homework, though he did have a fair amount of calculus problems over the weekend. No... this afternoon was just to relax, so he floated past the history books, spent a few minutes browsing the art and music section, then headed over to fiction.

Fiction was easily his favourite section in the library. On a normal day, he would have chosen an epic tale, perhaps something by Salvatore or, though he'd read everything here, by Tolkien himself. The boy smiled, pulled Sense and Sensibility off the shelf, flipped through it briefly, before replacing it once again. Jane Austen could wait for another day. He needed somewhere he could escape, preferably a story with a happy ending and no nasty characters. As his attention drifted to the American authors, he quickly noted that most of these were also violations of his criteria.

Except for one. The Vysarian Chronicles: Lisette caught his eyes and he rushed over, pulled it out of the shelf and held it in his hands for a long moment before opening it up. This was the third book in the series, and from what he understood, a side-story, but Ms. Adriana Skye hadn't recently published anything else. A couple weeks back, there had been a post on her website, explaining that she had been pre-occupied with some family business for the past few months, but Elisha had been so busy with school and work that he'd not had a chance to read Lisette yet, so...

He was about to find a quiet place to sit and read, perhaps in the corner, on the floor, when he could hear a sound coming from a few aisles down. He frowned. If this was a person, he'd not included them in his count, which would boost the number in the library up to six. Six was not a nice number. Four was nice and seven was nice, but not six. Plus, it felt strange and the boy bit the inside of his lip as he went over to investigate...

As he rounded the corner, he was hardly watching where he was going and nearly crashed into the girl who was standing there...

Elisha blinked a few times and stumbled backwards, barely avoiding knocking into the bookshelf. After he'd regained his composure, he followed her glance up to the book. "I do apologise," he answered, his voice hardly a whisper. After all, it was a library. He took a moment to study the girl. She was fairly tall, though this was not what struck him as being strange. There seemed to be a bit of a strange vibe coming from her and he reached his hand up to his temple.

It was a similar sensation to what he had felt coming from William, but not exactly the same. He wasn't hearing any voices in his head coming from the girl, so it was doubtful she was a telepath. Still... he studied her for another moment and her attention seemed fixated on something. "You would like a book?" With a bit of focus, he could feel himself levitating further above the ground, so his feet were now a good half meter above the floor. "Which one would you like? It is the least I could do after startling you like that." He turned towards the girl, now looking down at her.

Elisha nodded, expending a bit more energy to levitate even further so he could reach the book. It was not one that was easy to get and as he reached out to grab the book the girl had described, he nearly pulled his hand back. This leather felt unfamiliar and it bothered him. Or perhaps it was something else about the book that bothered him. He shrugged to himself. There would be plenty of time to learn more about the strange books in the library later.

With a bit more focus, he floated down so his feet were only a couple inches above the ground and he handed the book to the girl, careful to not touch her hands in the process. Normally, he would just wear gloves, but today was such a nice day and he was inside, so gloves were not a necessity. It had also thrown him off-guard to see another person in the library, other than the librarian, who minded her own business.

"Well, you are in a library," he replied after letting his hand fall to his side. "So one would expect you to be looking for some sort of book here." The tone of voice he used was a bit clipped, but nothing too impatient or rude.

Elisha arched an eyebrow at the girl. That question had come as a bit of a surprise to him. Not that it should have, but it did. Perhaps it was her bluntness in asking or perhaps it was the words she chose.

"No." That answer might come as a surprise to her, but, the way he saw it, it was not reading minds. A mind was not something to be opened and read, like a book, but something to be communicated with, part of the essence of a person. He watched her for a moment longer. There was definitely something odd about her, though he couldn't quite place it. He frowned to himself. "I do not read minds."

((I apologise for the really long wait. Life and a ton of other stuff has gotten in the way of RPing x_x))