get caught reading

Of all the superfluous facilities decadent throughout the expanse of Aletta Manor, the one Addam has made the least use of, relatively, is the library. He's no idea what material is contained within its neat double-arrow of shelves, no concept of how long the dust had gathered. It's not that he dislikes reading - certainly, not that he's never enjoyed a novelist's tearjerker masterpiece. He supposes the thought of using the resource at all, when he's not cavalier enough to just go out and distribute it to the children (and, with a cough, the schoolhouses) of the kingdom, is what deters him.

Offering its contents to Lora, however, knowing that she'd establish a little lending library of her own in house with the orphanage? Well that, he can spin. That, he would proudly commandeer as a penniful people's prince's effort, were Lora not so humble as to say that she hardly felt qualified to instruct children in reading.

Someday, Addam nudged, you will someday, won't you? And Lora had disappeared back into the woods where she loved to be. Not entirely inured to the attentions of a nation, just yet, and about as noble as the bastard lord is royal. So Addam will surely defend the honor of his lady knight friend.

And the library's books stay, unlended, undefended, unknown. Many a volume on the art of war, Addam supposes, for even when it had not been Mor Ardain's military ways, the Tornan bloodline had made it a trademark to be superior in conquest, not only relying on the dominance of the Titan itself.

Itself? Herself? Azurda owes debts on the accounts of quite a few ladies, but he owes loyalty only to one mother Titan, even if he'll never proclaim it so.

No scientific texts, one would assume. Those are the plunder and progeny of Indol, erstwhile Judicium. Maybe treatises on the effectiveness of farming arable land, et cetera, upon the Wrackham Moor? It would explain why Addam had never found any guidebook of the sort, up in the manor lord's office.

Maybe plays and poetry, if not cheap marketstall chaff. Maybe the sort of thing one could read to adults and children in one integrated audience, making the resident lord appear to be worldly in the broadest possible manner.

Something one could read to a lover, if one were vulnerable enough. Something to be splayed open, binding sacrificed, over the arm of a not-quite-loveseat chair, while the two that had been reading, and one to the other, drifted off to a comfortable sleep.

Addam, finding the rest of the house empty, would of course find Minoth and Flora there, catching them in the act of entertaining each other, and wonder why it seemed to fill his heart more than any of the contents of the library had ever filled his hayfielded mind.

He would sit on the other arm, and join them, were he not wary of cracking the upholstery along wear lines; he would remove Flora from Minoth, purely on a basis of accessibility and core strength, to the bedroom or anywhere else he could find peace and lie with her, were he not loath to rouse the perfect idyll.

So he took the book instead of either body, and perched lightly upon the arm, keeping most of his weight on the ball of his foot. Just gently, gently...ah! Not a speck of noise, creaking floorboards or heaving leather.

Love Poems from the Time of Alektos, was it? Not like anyone bothered reminiscing to any other significant period, most often. And the author - Ikhnaton. If Addam had his figures right, this too was a prince who'd fallen out of courtly favor, by his own bidding, and traveled the lands. Not patience or passion enough for farming, with a wanderer's spirit. See here: he'd written, or at least collected, some fifty works of poetry.

Well, and it had to be good stuff, in order to amuse Minoth who seemed solely to deal in epics and slow-burnt grand turnabouts. Flora, for her part, liked humanist stories, about the power of people and their connections. Just like Addam, except that he enjoyed a surprise twist of some fantastical device that affected all fates in mysterious ways, where Flora so stubbornly couldn't be intrigued.

And moon, fairest, to reflect your beauty
And sun, shiner, Titans swim unstarred
For the depths that I have crossed to see
Knowing unnatural distance, never too far

As Addam murmured the tender words to himself, trying to place their origin in years long forgotten by a man seldom seen, Flora, ever a light sleeper, stirred in Minoth's arms, briefly confounded by their presence but then calmed, smile lazy.

"We were just discussing the rhyme scheme."

"Oh?" Addam couldn't help but tease. "Is that what they're calling it, now?"