but everything looks perfect
from far away
from far away
When he looked to the skies outside before entering, what little glimpses were offered, he couldn't tell you if he prayed to the moon or the heavens or the sun. Now, they are gone and all that is left are phantom lights carefully controlled around the wooded shelves so that they might not burn out of control and destroy the masterpiece Delumine holds on a pedestal, displaying for the world that dares come closer, be wrapped in twigs and branches, become as much a part of the wood as the books are. Now, as he looks up with pale blue eyes that reflect as much of the light as they absorb and look nearly glowing, nearly silver in their reflective way, all he sees is tower upon tower of pages sewn together. The piles and shelves are not as high as at the Monastery, perhaps, but they are tall enough that it is a stretch for him to pull down a title from an upper shelf just to find what it is about.
He's doing this, quietly, softly, like dripping rain on eaves, like morning dew on sunflower petals, when footsteps approach on a breath of wind. It is not well insulated here, but he wonders how well a library made of trees could be insulated after all?
Lips purse and he casts nary a glance toward the horned man, not caring if he stays or goes, only that the silence is left between them and a distance that would not be breached. Until it is. Footsteps draw nearer and his skin almost crawls; these are strangers in a strange land, they are not the teachers he knew, they are not his sister and her terrifying mercy. Theirs is a velvet touch he does not long for, does not want to become familiar with. Theirs is a dark curl of words that can stay silent in a tomb far away from his own mausoleum of memories and focus.
He is a cathedral built on devotion, concentration and drive. In his walls, there are no rooms reserved for the living - his love belongs all to a past that would never be again.
So when the voice rings out, its smooth, rich tones touching lightly on his ears as the priests once did, Ceylon pauses to push the book back up to a shelf he could not ordinarily reach without the help of their telekinesis. Phantom hands reverently set it down, careful to slide it without catching any loose pages from the scripts surrounding its home. Once his task is complete, and not a moment before, the man seems to settle more into himself with a breath before angling his head to the left. Brown like wood and a good deal taller, the fae-like creature stares at him with a smile and soft mossy eyes. There is no ill-intent on his skin, and it's not as though Ceylon would understand what that looked like.
It makes about as much sense to him as smiling at a stranger.
Pale brows draw down over eyes that look more like ice in that moment. He quiets the ticking seconds in his head, reminding him of his mortal life, of the many thousands of years of history he must atone for on his father's behalf. When their silence at last rings out, only then can his voice be found, only then does it come like a babbling brook, soft, detached. Ceylon gives more attention to his own drawings and structures than he does to Septimus in that moment. There is no love lost between them.
"Everything," is all he says. Their hearts beat in tandem as he waits for the Pegasus to take his leave. "Do you have a section you prefer?" He asks after seeing the fae quite decidedly not leave. Frustration doesn't dare peek out from under its blankets, instead hiding like the rest of his emotions; irritation happily hunkers down next to frustration and they watch as Ceylon watches: with their undivided attention focusing now on a source of information and nothing more.
No one is anything more. They all say the same thing in the end.
They all die, too.
