The city was so loud in the daytime, and almost as bad as night. How Corinne longed for the forest! The silence and solitude was comfort enough even for the most forsaken souls - but she could never go back to any forest, for word carried quickly among the elves. She knew that no elf would let her stay in any forest for long - for she had been banned by her tribe.

So now, to avoid the noise of the outside world, there she sat high atop one of the tallest bookcases in the library. She had been crying, remembering her family, her home...her life. Now she had nothing, save the stories she had heard from peddlers and farmers. Now she had only her bow and her quiver. She could hunt, and she could swim and catch fish if she had to - but she hated fish, and she was tired of boar and venison. She wanted something different.

And she was lonely.

Her ears generally took in everything around her, as did her eyes, but today she paid no mind to the oddities surrounding her.

Oddities, she thought bitterly. I am an oddity. I am no elf, but an elf-spawn banned from the elves.

Yes, she was bitter - even after nearly a century of exile, she was bitter and dejected. Hers was a sad life indeed. She dried her eyes as best she could and folded her hands inside her bow, lying across her folded legs. She looked down to watch those below her, to see how they enjoyed the silence of the thick library walls, and started when she found someone staring up at her with great interest.

Shelendri had come to the library to study. If she was to learn more spells, here was one of the steps she needed to take. Though a druid's power came from nature, rather than the arcane arts like mages and other magic users, it always helped to gain arcane knowledge.
She had choose a book to study, one that looked promising, and was making her way to a quiet corner to start reading, when she had by chance looked up and caught sight of a silver-haired elf sitting atop one of the tall bookcases. The expression of the elf's face was so sad, but bitter as well, and there were tear-streaks running down her face. Shelendri's heart went out to her, even as her curiousity rose up. What was a elf doing here, crying, when the forest was their domain. And why was she crying? As far as Shelendri knew, elves rarely found anything to cry about.
The elf wiped her face and looked down, meeting Shelendri's gaze. Seeing that her attention had been noticed, she moved closer to the base of the bookcase to make conversation easier, though she had to crane her neck slightly to keep eye contact. "Are you all right? You seem...sad." She didn't want to bring up the fact that she'd seen the elf crying, not wanting to offend the elf. And the elf's face was still sad.

Rosato, trying to find somewhere quiet within the walls of the bustling city, had been walking for quite a bit to reach the only place he knew of for sure, and that was the Parmamar Library.

Walking inside and doing his best to be quiet, which was fairly good considering his trade, he began towards the nearest table. Walking in, he did'nt have plans to actually read anything, but as he gently pulled out a chair and sat down, he decided that now, when he finally had peace and little work to do, would be a good time to write in his Journal.

Taking out the small, leather-bound bok from it's side-harness of hemp rope, and then removing an equally small wooden pen, with just enough ink for five more pages in the book. Opening it up to the next free page, he was greeted with the usual soft cracking of the books leather spine, and the sight of ink drops here and there, where the little pen had leaked. But before he could put the tip of the near broken stick to the paper, he heard a voice not too far over.

"Are you all right?" waas what the voice said. femenine by the sounds. "You seem... Sad." Hearing that, it was enough to just slightly catch his attention... Just slightly. However, he wanted to just write in the book, and keep himself from eavesdropping.

Once it gets to a point I want to get involved, I'll do so, he thought softly, writing the date out at the top of the page. Once he had finished with it, though, another voice spoke.

"I... Nothing, it's nothing," they said, yet another femenine voice, though much different in tone. The way she spoke sounded a bit familiar, but Rosato could'nt really palce it. "I'm fine," they finished.

If I'm involved...

"I...nothing. It's nothing," she mumbled quietly.

Practically in the blink of an eye, Corinne had leaped to the ground and landed cat-like with one hand outstretched to the side holding her bow and the fingers of the other on the ground before her. She rose up smoothly, gracefully, and shrugged slightly.

"I'm fine."

She gave the girl what she hoped was a reassuring smile and tried to forget once again.

((EDIT: 'Tis okay, Rosato. You're still welcome to join...))

((Rosato's post came before mine...I think because of a comp glitch or something...anyway...that's why it looks weird. He's not godmoding or anything...))

Shelendri's mouth dropped open when the elf jumped down from the bookcase and landed easily. She looked at the spot the elf had been sitting, then at the elf again and then closed her mouth. But it was only closed for a moment before it opened again, to allow words to escape. "That was amazing. I've never seen anyone jump from that height before, and land with such ease."
The elf said that she was fine and had what Shelendri guessed was supposed to be a reasuring smile on her face. Shelendri didn't buy it. "I don't think you are. No one looks that sad and is fine." Shelendri should know. She had seen that sort of sadness on her own face after her father's death. Perhaps this elf had been crying for a similar reason. If so, she might not want to talk about it.
Shelendri shifted her choosen book to her other arm. "You don't have to say anything about why you're sad. But pretending that you're fine won't make it go away. In the end, it makes things worse." She offered the elf a kind smile. "I'll be sitting over there, just so you know." She pointed to an empty table. "If you decide that talking what has made you so sad through, just come over." With that, she went to the table and sat down.

"Anyway...thanks for asking."

Her voice was melodic, yet sounded far-off - like most elves', of course. Yet her voice could be heard as clearly as any other. There was a smoothness, an agelessness to it, but there was an innocence as well.

She shuffled her weight a bit and popped her bare toes.

"I think I'll just...take a walk. But thanks."

She smiled reassuringly again, then shuffled off and sat at a random table to think. There were some books on the table, but nothing that seemed interesting. She looked across at a nearby table and saw someone writing - probably in a journal, by the looks of things. She wondered why humans did that - wrote about their lives on parchment when they could just talk to people about them.

But maybe he doesn't have anyone to talk to. I certainly don't.

Then again, the lady at the table on the other side of her seemed nice. Maybe she could talk to her...but how could she ever understand? Had she been forced to leave her home, maybe to give up her family? Forever?

((You're too quick, Selendri...LOL))

Rosato had mostly tried to tune out the conversation happening a few rows over, not wanting to eaves-drop and not caring much about the subject. So, his will overrode the curiosity pretty well, and allowed him to begin writing the first few lines.

Day was simple enough, It started out, showing in full that his hand-writing was'nt actually too bad. It seemed practiced, at least. Business was just as slow as it usually is. So instead of my preffered proffesion, I ended up hunting all over the city for this one old man's hunting dog. The young man was about to continue, but just as he set his pen back down to the paper, someone sat down across from him. He took full notice in the person, but did'nt look up from his Journal just yet.

It turns out the dog had ran all of the way to the Marina to chase the scent of a goose it missed once, he continued with. I returned the dog for the few gold it got me, and kept the goose as today's lunch. He took a a glance away from his writing, at finishing thet paragraph, to actually see who had sat with him. Surprisingly enough, it was an elf, most notably with extremely long, silver hair. In a quick moment he decided that's why he recognised the tone the woman from before had. Elves had a much different language, after all. But even so, he felt no need to actually get involved... Though what he would do, out of manners, would be to give a friendly greeting.

"A nice day, when it's not spent in those loud streets," Rosato said, brushing some of the hair on his face away with the pen, inadvertently leaving a few spots of black ink on his reddish-brown bangs. "On that note, how has your's been?" He wrote one last line, before closing the book up momentarily. I don't know why I bother writing this, but I still have'nt gone back to the house yet.

She smiled in a friendly way.

"Indeed. It is much too loud for my tastes. And...much too crowded," she said with a slightly sour look. In response to the second question:

"It has...been."

That was a suitable response. It gave nothing away, though one might glean from it the fact that while it had not necessarily been a bad day, it most certainly had not been a good one. She missed her home, after all, and her family. How good a day could she really have? Yet she said none of this, only smiled politely at the human across from her.

Rosato had started to put both his Journal and pen away as the elven woman spoke, the former back in it's hemp rope sling and the latter in his pocket with the other two.
"It's been... A fair way to put it," He said, pausing for just a moment as he finished up. She apparently didn't want to talk much about it, which was understandable. But something he did not have to remind himself of was the fact he didn't want to be involved, especially right now, when he was just starting to make money by doing better jobs, but had less time to himself. Though one thing he had to admit, was despite no reputation as a killer, he at least had some as an errand boy.

Slowly sliding his hand over to the books beside himself, he grabbed the first one he touched, and pulling it over, found it to be a very dusty, thin book. Glancing over the tan letters on the hay yellow cover that made up the title, he found it had a very simple one, Basket weaving for Everyone. It was, in other words, a book he'd have little interest or use of... Unless he did add basket weaving to his repertoire of skills. But, with a hard thump that shook up a lot of the dust and must, he slid the little book back to the pile.

"Perhaps a good book would help the day?" He said to the elf as he grabbed another, much heavier book. He couldn't see the title though, so apparently he had the book both upside down and backwards. He'd finish what he had to say, though, before he'd turn it over."It's a big library, after all."

"I suppose I could lose myself," Corinne said.

"But how am I supposed to find something in all this? There are so many..."

She gazed around wide-eyed at the massive bookshelves filling the room, many hidden by many more. Books on books on top of thousands more books - how could she possibly find a book she liked? She'd have to spend the next century in the library!

"Just pick and choose randomly, I guess, was his rather unhelpful response. It was as truthful an answer as he could give, though. He didn't really know the elf's interests, nor did he plan on asking any time soon.

He took the large book- which was leather-bound and heavy even for it's size, and flipped it around and over in a single smooth motion. And in bold, messy, red letters, the single word of Bestiary was emblazoned at the top. For a moment he considered pushing the book back as well, but as he thought a little more about it, there were a few creatures he'd heard of that he wanted to know more about, but hadn't had the chance to do so.

"Like I did just now," Rosato said to the silver-haired elf in a slightly humoured tone. Definitely a lucky thing for himself, he thought as he opened the book up with a hard crackling of the spine to where he guessed the "C"s would be... And found that it was just at the end of "A". A much larger book than first anticipated.

She hardly seemed to hear him as she got up and began browsing the shelves. Yes, there were a great many books on a great many more subjects than even her elven mind could comprehend. When at last she chose one, she realized with a start that almost an hour had passed. She spent a couple of more hours finding three other books and sat down to begin reading.

During the time Corinne spent away, Rosato had been able to read the entire article on the three headed canine that was known as "Cerberus", and found at ending that one, he was even more interested in them than before. Amazing creatures, they were, when compared to the fact that in their oldest forms they can keep even Elder dragons at bay... And they grew from a pup that was barely half his height. Also, the number of dog species they could resemble was interesting too, even if they all looked equally vicious.

The next article he had read was of Hell Hounds and their three most common forms. Which were the Royal Hound, the Ice Beast, and of course, the Hel hound itself. All three had their merits, he had to admit, but Rosato found more interest in the Royal Hound than any other. Most of that fact came from how stealthy they could be, while still having the strength to be brutal. For his line of work, it was a creature he hoped to get one day. Though hope was all he could do, considering how rare they were. Still though, despite their ties to the dark, it was an amazing creature.

Last was a creature called the Chaos Wolf. No where near as interesting as the last two canine beasts he had read about, but it was still a very intruiging creature. Partially because of a power that the bok did'nt explain, which was that the Wolf increased in strength when near other canines. It was amazing still, compared to everything else he'd seen in his life.

And as he finished up the last line of the book, the elven woman from before sat back down at the table, carrying four books. At least his advice seemed to work.
"Enough reading material, I hope.

She looked up and nodded. "Yeah...me too. There are some fascinating books on mountainous cultures and wildlife, and some races of other planes of existence as well."

She smiled and went back to her reading. Indeed, it seemed that there was a lot of information contained within the four thick, dust-covered volumes she'd uncovered.

"well, I'd read it then," Rosato said simply as he flipped a page in the book, going from A to Z now, not seeming to mind the fact that the book itself seemed to have over a thousand, perhaps two thousand, pages. In truth though, he planned to stop when he finished the 'B's.

I'm guessing you're going to leave once you are done with the books, then," The polite, but pathetic assassin commented. He was thinking of leaving once he was done with the book, just marking his page and coming back later when he actually felt to read the entire thing. But as he weighed his options a bit, he decided that it would be better to just stay until either night came or the library closed, he didn't know which would come first... And on second thought, he'd just mark the 'D's once he was done with the next chapter in the book.

but as he flipped the next page, he couldn't help but spot a little mark down towards the bottom of the parchment. It was a tiny, child-like fish, with the word 'Pata', beside it. It looked like Pata, anyway, it was hard to tell because of how scribbled it was.
"... Odd," he said aloud, pausing to take a look at it better. He didn't know what Pata meant, but assumed it was a name, and someone had come to mark their name in the book before him, to save their own place. Rosato thought for a second longer about it, then shrugged, and started to read that pages content as well.

"If you like mountain creatures, this is another book to read," he said to the silver-haired elf across from him, eyes scanning the old, worn page and reading of a creature that's name had been mostly worn away. "It is a Bestiary."

"Oh, okay...I'll be sure to read it when you're done, then."

This man seemed friendly enough, despite his outward attitude. He didn't seem to be the type to talk and laugh with others, yet here he was talking politely with her as though they were child-mates of the same tribe. It was interesting, really. Still, he was a human - and elves could never mix with humans.

But why not? And since I've been banned from elven tribes and homelands forever anyway...but there is no romance to speak of here. Just polite conversation.

She went back to reading her books. She eventually spent them and moved on to the bestiaries. Finally, though, she had finished her reading and the sun had set. The library was closing. She decided to leave. She thanked the human and left, seeking an inn to stay at for the night...

((OUT))