deckle edges ✧ victor + gwenna
'Next Friday' soon enough became 'today', and Gwenna had found a little table not far from the mouth of the library. True, Emmeline was by far the more loyal visitor — some of these walls still whispered unfamiliar — but reading had been a pastime of Gwenna's for many, many a year. The days she did find the will to wander in were, provided that a particularly judgemental couple of scholars weren't around, usually days spent quite happily.
She remembered hours spent under the cool dapple of shadow lent by learning’s bower, back in Sol, in the Trance family’s garden. Warm days, book in hand, cascades of text devoured word by word, sun soaking into the breeze. And though Gwenna’s life was very, very different now, every page still felt to Gwenna like a crinkly paper slice of what she used to call home. They were gates through which her conscious could float — back to Sol, back to the past, sometimes, or to the ocean, to the unknown deserts, to the Southern Isles, to great forests and mountains, rivers, plains, anywhere. She was sure Victor would like it, too.
Having arrived earlier than her companion, Gwenna had taken it upon herself to scrounge around the shelves for what relevant tomes she could find. Though her mission was clear and set, she had — and she felt a little guilty for this — gotten a little distracted by one tome she found by accident, a piece of fiction about a farmer. But still! Before her on the table sat a few books, one of which she flicked busily through, hunting around for the section on sea life. Until, that was, Victor’s lanky figure appeared - why, he must’ve moved like a ghost! - not far from her. “Oh, there you are, treasure,” she said, beaming. “Afternoon!”