Fate - First Reply Sucker Punch [Elbion College]

[Svenia Albrecht]

She did not go anywhere other than the library and she took her time going. It was delightful to be outside in fresh air. She did not often go unless work called her to it. It still felt like a small betrayal, though; enjoying anything when she was the only one left outside of her elder brother.

At least the ache was manageable today. She had to carefully navigate the steps leading up to the main doors on the ground level of the library - an awkward affair at the best of times.

She found that she had made it there in advance of Suleiman. Rather than sit, she simple waited near the door, leaning against an ornate pillar of stone. So close to so many magic tomes, she could feel the greasy feel of magic en potentia riding the air.

She was lost in thoughts of magic - what they had been taught so far, most of it unimportant to her own long-term goals - when Suleiman broke her from her reverie with a start.

Her eyes ran up and down him, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Cleaned up? Well, then, let us get dusty. I am looking in to some of the ingredients - their qualities and such." She listed off a handful of them to the Maraan youth. She still did not quite look him in the eye - or at least not from the side of her that was ruined.

"Do you know where to find such information?" It was a long shot - Suleiman was not, as a general rule, useful when it came to a lot of academic pursuits. He was, however, a good person on the whole. And he might just know where the articles may be. She did not come to the library often at all.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

The list of ingredients, expertly recited by Svenia, went mostly over Suleiman's head (confirming, as it so happened, the former's general rule of the latter). She wasn't looking at him, not directly, but still Suleiman—in all the manner of a man desperately feigning knowledge of a subject—had his chin cupped in a hand and kept a steady, receptive gaze on Svenia. Some of those names he vaguely remembered. And by "some" it truly was only a couple: Astra's Tears and Waterfoil. Both of these, really, because he had had some silly thoughts about each in the Potions Class when the Professor first mentioned them.

Do you know where to find such information?

"I do not." But with the hand that cupped his chin he shot a finger up into the air. "But! I know who will!"

Already he started walking—at a pace amenable to Svenia's gait.

"Believe it or not, I've been in here a few times before. Probably...uh, probably not doing what I ought to have been doing—you know, studying. Anyway, that's not the point. Point is, I've struck up conversation with Keeper Yulia at least three times by now. I don't know how many Keepers the Grand Library has all in all, but Keeper Yulia seems like the best. She talked my ear off about all kinds of things, and one of said things was how she 'brewed a wondrous potion or two back in her day'. If anybody knows, she's got to know."

Svenia Albrecht

 

[Svenia Albrecht]

She moved along with him, staff clicking on the stone floor as she went. "Wonderful," she said brightly and a little out of breath. She didn't make a comment on whether she believed him or not. She very definitely did not speak of her own journeys into the stacks seeking things that had little to do with her studies. The library held many, many books and not all of them were on the business of magic and its application.

She had her own guilty pleasures, and they stocked those books too. If you knew where to look.

"That sounds promising. I doubt she would tell us anything about the assigned potion, but the ingredients and where to find information on them seeing as we've already determined that? Excellent work," she huffed.

Her eye wandered as it always did here. The smell of parchment and vellum was only rivalled by the pervasive, sharp scent of dust. The place was kept clean, of course, but it seemed like manuscripts and scrolls attracted dust faster than it could be swept away. "Hopefully... its not upstairs," she puffed.