Silence Is Golden.

Aesis skimmed his fingers along the spines of the books, marveling at the different textures.

He couldn't tell which one to read first...Or, more specifically, he didn't know how to read in general.

His English had been getting better as of late, and he could speak some simple words, with others in his own babyish pronunciations.

He sighed and pulled a book off the shelf.

The cover was a burgundy of sorts, and the book didn't seem very new. There were golden letters printed on the cover, illegible to Aesis.

He propped the book atop a table, and flipped the cover open carefully, in case it was fragile enough to fall off at a touch.

Dust flew into his face, causing him to cough. Puffs of dust flew off the book.

He glanced down at the book. The characters were unfamiliar.

"This is hopeless..." He muttered.

Audi found the library one of her favorite places in the castle, maybe competing with the kitchen for the top position. It reminded her of her old master's library, full of weird, hand-written tomes filled with strange scribblings and drawings of plants, animals and often skulls. The skulls were always human, and so Audi wasn't afraid to look at them, running her fingers along the pages in the rare moments she didn't have anything more urgent to do.

But that library was destroyed, along with everything else she knew. And even though this place was considerably less dusty and less busy, she was comforted by the familiar sight of rows upon rows of books. Not that she could read much more than just the titles.

She walked along the shelf, the ends of a long scarf wrapped around the upper part of her body dragging along on both sides of her tail. Her eyes were glued to the books as she took in all their different colors and shapes, and so, she noticed the tall figure only when she was fairly close by. She perked up with joy and lightly trotted over to poke her head over the opposite side of the table and peer curiously into the book the man was looking at. She swiveled her head slightly to look with her good eye, then glanced upwards at the dark face, ear flicking in greeting.

Hearing the light patter of footsteps with his enormous ears, he turned and glanced at the newcomer.

The figure, to him, was a mere rodent.

He was confused how they could grow to this height though.

Perhaps there was some sort of mutation in this one.

He stole another glance, and went back to his book, pretending not to notice the rat-person, and flipped through the pages in a way that one could tell he wasn't really reading.

He muttered under his breath that they could be someone's pet, or a failure of an experiment. He also thought some other things that might've been offensive, if he spoke aloud, and, if Audi could understand him.

He yawned. The smell of books always made him drowsy.

Audi placed both her hands over the edge of the table, then rested her chin on them, tracing the movements of the man's fingers with her eyes. Was he reading so fast? Or was he looking for pictures? Well, if he was, he chose the wrong kind of book. This one was too small and fancy to have illustrations.

At the muttering she looked to the man's face again. He didn't seem to be addressing her, though, so she ignored it. Her master often whispered to himself while running in distress from one boiling cauldron to another.

She kept staring up at the man quite intensely, wondering if he was a human. He didn't look completely human, with the hair and the ears. Audi had never seen any human like him, but she was familiar with long-eared figures dancing on the pages of books. Good books. Picture books.
The yawn sealed her sudden decision - she would find a good book for the silly bored flatface. With that, she stood up and jogged over to the shelves, straightened up to be as tall as she could and started scanning the spines for something suitable. After a moment, she made her choice and jumped up to grasp at a book, pulling it out without making any others fall out. She ran back to the man and placed the tome in front of him. It was a rather big, but thin album. On its hard cover was a picture of a bird, a black and white one with a large, colorful beak against the backdrop of a stormy sea. Audi smiled gazing up at the tall man.

He resisted the urge to watch the rat-person as they scampered about around the bookshelves.

The tome placed in front of him looked almost as dusty as the book he was pretending to read. Although, the picture of the bird seemed to fascinate him. The vibrant colors drew him into the book.

Flipping the pages slower than his fake-reading, he observed each picture closely and carefully, his eyes darting back and forth in awe, his jaw almost dropping open.

He turned back to the other. "Thank..." He said, simply.

He remembered Owen translating from the Headmistress that he was to meet others, despite the language barrier.

He kindly gestured at himself, saying "Aesis" as he had done before many times. After that, he pointed at the rodent. He only just noticed she was female, after glancing at her garments.

As she smiled at him, he smiled back, wondering if it really was possible for a rat to smile.

'Then again, Ndale smiles in his idiotic cat form.' he thought.

He lowered his hand from pointing, and nodded in thanks, waiting for a response to him telling her his name.

After the man opened the tome, she placed her hands on the table and leaned over to inspect the pictures together with him. Even upside down they were amazing, and so colorful! The alchemist mostly had black-and-white picture books. Her gaze was glued to the pages, but she glanced up briefly and nodded at the thanks, then quickly returned to looking at the illustrations.

She was reaching to paw at the book when he spoke up again. Audi tilted her head and twitched her whiskers, unsure what did he want her to do. It was an unfamiliar word. It sounded funny.

"Aesis." she repeated, her voice rather sweet and soft, not at all like one could expect from a huge rat. She stared at the long-eared man for a second, then blinked and scurried over to the shelf to find another book.

Aesis stopped turning the pages as quickly, after noticing Audi was reading also. It was nice to see someone in this strange school had a common interest with him. He found himself smiling at the thought she could be his friend. He didn't have friends. Well, not many that is. Getting a new friend wouldn't hurt right...?

Aesis stopped in his train of thought, startled by the ratperson talking. He glanced around him wondering if anyone was there. There wasn't. Though her voice didn't exactly fit her appearance, according to Aesis.

Seeming as she didn't reply saying her name in return, he shot her a confused look.

He became more confused when Audi went back to the shelves.

'I just wanted to ask for your name, not a book...' he thought.

He began to speak to protest, but decided not to. Maybe she was just uninterested in his attempt for conversation, finding a book to distract herself. Perhaps he was just that boring.

He pushed away the thought. 'Not possible..is it?'

Oblivious to the thoughts going through Aesis' mind, Audi stood up in front of the shelf, moving her head to the left and right as she scanned the books again. The weird human was amazed with the book, and he didn't talk too much. Those two things sufficed for Audi to be completely sold on to him. She pounced up suddenly to snatch another book. This one, apparently, had some words as well as pictures. She held up the tome with her arms outstretched, squinting as if that could help her read its title.

"Hhhh..." she hissed, focusing. "Botany."

She trotted back to the man, placed the book next to the one already there and flicked it open. Pictures of plants and probably their descriptions. Not as interesting as birds, she decided, and frowned with disappointment. Trees were fun to climb, but pretty useless otherwise, unless they had fruit of course... Audi looked up to the guy again to see if he had any interest in the book. If not, she'd go look for another one.

Aesis blinked as the rodent's paws clicked against the floor silently, whilst she placed the book in front of him.
He glanced. The first thing he saw was a tree. Brown colored bark, green leaves. He glanced at Audi.

"I'm not a tree." He said in his native language.

He didn't find it interesting at all, or amusing, in case she thought that way. He closed the book and politely handed it back to her.

His thoughts wandered...she was female, why didn't he put the book up himself? Whether, he should treat her like a (wo)man, or a mouse.

((That last sentence was a fail pun. Forgive me. :P))

Mhm. Whatever it was the man said, she would probably agree. The book wasn't that good. The next one she chose had to be better. She nodded quickly and retreated to the shelves yet again.

After replacing the Botany book, she picked a blue tome with a dolphin of some sort on its cover. Well, maybe sea animals would as interesting as birds. But... flicking through the pages, she decided they weren't. Fish, fish, fish. Audi put the book back in a huff and approached another shelf.
The tome she chose next made a small gasp escape her lips. Oh, he was going to like this. It wasn't an album of pictures like before, rather it was one of those story books. She couldn't read well enough to enjoy them, but one of her clanmates could, and he used to read them short passages of human tales during lazier nights. That was a pleasant memory. And this particular book... It had amazing illustrations as well as text, pictures of forests full of strange creatures, horned horses, dragons and winged women in flowing robes.
One picture in particular though made her giggle raspily as she returned to the table and placed the open book in front of her companion. The book wasn't printed in color, so the skin and hair color was left to the viewer's imagination, but the silhouette, haircut, and the long ears of the figure on the page bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain person... Audi pointed at the picture and looked up at him in good humor, whiskers twitching in amusement.

((....*slow clap*))

He grew bored watching her scatter to and fro looking for books, yet again. He yawned in exhaustion.

Again, he glanced at the book. Being one who couldn't read...well, he did judge a book by its cover.
The unfamiliar words frustrated him. He flicked the pages back until he found one with a picture. Sighing in relief, that the book wasn't all words, he glanced. These pictures were of creatures that either he hadn't seen before, or they would coincidentally be an inhabitant of this island.

The figure that he and Audi were looking at--

"--long ears..." He stated frankly; one of his hands shot up to his own ears, which were long as well, although more tremendously pointed, to the sides.

He glanced at Audi.

Would a picture of one of her rat-race be in here too?

Audi smiled at him, then glanced at the book again. Seems like it was one of his kind. She snatched the book and squinted, trying to read the text under the illustration. But even when she swiveled her head to look only with her good eye, closing the left one, the text was hard to make out, letters seemingly dancing in front of her eyes, mocking her. Audi huffed angrily, then looked to Aesis with sudden hope. Maybe he would read it? She was very curious about what did it say about this long-ear person in the picture. All humans could read, right? And the brown-skinned tall man was at least sort-of human, she was sure.
She held the book in one hand and pointed at the page with her other.
"Read?" she asked, eyes pleading.

Aesis watched Audi fumble around with trying to read the fine print under the illustration. Maybe the words were small.

He glanced at the words as well, and although they were quite small, they were quite..illegible as well. To his eyes, at least.

He looked at her blindly. She'd uttered some word: ree-hd or so. She couldn't think he could read it right? By now, he thought, she should've understood I couldn't understand her, language barrier and all..

Not knowing what to do, he shrugged at her.

Aw. To say that she was disappointed would be an understatement. Why didn't he want to? Wasn't it interesting to him? Or maybe he didn't want to read it to her? Fine, then! Audi frowned in irritation, turning her head away sharply in an indignant manner. She slammed the book shut and trotted off to replace it onto the shelf, then threw the man a last upset glance and ran off towards the stairs, the teal scarf rising up to flutter behind her.

But...

She stopped abruptly just before descending. Maybe she was being unfair? She did kind of jump to conclusions. Maybe he had a good reason to not read it. Maybe he was bored with books already. Maybe... he couldn't...?
She turned around and peered curiously at the tall silhouette, all annoyance gone from her expression. Either way, she herself was bored of the library already. It was calm and quiet - too quiet for her tastes. But the man deserved a second chance.
Audi swished her tail restlessly, then let a smile onto her muzzle and made a beckoning gesture towards Aesis.

Aesis flinched, startled at the sudden slamming of the book. Was she mad he couldn't read? He stared down at her, half confused, half angry.

'Well, forgive me for not being smart enough to read.' he thought.

He glanced at her again. He still wanted to read- well, look at the pictures, of the book she just pulled away from his view. He gazed longingly at the bookshelf, in a strange way, then back at Audi. Watching her hand movements closely, he got out of his chair, pushing it in afterwards, then pacing slowly towards the rat.

In a way, her actions seemed bipolar, to Aesis. He scratched his head, then sighed.

Her ears fell back a bit at his visible hesitation. Did he not want to leave? She didn't mean to make him unhappy. She felt a bit guilty at snapping like she did earlier, too. In the end she trotted back over to him and reached for his hand, intending to squeeze it apologetically. He was one of the first people she came in contact with here and she didn't want to have a falling-out with him so soon, even before they really got to know each other. Communicating with humans was so difficult sometimes. There was never a misunderstanding between ratpeople - they always knew what the other meant. They could read each other perfectly. Humans always had some... second meaning to everything they did. Maybe they needed all those words that they uttered, after all...

Audi looked up at the man inquisitively. Why wasn't he talking, anyway? It would make everything easier, she supposed. Even if she answered as scarcely as she always did.
"Sorry."

He kept staring blankly at her, until her paw brushed his fingers. The feel of her fur felt quite soft; he thought it would be prickly or so, like a normal rat that lives in sewers. He looked down at her. It had just occurred to him that her left eye wasn't focused. A chill went down his spine.

She's been blind this whole time and I didn't realize it?! ...

He felt his conscience building up, after he felt pity for her...or was it guilt, for not noticing?
He glanced at their interlocked hands. Her small squeeze made him stare at her even more, in confusion.

She'd uttered something, he might've heard before.

He replied in his best English: "You're welcome."

Audi stared at him rather intensely, trying to guess what he was thinking. In her automatic habit, she was swiveling her head a little to the left to make up for the milky film obscuring her vision on that side. He seemed... regretful? Confused? But... why? She sighed quietly. The words he said didn't shed much light on anything, either. They didn't make any sense. Still, she swished her tail, content that he at least wasn't angry with her.

Maybe he didn't talk much because he couldn't say the right words... for some reason?

Letting go of his hand, she took a step back, glancing to the bookcase, then to him again, tilting her head playfully, as if to ask if he wanted her to pick out another book.

He sighed. Language barriers were the worst, and had affected him his whole stay at the Academy.
He followed her gaze, slightly nodding, in habit, in response.

'She approached the stairs earlier..' he thought, and decided she wanted to leave the library.

He glanced back at her. Surely his longer strides would get them there faster, and she'd exert more energy if she were to leave too...

He tried his best, in demonstrating a princess-hold with a book to Audi, but, it seemed kind of...odd.

((Sorry for late response!! ><))

Audi watched him attentively, keen on trying to not let any more misunderstandings happen. Okay, he nodded... She was just about to turn tail and grab another book when he looked at her again. The man seemed to cradle one of the tomes in a somewhat awkward way... like he was holding something bigger and heavier?

Alrighty then!

She spun around rapidly and trotted over to the shelves again. After a quick scan, she jumped up to deftly grab several books one after another, piling them up beside her. When she chose around five or six interesting looking tomes, she carefully picked them up all together, holding them much like he earlier demonstrated. As she slowly and carefully walked back to the table, her muzzle stretched in a smile and she twitched her whiskers contentedly. Audi was pretty sure she got it right this time around and that showed in the satisfied glance she shot to Aesis.


((It's okay, heh, I returned the favor. ^^; Not on purpose, I just couldn't figure out what a princess hold was, lol. I have never heard that phrase before))

Aesis could only raise his eyebrow in response. Communicating with the ratperson was considerably more confusing than with the other people he'd met so far. He set his tome down onto the table, then took the tomes from Audi's hands..or paws, in case she'd collapse under the weight of the tomes. Respectively, he dropped the tomes onto the table, as he did his tome, unable to bear the weight, confused as to how and why Audi would carry so much.

He could only sigh in frustration, and use one too many hand gestures to express what a 'princess hold' might've been.

((http://th00.deviantart.net/fs41/150/i/2009/017/4/5/Haruna_and_Yoh__Princess_Hold__by_ReminisceOnMemories.jpg if you need as an example. Might have some variations, since Audi is smaller than the average human =P))

Audi watched his actions in complete confusion, standing with her head tilted and hands hanging in front of her limply. What did she do wrong again? Were those books not okay? Did he want more, maybe? She glanced to the table. There were enough tomes there to last for a while, if one wanted to browse them. And what else could he be wanting to do? Built a fort?

Actually, that was a cool idea.

She squinted slightly as he began gesturing. However, her focus started to waver as visions of a wall of books rising to make a paper stronghold took over her mind's eye. Soon enough, Audi blinked, shook her head, then ran to the shelves again to pick out a bunch of books, this time the qualities being different. 'A picture book' replaced by 'a brick-like book.' As she took them out, she placed them beside her, and a pile started to grow.

((Yeah, haha. The more you know.))

Aesis observed bewildered at Audi's current actions. He exhaled in disapproval. Another misunderstanding.

However, what Audi was doing was quite hilarious. He snickered a bit.

Smiling, he grabbed an armful of books off the shelf, and using them to add to Audi's previous pile.

This could be fun....whatever it was.

She smiled widely at Aesis when he joined her. Surely he didn't know what was she going to do... but he would soon enough.

After the pile was big enough, she gestured towards him to stop. She picked up a few of the books, then took a step aside, glancing appraisingly at the floor. Yeah... this big. She placed the tomes she had picked up flatly on the floor in a line, one after another, then went back to the pile and grabbed a few more. This continued until the line was at least five feet long, at which point she started laying down another row on top of it, like building bricks.
Sort of like in the tower... The ratgirl froze in place for a moment, ears falling back, then shook her head and continued her work.

Tail swishing in excitement, Audi chuckled hissily and looked up to the man. Did he understand yet?

He looked at Audi's newly built structure. Come to think of it, it looked like building blocks.

He blinked. Surely this wasn't the proper way to use books, right?

He slowly began placing a book on top of Audi's structure, like she had been doing only moments before.

Aesis paused at Audi's hesitation. Was something wrong?

He placed down the book, and looked at her. Her tail's movement seemed to say otherwise. Aesis wavered the thought, then resumed building blocks...books.