It's a nice library, especially for such a small town, with plenty of everything, but a focus on science and poetry, a well-appointed children's' section, a nice selection of music and holovids, and comfy chairs offering varying amounts of privacy.
Right now, though, it's closing time; the announcements have been made, the final checkout rush handled, and now the librarian is making one last check before she locks up for the night.
He's silent for a moment trying to wrap his head around that. "You- won't get in trouble...for-?"
She shakes her head. "There's not much I would get in trouble for; Pradnakt's not that kind of master."
He presses his lips together. Takes a deep breath. "I- sc-scrambled?" (He'd had scrambled eggs, once.)
"All right." She gets to work - the oatmeal goes on first, with a dollop of almond butter to fortify it, and then she gets started with the eggs, scrambling them in butter with a bit of cheese. When she has a spare minute, she sets a little carafe of fruit syrup and a glass of milk on the table, followed not too much later by the rest of the meal. "There you go," she tells him, and then gets to work on another portion of eggs.
"Thank you," he says. He ignores the carafe of fruit syrup (more because he's not entirely sure what it is than anything else), but the oatmeal and eggs are attacked with gusto. (And both get half-involuntary sounds of delight at just how good they taste.)
"You're welcome."
She brings the rest of the food to the back on a tray, and then comes back out to sit with him, far enough away that she can't plausibly take his food.
She still gets a briefly wary look, before Nova decides she isn't going to take his food, and focuses on finishing his meal. "Thank you," he says again when he's finished.
"It's no trouble. Pradnakt says she wants you to rest and relax for a few days; it'll be easier to learn what she's going to teach you if you're comfortable. Okay?"
He looks briefly confused. "I- things I like?" He pauses, and then lists a few things - all of them chores and not things anyone would consider a hobby - his list does, however, include looking after livestock.
...okay. Well.
"When Pradnakt is taking a break, she usually likes reading, or drawing, or listening to music; do any of those sound good to you?"
He seems to brighten at the suggestion of reading, but then sort of closes down on himself again. "I- is music the..." he frowns. "Pretty sounds?" (It's the closest he can manage.) He does not appear to have any sort of response to the idea of drawing at all.
"Yeah, it is. We don't have very much, but I expect I'll be going into town in a few days, I can get some more. Do you want something to read?"
"I- no point?" (He's at least a little bit bewildered that she seems to think there's any point to giving him something to read, of course he can't read, who taught someone like him to read?)
"No, it's fine. We might have some headphones someplace if you want to really be sure, but if it's just as loud as I'm talking now it won't be a problem at all."
"I- yes," he nods, eyeing the dishes in front of him. If Daisy isn't back immediately, he'll figure out what to do with leftovers and clean the dishes.
She's gone for a while, actually.
(The sink is straightforward; there's a small bin next to it with the scraps from the vegetables that went into Pradnakt's eggs inside.)
Then he'll scrape the remains of the food into the bin, clean and dry his dishes, and be back sitting at the table before Daisy comes back.
She pauses, when she notices, deciding how to react to that, and then apparently decides to let it go. Instead she walks him through the basics of using the datapad - turning it on and off, loading and unloading discs, skipping forward and back in a story, pausing it so it'll keep his place, adjusting the volume. "These are all short story collections," she says of the discs. "It'll read the titles to you when you put a disc in, and I'll make some paper sleeves for them that you can draw on to remind you which one is which. And if you tell me which ones you like and what you like about them, I can get more like that when I go to town. Okay?"
He's attentive as she explains things, and reverent when he touches the datapad or the discs.
He nods, a little hesitantly, looks sideways. "...you're sure this is...okay? All I need to...do?"
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