The Provost of the Loreseekers Guild was just sitting there smiling at them with a warmth and a patience Quanil couldn't remember seeing in ages. Just... just sitting there like this was normal, and...
I guess it is normal for him.
They'd been worried about being reckoned too dumb, too ignorant to join such a storied fellowship, and maybe that was still to be true, but at least it might not be on account of their actual writing skill (or lack thereof).
Quanil wanted to ask so many things, things not even related to the Guild. They wanted to seek absolution for coming here when their family might have needed them, for abandoning them because they knew that this family, for all they were their blood, would keep them from this place. Where was the line between self-determination and outright selfishness? For now, they kept to the questions.
"Not much to read out in the Fields; Mom taught me so I could help with the merchants. I read anything I could get out there, but after the..." They didn't want to bring it up, but it was unavoidable. They skirted around mentioning the festival and its...happenings. "After I got here, I found a book on the lingua-stics," they said it as best they could, not knowing how the word was said, and only sort of aware of what it meant, from what they'd figured out through the context of the book, "on a language of our ancestors. Doesn't give much help in speaking it or anything, but it was interesting to read about how we think our ancestors might have thought, y'know? How they thought and spoke and presented those thoughts, the how of how they did it. Never read a book like that before. Took me a bit to get through; the young'uns prefer storybooks to be read out to them."
They ducked their head. "I know I'm not much, but... I can learn! And I'll work real hard, this is all I've wanted ever since I first heard of the Loreseekers' Guild!" They calmed as they said, quietly, "I was hoping to go to the booth at the festival, but... uh. I guess that didn't work out real well." They looked up at their host. "I hope you're okay, Mr. Jigano, sir?"
There was little point in asking if things had worked out well. Even if the evacuation had gone smoothly, even if there hadn't been the collapse of buildings, things rarely worked out well. That was just how life went, and it boggled Quanil's mind that their parents thought hiding under a table would change that.
I guess it is normal for him.
They'd been worried about being reckoned too dumb, too ignorant to join such a storied fellowship, and maybe that was still to be true, but at least it might not be on account of their actual writing skill (or lack thereof).
Quanil wanted to ask so many things, things not even related to the Guild. They wanted to seek absolution for coming here when their family might have needed them, for abandoning them because they knew that this family, for all they were their blood, would keep them from this place. Where was the line between self-determination and outright selfishness? For now, they kept to the questions.
"Not much to read out in the Fields; Mom taught me so I could help with the merchants. I read anything I could get out there, but after the..." They didn't want to bring it up, but it was unavoidable. They skirted around mentioning the festival and its...happenings. "After I got here, I found a book on the lingua-stics," they said it as best they could, not knowing how the word was said, and only sort of aware of what it meant, from what they'd figured out through the context of the book, "on a language of our ancestors. Doesn't give much help in speaking it or anything, but it was interesting to read about how we think our ancestors might have thought, y'know? How they thought and spoke and presented those thoughts, the how of how they did it. Never read a book like that before. Took me a bit to get through; the young'uns prefer storybooks to be read out to them."
They ducked their head. "I know I'm not much, but... I can learn! And I'll work real hard, this is all I've wanted ever since I first heard of the Loreseekers' Guild!" They calmed as they said, quietly, "I was hoping to go to the booth at the festival, but... uh. I guess that didn't work out real well." They looked up at their host. "I hope you're okay, Mr. Jigano, sir?"
There was little point in asking if things had worked out well. Even if the evacuation had gone smoothly, even if there hadn't been the collapse of buildings, things rarely worked out well. That was just how life went, and it boggled Quanil's mind that their parents thought hiding under a table would change that.
