He nodded in understanding of Remi's explanation, lips curving crookedly into something that was almost a smile. "More similar to here than my world is," he agreed. "At least in that way. It took me awhile to wrap my mind around how few races were here in comparison to what I knew. Or at least... races as I think of them: the way you are born rather than a choice you make." There was nothing light about the way he spoke of his past. If anything there was a stilted heaviness to his cadences far from his usual agile tongue, a sense of pushing against the weight of years and habits ingrained lifelong to speak of it aloud at all. But Remi's intent expression, his sincere thoughtfulness, eased a little of the lorekeeper's anxiety and he bowed acknowledgment of the information his companion had pieced together. "It was. A way to blend in. One thing that has remained true since I came to Caido is that my people are not known for our, ah, physical strength," Jigano admitted, a ghost of humor in his eyes. "Agile and cunning, but not overly blessed with brawn." He let out his breath in a sigh, realizing only then how tense his hands were on the table. He took a moment to relax them, smoothing the pad of a thumb over the grain as he looked down at the table rather than meeting Remi's eyes. "I was raised to keep my true form hidden, and my... other form, as well. I can only remember the human faces my parents wore now. As soon as I was old enough to understand, it was impressed on me how important it was to only let the world see my human face, too. And several times that disguise saved my life, and the life of a friend. Only once was my disguise stripped from me, and only one person on my world still living knows what I truly am." He raised his eyes at last, watching Remi with a solemn blue gaze. "I know that things are different here on Caido, that... the reasons I was raised to hide no longer apply. But it is... not easy, to overcome the training of a lifetime, or to be so open about what was once a life-or-death secret for me."
It had been a torrent of words, though slowed by rocks and bends in the river of the tale. He waited, cautious even now, to see what the younger man - who trusted so easily, who held nothing back - would say, or if he would say anything at all.
///
"I have many things up my sleeves," Jigano agreed, taking the joke with a grin that felt strange, but far more welcome than the original tension between them. "Alas, they don't leave much room for muscles."
The lorekeeper nodded at Remi's explanation of the properties of geodes, his own understanding of their formation process somewhat sketchy but matching up with the alchemist's information. He didn't quite push his chair back from the table as the young man took the large rock in his hands, but there was a hint of tension in his carriage as he prepared to fling an arm up to protect his eyes--
The silent halving of the stone was almost anticlimactic as Jigano blinked and then leaned forward, genuinely impressed as the light sparkled off the translucent-milky crystals peeking through the interior shadows for the first time in tens of thousands of years. "That's a lot safer than how I used to do it," he admitted with a chuckle, grinning up to Remi in a moment of shared discovery of something new.
It had been a torrent of words, though slowed by rocks and bends in the river of the tale. He waited, cautious even now, to see what the younger man - who trusted so easily, who held nothing back - would say, or if he would say anything at all.
///
"I have many things up my sleeves," Jigano agreed, taking the joke with a grin that felt strange, but far more welcome than the original tension between them. "Alas, they don't leave much room for muscles."
The lorekeeper nodded at Remi's explanation of the properties of geodes, his own understanding of their formation process somewhat sketchy but matching up with the alchemist's information. He didn't quite push his chair back from the table as the young man took the large rock in his hands, but there was a hint of tension in his carriage as he prepared to fling an arm up to protect his eyes--
The silent halving of the stone was almost anticlimactic as Jigano blinked and then leaned forward, genuinely impressed as the light sparkled off the translucent-milky crystals peeking through the interior shadows for the first time in tens of thousands of years. "That's a lot safer than how I used to do it," he admitted with a chuckle, grinning up to Remi in a moment of shared discovery of something new.
