Places of Knowledge // Open Thread
Magisters are a very particular breed. If nothing else, they are creatures of habit: they have their routines, their predispositions, their quirks. They are nothing if not predictable, in their daily rounds at least, and Danarius is no less than the epitome of the perfect magisterial representative.
He can always, if nothing else, be relied upon to keep religiously to his own preferences: such as, for example, his fondness for books and the libraries that house them.
He has libraries aplenty in his many homes, of course – great, expansive things, clad from floor to ceiling in dark wooden shelves and leather-bound tomes covering every year of the world’s history, every obscure magic practitioner, every spell or world event or thing of curiosity – but he takes pleasure from the libraries of the cities that he visits also, be they in the Imperium or elsewhere in the world. He has always been drawn to the power held in the words there, the information thrumming beneath the pages; but more than that the scent of wood and old books puts him at ease, and the solace of these sanctuaries puts some strength back into his old bones.
The particular atheneum that Danarius haunts today is one that he has been at since just after his midday meal. It is no grand building, not on the scale that he is familiar with, but the roof arches pleasingly into a dome above his head and some time ago he had found a nook at the back of the dust-layered shelves that hinted at some long-forgotten tomes hiding beneath the dust. The day has dragged itself on, unnoticed by the reading magister, until the light finally starts to fail outside the windows. He stands before one of the shelves, resplendent in his magisterial robes: the sun sets on the other side of the ancient glass and the golden light catches on the rich embroidery of his mantle, turning his hair silver and throwing into sharp profile the hawkish curve of his sharp nose, the fiercely intelligent glint of his eyes.
Fingertips ghosting over leather spines and gold foiled titles, he selects a heavy tome from the shelves, and with a decisive, secretive smile slips it from its resting place. Libraries are the same the world over, and he draws some comfort from the dim room and the silence and the dependability of those over-stuffed bookshelves. He can hear the distant shift of other scholars, the shuffle of other readers, but he knows that here, he will not be intruded upon – not unless he requests it, and woe betide anyone who should try to intrude upon him uninvited…