Watching a pretty girl launch into an enthusiastic speech about important moments in linguistic history while tearing apart a roasted turkey with razor sharp teeth was a strangely engaging experience for Isak that only activated a few fear instincts. Helped along by there being zero menace in that sharp smile, only joy. As well as sitting on a bench and overlooking the sea in the afternoon sun.
“So that...that can happen?” Isak asked with a bit of horror at the implications when there was a slight pause in her lecturing.
Xoco crunched through a bone before chewing it into nothing, causing Isak’s eyebrows to raise in fascination. “The tonatecah have the unfortunate distinction of possibly the worst treatment of all the former Enslaved. Orcs were at least allowed to keep their language and oral history. But the tonatecah? Forbidden to even speak their language, before a curse was placed upon their people to rob them of speech entirely!”
Her claws sunk into the turkey leg, snapping it as she fumed and stirred Nelli from a short slumber who gave a small squeak of protest. Isak reached out a slow hand to rest on Xoco’s arm as her tooth baring snarl was settled with a few deep inhales through her nose. Her eyes relaxed as she gathered herself. “Sorry, from the way my ancestors described it their situation was quite dire when they first found them.” Xoco’s pupils dilated just enough for Isak to notice. “The Empire, I mean.”
“Does sound awful.” Isak wasn’t going to press...whatever it was that was going on, as it didn’t seem to be of immediate importance. He gently set her back on track instead. “And that professor’s father helped them get their language back?”
Xoco had been gnawing at a turkey bone out of nerves, but her smile returned fast enough to reach up to her pink eyes. “Indeed! Long after The Empire broke the initial curse and the tonatecah adopted Clear Speech out of thanks and a lack of options a joint team of their own brightest minds and Professor Shrinebuilder’s father....you’re sure you don’t mind listening to me ramble?”
Isak was unable to hold back a laugh before he could hold up his hands to reassure her. “Zyn has been hitting me with lectures about every other building on campus since we got to the island.” He flashed a reassuring smile that faltered under a bit of nerves from seeing her smile. “I ah...I don’t mind, really! I like yo- I like it!”
The human loosened his collar, glancing over to Vidal in his water form and briefly wondering if “refreshing mist” was something he was capable of. “Plus, it should help in figuring out Vidal’s whole...thing?”
The two of them both looked up to the rock man, standing unmoving aside from the flowing veins of water in his current form. Xoco couldn’t help but tilt her head this way and that as she narrowed her eyes. “You said you sent a letter to your mother asking about where she got him from, right?”
“Well, still working on it.” Isak admitted, kicking a small rock away from the bench down a small hill before it landed in the sand. “Every time I try and write it I just...how much can I really include? How much should I include? What do I even say? ‘Hey ma, the rock you bought me as the cheapest thing we could afford to count as a familiar was actually an extremely powerful elemental thing, where can we find more? School is going so far, love you.’ That sound good?”
Half a second after he finished speaking and his mouth was running dry at having realized he let a few too many things slip he saw Xoco’s eyebrows looking slightly perplexed but still smiling as she listened. She reached up to give a few small scritches to Nelli. “While I would never dream of having another familiar, I must say you are quite lucky!”
Isak laughed it off with a bit of nerves thrown into the mix. “Yeah, yeah lucky...hopefully lucky enough for my mom to find out more about Vidal. Once I send that letter…” His nerves did not get better as her smile was making his cheeks red again. “But hey, that’s for later on after we study vidal some more. I think you were telling me all about your professor still and I was telling you yeah I like listening. How could I not? Th-that wasn’t sarcasm!”
The jungle troll smiled, fully understanding but finding the worry endearing nonetheless. What followed was a further informative “small” lecture on one of the greatest triumphs of magic, linguistics, and history into one. Isak could feel Zyn’s judging glare from wherever he was for not allowing him to join in on this lecture related to history, and he caught himself stealing a glance at passing students every now and then as he wondered if he was going to appear out of nowhere. Luckily for the both of them, they instead had a very pleasant lunch 2 before deciding to follow up on their promise to investigate Vidal’s runes further.
An investigation that of course called for a visit to the library.
The library was, by design, one of the most unassuming buildings on the whole island chain. The main entrance was built into a hill at the corner of campus furthest from the sea, with just a small yet stylish angular stone exterior leading into the hill. Just inside and down a ramp was a sprawling complex that connected to many parts of campus. What had once been an ambitious series of armories and storehouses built out of a discovered lava tube system connected to above ground buildings had long ago been expanded and converted into a book filled cavernous complex filled with books, scrolls, papyrus, tablets, and every other known form of physical storage of knowledge known to The Empire.
It was at any given time of day populated by students, professors, and visiting researchers from other institutions of learning. There were other libraries on the island chain for the non-campus population, all of which used Black Reef Library as a hub. And as Isak and Xoco got directions to the section on dead languages, they had already noticed that the library seemed to be a favored hangout of Mu natives taking advantage of the lack of natural lighting in place of magelight fixtures.
“Do you think this is how Zyn gets around campus so fast?” Isak asked while marveling at yet another multi-level cavern with shelves on each level requiring an attached ladder to reach the top.
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Xoco herself was busy doing much the same, taking note of all the cozy corners furnished with plush chairs and tables with their own small magelights. “If he is anything like me, it would take longer from all the distractions- oh is that-!”
Just as soon as she had started darting off towards a shelf filled with books on kuyavarin literature, she stopped and slumped her shoulders before rubbing at her arm and returning an Isak currently wearing an amused smile. “I-It’s hard to find a selection like that!”
The human boy laughed, leaning a hand against Vidal. “Well if you wanted to put off researching a brand new mystery for poetry I suppose I can’t stop yo-”
“Mystery! I choose the mystery!” She whisper screamed, conscious of the firm warning the pair had received from the librarian that a rock man with openly flowing water would be fine so long as he promised to keep his magic water under control but keeping your voice low was non-negotiable.
Isak shook his head with a wry smile and lead on to where the librarian had pointed them, off to a section currently populated primarily by a few older students in advanced linguistics classes all bearing serious faces in contrast to the overjoyed jungle troll now skipping towards the book stacks filled with texts on languages that had not been spoken of in the living memory of anyone except perhaps The Emperor.
The human knew better than to try and interfere with her giddy book collecting, choosing instead to claim a secluded table where Vidal could draw the least attention as he had become so adept at doing. Reinforced by some of those older students near breaking their necks to get a look at the rock man as they passed by with arms full of old tomes.
This was in contrast to Xoco, who came bounding over to the table Isak had claimed with a stack of books large enough to make Isak’s eyes go as wide as saucers yet also large enough to block Xoco’s vision to give him enough time to regain his composure before she set the collection down on the table. He could swear he heard a slight creaking sound under their weight.
“Now I know this seems like a bit much, but we are dealing with something unknown!” Xoco’s gleaming white teeth were almost enough to reflect the nearby magelight.
Isak shrugged. “Well you know I like tall...uh.” He coughed, looking away from the towering girl. “Tall uhhh orders of...of learning! Wouldn’t be school if there wasn’t some challenge!”
Whatever excuse he had thrown together and the smile he had put on to get out of admitting he liked a girl was derailed a moment later as he looked at Vidal and got a harsh reminder of something he was still having a hard time accepting. He cleared his throat again, giving the jungle troll girl a determined look. “My name. That’s a starting point isn’t it? A kind of constant?”
“It is!” From her own book bag, Xoco quickly withdrew her journal. “And do you happen to know what your name means? And the language of origin?”
“It uh, it means He Laughs.” And Isak did just that out of nerves still ruling over him before he shook it off. He told her of the language it originally came from, which impressed her quite a bit on its rarity. She took careful notes, occasionally standing to circle around Vidal before another flurry of scribbling. On one occasion while she was sitting Nelli slithered down onto the table in a small heap
After a while, she propped her chin up on her hand to look at Vidal with visible frustration before turning her attention to Isak. A small smile formed at the edges of her mouth. “Well, clearly I am out of my depth and this...I suppose it could be a grand final project but it would also be easier to go ask a professor?”
“I don’t see why no-” Isak tripped over the words as he got an idea in his head. Was he really going to let more people find out about his flawed connection to Vidal? He pursed his lips, giving a worried look to the rock man to whom his entrance to this school.
His sudden lost musings were not lost on Xoco, who reached over to tap his hand. “Isak?”
Isak blinked away his daze, falling into an idea. “We could, but…”
“But?”
“But how cool would it be if we figured it out? Just uh, us and our friends...our friends and us?” Isak explained with his hands, pointing from himself to Xoco to Vidal to even Nelli who perked up from her heap on the table. “See I know you know a lot about languages, and you’re smart. And Zyn’s whole thing is history. Tonauac can patch us up if there’s any mishaps. And I’ll be there too!”
Xoco was unable to hide the slight grin she got at the thought of such an undertaking, her eyes wandering over to the pile of books that had been sprawled out as she had searched through them. “...it would be fun, but I’m not sure I could-”
“I think you can.” His reply was simple, with a smile to match. And it wasn’t even a lie. “A bunch of later year students did nothing but gawk and stare at Vidal. But you? You started taking notes! That’s dedication! Now all I have is dedication but you’re also uh...well you’re great at all the things, you know? So uh, so yeah you got this no problem!”
Xoco felt her cheeks turn dark green once more. “Y-you know you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
“Me? I’m just the cool rock guy’s mage.” Neither one of them was able to even attempt eye contact at the moment, and both were letting blood turn them different colors.
“Clever enough to make me go along with this idea.” She chuckled, still not meeting his eye and instead reaching out an arm to scritch at Nelli’s side before the feathered serpent flew the distance back up onto Xoco’s shoulders.
“One friend down, two to go haha.” Isak was running low on wit and nervously flipping through one of the open books that had been sprawled out on the table. His eyes were caught by something on one of the pages, a small symbol. Not of anything he had seen on Vidal, but something he vaguely remembered from back in his hometown at old Kazimir’s shop. “Hang on...I...I think I’ve seen this one somewhere back home. This is a dead language right? Which is it?”
Xoco’s eyes lit up as she pulled the book over to her, holding her place in the pages with a finger as she glanced at the cover and furrowed her brow. “Well it’s...er...it’s old And I can’t read a single thing in here and I just grabbed it because the script looked interesting…”
“It’s something to go on, I’ll take it.” Isak said, regaining a bit of hope that somehow he would be able to turn things around and set his bond with Vidal as he knew it should be.