Canon: Remove if not applicable.Once he finally reached the library, Astolphe returned the book to the spot where he had seen Gralat take it from, and he browsed the selection until he found something else interesting to read. He went to a corner, where two armchairs and a small table stood, and happily ensconced himself in one of them.
Gralat found him reading about the history of Ellvaldez, though Astolphe didn’t immediately realize that he was there. It wasn’t until he finished the book and made to find another one that he saw the other boy.
“You could have said something,” Astolphe pointed out. Somehow, he felt like even though Gralat seemed intimidating - and rightfully was a dangerous person, at least with a weapon in hand - he wasn’t actually that intimidating. He was just the sort of person who had sharp features and had a default expression that looked like a glare or like he had an utter lack of interest in everything.
“I could have,” Gralat agreed.
“And why didn’t you?” Astolphe finally asked, when Gralat didn’t elaborate.
Gralat tilted his head again, with that birdlike motion that made his long hair sway. “Because I like looking at your expressions when you read.”
Astolphe opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, searching for something to say in response to that.
“It’s meal time,” Gralat said after a minute or so of that. As if he had not just said something incredibly odd.
“Ah, yes, wait.” Astolphe stepped up the the shelf the book he had read had stood in and replaced it, before following Gralat to the door. “Lord Gralat?”
Gralat looked over his shoulder at Astolphe, and watched him lengthen and hurry his steps to walk beside him. “Yes?”
“Why do you like looking at my expressions when I read?”
Gralat’s expression shifted. Astolphe stumbled. Gralat’s expression returned to normal.
Ice hit by sunlight.
The thought passed through Astolphe’s mind and stuck there.
Beautiful.
Had Gralat just smiled?
“Because,” Gralat said, “You get a concentrated frown here,” he brushed a finger against his bangs that covered the bridge of his nose, “and the set of your mouth changes, and sometimes you pause to think. It’s interesting.”
Astolphe frowned up at Gralat. It didn’t sound like Gralat implied that Astolphe made a wide range of expressions that might be strange, like Astolphe’s brother sometimes might, but somehow Gralat still found it interesting.
“Are they that different?”
“No, they’re fairly subtle.”
“Then what is so interesting?”
Gralat shrugged. “I just think so. I already explained.”
“Not really… Not particularly well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, was I not articulate enough for your Lordship’s taste?” Astolphe blinked in surprise.
“Gralat.”
That was Gralat’s older brother’s voice. Gralat sighed. “Yes, brother?”
“Mind your manners.”
Gralat turned away from his brother to enter the dining room, and only Astolphe saw him roll his eyes. “Yes, brother,” Gralat simply repeated. Astolphe wondered if he cared what he thought at all.