[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] Word travels Alexander is back. Cecilia ignores him the first few days, too caught up between schoolwork and whatever it is she does. She only takes the time to see him when someone mentions he's in the library. It is not too out of her way.

The library is large and expansvie and any effort to sneakis ruined by the creek of the doors. Her face sours and she gives up, pushing them open with more force than needed. Her footsteps feel too loud and it is a reminder of why she hates this room in particular and has always gone out of her way to avoid it.

Cecilia slams her hands down beside Alexander and looks at him.

(She was softer then, more delicate looking and yet somehow sharper edged. Her hair was longer. She was too often covered in bruises. Her knees are splotched in blue and brown and a scratch goes up the back of a leg.)

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] She is too fixated on the way he suddenly talks to bother with rolling her eyes. He sounds sophisticated. Her brows knit together. Will she sound like this one day? Pompous and dull, words spilling from her mouth as if each one had some sort of precious meaning?

He distracts her from her thoughts and criticism, drawing her attention to the deep blue bruise instead. She rubs it; it hurts.

"I don't know. A fight with Stormy, maybe?"

It's new enough that she should know where it came from but Cecilia is good at gaining bruises without any awareness of them being there.

"Did you bring me anything from your trip?" she hums.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] Cecilia looks at him with a pointed and decidedly unimpressed stare. Her mouth presses in at the corner before she heaves out a sigh, tearing her eyes away. She grabs the book from him.

"No," she answers, flipping through the pages to lose the one he was on. "But it would have been nice."

The book snaps shut. Cecilia grabs the chair next to him and sits, drawing her legs up to cross in the seat. She holds the book hostage.

"Tell me about Sinnoh."

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] His accusation falls on deaf ears, if only because he's right. She traces her nails over the cover of the book, feeling the slight indents of the leather underneath. She exhales through her nose.

"What a lousy description," Cecilia states. "What did you do there? What sort of things did you see?"

She unwinds a foot to jab her heel into his thigh.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] The sharp look on her face begins to soften, eyes rounding as she listens. She follows the stretch of his arms and mimics it, reaching out as far as she can. "Was it really this big?" she asks, doubtful.

The world outside Kanto is still a mystery to her. It is a great expanse she has yet to see and touch and experience and she looks at Alexander with a hunger in her eyes, wanting to consume every bit of knowledge he has to offer.

Her hands drop back into her lap.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] She blinks and studies his face, searching for a lie in what he has said. Her hands fidget in her lap. There's a bandaid on one of her fingers. She picks at it.

"You know they don't go places. Dad is too busy for that." The word still fits strange on her tongue.

Cecilia resists the urge to sigh and instead she pushes a curl of near black hair behind her ear, fingers lingering.

"That would be nice," she murmurs. When her hand drops, her hair slips back into her face.

ALEXANDER STONE

[attr="class","igglybuff-wrapper"] Cecilia flinches against the touch, not because it scares her, but because she has never been fond of it. She relaxes a second after, going as far as laying her other hand on top of Alexander's own. Her nails, bitten short, trace along the side of his palm.

"Don't go out of your way for me," she murmurs, nose crinkling.

The idea sounds nice but Cecilia refuses to entertain it. Nothing good will come of high hopes.

ALEXANDER STONE