The girl and the boy

The girl blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to get some dampness back to her dry eyes after an hour of skimming through the stack of books and it still hadn't covered all of the books she had brought to the table. She glanced at the untouched book at the other corner, mentally groaning. She loved reading but not this much. 

Yumi let her head fall to the back to stare at the wooden ceiling. Distantly, she heard the sound of the battle ceasing as the ground beneath her stop rumbling. She dreaded the sight she was going to see outside. How was she going to explain it to Father?

The bookshelves hung upside down from her view. Surprisingly, the library has quite the amount of books that held stories and tales of the past, not only from Japan. She managed to learn some information about the Servants she met yesterday -nothing about that Assassin though- and of course some tales about Lancer. Who knew that he was an Irish hero?

She felt bad that she had summoned him so far from his home though. In the short time they were going to spend together, Yumi was determined to make the blue haired male felt at home with this place. 

For the past few minutes Rodrick explored every nook and cranny. The halls weren't as tight as the ones back home; the paper walls and wooden floors were so simple that it made him feel so out of place, the streets were his kind of home but he guessed that maybe she likes it simple. He said as he looked around. Before leaving to go see the chaos Rider had done earlier he stumbled into this half opened sliding door. 

He tip-toed to take a peak and first saw Yumi who drowned herself in dozens of books. Then, Rodrick realized the different scrolls or various books. From here he could make out which were ragged and old and which were fresh and new.

"Ok." he fixed his ragged auburn hair and stretched his crumpled shirt, straightening the lines to make himself look more presentable. 

After a few more moments of hesitation, he slowly opened the door and eased himself inside the library, trying not to alarm Yumi who looked lethargic as if she hadn't had enough sleep.

"Have you been awake all night?" he said with a gentle tone. 

Yumi looked at the boy who was currently walking toward her with hesitant steps. She lifted her head up from the previous position to smile at the auburn haired male. 

"Hello Rodrick," she said and shook her head, "I had enough sleep last night, don't worry."

She said that but she was sure her pale face and the eyebags underneath her eyes wouldn't convince the male. It wasn't due to the lack of sleep but rather the fact that she had to cough her lungs out before falling into a slumber.

"Do you want to look around?" She finally asked, trying to change the topic and gestured at the towering bookshelves behind her. Turning to look at the male properly, the girl tilted her head at his rather unkempt look but then remembered her own look and decided she's not better.

"Did you sleep well last night? I hope the room is comfortable enough for you two," she said worriedly. 

"Yeah about that, Rider is a bit of a loud mouth, He kept on complaining about his bed." he said while waving his arms in exasperation.

Rodrick smiled and stepped into the room then his blue eyes glimmered as he spun around basking in the array bookshelves that surrounded the entire room there were tons of different books in here than he could ever imagine.

"Sorry, I'm kinda into books too." Rodrick said as he tried to hide as much excitement as he could. 

"Where did you get all of this?" he asked while moving to different shelves to brush his fingertips onto paper backs and leather bounds until he stopped on one. 

The spine had no creases and is still fresh but the title is beyond his level of understanding but he felt something in it that made him stop, he took it out and grabbed another chair to sit by Yumi

"Excuse me, can you tell me what this is?" he hands it over to Yumi. 

"I'm sorry we don't have any futon with his size here," the girl said apologetically. 

"I don't think there will be a day when a giant comes here." She giggled, covering her mouth with her sleeves.

Yumi watched as the boy weaved through the shelves excitedly as if he was seeing a toy for the first time and she fondly remembered the time when Father brought her to the library for the first time after taking her in, her awe at seeing the rows and rows of books. It was like seeing a stash of treasure

"The books have been here since the first generation of the house," she explained, "Some of us love travelling around hence the amount of different types of reading materials." 

When the boy didn't reply, probably too engrossed in looking at the books, Yumi turned back to the scroll in hand to continue. It wasn't even a couple of minutes later when Rodrick came back, asking him about a book he found.

The girl looked up from the scroll she was reading to look at the book being handed over by Rodrick. Her fingers took the book lightly, from his outstretched hand, brushing over his fingers. 

Her eyes landed at the words on the book, frowning at the unfamiliar title. This was probably the newest addition to the library otherwise she would have already read it. But then she saw the boy taking it from the foreign section so that explained why.

"Oh, I haven't read this book," she said while flipping through the pages, tucking a loose strand to her ear, riffling through the barrages of texts to get the gist of what it was about. It seemed to be a book about the history of magic.

A sudden thought occured in her mind and she looked to the side to stare at the boy, head tilted. 

"Rodrick, why do you join the war?" She asked, "you didn't seem the type to plunge yourselves into a deadly battle."