The Caretaker (Koh & Hadrian)

[Hadrian]

"Sure, all right."

With any luck, Isikais would be on campus or with his painter girlfriend. Hadrian just wasn't sure he wanted to explain the Nuit and the Dhani to each other. Koh was a loner and Hadrian didn't think he was savvy enough to human relations to fend off Isikais' particular brand of wit, and now that Isikais was paying rent to stay with him, he wasn't sure he should bring people around when Isikais was there because then they both had to work on keeping the fact that he was a Nuit a secret.

It could be so exhausting.

He smiled. "Let's go."

[Koh]

Koh nodded, grabbing at his hood and lowering it further. His hand reached behind him for the door and opened it, waiting for Hadrian to pass by and as he did Koh followed, keeping a silence about him as they stepped outside and keeping an even greater silence, even down to his breath as the door closed to his home. He pressed his body against the door and removed the key from his pocket, hiding his hand from the public as he locked the door and returned the key. From there he stood behind Hadrian patiently for him to take the lead.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian took Koh's arm in his, figuring people would just think that Koh was a leper or a blind man and give them wide berth but not too much notice. As such, he was able to lead Koh rather faster than they had made their way into town before. If Koh wasn't daring to look around, he probably missed the grandeur of the Old Quarter with its pre-Valterrian architecture, but it was a shortcut through campus to get to his little cottage that huddled along with many others close to the Old Quarter.

His cottage was nothing special, but it was his own space. Well, except that now Isikais was using it as a base of operations too, but when Hadrian opened the door, he found the place empty as he figured it would be.

"Come in, Koh," he invited, and led the way in. It was simple, not too large. A bed, a table, two chairs, a little kitchen area, and lots and lots of books. The walls were covered with glyphs, maps, and other scholarly oddities.

"Welcome to my humble abode. Please make yourself comfortable."

[Koh]

As Koh entered the small cottage he was quick to become intrigued by the room. Walls covered in numerous things including a number of strange writings, a worn bed and table. Two chairs which peaked a thought in his head, wondering if he lived alone, but one thing that truly interested him was the many books.

He moved carefully, almost as if he could break the floor if he made any abrupt movements, still gazing around. The books continually caught his eyes but he tried to ignore them before they were caught by something else along the walls. With a finger raised he pointed towards one of the glyphs, "This is a strange writing. What is it?"

[Hadrian]

"That," Hadrian said, following Koh's indication, "is the rune Berkana, Growth. It's associated with the birch tree, family rites, rebirth, and new life. It's from a very old er... alphabet. Not as elegant as some of the later glyph systems, but powerful in a primal sort of way. They have been used for fortune-telling as well as for magical notation. In the end, they're symbols that we use to focus our thinking and the behavior of the djed, too."

He watched Koh take things in, but also tidied up a bit. His home wasn't dirty, but he did have a penchant for allowing clutter to spread out. It wasn't so bad now that Isikais spent time there and Hadrian felt the need to keep things from getting out of control.

[Koh]

Koh eyed the glyph, watching it carefully before turning his back to it and walking towards the books, "All studies of magic I suppose?" he said pointing towards one of the books, touching it lightly on the top of the binding before quickly retracting his finger and tracing the forms in mid air, trying to make out some titles of possible. After a second he pulled his entire arm back, scratching at his chin as he looked at the number of them.

[Hadrian]

"Not all, but a good deal of them. Also anthropology, mathematics, cryptography, philosophy... stuff."

He continued to watch Koh as Koh looked around, wondering what he himself looked like to strange eyes. All he had done was show the Dhani a little kindness and in return he had made some fairly big statements. He didn't think Koh was actually representative of his species in that, but he could be wrong. He hadn't actually met many Dhani in his life.

[Koh]

Koh continued to look around struck in awe by some of the books in the collection. A few were picked out and he scanned the first few pages of them before returning them, their content a bit out of his reach. After another minute he took notice of his friend watching him which caused him to spin around to face him, "Sorry. I do hope I am not being too much a bother to you. Copper for your thoughts?"

[Hadrian]

Hadrian smiled reassuringly back at Koh.

"Don't worry about it. If I was too busy, I would've taken a raincheck for showing you where I live. At least now you know where I live in case you ever run into an emergency. I was just wondering how pretentious I must seem based on the books in my bookshelves, like some ivory tower intellectual. Ineffectual..."

[Koh]

Koh gave a smile, "I don't see any harm in wanting to know anything." He gestured towards the books that were now behind him, keeping a bright attitude about it, "Honestly, I find it really remarkable for anyone to strive for any form of knowledge so deeply. Though I myself am not much a scholar, I find things like this very enjoyable. Of course, most of these are a bit too much for me. As they would probably be with most you probably must put up with." This was both a compliment to Hadrian and a bit of a shot at himself along with a good number of people in Zeltiva.